Excerpt: An Elegant Cut of an Old Script

Enter Alexei.
ALEXEI: Hello there. Are you looking for a ride?
MARIELLA: From you, I’ll always welcome it.
ALEXEI: Of course.
What would you’ve done had I not come in here?
MARIELLA: I would have gone home with another boy.
ALEXEI: Another boy! Why not another girl?
MARIELLA: I simply chose my opposite from you.
ALEXEI: The opposite of me, then, is a boy?
Am I a girl, for you to see me so?
MARIELLA: No: surely you can find a compliment
Within the context that I’ve given you.
ALEXEI: Why then I shall rethink it. Let me see:
If I am not a boy—then I’m a man!
MARIELLA: I knew you’d find one.
ALEXEI: And you gave it me.
If I believed you always, I don’t think
That ever I’d be sad.
MARIELLA: So why don’t you?
ALEXEI: Believe you? Ah, I’d like to, but cannot:
If I believed you always, I’d not doubt
And doubt’s essential to a complex life.
MARIELLA: Trust me, Alexei, your life is complex
And shall be so, whether you doubt or no.
ALEXEI: Where is complexity inherent here?
Although I’m agonized, it’s simple pain:
The pain of scorned love, sweets spurned senselessly.
Thank God I have a beautiful lady
Who helps me cope with follies life presents
While I must pine with wistful thoughts on one
Who will not have me due to something else
Which, though it came first, only e’er is dull.
MARIELLA: It isn’t dull to them. Not her, not Seth.
Get over it, Alexei—
ALEXEI: Mariel!
My beautifullest Mariella, why
Are you so rough with me on this stark day?
MARIELLA: Because you’re being stupid. I was wrong:
You are a boy, and nothing more.
ALEXEI: Your words!
I don’t know what to do with them: they cut!
MARIELLA: You shall not have my sympathy for that.
It’s not my job to help you cope.
ALEXEI: Why not?
You are my friend and dearest confidant
And were I here without you, life would be
A thing too much to bear. Without your face
Within my thoughts, I cannot think things clear.
MARIELLA: You are not thinking very clearly now.
ALEXEI: I see you very clearly. That will do.
MARIELLA: And what of Stella?
ALEXEI: Stella maddens me!
That she can spend an afternoon with me
That she can speak the words she must to me
The words of hate but love beneath the hate
A love that surmounts any human life
In years and in intelligent desire
That she can play and think of them with me
And let me touch her neck, her hand, her hair
And leave me after that to go with Seth
I cannot think of reasons for it!
MARIELLA: Well,
If you can’t think of them, I won’t give them.
It were beneath me to speak such plain facts.
ALEXEI: Such as? You must present them, or I’ll die.
MARIELLA: You won’t die. You can be an ass sometimes.
ALEXEI: Would you not miss me if I were to die?
MARIELLA: My heart would crack, but you’re an idiot
That I’d be sad does not mean it’ll occur.
ALEXEI: I’m glad that you’d be sad. So, tell me facts.
MARIELLA: She’s dating Seth because she loves him. Now,
The reason why she loves him, I can’t guess
Or—that’s a lie—I simply won’t for you.
For you and both our sakes, I won’t expound.
Suffice to say that they think they’re in love
And that means that they are. It’s real for now
And will be while you know them. So, give up.
ALEXEI: I cannot stomach that.
MARIELLA: You’ll have to learn.
ALEXEI: I cannot learn to unlearn my affection!
MARIELLA: In which case, you will weather her objection. And mine.
ALEXEI: Yours, yours: it is your words I hear, and so
The words you tell me are those I best know.
So do not frown upon me, lovely friend.
MARIELLA: Why must you call me lovely?
ALEXEI: Why, you are.
MARIELLA: It strikes me all as quite beside the point.
ALEXEI: No, what could be more further to the point?
As I am speaking to you, so I see
How charmingly your fair eyes speak to me.
MARIELLA: I haven’t stopped from glaring at you once.
ALEXEI: And such hardness becomes you. Trust me, you:
The hard betimes performs what soft can’t do.
MARIELLA: You tell me what you’re playing at.
ALEXEI: Just this:
The love that’s unrequited goes amiss.
Not only does the soul begin to pine
But body starves as well as does the mine.
MARIELLA: And what concern are these affairs to mine?
ALEXEI: My gentle Mariella—
MARIELLA: Nothing so.
ALEXEI: Then, fiercest Mariella let me know:
Have you, in all your lovely years of life
Have ever loved with any lonely strife?
MARIELLA: I won’t say no; I also won’t affirm.
What you’d next say, I do desire to learn.
ALEXEI: Admittedly, I can’t see you in love
Or not such one as this, that makes you move
Outside all reason, outside all of logic—
MARIELLA: Such love refuses syllogisms, then.
ALEXEI: It does, at that.
Such as it is, I cannot see you moved
But what would any man but love you back?
You are made to be worshiped—
MARIELLA: Or be used
By lonely lusting Russian princes. No?
ALEXEI: By Godhead, no! I’d treat you like a queen.
MARIELLA: I don’t think that you get it.
ALEXEI: Then I don’t
But so shall you explain it to me now.
Well, shall you not explain it to me now?
MARIELLA: I’ll just say this: you’re not in love with me!
ALEXEI: I am distracted. It is not a joy.
For Stella’s sake, I should not ought to stop.
MARIELLA: For Stella’s sake, you only ought to stop!
For your own sake, you need to give it up.
For my sake—
ALEXEI: What?
MARIELLA: You’d tarnish things I like.
ALEXEI: You value your virginity?
MARIELLA: I don’t
For all of your presumptions, I’d not guess.
But I do value coldness in such things.
ALEXEI: I guess with woe what must you think of me.
MARIELLA: I would not guess for such a one as me.
ALEXEI: Can I try something?
MARIELLA: Name it and I’ll say.
ALEXEI: I’d like to kiss you.
MARIELLA: And I’ll answer nay.
ALEXEI: I have not asked you yet.
MARIELLA: Then will you now?
ALEXEI: What would you tell me?
MARIELLA: Why don’t you find out?
ALEXEI: I will—
MARIELLA: But be prepared.
ALEXEI: Whatever for?
MARIELLA: Well, say you fall in love with me: what then?
ALEXEI: Do you think that’s a risk? And tell me true.
MARIELLA: Shut up—I shall not give you yes or no.
ALEXEI: If that’s the case, I’ll take my chance in hand.
He kisses her.
Pause.
ALEXEI: I think that we should keep this up—
MARIELLA: Shut up.
She kisses him.
MARIELLA: What think you now?
ALEXEI: That I’m in love with you.
MARIELLA: What, really?
ALEXEI: No, not really. What’d you think:
That I’d forsake the woman whom I need?
I cannot do so. It would counter Fate.
MARIELLA: I swear, I’m going to kill you before Fate!
You think of her as something that you need?
Is she then food? Or does she nourish you
In any shape of form or fancy true?
I think that she is not, and she wants not.
And meantime you are dallying with me
Because I’ve captivated you through mind
Your body’s well enamored of my form
And if your mind and body both approve
Then what is that but love, you fool?
ALEXEI: What else?
But what’s the point of patterns if I’m not?
Shall I love aught but Stella? Then you find
The reason I have ruined two months’ time
With thoughts of her.
MARIELLA: You pretty idiot
She’s prettier than me, and likable
And like as not you thought of her that way
But love is not so easy as you think
And this is something you can cast away.
ALEXEI: Shall I do so for you, that don’t love me?
MARIELLA: Who said as much?
ALEXEI: You said as much to me.
Your pretty eyes are oftenest in glare
Your coldness stands to fright the warmest heart
And you know I’m a fool. Shall you then love?
I do not hear you say so.
MARIELLA: And I won’t.
It should take much for me to spit my heat
Above the flame that roasts it through and through.
I shall not do so willingly until
I know my lover as I know myself.
ALEXEI: And what if I did lay me at your feet?
MARIELLA: It would be affect: you’d not think of me.
ALEXEI: And what if I did ope my veins for you?
MARIELLA: Why, would you do so?
ALEXEI: Well—I’d not.
MARIELLA: Thank God.
I would not have you dead, nor such a fool
Would slit his wrists for me.
ALEXEI: I know some girls
Would fancy just that thing, would swoon for it.
MARIELLA: Then why don’t you fuck them?
ALEXEI: Because they’re dull.
I will not have but women worth the woo.
MARIELLA: How many women?
ALEXEI: Tons.
MARIELLA: In numbers.
ALEXEI: Tons!
I think that is a number! It’s legit.
They use it when unpacking crates and such.
MARIELLA: Alexei, what know you of packing crates.
ALEXEI: A pampered nothing, and I thank my luck
And think I shall not change it with another.
MARIELLA: You’ll change your luck if I become no more
Than just another lady in a score.
ALEXEI: I hope you jest. As women go, you’re more
Than twenty thousand packed within a crate.
MARIELLA: You’re thinking of sardines.
ALEXEI: Except they’re girls.
MARIELLA: I wonder why you aren’t getting sex?
It seems a great surprise to me, this doubt
For surely girls love naught so much as this:
To be compared to fish—that’s flattering.
ALEXEI: I think that I could try to make it cute.
MARIELLA: I’m sure that you could try.
ALEXEI: Then hear you this:
You are the only tuna in my net
And all the fish are you within my sea.
MARIELLA: That’s corny.
ALEXEI: No, it’s fishy.
MARIELLA: Smells as much.
ALEXEI: You’ve cut me to the quick. Come, kiss me more.
MARIELLA: I won’t for all the tea in China’s shops.
ALEXEI: I’ll be a bull within your china shops.
MARIELLA: I’ll pardon you, but only as you’re new
To English and its hideous clichés.
ALEXEI: Then pardon me with kisses, Mariel.
MARIELLA: It shall be with great effort, but I’ll so.
They kiss.
MARIELLA: So tell me all your thoughts.
ALEXEI: They are for you.
Do you still want that car ride?
MARIELLA: That I do.
Just—mean it.
They exit.
Perhaps Mariella allows herself a moment to dance around before following off the stage.