Maeterlinck's Script, translated from the French
by Laurence Alma Tadema
Maurice Maeterlinck’s The Blind, 1890
(translated from the French by Laurence Alma Tadema as The Sightless in 1895)
Persons.
THE PRIEST.
THREE THAT WERE BORN BLIND.
THE OLDEST BLIND MAN.
THE FIFTH BLIND MAN.
THE SIXTH BLIND MAN.
THREE OLD BLIND WOMEN PRAYING.
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
A YOUNG BLIND WOMAN.
A MAD BLIND WOMAN.
THE SIGHTLESS
A very ancient northern forest, eternal of aspect, beneath a sky profoundly starred. – In the midst, and towards the depths of night, a very old priest is seated wrapped in a wide black cloak. His head and the upper part of his body, slightly thrown back and mortally still, are leaning against the bole of an oak tree, huge and cavernous. His face is fearfully pale and of an inalterable waxen lividity(ซีด); his violet lips are parted. His eyes, dumb and fixed, no longer gaze at the visible side of eternity, and seem bleeding beneath a multitude of immemorial sorrows and of tears. His hair, of a most solemn white, falls in stiff and scanty locks upon a face more illumined(แสงสว่าง) and more weary than all else that surrounds it in the intent silence of the gloomy forest. His hands, extremely lean, are rigidly clasped on his lap. – To the right, six old blind men are seated upon stones, the stumps of trees, and dead leaves. – To the left, separated from them by an uprooted tree and fragments of rock, six women, blind also, are seated facing the old men. Three of them are praying and wailing in hollow voice and without pause. Another is extremely old. The fifth, in an attitude of mute insanity, holds on her knees a little child asleep. The sixth is strangely young, and her hair inundates her whole being. The women, as well as the old men, are clothed in ample garments, somber and uniform. Most of them sit waiting with their elbows on their knees and their faces between their hands; and all seem to have lost the habit of useless gesture, and no longer turn their heads at the stifled and restless noises of the island. Great funereal trees, yews, weeping willows, cypresses, enwrap them in their faithful shadows. Not far from the priest, a cluster of long and sickly daffodils blossoms in the night. It is extraordinarily dark in spite of the moonlight that here and there strives to dispel for a while the gloom of the foliage.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
Is he not coming yet?
SECOND BLIND MAN.
You have waked me! 2
FIRST BLIND MAN.
I was asleep too.
THIRD BLIND MAN.
I was asleep too.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
Is he not coming yet?
SECOND BLIND MAN.
I hear nothing coming.
THIRD BLIND MAN.
It must be about time to go back to the asylum.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
We want to know where we are!
SECOND BLIND MAN.
It has grown cold since he left.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
We want to know where we are!
THE OLDEST BLIND MAN.
Does any one know where we are?
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
We were walking a very long time; we must be very far from the asylum.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
Ah! the women are opposite us?
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
We are sitting opposite you.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
Wait, I will come next to you. [He rises and gropes about.] Where are you? Speak! that I may hear where you are!
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
Here; we are sitting on stones.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
[He steps forward, stumbling against the fallen tree and the rocks.]
There is something between us . . .
SECOND BLIND MAN.
It is better to stay where one is! 3
THIRD BLIND MAN.
Where are you sitting? Do you want to come over to us?
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
We dare not stand up!
THIRD BLIND MAN.
Why did he separate us?
FIRST BLIND MAN.
I hear praying on the women’s side.
SECOND BLIND MAN.
Yes; the three old women are praying.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
This is not the time to pray!
SECOND BLIND MAN.
You can pray by-and-by in the dormitory!
[The three old women continue their prayers.]
THIRD BLIND MAN.
I should like to know next to whom I am sitting?
SECOND BLIND MAN.
I think I am next you.
[They grope about them with their hands.]
THIRD BLIND MAN.
We cannot touch each other.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
And yet we are not far apart. [He gropes about him, and with his stick hits the fifth blind man, who gives a dull moan.] The one who cannot hear is sitting next us.
SECOND BLIND MAN.
I don’t hear everybody; we were six just now.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
I am beginning to make things out. Let us question the women too; it is necessary that we should know how matters stand. I still hear the three old women praying; are they sitting together?
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
They are sitting beside me, on a rock. 4
FIRST BLIND MAN.
I am sitting on dead leaves!
THIRD BLIND MAN.
And the beauty, where is she?
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
She is near those that are praying.
SECOND BLIND MAN.
Where are the mad woman and her child?
THE YOUNG BLIND WOMAN.
He is asleep; don’t wake him!
FIRST BLIND MAN.
Oh! how far from us you are! I thought you were just opposite me!
THIRD BLIND MAN.
We know, more or less, all that we need know; let us talk a little, till the priest comes back.
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
He told us to await him in silence.
THIRD BLIND MAN.
We are not in a church.
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
You don’t know where we are.
THIRD BLIND MAN.
I feel frightened when I am not talking.
SECOND BLIND MAN.
Do you know where the priest has gone?
THIRD BLIND MAN.
It seems to me that he is leaving us alone too long.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
He is growing too old. It appears that he has hardly been able to see for some time himself. He will not own it, for fear that another should come and take his place among us; but I suspect that he can hardly see any more. We ought to have another guide; he never listens to us now, and we are becoming too many for him. The three nuns and he are the only ones in the house that can see; and they are all older than we are! – I am sure that he has led us astray, and is trying to find the way again. Where can he have gone? – He has no right to leave us here . . . 5
THE OLDEST BLIND MAN.
He has gone very far; I think he said so to the women.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
Then he only speaks to the women now? – Do we not exist any more? – We shall have to complain in the end!
THE OLDEST BLIND MAN.
To whom will you carry your complaint?
FIRST BLIND MAN.
I don’t yet know; we shall see, we shall see. – But where can he have gone? – I am asking it of the women.
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
He was tired, having walked so long. I think he sat down a moment in our midst. He has been very sad and very weak for some days. He has been uneasy since the doctor died. He is lonely. He hardly ever speaks. I don’t know what can have happened. He insisted on going out to-day. He said he wanted to see the Island one last time, in the sun, before winter came. It appears that the winter will be very cold and very long, and that ice is already coming down from the north. He was anxious too; they say that the great storms of these last days have swelled the stream, and that all the dykes are giving way. He said too that the sea frightened him; it appears to be agitated for no reason, and the cliffs of the Island are not high enough. He wanted to see for himself; but he did not tell us what he saw. – I think he has gone now to fetch some bread and water for the mad woman. He said that he would perhaps have to go very far. We shall have to wait.
THE YOUNG BLIND WOMAN.
He took my hands on leaving; and his hands trembled as if he were afraid. Then he kissed me . . .
FIRST BLIND MAN.
Oh! oh!
THE YOUNG BLIND WOMAN.
I asked him what had happened. He told me that he did not know what was going to happen. He told me that the old men’s reign was coming to an end, perhaps . . .
FIRST BLIND MAN.
What did he mean by that?
THE YOUNG BLIND WOMAN.
I did not understand him. He told me that he was going towards the great lighthouse.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
Is there a lighthouse here? 6
THE YOUNG BLIND WOMAN
Yes, north of the Island. I think we are not far from it. He told me that he could see the light of the beacon falling here, upon the leaves. He never seemed to me sadder than to-day, and I think that for some days he had seen crying. I don’t know why, but I cried too, without seeing him. I did not hear him go. I did not question him further. I could hear that he was smiling too solemnly; I could hear that he was closing his eyes and wished for silence . . .
FIRST BLIND MAN.
He said nothing to us of all this!
THE YOUNG BLIND WOMAN.
You never listen to him when he speaks!
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
You all murmur when he speaks!
SECOND BLIND MAN.
He merely said “Good-night” on leaving.
THIRD BLIND MAN.
It must be very late.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
He said “Good-night” two or three times on leaving, as if he were going to sleep. I could hear that he was looking at me when he said, “Good-night; good-night.” – The voice changes when one looks at some one fixedly.
FIFTH BLIND MAN.
Have pity on those that cannot see!
FIRST BLIND MAN.
Who is talking in that senseless way?
SECOND BLIND MAN.
I think it is the one who cannot hear.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
Be quiet! – this is not the time to beg!
THIRD BLIND MAN.
Where was he going for the bread and water?
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
He went towards the sea.
THIRD BLIND MAN.
One does not walk towards the sea in that way at his age! 7
SECOND BLIND MAN.
Are we near the sea?
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
Yes; be quiet an instant; you will hear it.
[A murmur of the sea near at hand and very calm against the cliffs.]
SECOND BLIND MAN.
I only hear the three old women praying.
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
Listen well, you will hear it through their prayers.
SECOND BLIND MAN.
Yes; I hear something that is not far from us.
THE OLDEST BLIND WOMAN.
It was asleep; it seems as if it were waking.
FIRST BLIND MAN.
It was wrong of him to lead us here; I don’t like hearing that noise.
THE OLDES