Plays : Third Series

Chapter 33: AFTERMATH

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About This Book

A four-act stage drama centers on a civilian whose marriage and social position come under pressure as private desires and public expectations collide. Scenes alternate between a neat domestic flat, a cluttered writer's garret, and a modest supper-room, bringing into play the husband's highborn parents, his wife and acquaintances, servants, and an observant lodgings caretaker. Through tense encounters and keenly observed domestic detail, the work probes conscience, reputation, artistic temperament, and the isolating effects of social scrutiny, favoring character study and moral ambiguity over melodramatic resolution.

AFTERMATH

A late Spring dawn is just breaking. Against trees in leaf and blossom, with the houses of a London Square beyond, suffused by the spreading glow, is seen a dark life-size statue on a granite pedestal. In front is the broad, dust-dim pavement. The light grows till the central words around the pedestal can be clearly read:

                              ERECTED
                           To the Memory
                                 of
                            STEPHEN MORE
                       "Faithful to his ideal"

High above, the face of MORE looks straight before him with a faint smile. On one shoulder and on his bare head two sparrows have perched, and from the gardens, behind, comes the twittering and singing of birds.

THE CURTAIN FALLS.

The End