ROSES TWO
A Dialogue.
Julie, seventeen.
Auriol, sixteen.
Any place; any time.
Auriol
Julie, I have a secret for your ear.
Julie
What have you, little cousin, with such things
As secrets?
Auriol
Tut, a girl has many thoughts
She knows are better kept....
Julie
Yet longs to tell.
Auriol
Yes, pretty secrets have a double joy,
The keeping and the breaking; and I think
They’re like old Saxe, more valued when they’re broken.
Julie (eagerly)
Yes, darling, I agree, so....
Auriol
It is hard,
Awfully hard to break. The story runs
Something like this: the giver was a man....
Julie
Giver of what?
Auriol
Ah! do not interrupt;
For if, at once, I told you what he gave
Where would the story be. We’ll call him he—
The abstract always has a secret charm—
The other person ... she, you see, was I....
That is....
Julie
Do not explain.
Auriol
It might mislead.
Julie
I like historians with imagination,
And Truth when she has draped her nakedness.
Auriol
It was last evening ... you remember, dear,
How fine it was last evening, how the stars....
Julie
Oh! never mind the stars.
Auriol
Poor little things!
And yet they’re very troublesome, I grant,
Prying upon this world of ours, at night,
Just when good people want to say their prayers,
Or gather dewy roses in the garden.
Julie
Sweet, are not afraid to go alone
Rose-gathering, when the fairies are abroad?
Auriol
I did not say I was alone.
Julie
So he...?
Auriol
Was there. (Producing a rose which she has held concealed.)
And see, Julie, the lovely rose
He gave me; but I cannot quite remember
His words. Ah! yes, he said the rose was love’s
Dear symbol, and was made to be a gift
From those who love to those they love, that I
Was Beauty.... Do you catch his meaning, dear?
Julie
I think the gentleman was quite explicit.
Auriol
One cannot be too careful in such matters.
Julie
Especially with a stranger ... and a man.
Auriol
Lothario is not a stranger.
Julie
Ah!
Lothario indeed. So it was he?
Auriol
Julie, you should say ‘Mr.,’ if you please.
Julie
Traitors their titles forfeit.
Auriol
He is not
A traitor. See how fair his rose has kept:
And symbols die, they say, when vows are broken.
Julie (taking a faded rose from her bosom)
True, this poor rose he gave me, three days since,
Is withered.
Auriol
Are you sure he gave it you?
(Sadly)
These roses look like sisters.
Julie
Merely cousins.
Yes, he gave it to me. (Sighs.) Three days is all
A man’s love and a rose’s life can last.
Auriol
But he swore that I was his only love.
Julie
That’s what they always say.
Auriol
How do you know?
Julie
My ... brother told me so.
Auriol
It is too bad....
He stole a kiss.
Julie
That’s what they always do.
Auriol
How do you know?
Julie
My brother told me so.
Auriol
I think that men are knaves.
Julie
May be they are;
Yet, Auriol, ’tis not perhaps their fault,
For women keep the goodness to themselves.
Come, we must not waste time on faded flowers,
Nor lose our tempers on a faded heart.
We’ll give these rosy petals to the wind,
(They throw the flowers away)
Lest it should take our thoughts and toy with them.
When comes Lothario, with honeyed words,
To claim his pledge of you or me, we’ll send
The swain to parley with the mocking wind,
Tell him that since he makes a sport of love,
’Tis wrong to run two hares at once. Now, sweet,
Let’s go and listen to the piping birds
And hear their music, being tired of words.