JAMES AND JOHN
A monologue from the
play by Gilbert Cannan
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from Representative One-Act Plays by British and Irish Authors.
Ed. Barrett H. Clark. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1921. |
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MRS. BETTS: I remember now . . . often . . . when he
told me. . . . How kind he was . . . and gentle. . . . He had
been ill and worried for a long time, and then one day he came
home and sat without a word all through the evening. . . . It
was raining then. . . . About ten o'clock . . . about ten o'clock
. . . he came and kissed me, and told me to go to bed. Then he
went out. . . . I don't know where he went, but he came back
wet to the bone, covered with mud, and his coat was all torn.
. . . I was awake when he came back, but he spoke no word to
me. . . . He came to bed and lay trembling and cold. . . . I
took his hand. . . . He shook and he was very cold. . . . He
-- he turned to me like a child and sobbed, sobbed. . . . Then,
dear, he told me what he had done. . . . He told me that . .
. that he had tried -- tried to do away with himself . . . and
-- and could not. . . . He never asked me to forgive him. . .
. He told me how the directors had asked him to go away to avoid
prosecution. . . . He said that he must bear his punishment.
. . . He is not a bad man, John. . . . Men and women are such
strange creatures . . . there is never any knowing what they
will do . . .
MORE
MONOLOGUES BY GILBERT CANNAN |
