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About The monitor. (Omaha, Neb.) 1915-1928 | View Entire Issue (April 26, 1919)
The Balancer of The Universe A Drama of the Race Conflict in Four Acts by B. Harrison Peyton CHARACTERS Mauricio Crispin, a dancer from the Argentine, age 26 years. La CoruBca, Senora Crispin, his Ar gentine mother, age 42. Agnes, their American guest and •lancing pupil, age 22. Mrs. Vincent Widener, a woman journalist, age 36. Period: Present. Place: Provl dencia, a city on the Pacific coast. S ACT I. SCENE II. The Dancing Lover* of Malaga. Enter La Corusca, presently from the dancing room. Corusca: (To Agnes) Buena, sen orita! Daintily—ever so daintily— that’s the way. Yes—yet—no, quer ida mia. Learn to be disdainful and inviting by turns—yet always charm ing. Never forget you’re a pi iud beauty; el toreador, gallant, devoted, entreating, is constantly pursuing you, endeavoring to mel your heart little by little in the warmth of his pas sion. Yes, yes, be more gracious, sen orita, more gracious. Now, now! be witch him not alone with artful glances, but with your hands—your fan—your neck—your shoulders—your whole body. No, querida senorita, no! Oh! you don’t put into your actions enough of piquancy, fire, languor, the native spirit of Spain! I’ll show you senorita—I will show you again! Don ’ Manuel! Don Manuel, kindly wait an instant. Crispin: Madre querida, why not allow me the privilege of corecting the senorita? Corusca: Because, Maurieio, your criticisms of whatever relates to Sen orita Agnes are never entirely un biased. Now, maestro, be so good as to l>egin la Malaguena over again. (To Agnes): Nina mia, Maurieio and I will yet again endeavor to convey to you somewhat of the proper spirit of the dance. Agnes: And I’ll still endeavor to acquire that spirit, senora. Agnes: Senora, oh-h-h! that is so exquisite! If I could only hope to ever attain such perfect facility! Dancing’s so hard, and it seems 1 progress so • slowly. Corusca: You do very well, duende , / cilia mia, for only a few weeks’ train ing in that particular dance. Bear in mind practice—incessant and ar duous practice—comprises the life of every highly accomplished dancer. En verdad, dancing’s nothing but con stant training illuminated by an un flagging spirit—senorita, an indomit able spirit. Agnes: Oh, that, Senora Crispin, is at least one thing I’ve learned most thoroughly. Corusca: For consiguiente, por consignuiente, nina querida. But I must leave you to Mauricio’s instruc tions and go to look after my own practice, or, I fear, I shall discover myself betraying to my audiences how painfully hard ’tis to accomplish what art demands should be done with an appearance of absolute, effortless ease. Remember, Maurieio, to in dulge bad habit* is ruinous; you must v not be too gallant—too tolerant of Senorita Agnes’ faults. Insist on the nearest possible approach to perfec tion—and nothing less, Maurieio— nothing less. Crispin: My goodness, madre! how’s a poor servitor like me to detect the darkling fault in any act of the sen orita? She possesses such a brilliant galaxy of personal superiorities one perforce is dazzled and one’s own pal try pretensions cast completely into the shade. Corusca: Heally, Mauricio, you re a conscienceless scamp! Agnes: Your pardon, senora; but only one moment, please. Will you kindly tell me whether there's a let ter come for me this afternoon? Corusca: You haven’t yet received he daily letter from your father, hija querida; and you’re very anxious to learn whether there has been change for better or worse in the condition of your little brother? How extreme ly sorry I am! but the day’s last post arrived some while ago—and—there was no letter for you. Agnes: Thank you, senora; but I shall most surely get one by special delivery. You will please sign for it for me—won’t you, dear senora? Corusca: Si, ciertamente, cierta mente. Pobre querida! And when the letter comes,;I’ll bring it to you with out an instant’s delay. Agnes: I am greatly obliged to you, senora. Corusca: But heed my warning, Mauricio; don’t permit Senorita Agnes to prevail upon your heart to do most of the dancing. SCENE III The Holocaust Unto the Moloch, ^Hatred. Crispin: Madre! Now, what do you make of that, senorita? Madre expects us to practice la Malaguena, yet she's plainly determined to take a selfish and exclusive advantage of Doji Manuel’s music. Agnes: Oh, I can very well let the extra lesson wait, senor. Crispin: : That’s most handsome of you, I must say. But isn’t it after all your turn to be considerately pat ient? Yesterday brought you the usual letter from home, but you’ve kept me waiting this long while all in vain for the latest intelligence con cerning poor, dear, little Godfrey. Agnes: According to father’s most recent letter, writen approximately four days ago, senor, Godfrey was about the same. Ah! he suffers such killing internal agonies, and yet the special physicians attending him, de spite all my fears and presentments, continue to believe he will ultimately recover. Even kind Mrs. Widener, who who certainly should possess a wom an’s intuition, has not hesitated to practice on me every artifice likely to inspire faith senor, precisely as though faith on my part be an ab solute essential to successful treat ment of Godfrey’s case. Crispin: Mrs. Widener? ’Tis my impression, senorita, I once made in Shadow City the .acquaintance of a lady of that name; but the circum stances of our meeting and—her per sonality—are at present elusive— playing a game of hide-and-seek with my memory. Agnes: But I’m positive, senor, you can’t have forgotten Mrs. Widener. She's the jouranlist who writes Sun day features for The Verity, the lead ing daily newspaper of Shadow City. Dr. Vincent Widener is her husband, and head of the group of doctors who are striving to restore my darl ing, stricken brother. She has told me she once interviewed you and the senora in Shadow City, when the pair of you were appearing nightly with your troupe of dancers at the Liberty theater. Crispin: Oh, yes! Oh! I remember! 'Twas one forenoon at the Hotel Golds borough—wasn’t it? And Senorita Cynthia Lilbum from Providencia was present; for her stay at the Golds borough with her grandfather was co incident with our own—Senorita Gor land, it always thrilled to see Cynthia Lilbum dance, with er effervescent grace—enravishing abandon of form and movement! Oh, she was a fa vored descendant of terpischore—and at the moment Mrs. Widener entered, relaxing with us from strenuous ex ercise in the sprightly seguidilla. Agnes: Was Mr. Rogerio Nobrega there, too, senor, with his violin? or singing to a tinkling mandolin? The senora has described to me his im pressive barytone voice that always seemed to envelop the listener in the tropical voluptuousness of his native B razil. Crispin: No, senorita; amt you may imagine Cynthia Lilbum’s regret. Un doubtedly, Nobrega’s presence would haye inspired her to yet great won ders in the art that juggled John the Baptist’s head from his shoulders. However, while we were giving Mrs. Widener an account of our devoted Anthony Bell—why, into the room An thony came, singing and jubiliant, be cause to the most wonderful of his paintings he had put the finishing touches that morning just at sunrise. Ah! how it surges back upon me—but painfully, senorita, the memory of my fruitless endeavor to interest Mrs. Widener in him and his unsurpassable picture—and of the occurrence of the panic at the Liberty theater on the evening of that same day! Agnes: My goodness! Why should our every conversation, senor, invari ably lead to—that frightful subject— the panic? Crispin: But, senorita, do we ever concern ourselves with aught really foreign to the panic? In the begin ing, we were deploring bay Godfrey’s serious condition. Well, if my friend Anthony only had ben even as for tunate as was your little brother, sen orita, he’d now be able at least to protest against the malicious reports that it was he who wantonly began the mortal affray which preceded the panic. Agrtes: That fatal encounter was to me, senor, the most horrible inci dent of the enormous disaster. I sin cerely condole with you. I know that Anthony eBll was colored, a young poet and painter of rising repute among members of his race; and your mother has told me there subsisted a very intimate and devoted friendship among the three of you. However, won’t you pardon, senor, my natural curiosity—to know—how that friend ship came about? Crispin: -Certainly. You’ve prob ably heard, Senorita Gorland of an organization comprised of several thousand public-spirited white and Colored citizens and known as the American Association for the Aboli tion of Race Oppression ? Agnes: Oh, yes, senor; I’ve read of the A. A. A. R. 0. a number of times. Crispin: Then, perhaps, you also know that, besides its headquarters in : New York, the Association has active branches in nearly all the leading cities and a steadily enlarging mem bership fired by all that fearless zeal which freedom’s cause inspires, Agnes: Are you a member, senor? Crispin: I became a member, sen orita, the very day I first met An thony. A famous novelist acquainted with us both introduced him to me in Shadow City, at an annual conference of the local branch of the Association; j and discovering that he was a poet and painter of remarkable talent. I in turn later presented him to madre. whose interest in his hitherto unap preciated artistic efforts w»as imme diate and enthusiastic. Agnes: An: tnai was me nappy beginning! So he painted the large portrait of the senora that hangs in her study—didn’t he, Senor Crispin? Crispin: Yes. Buena madre mia, as a sort of patroness of genius, you see, rescued him from poverty and obscurity—enlisted him as the saying goes, under her banner, and was the making of him. I suppose you’ve nev er read any of his poems ? Anyhow, the A. A. A. R. 0. publishes a de tailed account of its operations in its oficial organ, a little monthly maga zine called The Advance; and to this dear Anthony was one of the best known contributors. Agnes: But after all, I’ve heard, senor, it was as an agent of the As sociation Anthony Bell figured most prominently. Crispin: Beyond question, senorita. You no doubt recall the civil rights suits not long since prosecuted with so much resolution against the Liberty theater in Shadow City, by the legal department of the Association, were based on evidence procured under my friend’s direction. Agnes: I’ve been informed also, j senor, that you provided your friend with the ticket which obtained hin| a seat in tfie parquet at the Liberty on the evening of the panic. ^Crispin: That’s true, senorita; and only that blustering Representative i Whiteside should discover Anthony there and raise high and mighty ob jection to his presence. Agnes: Senor Cirspin, I heard any number of others make direct com plaint to the house-manager of the Liberty that evening. Crispin: Yes, senorita. Agnes: But despite the general in tolerance—the persistent protest against your Colored friend, senor, the theatrical staff merely declared its polite regrets—and wouldn’t venture to molest him. Crispin: Ah! let me remind you, senorita, how surprisingly contrary that was to the theater’s former pol icy of rigorously restricting Negro j partons to the gallery. Agnes: They wouldn’t eject your friend Bell, as you well know, senor, simply because he was your friend and guest. Crispin: You put too great an es timate on my influence, senorita. Isn’t it quite possible good Anthony had taught the proprietors of the Liberty to appreciate the danger of violating the civil rights law—and becoming involved in costly legal actions? Agnes: Did you know beforehand, Senor Crispin. Congressman White side had engaged the orchestra stall immediately in front of the one An thony Bell occupied that evening? Crispin: Why, certainly not, sen orita. Even then I was not at all ignorant as to how notoriously over hasty and violent in quarrel the rep resentative was. Had I only appre hended that behind the curtain of the future, chance was so imminently pre paring—right at my heels—to bring Anthony and Terry Whiteside that ev ning so close together, I’d—but I sus pect, senorita, you've again succumbed to a mood-of repining? Agnes: tiod have mercy on my suffering father, senor, ami miserable me! God alone knows how much fa ther and 1 would’ve preferred to have perished at the theater that evening rather than our baby Godfrey should have been swept astray—and i-uth lessly beaten down—in that terrific hurricane of panic and havoc! Crispin: Ah; one can only regard it as verily a miracle, senorita, your six-year-old brother came out of it at all, although 1 know his fragile, ' small body when found was crushed and shattered, and hut the faintest show of the breath of life lingerer! within him. Yes, it’s certainly sad enough, on my soul, Senorita Gorland; and you take it so hard! Oh! indeed one would think you hear Godfrey— heaven save him!—even more than a sister’s love. Why, give me leave to say, in sober truth, your love appears to have all the strength of a mother’s. , Agnes: I—I am sixteen years the drier, senor. Our mother resignetl ■ this life shortly after baby Godfrey’s birth, and ever since, I’ve taken upon mvself the maternal care of him. Very naturally, I've come to regard him much as though he be a son to me •n fact. Never shall I forget with what earnest persitence, day after day, he entreated father and me to take him to see you and La Corusca in your repertoire of famous Spanish dances. Crispin: And eyen so, senorita, whenever I dance la Malaguena with madre, there comes to me the dis quieting remembrance that she and I. gnes: That incessantly haunts me, too, senor—the glowing blithesome picture with you and La Corusca formed together there on the stage that instant before the outbreak of the panic. And that panic, senor— oh! the eruption that broke forth then —was so swift—so violent—so un utterably terrible! Crispin: ’Tis indeed an occasion, senorita, for constant thanks to our all-glorious Preserver that you and your father escaped alive. Agnes: My father! Yes, by some unexplainable freak of fortune, we— he—my father and I—except for a few scratches and bruises, and—but the memory! senor, how it encumbers the mind, weighs like lead within the heart, oppresses the prostrate spirit, crushes down upon the whole being like some overwhelming affliction! Shall we not change the subject to one less distressing, senor? Crispin: By all means, senorita; but before we do so, I beg you’ll grac iously allow' me a question I’ve long had in mind to ask you. Agnes: What is it, senor? Crispin: Didn’t you, senorita, on the evening of the panic, witness the en tire affair between my friend eBll and Terry Whiteside? Agnes: But, but consider, senor! Senor Crispin! I’ve just protested I can hardly any longer, believe me, hardly bear to discuss the awful— oh! why would you, senor force be back along the ways of remembrance into that purgatory of writhing, agon ized souls—to face the mighty catas trophe over again through all its cataclysmal progress—from its'fright f"l beginning to its ruinous end! Aft er the havoc, what is there left to rake up but the wreckage? Remem ber, I beseech you, my poor, dear brother Godfrey’s misfortune—and don’t ask me to recount the full one bundled thick-coming, indescribable horrors that my eyes have looked upon! Crispin: Senorita Gorland, if you’d only reflect a moment! Think how much your statement may mean not only to me, but to madre, who held Anthony in unbounded esteem! Who can tell but your affirmation may vin dicate mv loved friend in the eyes of the world wherefrom he’s departed, and bring rightful condemnation upon that bloody-minded demon in human shape who is now endeavoring by re crimination to acquit himself before humanity at large of the crime of wil ful and promiscuous murder? Agnes: But don’t you forget that a number of witnesses, senor . .? Crispin: Witnesses! Yes, Terry Whiteside’s perjuries are supported by witnesses; but they’re witnesses whose teeth, were they false, couldn’t be as much so as are their tongues, and whose hearts are as prejudiced as is darkness against the light! Don’t tell me, of all persons in creation, you, too, Senorita Gorland, are going to defend the guilty? Among the few survivors of the panic who might truthfully have averred it, only one— a Colored witness who was an occu pant of the gallery at the Liberty at the time of the affray—has been wilt ing to testify to my friend’s innocence —to maintan Anthony didn’t attack the congressman with a dangerous weapon—that the whole guilt of the atrocity belongs to Whiteside himself! But won’t you, also, have the courage to assert the truth—senorita, now, won’t you—for God’s sake? Agnes: But—but—on my honor, senor, your friend Bell positively wouldn’t be persuaded to retire to the rear of the orchestra or to the gallery! Assuredly, I would not now dispute he had a perfect right, guar anteed him by the law, to retain his place in utter defiance of all the pre judiced clamor against him; but still, senor, it you only realized, only com prehended how much you’re demand ing of me, you—you wouldn’t ask me to—to—oh! don’t you realize—you— vou don’t comprehend my situation! Crispin: If I but realized how much I'm demanding of you? What can it signify to you as compared with madre r|nd me? Whv, Senorita Gotland, I merely ask if Terry Whiteside wasn’t the aggressor; my friend his blame less victim ? Isn’t it true Whiteside, the madcap, the southern firebrand, bursting with rage, bounded from his chair—while madre and I were on the stage preoccupied with the dance la Malagucna—and seizing Anthony by the collar, stniggled madly to drag him bodily out of his seat into the nearby aisle? Isn’t it true, thus set Mien, barbarously outraged, my friend was forced to strike the madman in self-defense a blow with the fist, which sent him reeling backward and miote him to the rankling quick ? And then—the pistol, which tiie represen tative himself has confessed he nearly always carried about with him for the purpose to compel submission from any Negroes who might venture to mntest his assumption a superiority jf race gave him a right to rule them —isn’t it true, senorita, Whiteside, his desperate hate aggravted by the blow, drew his heavy revolver and shot Anthony dead on the spot, while a score of rabid men—roaring: “The nigger! the nigger!” leaped from their orchestra chairs and scrambled over each other in a furious effort to get at my friend—lone, martyred Anthony, who was still the object of their hatred though toppling over in his own blood ? That’s how it happened, sen orita—according to the testimony of the Colored witness from the gallery. I simply ask, isn’t it true? Agnes: Oh, pity! for pity’s sake, senor! It’s all true—true—too true! I can’t deny it—daren’t deny it! If I attempt to, how my sconscience over melms me! how poor Godfrey’s heart melting sufferings cast doumbfound ing reproaches at me—forbid me the falsehood! Crispin! Ah! so you were a witness of that harrowing tragedy in its ever}' hideous detail? Agnes: Yes, senor; and while I stood appalled, stunned, my little brother was carried away before I was aware of it in the turmoil of de struction that ensued! Oh! the mad, resistless terror! certainly there was no need, senor, for anyone to de scribe that to you! Crispin: No; for at the first scream of a woman, madre and I cut short our performance of la Malaguena. We stood there on the stage for a moment, aghast, breathless, awe-struck, as the rest of that audience sprang to its fet at one and the same time, and panic-stricken, went plunging and pressing helter-skelter to the exits. How God must’ve screened it from the eyes of blessed spirits on high— the compact pandemonium of those twenty-five hundred human bodies as they struggled to fly the visible, palpable terror that had descended upon them—like some devasting thun derbolt from sene heavens—and whirled more than two hundred to death in an avalanche stampede! Lord God of hosts! how the insensible and the squirming wounded were heaped with the inert and mangled dead in accumulative mounds of grue some mortality! Agnes: Senor, I do but think of it! —a shaking horror takes hold of me and chills me through like a wintry blast! It’s nearly seven weeks since it happened, ah! yet I imagine I still hear the rush and the rumble, the shrieks of distress, the savage shouts and frenzied commotion, the wailings half stifled—and— Crispin: And the awful, heart-rend ing gasps and groans that came at the last! Oh! not one from good friend Anthony, who evidently had died instantly! Six hours later, sen orita, I found him at the morgue with three bullet wounds in his breast and his body trampled almost beyond the possibility of recognition! Agnes: Senor Crispin, father came upon our sweet lambkin in a hospital ward among a dozen other children, of whom some w'ere dying. Ah me, senor! in fancy I can see my dear brother as he lies in his small brass bed in the darkened, flower-scented room at home—unspeakable misery! —looking but the ghost of himself, a haggard figure, his beamless eyes wanly haunted by a thousand pains! How piteously he cries out, as he is tormented by hallucinations of the.tre mendous human maelstrom in which he was so nearly killed! Now he imagines he is called by his former playmates, who caper in gleesome thoughtlessness about the yard next door! Oh! how futile are his exer tions to rise! It’s positively insup portable—the burden, senor! Crispin: Does not my heart sink be neath it too, senorita ? Our noble An thony was as blameless as little God frey. But let us not forget White side’s small son, also, was nigh fatally injured in the panic, notwithstanding the perpetrator of the enormity, the representative himself, somehow es caped unscathed—along with his little daughter. Agnes: Senor, his—little—daugh ter! Are you sure that—that he— that his daughter—? Crispin: Why, yes, senonta, White side has mother child besides the little boy pet—named Baby Sunbeam —hasn’t he? I’ve only the most hazy recollection, hut 1 think I once read in some of the newspapers the con gressman has a daughter. She’s her self a mere small child, I believe, but takes a whole-souled interest in her younger brother. I only wish I could recall her name—hang it!—for then, perhaps, you— Corusca: Mauricio, el caballero .ioven, Bland—he’s here and requests a word with you. Crispin: With me, madre? Agnes: With Senor Crispin? Corusca: Yes, Mauricio, with you —so the servant announces. 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