Dunstan Renshaw monologue (Act 4) — The Profligate: A Play in Four Acts

Fool! fool! Why couldn’t you have died in Florence? Why did you drag yourself all these miles--to end it _here_? I should have known better--I should have known better. [_He takes a phial from his pocket and slowly pours some poison into a tumbler._] When I’ve proved that I could not live away from her, perhaps she’ll pity me. I shall never know it, but perhaps she’ll pity me then. [_About to drink._] Supposing I am blind! Supposing there is some chance of my regaining her. Regaining her! How dull sleeplessness makes me! How much could I regain of what I’ve lost! Why, _she knows me_--nothing can ever undo that--_she knows me_. Every day would be a dreary, hideous masquerade; every night a wakeful, torturing retrospect. If she smiled, I should whisper to myself--“yes, yes, that’s a very pretty pretence, but--_she knows you_!” The slamming of a door would shout it, the creaking of a stair would murmur it--“_she knows you_!” And when she thought herself alone, or while she lay in her sleep, I should be always stealthily spying for that dreadful look upon her face, and I should find it again and again as I see it now--the look which cries out so plainly--“Profligate! you taught one good woman to believe in you, but now _she knows you_!” No, no--no, no! [_He drains the contents of the tumbler._] The end--the end. [_Pointing towards the clock._] The hour at which we used to walk together in the garden at Florence--husband and wife--lovers. [_He pulls up the window-blind and looks out._] The sky--the last time--the sky. [_He rests drowsily against the piano._] Tired--tired. [_He walks rather unsteadily to the table._] A line to Murray. [_Writing._] A line to Murray--telling him--poison--morphine--message---- [_The pen falls from his hand and his head drops forward._] The light is going out. I can’t see. Light--I’ll finish this when I wake--I’ll rest. [_He staggers to the sofa and falls upon it._] I shall sleep to-night. The voice has gone. Leslie--wife--reconciled----