Where There is Nothing Being Volume I of Plays for an Irish Theatre

Scene: A lawn with croquet hoops, garden chairs and tables. Door into house at left. Gate through hedge at back. The hedge is clipped into shapes of farmyard fowl. PAUL RUTTLEDGE is clipping at the hedge in front. A table with toys on it.

Thomas Ruttledge. [_Coming out on steps._] Paul, are you coming in to lunch?

Paul Ruttledge. No; you can entertain these people very well. They are your friends: you understand them.

Thomas Ruttledge. You might as well come in. You have been clipping at that old hedge long enough.

Paul Ruttledge. You needn't worry about me. I should be bored if I went in, and I don't want to be bored more than is necessary.

Thomas Ruttledge. What is that creature you are clipping at now? I can't make it out.

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, it is a Cochin China fowl, an image of some of our neighbours, like the others.

Thomas Ruttledge. I don't see any likeness to anyone.

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, yes there is, if you could see their minds instead of their bodies. That comb now----

Mrs. Ruttledge. [_Coming out on steps._] Thomas, are you coming in?

Thomas Ruttledge. Yes, I'm coming; but Paul won't come.

[THOMAS RUTTLEDGE goes out.

Mrs. Ruttledge. Oh! this is nonsense, Paul; you must come. All these men will think it so strange if you don't. It is nonsense to think you will be bored. Mr. Green is talking in the most interesting way.

Paul Ruttledge. Oh! I know Green's conversation very well.

Mrs. Ruttledge. And Mr. Joyce, your old guardian. Thomas says he was always so welcome in your father's time, he will think it so queer.

Paul Ruttledge. Oh! I know all their virtues. There's Dowler, who puts away thousands a year in Consols, and Algie, who tells everybody all about it. Have I forgotten anybody? Oh, yes! Colonel Lawley, who used to lift me up by the ears, when I was a child, to see Africa. No, Georgina, I know all their virtues, but I'm not coming in.

Mrs. Ruttledge. I can't imagine why you won't come in and be sociable.

Paul Ruttledge. You see I can't. I have something to do here. I have to finish this comb. You see it is a beautiful comb; but the wings are very short. The poor creature can't fly.

Mrs. Ruttledge. But can't you finish that after lunch?

Paul Ruttledge. No, I have sworn.

Mrs. Ruttledge. Well, I am sorry. You are always doing uncomfortable things. I must go in to the others. I wish you would have come. [_She goes in._

Jerome. [_Who has come to gate as she disappears._] Paul, you there! that is lucky. I was just going to ask for you.

Paul Ruttledge. [_Flinging clipper away, and jumping up._] Oh, Father Jerome, I am delighted to see you. I haven't seen you for ever so long. Come and have a talk; or will you have some lunch?

Jerome. No, thank you; I will stay a minute, but I won't go in.

Paul Ruttledge. That is just as well, for you would be bored to death. There has been a meeting of magistrates in the village, and my brother has brought them all in to lunch.

Jerome. I am collecting for the Monastery, and my donkey has gone lame; I have had to put it up in the village. I thought you might be able to lend me one to go on with.

Paul Ruttledge. Of course, I'm delighted to lend you that or anything else. I'll go round to the yard with you and order it. But sit down here first. What have you been doing all this time?

Jerome. Oh, we have been very busy. You know we are going to put up new buildings.

Paul Ruttledge. [_Absent-mindedly._] No, I didn't know that.

Jerome. Yes, our school is increasing so much we are getting a grant for technical instruction. Some of the Fathers are learning handicrafts. Father Aloysius is going to study industries in France; but we are all busy. We are changing with the times, we are beginning to do useful things.

Paul Ruttledge. Useful things. I wonder what you have begun to call useful things. Do you see those marks over there on the grass?

Jerome. What marks?

Paul Ruttledge. Those marks over there, those little marks of scratching.

Jerome. [_Going over to the place_ PAUL RUTTLEDGE _has pointed out._] I don't see anything.

Paul Ruttledge. You are getting blind, Jerome. Can't you see that the poultry have been scratching there?

Jerome. No, the grass is perfectly smooth.

Paul Ruttledge. Well, the marks are there, whether you see them or not; for Mr. Green and Mr. Dowler and Mr. Algie and the rest of them run out of their houses when nobody is looking, in their real shapes, shapes like those on my hedge. And then they begin to scratch, they scratch all together, they don't dig but they scratch, and all the time their mouths keep going like that.

[_He holds out his hand and opens and shuts his fingers like a bird's bill._

Jerome. Oh, Paul, you are making fun of me.

Paul Ruttledge. Of course I am only talking in parables. I think all the people I meet are like farmyard creatures, they have forgotten their freedom, their human bodies are a disguise, a pretence they keep up to deceive one another.