Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1963, Síða 93

know thyself
75
without turning lame, losing sight
in one eye, and becoming a slave.
Should you die in the vegetable
Sarden, and if your death should
prove to be my death, you will have
•sacrificed both our lives for Butter-
%.
Worm: Yes, to give her a chance to
make amends for her transgressions.
Firefly: Transgressions that affected
you.
Worm: The more I sacrifice, the
greater my good deed.
Firefly. Your selfishness lies in your
wanting to find out how unselfish
and self-sacrificing you are. But you
Would display a spirit of self-
sacrifice, or what would be worthy
°f the name, if you were to sacrifice
your own happiness by staying here
and letting the wrong which Butter-
fly did to you remain unatoned for,
knowing that precisely by so doing
you would bring unhappiness down
°n her? Happiness is often sacrificed
for one moment’s bliss and pain. Re-
member that as you save Butterfly,
you will place me in jeopardy.
Worm: Since losing you would be
nnberable, to save you would not
as good a deed as saving Butter-
fiy.
As soon as Worm has spoken, Fire-
fly drops the hem of her mantle;
fotal darkness returns. A short while
later Firefly’s light flashes a few
finies stage left, revealing that
utterfly has disappeared and that
worm is lying at the roots of the
same tree as before. Then total dark-
ness returns once more.
Ffrefly’s Voice (in the darkness):
Now Worm has fallen asleep here
and awakened in the vegetable
garden. If he had awaked there to
consciousness of himself in the
orchard, he would be awake here.
CURTAIN
ACT III
A bedroom in the summer home; a
door upstage; a large window to the
left of the door; evidently the same
gable as the one seen on the house
in Act I; pictures of beautiful
women on the walls; sumptuous fur-
nishings. Evening; it is quite dark.
The sound of the waterfall is heard
faintly, but clearly every time the
door is opened. Worm, his face and
hands dirty, his shirt spotted with
earth, is lying in a snow-white bed
in the middle of the room; the head
of the bed against the side wall stage
left. Butterfly, holding a crystal
bowl and a towel, is standing be-
tween the bed and the window. Ant
is near the door.
Butterfly: I found him this morning
critically ill in the vegetable garden.
He had spent the night oustide and
is probably suffering from exposure
to the darkness and the cold.
Ant: You don’t show me much con-
sideration by bringing him in here
and putting 'him in my snowy bed, as
dirty as he is.
Butterfly: To let him remain longer
under the cloudy sky would have
been atrociously inhumane.
Ant: I will never again sleep in this
bed or stay in this room. Apparently
it is necessary to isolate Worm and
the likes of him: to maintain a spec-
ial institution for them so that