The ubiquitous man, appearing and reappearing (real and phantom) before her strained eyes makes them water. She feels it a weakness—swallows. Another weakness. Stares dully at the figure before her. Impotence realised—weeps. Weeps loudly and slobberingly and hopelessly like a whipped child. Weeps more loudly yet, more hopelessly: with distorted muscles, copious tears and lengthening and coarsening of upper lip. Such lack of control is intolerable. Members of the audience want to strike each other. Audience Intellectual and otherwise. A few women weep too, in identical pitch. It becomes a panic spreading suddenly. The men leave quickly, swallowing hard. One man throws a brickbat at the inert back, then another. Others do the same. When he sinks stoned, expiring—a yell of exultation rises from the men—long sighs of relief from the women. “ANTICHRIST” Outside the Theatre—weeping: fitful, intolerable—mounts from street to street and star to star in festoons of distinguished and unutterable melancholy. V 1. Thick twilight. A long row of houses, several storeys high. All have area railings and steps leading up to the front door. One light in a top window a third of the way down the block. A drab yellow light also works through glass of street door. A woman walks (bent) on the pavement in front of these houses hovering undecidedly, evidently fearful. Then she draws herself together and climbs the steps leading to the lit door. She waits shuffling from foot to foot, seeming undecided—(she has rung the bell). The door opens a little, a wedge of light moves out and a dark figure appears for a moment breaking it. They talk for a few seconds, and both enter. The door shuts. A wedge of darkness passes across the lit panes. The light works out tranquilly again. 2. Stairs dimly lit, narrow, carpeted. The figure climbs, climbs, climbs—foreboding, distrust and fear at every point. 3. A room—walls dark red; small, stuffy, unbearable. The woman stands uneasily just inside the door—waiting. The room is full of impending tragedy. Influences are in the room and in the next room. Tragedy becomes apparent in the woman’s pose. She waits. Nothing happens. With dramatic suddenness, her body droops—she cringes. (Nothing, nothing, NOTHING happens). Curtain—very quietly, like a sigh, so that it is some seconds before audience realises that play is over. Stark Realism This Little Pig Went to Market (_A Search for the National Type_) Ezra Pound