The Manager. Look here! Look here! You're off again, philosophizing worse than ever.

The Father.. Because I suffer, sir! I'm not philosophizing: I'm crying aloud the reason of my sufferings.

The Manager [makes brusque movement as he is taken with a new idea ]. I should like to know if anyone has ever heard of a character who gets right out of his part and perorates and speechifies as you do. Have you ever heard of a case? I haven't.

The Father. You have never met such a case, sir, because authors, as a rule, hide the labour of their creations. When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him; and he has to will them the way they will themselves – for there's trouble if he doesn't. When a character is born, he acquires at once such an independence, even of his own author, that he can be imagined by everybody even in many other situations where the author never dreamed of placing him; and so he acquires for himself a meaning which the author never thought of giving him..

The Manager. Yes, yes, I know this.

The Father. What is there then to marvel at in us? Imagine such a misfortune for characters as I have described to you: to be born of an author's fantasy, and be denied life by him; and then answer me if these characters left alive, and yet without life, weren't right in doing what they did do and are doing now, after they have attempted everything in their power to persuade him to give them their stage life. We've all tried him in turn, I, she [Indicating the STEP-DAUGHTER.] and she. [Indicating the MOTHER.]

The Step-Daughter. It's true. I too have sought to tempt him, many, many times, when he has been sitting at his writing table, feeling a bit melancholy, at the twilight hour. He would sit in his armchair too lazy to switch on the light, and all the shadows that crept into his room were full of our presence coming to tempt him. [As if she saw herself still there by the writing table, and was annoyed by the presence of the ACTORS.] Oh, if you would only go away, go away and leave us alone – mother here with that son of hers – I with that Child – that Boy there always alone – and then I with him [Just hints at the FATHER.] – and then I alone, alone . . . In those shadows! [Makes a sudden movement as if in the vision she has of herself illuminating those shadows she wanted to seize hold of herself. ] Ah! My life! My life! Oh, what scenes we proposed to him – and I tempted him more than any of the others!

The Father. Maybe. But perhaps it was your fault that he refused to give us life: because you were too insistent, too troublesome.

The Step-Daughter. . Nonsense! Didn't he make me so himself? [Goes close to the MANAGER to tell him. As if in confidence. ] In my opinion he abandoned us in a fit of depression, of disgust for the ordinary theatre as the public knows it and likes it.

The Son. Exactly what it was, sir; exactly that!

The Father. Not at all! Don't believe it for a minute. Listen to me! You'll be doing quite right to modify, as you suggest, the excesses both of this girl here, who wants to do too much, and of this young man, who won't do anything at all.

The Son. No, nothing!

The Manager. You too get over the mark occasionally, my dear sir, if I may say so.

The Father. I? When? Where?

The Manager. Always! Continuously! Then there's this insistence of yours in trying to make us believe you are a character. And then too, you must really argue and philosophize less, you know, much less.

The Father. Well, if you want to take away from me the possibility of representing the torment of my spirit which never gives me peace, you will be suppressing me: that's all. Every true man, sir, who is a little above the level of the beasts and plants does not live for the sake of living, without knowing how to live; but he lives so as to give a meaning and a value of his own to life. For me this is everything. I cannot give up this, just to represent a mere fact as she [Indicating the STEP-DAUGHTER.] wants. It's all very well for her, since her "vendetta" lies in the "fact." I'm not going to do it. It destroys my raison d'être.

The Manager. Your raison d'être! Oh, we're going ahead fine! First she starts off, and then you jump in. At this rate, we'll never finish.

The Father. Now, don't be offended! Have it your own way – provided, however, that within the limits of the parts you assign us each one's sacrifice isn't too great.

The Manager. You've got to understand that you can't go on arguing at your own pleasure. Drama is action, sir, action and not confounded philosophy.

The Father. All right. I'll do just as much arguing and philosophizing as everybody does when he is considering his own torments.

The Manager. If the drama permits! But for heaven's sake, man, let's get along and come to the scene.

The Step-Daughter. It seems to me we've got too much action with our coming into his house. [Indicating FATHER.] You said, before, you couldn't change the scene every five minutes.

The Manager. Of course not. What we've got to do is to combine and group up all the facts in one simultaneous, close-knit, action. We can't have it as you want, with your little brother wandering like a ghost from room to room, hiding behind doors and meditating a project which – what did you say it did to him?

The Step-Daughter. Consumes him, sir, wastes him away!

The Manager. Well, it may be. And then at the same time, you want the little girl there to be playing in the garden . . . One in the house, and the other in the garden: isn't that it?

The Step-Daughter. Yes, in the sun, in the sun! That is my only pleasure: to see her happy and careless in the garden after the misery and squalor of the horrible room where we all four slept together. And I had to sleep with her – I, do you understand? – with my vile contaminated body next to hers; with her folding me fast in her loving little arms. In the garden, whenever she spied me, she would run to take me by the hand. She didn't care for the big flowers, only the little ones; and she loved to show me them and pet me.

The Manager. Well then, we'll have it in the garden. Everything shall happen in the garden; and we'll group the other scenes there. [Calls a STAGE HAND.] Here, a backcloth with trees and something to do as a fountain basin. [Turning round to look at the back of the stage. ] Ah, you've fixed it up. Good! [To STEP-DAUGHTER.] This is just to give an idea, of course. The Boy, instead of hiding behind the doors, will wander about here in the garden, hiding behind the trees.. But it's going to be rather difficult to find a child to do that scene with you where she shows you the flowers. [Turning to the BOY.] Come forward a little, will you please? Let's try it now! Come along! Come along! [Then seeing him come shyly forward, full of fear and looking lost. ] It's a nice business, this lad here. What's the matter with him? We'll have to give him a word or two to say. [Goes close to him, puts a hand on his shoulders, and Leads him behind one of the trees. ] Come on! Come on! Let me see you a little! Hide here . . . Yes, like that. Try and show your head just a little as if you were looking for someone . . . [Goes back to observe the effect, when the BOY at once goes through the action. ] Excellent! Fine! [Turning to STEP-DAUGHTER.] Suppose the little girl there were to surprise him as he looks round,, and run over to him, so we could give him a word or two to say?