Act III

In the garden, Hector, as he comes out through the glass door of
the poop, finds Lady Utterword lying voluptuously in the hammock
on the east side of the flagstaff, in the circle of light cast by
the electric arc, which is like a moon in its opal globe. Beneath
the head of the hammock, a campstool. On the other side of the
flagstaff, on the long garden seat, Captain Shotover is asleep,
with Ellie beside him, leaning affectionately against him on his
right hand. On his left is a deck chair. Behind them in the
gloom, Hesione is strolling about with Mangan. It is a fine still
night, moonless.

LADY UTTERWORD. What a lovely night! It seems made for us.

HECTOR. The night takes no interest in us. What are we to the
night? [He sits down moodily in the deck chair].

ELLIE [dreamily, nestling against the captain]. Its beauty soaks
into my nerves. In the night there is peace for the old and hope
for the young.

HECTOR. Is that remark your own?

ELLIE. No. Only the last thing the captain said before he went to
sleep.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I'm not asleep.

HECTOR. Randall is. Also Mr Mazzini Dunn. Mangan, too, probably.

MANGAN. No.

HECTOR. Oh, you are there. I thought Hesione would have sent you
to bed by this time.

MRS HUSHABYE [coming to the back of the garden seat, into the
light, with Mangan]. I think I shall. He keeps telling me he has
a presentiment that he is going to die. I never met a man so
greedy for sympathy.

MANGAN [plaintively]. But I have a presentiment. I really have.
And you wouldn't listen.

MRS HUSHABYE. I was listening for something else. There was a
sort of splendid drumming in the sky. Did none of you hear it? It
came from a distance and then died away.

MANGAN. I tell you it was a train.

MRS HUSHABYE. And I tell you, Alf, there is no train at this
hour. The last is nine forty-five.

MANGAN. But a goods train.

MRS HUSHABYE. Not on our little line. They tack a truck on to the
passenger train. What can it have been, Hector?

HECTOR. Heaven's threatening growl of disgust at us useless
futile creatures. [Fiercely]. I tell you, one of two things must
happen. Either out of that darkness some new creation will come
to supplant us as we have supplanted the animals, or the heavens
will fall in thunder and destroy us.

LADY UTTERWORD [in a cool instructive manner, wallowing
comfortably in her hammock]. We have not supplanted the animals,
Hector. Why do you ask heaven to destroy this house, which could
be made quite comfortable if Hesione had any notion of how to
live? Don't you know what is wrong with it?

HECTOR. We are wrong with it. There is no sense in us. We are