(LEONARD backs away. Enter DR HYSLOP)
DR HYSLOP
Here you go, Virginia. This will make you more comfortable.
VIRGINIA
I don’t want a hypo! Your drugs are making me ill. Help! Help! Get away from me! Life has destroyed me, I am silenced. I have no stings left.
DR HYSLOP
Virginia, you must rest. You’ve had a tiring journey but everything’s fine now. After a good sleep and a fine dinner, you’ll be right as rain.
VIRGINIA
When I close my eyes I’m attacked and assaulted!
(She tries to thrash but he injects her. He pulls up a chair as she begins to subside. LEONARD sits uneasily)
DR HYSLOP
Your wife’s constitution’s very strong. It’s all that exercise, I’m afraid. Young women of the present day indulge in gymnastic exercises that sadly retard their mammary development. It only makes it worse for her. Now what’s the cause of this current fuss? I could hear her screaming all the way upstairs. The staff was alarmed, I assure you. It’s very bad for them. Loosening the bonds of self-control always results in sexual license among the lower orders.
LEONARD
Hostile fantasies about Sir George.
DR HYSLOP
Don’t encourage her by listening. You can never argue a madman out of his madness, and you will succumb to madness if you try. This degradation is so common among artists, I assure you, especially the moderns. “Imagist” authors use disjointed gibberish the way madmen rave and think themselves quite clever.
LEONARD
Virginia’s mind is free and remarkably fearless. I treasure that. She thinks the chloral is causing her hallucinations.
DR HYSLOP
Sadly, it’s the lack of good blood, I fear, responsible for these behaviors.
LEONARD
Sir, do you refer to my Jewish ancestry?
DR HYSLOP
Not at all, though I think you will admit mixed marriages constitute a special danger. It is the sad mental history of the Stephens family to which I refer – uncle and sister institutionalized with cerebral exaltation and morbid excitement, agnosticism, heresy and even self-murder. Now you find yourself married to a young girl who is comfortable speaking obscenities! It’s all dung and semen among the avant garde. Britain has become a dumping ground of late for the terminally unfit. You were wise to come to me. Did you visit Colby Court as I suggested?
LEONARD
It’s … awful. I can’t imagine Virginia there.
DR HYSLOP
Do you know, once they have settled down they are happy in their own way. Virginia is testing you. I assure you Colby Court is the finest of its kind. It can be uncomfortable to view our loved ones in extremis, and once mental disease takes hold many family members cease to pay calls. It is better thus. I understand Virginia’s sister, for example, is never visited by any family member.
LEONARD
What a tragedy! I couldn’t bear it. You should have seen the beautiful Miss Stephen who agreed to marry me, scintillating with charm and wit.
DR HYSLOP
(comforting him)
Fruit of the poisonous tree.
LEONARD
But isn’t Sir George, her brother, then also poisoned fruit?
DR HYSLOP
Half-brother, my good sir. Not at all. The Duckworths are quite a different line. Obviously, no effort was made to acquaint you with the family lineage before your marriage. It is my belief that the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act and the failure to reform the marriage laws has caused much needless harm. I’m relieved you came to me for advice about propagation. In my view it would be most unwise.
LEONARD
Dr. Savage says childbirth would be the best thing for her.
DR HYSLOP
He was her attending physician and look at the state she’s in. Dr. Savage’s methods are sadly outdated, I regret to say.
LEONARD
I don’t want children but Virginia think she does.
DR HYSLOP
She’ll get over it. The question really is whether she should be certified. You do realize that your wife’s attempt at suicide mandates her certification for the protection of landlords, staff – anyone she encounters is at peril.
LEONARD
We can’t do that. Once she is certified divorce is impossible. Roger Fry is chained to his mad wife forever.
DR HYSLOP
You needn’t divorce, you have grounds for a nullity. Do you contemplate divorce?
LEONARD
Not yet at any rate. But the honeymoon – it was ghastly.
DR HYSLOP
Coitus was completed, I assume? Or not?
LEONARD
Hard to say. On our wedding night Virginia became so excited, dashing about the room I admit I became quite angry shouting at her to lie down. I’m afraid she wet the bed. We’ve tried a few times since but under the circumstances my manhood is severely impaired.
DR HYSLOP
I assume you had all the usual experiences of a man of the world?
LEONARD
Oh, yes. In Ceylon it was all concubines and courtesans. I was very lucky not to contract the syph.
DR HYSLOP
Yes, these hazards are much more common abroad. Your general health is quite good? Apart from the tremor, I mean.
LEONARD
Jews are a hardy race. We can survive anything.
DR HYSLOP
It might be that this young woman is simply too effete for coitus and must remain a natural spinster.
LEONARD
I threw over my career for this marriage. It was a big step.
DR HYSLOP
Civil service, I believe?
LEONARD
I was administrator of Hambantota.
DR HYSLOP
Bully for you! Britain’s colonizing, civilizing impulse is the glory of the world.
LEONARD
Well, I found it a difficult, dangerous and dirty job.
DR HYSLOP
So is caring for the terminally insane. My advice is that once Virginia is calmer you attempt to explain to her that if Dalingridge Hall were not open to her there is nowhere she can go without certification. Convince her that absolute fidelity to our dictates is her only hope of healing her poor brain. Keep your chin up, young fellow. Best not to think about yourself so much. Spend as much time as you can manage in the open air.
LEONARD
I need a job. I must establish a writing career.
DR HYSLOP
Return to the Civil Service, is my advice.
LEONARD
The climate in Ceylon would kill Virginia.
DR HYSLOP
You should discuss certification, annulment and divorce with a specialist solicitor. I can recommend a few names. All this brooding gets one into a funk, don’t you see? Cultivate a sense of proportion.
LEONARD
I’ll try.
Alysse Aallyn 