The Mousetrap

LISA. (sitting on the left arm of the sofa) Five years.

LESTER. Will she ever get any better?

LISA. She has her bad and her good days.

LESTER. Oh, yes, but I mean really better. I say, that’s tough going, isn’t it?

LISA. (rather foreign) As you say, it is “tough going.”

LESTER. (climbing up the ladder and falling up before reaching the top) Can’t the doctors do anything?

LISA. No. She has one of these diseases for which at present there is no known cure. Some day perhaps they will discover one. In the meantime—(She shrugs her shoulders) she can never get any better. Every month, every year, she gets a little weaker. She may go on like that for many, many years.

LESTER. Yes, that is tough. It’s tough on him. (He comes down the ladder)

LISA. As you say, it is tough on him.

LESTER. (moving toRof the sofa) He’s awfully good to her, isn’t he?

LISA. He cares for her very much.

LESTER. (sitting on the right arm of the sofa) What was she like when she was young?

LISA. She was very pretty. Yes, a very pretty girl, fair-haired and blue-eyed and always laughing.

LESTER. (bewildered by life) You know, it gets me. I mean, time—what it does to you. How people change. I mean, it’s hard to know what’s real and what isn’t—or if anything is real.

LISA. (rising and crossing to the door downR) This bottle seems to be real.

LISAexits downRleaving the door open.LESTERrises, collects his satchel from the tableRC, crosses to the armchairLCand puts some books from the chair into the satchel.LISAcan be heard talking toANYA, but the words are indistinguishable.LISAreenters downR.

LESTER. (guiltily) The professor said it would be all right to take anything I wanted.

LISA. (moving toRof the tableRCand glancing at the books) Of course, if he said so.

LESTER. He’s rather wonderful, isn’t he?

LISA. (absorbed in a book) Hmm?

LESTER. The Prof., he’s wonderful. We all think so, you know. Everybody’s terrifically keen. The way he puts things. All the past seems to come alive. (He pauses) I mean, when he talks about it you see what everything means. He’s pretty unusual, isn’t he?

LISA. He has a very fine brain.

LESTER. (sitting on the right arm of the armchair) Bit of luck for us that he had to leave his own country and came here. But it isn’t only his brain, you know, it’s something else.

LISAselects a “Walter Savage Landor,” moves and sits on the sofa at the left end.

LISA. I know what you mean. (She reads)

LESTER. You just feel that he knows all about you. I mean, that he knows just how difficult everything is. Because you can’t get away from it—life is difficult, isn’t it?

LISA. (still reading) I do not see why it should be so.

LESTER. (startled) I beg your pardon?

LISA. I don’t see why you say—and so many people say—that life is difficult. I think life is very simple.

LESTER. Oh, come now—hardly simple.

LISA. But, yes. It has a pattern, the sharp edges, very easy to see.

LESTER. Well, I think it’s just one unholy mess. (Doubtfully, but hoping he is right) Perhaps you’re a kind of Christian Scientist?

LISA. (laughing) No, I’m not a Christian Scientist.

LESTER. But you really think life’s easy and happy?

LISA. I did not say it was easy or happy. I said it was simple.

LESTER. (rising and crossing toLof the sofa) I know you’re awfully good—(Embarrassed) I mean, the way you look after Mrs. Hendryk and everything.

LISA. I look after her because I want to do so, not because it is good.

LESTER. I mean, you could get a well-paid job if you tried.

LISA. Oh, yes, I could get a job quite easily. I am a trained physicist.

LESTER. (impressed) I’d no idea of that. But then, surely you ought to get a job, oughtn’t you?

LISA. How do you mean—ought?

LESTER. Well, I mean it’s rather a waste, isn’t it, if you don’t? Of your ability, I mean.

LISA. A waste of my training, perhaps, yes. But ability—I think what I am doing now I do well, and I like doing it.

LESTER. Yes, but . . .