Excerpt from False Premises: Five One Act Plays
It is evening, and the Mother, having filled the teapot, sets it on the hob to brew and turns to light the lamp. Its dim rays, as it kindles, reveal more clearly the bare cottage interior where, though squalor is absent, comfort is reduced to a minimum. Even the table set for the meal has no cloth on it, the cups are brown earthenware, and the loaf of home-made bread lies without accompaniment on the bare board, a large bone-handled knife beside it. A cripple child, aged twelve or thereabouts, carrying a bundle of faggots hobbles across the room and lays them by the hearth; relieved of her load she stands for a moment to watch the lamp-lighting: then her eyes turn to the room"s one adornment, a Christmas Tree decked with tinsel and candles which stands on a chest to the side of the window furthest from the hearth. Opposite the fire-place is the door: through the window one sees the grey deepening of the winter twilight which the lighting of the lamp has turned almost into darkness.
Child. Shall I light the candles, Mother?... Mother, shall I light them?
Mother. Yes, if you like. Draw the curtain though first!
[The woman, slow to attend, speaks in a tone of patient weariness.
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