Lyrics - Act Three by Hammill Peter

(
Immediately afterwards,
Madeline
Usher enters, in a trance)
MADELINE
Carriages at seven
I shall wear the flower he gave me
It's so cold here deep beneath the lapping water...
The water
The water
My love
Head against his shoulder, 'cross the lawn
I hear the music...
Silent blackness,
In the lake
I'm sinking slowly...
Oh, how lovely, nothing could be more becoming...
Underwater, floating in the icy darkness...
Count the candles '
May
I dance with you this evening?'...
On the surface
Swans are feeding high above me...
Hold him tightly round and round the floor we're spinning
Breathing water
I am drowning
Watch the sun rise driving home across the meadows...
All is darkness
I can feel myself dissolving
The water
The water
The darkness
The darkness
My love
Head against his shoulder
Floating in the icy darkness
Hold him tightly
I can feel myself dissolving
Oh how lovely
Deep beneath the lapping water
Count the candles
I am drowning
I am drowning
Count the candles
Floating in the icy darkness
Hold him tightly
I can feel myself dissolving
Oh how lovely
Deep beneath the lapping water
Count the candles
I am drowning
Oh how lovely
I am drowning
I am drowning
Oh how lovely
Oh how lovely
Oh how lovely
MONTRESOR
Stop,
Madeline, look at me!
My god, man, what is wrong with her?
USHER
Yes, it's right you should know,
She is dying!
I have not dared to speak of it.
A chronic catalepsy had drained her of her youth.
I have watched her waste away and could do nothing!
A period of health is followed by sudden coma, death-like sleep.
It can last a full day or more, no movement, no colour, no flame in the cheeks.
MONTRESOR
What, then of these dreaming visions?
USHER
The recovery, ah, this is even worse!
She rises and moves about the house but her mind still sleeps...
You see her now a mindless ghost:
Beautiful, dead eyes stare in sleep, unrecognising.
She speaks in dreams, sees only dreams, she haunts the house in hideous sleepwalking and may not be restrained, for like some automaton she tirelessly thrusts and tears herself against her fetters, heedless of injury.
And so she walks and then she wakes, remembering nothing, so week that she can barely build up strength before she is struck down again.
Month after month each attack worse than the last.
Death will not wait long.
Her final days are flickering past.
Dear
God, helpless, helpless!
MONTRESOR
But what is the word from her doctors?
Do they hold out no hope, nor offer any treatment?
USHER
MONTRESOR
CHORUSThey do not understandher caseand cannot treat a casethey do not understand
He does not understand
You're dealing with a case
Who is her doctor, a specialist
I trust?
Yes indeed, one ofthe foremost rank
You're dealing with a case
Then he will help her,
Montresor oh, yes,no more of this he surely must
You do not understandnowno more talk
He does notof cures, please, understand
Or of doctor.
I bless you concern,but know that shewill walk no more tonight.
When she wakes soonshe will need my care.
I must be there, so,dear friend, goodnight. (
Usher exits with
Madeline, leaving
Montresor alone.
The
Herbalist enters)
THE
HERBALIST
Good evening, sir.
And you must be the friend of
Mister
Usher.
I'm so pleased to meet you, sir, but have little time to spare for knowledge such as mine is wanted everywhere.
In poor dwellings, yes, but some as great as
Usher's.
My card...
MONTRESOR '
J.
Ducrow,
Esq.
Herbalist,
Doctor of
Natural
Medicine'...
HERBALIST
At you service, and it could be, sir, that you have need of my panaceas now...
I have
Mandrake juice that will slake any fever, cures to convince you though you be an unbeliever now...
Laugh - would you? - at these seeds of mine.
You question the cure's causes, but
Logic and
Reason do not answer, and
Nature runs her courses.
I have purest poppy for the soundest of sleeps; a pure cake of hemp plant that's a warranted surcease of worldly sorrow.
Lying words will be believed if perfumed by this pastil, or my elixir's guaranteed to bend the will of fairest womankind.
Scheme, would you, for a worldly gain?
Lust after a frigid virgin?
My herbs can grant your secret cravings and my price is modest!
MONTRESOR
No!
No!
HERBALIST
And my price is modest...
MONTRESOR
No, thank you!
No!
HERBALIST
Oh it's very modest...
MONTRESOR
No, no thank you!
No!
No thank you,
No!
HERBALIST
Perhaps a poultice of
Toadbane for weakness of the manly parts, caused by too much wine or age, perhaps by over-frequent natural indulgence...
Applied with skill, it will revive the fleshy passions of a corpse... ...of a corpse
MONTRESOR
I said no
I meant no!
HERBALIST
Well then,
Good-day...
MONTRESOR
So that is
Usher's idea of a doctor!
That wretched mountebank can't help them.
I confront madness face to face!
And whatever it's cause, it lies within this place
I breathe an atmosphere of sorrow; an alien despair makes my courage fail, like the collapse of an opium vision, the hideous dropping of the veil
CHORUS
Tormented by a thousand doubts and fancies, he will not sleep tonight.
Chilled by the gloom of his surroundings, mortal, half-dead mortar.
MONTRESOR
CHORUS
He will not sleep!
I see simple solutions
He will not sleep!
State them laud and clear,but the echoes of the
House
He will not sleep!shout '
Unreason!'
The one thing that
I fear.
The evil that is done cannot be undone.
The evil that will come cannot be prevented.
The evil that is done
Yet somehow
I must helpthese two tormented souls, cannot be undone.for if
I cannot, who will?
The evil that will come
These are the friends
I've loved so dearly... cannot be prevented
Leave!
No!
What a monstrous thought!
Depart!
How could
I even think of it!
Go!
Abandon those who have need of me!
Leave!
Oh, but what a temptation,
Depart!to run like a thief in the night,
Go!
And yet now
I cannotbecause it is too late
Before it is too late,
I feel myself bound up in before you are bound up inthe web of fear and pain, the web of fear and pain,the evil that surrounds me. the evil that surrounds you.
It cannot be undone.
It cannot be undone.
The evil that will come cannot be prevented.
End of
Act
Three

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