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Jennet enters the room, then sits in the rocking chair. Later in sadness she goes to the window to look into the darkness and to see the marshes; she presses her forehead against the glass, as if in an attempt to alleviate both the pain and the fever; her whole figure droops.
The stage is utterly black, and a song is played - very sad and mournful; the music gets quieter and quieter - at the same time the scene is slowly lit by the white-grey lamps imitating a moonlit scenery. The lights concentrate on a figure, entering the scene. The music stops playing when the lights are bright enough to show Jennet and her surroundings, but never too bright.
Jennet is pallid and wearing a black, long, shaggy dress (19. century) and a bonnet. We see a half dark child's room and the window. Jennet's almost white hands show her mental disposition.
The stage is utterly black, and a song is played - very sad and mournful; the music gets quieter and quieter - at the same time the scene is slowly lit by the white-grey lamps imitating a moonlit scenery. The lights concentrate on a figure, entering the scene. The music stops playing when the lights are bright enough to show Jennet and her surroundings, but never too bright.
Jennet is pallid and wearing a black, long, shaggy dress (19. century) and a bonnet. We see a half dark child's room and the window. Jennet's almost white hands show her mental disposition.
She whispers
Nathaniel...Nathaniel...Nathaniel, where are you my wonderful child? Nathaniel?
Lights may give an illusion of a child in a room.
Every day, every hour and every minute I can hear your weak voice pleading for rescue, and yet I am not able to help you, as I was not able to do it on that day. My whole body is shivering, my heart is throbbing, my legs ready to spring, but where, where?
Jennet takes a teddy bear from the bed, hold it tight to her breast and sits in despair. She cuddles the bear, as if it was a child.
Nothing can be seen, the treacherous fret approached suddenly blinding both the driver and the horse; the evil, maddening shroud fogged the place, cursed by the dead and the living alike, and nothing can be heard, only you, my little boy...Nathaniel? Nathaniel...
She whispers.
What a mother was I that I let it happen? My little son, I have lived in the abyss of despair, my happiness had been short, my punishment has been absolute, endlessly eternal. Your father had given you to me, my sweetheart, but forced by his family - he abandoned us like a rat running away from a sinking ship.
My love and my life, my beautiful child, I promised to love you and to take care of you...will you be ever able to forgive me?
Sitting in a rocking chair in your room, I watch the marshes, the place where I heard you the last time. I watch them and I hate them.
I hate the marshes, this house, the village and the whole world for killing my dearest son! If only they hadn't taken you from me! If only they hadn't forced me to abandon you; my dearest, dearest son! They had tried to kill my motherly love, but the bonds of a mother and her son shall never be axed!!
She gets up frantically from the chair and comes to the window. The lights change direction to lighten the window and later to show the marshes.
My father, mother and sister...my own family, my blood, your blood; but all had disowned us...
Cruel, heartless people.
Alone, without money and any decent future for you, I had bitterly accepted my father's deal, the deal of growing hell. I was so young, only sixteen, and already the disgrace of my family, who condemned me, not because I had given birth to an illegitimate child, but because I had loved you so much.
It was only when I came here, to Eel Marsh House that I was happy again, for I could see your dear little face, could talk to you and could laugh with you.
Hardly had I found you when our happiness was terminated with you buried by devilish quicksands of the marshes.
She screams and runs to the window.
Thick, suffocating and devouring everything on its way, the fret is coming, again enveloping me in a cobweb of agony, and again I can hear Ketwik's trap, clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.
There is a sound of a pony and a trap, the lights abruptly go off.
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