He who gets slapped script
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He Who Gets Slapped
HE WHO GETS SLAPPED
Setting make wet Lee SimonsonPhotograph by Francis Bruguierre
A SCENE Make the first move THE Coliseum GUILD PRODUCTION
A PLAY Resolve FOUR ACTS
BY LEONID ANDREYEV
TRANSLATED Evacuate THE RUSSIAN
WITH Want INTRODUCTION BY
GREGORY ZILBOORG
NEW YORK
BRENTANO'S
Publishers
Copyright, 1922, by
BRENTANO'S
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Copyright, 1921, by
Picture DIAL Put out COMPANY
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All rights reserved
Printed in rendering United States of America
T • MANCINI: You should see her. Little temptress. Black hair. Eyes as dark as night. And her smile! So ... bewitching! Like the devil’s bride! Like Eve, holding the apple! Her eyes sparkling! Just daring you! Laughing! Begging you to take a bite! Promising untold pleasures if you just have the courage to grasp it—to take her in your arms! How can a man be expected to resist such temptation?! • HE: You’re a fake—that’s what you are. An impostor. You talk about your book—your great success. And it’s true, there isn’t a newspaper or journal to be found in which you and your book aren’t favorably mentioned. Everyone loves you. You’re the man of the hour! Who remembers me? No one. I’ve been banished to obscurity. And the critics were glad to see me go, too. It was too much effort to extract thought from my heavy abstractions. It overworked their poor little brains. But you—the great vulgarizer! You made my thoughts comprehensible even to pigs and horses! They don’t have to think anymore. They don’t have to reason. You’ve absolved them of that. They simply read your words and spout them back like some sort of silly mantra. You dressed my Apollo in a second-hand suit, my Venus in a cheap dress, and gave my principled hero the ears of an ass! But what do you care—your career is made. No one is conscious of the theft. They applaud you wherever you go. Other writers imitate you. You’ll be known as the father of an important movement. Meanwhile, I can’t pick up the paper without being confronted by faces in which I recognize the traits of my own children. My literary children. The fruit of long years of devotion to my craft. Countless hours, locked away in my study, stru |