It's Too Late Now: The Autobiography of a Writer (1939) by A. A. Milne

Author:A. A. Milne [Milne, A. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2017-09-20T09:42:21+00:00

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A Cambridge friend had asked me to spend a few days with him after Christmas, and I had accepted his invitation cheerfully, even after hearing that the entertainment would include ‘private theatricals.’ I imagined myself, with the rest of the house-party, amusing a few friends in the drawing-room, my own part being one of those silent impersonations whose range, extending as it did now from a Greek maiden to a monkey, could embrace almost any-thing. More attractive was the thought that I might write the dialogue for the others to speak, or compose the lyrics for some home-made pantomime. At the least I should be helpful as prompter or scene-shifter. It was an appalling shock to find that we had taken the Ipswich Town Hall, and that in the one serious play in a triple bill I was to be the wounded hero.

Years later I wrote a series for Punch called ‘Little Plays for Amateurs.’ This might have been one of those. The hero can be (as you please) a Frenchman in the Franco-German war, a Roundhead in the Civil War or a Southerner in the War of Secession. Wounded after the appropriate battle, he drags himself to the house of his beloved, to find a German, a Cavalier or a Northerner billeted there; and not only billeted there, but making unacceptable advances to the heroine. One steps lightly into a play like this thinking that one is going to be the hero, only to discover in the big scene that it is the other man who is up-stage all the time, sacrificing duty and his own feelings to the call of an unrequited love. Personally I didn’t mind being down-stage, if I couldn’t be at home. Owing to the fact that I was wounded, the heroine and I had a passionate love-scene on the floor, with my head among the footlights; which was no position in which to remember a long speech describing my emotions during the Battle of Sedan. However I did my best. Only one line was unforgettable: ‘All through that long night I thought of thee.’ She moved my head out of the footlights and stroked it; I wish I could remember what she looked like. I said again ‘All through that long night I thought of you—thee,’ wondering what came next. Fortunately it was the German colonel, a little early on his cue. Having informed me gruffly that I was his prisoner, and that escape was impossible, he left us. It was a desperate situation, but all was not lost; a secret passage in which the heroine and I had played as children offered a way out. She helped me to my feet, and we had an affecting farewell scene. ‘All through that long night,’ I said–but she was in a hurry. ‘Quick, quick,’ she cried, ‘you must go!’ She led me in to the cunningly hidden door. ‘Farewell, beloved,’ I cried, and, opening the door, stepped into the arms of the Colonel who knew about it.

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