ound it makes--a gulley,
To cut your heart out, if you doubted it:
And so, you're faithful, even to a fool;
While I would just be faithful to myself.
You thrive on misery.

JUDITH:
Nay: I've only asked
A little happiness of life: I've starved
For happiness, God kens.

BELL:
What's happiness?
You've got a sweet-tooth; and don't relish life:
You want run-honey, when it's the honeycomb
That gives the crunch and flavour. Would you be
As happy as a maggot in a medlar,
Swelling yourself in sweet deliciousness,
Till the blackbird nips you? None escapes his crop.
You'd quarrel with the juiciest plum, because
Your teeth grit on the stone, instead of cracking
The shell, and savouring the bitter kernel.
Nigh all the jests life cracks have bitter kernels.

JUDITH:
Ay, bitter enough to set my teeth on edge.

BELL:
What are teeth for, if we must live on pap?
The sweetest marrow's in the hardest bone,
As you've found with Ruth, I take it.

JUDITH:
Ay: and still,
You have been faithful, Bell.

BELL:
A faithful fool,
Against the grain, this fifteen-year: my son
And that dead woman were too strong for me:
They turned me false to my nature; broke me in
Like a flea in harness, that draws a nutshell-coach.
Till then I'd jumped, and bit, at my own sweet will.
Oh! amn't I the wiseacre, the downy owl,
Fancying myself as knowing as a signpost?
And yet, there's always some new twist to learn.
Life's an old thimblerigger; and, it seems,
Can still get on the silly side of me,
Can still bamboozle me with his hanky-panky:
He always kens a trick worth two of mine;
Though he lets me spot the pea beneath the thimble
Just often enough to keep me in good conceit.
And he's kept you going, too, with Ruth to live for.

JUDITH:
If it hadn't been for Ruth ...

BELL:
He kens, he kens:
As canny as he's cute, for his own ends,
He's a wise showman; and doesn't overfeed
The living skeleton or let the fat lady starve:
And so, we're each kept going, in our own kind,
Till we've served our turn. Mine's talking, you'll have gathered!

JUDITH:
Ay, you've a tongue.

BELL:
It rattles in my head
Like crocks in a mugger's cart: but I've had few
To talk with here; and too much time for brooding,
Turning things over and over in my own mind,
These fifteen years.

JUDITH: