The Right to Live (1935)
Josephine Hutchinson: Stella Trent
Photos
Quotes
-
Maurice : You know, it's a funny thing about flying, but danger's the last thing you think about when you get used to it. Being up there is the most *natural* thing in the world. I often feel I don't want to come down.
Major Licondra : Something exhilarating about looking death in the eye, eh.
Maurice : After all, what if you do smash?
Stella Trent : Darling! Mustn't say such things.
Maurice : I know, I know. Still, it's just as well to face things. Death isn't really important, is it, Major?
Major Licondra : You got that in India, I suppose.
Maurice : I wonder. You know, there's not much religion lying about nowadays for us chaps to hang on to. I often have a feeling about it.
Stella Trent : About death?
Maurice : Yes. This shell we live in. Why, it's like a house you pay rent on. You move in, stay for awhile, then move out again.
Stella Trent : Oh, how morbid. Let's talk about something else.
-
Maurice : Darling, if sometimes I've seemed to take for granted all that you've done for me, you mustn't think that I'm not conscious of all that I owe.
Stella Trent : But you never let me do *anything* for you, Maurice.
Maurice : I wouldn't let you nurse me. Oh, I couldn't bear that. I don't want you to smell of antiseptics. I want you to smell of the dawn.
-
Nurse Wayland : [talking about Maurice] Yes, he kept his courage for you. I was the only one who saw his depression.
Stella Trent : Before last night I never saw him depressed.
Nurse Wayland : You never saw anything.
Stella Trent : Why do you talk to me like that, Nurse. What have I done to you? I don't understand it.
Nurse Wayland : Don't you? He hid everything from you. *All* his moments of black misery. But I was only his paid nurse, he didn't have to pretend with me. He could quarrel with me and say he was sorry if he'd hurt me, knowing that I didn't count. But to make you laugh, he plastered his face with flour, painted his nose red and jumped through a hoop. You only saw the white mask of the clown. I saw his naked, tortured, triumphant soul.