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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10623-0.txt b/10623-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..02e2cdd --- /dev/null +++ b/10623-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8187 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10623 *** + +Plays by + +Susan Glaspell + + +TRIFLES + +THE OUTSIDE + +THE VERGE + +INHERITORS + + + + +TRIFLES + + +First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Wharf Theatre, +Provincetown, Mass., August 8, 1916. + + +GEORGE HENDERSON (County Attorney) + +HENRY PETERS (Sheriff) + +LEWIS HALE, A neighboring farmer + +MRS PETERS + +MRS HALE + + +SCENE: _The kitchen is the now abandoned farmhouse of_ JOHN WRIGHT, _a +gloomy kitchen, and left without having been put in order--unwashed pans +under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the bread-box, a dish-towel on +the table--other signs of incompleted work. At the rear the outer door +opens and the_ SHERIFF _comes in followed by the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _and_ +HALE. _The_ SHERIFF _and_ HALE _are men in middle life, the_ COUNTY +ATTORNEY _is a young man; all are much bundled up and go at once to the +stove. They are followed by the two women--the_ SHERIFF_'s wife first; +she is a slight wiry woman, a thin nervous face_. MRS HALE _is larger +and would ordinarily be called more comfortable looking, but she is +disturbed now and looks fearfully about as she enters. The women have +come in slowly, and stand close together near the door_. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_rubbing his hands_) This feels good. Come up to the +fire, ladies. + +MRS PETERS: (_after taking a step forward_) I'm not--cold. + +SHERIFF: (_unbuttoning his overcoat and stepping away from the stove as +if to mark the beginning of official business_) Now, Mr Hale, before we +move things about, you explain to Mr Henderson just what you saw when +you came here yesterday morning. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: By the way, has anything been moved? Are things just as +you left them yesterday? + +SHERIFF: (_looking about_) It's just the same. When it dropped below +zero last night I thought I'd better send Frank out this morning to make +a fire for us--no use getting pneumonia with a big case on, but I told +him not to touch anything except the stove--and you know Frank. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Somebody should have been left here yesterday. + +SHERIFF: Oh--yesterday. When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for +that man who went crazy--I want you to know I had my hands full +yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by today and as long as +I went over everything here myself-- + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, Mr Hale, tell just what happened when you came +here yesterday morning. + +HALE: Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes. We came +along the road from my place and as I got here I said, I'm going to see +if I can't get John Wright to go in with me on a party telephone.' I +spoke to Wright about it once before and he put me off, saying folks +talked too much anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet--I guess +you know about how much he talked himself; but I thought maybe if I went +to the house and talked about it before his wife, though I said to Harry +that I didn't know as what his wife wanted made much difference to +John-- + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Let's talk about that later, Mr Hale. I do want to talk +about that, but tell now just what happened when you got to the house. + +HALE: I didn't hear or see anything; I knocked at the door, and still it +was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up, it was past eight o'clock. +So I knocked again, and I thought I heard somebody say, 'Come in.' I +wasn't sure, I'm not sure yet, but I opened the door--this door +(_indicating the door by which the two women are still standing_) and +there in that rocker--(_pointing to it_) sat Mrs Wright. + +(_They all look at the rocker_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: What--was she doing? + +HALE: She was rockin' back and forth. She had her apron in her hand and +was kind of--pleating it. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: And how did she--look? + +HALE: Well, she looked queer. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: How do you mean--queer? + +HALE: Well, as if she didn't know what she was going to do next. And +kind of done up. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: How did she seem to feel about your coming? + +HALE: Why, I don't think she minded--one way or other. She didn't pay +much attention. I said, 'How do, Mrs Wright it's cold, ain't it?' And +she said, 'Is it?'--and went on kind of pleating at her apron. Well, I +was surprised; she didn't ask me to come up to the stove, or to set +down, but just sat there, not even looking at me, so I said, 'I want to +see John.' And then she--laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh. I +thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said a little sharp: 'Can't +I see John?' 'No', she says, kind o' dull like. 'Ain't he home?' says I. +'Yes', says she, 'he's home'. 'Then why can't I see him?' I asked her, +out of patience. ''Cause he's dead', says she. _'Dead_?' says I. She +just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but rockin' back and +forth. 'Why--where is he?' says I, not knowing what to say. She just +pointed upstairs--like that (_himself pointing to the room above_) I got +up, with the idea of going up there. I walked from there to here--then I +says, 'Why, what did he die of?' 'He died of a rope round his neck', +says she, and just went on pleatin' at her apron. Well, I went out and +called Harry. I thought I might--need help. We went upstairs and there +he was lyin'-- + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: I think I'd rather have you go into that upstairs, +where you can point it all out. Just go on now with the rest of the +story. + +HALE: Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked ... +(_stops, his face twitches_) ... but Harry, he went up to him, and he +said, 'No, he's dead all right, and we'd better not touch anything.' So +we went back down stairs. She was still sitting that same way. 'Has +anybody been notified?' I asked. 'No', says she unconcerned. 'Who did +this, Mrs Wright?' said Harry. He said it business-like--and she stopped +pleatin' of her apron. 'I don't know', she says. 'You don't _know_?' +says Harry. 'No', says she. 'Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with him?' +says Harry. 'Yes', says she, 'but I was on the inside'. 'Somebody +slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him and you didn't wake up?' +says Harry. 'I didn't wake up', she said after him. We must 'a looked as +if we didn't see how that could be, for after a minute she said, 'I +sleep sound'. Harry was going to ask her more questions but I said maybe +we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner, or the sheriff, +so Harry went fast as he could to Rivers' place, where there's a +telephone. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: And what did Mrs Wright do when she knew that you had +gone for the coroner? + +HALE: She moved from that chair to this one over here (_pointing to a +small chair in the corner_) and just sat there with her hands held +together and looking down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some +conversation, so I said I had come in to see if John wanted to put in a +telephone, and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and +looked at me--scared, (_the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY, _who has had his notebook +out, makes a note_) I dunno, maybe it wasn't scared. I wouldn't like to +say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr Lloyd came, and you, Mr +Peters, and so I guess that's all I know that you don't. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_looking around_) I guess we'll go upstairs first--and +then out to the barn and around there, (_to the_ SHERIFF) You're +convinced that there was nothing important here--nothing that would +point to any motive. + +SHERIFF: Nothing here but kitchen things. + +(_The_ COUNTY ATTORNEY, _after again looking around the kitchen, opens +the door of a cupboard closet. He gets up on a chair and looks on a +shelf. Pulls his hand away, sticky_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Here's a nice mess. + +(_The women draw nearer_.) + +MRS PETERS: (_to the other woman_) Oh, her fruit; it did freeze, (_to +the_ LAWYER) She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the +fire'd go out and her jars would break. + +SHERIFF: Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin' +about her preserves. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: I guess before we're through she may have something +more serious than preserves to worry about. + +HALE: Well, women are used to worrying over trifles. + +(_The two women move a little closer together_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_with the gallantry of a young politician_) And yet, +for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies? (_the women +do not unbend. He goes to the sink, takes a dipperful of water from the +pail and pouring it into a basin, washes his hands. Starts to wipe them +on the roller-towel, turns it for a cleaner place_) Dirty towels! +(_kicks his foot against the pans under the sink_) Not much of a +housekeeper, would you say, ladies? + +MRS HALE: (_stiffly_) There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: To be sure. And yet (_with a little bow to her_) I know +there are some Dickson county farmhouses which do not have such roller +towels. (_He gives it a pull to expose its length again_.) + +MRS HALE: Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always +as clean as they might be. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Ah, loyal to your sex, I see. But you and Mrs Wright +were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too. + +MRS HALE: (_shaking her head_) I've not seen much of her of late years. +I've not been in this house--it's more than a year. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: And why was that? You didn't like her? + +MRS HALE: I liked her all well enough. Farmers' wives have their hands +full, Mr Henderson. And then-- + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes--? + +MRS HALE: (_looking about_) It never seemed a very cheerful place. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: No--it's not cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the +homemaking instinct. + +MRS HALE: Well, I don't know as Wright had, either. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: You mean that they didn't get on very well? + +MRS HALE: No, I don't mean anything. But I don't think a place'd be any +cheerfuller for John Wright's being in it. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'd like to talk more of that a little later. I want to +get the lay of things upstairs now. (_He goes to the left, where three +steps lead to a stair door_.) + +SHERIFF: I suppose anything Mrs Peters does'll be all right. She was to +take in some clothes for her, you know, and a few little things. We left +in such a hurry yesterday. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes, but I would like to see what you take, Mrs Peters, +and keep an eye out for anything that might be of use to us. + +MRS PETERS: Yes, Mr Henderson. + +(_The women listen to the men's steps on the stairs, then look about the +kitchen_.) + +MRS HALE: I'd hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around +and criticising. + +(_She arranges the pans under sink which the_ LAWYER _had shoved out of +place_.) + +MRS PETERS: Of course it's no more than their duty. + +MRS HALE: Duty's all right, but I guess that deputy sheriff that came +out to make the fire might have got a little of this on. (_gives the +roller towel a pull_) Wish I'd thought of that sooner. Seems mean to +talk about her for not having things slicked up when she had to come +away in such a hurry. + +MRS PETERS: (_who has gone to a small table in the left rear corner of +the room, and lifted one end of a towel that covers a pan_) She had +bread set. (_Stands still_.) + +MRS HALE: (_eyes fixed on a loaf of bread beside the bread-box, which is +on a low shelf at the other side of the room. Moves slowly toward it_) +She was going to put this in there, (_picks up loaf, then abruptly drops +it. In a manner of returning to familiar things_) It's a shame about her +fruit. I wonder if it's all gone. (_gets up on the chair and looks_) I +think there's some here that's all right, Mrs Peters. Yes--here; +(_holding it toward the window_) this is cherries, too. (_looking +again_) I declare I believe that's the only one. (_gets down, bottle in +her hand. Goes to the sink and wipes it off on the outside_) She'll feel +awful bad after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the +afternoon I put up my cherries last summer. + +(_She puts the bottle on the big kitchen table, center of the room. With +a sigh, is about to sit down in the rocking-chair. Before she is seated +realizes what chair it is; with a slow look at it, steps back. The chair +which she has touched rocks back and forth_.) + +MRS PETERS: Well, I must get those things from the front room closet, +(_she goes to the door at the right, but after looking into the other +room, steps back_) You coming with me, Mrs Hale? You could help me carry +them. + +(_They go in the other room; reappear,_ MRS PETERS _carrying a dress and +skirt,_ MRS HALE _following with a pair of shoes._) + +MRS PETERS: My, it's cold in there. + +(_She puts the clothes on the big table, and hurries to the stove._) + +MRS HALE: (_examining the skirt_) Wright was close. I think maybe that's +why she kept so much to herself. She didn't even belong to the Ladies +Aid. I suppose she felt she couldn't do her part, and then you don't +enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and +be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in +the choir. But that--oh, that was thirty years ago. This all you was to +take in? + +MRS PETERS: She said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want, for there +isn't much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just +to make her feel more natural. She said they was in the top drawer in +this cupboard. Yes, here. And then her little shawl that always hung +behind the door. (_opens stair door and looks_) Yes, here it is. + +(_Quickly shuts door leading upstairs._) + +MRS HALE: (_abruptly moving toward her_) Mrs Peters? + +MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale? + +MRS HALE: Do you think she did it? + +MRS PETERS: (_in a frightened voice_) Oh, I don't know. + +MRS HALE: Well, I don't think she did. Asking for an apron and her +little shawl. Worrying about her fruit. + +MRS PETERS: (_starts to speak, glances up, where footsteps are heard in +the room above. In a low voice_) Mr Peters says it looks bad for her. Mr +Henderson is awful sarcastic in a speech and he'll make fun of her +sayin' she didn't wake up. + +MRS HALE: Well, I guess John Wright didn't wake when they was slipping +that rope under his neck. + +MRS PETERS: No, it's strange. It must have been done awful crafty and +still. They say it was such a--funny way to kill a man, rigging it all +up like that. + +MRS HALE: That's just what Mr Hale said. There was a gun in the house. +He says that's what he can't understand. + +MRS PETERS: Mr Henderson said coming out that what was needed for the +case was a motive; something to show anger, or--sudden feeling. + +MRS HALE: (_who is standing by the table_) Well, I don't see any signs +of anger around here, (_she puts her hand on the dish towel which lies +on the table, stands looking down at table, one half of which is clean, +the other half messy_) It's wiped to here, (_makes a move as if to +finish work, then turns and looks at loaf of bread outside the breadbox. +Drops towel. In that voice of coming back to familiar things._) Wonder +how they are finding things upstairs. I hope she had it a little more +red-up up there. You know, it seems kind of sneaking. Locking her up in +town and then coming out here and trying to get her own house to turn +against her! + +MRS PETERS: But Mrs Hale, the law is the law. + +MRS HALE: I s'pose 'tis, (_unbuttoning her coat_) Better loosen up your +things, Mrs Peters. You won't feel them when you go out. + +(MRS PETERS _takes off her fur tippet, goes to hang it on hook at back +of room, stands looking at the under part of the small corner table_.) + +MRS PETERS: She was piecing a quilt. (_She brings the large sewing +basket and they look at the bright pieces_.) + +MRS HALE: It's log cabin pattern. Pretty, isn't it? I wonder if she was +goin' to quilt it or just knot it? + +(_Footsteps have been heard coming down the stairs_. The SHERIFF enters +followed by HALE and the COUNTY ATTORNEY.) + +SHERIFF: They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it! (_The +men laugh, the women look abashed_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_rubbing his hands over the stove_) Frank's fire +didn't do much up there, did it? Well, let's go out to the barn and get +that cleared up. (_The men go outside_.) + +MRS HALE: (_resentfully_) I don't know as there's anything so strange, +our takin' up our time with little things while we're waiting for them +to get the evidence. (_she sits down at the big table smoothing out a +block with decision_) I don't see as it's anything to laugh about. + +MRS PETERS: (_apologetically_) Of course they've got awful important +things on their minds. + +(_Pulls up a chair and joins MRS HALE at the table_.) + +MRS HALE: (_examining another block_) Mrs Peters, look at this one. +Here, this is the one she was working on, and look at the sewing! All +the rest of it has been so nice and even. And look at this! It's all +over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn't know what she was about! + +(_After she has said this they look at each other, then start to glance +back at the door. After an instant_ MRS HALE _has pulled at a knot and +ripped the sewing_.) + +MRS PETERS: Oh, what are you doing, Mrs Hale? + +MRS HALE: (_mildly_) Just pulling out a stitch or two that's not sewed +very good. (_threading a needle_) Bad sewing always made me fidgety. + +MRS PETERS: (nervously) I don't think we ought to touch things. + +MRS HALE: I'll just finish up this end. (_suddenly stopping and leaning +forward_) Mrs Peters? + +MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale? + +MRS HALE: What do you suppose she was so nervous about? + +MRS PETERS: Oh--I don't know. I don't know as she was nervous. I +sometimes sew awful queer when I'm just tired. (MRS HALE _starts to say +something, looks at_ MRS PETERS, _then goes on sewing_) Well I must get +these things wrapped up. They may be through sooner than we think, +(_putting apron and other things together_) I wonder where I can find a +piece of paper, and string. + +MRS HALE: In that cupboard, maybe. + +MRS PETERS: (_looking in cupboard_) Why, here's a bird-cage, (_holds it +up_) Did she have a bird, Mrs Hale? + +MRS HALE: Why, I don't know whether she did or not--I've not been here +for so long. There was a man around last year selling canaries cheap, +but I don't know as she took one; maybe she did. She used to sing real +pretty herself. + +MRS PETERS: (_glancing around_) Seems funny to think of a bird here. But +she must have had one, or why would she have a cage? I wonder what +happened to it. + +MRS HALE: I s'pose maybe the cat got it. + +MRS PETERS: No, she didn't have a cat. She's got that feeling some +people have about cats--being afraid of them. My cat got in her room and +she was real upset and asked me to take it out. + +MRS HALE: My sister Bessie was like that. Queer, ain't it? + +MRS PETERS: (_examining the cage_) Why, look at this door. It's broke. +One hinge is pulled apart. + +MRS HALE: (_looking too_) Looks as if someone must have been rough with +it. + +MRS PETERS: Why, yes. + +(_She brings the cage forward and puts it on the table_.) + +MRS HALE: I wish if they're going to find any evidence they'd be about +it. I don't like this place. + +MRS PETERS: But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs Hale. It would be +lonesome for me sitting here alone. + +MRS HALE: It would, wouldn't it? (_dropping her sewing_) But I tell you +what I do wish, Mrs Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when _she_ +was here. I--(_looking around the room_)--wish I had. + +MRS PETERS: But of course you were awful busy, Mrs Hale--your house and +your children. + +MRS HALE: I could've come. I stayed away because it weren't +cheerful--and that's why I ought to have come. I--I've never liked this +place. Maybe because it's down in a hollow and you don't see the road. I +dunno what it is, but it's a lonesome place and always was. I wish I had +come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now--(_shakes her +head_) + +MRS PETERS: Well, you mustn't reproach yourself, Mrs Hale. Somehow we +just don't see how it is with other folks until--something comes up. + +MRS HALE: Not having children makes less work--but it makes a quiet +house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come +in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs Peters? + +MRS PETERS: Not to know him; I've seen him in town. They say he was a +good man. + +MRS HALE: Yes--good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, +I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs Peters. Just to +pass the time of day with him--(_shivers_) Like a raw wind that gets to +the bone, (_pauses, her eye falling on the cage_) I should think she +would 'a wanted a bird. But what do you suppose went with it? + +MRS PETERS: I don't know, unless it got sick and died. + +(_She reaches over and swings the broken door, swings it again, both +women watch it_.) + +MRS HALE: You weren't raised round here, were you? (_MRS PETERS shakes +her head_) You didn't know--her? + +MRS PETERS: Not till they brought her yesterday. + +MRS HALE: She--come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird +herself--real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and--fluttery. +How--she--did--change. (_silence; then as if struck by a happy thought +and relieved to get back to everyday things_) Tell you what, Mrs Peters, +why don't you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her mind. + +MRS PETERS: Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs Hale. There +couldn't possibly be any objection to it, could there? Now, just what +would I take? I wonder if her patches are in here--and her things. + +(_They look in the sewing basket_.) + +MRS HALE: Here's some red. I expect this has got sewing things in it. +(_brings out a fancy box_) What a pretty box. Looks like something +somebody would give you. Maybe her scissors are in here. (_Opens box. +Suddenly puts her hand to her nose_) Why--(MRS PETERS _bends nearer, +then turns her face away_) There's something wrapped up in this piece of +silk. + +MRS PETERS: Why, this isn't her scissors. + +MRS HALE: (_lifting the silk_) Oh, Mrs Peters--it's-- + +(MRS PETERS _bends closer_.) + +MRS PETERS: It's the bird. + +MRS HALE: (_jumping up_) But, Mrs Peters--look at it! It's neck! Look at +its neck! + +It's all--other side _to_. + +MRS PETERS: Somebody--wrung--its--neck. + +(_Their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension, of horror. Steps are +heard outside_. MRS HALE _slips box under quilt pieces, and sinks into +her chair. Enter_ SHERIFF _and_ COUNTY ATTORNEY. MRS PETERS _rises_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_as one turning from serious things to little +pleasantries_) Well ladies, have you decided whether she was going to +quilt it or knot it? + +MRS PETERS: We think she was going to--knot it. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, that's interesting, I'm sure. (_seeing the +birdcage_) Has the bird flown? + +MRS HALE: (_putting more quilt pieces over the box_) We think the--cat +got it. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_preoccupied_) Is there a cat? + +(MRS HALE _glances in a quick covert way at_ MRS PETERS.) + +MRS PETERS: Well, not now. They're superstitious, you know. They leave. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_to_ SHERIFF PETERS, _continuing an interrupted +conversation_) No sign at all of anyone having come from the outside. +Their own rope. Now let's go up again and go over it piece by piece. +(_they start upstairs_) It would have to have been someone who knew just +the-- + +(MRS PETERS _sits down. The two women sit there not looking at one +another, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding +back. When they talk now it is in the manner of feeling their way over +strange ground, as if afraid of what they are saying, but as if they can +not help saying it_.) + +MRS HALE: She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty +box. + +MRS PETERS: (_in a whisper_) When I was a girl--my kitten--there was a +boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes--and before I could get +there--(_covers her face an instant_) If they hadn't held me back I +would have--(_catches herself, looks upstairs where steps are heard, +falters weakly_)--hurt him. + +MRS HALE: (_with a slow look around her_) I wonder how it would seem +never to have had any children around, (_pause_) No, Wright wouldn't +like the bird--a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too. + +MRS PETERS: (_moving uneasily_) We don't know who killed the bird. + +MRS HALE: I knew John Wright. + +MRS PETERS: It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs +Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope around his neck that +choked the life out of him. + +MRS HALE: His neck. Choked the life out of him. + +(_Her hand goes out and rests on the bird-cage_.) + +MRS PETERS: (_with rising voice_) We don't know who killed him. We don't +_know_. + +MRS HALE: (_her own feeling not interrupted_) If there'd been years and +years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful--still, +after the bird was still. + +MRS PETERS: (_something within her speaking_) I know what stillness is. +When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died--after he was two +years old, and me with no other then-- + +MRS HALE: (_moving_) How soon do you suppose they'll be through, looking +for the evidence? + +MRS PETERS: I know what stillness is. (_pulling herself back_) The law +has got to punish crime, Mrs Hale. + +MRS HALE: (_not as if answering that_) I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster +when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the +choir and sang. (_a look around the room_) Oh, I _wish_ I'd come over +here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to +punish that? + +MRS PETERS: (_looking upstairs_) We mustn't--take on. + +MRS HALE: I might have known she needed help! I know how things can +be--for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs Peters. We live close +together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things--it's +all just a different kind of the same thing, (_brushes her eyes, +noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for it_) If I was you, I +wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her it _ain't_. Tell her it's +all right. Take this in to prove it to her. She--she may never know +whether it was broke or not. + +MRS PETERS: (_takes the bottle, looks about for something to wrap it in; +takes petticoat from the clothes brought from the other room, very +nervously begins winding this around the bottle. In a false voice_) My, +it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us. Wouldn't they just laugh! +Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a--dead canary. As if +that could have anything to do with--with--wouldn't they _laugh_! + +(_The men are heard coming down stairs_.) + +MRS HALE: (_under her breath_) Maybe they would--maybe they wouldn't. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: No, Peters, it's all perfectly clear except a reason +for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was +some definite thing. Something to show--something to make a story +about--a thing that would connect up with this strange way of doing it-- + +(_The women's eyes meet for an instant. Enter HALE from outer door_.) + +HALE: Well, I've got the team around. Pretty cold out there. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'm going to stay here a while by myself, (_to the_ +SHERIFF) You can send Frank out for me, can't you? I want to go over +everything. I'm not satisfied that we can't do better. + +SHERIFF: Do you want to see what Mrs Peters is going to take in? + +(_The_ LAWYER _goes to the table, picks up the apron, laughs_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Oh, I guess they're not very dangerous things the +ladies have picked out. (_Moves a few things about, disturbing the quilt +pieces which cover the box. Steps back_) No, Mrs Peters doesn't need +supervising. For that matter, a sheriff's wife is married to the law. +Ever think of it that way, Mrs Peters? + +MRS PETERS: Not--just that way. + +SHERIFF: (_chuckling_) Married to the law. (_moves toward the other +room_) I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to +take a look at these windows. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_scoffingly_) Oh, windows! + +SHERIFF: We'll be right out, Mr Hale. + +(HALE _goes outside. The_ SHERIFF _follows the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _into +the other room. Then_ MRS HALE _rises, hands tight together, looking +intensely at_ MRS PETERS, _whose eyes make a slow turn, finally meeting_ +MRS HALE_'s. A moment_ MRS HALE _holds her, then her own eyes point the +way to where the box is concealed. Suddenly_ MRS PETERS _throws back +quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing. It is +too big. She opens box, starts to take bird out, cannot touch it, goes +to pieces, stands there helpless. Sound of a knob turning in the other +room_. MRS HALE _snatches the box and puts it in the pocket of her big +coat. Enter_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _and_ SHERIFF.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_facetiously_) Well, Henry, at least we found out that +she was not going to quilt it. She was going to--what is it you call it, +ladies? + +MRS HALE: (_her hand against her pocket_) We call it--knot it, Mr +Henderson. + + +(CURTAIN) + + + + +THE OUTSIDE + + +First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Playwrights' Theatre, +December 28, 1917. + + +CAPTAIN (of 'The Bars' Life-Saving Station) + +BRADFORD (a Life-Saver) + +TONY (a Portuguese Life-Saver) + +MRS PATRICK (who lives in the abandoned Station) + +ALLIE MAYO (who works for her) + + +SCENE: _A room in a house which was once a life-saving station. Since +ceasing to be that it has taken on no other character, except that of a +place which no one cares either to preserve or change. It is painted the +life-saving grey, but has not the life-saving freshness. This is one end +of what was the big boat room, and at the ceiling is seen a part of the +frame work from which the boat once swung. About two thirds of the back +wall is open, because of the big sliding door, of the type of barn door, +and through this open door are seen the sand dunes, and beyond them the +woods. At one point the line where woods and dunes meet stands out +clearly and there are indicated the rude things, vines, bushes, which +form the outer uneven rim of the woods--the only things that grow in the +sand. At another point a sand-hill is menacing the woods. This old +life-saving station is at a point where the sea curves, so through the +open door the sea also is seen. (The station is located on the outside +shore of Cape Cod, at the point, near the tip of the Cape, where it +makes that final curve which forms the Provincetown Harbor.) The dunes +are hills and strange forms of sand on which, in places, grows the stiff +beach grass--struggle; dogged growing against odds. At right of the big +sliding door is a drift of sand and the top of buried beach grass is +seen on this. There is a door left, and at right of big sliding door is +a slanting wall. Door in this is ajar at rise of curtain, and through +this door_ BRADFORD _and_ TONY, _life-savers, are seen bending over a +man's body, attempting to restore respiration. The captain of the +life-savers comes into view outside the big open door, at left; he +appears to have been hurrying, peers in, sees the men, goes quickly to +them._ + +CAPTAIN: I'll take this now, boys. + +BRADFORD: No need for anybody to take it, Capt'n. He was dead when we +picked him up. + +CAPTAIN: Dannie Sears was dead when we picked him up. But we brought him +back. I'll go on awhile. + +(_The two men who have been bending over the body rise, stretch to +relax, and come into the room._) + +BRADFORD: (_pushing back his arms and putting his hands on his chest_) +Work,--tryin to put life in the dead. + +CAPTAIN: Where'd you find him, Joe? + +BRADFORD: In front of this house. Not forty feet out. + +CAPTAIN: What'd you bring him up here for? + +(_He speaks in an abstracted way, as if the working part of his mind is +on something else, and in the muffled voice of one bending over._) + +BRADFORD: (_with a sheepish little laugh_) Force of habit, I guess. We +brought so many of 'em back up here, (_looks around the room_) And then +it was kind of unfriendly down where he was--the wind spittin' the sea +onto you till he'd have no way of knowin' he was ashore. + +TONY: Lucky I was not sooner or later as I walk by from my watch. + +BRADFORD: You have accommodating ways, Tony. No sooner or later. I +wouldn't say it of many Portagees. But the sea (_calling it in to the_ +CAPTAIN) is friendly as a kitten alongside the women that live _here_. +Allie Mayo--they're _both_ crazy--had that door open (_moving his head +toward the big sliding door_) sweepin' out, and when we come along she +backs off and stands lookin' at us, _lookin_'--Lord, I just wanted to +get him somewhere else. So I kicked this door open with my foot +(_jerking his hand toward the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is seen bending +over the man_) and got him _away. (under his voice_) If he did have any +notion of comin' back to life, he wouldn't a come if he'd seen her. +(_more genially_) I wouldn't. + +CAPTAIN: You know who he is, Joe? + +BRADFORD: I never saw him before. + +CAPTAIN: Mitchell telephoned from High Head that a dory came ashore +there. + +BRADFORD: Last night wasn't the _best_ night for a dory. (_to_ TONY, +_boastfully_) Not that I couldn't 'a' stayed in one. Some men can stay +in a dory and some can't. (_going to the inner door_) That boy's dead, +Capt'n. + +CAPTAIN: Then I'm not doing him any harm. + +BRADFORD: (_going over and shaking the frame where the boat once swung_) +This the first time you ever been in this place, ain't it, Tony? + +TONY: I never was here before. + +BRADFORD: Well, _I_ was here before. (_a laugh_) And the old +man--(_nodding toward the_ CAPTAIN) he lived here for twenty-seven +years. Lord, the things that happened _here_. There've been dead ones +carried through _that_ door. (_pointing to the outside door_) Lord--the +ones _I've_ carried. I carried in Bill Collins, and Lou Harvey and--huh! +'sall over now. You ain't seen no _wrecks_. Don't ever think you have. I +was here the night the Jennie Snow was out there. (_pointing to the +sea_) There was a _wreck_. We got the boat that stood here (_again +shaking the frame_) down that bank. (_goes to the door and looks out_) +Lord, how'd we ever do it? The sand has put his place on the blink all +right. And then when it gets too God-for-saken for a life-savin' +station, a lady takes it for a summer residence--and then spends the +winter. She's a cheerful one. + +TONY: A woman--she makes things pretty. This not like a place where a +woman live. On the floor there is nothing--on the wall there is nothing. +Things--(_trying to express it with his hands_) do not hang on other +things. + +BRADFORD: (_imitating_ TONY_'s gesture_) No--things do not hang on other +things. In my opinion the woman's crazy--sittin' over there on the +sand--(_a gesture towards the dunes_) what's she _lookin'_ at? There +ain't nothin' to _see_. And I know the woman that works for her's +crazy--Allie Mayo. She's a Provincetown girl. She was all right once, +but-- + +(MRS PATRICK _comes in from the hall at the right. She is a 'city +woman', a sophisticated person who has been caught into something as +unlike the old life as the dunes are unlike a meadow. At the moment she +is excited and angry_.) + +MRS PATRICK: You have no right here. This isn't the life-saving station +any more. Just because it used to be--I don't see why you should +think--This is my house! And--I want my house to myself! + +CAPTAIN: (_putting his head through the door. One arm of the man he is +working with is raised, and the hand reaches through the doorway_) Well +I must say, lady, I would think that any house could be a life-saving +station when the sea had sent a man to it. + +MRS PATRICK: (_who has turned away so she cannot see the hand_) I don't +want him here! I--(_defiant, yet choking_) I must have my house to +myself! + +CAPTAIN: You'll get your house to yourself when I've made up my mind +there's no more life in this man. A good many lives have been saved in +this house, Mrs Patrick--I believe that's your name--and if there's any +chance of bringing one more back from the dead, the fact that you own +the house ain't goin' to make a damn bit of difference to me! + +MRS PATRICK: (_in a thin wild way_) I must have my house to myself. + +CAPTAIN: Hell with such a woman! + +(_Moves the man he is working with and slams the door shut. As the_ +CAPTAIN _says, 'And if there's any chance of bringing one more back from +the dead_', ALLIE MAYO _has appeared outside the wide door which gives +on to the dunes, a bleak woman, who at first seems little more than a +part of the sand before which she stands. But as she listens to this +conflict one suspects in her that peculiar intensity of twisted things +which grow in unfavoring places_.) + +MRS PATRICK: I--I don't want them here! I must-- + +(_But suddenly she retreats, and is gone_.) + +BRADFORD: Well, I couldn't say, Allie Mayo, that you work for any too +kind-hearted a lady. What's the matter with the woman? Does she want +folks to die? Appears to break her all up to see somebody trying to save +a life. What d'you work for such a fish for? A crazy fish--that's what I +call the woman. I've seen her--day after day--settin' over there where +the dunes meet the woods, just sittin' there, lookin'. (_suddenly +thinking of it_) I believe she _likes_ to see the sand slippin' down on +the woods. Pleases her to see somethin' gettin' buried, I guess. + +(ALLIE MAYO, _who has stepped inside the door and moved half across the +room, toward the corridor at the right, is arrested by this last--stands +a moment as if seeing through something, then slowly on, and out_.) + +BRADFORD: Some coffee'd taste good. But coffee, in this house? Oh, no. +It might make somebody feel better. (_opening the door that was slammed +shut_) Want me now, Capt'n? + +CAPTAIN: No. + +BRADFORD: Oh, that boy's dead, Capt'n. + +CAPTAIN: (_snarling_) Dannie Sears was dead, too. Shut that door. I +don't want to hear that woman's voice again, ever. + +(_Closing the door and sitting on a bench built into that corner between +the big sliding door and the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is_.) + +BRADFORD: They're a cheerful pair of women--livin' in this cheerful +place--a place that life savers had to turn over to the sand--huh! This +Patrick woman used to be all right. She and her husband was summer folks +over in town. They used to picnic over here on the outside. It was Joe +Dyer--he's always talkin' to summer folks--told 'em the government was +goin' to build the new station and sell this one by sealed bids. I heard +them talkin' about it. They was sittin' right down there on the beach, +eatin' their supper. They was goin' to put in a fire-place and they was +goin' to paint it bright colors, and have parties over here--summer folk +notions. Their bid won it--who'd want it?--a buried house you couldn't +move. + +TONY: I see no bright colors. + +BRADFORD: Don't you? How astonishin'! You must be color blind. And I +guess _we're_ the first party. (_laughs_) I was in Bill Joseph's grocery +store, one day last November, when in she comes--Mrs Patrick, from New +York. 'I've come to take the old life-saving station', says she. 'I'm +going to sleep over there tonight!' Huh! Bill is used to queer ways--he +deals with summer folks, but that got _him_. November--an empty house, a +buried house, you might say, off here on the outside shore--way across +the sand from man or beast. He got it out of her, not by what she said, +but by the way she looked at what he said, that her husband had died, +and she was runnin' off to hide herself, I guess. A person'd feel sorry +for her if she weren't so stand-offish, and so doggon _mean_. But mean +folks have got minds of their own. She slept here that night. Bill had +men hauling things till after dark--bed, stove, coal. And then she +wanted somebody to work for her. 'Somebody', says she, 'that doesn't say +an unnecessary word!' Well, then Bill come to the back of the store, I +said, 'Looks to me as if Allie Mayo was the party she's lookin' for.' +Allie Mayo has got a prejudice against words. Or maybe she likes 'em so +well she's savin' of 'em. She's not spoke an unnecessary word for twenty +years. She's got her reasons. Women whose men go to sea ain't always +talkative. + +(_The_ CAPTAIN _comes out. He closes door behind him and stands there +beside it. He looks tired and disappointed. Both look at him. Pause_.) + +CAPTAIN: Wonder who he was. + +BRADFORD: Young. Guess he's not been much at sea. + +CAPTAIN: I hate to leave even the dead in this house. But we can get +right back for him. (_a look around_) The old place used to be more +friendly. (_moves to outer door, hesitates, hating to leave like this_) +Well, Joe, we brought a good many of them back here. + +BRADFORD: Dannie Sears is tendin' bar in Boston now. + +(_The three men go; as they are going around the drift of sand_ ALLIE +MAYO _comes in carrying a pot of coffee; sees them leaving, puts down +the coffee pot, looks at the door the_ CAPTAIN _has closed, moves toward +it, as if drawn_. MRS PATRICK _follows her in_.) + +MRS PATRICK: They've gone? + +(MRS MAYO _nods, facing the closed door_.) + +MRS PATRICK: And they're leaving--him? (_again the other woman nods_) +Then he's--? (MRS MAYO _just stands there_) They have no right--just +because it used to be their place--! I want my house to myself! + +(_Snatches her coat and scarf from a hook and starts through the big +door toward the dunes_.) + +ALLIE MAYO: Wait. + +(_When she has said it she sinks into that corner seat--as if +overwhelmed by what she has done. The other woman is held_.) + +ALLIE MAYO: (_to herself._) If I could say that, I can say more. +(_looking at woman she has arrested, but speaking more to herself_) That +boy in there--his face--uncovered something--(_her open hand on her +chest. But she waits, as if she cannot go on; when she speaks it is in +labored way--slow, monotonous, as if snowed in by silent years_) For +twenty years, I did what you are doing. And I can tell you--it's not the +way. (_her voice has fallen to a whisper; she stops, looking ahead at +something remote and veiled_) We had been married--two years. (_a start, +as of sudden pain. Says it again, as if to make herself say it_) +Married--two years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler. Times hard. +He had to go. A year and a half--it was to be. A year and a half. Two +years we'd been married. + +(_She sits silent, moving a little back and forth._) + +The day he went away. (_not spoken, but breathed from pain_) The days +after he was gone. + +I heard at first. Last letter said farther north--not another chance to +write till on the way home. (_a wait_) + +Six months. Another, I did not hear. (_long wait_) Nobody ever heard. +(_after it seems she is held there, and will not go on_) I used to talk +as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim used to tease me about my +talking. But they'd come in to talk to me. They'd say--'You may hear +_yet._' They'd talk about what must have happened. And one day a woman +who'd been my friend all my life said--'Suppose he was to walk _in!_' I +got up and drove her from my kitchen--and from that time till this I've +not said a word I didn't have to say. (_she has become almost wild in +telling this. That passes. In a whisper_) The ice that caught +Jim--caught me. (_a moment as if held in ice. Comes from it. To_ MRS +PATRICK _simply_) It's not the way. (_a sudden change_) You're not the +only woman in the world whose husband is dead! + +MRS PATRICK: (_with a cry of the hurt_) Dead? My husband's not _dead_. + +ALLIE MAYO: He's _not?_ (_slowly understands_) Oh. + +(_The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks up her coat which has +fallen to the floor and steps outside._) + +ALLIE MAYO: (_almost failing to do it_) Wait. + +MRS PATRICK: Wait? Don't you think you've said enough? They told me you +didn't say an unnecessary word! + +ALLIE MAYO: I don't. + +MRS PATRICK: And you can see, I should think, that you've bungled into +things you know nothing about! + +(_As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she pushes the sand by the +door down on the half buried grass--though not as if knowing what she is +doing._) + +ALLIE MAYO: (_slowly_) When you keep still for twenty years you +know--things you didn't know you knew. I know why you're doing that. +(_she looks up at her, startled_) Don't bury the only thing that will +grow. Let it grow. + +(_The woman outside still crying under her breath turns abruptly and +starts toward the line where dunes and woods meet._) + +ALLIE MAYO: I know where you're going! (MRS PATRICK _turns but not as if +she wants to_) What you'll try to do. Over there. (_pointing to the line +of woods_) Bury it. The life in you. Bury it--watching the sand bury the +woods. But I'll tell you something! _They_ fight too. The woods! They +fight for life the way that Captain fought for life in there! + +(_Pointing to the closed door_.) + +MRS PATRICK: (_with a strange exultation_) And lose the way he lost in +there! + +ALLIE MAYO: (_sure, sombre_) They don't lose. + +MRS PATRICK: Don't _lose_? (_triumphant_) I have walked on the tops of +buried trees! + +ALLIE MAYO: (_slow, sombre, yet large_) And vines will grow over the +sand that covers the trees, and hold it. And other trees will grow over +the buried trees. + +MRS PATRICK: I've watched the sand slip down on the vines that reach out +farthest. + +ALLIE MAYO: Another vine will reach that spot. (_under her breath, +tenderly_) Strange little things that reach out farthest! + +MRS PATRICK: And will be buried soonest! + +ALLIE MAYO: And hold the sand for things behind them. They save a wood +that guards a town. + +MRS PATRICK: I care nothing about a wood to guard a town. This is the +outside--these dunes where only beach grass grows, this outer shore +where men can't live. The Outside. You who were born here and who die +here have named it that. + +ALLIE MAYO: Yes, we named it that, and we had reason. He died here +(_reaches her hand toward the closed door_) and many a one before him. +But many another reached the harbor! (_slowly raises her arm, bends it +to make the form of the Cape. Touches the outside of her bent arm_) The +Outside. But an arm that bends to make a harbor--where men are safe. + +MRS PATRICK: I'm outside the harbor--on the dunes, land not life. + +ALLIE MAYO: Dunes meet woods and woods hold dunes from a town that's +shore to a harbor. + +MRS PATRICK: This is the Outside. Sand (_picking some of it up in her +hand and letting it fall on the beach grass_) Sand that _covers_--hills +of sand that move and cover. + +ALLIE MAYO: Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from Provincetown. +Provincetown--where they turn when boats can't live at sea. Did you ever +see the sails come round here when the sky is dark? A line of +them--swift to the harbor--where their children live. Go back! +(_pointing_) Back to your edge of the woods that's the _edge of the +dunes_. + +MRS PATRICK: The edge of life. Where life trails off to dwarfed things +not worth a name. + +(_Suddenly sits down in the doorway_.) + +ALLIE MAYO: Not worth a name. And--meeting the Outside! + +(_Big with the sense of the wonder of life_.) + +MRS PATRICK: (_lifting sand and letting it drift through her hand_.) +They're what the sand will let them be. They take strange shapes like +shapes of blown sand. + +ALLIE MAYO: Meeting the Outside. (_moving nearer; speaking more +personally_) I know why you came here. To this house that had been given +up; on this shore where only savers of life try to live. I know what +holds you on these dunes, and draws you over there. But other things are +true beside the things you want to see. + +MRS PATRICK: How do you know they are? Where have you been for twenty +years? + +ALLIE MAYO: Outside. Twenty years. That's why I know how brave _they_ +are (_indicating the edge of the woods. Suddenly different_) You'll not +find peace there again! Go back and watch them _fight_! + +MRS PATRICK: (_swiftly rising_) You're a cruel woman--a hard, insolent +woman! I knew what I was doing! What do you know about it? About me? I +didn't go to the Outside. I was left there. I'm only--trying to get +along. Everything that can hurt me I want buried--buried deep. Spring is +here. This morning I _knew_ it. Spring--coming through the storm--to +take me--take me to hurt me. That's why I couldn't bear--(_she looks at +the closed door_) things that made me know I feel. You haven't felt for +so long you don't know what it means! But I tell you, Spring is here! +And now you'd take _that_ from me--(_looking now toward the edge of the +woods_) the thing that made me know they would be buried in my +heart--those things I can't _live_ and know I feel. You're more cruel +than the sea! 'But other things are true beside the things you want to +see!' Outside. Springs will come when I will not know that it is spring. +(_as if resentful of not more deeply believing what she says_) What +would there be for me but the Outside? What was there for you? What did +you ever find after you lost the thing you wanted? + +ALLIE MAYO: I found--what I find now I know. The edge of life--to hold +life behind me-- + +(_A slight gesture toward_ MRS PATRICK.) + +MRS PATRICK: (_stepping back_) You call what you are life? (_laughs_) +Bleak as those ugly things that grow in the sand! + +ALLIE MAYO: (_under her breath, as one who speaks tenderly of beauty_) +Ugly! + +MRS PATRICK: (_passionately_) I have _known_ life. I have known _life_. +You're like this Cape. A line of land way out to sea--land not life. + +ALLIE MAYO: A harbor far at sea. (_raises her arm, curves it in as if +around something she loves_) Land that encloses and gives shelter from +storm. + +MRS PATRICK: (_facing the sea, as if affirming what will hold all else +out_) Outside sea. Outer shore. Dunes--land not life. + +ALLIE MAYO: Outside sea--outer shore, dark with the wood that once was +ships--dunes, strange land not life--woods, town and harbor. The line! +Stunted straggly line that meets the Outside face to face--and fights +for what itself can never be. Lonely line. Brave growing. + +MRS PATRICK: It loses. + +ALLIE MAYO: It wins. + +MRS PATRICK: The farthest life is buried. + +ALLIE MAYO: And life grows over buried life! (_lifted into that; then, +as one who states a simple truth with feeling_) It will. And Springs +will come when you will want to know that it is Spring. + +(_The_ CAPTAIN _and_ BRADFORD _appear behind the drift of sand. They +have a stretcher. To get away from them_ MRS PATRICK _steps farther into +the room_; ALLIE MAYO _shrinks into her corner. The men come in, open +the closed door and go in the room where they left the dead man. A +moment later they are seen outside the big open door, bearing the man +away_. MRS PATRICK _watches them from sight_.) + +MRS PATRICK: (_bitter, exultant_) Savers of life! (_to_ ALLIE MAYO) You +savers of life! 'Meeting the Outside!' Meeting--(_but she cannot say it +mockingly again; in saying it, something of what it means has broken +through, rises. Herself lost, feeling her way into the wonder of life_) +Meeting the Outside! + +(_It grows in her as_ CURTAIN _lowers slowly_.) + + + + +THE VERGE + + +First performed at the Provincetown Playhouse on November 14, 1921. + + +PERSONS OF THE PLAY + +ANTHONY + +HARRY ARCHER, Claire's husband + +HATTIE, The maid + +CLAIRE + +DICK, Richard Demming + +TOM EDGEWORTHY + +ELIZABETH, Claire's daughter + +ADELAIDE, Claire's sister + +DR EMMONS + + +ACT I + +_The Curtain lifts on a place that is dark, save for a shaft of light +from below which comes up through an open trap-door in the floor. This +slants up and strikes the long leaves and the huge brilliant blossom of +a strange plant whose twisted stem projects from right front. Nothing is +seen except this plant and its shadow. A violent wind is heard. A moment +later a buzzer. It buzzes once long and three short. Silence. Again the +buzzer. Then from below--his shadow blocking the light, comes_ ANTHONY, +_a rugged man past middle life;--he emerges from the stairway into the +darkness of the room. Is dimly seen taking up a phone._ + +ANTHONY: Yes, Miss Claire?--I'll see. (_he brings a thermometer to the +stairway for light, looks sharply, then returns to the phone_) It's down +to forty-nine. The plants are in danger--(_with great relief and +approval_) Oh, that's fine! (_hangs up the receiver_) Fine! + +(_He goes back down the stairway, closing the trap-door upon himself, +and the curtain is drawn upon darkness and wind. It opens a moment later +on the greenhouse in the sunshine of a snowy morning. The snow piled +outside is at times blown through the air. The frost has made patterns +on the glass as if--as Plato would have it--the patterns inherent in +abstract nature and behind all life had to come out, not only in the +creative heat within, but in the creative cold on the other side of the +glass. And the wind makes patterns of sound around the glass house. + +The back wall is low; the glass roof slopes sharply up. There is an +outside door, a little toward the right. From outside two steps lead +down to it. At left a glass partition and a door into the inner room. +One sees a little way into this room. At right there is no dividing wall +save large plants and vines, a narrow aisle between shelves of plants +leads off. + +This is not a greenhouse where plants are being displayed, nor the usual +workshop for the growing of them, but a place for experiment with +plants, a laboratory. + +At the back grows a strange vine. It is arresting rather than beautiful. +It creeps along the low wall, and one branch gets a little way up the +glass. You might see the form of a cross in it, if you happened to think +it that way. The leaves of this vine are not the form that leaves have +been. They are at once repellent and significant_. + +ANTHONY _is at work preparing soil--mixing, sifting. As the wind tries +the door he goes anxiously to the thermometer, nods as if reassured and +returns to his work. The buzzer sounds. He starts to answer the +telephone, remembers something, halts and listens sharply. It does not +buzz once long and three short. Then he returns to his work. The buzzer +goes on and on in impatient jerks which mount in anger. Several times_ +ANTHONY _is almost compelled by this insistence, but the thing that +holds him back is stronger. At last, after a particularly mad splutter, +to which_ ANTHONY _longs to make retort, the buzzer gives it up_. +ANTHONY _goes on preparing soil. + +A moment later the glass door swings violently in, snow blowing in, and +also_ MR HARRY ARCHER, _wrapped in a rug._) + +ANTHONY: Oh, please close the door, sir. + +HARRY: Do you think I'm not trying to? (_he holds it open to say this_) + +ANTHONY: But please _do_. This stormy air is not good for the plants. + +HARRY: I suppose it's just the thing for me! Now, what do you mean, +Anthony, by not answering the phone when I buzz for you? + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire--Mrs Archer told me not to. + +HARRY: Told you not to answer me? + +ANTHONY: Not you especially--nobody but her. + +HARRY: Well, I like her nerve--and yours. + +ANTHONY: You see, she thought it took my mind from my work to be +interrupted when I'm out here. And so it does. So she buzzes once long +and--Well, she buzzes her way, and all other buzzing-- + +HARRY: May buzz. + +ANTHONY: (_nodding gravely_) She thought it would be better for the +flowers. + +HARRY: I am not a flower--true, but I too need a little attention--and a +little heat. Will you please tell me why the house is frigid? + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire ordered all the heat turned out here, (_patiently +explaining it to_ MISS CLAIRE's _speechless husband_) You see the roses +need a great deal of heat. + +HARRY: (_reading the thermometer_) The roses have seventy-three I have +forty-five. + +ANTHONY: Yes, the roses need seventy-three. + +HARRY: Anthony, this is an outrage! + +ANTHONY: I think it is myself; when you consider what we paid for the +heating plant--but as long as it is defective--Why, Miss Claire would +never have done what she has if she hadn't looked out for her plants in +just such ways as this. Have you forgotten that Breath of Life is about +to flower? + +HARRY: And where's my breakfast about to flower?--that's what I want to +know. + +ANTHONY: Why, Miss Claire got up at five o'clock to order the heat +turned off from the house. + +HARRY: I see you admire her vigilance. + +ANTHONY: Oh, I do. (_fervently_) I do. Harm was near, and that woke her +up. + +HARRY: And what about the harm to--(_tapping his chest_) Do roses get +pneumonia? + +ANTHONY: Oh, yes--yes, indeed they do. Why, Mr Archer, look at Miss +Claire herself. Hasn't she given her heat to the roses? + +HARRY: (_pulling the rug around him, preparing for the blizzard_) She +has the fire within. + +ANTHONY: (_delighted_) Now isn't that true! How well you said it. (_with +a glare for this appreciation_, HARRY _opens the door. It blows away +from him_) Please do close the door! + +HARRY: (_furiously_) You think it is the aim of my life to hold it open? + +ANTHONY: (_getting hold of it_) Growing things need an even temperature, +(_while saying this he gets the man out into the snow_) + +(ANTHONY _consults the thermometer, not as pleased this time as he was +before. He then looks minutely at two of the plants--one is a rose, the +other a flower without a name because it has not long enough been a +flower. Peers into the hearts of them. Then from a drawer under a shelf, +takes two paper bags, puts one over each of these flowers, closing them +down at the bottom. Again the door blows wildly in, also_ HATTIE, _a +maid with a basket_.) + +ANTHONY: What do you mean--blowing in here like this? Mrs Archer has +ordered-- + +HATTIE: Mr Archer has ordered breakfast served here, (_she uncovers the +basket and takes out an electric toaster_) + +ANTHONY: _Breakfast_--here? _Eat_--here? Where plants grow? + +HATTIE: The plants won't poison him, will they? (_at a loss to know what +to do with things, she puts the toaster under the strange vine at the +back, whose leaves lift up against the glass which has frost leaves on +the outer side_) + +ANTHONY: (_snatching it away_) You--you think you can cook eggs under +the Edge Vine? + +HATTIE: I guess Mr Archer's eggs are as important as a vine. I guess my +work's as important as yours. + +ANTHONY: There's a million people like you--and like Mr Archer. In all +the world there is only one Edge Vine. + +HATTIE: Well, maybe one's enough. It don't look like nothin', anyhow. + +ANTHONY: And you've not got the wit to know that that's why it's the +Edge Vine. + +HATTIE: You want to look out, Anthony. You talk nutty. Everybody says +so. + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire don't say so. + +HATTIE: No, because she's-- + +ANTHONY: You talk too much! + +(_Door opens, admitting_ HARRY; _after looking around for the best place +to eat breakfast, moves a box of earth from the table_.) + +HARRY: Just give me a hand, will you, Hattie? + +(_They bring it to the open space and he and_ HATTIE _arrange breakfast +things_, HATTIE _with triumphant glances at the distressed_ ANTHONY) + +ANTHONY: (_deciding he must act_) Mr Archer, this is not the place to +eat breakfast! + +HARRY: Dead wrong, old boy. The place that has heat is the place to eat +breakfast. (_to_ HATTIE) Tell the other gentlemen--I heard Mr Demming +up, and Mr Edgeworthy, if he appears, that as long as it is such a +pleasant morning, we're having breakfast outside. To the conservatory +for coffee. + +(HATTIE _giggles, is leaving_.) + +And let's see, have we got everything? (_takes the one shaker, shakes a +little pepper on his hand. Looks in vain for the other shaker_) And tell +Mr Demming to bring the salt. + +ANTHONY: But Miss Claire will be very angry. + +HARRY: I am very angry. Did I choose to eat my breakfast at the other +end of a blizzard? + +ANTHONY: (_an exclamation of horror at the thermometer_) The temperature +is falling. I must report. (_he punches the buzzer, takes up the phone_) +Miss Claire? It is Anthony. A terrible thing has happened. Mr +Archer--what? Yes, a terrible thing.--Yes, it is about Mr +Archer.--No--no, not dead. But here. He is here. Yes, he is well, he +seems well, but he is eating his breakfast. Yes, he is having breakfast +served out here--for himself, and the other gentlemen are to come +too.--Well, he seemed to be annoyed because the heat had been turned off +from the house. But the door keeps opening--this stormy wind blowing +right over the plants. The temperature has already fallen.--Yes, yes. I +thought you would want to come. + +(ANTHONY _opens the trap-door and goes below_. HARRY _looks +disapprovingly down into this openness at his feet, returns to his +breakfast_. ANTHONY _comes up, bearing a box_.) + +HARRY: (_turning his face away_) Phew! What a smell. + +ANTHONY: Yes. Fertilizer has to smell. + +HARRY: Well, it doesn't have to smell up my breakfast! + +ANTHONY: (_with a patient sense of order_) The smell belongs here. (_he +and the smell go to the inner room_) + +(_The outer door opens just enough to admit_ CLAIRE--_is quickly closed. +With_ CLAIRE _in a room another kind of aliveness is there_.) + +CLAIRE: What are you doing here? + +HARRY: Getting breakfast. (_all the while doing so_) + +CLAIRE: I'll not have you in my place! + +HARRY: If you take all the heat then you have to take me. + +CLAIRE: I'll show you how I have to take you. (_with her hands begins +scooping upon him the soil_ ANTHONY _has prepared_) + +HARRY: (_jumping up, laughing, pinning down her arms, putting his arms +around her_) Claire--be decent. What harm do I do here? + +CLAIRE: You pull down the temperature. + +HARRY: Not after I'm in. + +CLAIRE: And you told Tom and Dick to come and make it uneven. + +HARRY: Tom and Dick are our guests. We can't eat where it's warm and +leave them to eat where it's cold. + +CLAIRE: I don't see why not. + +HARRY: You only see what you want to see. + +CLAIRE: That's not true. I wish it were. No; no, I don't either. (_she +is disturbed--that troubled thing which rises from within, from deep, +and takes_ CLAIRE. _She turns to the Edge Vine, examines. Regretfully +to_ ANTHONY, _who has come in with a plant_) It's turning back, isn't +it? + +ANTHONY: Can you be sure yet, Miss Claire? + +CLAIRE: Oh yes--it's had its chance. It doesn't want to be--what hasn't +been. + +HARRY: (_who has turned at this note in her voice. Speaks kindly_) Don't +take it so seriously, Claire. (CLAIRE _laughs_) + +CLAIRE: No, I suppose not. But it _does_ matter--and why should I +pretend it doesn't, just because I've failed with it? + +HARRY: Well, I don't want to see it get you--it's not important enough +for that. + +CLAIRE: (_in her brooding way_) Anything is important enough for +that--if it's important at all. (_to the vine_) I thought you were out, +but you're--going back home. + +ANTHONY: But you're doing it this time, Miss Claire. When Breath of Life +opens--and we see its heart-- + +(CLAIRE _looks toward the inner room. Because of intervening plants they +do not see what is seen from the front--a plant like caught motion, and +of a greater transparency than plants have had. Its leaves, like waves +that curl, close around a heart that is not seen. This plant stands by +itself in what, because of the arrangement of things about it, is a +hidden place. But nothing is between it and the light_.) + +CLAIRE: Yes, if the heart has (_a little laugh_) held its own, then +Breath of Life is alive in its otherness. But Edge Vine is running back +to what it broke out of. + +HARRY: Come, have some coffee, Claire. + +(ANTHONY _returns to the inner room, the outer door opens_. DICK _is +hurled in_.) + +CLAIRE: (_going to the door, as he gasps for breath before closing it_) +How dare you make my temperature uneven! (_she shuts the door and leans +against it_) + +DICK: Is that what I do? + +(_A laugh, a look between them, which is held into significance_.) + +HARRY: (_who is not facing them_) Where's the salt? + +DICK: Oh, I fell down in the snow. I must have left the salt where I +fell. I'll go back and look for it. + +CLAIRE: And change the temperature? We don't need salt. + +HARRY: You don't need salt, Claire. But we eat eggs. + +CLAIRE: I must tell you I don't like the idea of any food being eaten +here, where things have their own way to go. Please eat as little as +possible, and as quickly. + +HARRY: A hostess calculated to put one at one's ease. + +CLAIRE: (_with no ill-nature_) I care nothing about your ease. Or about +Dick's ease. + +DICK: And no doubt that's what makes you so fascinating a hostess. + +CLAIRE: Was I a fascinating hostess last night, Dick? (_softly sings_) +'Oh, night of love--' (_from the Barcorole of 'Tales of Hoffman'_) + +HARRY: We've got to have salt. + +(_He starts for the door._ CLAIRE _slips in ahead of him, locks it, +takes the key. He marches off, right_.) + +CLAIRE: (_calling after him_) That end's always locked. + +DICK: Claire darling, I wish you wouldn't say those startling things. +You do get away with it, but I confess it gives me a shock--and really, +it's unwise. + +CLAIRE: Haven't you learned that the best place to hide is in the truth? +(_as_ HARRY _returns_) Why won't you believe me, Harry, when I tell you +the truth--about doors being locked? + +HARRY: Claire, it's selfish of you to keep us from eating salt just +because you don't eat salt. + +CLAIRE: (_with one of her swift changes_) Oh, Harry! Try your egg +without salt. Please--please try it without salt! (_an intensity which +seems all out of proportion to the subject_) + +HARRY: An egg demands salt. + +CLAIRE: 'An egg demands salt.' Do you know, Harry, why you are such an +unseasoned person? 'An egg demands salt.' + +HARRY: Well, it doesn't always get it. + +CLAIRE: But your spirit gets no lift from the salt withheld. + +HARRY: Not an inch of lift. (_going back to his breakfast_) + +CLAIRE: And pleased--so pleased with itself, for getting no lift. Sure, +it is just the right kind of spirit--because it gets no lift. (_more +brightly_) But, Dick, you must have tried your egg without salt. + +DICK: I'll try it now. (_he goes to the breakfast table_) + +CLAIRE: You must have tried and tried things. Isn't that the way one +leaves the normal and gets into the byways of perversion? + +HARRY: Claire. + +DICK: (_pushing back his egg_) If so, I prefer to wait for the salt. + +HARRY: Claire, there is a _limit_. + +CLAIRE: Precisely what I had in mind. To perversion too there is a +limit. So--the fortifications are unassailable. If one ever does get +out, I suppose it is--quite unexpectedly, and perhaps--a bit terribly. + +HARRY: Get out where? + +CLAIRE: (_with a bright smile_) Where you, darling, will never go. + +HARRY: And from which you, darling, had better beat it. + +CLAIRE: I wish I could. (_to herself_) No--no I don't either + +(_Again this troubled thing turns her to the plant. She puts by +themselves the two which_ ANTHONY _covered with paper bags. Is about to +remove these papers_. HARRY _strikes a match_.) + +CLAIRE: (_turning sharply_) You can't smoke here. The plants are not +used to it. + +HARRY: Then I should think smoking would be just the thing for them. + +CLAIRE: There is design. + +HARRY: (_to_ DICK) Am I supposed to be answered? I never can be quite +sure at what moment I am answered. + +(_They both watch_ CLAIRE, _who has uncovered the plants and is looking +intently into the flowers. From a drawer she takes some tools. Very +carefully gives the rose pollen to an unfamiliar flower--rather +wistfully unfamiliar, which stands above on a small shelf near the door +of the inner room_.) + +DICK: What is this you're doing, Claire? + +CLAIRE: Pollenizing. Crossing for fragrance. + +DICK: It's all rather mysterious, isn't it? + +HARRY: And Claire doesn't make it any less so. + +CLAIRE: Can I make life any less mysterious? + +HARRY: If you know what you are doing, why can't you tell Dick? + +DICK: Never mind. After all, why should I be told? (_he turns away_) + +(_At that she wants to tell him. Helpless, as one who cannot get across +a stream, starts uncertainly_.) + +CLAIRE: I want to give fragrance to Breath of Life (_faces the room +beyond the wall of glass_)--the flower I have created that is outside +what flowers have been. What has gone out should bring fragrance from +what it has left. But no definite fragrance, no limiting enclosing +thing. I call the fragrance I am trying to create Reminiscence. (_her +hand on the pot of the wistful little flower she has just given pollen_) +Reminiscent of the rose, the violet, arbutus--but a new thing--itself. +Breath of Life may be lonely out in what hasn't been. Perhaps some day I +can give it reminiscence. + +DICK: I see, Claire. + +CLAIRE: I wonder if you do. + +HARRY: Now, Claire, you're going to be gay to-day, aren't you? These are +Tom's last couple of days with us. + +CLAIRE: That doesn't make me especially gay. + +HARRY: Well, you want him to remember you as yourself, don't you? + +CLAIRE: I would like him to. Oh--I would like him to! + +HARRY: Then be amusing. That's really you, isn't it, Dick? + +DICK: Not quite all of her--I should say. + +CLAIRE: (_gaily_) Careful, Dick. Aren't you indiscreet? Harry will be +suspecting that I am your latest strumpet. + +HARRY: Claire! What language you use! A person knowing you only by +certain moments could never be made to believe you are a refined woman. + +CLAIRE: True, isn't it, Dick? + +HARRY: It would be a good deal of a lark to let them listen in at +times--then tell them that here is the flower of New England! + +CLAIRE: Well, if this is the flower of New England, then the half has +never been told. + +DICK: About New England? + +CLAIRE: I thought I meant that. Perhaps I meant--about me. + +HARRY: (_going on with his own entertainment_) Explain that this is what +came of the men who made the laws that made New England, that here is +the flower of those gentlemen of culture who-- + +DICK: Moulded the American mind! + +CLAIRE: Oh! (_it is pain_) + +HARRY: Now what's the matter? + +CLAIRE: I want to get away from them! + +HARRY: Rest easy, little one--you do. + +CLAIRE: I'm not so sure--that I do. But it can be done! We need not be +held in forms moulded for us. There is outness--and otherness. + +HARRY: Now, Claire--I didn't mean to start anything serious. + +CLAIRE: No; you never mean to do that. I want to break it up! I tell +you, I want to break it up! If it were all in pieces, we'd be (_a little +laugh_) shocked to aliveness (_to_ DICK)--wouldn't we? There would be +strange new comings together--mad new comings together, and we would +know what it is to be born, and then we might know--that we are. Smash +it. (_her hand is near an egg_) As you'd smash an egg. (_she pushes the +egg over the edge of the table and leans over and looks, as over a +precipice_) + +HARRY: (_with a sigh_) Well, all you've smashed is the egg, and all that +amounts to is that now Tom gets no egg. So that's that. + +CLAIRE: (_with difficulty, drawing herself back from the fascination of +the precipice_) You think I can't smash anything? You think life can't +break up, and go outside what it was? Because you've gone dead in the +form in which you found yourself, you think that's all there is to the +whole adventure? And that is called sanity. And made a virtue--to lock +one in. You never worked with things that grow! Things that take a +sporting chance--go mad--that sanity mayn't lock them in--from life +untouched--from life--that waits, (_she turns toward the inner room_) +Breath of Life. (_she goes in there_) + +HARRY: Oh, I wish Claire wouldn't be strange like that, (_helplessly_) +What is it? What's the matter? + +DICK: It's merely the excess of a particularly rich temperament. + +HARRY: But it's growing on her. I sometimes wonder if all this +(_indicating the place around him_) is a good thing. It would be all +right if she'd just do what she did in the beginning--make the flowers +as good as possible of their kind. That's an awfully nice thing for a +woman to do--raise flowers. But there's something about this--changing +things into other things--putting things together and making queer new +things--this-- + +DICK: Creating? + +HARRY: Give it any name you want it to have--it's unsettling for a +woman. They say Claire's a shark at it, but what's the good of it, if it +gets her? What is the good of it, anyway? Suppose we can produce new +things. Lord--look at the one ones we've got. (_looks outside; turns +back_) Heavens, what a noise the wind does make around this place, (_but +now it is not all the wind, but_ TOM EDGEWORTHY, _who is trying to let +himself in at the locked door, their backs are to him_) I want my _egg_. +You can't eat an egg without salt. I must say I don't get Claire lately. +I'd like to have Charlie Emmons see her--he's fixed up a lot of people +shot to pieces in the war. Claire needs something to tone her nerves +_up_. You think it would irritate her? + +DICK: She'd probably get no little entertainment out of it. + +HARRY: Yes, dog-gone her, she would. (TOM _now takes more heroic +measures to make himself heard at the door_) Funny--how the wind can +fool you. Now by not looking around I could imagine--why, I could +imagine anything. Funny, isn't it, about imagination? And Claire says I +haven't got any! + +DICK: It would make an amusing drawing--what the wind makes you think is +there. (_first makes forms with his hands, then levelling the soil +prepared by_ ANTHONY, _traces lines with his finger_) Yes, really--quite +jolly. + +(TOM, _after a moment of peering in at them, smiles, goes away._) + +HARRY: You're another one of the queer ducks, aren't you? Come now--give +me the dirt. Have you queer ones really got anything--or do you just put +it over on us that you have? + +DICK: (_smiles, draws on_) Not saying anything, eh? Well, I guess you're +wise there. If you keep mum--how are we going to prove there's nothing +there? + +DICK: I don't keep mum. I draw. + +HARRY: Lines that don't make anything--how can they tell you anything? +Well, all I ask is, don't make Claire queer. Claire's a first water good +sport--really, so don't encourage her to be queer. + +DICK: Trouble is, if you're queer enough to be amusing, it might--open +the door to queerness. + +HARRY: Now don't say things like that to Claire. + +DICK: I don't have to. + +HARRY: Then _you_ think she's queer, do you? Queer as you are, you think +she's queer. I would like to have Dr Emmons come out. (_after a moment +of silently watching_ DICK, _who is having a good time with his +drawing_) You know, frankly, I doubt if you're a good influence for +Claire. (DICK _lifts his head ever so slightly_) Oh, I don't worry a bit +about--things a husband might worry about. I suppose an intellectual +woman--and for all Claire's hate of her ancestors, she's got the bug +herself. Why, she has times of boring into things until she doesn't know +you're there. What do you think I caught her doing the other day? +Reading Latin. Well--a woman that reads Latin needn't worry a husband +much. + +DICK: They said a good deal in Latin. + +HARRY: But I was saying, I suppose a woman who lives a good deal in her +mind never does have much--well, what you might call passion, (_uses the +word as if it shouldn't be used. Brows knitted, is looking ahead, does +not see_ DICK_'s face. Turning to him with a laugh_) I suppose you know +pretty much all there is to know about women? + +DICK: Perhaps one or two details have escaped me. + +HARRY: Well, for that matter, you might know all there is to know about +women and not know much about Claire. But now about (_does not want to +say passion again_)--oh, feeling--Claire has a certain--well, a +certain-- + +DICK: Irony? + +HARRY: Which is really more--more-- + +DICK: More fetching, perhaps. + +HARRY: Yes! Than the thing itself. But of course--you wouldn't have much +of a thing that you have irony about. + +DICK: Oh--wouldn't you! I mean--a man might. + +HARRY: I'd like to talk to Edgeworth about Claire. But it's not easy to +talk to Tom about Claire--or to Claire about Tom. + +DICK: (_alert_) They're very old friends, aren't they? + +HARRY: Why--yes, they are. Though they've not been together much of late +years, Edgeworthy always going to the ends of the earth to--meditate +about something. I must say I don't get it. If you have a place--that's +the place for you to be. And he did have a place--best kind of family +connections, and it was a very good business his father left him. +Publishing business--in good shape, too, when old Edgeworthy died. I +wouldn't call Tom a great success in life--but Claire does listen to +what he says. + +DICK: Yes, I've noticed that. + +HARRY: So, I'd like to get him to tell her to quit this queer business +of making things grow that never grew before. + +DICK: But are you sure that's what he would tell her? Isn't he in the +same business himself? + +HARRY: Why, he doesn't raise anything. + +(TOM _is again at the door_.) + +DICK: Anyway, I think he might have some idea that we can't very well +reach each other. + +HARRY: Damn nonsense. What have we got intelligence for? + +DICK: To let each other alone, I suppose. Only we haven't enough to do +it. + +(TOM _is now knocking on the door with a revolver_. HARRY _half turns, +decides to be too intelligent to turn_.) + +HARRY: Don't tell me I'm getting nerves. But the way some of you people +talk is enough to make even an aviator jumpy. Can't reach each other! +Then we're fools. If I'm here and you're there, why can't we reach each +other? + +DICK: Because I am I and you are you. + +HARRY: No wonder your drawing's queer. A man who can't reach another +man--(TOM _here reaches them by pointing the revolver in the air and +firing it_. DICK _digs his hand into the dirt_. HARRY _jumps to one +side, fearfully looks around_. TOM, _with a pleased smile to see he at +last has their attention, moves the handle to indicate he would be glad +to come in_.) + +HARRY: Why--it's Tom! What the--? (_going to the door_) He's locked out. +And Claire's got the key. (_goes to the inner door, tries it_) And she's +locked in! (_trying to see her in there_) Claire! Claire! (_returning to +the outer door_) Claire's got the key--and I can't get to Claire. +(_makes a futile attempt at getting the door open without a key, goes +back to inner door--peers, pounds_) Claire! Are you there? Didn't you +hear the revolver? Has she gone down the cellar? (_tries the trap-door_) +Bolted! Well, I love the way she keeps people locked out! + +DICK: And in. + +HARRY: (_getting angry, shouting at the trap-door_) Didn't you hear the +revolver? (_going to_ TOM) Awfully sorry, old man, but--(_in +astonishment to_ DICK) He can't hear me. (TOM, _knocking with the +revolver to get their attention, makes a gesture of inquiry with it_) +No--no--no! Is he asking if he shall shoot himself? (_shaking his head +violently_) Oh, no--no! Um--_um_! + +DICK: Hardly seems a man would shoot himself because he can't get to his +breakfast. + +HARRY: I'm coming to believe people would do anything! (TOM _is making +another inquiry with the revolver_) No! not here. Don't shoot yourself. +(_trying hard to get the word through_) _Shoot_ yourself. I mean--don't, +(_petulantly to_ DICK) It's ridiculous that you can't make a man +understand you when he looks right at you like that. (_turning back to_ +TOM) Read my lips. Lips. I'm saying--Oh damn. Where is Claire? All +right--I'll explain it with motions. We wanted the salt ... (_going over +it to himself_) and Claire wouldn't let us go out for it on account of +the temperature. Salt. Temperature. (_takes his egg-cup to the door, +violent motion of shaking in salt_) But--no (_shakes his head_) No salt. +(_he then takes the thermometer, a flower pot, holds them up to_ TOM) On +account of the temperature. Tem-per-a--(TOM _is not getting it_) +Oh--well, what can you do when a man don't _get_ a thing? (TOM _seems to +be preparing the revolver for action_. HARRY _pounds on the inner door_) +Claire! Do you want Tom to shoot himself? + +(_As he looks in there, the trap-door lifts, and CLAIRE comes half-way +up._) + +CLAIRE: Why, what is Tom doing out there, with a revolver? + +HARRY: He is about to shoot himself because you've locked him out from +his breakfast. + +CLAIRE: He must know more interesting ways of destroying himself. +(_bowing to_ TOM) Good morning. (_from his side of the glass_ TOM _bows +and smiles back_) Isn't it strange--our being in here--and he being out +there? + +HARRY: Claire, have you no ideas of hospitality? Let him in! + +CLAIRE: In? Perhaps that isn't hospitality. + +HARRY: Well, whatever hospitality is, what is out there is snow--and +wind--and our guest--who was asked to come here for his breakfast. To +think a man has to _such_ things. + +CLAIRE: I'm going to let him in. Though I like his looks out there. +(_she takes the key from her pocket_) + +HARRY: Thank heaven the door's coming open. Somebody can go for salt, +and we can have our eggs. + +CLAIRE: And open the door again--to let the salt in? No. If you insist +on salt, tell Tom now to go back and get it. It's a stormy morning and +there'll be just one opening of the door. + +HARRY: How can we tell him what we can't make him hear? And why does he +think we're holding this conversation instead of letting him in? + +CLAIRE: It would be interesting to know. I wonder if he'll tell us? + +HARRY: Claire! Is this any time to wonder anything? + +CLAIRE: Give up the idea of salt for your egg and I'll let him in. +(_holds up the key to _TOM_ to indicate that for her part she is quite +ready to let him in_) + +HARRY: I want my egg! + +CLAIRE: Then ask him to bring the salt. It's quite simple. + +(HARRY _goes through another pantomime with the egg-cup and the missing +shaker._ CLAIRE, _still standing half-way down cellar, sneezes._ HARRY, +_growing all the while less amiable, explains with thermometer and +flower-pot that there can only be one opening of the door._ TOM _looks +interested, but unenlightened. But suddenly he smiles, nods, vanishes._) + +HARRY: Well, thank heaven (_exhausted_) that's over. + +CLAIRE: (_sitting on the top step_) It was all so queer. He locked out +on his side of the door. You locked in on yours. Looking right at each +other and-- + +HARRY: (_in mockery_) And me trying to tell him to kindly fetch the +salt! + +CLAIRE: Yes. + +HARRY: (_to_ DICK) Well, I didn't do so bad a job, did I? Quite an idea, +explaining our situation with the thermometer and the flower-pot. That +was really an apology for keeping him out there. Heaven knows--some +explanation was in order, (_he is watching, and sees_ TOM _coming_) Now +there he is, Claire. And probably pretty well fed up with the weather. + +(CLAIRE _goes to the door, stops before it. She and_ TOM _look at each +other through the glass. Then she lets him in._) + +TOM: And now I am in. For a time it seemed I was not to be in. But after +I got the idea that you were keeping me out there to see if I could get +the idea--it would be too humiliating for a wall of glass to keep one +from understanding. (_taking it from his pocket_) So there's the other +thermometer. Where do you want it? (CLAIRE _takes it_) + +CLAIRE: And where's the pepper? + +TOM: (_putting it on the table_) And here's the pepper. + +HARRY: Pepper? + +TOM: When Claire sneezed I knew-- + +CLAIRE: Yes, I knew if I sneezed you would bring the pepper. + +TOM: Funny how one always remembers the salt, but the pepper gets +overlooked in preparations. And what is an egg without pepper? + +HARRY: (_nastily_) There's your egg, Edgeworth. (_pointing to it on the +floor_) Claire decided it would be a good idea to smash everything, so +she began with your egg. + +TOM: (_looking at his egg_) The idea of smashing everything is really +more intriguing than an egg. + +HARRY: Nice that you feel that way about it. + +CLAIRE: (_giving_ TOM _his coffee_) You want to hear something amusing? +I married Harry because I thought he would smash something. + +HARRY: Well, that was an error in judgment. + +CLAIRE: I'm such a naive trusting person (HARRY _laughs_--CLAIRE _gives +him a surprised look, continues simply_). Such a guileless soul that I +thought flying would do something to a man. But it didn't take us out. +We just took it in. + +TOM: It's only our own spirit can take us out. + +HARRY: Whatever you mean by out. + +CLAIRE: (_after looking intently at_ TOM, _and considering it_) But our +own spirit is not something on the loose. Mine isn't. It has something +to do with what I do. To fly. To be free in air. To look from above on +the world of all my days. Be where man has never been! Yes--wouldn't you +think the spirit could get the idea? The earth grows smaller. I am +leaving. What are they--running around down there? Why do they run +around down there? Houses? Houses are funny lines and down-going +slants--houses are vanishing slants. I am alone. Can I breathe this +rarer air? Shall I go higher? Shall I go too high? I am loose. I am out. +But no; man flew, and returned to earth the man who left it. + +HARRY: And jolly well likely not to have returned at all if he'd had +those flighty notions while operating a machine. + +CLAIRE: Oh, Harry! (_not lightly asked_) Can't you see it would be +better not to have returned than to return the man who left it? + +HARRY: I have some regard for human life. + +CLAIRE: Why, no--I am the one who has the regard for human life, (_more +lightly_) That was why I swiftly divorced my stick-in-the-mud artist and +married--the man of flight. But I merely passed from a stick-in-the-mud +artist to a-- + +DICK: Stick-in-the-air aviator? + +HARRY: Speaking of your stick-in-the-mud artist, as you romantically +call your first blunder, isn't his daughter--and yours--due here to-day? + +CLAIRE: I knew something was disturbing me. Elizabeth. A daughter is +being delivered unto me this morning. I have a feeling it will be more +painful than the original delivery. She has been, as they quaintly say, +educated; prepared for her place in life. + +HARRY: And fortunately Claire has a sister who is willing to give her +young niece that place. + +CLAIRE: The idea of giving anyone a place in life. + +HARRY: Yes! The very idea! + +CLAIRE: Yes! (_as often, the mocking thing gives true expression to what +lies sombrely in her_) The war. There was another gorgeous chance. + +HARRY: Chance for what? I call you, Claire. I ask you to say what you +mean. + +CLAIRE: I don't know--precisely. If I did--there'd be no use saying it. +(_at_ HARRY's _impatient exclamation she turns to_ TOM) + +TOM: (_nodding_) The only thing left worth saying is the thing we can't +say. + +HARRY: Help! + +CLAIRE: Yes. But the war didn't help. Oh, it was a stunning chance! But +fast as we could--scuttled right back to the trim little thing we'd been +shocked out of. + +HARRY: You bet we did--showing our good sense. + +CLAIRE: Showing our incapacity--for madness. + +HARRY: Oh, come now, Claire--snap out of it. You're not really trying to +say that capacity for madness is a good thing to have? + +CLAIRE: (_in simple surprise_) Why yes, of course. + +DICK: But I should say the war did leave enough madness to give you a +gleam of hope. + +CLAIRE: Not the madness that--breaks through. And it was--a stunning +chance! Mankind massed to kill. We have failed. We are through. We will +destroy. Break this up--it can't go farther. In the air above--in the +sea below--it is to kill! All we had thought we were--we aren't. We were +shut in with what wasn't so. Is there one ounce of energy has not gone +to this killing? Is there one love not torn in two? Throw it in! Now? +Ready? Break up. Push. Harder. Break up. And then--and then--But we +didn't say--'And then--' The spirit didn't take the tip. + +HARRY: Claire! Come now (_looking to the others for help_)--let's talk +of something else. + +CLAIRE: Plants do it. The big leap--it's called. Explode their +species--because something in them knows they've gone as far as they can +go. Something in them knows they're shut in to just that. So--go +mad--that life may not be prisoned. Break themselves up into crazy +things--into lesser things, and from the pieces--may come one sliver of +life with vitality to find the future. How beautiful. How brave. + +TOM: (_as if he would call her from too far--or would let her know he +has gone with her_) Claire! + +CLAIRE: (_her eyes turning to him_) Why should we mind lying under the +earth? We who have no such initiative--no proud madness? Why think it +death to lie under life so flexible--so ruthless and ever-renewing? + +ANTHONY: (_from the door of the inner room_) Miss Claire? + +CLAIRE: (_after an instant_) Yes? (_she goes with him, as they disappear +his voice heard_,'show me now ... want those violets bedded') + +HARRY: Oh, this has got to _stop_. I've got to--put a stop to it some +way. Why, Claire used to be the best sport a man ever played around +with. I can't stand it to see her getting hysterical. + +TOM: That was not hysterical. + +HARRY: What was it then--I want to know? + +TOM: It was--a look. + +HARRY: Oh, I might have known I'd get no help from either of you. Even +you, Edgeworthy--much as she thinks of you--and fine sort as I've no +doubt you are, you're doing Claire no good--encouraging her in these +queer ways. + +TOM: I couldn't change Claire if I would. + +HARRY: And wouldn't if you could. + +TOM: No. But you don't have to worry about me. I'm going away in a day +or two. And I shall not be back. + +HARRY: Trouble with you is, it makes little difference whether you're +here or away. Just the fact of your existence does encourage Claire in +this--this way she's going. + +TOM: (_with a smile_) But you wouldn't ask me to go so far as to stop my +existence? Though I would do that for Claire--if it were the way to help +her. + +HARRY: By Jove, you say that as if you meant it. + +TOM: Do you think I would say anything about Claire I didn't mean? + +HARRY: You think a lot of her, don't you? (TOM _nods_) You don't mean +(_a laugh letting him say it_)--that you're--in love with Claire! + +TOM: In love? Oh, that's much too easy. Certainly I do love Claire. + +HARRY: Well, you're a cool one! + +TOM: Let her be herself. Can't you see she's troubled? + +HARRY: Well, what is there to trouble Claire? Now I ask you. It seems to +me she has everything. + +TOM: She's left so--open. Too exposed, (_as_ HARRY _moves impatiently_) +Please don't be annoyed with me. I'm doing my best at saying it. You see +Claire isn't hardened into one of those forms she talks about. She's +too--aware. Always pulled toward what could be--tormented by the lost +adventure. + +HARRY: Well, there's danger in all that. Of course there's danger. + +TOM: But you can't help that. + +HARRY: Claire was the best fun a woman could be. Is yet--at times. + +TOM: Let her be--at times. As much as she can and will. She does need +that. Don't keep her from it by making her feel you're holding her in +it. Above all, don't try to stop what she's doing here. If she can do it +with plants, perhaps she won't have to do it with herself. + +HARRY: Do what? + +TOM: (_low, after a pause_) Break up what exists. Open the door to +destruction in the hope of--a door on the far side of destruction. + +HARRY: Well, you give me the willies, (_moves around in irritation, +troubled. To_ ANTHONY, _who is passing through with a sprayer_) Anthony, +have any arrangements been made about Miss Claire's daughter? + +ANTHONY: I haven't heard of any arrangements. + +HARRY: Well, she'll have to have some heat in her room. We can't all +live out here. + +ANTHONY: Indeed you cannot. It is not good for the plants. + +HARRY: I'm going where I can _smoke_, (_goes out_) + +DICK: (_lightly, but fascinated by the idea_) You think there is a door +on the--hinter side of destruction? + +TOM: How can one tell--where a door may be? One thing I want to say to +you--for it is about you. (_regards_ DICK _and not with his usual +impersonal contemplation_) I don't think Claire should have--any door +closed to her. (_pause_) You know, I think, what I mean. And perhaps you +can guess how it hurts to say it. Whether it's--mere escape +within,--rather shameful escape within, or the wild hope of that door +through, it's--(_suddenly all human_) Be good to her! (_after a +difficult moment, smiles_) Going away for ever is like dying, so one can +say things. + +DICK: Why do you do it--go away for ever? + +TOM: I haven't succeeded here. + +DICK: But you've tried the going away before. + +TOM: Never knowing I would not come back. So that wasn't going away. My +hope is that this will be like looking at life from outside life. + +DICK: But then you'll not be in it. + +TOM: I haven't been able to look at it while in it. + +DICK: Isn't it more important to be in it than to look at it? + +TOM: Not what I mean by look. + +DICK: It's hard for me to conceive of--loving Claire and going away from +her for ever. + +TOM: Perhaps it's harder to do than to conceive of. + +DICK: Then why do it? + +TOM: It's my only way of keeping her. + +DICK: I'm afraid I'm like Harry now. I don't get you. + +TOM: I suppose not. Your way is different, (_with calm, with +sadness--not with malice_) But I shall have her longer. And from deeper. + +DICK: I know that. + +TOM: Though I miss much. Much, (_the buzzer_. TOM _looks around to see +if anyone is coming to answer it, then goes to the phone_) Yes?... I'll +see if I can get her. (_to_ DICK) Claire's daughter has arrived, +(_looking in the inner room--returns to phone_) I don't see her. +(_catching a glimpse of ANTHONY off right_) Oh, Anthony, where's Miss +Claire? Her daughter has arrived. + +ANTHONY: She's working at something very important in her experiments. + +DICK: But isn't her daughter one of her experiments? + +ANTHONY: (_after a baffled moment_) Her daughter is finished. + +TOM: (_at the phone_) Sorry--but I can't get to Claire. She appears to +have gone below. (ANTHONY _closes the trap-door_) I did speak to +Anthony, but he says that Claire is working at one of her experiments +and that her daughter is finished. I don't know how to make her hear--I +took the revolver back to the house. Anyway you will remember Claire +doesn't answer the revolver. I hate to reach Claire when she doesn't +want to be reached. Why, of course--a daughter is very important, but +oh, that's too bad. (_putting down the receiver_) He says the girl's +feelings are hurt. Isn't that annoying? (_gingerly pounds on the +trap-door. Then with the other hand. Waits_. ANTHONY _has a gentle smile +for the gentle tapping--nods approval as,_ TOM _returns to the phone_) +She doesn't come up. Indeed I did--with both fists--Sorry. + +ANTHONY: Please, you won't try again to disturb Miss Claire, will you? + +DICK: Her daughter is here, Anthony. She hasn't seen her daughter for a +year. + +ANTHONY: Well, if she got along without a mother for a year--(_goes back +to his work_) + +DICK: (_smiling after_ ANTHONY) Plants are queer. Perhaps it's _safer_ +to do it with pencil (_regards_ TOM)--or with pure thought. Things that +grow in the earth-- + +TOM: (_nodding_) I suppose because we grew in the earth. + +DICK: I'm always shocked to find myself in agreement with Harry, but I +too am worried about Claire--and this, (_looking at the plants_) + +TOM: It's her best chance. + +DICK: Don't you hate to go away to India--for ever--leaving Claire's +future uncertain? + +TOM: You're cruel now. And you knew that you were being cruel. + +DICK: Yes, I like the lines of your face when you suffer. + +TOM: The lines of yours when you're causing suffering--I don't like +them. + +DICK: Perhaps that's your limitation. + +TOM: I grant you it may be. (_They are silent_) I had an odd feeling +that you and I sat here once before, long ago, and that we were plants. +And you were a beautiful plant, and I--I was a very ugly plant. I +confess it surprised me--finding myself so ugly a plant. + +(_A young girl is seen outside_. HARRY _gets the door open for her and +brings_ ELIZABETH _in_.) + +HARRY: There's heat here. And two of your mother's friends. Mr +Demming--Richard Demming--the artist--and I think you and Mr Edgeworthy +are old friends. + +(ELIZABETH _comes forward. She is the creditable young American--well +built, poised, 'cultivated', so sound an expression of the usual as to +be able to meet the world with assurance--assurance which training has +made rather graceful. She is about seventeen--and mature. You feel solid +things behind her_.) + +TOM: I knew you when you were a baby. You used to kick a great deal +then. + +ELIZABETH: (_laughing, with ease_) And scream, I haven't a doubt. But +I've stopped that. One does, doesn't one? And it was you who gave me the +idol. + +TOM: Proselytizing, I'm afraid. + +ELIZABETH: I beg--? Oh--_yes (laughing cordially_) I _see. (she +doesn't_) I dressed the idol up in my doll's clothes. They fitted +perfectly--the idol was just the size of my doll Ailine. But mother +didn't like the idol that way, and tore the clothes getting them off. +(_to_ HARRY, _after looking around_) Is mother here? + +HARRY: (_crossly_) Yes, she's here. Of course she's here. And she must +know you're here, (_after looking in the inner room he goes to the +trap-door and makes a great noise_) + +ELIZABETH: Oh--_please_. Really--it doesn't make the least difference. + +HARRY: Well, all I can say is, your manners are better than your +mother's. + +ELIZABETH: But you see I don't do anything interesting, so I have to +have good manners. (_lightly, but leaving the impression there is a +certain superiority in not doing anything interesting. Turning cordially +to_ DICK) My father was an artist. + +DICK: Yes, I know. + +ELIZABETH: He was a portrait painter. Do you do portraits? + +DICK: Well, not the kind people buy. + +ELIZABETH: They bought father's. + +DICK: Yes, I know he did that kind. + +HARRY: (_still irritated_) Why, you don't do portraits. + +DICK: I did one of you the other day. You thought it was a milk-can. + +ELIZABETH: (_laughing delightedly_) No? Not really? Did you think--How +could you think--(_as_ HARRY _does not join the laugh_) Oh, I beg your +pardon. I--Does mother grow beautiful roses now? + +HARRY: No, she does not. + +(_The trap-door begins to move_. CLAIRE's _head appears_.) + +ELIZABETH: Mother! It's been so long--(_she tries to overcome the +difficulties and embrace her mother_) + +CLAIRE: (_protecting a box she has_) Careful, Elizabeth. We mustn't +upset the lice. + +ELIZABETH: (_retreating_) Lice? (_but quickly equal even to lice_) +Oh--yes. You take it--them--off plants, don't you? + +CLAIRE: I'm putting them on certain plants. + +ELIZABETH: (_weakly_) Oh, I thought you took them off. + +CLAIRE: (_calling_) Anthony! (_he comes_) The lice. (_he takes them from +her_) (CLAIRE, _who has not fully ascended, looks at_ ELIZABETH, +_hesitates, then suddenly starts back down the stairs_.) + +HARRY: (_outraged_) Claire! (_slowly she re-ascends--sits on the top +step. After a long pause in which he has waited for_ CLAIRE _to open a +conversation with her daughter_.) Well, and what have you been doing at +school all this time? + +ELIZABETH: Oh--studying. + +CLAIRE: Studying what? + +ELIZABETH: Why--the things one studies, mother. + +CLAIRE: Oh! The things one studies. (_looks down cellar again_) + +DICK: (_after another wait_) And what have you been doing besides +studying? + +ELIZABETH: Oh--the things one does. Tennis and skating and dancing and-- + +CLAIRE: The things one does. + +ELIZABETH: Yes. All the things. The--the things one does. Though I +haven't been in school these last few months, you know. Miss Lane took +us to Europe. + +TOM: And how did you like Europe? + +ELIZABETH: (_capably_) Oh, I thought it was awfully amusing. All the +girls were quite mad about Europe. Of course, I'm glad I'm an American. + +CLAIRE: Why? + +ELIZABETH: (_laughing_) Why--mother! Of course one is glad one is an +American. All the girls-- + +CLAIRE: (_turning away_) O--h! (_a moan under the breath_) + +ELIZABETH: Why, mother--aren't you well? + +HARRY: Your mother has been working pretty hard at all this. + +ELIZABETH: Oh, I do so want to know all about it? Perhaps I can help +you! I think it's just awfully amusing that you're doing something. One +does nowadays, doesn't one?--if you know what I mean. It was the war, +wasn't it, made it the thing to do something? + +DICK: (_slyly_) And you thought, Claire, that the war was lost. + +ELIZABETH: The _war? Lost!_ (_her capable laugh_) Fancy our losing a +war! Miss Lane says we should give _thanks_. She says we should each do +some expressive thing--you know what I mean? And that this is the +_keynote_ of the age. Of course, one's own kind of thing. Like +mother--growing flowers. + +CLAIRE: You think that is one's own kind of thing? + +ELIZABETH: Why, of course I do, mother. And so does Miss Lane. All the +girls-- + +CLAIRE: (_shaking her head as if to get something out_) S-hoo. + +ELIZABETH: What is it, mother? + +CLAIRE: A fly shut up in my ear--'All the girls!' + +ELIZABETH: (_laughing_) Mother was always so amusing. So _different_--if +you know what I mean. Vacations I've lived mostly with Aunt Adelaide, +you know. + +CLAIRE: My sister who is fitted to rear children. + +HARRY: Well, somebody has to do it. + +ELIZABETH: And I do love Aunt Adelaide, but I think its going to be +awfully amusing to be around with mother now--and help her with her +work. Help do some useful beautiful thing. + +CLAIRE: I am not doing any useful beautiful thing. + +ELIZABETH: Oh, but you are, mother. Of course you are. Miss Lane says +so. She says it is your splendid heritage gives you this impulse to do a +beautiful thing for the race. She says you are doing in your way what +the great teachers and preachers behind you did in theirs. + +CLAIRE: (_who is good for little more_) Well, all I can say is, Miss +Lane is stung. + +ELIZABETH: Mother! What a thing to say of Miss Lane. (_from this +slipping into more of a little girl manner_) Oh, she gave me a spiel one +day about living up to the men I come from. + +(CLAIRE _turns and regards her daughter_.) + +CLAIRE: You'll do it, Elizabeth. + +ELIZABETH: Well, I don't know. Quite a job, I'll say. Of course, I'd +have to do it in my way. I'm not going to teach or preach or be a stuffy +person. But now that--(_she here becomes the product of a superior +school_) values have shifted and such sensitive new things have been +liberated in the world-- + +CLAIRE: (_low_) Don't use those words. + +ELIZABETH: Why--why not? + +CLAIRE: Because you don't know what they mean. + +ELIZABETH: Why, of course I know what they mean! + +CLAIRE: (_turning away_) You're--stepping on the plants. + +HARRY: (_hastily_) Your mother has been working awfully hard at all +this. + +ELIZABETH: Well, now that I'm here you'll let me help you, won't you, +mother? + +CLAIRE: (_trying for control_) You needn't--bother. + +ELIZABETH: But I _want_ to. Help add to the wealth of the world. + +CLAIRE: Will you please get it out of your head that I am adding to the +wealth of the world! + +ELIZABETH: But, mother--of course you are. To produce a new and better +kind of plant-- + +CLAIRE: They may be new. I don't give a damn whether they're better. + +ELIZABETH: But--but what are they then? + +CLAIRE: (_as if choked out of her_) They're different. + +ELIZABETH: (_thinks a minute, then laughs triumphantly_) But what's the +use of making them different if they aren't better? + +HARRY: A good square question, Claire. Why don't you answer it? + +CLAIRE: I don't have to answer it. + +HARRY: Why not give the girl a fair show? You never have, you know. +Since she's interested, why not tell her what it is you're doing? + +CLAIRE: She is not interested. + +ELIZABETH: But I am, mother. Indeed I am. I do want awfully to +understand what you are doing, and help you. + +CLAIRE: You can't help me, Elizabeth. + +HARRY: Why not let her try? + +CLAIRE: Why do you ask me to do that? This is my own thing. Why do you +make me feel I should--(_goes to_ ELIZABETH) I will be good to you, +Elizabeth. We'll go around together. I haven't done it, but--you'll see. +We'll do gay things. I'll have a lot of beaus around for you. Anything +else. Not--this is--Not this. + +ELIZABETH: As you like, mother, of course. I just would have been so +glad to--to share the thing that interests you. (_hurt borne with good +breeding and a smile_) + +HARRY: Claire! (_which says, 'How can you?'_) + +CLAIRE: (_who is looking at_ ELIZABETH) Yes, I will try. + +TOM: I don't think so. As Claire says--anything else. + +ELIZABETH: Why, of course--I don't at all want to intrude. + +HARRY: It'll do Claire good to take someone in. To get down to brass +tacks and actually say what she's driving at. + +CLAIRE: Oh--_Harry_. But yes--I will try. (_does try, but no words come. +Laughs_) When you come to say it it's not--One would rather not nail it +to a cross of words--(_laughs again_) with brass tacks. + +HARRY: (_affectionately_) But I want to see you put things into words, +Claire, and realize just where you are. + +CLAIRE: (_oddly_) You think that's a--good idea? + +ELIZABETH: (_in her manner of holding the world capably in her hands_) +Now let's talk of something else. I hadn't the least idea of making +mother feel badly. + +CLAIRE: (_desperately_) No, we'll go on. Though I don't know--where +we'll end. I can't answer for that. These plants--(_beginning +flounderingly_) Perhaps they are less beautiful--less sound--than the +plants from which they diverged. But they have found--otherness, +(_laughs a little shrilly_) If you know--what I mean. + +TOM: Claire--stop this! (_To_ HARRY) This is wrong. + +CLAIRE: (_excitedly_) No; I'm going on. They have been shocked out of +what they were--into something they were not; they've broken from the +forms in which they found themselves. They are alien. Outside. That's +it, outside; if you--know what I mean. + +ELIZABETH: (_not shocked from what she is_) But of course, the object of +it all is to make them better plants. Otherwise, what would be the sense +of doing it? + +CLAIRE: (_not reached by_ ELIZABETH) Out there--(_giving it with her +hands_) lies all that's not been touched--lies life that waits. Back +here--the old pattern, done again, again and again. So long done it +doesn't even know itself for a pattern--in immensity. But this--has +invaded. Crept a little way into--what wasn't. Strange lines in life +unused. And when you make a pattern new you know a pattern's made with +life. And then you know that anything may be--if only you know how to +reach it. (_this has taken form, not easily, but with great struggle +between feeling and words_) + +HARRY: (_cordially_) Now I begin to get you, Claire. I never knew before +why you called it the Edge Vine. + +CLAIRE: I should destroy the Edge Vine. It isn't--over the edge. It's +running, back to--'all the girls'. It's a little afraid of Miss Lane, +(_looking sombrely at it_) You are out, but you are not alive. + +ELIZABETH: Why, it looks all right, mother. + +CLAIRE: Didn't carry life with it from the life it left. Dick--you know +what I mean. At least you ought to. (_her ruthless way of not letting +anyone's feelings stand in the way of truth_) Then destroy it for me! +It's hard to do it--with the hands that made it. + +DICK: But what's the point in destroying it, Claire? + +CLAIRE: (_impatiently_) I've told you. It cannot create. + +DICK: But you say you can go on producing it, and it's interesting in +form. + +CLAIRE: And you think I'll stop with that? Be shut in--with different +life--that can't creep on? (_after trying to put destroying hands upon +it_) It's hard to--get past what we've done. Our own dead things--block +the way. + +TOM: But you're doing it this next time, Claire, (_nodding to the inner +room_.) In there! + +CLAIRE: (_turning to that room_) I'm not sure. + +TOM: But you told me Breath of Life has already produced itself. Doesn't +that show it has brought life from the life it left? + +CLAIRE: But timidly, rather--wistfully. A little homesick. If it is less +sure this time, then it is going back to--Miss Lane. But if the +pattern's clearer now, then it has made friends of life that waits. I'll +know to-morrow. + +ELIZABETH: You know, something tells me this is _wrong_. + +CLAIRE: The hymn-singing ancestors are tuning up. + +ELIZABETH: I don't know what you mean by that, mother but-- + +CLAIRE: But we will now sing, 'Nearer, my God, to Thee: Nearer to--' + +ELIZABETH: (_laughingly breaking in_) Well, I don't care. Of course you +can make fun at me, but something does tell me this is wrong. To do +what--what-- + +DICK: What God did? + +ELIZABETH: Well--yes. Unless you do it to make them better--to _do_ it +just to do it--that doesn't seem right to me. + +CLAIRE: (_roughly_) 'Right to you!' And that's all you know of +adventure--and of anguish. Do you know it is you--world of which you're +so true a flower--makes me have to leave? You're there to hold the door +shut! Because you're young and of a gayer world, you think I can't _see_ +them--those old men? Do you know why you're so sure of yourself? Because +you can't _feel_. Can't feel--the limitless--out there--a sea just over +the hill. I will not stay with you! (_buries her hands in the earth +around the Edge Vine. But suddenly steps back from it as she had from_ +ELIZABETH) And I will not stay with _you! (grasps it as we grasp what we +would kill, is trying to pull it up. They all step forward in horror. +ANTHONY is drawn in by this harm to the plant_) + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire! Miss Claire! The work of years! + +CLAIRE: May only make a prison! (_struggling with_ HARRY, _who is trying +to stop her_) You think I too will die on the edge? (_she has thrown him +away, is now struggling with the vine_) Why did I make you? To get past +you! (_as she twists it_) Oh yes, I know you have thorns! The Edge Vine +should have thorns, (_with a long tremendous pull for deep roots, she +has it up. As she holds the torn roots_) Oh, I have loved you so! You +took me where I hadn't been. + +ELIZABETH: (_who has been looking on with a certain practical horror_) +Well, I'd say it would be better not to go there! + +CLAIRE: Now I know what you are for! (_flings her arm back to strike_ +ELIZABETH _with the Edge Vine_) + +HARRY: (_wresting it from her_) Claire! Are you mad? + +CLAIRE: No, I'm not mad. I'm--too sane! (_pointing to_ ELIZABETH--_and +the words come from mighty roots_) To think that object ever moved my +belly and sucked my breast! (ELIZABETH _hides her face as if struck_) + +HARRY: (_going to_ ELIZABETH, _turning to_ CLAIRE) This is atrocious! +You're cruel. + +(_He leads_ ELIZABETH _to the door and out. After an irresolute moment +in which he looks from_ CLAIRE _to_ TOM, DICK _follows._ ANTHONY _cannot +bear to go. He stoops to take the Edge Vine from the floor._ CLAIRE's +_gesture stops him. He goes into the inner room._) + +CLAIRE: (_kicking the Edge Vine out of her way, drawing deep breaths, +smiling_) O-h. How good I feel! Light! (_a movement as if she could +fly_) Read me something, Tom dear. Or say something pleasant--about God. +But be very careful what you say about him! I have a feeling--he's not +far off. + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT II + + +_Late afternoon of the following day._ CLAIRE _is alone in the tower--a +tower which is thought to be round but does not complete the circle. The +back is curved, then jagged lines break from that, and the front is a +queer bulging window--in a curve that leans. The whole structure is as +if given a twist by some terrific force--like something wrong. It is +lighted by an old-fashioned watchman's lantern hanging from the ceiling; +the innumerable pricks and slits in the metal throw a marvellous pattern +on the curved wall--like some masonry that hasn't been. + +There are no windows at back, and there is no door save an opening in +the floor. The delicately distorted rail of a spiral staircase winds up +from below._ CLAIRE _is seen through the huge ominous window as if shut +into the tower. She is lying on a seat at the back looking at a book of +drawings. To do this she has left the door of her lantern a little +open--and her own face is clearly seen. + +A door is heard opening below; laughing voices,_ CLAIRE _listens, not +pleased._ + +ADELAIDE: (_voice coming up_) Dear--dear, why do they make such +twisting steps. + +HARRY: Take your time, most up now. (HARRY_'s head appears, he looks +back._) Making it all right? + +ADELAIDE: I can't tell yet. (_laughingly_) No, I don't think so. + +HARRY: (_reaching back a hand for her_) The last lap--is the bad lap. +(ADELAIDE _is up, and occupied with getting her breath._) + +HARRY: Since you wouldn't come down, Claire, we thought we'd come up. + +ADELAIDE: (_as_ CLAIRE _does not greet her_) I'm sorry to intrude, but I +have to see you, Claire. There are things to be arranged. (CLAIRE +_volunteering nothing about arrangements,_ ADELAIDE _surveys the tower. +An unsympathetic eye goes from the curves to the lines which diverge. +Then she looks from the window_) Well, at least you have a view. + +HARRY: This is the first time you've been up here? + +ADELAIDE: Yes, in the five years you've had the house I was never asked +up here before. + +CLAIRE: (_amiably enough_) You weren't asked up here now. + +ADELAIDE: Harry asked me. + +CLAIRE: It isn't Harry's tower. But never mind--since you don't like +it--it's all right. + +ADELAIDE: (_her eyes again rebuking the irregularities of the tower_) +No, I confess I do not care for it. A round tower should go on being +round. + +HARRY: Claire calls this the thwarted tower. She bought the house +because of it. (_going over and sitting by her, his hand on her ankle_) +Didn't you, old girl? She says she'd like to have known the architect. + +ADELAIDE: Probably a tiresome person too incompetent to make a perfect +tower. + +CLAIRE: Well, now he's disposed of, what next? + +ADELAIDE: (_sitting down in a manner of capably opening a conference_) +Next, Elizabeth, and you, Claire. Just what is the matter with +Elizabeth? + +CLAIRE: (_whose voice is cool, even, as if herself is not really engaged +by this_) Nothing is the matter with her. She is a tower that is a +tower. + +ADELAIDE: Well, is that anything against her? + +CLAIRE: She's just like one of her father's portraits. They never +interested me. Nor does she. (_looks at the drawings which do interest +her_) + +ADELAIDE: A mother cannot cast off her own child simply because she does +not interest her! + +CLAIRE: (_an instant raising cool eyes to_ ADELAIDE) Why can't she? + +ADELAIDE: Because it would be monstrous! + +CLAIRE: And why can't she be monstrous--if she has to be? + +ADELAIDE: You don't have to be. That's where I'm out of patience with +you Claire. You are really a particularly intelligent, competent person, +and it's time for you to call a halt to this nonsense and be the woman +you were meant to be! + +CLAIRE: (_holding the book up to see another way_) What inside dope have +you on what I was meant to be? + +ADELAIDE: I know what you came from. + +CLAIRE: Well, isn't it about time somebody got loose from that? What I +came from made you, so-- + +ADELAIDE: (_stiffly_) I see. + +CLAIRE: So--you being such a tower of strength, why need I too be +imprisoned in what I came from? + +ADELAIDE: It isn't being imprisoned. Right there is where you make your +mistake, Claire. Who's in a tower--in an unsuccessful tower? Not I. I go +about in the world--free, busy, happy. Among people, I have no time to +think of myself. + +CLAIRE: No. + +ADELAIDE: No. My family. The things that interest them; from morning +till night it's-- + +CLAIRE: Yes, I know you have a large family, Adelaide; five and +Elizabeth makes six. + +ADELAIDE: We'll speak of Elizabeth later. But if you would just get out +of yourself and enter into other people's lives-- + +CLAIRE: Then I would become just like you. And we should all be just +alike in order to assure one another that we're all just right. But +since you and Harry and Elizabeth and ten million other people bolster +each other up, why do you especially need me? + +ADELAIDE: (_not unkindly_) We don't need you as much as you need us. + +CLAIRE: (_a wry face_) I never liked what I needed. + +HARRY: I am convinced I am the worst thing in the world for you, Claire. + +CLAIRE: (_with a smile for his tactics, but shaking her head_) I'm +afraid you're not. I don't know--perhaps you are. + +ADELAIDE: Well, what is it you want, Claire? + +CLAIRE: (_simply_) You wouldn't know if I told you. + +ADELAIDE: That's rather arrogant. + +HARRY: Yes, take a chance, Claire. I have been known to get an idea--and +Adelaide quite frequently gets one. + +CLAIRE: (_the first resentment she has shown_) You two feel very +superior, don't you? + +ADELAIDE: I don't think we are the ones who are feeling superior. + +CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you are. Very superior to what you think is my feeling +of superiority, comparing my--isolation with your 'heart of humanity'. +Soon we will speak of the beauty of common experiences, of the--Oh, I +could say it all before we come to it. + +HARRY: Adelaide came up here to help you, Claire. + +CLAIRE: Adelaide came up here to lock me in. Well, she can't do it. + +ADELAIDE: (_gently_) But can't you see that one may do that to one's +self? + +CLAIRE: (_thinks of this, looks suddenly tired--then smiles_) Well, at +least I've changed the keys. + +HARRY: 'Locked in.' Bunkum. Get that our of your head, Claire. Who's +locked in? Nobody that I know of, we're all free Americans. Free as air. + +ADELAIDE: I wish you'd come and hear one of Mr Morley's sermons, Claire. +You're very old-fashioned if you think sermons are what they used to be. + +CLAIRE: (_with interest_) And do they still sing 'Nearer, my God, to +Thee'? + +ADELAIDE: They do, and a noble old hymn it is. It would do you no harm +at all to sing it. + +CLAIRE: (_eagerly_) Sing it to me, Adelaide. I'd like to hear you sing +it. + +ADELAIDE: It would be sacrilege to sing it to you in this mood. + +CLAIRE: (_falling back_) Oh, I don't know. I'm not so sure God would +agree with you. That would be one on you, wouldn't it? + +ADELAIDE: It's easy to feel one's self set apart! + +CLAIRE: No, it isn't. + +ADELAIDE: (_beginning anew_) It's a new age, Claire. Spiritual values-- + +CLAIRE: Spiritual values! (_in her brooding way_) So you have pulled +that up. (_with cunning_) Don't think I don't know what it is you do. + +ADELAIDE: Well, what do I do? I'm sure I have no idea what you're +talking about. + +HARRY: (_affectionately, as_ CLAIRE _is looking with intentness at what +he does not see_) What does she do, Claire? + +CLAIRE: It's rather clever, what she does. Snatching the phrase--(_a +movement as if pulling something up_) standing it up between her +and--the life that's there. And by saying it enough--'We have life! We +have life! We have life!' Very good come-back at one who would really +be--'Just so! _We_ are that. Right this way, please--'That, I suppose is +what we mean by needing each other. All join in the chorus, 'This is it! +This is it! This is it!' And anyone who won't join is to be--visited by +relatives, (_regarding_ ADELAIDE _with curiosity_) Do you really think +that anything is going on in you? + +ADELAIDE: (_stiffly_) I am not one to hold myself up as a perfect +example of what the human race may be. + +CLAIRE: (_brightly_) Well, that's good. + +HARRY: Claire! + +CLAIRE: Humility's a _real_ thing--not just a fine name for laziness. + +HARRY: Well, Lord A'mighty, you can't call Adelaide lazy. + +CLAIRE: She stays in one place because she hasn't the energy to go +anywhere else. + +ADELAIDE: (_as if the last word in absurdity has been said) I_ haven't +energy? + +CLAIRE: (_mildly_) You haven't any energy at all, Adelaide. That's why +you keep so busy. + +ADELAIDE: _Well_--Claire's nerves are in a worse state than I had +realized. + +CLAIRE: So perhaps we'd better look at Blake's drawings, (_takes up the +book_) + +ADELAIDE: It would be all right for me to look at Blake's drawings. +You'd better look at the Sistine Madonna, (_affectionately, after she +has watched_ CLAIRE_'s face a moment_) What is it, Claire? Why do you +shut yourself out from us? + +CLAIRE: I told you. Because I do not want to be shut in with you. + +ADELAIDE: All of this is not very pleasant for Harry. + +HARRY: I want Claire to be gay. + +CLAIRE: Funny--you should want that, (_speaks unwillingly, a curious, +wistful unwillingness_) Did you ever say a preposterous thing, then go +trailing after the thing you've said and find it wasn't so preposterous? +Here is the circle we are in._describes a big circle_) Being gay. It +shoots little darts through the circle, and a minute later--gaiety all +gone, and you looking through that little hole the gaiety left. + +ADELAIDE: (_going to her, as she is still looking through that little +hole_) Claire, dear, I wish I could make you feel how much I care for +you. (_simply, with real feeling_) You can call me all the names you +like--dull, commonplace, lazy--that is a new idea, I confess, but the +rest of our family's gone now, and the love that used to be there +between us all--the only place for it now is between you and me. You +were so much loved, Claire. You oughtn't to try and get away from a +world in which you are so much loved, (_to_ HARRY) Mother--father--all +of us, always loved Claire best. We always loved Claire's queer gaiety. +Now you've got to hand it to us for that, as the children say. + +CLAIRE: (_moved, but eyes shining with a queer bright loneliness_) But +never one of you--once--looked with me through the little pricks the +gaiety made--never one of you--once, looked with me at the queer light +that came in through the pricks. + +ADELAIDE: And can't you see, dear, that it's better for us we didn't? +And that it would be better for you now if you would just resolutely +look somewhere else? You must see yourself that you haven't the poise of +people who are held--well, within the circle, if you choose to put it +that way. There's something about being in that main body, having one's +roots in the big common experiences, gives a calm which you have missed. +That's _why_ I want you to take Elizabeth, forget yourself, and-- + +CLAIRE: I do want calm. But mine would have to be a calm I--worked my +way to. A calm all prepared for me--would stink. + +ADELAIDE: (_less sympathetically_) I know you have to be yourself, +Claire. But I don't admit you have a right to hurt other people. + +HARRY: I think Claire and I had better take a nice long trip. + +ADELAIDE: Now why don't you? + +CLAIRE: I am taking a trip. + +ADELAIDE: Well, Harry isn't, and he'd like to go and wants you to go +with him. Go to Paris and get yourself some awfully good-looking +clothes--and have one grand fling at the gay world. You really love +that, Claire, and you've been awfully dull lately. I think that's the +whole trouble. + +HARRY: I think so too. + +ADELAIDE: This sober business of growing plants-- + +CLAIRE: Not sober--it's mad. + +ADELAIDE: All the more reason for quitting it. + +CLAIRE: But madness that is the only chance for sanity. + +ADELAIDE: Come, come, now--let's not juggle words. + +CLAIRE: (_springing up_) How dare you say that to me, Adelaide. You who +are such a liar and thief and whore with words! + +ADELAIDE: (_facing her, furious_) How _dare_ you-- + +HARRY: Of course not, Claire. You have the most preposterous way of +using words. + +CLAIRE: I respect words. + +ADELAIDE: Well, you'll please respect me enough not to dare use certain +words to me! + +CLAIRE: Yes, I do dare. I'm tired of what you do--you and all of you. +Life--experience--values--calm--sensitive words which raise their heads +as indications. And you _pull them up_--to decorate your stagnant little +minds--and think that makes you--And because you have pulled that word +from the life that grew it you won't let one who's honest, and aware, +and troubled, try to reach through to--to what she doesn't know is +there, (_she is moved, excited, as if a cruel thing has been done_) Why +did you come here? + +ADELAIDE: To try and help you. But I begin to fear I can't do it. It's +pretty egotistical to claim that what so many people are, is wrong. + +(_CLAIRE, after looking intently at ADELAIDE, slowly, smiling a little, +describes a circle. With deftly used hands makes a quick vicious break +in the circle which is there in the air._) + +HARRY: (_going to her, taking her hands_) It's getting close to +dinner-time. You were thinking of something else, Claire, when I told +you Charlie Emmons was coming to dinner to-night, (_answering her look_) +Sure--he is a neurologist, and I want him to see you. I'm perfectly +honest with you--cards all on the table, you know that. I'm hoping if +you like him--and he's the best scout in the world, that he can help +you. (_talking hurriedly against the stillness which follows her look +from him to ADELAIDE, where she sees between them an 'understanding' +about her_) Sure you need help, Claire. Your nerves are a little on the +blink--from all you've been doing. No use making a mystery of it--or a +tragedy. Emmons is a cracker-jack, and naturally I want you to get a +move on yourself and be happy again. + +CLAIRE: (_who has gone over to the window_) And this neurologist can +make me happy? + +HARRY: Can make you well--and then you'll be happy. + +ADELAIDE: (_in the voice of now fixing it all up_) And I had just an +idea about Elizabeth. Instead of working with mere plants, why not think +of Elizabeth as a plant and-- + +(CLAIRE, _who has been looking out of the window, now throws open one of +the panes that swings out--or seems to, and calls down in great +excitement._) + +CLAIRE: Tom! _Tom!_ Quick! Up here! I'm in trouble! + +HARRY: (_going to the window_) That's a rotten thing to do, Claire! +You've frightened him. + +CLAIRE: Yes, how fast he can run. He was deep in thought and I stabbed +right through. + +HARRY: Well, he'll be none too pleased when he gets up here and finds +there was no reason for the stabbing! + +(_They wait for his footsteps,_ HARRY _annoyed,_ ADELAIDE _offended, but +stealing worried looks at_ CLAIRE, _who is looking fixedly at the place +in the floor where_ TOM _will appear.--Running footsteps._) + +TOM: (_his voice getting there before he does_) Yes, +Claire--yes--yes--(_as his head appears_) What is it? + +CLAIRE: (_at once presenting him and answering his question_) My sister. + +TOM: (_gasping_) Oh,--why--is that all? I mean--how do you do? Pardon, I +(_panting_) came up--rather hurriedly. + +HARRY: If you want to slap Claire, Tom, I for one have no objection. + +CLAIRE: Adelaide has the most interesting idea, Tom. She proposes that I +take Elizabeth and roll her in the gutter. Just let her lie there until +she breaks up into-- + +ADELAIDE: _Claire!_ I don't see how--even in fun--pretty vulgar fun--you +can speak in those terms of a pure young girl. I'm beginning to think I +had better take Elizabeth. + +CLAIRE: Oh, I've thought that all along. + +ADELAIDE: And I'm also beginning to suspect that--oddity may be just a +way of shifting responsibility. + +CLAIRE: (_cordially interested in this possibility_) Now you know--that +might be. + +ADELAIDE: A mother who does not love her own child! You are an unnatural +woman, Claire. + +CLAIRE: Well, at least it saves me from being a natural one. + +ADELAIDE: Oh--I know, you think you have a great deal! But let me tell +you, you've missed a great deal! You've never known the faintest +stirring of a mother's love. + +CLAIRE: That's not true. + +HARRY: No. Claire loved our boy. + +CLAIRE: I'm glad he didn't live. + +HARRY: (_low_) Claire! + +CLAIRE: I loved him. Why should I want him to live? + +HARRY: Come, dear, I'm sorry I spoke of him--when you're not feeling +well. + +CLAIRE: I'm feeling all right. _Just_ because I'm seeing something, it +doesn't mean I'm sick. + +HARRY: Well, let's go down now. About dinner-time. I shouldn't wonder if +Emmons were here. (_as ADELAIDE is starting down stairs_) Coming, +Claire? + +CLAIRE: No. + +HARRY: But it's time to go down for dinner. + +CLAIRE: I'm not hungry. + +HARRY: But we have a guest. Two guests--Adelaide's staying too. + +CLAIRE: Then you're not alone. + +HARRY: But I invited Dr Emmons to meet you. + +CLAIRE: (_her smile flashing_) Tell him I am violent to-night. + +HARRY: Dearest--how can you joke about such things! + +CLAIRE: So you do think they're serious? + +HARRY: (_irritated_) No, I do not! But I want you to come down for +dinner! + +ADELAIDE: Come, come, Claire; you know quite well this is not the sort +of thing one does. + +CLAIRE: Why go on saying one doesn't, when you are seeing one does (_to_ +TOM) Will you stay with me a while? I want to purify the tower. + +(ADELAIDE _begins to disappear_) + +HARRY: Fine time to choose for a _tête-à -tête. (as he is leaving_) I'd +think more of you, Edgeworthy, if you refused to humour Claire in her +ill-breeding. + +ADELAIDE: (_her severe voice coming from below_) It is not what she was +taught. + +CLAIRE: No, it's not what I was taught, (_laughing rather timidly_) And +perhaps you'd rather have your dinner? + +TOM: No. + +CLAIRE: We'll get something later. I want to talk to you. (_but she does +not--laughs_) Absurd that I should feel bashful with you. Why am I so +awkward with words when I go to talk to you? + +TOM: The words know they're not needed. + +CLAIRE: No, they're not needed. There's something underneath--an open +way--down below the way that words can go. (_rather desperately_) It is +there, isn't it? + +TOM: Oh, yes, it is there. + +CLAIRE: Then why do we never--go it? + +TOM: If we went it, it would not be there. + +CLAIRE: Is that true? How terrible, if that is true. + +TOM: Not terrible, wonderful--that it should--of itself--be there. + +CLAIRE: (_with the simplicity that can say anything_) I want to go it, +Tom, I'm lonely up on top here. Is it that I have more faith than you, +or is it only that I'm greedier? You see, you don't know (_her reckless +laugh_) what you're missing. You don't know how I could love you. + +TOM: Don't, Claire; that isn't--how it is--between you and me. + +CLAIRE: But why can't it be--every way--between you and me? + +TOM: Because we'd lose--the open way. (_the quality of his denial shows +how strong is his feeling for her_) With anyone else--not with you. + +CLAIRE: But you are the only one I want. The only one--all of me wants. + +TOM: I know; but that's the way it is. + +CLAIRE: You're cruel. + +TOM: Oh, Claire, I'm trying so hard to--save it for us. Isn't it our +beauty and our safeguard that underneath our separate lives, no matter +where we may be, with what other, there is this open way between us? +That's so much more than anything we could bring to being. + +CLAIRE: Perhaps. But--it's different with me. I'm not--all spirit. + +TOM: (_his hand on her_) Dear! + +CLAIRE: No, don't touch me--since (_moving_) you're going away +to-morrow? (_he nods_) For--always? (_his head just moves assent_) India +is just another country. But there are undiscovered countries. + +TOM: Yes, but we are so feeble we have to reach our country through the +actual country lying nearest. Don't you do that yourself, Claire? Reach +your country through the plants' country? + +CLAIRE: My country? You mean--outside? + +TOM: No, I don't think it that way. + +CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you do. + +TOM: Your country is the inside, Claire. The innermost. You are +disturbed because you lie too close upon the heart of life. + +CLAIRE: (_restlessly_) I don't know; you can think it one way--or +another. No way says it, and that's good--at least it's not shut up in +saying. (_she is looking at her enclosing hand, as if something is shut +up there_) + +TOM: But also, you know, things may be freed by expression. Come from +the unrealized into the fabric of life. + +CLAIRE: Yes, but why does the fabric of life have to--freeze into its +pattern? It should (_doing it with her hands_) flow, (_then turning like +an unsatisfied child to him_) But I wanted to talk to you. + +TOM: You are talking to me. Tell me about your flower that never was +before--your Breath of Life. + +CLAIRE: I'll know to-morrow. You'll not go until I know? + +TOM: I'll try to stay. + +CLAIRE: It seems to me, if it has--then I have, integrity in--(_smiles, +it is as if the smile lets her say it_) otherness. I don't want to die +on the edge! + +TOM: Not you! + +CLAIRE: Many do. It's what makes them too smug in allness--those dead +things on the edge, died, distorted--trying to get through. Oh--don't +think I don't see--The Edge Vine! (_a pause, then swiftly_) Do you know +what I mean? Or do you think I'm just a fool, or crazy? + +TOM: I think I know what you mean, and you know I don't think you are a +fool, or crazy. + +CLAIRE: Stabbed to awareness--no matter where it takes you, isn't that +more than a safe place to stay? (_telling him very simply despite the +pattern of pain in her voice_) Anguish may be a thread--making patterns +that haven't been. A thread--blue and burning. + +TOM: (_to take her from what even he fears for her_) But you were +telling me about the flower you breathed to life. What is your Breath of +Life? + +CLAIRE: (_an instant playing_) It's a secret. A secret?--it's a trick. +Distilled from the most fragile flowers there are. It's only +air--pausing--playing; except, far in, one stab of red, its quivering +heart--that asks a question. But here's the trick--I bred the air-form +to strength. The strength shut up behind us I've sent--far out. +(_troubled_) I'll know tomorrow. And I have another gift for Breath of +Life; some day--though days of work lie in between--some day I'll give +it reminiscence. Fragrance that is--no one thing in here +but--reminiscent. (_silence, she raises wet eyes_) We need the haunting +beauty from the life we've left. I need that, (_he takes her hands and +breathes her name_) Let me reach my country with you. I'm not a plant. +After all, they don't--accept me. Who does--accept me? Will you? + +TOM: My dear--dear, dear, Claire--you move me so! You stand alone in a +clearness that breaks my heart, (_her hands move up his arms. He takes +them to hold them from where they would go--though he can hardly do it_) +But you've asked what you yourself could answer best. We'd only stop in +the country where everyone stops. + +CLAIRE: We might come through--to radiance. + +TOM: Radiance is an enclosing place. + +CLAIRE: Perhaps radiance lighting forms undreamed, (_her reckless +laugh_) I'd be willing to--take a chance, I'd rather lose than never +know. + +TOM: No, Claire. Knowing you from underneath, I know you couldn't bear +to lose. + +CLAIRE: Wouldn't men say you were a fool! + +TOM: They would. + +CLAIRE: And perhaps you are. (_he smiles a little_) I feel so desperate, +because if only I could--show you what I am, you might see I could have +without losing. But I'm a stammering thing with you. + +TOM: You do show me what you are. + +CLAIRE: I've known a few moments that were life. Why don't they help me +now? One was in the air. I was up with Harry--flying--high. It was about +four months before David was born--the doctor was furious--pregnant +women are supposed to keep to earth. We were going fast--I _was_ +flying--I had left the earth. And then--within me, movement, for the +first time--stirred to life far in air--movement within. The man unborn, +he too, would fly. And so--I always loved him. He was movement--and +wonder. In his short life were many flights. I never told anyone about +the last one. His little bed was by the window--he wasn't four years +old. It was night, but him not asleep. He saw the morning star--you +know--the morning star. Brighter--stranger--reminiscent--and a promise. +He pointed--'Mother', he asked me, 'what is there--beyond the stars?' A +baby, a sick baby--the morning star. Next night--the finger that pointed +was--(_suddenly bites her own finger_) But, yes, I am glad. He would +always have tried to move and too much would hold him. Wonder would +die--and he'd laugh at soaring, (_looking down, sidewise_) Though I +liked his voice. So I wish you'd stay near me--for I like your voice, +too. + +TOM: Claire! That's (_choked_) almost too much. + +CLAIRE: (_one of her swift glances--canny, almost practical_) Well, I'm +glad if it is. How can I make it more? (_but what she sees brings its +own change_) I know what it is you're afraid of. It's because I have so +much--yes, why shouldn't I say it?--passion. You feel that in me, don't +you? You think it would swamp everything. But that isn't all there is to +me. + +TOM: Oh, I know it! My dearest--why, it's because I know it! You think I +_am_--a fool? + +CLAIRE: It's a thing that's--sometimes more than I am. And yet I--I am +more than it is. + +TOM: I know. I know about you. + +CLAIRE: I don't know that you do. Perhaps if you really knew about +me--you wouldn't go away. + +TOM: You're making me suffer, Claire. + +CLAIRE: I know I am. I want to. Why shouldn't you suffer? (_now seeing +it more clearly than she has ever seen it_) You know what I think about +you? You're afraid of suffering, and so you stop this side--in what you +persuade yourself is suffering, (_waits, then sends it straight_) You +know--how it is--with me and Dick? (_as she sees him suffer_) Oh, no, I +don't want to hurt you! Let it be you! I'll teach you--you needn't scorn +it. It's rather wonderful. + +TOM: Stop that, Claire! That isn't you. + +CLAIRE: Why are you so afraid--of letting me be low--if that is low? You +see--(_cannily_) I believe in beauty. I have the faith that can be bad +as well as good. And you know why I have the faith? Because +sometimes--from my lowest moments--beauty has opened as the sea. From a +cave I saw immensity. + + My love, you're going away-- + Let me tell you how it is with me; + I want to touch you--somehow touch you once before I die-- + Let me tell you how it is with me. + I do not want to work, + I want to be; + Do not want to make a rose or make a poem-- + Want to lie upon the earth and know. (_closes her eyes_) + Stop doing that!--words going into patterns; + They do it sometimes when I let come what's there. + Thoughts take pattern--then the pattern is the thing. + But let me tell you how it is with me. (_it flows again_) + All that I do or say--it is to what it comes from, + A drop lifted from the sea. + I want to lie upon the earth and know. + But--scratch a little dirt and make a flower; + Scratch a bit of brain--something like a poem. (_covering her face_) + Stop _doing_ that. Help me stop doing that! + +TOM: (_and from the place where she had carried him_) + Don't talk at all. Lie still and know-- + And know that I am knowing. + +CLAIRE: + Yes; but we are so weak we have to talk; + To talk--to touch. + Why can't I rest in knowing I would give my life to reach you? + That has--all there is. + But I must--put my timid hands upon you, + Do something about infinity. + Oh, let what will flow into us, + And fill us full--and leave us still. + Wring me dry, + And let me fill again with life more pure. + To know--to feel, + And do nothing with what I feel and know-- + That's being good. That's nearer God. + +(_drenched in the feeling that has flowed through her--but +surprised--helpless_) Why, I said your thing, didn't I? Opened my life +to bring you to me, and what came--is what sends you away. + +TOM: No! What came is what holds us together. What came is what saves us +from ever going apart. (_brokenly_) My beautiful one. You--you brave +flower of all our knowing. + +CLAIRE: I am not a flower. I am too torn. If you have anything--help me. +Breathe, Breathe the healing oneness, and let me know in calm. (_with a +sob his head rests upon her_) + +CLAIRE: (_her hands on his head, but looking far_) Beauty--you pure one +thing. Breathe--Let me know in calm. Then--trouble me, trouble me, for +other moments--in farther calm. (_slow, motionless, barely articulate_) + +TOM: (_as she does not move he lifts his head. And even as he looks at +her, she does not move, nor look at him_) Claire--(_his hand out to her, +a little afraid_) You went away from me then. You are away from me now. + +CLAIRE: Yes, and I could go on. But I will come back, (_it is hard to +do. She brings much with her_) That, too, I will give you--my +by-myself-ness. That's the uttermost I can give. I never thought--to try +to give it. But let us do it--the great sacrilege! Yes! (_excited, she +rises; she has his hands, and bring him up beside her_) Let us take the +mad chance! Perhaps it's the only way to save--what's there. How do we +know? How can we know? Risk. Risk everything. From all that flows into +us, let it rise! All that we never thought to use to make a moment--let +it flow into what could be! Bring all into life between us--or send all +down to death! Oh, do you know what I am doing? Risk, risk everything, +why are you so afraid to lose? What holds you from me? Test all. Let it +live or let it die. It is our chance--our chance to bear--what's there. +My dear one--I will love you so. With all of me. I am not afraid +now--of--all of me. Be generous. Be unafraid. Life is for _life_--though +it cuts us from the farthest life. How can I make you know that's true? +All that we're open to--(_hesitates, shudders_) But yes--I will, I will +risk the life that waits. Perhaps only he who gives his +loneliness--shall find. You never keep by holding, (_gesture of giving_) +To the uttermost. And it is gone--or it is there. You do not know +and--that makes the moment--(_music has begun--a phonograph downstairs; +they do not heed it_) Just as I would cut my wrists--(_holding them +out_) Yes, perhaps this lesser thing will tell it--would cut my wrists +and let the blood flow out till all is gone if my last drop would +make--would make--(_looking at them fascinated_) I want to see it doing +that! Let me give my last chance for life to-- + +(_He snatches her--they are on the brink of their moment; now that there +are no words the phonograph from downstairs is louder. It is playing +languorously the Barcarole; they become conscious of this--they do not +want to be touched by the love song._) + +CLAIRE: Don't listen. That's nothing. This isn't that, (_fearing_) I +tell you--it isn't that. Yes, I know--that's amorous--enclosing. I +know--a little place. This isn't that, (_her arms going around him--all +the lure of 'that' while she pleads against it as it comes up to them_) +We will come out--to radiance--in far places (_admitting, using_) Oh, +then let it be that! Go with it. Give up--the otherness. I will! And in +the giving up--perhaps a door--we'd never find by searching. And if it's +no more--than all have known, I only say it's worth the allness! (_her +arms wrapped round him_) My love--my love--let go your pride in +loneliness and let me give you joy! + +TOM: (_drenched in her passion, but fighting_) It's _you_. (_in +anguish_) You rare thing untouched--not--not into this--not back into +this--by me--lover of your apartness. + +(_She steps back. She sees he cannot. She stands there, before what she +wanted more than life, and almost had, and lost. A long moment. Then she +runs down the stairs._) + +CLAIRE: (_her voice coming up_) Harry! Choke that phonograph! If you +want to be lewd--do it yourselves! You tawdry things--you cheap little +lewd cowards, (_a door heard opening below_) Harry! If you don't stop +that music, I'll kill myself. + +(_far down, steps on stairs_) + +HARRY: Claire, what _is_ this? + +CLAIRE: Stop that phonograph or I'll-- + +HARRY: Why, of course I'll stop it. What--what is there to get so +excited about? Now--now just a minute, dear. It'll take a minute. + +(CLAIRE _comes back upstairs, dragging steps, face ghastly. The amorous +song still comes up, and louder now that doors are open. She and_ TOM +_do not look at one another. Then, on a languorous swell the music comes +to a grating stop. They do not speak or move. Quick footsteps_--HARRY +_comes up_.) + +HARRY: What in the world were you saying, Claire? Certainly you could +have asked me more quietly to turn off the Victrola. Though what harm +was it doing you--way up here? (_a sharp little sound from_ CLAIRE; _she +checks it, her hand over her mouth_. HARRY _looks from her to_ TOM) +Well, I think you two would better have had your dinner. Won't you come +down now and have some? + +CLAIRE: (_only now taking her hand from her mouth_) Harry, tell him to +come up here--that insanity man. I--want to ask him something. + +HARRY: 'Insanity man!' How absurd. He's a nerve specialist. There's a +vast difference. + +CLAIRE: Is there? Anyway, ask him to come up here. Want to--ask him +something. + +TOM: (_speaking with difficulty_) Wouldn't it be better for us to go +down there? + +CLAIRE: No. So nice up here! Everybody--up here! + +HARRY: (_worried_) You'll--be yourself, will you, Claire? (_She checks a +laugh, nods_.) I think he can help you. + +CLAIRE: Want to ask him to--help me. + +HARRY: (_as he is starting down_) He's here as a guest to-night, you +know, Claire. + +CLAIRE: I suppose a guest can--help one. + +TOM: (_when the silence rejects it_) Claire, you must know, it's because +it is so much, so-- + +CLAIRE: Be still. There isn't anything to say. + +TOM: (_torn--tortured_) If it only weren't _you_! + +CLAIRE: Yes,--so you said. If it weren't. I suppose I wouldn't be +so--interested! (_hears them starting up below--keeps looking at the +place where they will appear_) + +(HARRY _is heard to call_, 'Coming, Dick?' _and_ DICK's _voice replies_, +'In a moment or two.' ADELAIDE _comes first_.) + +ADELAIDE: (_as her head appears_) Well, these stairs should keep down +weight. You missed an awfully good dinner, Claire. And kept Mr Edgeworth +from a good dinner. + +CLAIRE: Yes. We missed our dinner. (_her eyes do not leave the place +where_ DR EMMONS _will come up_) + +HARRY: (_as he and_ EMMONS _appear_) Claire, this is-- + +CLAIRE: Yes, I know who he is. I want to ask you-- + +ADELAIDE: Let the poor man get his breath before you ask him anything. +(_he nods, smiles, looks at_ CLAIRE _with interest. Careful not to look +too long at her, surveys the tower_) + +EMMONS: Curious place. + +ADELAIDE: Yes; it lacks form, doesn't it? + +CLAIRE: What do you mean? How _dare_ you? + +(_It is impossible to ignore her agitation; she is backed against the +curved wall, as far as possible from them._ HARRY _looks at her in +alarm, then in resentment at_ TOM, _who takes a step nearer_ CLAIRE.) + +HARRY: (_trying to be light_) Don't take it so hard, Claire. + +CLAIRE: (_to_ EMMONS) It must be very interesting--helping people go +insane. + +ADELAIDE: Claire! How preposterous. + +EMMONS: (_easily_) I hope that's not precisely what we do. + +ADELAIDE: (_with the smile of one who is going to 'cover it'._) Trust +Claire to put it in the unique and--amusing way. + +CLAIRE: Amusing? You are amused? But it doesn't matter, (_to the +doctor_) I think it is very kind of you--helping people go insane. I +suppose they have all sorts of reasons for having to do it--reasons why +they can't stay sane any longer. But tell me, how do they do it? It's +not so easy to--get out. How do so many manage it? + +EMMONS: I'd like immensely to have a talk with you about all this some +day. + +ADELAIDE: Certainly this is not the time, Claire. + +CLAIRE: The time? When you--can't go any farther--isn't that that-- + +ADELAIDE: (_capably taking the whole thing into matter-of-factness_) +What I think is, Claire has worked too long with plants. There's +something--not quite sound about making one thing into another thing. +What we need is unity. (_from_ CLAIRE _something like a moan_) Yes, +dear, we do need it. (_to the doctor_) I can't say that I believe in +making life over like this. I don't think the new species are worth it. +At least I don't believe in it for Claire. If one is an intense, +sensitive person-- + +CLAIRE: Isn't there any way to _stop_ her? Always--always smothering it +with the word for it? + +EMMONS: (_soothingly_) But she can't smother it. Anything that's really +there--she can't hurt with words. + +CLAIRE: (_looking at him with eyes too bright_) Then you don't see it +either, (_angry_) Yes, she can hurt it! Piling it up--always piling it +up--between us and--What there. Clogging the way--always, (_to_ EMMONS) +I want to cease to know! That's all I ask. Darken it. Darken it. If you +came to help me, strike me blind! + +EMMONS: You're really all tired out, aren't you? Oh, we've got to get +you rested. + +CLAIRE: They--deny it saying they have it; and he (_half looks at_ +TOM_--quickly looks away_)--others, deny it--afraid of losing it. We're +in the way. Can't you see the dead stuff piled in the path? +(_Pointing._) + +DICK: (_voice coming up_) Me too? + +CLAIRE: (_staring at the path, hearing his voice a moment after it has +come_) Yes, Dick--you too. Why not--you too. (_after he has come up_) +What is there any more than you are? + +DICK: (_embarrassed by the intensity, but laughing_) A question not at +all displeasing to me. Who can answer it? + +CLAIRE: (_more and more excited_) Yes! Who can answer it? (_going to +him, in terror_) Let me go with you--and be with you--and know nothing +else! + +ADELAIDE: (_gasping_) Why--! + +HARRY: Claire! This is going a little too-- + +CLAIRE: Far? But you have to go far to--(_clinging to_ DICK) Only a +place to hide your head--what else is there to hope for? I can't stay +with them--piling it up! Always--piling it up! I can't get through +to--he won't let me through to--what I don't know is there! (DICK _would +help her regain herself_) Don't push me away! Don't--don't stand me up, +I will go back--to the worst we ever were! Go back--and remember--what +we've tried to forget! + +ADELAIDE: It's time to stop this by force--if there's no other way. +(_the doctor shakes his head_) + +CLAIRE: All I ask is to die in the gutter with everyone spitting on me. +(_changes to a curious weary smiling quiet_) Still, why should they +bother to do that? + +HARRY: (_brokenly_) You're sick, Claire. There's no denying it. (_looks +at_ EMMONS, _who nods_) + +ADELAIDE: Something to quiet her--to stop it. + +CLAIRE: (_throwing her arms around_ DICK) You, Dick. Not them. Not--any +of them. + +DICK: Claire, you are overwrought. You must-- + +HARRY: (_to_ DICK, _as if only now realizing that phase of it_) I'll +tell you one thing, you'll answer to me for this! (_he starts for_ +DICK--_is restrained by_ EMMONS, _chiefly by his grave shake of the +head. With_ HARRY_'s move to them,_ DICK _has shielded_ CLAIRE) + +CLAIRE: Yes--hold me. Keep me. You have mercy! You will have mercy. +Anything--everything--that will let me be nothing! + + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT III + + +_In the greenhouse, the same as Act I._ ANTHONY _is bedding small plants +where the Edge Vine grew. In the inner room the plant like caught motion +glows as from a light within._ HATTIE, _the Maid, rushes in from +outside._ + +ANTHONY: (_turning angrily_) You are not what this place-- + +HATTIE: Anthony, come in the house. I'm afraid. Mr Archer, I never saw +him like this. He's talking to Mr Demming--something about Mrs Archer. + +ANTHONY: (_who in spite of himself is disturbed by her agitation_) And +if it is, it's no business of yours. + +HATTIE: You don't know how he _is_. I went in the room and-- + +ANTHONY: Well, he won't hurt you, will he? + +HATTIE: How do I know who he'll hurt--a person's whose--(_seeing how to +get him_) Maybe he'll hurt Mrs Archer. + +ANTHONY: (_startled, then smiles_) No; he won't hurt Miss Claire. + +HATTIE: What do you know about it?--out here in the plant house? + +ANTHONY: And I don't want to know about it. This is a very important day +for me. It's Breath of Life I'm thinking of today--not you and Mr +Archer. + +HATTIE: Well, suppose he does something to Mr Demming? + +ANTHONY: Mr Demming will have to look out for himself, I am at work. + +(_resuming work_) + +HATTIE: Don't you think I ought to tell Mrs Archer that-- + +ANTHONY: You let her alone! This is no day for her to be bothered by +you. At eleven o'clock (_looks at watch_) she comes out here--to Breath +of Life. + +HATTIE: (_with greed for gossip_) Did you see any of them when they came +downstairs last night? + +ANTHONY: I was attending to my own affairs. + +HATTIE: They was all excited. Mr Edgeworth--he went away. He was gone +all night, I guess. I saw him coming back just as the milkman woke me +up. Now he's packing his things. _He_ wanted to get to Mrs Archer +too--just a little while ago. But she won't open her door for none of +them. I can't even get in to do her room. + +ANTHONY: Then do some other room--and leave me alone in this room. + +HATTIE: (_a little afraid of what she is asking_) Is she sick, +Anthony--or what? (_vindicating herself, as he gives her a look_) The +doctor, he stayed here late. But she'd locked herself in. I heard Mr +Archer-- + +ANTHONY: You heard too much! (_he starts for the door, to make her +leave, but_ DICK _rushes in. Looks around wildly, goes to the trap-door, +finds it locked_) + +ANTHONY: What are you doing here? + +DICK: Trying not to be shot--if you must know. This is the only place I +can think of--till he comes to his senses and I can get away. Open that, +will you? Rather--ignominious--but better be absurd than be dead. + +HATTIE: Has he got the revolver? + +DICK: Gone for it. Thought I wouldn't sit there till he got back, (_to_ +ANTHONY) Look here--don't you get the idea? Get me some place where he +can't come. + +ANTHONY: It is not what this place is for. + +DICK: Any place is for saving a man's life. + +HATTIE: Sure, Anthony. Mrs Archer wouldn't want Mr Demming shot. + +DICK: That's right, Anthony. Miss Claire will be angry at you if you get +me shot. (_he makes for the door of the inner room_) + +ANTHONY: You can't go in there. It's locked. (HARRY _rushes in from +outside_.) + +HARRY: I thought so! (_he has the revolver_. HATTIE _screams_) + +ANTHONY: Now, Mr Archer, if you'll just stop and think, you'll know Miss +Claire wouldn't want Mr Demming shot. + +HARRY: You think that can stop me? You think you can stop me? (_raising +the revolver_) A dog that-- + +ANTHONY: (_keeping squarely between_ HARRY _and_ DICK) Well, you can't +shoot him in here. It is not good for the plants. (HARRY _is arrested by +this reason_) And especially not today. Why, Mr Archer, Breath of Life +may flower today. It's years Miss Claire's been working for this day. + +HARRY: I never thought to see this day! + +ANTHONY: No, did you? Oh, it will be a wonderful day. And how she has +worked for it. She has an eye that sees what isn't right in what looks +right. Many's the time I've thought--Here the form is set--and then +she'd say, 'We'll try this one', and it had--what I hadn't known was +there. She's like that. + +HARRY: I've always been pleased, Anthony, at the way you've worked with +Miss Claire. This is hardly the time to stand there eulogizing her. And +she's (_can hardly say it_) things you don't know she is. + +ANTHONY: (_proudly_) Oh, I know that! You think I could work with her +and not know she's more than I know she is? + +HARRY: Well, if you love her you've got to let me shoot the dirty dog +that drags her down! + +ANTHONY: Not in here. Not today. More than like you'd break the glass. +And Breath of Life's in there. + +HARRY: Anthony, this is pretty clever of you--but-- + +ANTHONY: I'm not clever. But I know how easy it is to turn life back. +No, I'm not clever at all (CLAIRE _has appeared and is looking in from +outside_), but I do know--there are things you mustn't hurt, (_he sees +her_) Yes, here's Miss Claire. + +(_She comes in. She is looking immaculate._) + +CLAIRE: From the gutter I rise again, refreshed. One does, you know. +Nothing is fixed--not even the gutter, (_smilingly to_ HARRY _and +refusing to notice revolver or agitation_) How did you like the way I +entertained the nerve specialist? + +HARRY: Claire! You can _joke_ about it? + +CLAIRE: (_taking the revolver from the hand she has shocked to +limpness_) Whom are you trying to make hear? + +HARRY: I'm trying to make the world hear that (_pointing_) there stands +a dirty dog who-- + +CLAIRE: Listen, Harry, (_turning to_ HATTIE, _who is over by the tall +plants at right, not wanting to be shot but not wanting to miss the +conversation_) You can do my room now, Hattie. (_HATTIE goes_) If you're +thinking of shooting Dick, you can't shoot him while he's backed up +against that door. + +ANTHONY: Just what I told them, Miss Claire. Just what I told them. + +CLAIRE: And for that matter, it's quite dull of you to have any idea of +shooting him. + +HARRY: I may be dull--I know you think I am--but I'll show you that I've +enough of the man in me to-- + +CLAIRE: To make yourself ridiculous? If I ran out and hid my head in the +mud, would you think you had to shoot the mud? + +DICK: (_stung out of fear_) That's pretty cruel! + +CLAIRE: Well, would you rather be shot? + +HARRY: So you just said it to protect him! + +CLAIRE: I change it to grass, (_nodding to_ DICK) Grass. If I hid my +face in the grass, would you have to burn the grass? + +HARRY: Oh, Claire, how _can_ you? When you know how I love you--and how +I'm suffering? + +CLAIRE: (_with interest_) Are you suffering? + +HARRY: Haven't you _eyes_? + +CLAIRE: I should think it would--do something to you. + +HARRY: God! Have you no heart? (_the door opens._ TOM _comes in_) + +CLAIRE: (_scarcely saying it_) Yes, I have a heart. + +TOM: (_after a pause_) I came to say good-bye. + +CLAIRE: God! Have you no heart? Can't you at least wait till Dick is +shot? + +TOM: Claire! (_now sees the revolver in her hand that is turned from +him. Going to her_) Claire! + +CLAIRE: And even you think this is so important? (_carelessly raises the +revolver, and with her left hand out flat, tells_ TOM _not to touch +her_) Harry thinks it important he shoot Dick, and Dick thinks it +important not to be shot, and you think I mustn't shoot anybody--even +myself--and can't any of you see that none of that is as important +as--where revolvers can't reach? (_putting revolver where there is no +Edge Vine_) I shall never shoot myself. I'm too interested in +destruction to cut it short by shooting. (_after looking from one to the +other, laughs. Pointing_) One--two--three. You-love-me. But why do you +bring it out here? + +ANTHONY: (_who has resumed work_) It is not what this place is for. + +CLAIRE: No this place is for the destruction that can get through. + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire, it is eleven. At eleven we are to go in and see-- + +CLAIRE: Whether it has gone through. But how can we go--with Dick +against the door? + +ANTHONY: He'll have to move. + +CLAIRE: And be shot? + +HARRY: (_irritably_) Oh, he'll not be shot. Claire can spoil anything. + +(DICK _steps away from the door_; CLAIRE _takes a step nearer it_.) + +CLAIRE: (_halting_) Have I spoiled everything? I don't want to go in +there. + +ANTHONY: We're going in together, Miss Claire. Don't you remember? Oh +(_looking resentfully at the others_) don't let any little thing spoil +it for you--the work of all those days--the hope of so many days. + +CLAIRE: Yes--that's it. + +ANTHONY: You're afraid you haven't done it? + +CLAIRE: Yes, but--afraid I have. + +HARRY: (_cross, but kindly_) That's just nervousness, Claire. I've had +the same feeling myself about making a record in flying. + +CLAIRE: (_curiously grateful_) You have, Harry? + +HARRY: (_glad enough to be back in a more usual world_) Sure. I've been +afraid to know, and almost as afraid of having done it as of not having +done it. + +(CLAIRE _nods, steps nearer, then again pulls back_.) + +CLAIRE: I can't go in there. (_she almost looks at_ TOM) Not today. + +ANTHONY: But, Miss Claire, there'll be things to see today we can't see +tomorrow. + +CLAIRE: You bring it in here! + +ANTHONY: In--out from its own place? (_she nods_) And--where they are? +(_again she nods. Reluctantly he goes to the door_) I will not look into +the heart. No one must know before you know. + +(_In the inner room, his head a little turned away, he is seen very +carefully to lift the plant which glows from within. As he brings it in, +no one looks at it_. HARRY _takes a box of seedlings from a stand and +puts them on the floor, that the newcomer may have a place_.) + +ANTHONY: Breath of Life is here, Miss Claire. + +(CLAIRE _half turns, then stops._) + +CLAIRE: Look--and see--what you see. + +ANTHONY: No one should see what you've not seen. + +CLAIRE: I can't see--until I know. + +(ANTHONY _looks into the flower._) + +ANTHONY: (_agitated_) Miss Claire! + +CLAIRE: It has come through? + +ANTHONY: It has gone on. + +CLAIRE: Stronger? + +ANTHONY: Stronger, surer. + +CLAIRE: And more fragile? + +ANTHONY: And more fragile. + +CLAIRE: Look deep. No--turning back? + +ANTHONY: (_after a searching look_) The form is set. (_he steps back +from it_) + +CLAIRE: Then it is--out. (_from where she stands she turns slowly to the +plant_) You weren't. You are. + +ANTHONY: But come and see, Miss Claire. + +CLAIRE: It's so much more than--I'd see. + +HARRY: Well, I'm going to see. (_looking into it_) I never saw anything +like that before! There seems something alive--inside this outer shell. + +DICK: (_he too looking in and he has an artist's manner of a hand up to +make the light right_) It's quite new in form. It--says something about +form. + +HARRY: (_cordially to_ CLAIRE, _who stands apart_) So you've really put +it over. Well, well,--congratulations. It's a good deal of novelty, I +should say, and I've no doubt you'll have a considerable success with +it--people always like something new. I'm mighty glad--after all your +work, and I hope it will--set you up. + +CLAIRE: (_low--and like a machine_) Will you all--go away? + +(ANTHONY _goes--into the other room._) + +HARRY: Why--why, yes. But--oh, Claire! Can't you take some pleasure in +your work? (_as she stands there very still_) Emmons says you need a +good long rest--and I think he's right. + +TOM: Can't this help you, Claire? Let this be release. This--breath of +the uncaptured. + +CLAIRE: (_and though speaking, she remains just as still_) + Breath of the uncaptured? + You are a novelty. + Out? + You have been brought in. + A thousand years from now, when you are but a form too long repeated, + Perhaps the madness that gave you birth will burst again, + And from the prison that is you will leap pent queernesses + To make a form that hasn't been-- + To make a person new. + And this we call creation, (_very low, her head not coming up_) + Go away! + +(TOM _goes_; HARRY _hesitates, looking in anxiety at_ CLAIRE. _He starts +to go, stops, looks at_ DICK, _from him to_ CLAIRE. _But goes. A moment +later_ DICK _moves near_ CLAIRE; _stands uncertainly, then puts a hand +upon her. She starts, only then knowing he is there._) + +CLAIRE: (_a slight shrinking away, but not really reached_) Um, um. + +(_He goes_. CLAIRE _steps nearer her creation. She looks into what +hasn't been. With her breath, and by a gentle moving of her hands, she +fans it to fuller openness. As she does this_ TOM _returns and from +outside is looking in at her. Softly he opens the door and comes in. She +does not know that he is there. In the way she looks at the flower he +looks at her._) + +TOM: Claire, (_she lifts her head_) As you stood there, looking into the +womb you breathed to life, you were beautiful to me beyond any other +beauty. You were life and its reach and its anguish. I can't go away +from you. I will never go away from you. It shall all be--as you wish. I +can go with you where I could not go alone. If this is delusion, I want +that delusion. It's more than any reality I could attain, (_as she does +not move_) Speak to me, Claire. You--are glad? + +CLAIRE: (_from far_) Speak to you? (_pause_) Do I know who you are? + +TOM: I think you do. + +CLAIRE: Oh, yes. I love you. That's who you are. (_waits again_) But why +are you something--very far away? + +TOM: Come nearer. + +CLAIRE: Nearer? (_feeling it with her voice_) Nearer. But I think I am +going--the other way. + +TOM: No, Claire--come to me. Did you understand, dear? I am not going +away. + +CLAIRE: You're not going away? + +TOM: Not without you, Claire. And you and I will be together. Is +that--what you wanted? + +CLAIRE: Wanted? (_as if wanting is something that harks far back. But +the word calls to her passion_) Wanted! (_a sob, hands out, she goes to +him. But before his arms can take her, she steps back_) Are you trying +to pull me down into what I wanted? Are you here to make me stop? + +TOM: How can you ask that? I love you because it is not in you to stop. + +CLAIRE: And loving me for that--would stop me? Oh, help me see it! It is +so important that I see it. + +TOM: It is important. It is our lives. + +CLAIRE: And more than that. I cannot see it because it is so much more +than that. + +TOM: Don't try to see all that it is. From peace you'll see a little +more. + +CLAIRE: Peace? (_troubled as we are when looking at what we cannot see +clearly_) What is peace? Peace is what the struggle knows in moments +very far apart. Peace--that is not a place to rest. Are you resting? +What are you? You who'd take me from what I am to something else? + +TOM: I thought you knew, Claire. + +CLAIRE: I know--what you pass for. But are you beauty? Beauty is that +only living pattern--the trying to take pattern. Are you trying? + +TOM: Within myself, Claire. I never thought you doubted that. + +CLAIRE: Beauty is it. (_she turns to Breath of Life, as if to learn it +there, but turns away with a sob_) If I cannot go to you now--I will +always be alone. + +(TOM _takes her in his arms. She is shaken, then comes to rest._) + +TOM: Yes--rest. And then--come into joy. You have so much life for joy. + +CLAIRE: (_raising her head, called by promised gladness_) We'll run +around together. (_lovingly he nods_) Up hills. All night on hills. + +TOM: (_tenderly_) All night on hills. + +CLAIRE: We'll go on the sea in a little boat. + +TOM: On the sea in a little boat. + +CLAIRE: But--there are other boats on other seas, (_drawing back from +him, troubled_) There are other boats on other seas. + +TOM: (_drawing her back to him_) My dearest--not now, not now. + +CLAIRE: (_her arms going round him_) Oh, I would love those hours with +you. I want them. I want you! (_they kiss--but deep in her is sobbing_) +Reminiscence, (_her hand feeling his arm as we touch what we would +remember_) Reminiscence. (_with one of her swift changes steps back from +him_) How dare you pass for what you're not? We are tired, and so we +think it's you. Stop with you. Don't get through--to what you're in the +way of. Beauty is not something you say about beauty. + +TOM: I say little about beauty, Claire. + +CLAIRE: Your life says it. By standing far off you pass for it. Smother +it with a life that passes for it. But beauty--(_getting it from the +flower_) Beauty is the humility breathed from the shame of succeeding. + +TOM: But it may all be within one's self, dear. + +CLAIRE: (_drawn by this, but held, and desperate because she is held_) +When I have wanted you with all my wanting--why must I distrust you now? +When I love you--with all of me, why do I know that only you are worth +my hate? + +TOM: It's the fear of easy satisfactions. I love you for it. + +CLAIRE: (_over the flower_) Breath of Life--you here? Are you +lonely--Breath of Life? + +TOM: Claire--hear me! Don't go where we can't go. As there you made a +shell for life within, make for yourself a life in which to live. It +must be so. + +CLAIRE: As you made for yourself a shell called beauty? + +TOM: What is there for you, if you'll have no touch with what we have? + +CLAIRE: What is there? There are the dreams we haven't dreamed. There is +the long and flowing pattern, (_she follows that, but suddenly and as if +blindly goes to him_) I am tired. I am lonely. I'm afraid, (_he holds +her, soothing. But she steps back from him_) And because we are +tired--lonely--and afraid, we stop with you. Don't get through--to what +you're in the way of. + +TOM: Then you don't love me? + +CLAIRE: I'm fighting for my chance. I don't know--which chance. + +(_Is drawn to the other chance, to Breath of Life. Looks into it as if +to look through to the uncaptured. And through this life just caught +comes the truth she chants._) + + I've wallowed at a coarse man's feet, + I'm sprayed with dreams we've not yet come to. + I've gone so low that words can't get there, + I've never pulled the mantle of my fears around me + And called it loneliness--And called it God. + Only with life that waits have I kept faith. + +(_with effort raising her eyes to the man_) + + And only you have ever threatened me. + +TOM: (_coming to her, and with strength now_) And I will threaten you. +I'm here to hold you from where I know you cannot go. You're trying what +we can't do. + +CLAIRE: What else is there worth trying? + +TOM: I love you, and I will keep you--from fartherness--from harm. You +are mine, and you will stay with me! (_roughly_) You hear me? You will +stay with me! + +CLAIRE: (_her head on his breast, in ecstasy of rest. Drowsily_) You can +keep me? + +TOM: Darling! I can keep you. I will keep you--safe. + +CLAIRE: (_troubled by the word, but barely able to raise her head_) +Safe? + +TOM: (_bringing her to rest again_) Trust me, Claire. + +CLAIRE: (_not lifting her head, but turning it so she sees Breath of +Life_) Now can I trust--what is? (_suddenly pushing him roughly away_) +No! I will beat my life to pieces in the struggle to-- + +TOM: To _what_, Claire? + +CLAIRE: Not to stop it by seeming to have it. (_with fury_) I will keep +my life low--low--that I may never stop myself--or anyone--with the +thought it's what _I_ have. I'd rather be the steam rising from the +manure than be a thing called beautiful! (_with sight too clear_) Now I +know who you are. It is you puts out the breath of life. Image of +beauty--_You fill the place--should be a gate._ (_in agony_) Oh, that it +is _you_--fill the place--should be a gate! My darling! That it should +be you who--(_her hands moving on him_) Let me tell you something. Never +was loving strong as my loving of you! Do you know that? Oh, know that! +Know it now! (_her arms go around his neck_) Hours with you--I'd give my +life to have! That it should be you--(_he would loosen her hands, for he +cannot breathe. But when she knows she is choking him, that knowledge is +fire burning its way into the last passion_) It _is_ you. It is you. + +TOM: (_words coming from a throat not free_) Claire! What are you doing? +(_then she knows what she is doing_) + +CLAIRE: (_to his resistance_) No! You are _too much_! You are _not +enough_. (_still wanting not to hurt her, he is slow in getting free. He +keeps stepping backward trying, in growing earnest, to loosen her hands. +But he does not loosen them before she has found the place in his throat +that cuts off breath. As he gasps_) + +Breath of Life--my gift--to you! + +(_She has pushed him against one of the plants at right as he sways, +strength she never had before pushes him over backward, just as they +have struggled from sight. Violent crash of glass is heard._) + +TOM: (_faint smothered voice_) _No_. I'm--hurt. + +CLAIRE: (_in the frenzy and agony of killing_) Oh, gift! Oh, gift! +(_there is no sound._ + +CLAIRE _rises--steps back--is seen now; is looking down_) Gift. + +(_Like one who does not know where she is, she moves into the +room--looks around. Takes a step toward Breath of Life; turns and goes +quickly to the door. Stops, as if stopped. Sees the revolver where the +Edge Vine was. Slowly goes to it. Holds it as if she cannot think what +it is for. Then raises it high and fires above through the place in the +glass left open for ventilation_. ANTHONY _comes from the inner room. +His eyes go from her to the body beyond_. HARRY _rushes in from +outside_.) + +HARRY: Who fired that? + +CLAIRE: I did. Lonely. + +(_Seeing_ ANTHONY'S _look_, HARRY _'s eyes follow it_.) + +HARRY: Oh! What? What? (DICK _comes running in_) Who? Claire! + +(DICK _sees--goes to_ TOM) + +CLAIRE: Yes. I did it. MY--Gift. + +HARRY: Is he--? He isn't--? He isn't--? + +(_Tries to go in there. Cannot--there is the sound of broken glass, of a +position being changed--then_ DICK _reappears_.) + +DICK: (_his voice in jerks_) It's--it's no use, but I'll go for a +doctor. + +HARRY: No--no. Oh, I suppose--(_falling down beside_ CLAIRE--_his face +against her_) My darling! How can I save you now? + +CLAIRE: (_speaking each word very carefully_) Saved--myself. + +ANTHONY: I did it. Don't you see? I didn't want so many around. +Not--what this place is for. + +HARRY: (_snatching at this but lets it go_) She wouldn't let--(_looking +up at_ CLAIRE--_then quickly hiding his face_) And--don't you see? + +CLAIRE: Out. (_a little like a child's pleased surprise_) Out. + +(DICK _stands there, as if unable to get to the door--his face +distorted, biting his hand_.) + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire! You can do anything--won't you try? + +CLAIRE: Reminiscence? (_speaking the word as if she has left even that, +but smiles a little_) + +(ANTHONY _takes Reminiscence, the flower she was breeding for fragrance +for Breath of Life--holds it out to her. But she has taken a step +forward, past them all_.) + +CLAIRE: Out. (_as if feeling her way_) + Nearer, + (_Her voice now feeling the way to it_.) + Nearer-- + (_Voice almost upon it_.) + --my God, + (_Falling upon it with surprise_.) + to Thee, + (_Breathing it_.) + Nearer--to Thee, + E'en though it be-- + (_A slight turn of the head toward the dead man she loves--a + mechanical turn just as far the other way_.) + a cross + That + (_Her head going down_.) + raises me; + (_Her head slowly coming up--singing it_.) + Still all my song shall be, + Nearer, my-- + +(_Slowly the curtain begins to shut her out. The last word heard is the +final_ Nearer--_a faint breath from far_.) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +INHERITORS + +_Inheritors_ was first performed at the Provincetown Playhouse on April 27, 1921. + +SMITH (a young business man) + +GRANDMOTHER (SILAS MORTON'S mother) + +SILAS MORTON (a pioneer farmer) + +FELIX FEJEVARY, the First (an exiled Hungarian nobleman) + +FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second (his son, a Harvard student) + +FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second (a banker) + +SENATOR LEWIS (a State Senator) + +HORACE FEJEVARY (son of FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second) + +DORIS (a student at Morton College) + +FUSSIE (another college girl) + +MADELINE FEJEVARY MORTON (daughter of IRA MORTON, and granddaughter of +SILAS MORTON) + +ISABEL FEJEVARY (wife of FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second, and MADELINE'S +aunt) + +HARRY (a student clerk) + +HOLDEN (Professor at Morton College) + +IRA MORTON (son of SILAS MORTON, and MADELINE'S father) + +EMIL JOHNSON (an Americanized Swede) + + +ACT I + + +SCENE: _Sitting-room of the Mortons' farmhouse in the Middle West--on +the rolling prairie just back from the Mississippi. A room that has been +long and comfortably lived in, and showing that first-hand contact with +materials which was pioneer life. The hospitable table was made on the +place--well and strongly made; there are braided rugs, and the wooden +chairs have patchwork cushions. There is a corner closet--left rear. A +picture of Abraham Lincoln. On the floor a home-made toy boat. At rise +of curtain there are on the stage an old woman and a young man._ +GRANDMOTHER MORTON _is in her rocking-chair near the open door, facing +left. On both sides of door are windows, looking out on a generous land. +She has a sewing basket and is patching a boy's pants. She is very old. +Her hands tremble. Her spirit remembers the days of her strength._ + +SMITH _has just come in and, hat in hand, is standing by the table. This +was lived in the year 1879, afternoon of Fourth of July._ + +SMITH: But the celebration was over two hours ago. + +GRANDMOTHER: Oh, celebration, that's just the beginning of it. Might as +well set down. When them boys that fought together all get in one +square--they have to swap stories all over again. That's the worst of a +war--you have to go on hearing about it so long. Here it is--1879--and +we haven't taken Gettysburg yet. Well, it was the same way with the war +of 1832. + +SMITH: (_who is now seated at the table_) The war of 1832? + +GRANDMOTHER: News to you that we had a war with the Indians? + +SMITH: That's right--the Blackhawk war. I've heard of it. + +GRANDMOTHER: Heard of it! + +SMITH: Were your men in that war? + +GRANDMOTHER: I was in that war. I threw an Indian in the cellar and +stood on the door. I was heavier then. + +SMITH: Those were stirring times. + +GRANDMOTHER: More stirring than you'll ever see. This war--Lincoln's +war--it's all a cut and dried business now. We used to fight with +anything we could lay hands on--dish water--whatever was handy. + +SMITH: I guess you believe the saying that the only good Indian is a +dead Indian. + +GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. We roiled them up considerable. They was mostly +friendly when let be. Didn't want to give up their land--but I've +noticed something of the same nature in white folks. + +SMITH: Your son has--something of that nature, hasn't he? + +GRANDMOTHER: He's not keen to sell. Why should he? It'll never be worth +less. + +SMITH: But since he has more land than any man can use, and if he gets +his price-- + +GRANDMOTHER: That what you've come to talk to him about? + +SMITH: I--yes. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, you're not the first. Many a man older than you has +come to argue it. + +SMITH: (_smiling_) They thought they'd try a young one. + +GRANDMOTHER: Some one that knew him thought that up. Silas'd help a +young one if he could. What is it you're set on buying? + +SMITH: Oh, I don't know that we're set on buying anything. If we could +have the hill (_looking off to the right_) at a fair price-- + +GRANDMOTHER: The hill above the town? Silas'd rather sell me and the +cat. + +SMITH: But what's he going to do with it? + +GRANDMOTHER: Maybe he's going to climb it once a week. + +SMITH: But if the development of the town demands its use-- + +GRANDMOTHER: (_smiling_) You the development of the town? + +SMITH: I represent it. This town has been growing so fast-- + +GRANDMOTHER: This town began to grow the day I got here. + +SMITH: You--you began it? + +GRANDMOTHER: My husband and I began it--and our baby Silas. + +SMITH: When was that? + +GRANDMOTHER: 1820, that was. + +SMITH: And--you mean you were here all alone? + +GRANDMOTHER: No, we weren't alone. We had the Owens ten miles down the +river. + +SMITH: But how did you get here? + +GRANDMOTHER: Got here in a wagon, how do you s'pose? (_gaily_) Think we +flew? + +SMITH: But wasn't it unsafe? + +GRANDMOTHER: Them set on safety stayed back in Ohio. + +SMITH: But one family! I should think the Indians would have wiped you +out. + +GRANDMOTHER: The way they wiped us out was to bring fish and corn. We'd +have starved to death that first winter hadn't been for the Indians. + +SMITH: But they were such good neighbours--why did you throw dish water +at them? + +GRANDMOTHER: That was after other white folks had roiled them up--white +folks that didn't know how to treat 'em. This very land--land you want +to buy--was the land they loved--Blackhawk and his Indians. They came +here for their games. This was where their fathers--as they called +'em--were buried. I've seen my husband and Blackhawk climb that hill +together. (_a backward point right_) He used to love that +hill--Blackhawk. He talked how the red man and the white man could live +together. But poor old Blackhawk--what he didn't know was how many white +man there was. After the war--when he was beaten but not conquered in +his heart--they took him east--Washington, Philadelphia, New York--and +when he saw the white man's cities--it was a different Indian came back. +He just let his heart break without ever turning a hand. + +SMITH: But we paid them for their lands. (_she looks at him_) Paid them +something. + +GRANDMOTHER: Something. For fifteen million acres of this Mississippi +Valley land--best on this globe, we paid two thousand two hundred and +thirty-four dollars and fifty cents, and promised to deliver annually +goods to the value of one thousand dollars. Not a fancy price--even for +them days, (_children's voices are heard outside. She leans forward and +looks through the door, left_) Ira! Let that cat be! + +SMITH: (_looking from the window_) These, I suppose, are your +grandchildren? + +GRANDMOTHER: The boy's my grandson. The little girl is Madeline +Fejevary--Mr Fejevary's youngest child. + +SMITH: The Fejevary place adjoins on this side? (_pointing right, down_) + +GRANDMOTHER: Yes. We've been neighbours ever since the Fejevarys came +here from Hungary after 1848. He was a count at home--and he's a man of +learning. But he was a refugee because he fought for freedom in his +country. Nothing Silas could do for him was too good. Silas sets great +store by learning--and freedom. + +SMITH: (_thinking of his own project, looking off toward the hill--the +hill is not seen from the front_) I suppose then Mr Fejevary has great +influence with your son? + +GRANDMOTHER: More 'an anybody. Silas thinks 'twas a great thing for our +family to have a family like theirs next place to. Well--so 'twas, for +we've had no time for the things their family was brought up on. Old Mrs +Fejevary (_with her shrewd smile_)--she weren't stuck up--but she did +have an awful ladylike way of feeding the chickens. Silas thinks--oh, my +son has all kinds of notions--though a harder worker never found his bed +at night. + +SMITH: And Mr Fejevary--is he a veteran too? + +GRANDMOTHER: (_dryly_) You don't seem to know these parts well--for one +that's all stirred up about the development of the town. Yes--Felix +Fejevary and Silas Morton went off together, down that road (_motioning +with her hand, right_)--when them of their age was wanted. Fejevary came +back with one arm less than he went with. Silas brought home everything +he took--and something he didn't. Rheumatiz. So now they set more store +by each other 'an ever. Seems nothing draws men together like killing +other men. (_a boy's voice teasingly imitating a cat_) Madeline, make +Ira let that cat be. (_a whoop from the girl--a boy's whoop_) +(_looking_) There they go, off for the creek. If they set in it--(_seems +about to call after them, gives this up_) Well, they're not the first. + +(_rather dreams over this_) + +SMITH: You must feel as if you pretty near owned this country. + +GRANDMOTHER: We worked. A country don't make itself. When the sun was up +we were up, and when the sun went down we didn't. (_as if this renews +the self of those days_) Here--let me set out something for you to eat. +(_gets up with difficulty_) + +SMITH: Oh, no, please--never mind. I had something in town before I came +out. + +GRANDMOTHER: Dunno as that's any reason you shouldn't have something +here. + +(_She goes off, right; he stands at the door, looking toward the hill +until she returns with a glass of milk, a plate of cookies._) + +SMITH: Well, this looks good. + +GRANDMOTHER: I've fed a lot of folks--take it by and large. I didn't +care how many I had to feed in the daytime--what's ten or fifteen more +when you're up and around. But to get up--after sixteen hours on your +feet--_I_ was willin', but my bones complained some. + +SMITH: But did you--keep a tavern? + +GRANDMOTHER: Keep a tavern? I guess we did. Every house is a tavern when +houses are sparse. You think the way to settle a country is to go on +ahead and build hotels? That's all you folks know. Why, I never went to +bed without leaving something on the stove for the new ones that might +be coming. And we never went away from home without seein' there was +a-plenty for them that might stop. + +SMITH: They'd come right in and take your food? + +GRANDMOTHER: What else could they do? There was a woman I always wanted +to know. She made a kind of bread I never had before--and left a-plenty +for our supper when we got back with the ducks and berries. And she left +the kitchen handier than it had ever been. I often wondered about +her--where she came from, and where she went, (_as she dreams over this +there is laughing and talking at the side of the house_) There come the +boys. + +(MR FEJEVARY _comes in, followed by_ SILAS MORTON. _They are men not far +from sixty, wearing their army uniforms, carrying the muskets they used +in the parade_. FEJEVARY _has a lean, distinguished face, his dark eyes +are penetrating and rather wistful. The left sleeve of his old uniform +is empty_. SILAS MORTON _is a strong man who has borne the burden of the +land, and not for himself alone--the pioneer. Seeing the stranger, he +sets his musket against the wall and holds out his hand to him, as_ MR +FEJEVARY _goes up to_ GRANDMOTHER MORTON.) + +SILAS: How do, stranger? + +FEJEVARY: And how are you today, Mrs Morton? + +GRANDMOTHER: I'm not abed--and don't expect to be. + +SILAS: (_letting go of the balloons he has bought_) Where's Ira? and +Madeline? + +GRANDMOTHER: Mr Fejevary's Delia brought them home with her. They've +gone down to dam the creek, I guess. This young man's been waiting to +see you, Silas. + +SMITH: Yes, I wanted to have a little talk with you. + +SILAS: Well, why not? (_he is tying the gay balloons to his gun, then as +he talks, hangs his hat in the corner closet_) We've been having a +little talk ourselves. Mother, Nat Rice was there. I've not seen Nat +Rice since the day we had to leave him on the road with his torn +leg--him cursing like a pirate. I wanted to bring him home, but he had +to go back to Chicago. His wife's dead, mother. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, I guess she's not sorry. + +SILAS: Why, mother. + +GRANDMOTHER: 'Why, mother.' Nat Rice is a mean, stingy, complaining +man--his leg notwithstanding. Where'd you leave the folks? + +SILAS: Oh--scattered around. Everybody visitin' with anybody that'll +visit with them. Wish you could have gone. + +GRANDMOTHER: I've heard it all. (_to_ FEJEVARY) Your folks well? + +FEJEVARY: All well, Mrs Morton. And my boy Felix is home. He'll stop in +here to see you by and by. + +SILAS: Oh, he's a fine-looking boy, mother. And think of what he knows! +(_cordially including the young man_) Mr Fejevary's son has been to +Harvard College. + +SMITH: Well, well--quite a trip. Well, Mr Morton, I hope this is not a +bad time for me to--present a little matter to you? + +SILAS: (_genially_) That depends, of course, on what you're going to +present. (_attracted by a sound outside_) Mind if I present a little +matter to your horse? Like to uncheck him so's he can geta a bit +o'grass. + +SMITH: Why--yes. I suppose he would like that. + +SILAS: (_going out_) You bet he'd like it. Wouldn't you, old boy? + +SMITH: Your son is fond of animals. + +GRANDMOTHER: Lots of people's fond of 'em--and good to 'em. Silas--I +dunno, it's as if he was that animal. + +FEJEVARY: He has imagination. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_with surprise_) Think so? + +SILAS: (_returning and sitting down at the table by the young man_) Now, +what's in your mind, my boy? + +SMITH: This town is growing very fast, Mr Morton. + +SILAS: Yes. (_slyly--with humour_) I know that. + +SMITH: I presume you, as one of the early settlers--as in fact a son of +the earliest settler, feel a certain responsibility about the welfare +of-- + +SILAS: I haven't got in mind to do the town a bit of harm. So--what's +your point? + +SMITH: More people--more homes. And homes must be in the healthiest +places--the--the most beautiful places. Isn't it true, Mr Fejevary, that +it means a great deal to people to have a beautiful outlook from their +homes? A--well, an expanse. + +SILAS: What is it they want to buy--these fellows that are figuring on +making something out of--expanse? (_a gesture for expanse, then a +reassuring gesture_) It's all right, but--just what is it? + +SMITH: I am prepared to make you an offer--a gilt-edged offer for that +(_pointing toward it_) hill above the town. + +SILAS: (_shaking his head--with the smile of the strong man who is a +dreamer_) The hill is not for sale. + +SMITH: But wouldn't you consider a--particularly good offer, Mr Morton? + +(SILAS, _who has turned so he can look out at the hill, slowly shakes +his head_.) + +SMITH: Do you feel you have the right--the moral right to hold it? + +SILAS: It's not for myself I'm holding it. + +SMITH: Oh,--for the children? + +SILAS: Yes, the children. + +SMITH: But--if you'll excuse me--there are other investments might do +the children even more good. + +SILAS: This seems to me--the best investment. + +SMITH: But after all there are other people's children to consider. + +SILAS: Yes, I know. That's it. + +SMITH: I wonder if I understand you, Mr Morton? + +SILAS: (_kindly_) I don't believe you do. I don't see how you could. And +I can't explain myself just now. So--the hill is not for sale. I'm not +making anybody homeless. There's land enough for all--all sides round. +But the hill-- + +SMITH: (_rising_) Is yours. + +SILAS: You'll see. + +SMITH: I am prepared to offer you-- + +SILAS: You're not prepared to offer me anything I'd consider alongside +what I am considering. So--I wish you good luck in your business +undertakings. + +SMITH: Sorry--you won't let us try to help the town. + +SILAS: Don't sit up nights worrying about my chokin' the town. + +SMITH: We could make you a rich man, Mr Morton. Do you think what you +have in mind will make you so much richer? + +SILAS: Much richer. + +SMITH: Well, good-bye. Good day, sir. Good day, ma'am. + +SILAS: (_following him to the door_) Nice horse you've got. + +SMITH: Yes, seems all right. + +(SILAS _stands in the doorway and looks off at the hill_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: What are you going to do with the hill, Silas? + +SILAS: After I get a little glass of wine--to celebrate Felix and me +being here instead of farther south--I'd like to tell you what I want +for the hill. (_to_ FEJEVARY _rather bashfully_) I've been wanting to +tell you. + +FEJEVARY: I want to know. + +SILAS: (_getting the wine from the closet_) Just a little something to +show our gratitude with. + +(_Goes off right for glasses_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe it'd be better to sell the hill--while +they're anxious. + +FEJEVARY: He seems to have another plan for it. + +GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I hope the other plan does bring him something. +Silas has worked--all the days of his life. + +FEJEVARY: I know. + +GRANDMOTHER: You don't know the hull of it. But I know. (_rather to +herself_) Know too well to think about it. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_as_ SILAS _returns_) I'll get more cookies. + +SILAS: I'll get them, mother. + +GRANDMOTHER: Get 'em myself. Pity if a woman can't get out her own +cookies. + +SILAS: (_seeing how hard it is for her_) I wish mother would let us do +things for her. + +FEJEVARY: That strength is a flame frailness can't put out. It's a great +thing for us to have her,--this touch with the life behind us. + +SILAS: Yes. And it's a great thing for us to have you--who can see those +things and say them. What a lot I'd 'a' missed if I hadn't had what +you've seen. + +FEJEVARY: Oh, you only think that because you've got to be generous. + +SILAS: I'm not generous. _I'm_ seeing something now. Something about +you. I've been thinking of it a good deal lately--it's got something to +do with--with the hill. I've been thinkin' what it's meant all these +years to have a family like yours next place to. They did something +pretty nice for the corn belt when they drove you out of Hungary. +Funny--how things don't end the way they begin. I mean, what begins +don't end. It's another thing ends. Set out to do something for your own +country--and maybe you don't quite do the thing you set out to do-- + +FEJEVARY: No. + +SILAS: But do something for a country a long way off. + +FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I've not done much for any country. + +SILAS: (_brusquely_) Where's your left arm--may I be so bold as to +inquire? Though your left arm's nothing alongside--what can't be +measured. + +FEJEVARY: When I think of what I dreamed as a young man--it seems to me +my life has failed. + +SILAS: (_raising his glass_) Well, if your life's failed--I like +failure. + +(GRANDMOTHER MORTON _returns with her cookies_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: There's two kinds--Mr Fejevary. These have seeds in 'em. + +FEJEVARY: Thank you. I'll try a seed cookie first. + +SILAS: Mother, you'll have a glass of wine? + +GRANDMOTHER: I don't need wine. + +SILAS: Well, I don't know as we need it. + +GRANDMOTHER: No, I don't know as you do. But I didn't go to war. + +FEJEVARY: Then have a little wine to celebrate that. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, just a mite to warm me up. Not that it's cold. +(FEJEVARY _brings it to her, and the cookies_) The Indians used to like +cookies. I was talking to that young whippersnapper about the Indians. +One time I saw an Indian watching me from a bush, (_points_) Right out +there. I was never afraid of Indians when you could see the whole of +'em--but when you could see nothin' but their bright eyes--movin' +through leaves--I declare they made me nervous. After he'd been there an +hour I couldn't seem to put my mind on my work. So I thought, Red or +White, a man's a man--I'll take him some cookies. + +FEJEVARY: It succeeded? + +GRANDMOTHER: So well that those leaves had eyes next day. But he brought +me a fish to trade. He was a nice boy. + +SILAS: Probably we killed him. + +GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe he killed us. Will Owens' family was +massacred just after this. Like as not my cookie Indian helped out +there. Something kind of uncertain about the Indians. + +SILAS: I guess they found something kind of uncertain about us. + +GRANDMOTHER: Six o' one and half a dozen of another. Usually is. + +SILAS: (_to_ FEJEVARY) I wonder if I'm wrong. You see, I never went to +school-- + +GRANDMOTHER: I don't know why you say that, Silas. There was two winters +you went to school. + +SILAS: Yes, mother, and I'm glad I did, for I learned to read there, and +liked the geography globe. It made the earth so nice to think about. And +one day the teacher told us all about the stars, and I had that to think +of when I was driving at night. The other boys didn't believe it was so. +But I knew it was so! But I mean school--the way Mr Fejevary went to +school. He went to universities. In his own countries--in other +countries. All the things men have found out, the wisest and finest +things men have thought since first they began to think--all that was +put before them. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a gentle smile_) I fear I left a good deal of it +untouched. + +SILAS: You took a plenty. Tell in your eyes you've thought lots about +what's been thought. And that's what I was setting out to say. It makes +something of men--learning. A house that's full of books makes a +different kind of people. Oh, of course, if the books aren't there just +to show off. + +GRANDMOTHER: Like in Mary Baldwin's new house. + +SILAS: (_trying hard to see it_) It's not the learning itself--it's the +life that grows up from learning. Learning's like soil. Like--like +fertilizer. Get richer. See more. Feel more. You believe that? + +FEJEVARY: Culture should do it. + +SILAS: Does in your house. You somehow know how it is for the other +fellow more'n we do. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, Silas Morton, when you've your wood to chop an' your +water to carry, when you kill your own cattle and hogs, tend your own +horses and hens, make your butter, soap, and cook for whoever the Lord +sends--there's none too many hours of the day left to be polite in. + +SILAS: You're right, mother. It had to be that way. But now that we buy +our soap--we don't want to say what soap-making made us. + +GRANDMOTHER: We're honest. + +SILAS: Yes. In a way. But there's another kind o' honesty, seems to me, +goes with that more seein' kind of kindness. Our honesty with the +Indians was little to brag on. + +GRANDMOTHER: You fret more about the Indians than anybody else does. + +SILAS: To look out at that hill sometimes makes me ashamed. + +GRANDMOTHER: Land sakes, you didn't do it. It was the government. And +what a government does is nothing for a person to be ashamed of. + +SILAS: I don't know about that. Why is _he_ here? Why is Felix Fejevary +not rich and grand in Hungary to-day? 'Cause he was ashamed of what his +government was. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, that was a foreign government. + +SILAS: A seeing how 'tis for the other person--_a bein'_ that other +person, kind of honesty. Joke of it, 'twould do something for _you_. +'Twould 'a' done something for us to have _been_ Indians a little more. +My father used to talk about Blackhawk--they was friends. I saw +Blackhawk once--when I was a boy. (_to_ FEJEVARY) Guess I told you. You +know what he looked like? He looked like the great of the earth. Noble. +Noble like the forests--and the Mississippi--and the stars. His face was +long and thin and you could see the bones, and the bones were beautiful. +Looked like something that's never been caught. He was something many +nights in his canoe had made him. Sometimes I feel that the land itself +has got a mind that the land would rather have had the Indians. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, don't let folks hear you say it. They'd think you was +plum crazy. + +SILAS: I s'pose they would, (_turning to_ FEJEVARY) But after you've +walked a long time over the earth--and you all alone, didn't you ever +feel something coming up from it that's like thought? + +FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I never did. But--I wish I had. + +SILAS: I love land--this land. I suppose that's why I never have the +feeling that I own it. + +GRANDMOTHER: If you don't own it--I want to know! What do you think we +come here for--your father and me? What do you think we left our folks +for--left the world of white folks--schools and stores and doctors, and +set out in a covered wagon for we didn't know what? We lost a horse. +Lost our way--weeks longer than we thought 'twould be. You were born in +that covered wagon. You know that. But what you don't know is what +_that's_ like--without your own roof--or fire--without-- + +(_She turns her face away._) + +SILAS: No. No, mother, of course not. Now--now isn't this too bad? I +don't say things right. It's because I never went to school. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_her face shielded_) You went to school two winters. + +SILAS: Yes. Yes, mother. So I did. And I'm glad I did. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_with the determination of one who will not have her own +pain looked at_) Mrs Fejevary's pansy bed doing well this summer? + +FEJEVARY: It's beautiful this summer. She was so pleased with the new +purple kind you gave her. I do wish you could get over to see them. + +GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I've seen lots of pansies. Suppose it was pretty +fine-sounding speeches they had in town? + +FEJEVARY: Too fine-sounding to seem much like the war. + +SILAS: I'd like to go to a war celebration where they never mentioned +war. There'd be a way to celebrate victory, (_hearing a step, looking +out_) Mother, here's Felix. + +(FELIX, _a well-dressed young man, comes in_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: How do, Felix? + +FELIX: And how do you do, Grandmother Morton? + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, I'm still here. + +FELIX: Of course you are. It wouldn't be coming home if you weren't. + +GRANDMOTHER: I've got some cookies for you, Felix. I set 'em out, so you +wouldn't have to steal them. John and Felix was hard on the cookie jar. + +FELIX: Where is John? + +SILAS: (_who is pouring a glass of wine for_ FELIX) You've not seen John +yet? He was in town for the exercises. I bet those young devils ran off +to the race-track. I heard whisperin' goin' round. But everybody'll be +home some time. Mary and the girls--don't ask me where they are. They'll +drive old Bess all over the country before they drive her to the bam. +Your father and I come on home 'cause I wanted to have a talk with him. + +FELIX: Getting into the old uniforms makes you want to talk it all over +again? + +SILAS: The war? Well, we did do that. But all that makes me want to talk +about what's to come, about--what 'twas all for. Great things are to +come, Felix. And before you are through. + +FELIX: I've been thinking about them myself--walking around the town +to-day. It's grown so much this year, and in a way that means more +growing--that big glucose plant going up down the river, the new lumber +mill--all that means many more people. + +FEJEVARY: And they've even bought ground for a steel works. + +SILAS: Yes, a city will rise from these cornfields--a big rich +place--that's bound to be. It's written in the lay o' the land and the +way the river flows. But first tell us about Harvard College, Felix. +Ain't it a fine thing for us all to have Felix coming home from that +wonderful place! + +FELIX: You make it seem wonderful. + +SILAS: Ah, you know it's wonderful--know it so well you don't have to +say it. It's something you've got. But to me it's wonderful the way the +stars are wonderful--this place where all that the world has learned is +to be drawn from me--like a spring. + +FELIX: You almost say what Matthew Arnold says--a distinguished new +English writer who speaks of: 'The best that has been thought and said +in the world'. + +SILAS: 'The best that has been thought and said in the world!' (_slowly +rising, and as if the dream of years is bringing him to his feet_) +That's what that hill is for! (_pointing_) Don't you see it? End of our +trail, we climb a hill and plant a college. Plant a college, so's after +we are gone that college says for us, says in people learning has made +more: 'That is why we took this land.' + +GRANDMOTHER: (_incredulous_) You mean, Silas, you're going to _give the +hill away_? + +SILAS: The hill at the end of our trail--how could we keep that? + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, I want to know why not! Hill or level--land's land +and not a thing you give away. + +SILAS: Well, don't scold _me_. I'm not giving it away. It's giving +itself away, get down to it. + +GRANDMOTHER: Don't talk to me as if I was feeble-minded. + +SILAS: I'm talking with all the mind I've got. If there's not mind in +what I say, it's because I've got no mind. But I have got a mind, (_to_ +FEJEVARY, _humorously_) Haven't I? You ought to know. Seeing as you gave +it to me. + +FEJEVARY: Ah, no--I didn't give it to you. + +SILAS: Well, you made me know 'twas there. You said things that woke +things in me and I thought about them as I ploughed. And that made me +know there had to be a college there--wake things in minds--so +ploughing's more than ploughing. What do you say, Felix? + +FELIX: It--it's a big idea, Uncle Silas. I love the way you put it. It's +only that I'm wondering-- + +SILAS: Wondering how it can ever be a Harvard College? Well, it can't. +And it needn't be (_stubbornly_) It's a college in the cornfields--where +the Indian maize once grew. And it's for the boys of the cornfields--and +the girls. There's few can go to Harvard College--but more can climb +that hill, (_turn of the head from the hill to_ FELIX) Harvard on a +hill? (_As_ FELIX _smiles no_, SILAS _turns back to the hill_) A college +should be on a hill. They can see it then from far around. See it as +they go out to the barn in the morning; see it when they're shutting up +at night. 'Twill make a difference--even to them that never go. + +GRANDMOTHER: Now, Silas--don't be hasty. + +SILAS: Hasty? It's been company to me for years. Came to me one +night--must 'a' been ten years ago--middle of a starry night as I was +comin' home from your place (_to_ FEJEVARY) I'd gone over to lend a hand +with a sick horse an'-- + +FEJEVARY: (_with a grateful smile_) That was nothing new. + +SILAS: Well, say, I'd sit up with a sick horse that belonged to the +meanest man unhung. But--there were stars that night had never been +there before. Leastways I'd not seen 'em. And the hill--Felix, in all +your travels east, did you ever see anything more beautiful than that +hill? + +FELIX: It's like sculpture. + +SILAS: Hm. (_the wistfulness with which he speaks of that outside his +knowledge_) I s'pose 'tis. It's the way it rises--somehow--as if it knew +it rose from wide and fertile lands. I climbed the hill that night, +(_to_ FEJEVARY) You'd been talkin'. As we waited between medicines you +told me about your life as a young man. All you'd lived through seemed +to--open up to you that night--way things do at times. Guess it was +'cause you thought you was goin' to lose your horse. See, that was +Colonel, the sorrel, wasn't it? + +FEJEVARY: Yes. Good old Colonel. + +SILAS: You'd had a long run o' off luck. Hadn't got things back in shape +since the war. But say, you didn't lose him, did you? + +FEJEVARY: Thanks to you. + +SILAS: Thanks to the medicine I keep in the back kitchen. + +FEJEVARY: You encouraged him. + +GRANDMOTHER: Silas has a way with all the beasts. + +SILAS: We've got the same kind of minds--the beasts and me. + +GRANDMOTHER: Silas, I wish you wouldn't talk like that--and with Felix +just home from Harvard College. + +SILAS: Same kind of minds--except that mine goes on a little farther. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well I'm glad to hear you say that. + +SILAS: Well, there we sat--you an' me--middle of a starry night, out +beside your barn. And I guess it came over you kind of funny you should +be there with me--way off the Mississippi, tryin' to save a sick horse. +Seemed to--bring your life to life again. You told me what you studied +in that fine old university you loved--the Vienna,--and why you became a +revolutionist. The old dreams took hold o' you and you talked--way you +used to, I suppose. The years, o' course, had rubbed some of it off. +Your face as you went on about the vision--you called it, vision of what +life could be. I knew that night there was things I never got wind of. +When I went away--knew I ought to go home to bed--hayin' at daybreak. +'Go to bed?' I said to myself. 'Strike this dead when you've never had +it before, may never have it again?' I climbed the hill. Blackhawk was +there. + +GRANDMOTHER: Why, he was _dead_. + +SILAS: He was there--on his own old hill, with me and the stars. And I +said to him-- + +GRANDMOTHER: Silas! + +SILAS: Says I to him, 'Yes--that's true; it's more yours than mine, you +had it first and loved it best. But it's neither yours nor mine,--though +both yours and mine. Not my hill, not your hill, but--hill of vision', +said I to him. 'Here shall come visions of a better world than was ever +seen by you or me, old Indian chief.' Oh, I was drunk, plum drunk. + +GRANDMOTHER: I should think you was. And what about the next day's hay? + +SILAS: A day in the hayfield is a day's hayin'--but a night on the +hill-- + +FELIX: We don't have them often, do we, Uncle Silas? + +SILAS: I wouldn't 'a' had that one but for your father, Felix. Thank God +they drove you out o' Hungary! And it's all so dog-gone _queer_. Ain't +it queer how things blow from mind to mind--like seeds. Lord +A'mighty--you don't know where they'll take hold. + +(_Children's voices off_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: There come those children up from the creek--soppin' wet, I +warrant. Well, I don't know how children ever get raised. But we raise +more of 'em than we used to. I buried three--first ten years I was here. +Needn't 'a' happened--if we'd known what we know now, and if we hadn't +been alone. (_With all her strength_.) I don't know what you mean--the +hill's not yours! + +SILAS: It's the future's, mother--so's we can know more than we know +now. + +GRANDMOTHER: We know it now. 'Twas then we didn't know it. I worked for +that hill! And I tell you to leave it to your own children. + +SILAS: There's other land for my own children. This is for all the +children. + +GRANDMOTHER: What's all the children to you? + +SILAS: (_derisively_) Oh, mother--what a thing for you to say! You who +were never too tired to give up your own bed so the stranger could have +a better bed. + +GRANDMOTHER: That was different. They was folks on their way. + +FEJEVARY: So are we. + +(SILAS _turns to him with quick appreciation_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: That's just talk. We're settled now. Children of other old +settlers are getting rich. I should think you'd want yours to. + +SILAS: I want other things more. I want to pay my debts 'fore I'm too +old to know they're debts. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_momentarily startled_) Debts? Huh! More talk. You don't +owe any man. + +SILAS: I owe him (_nodding to_ FEJEVARY). And the red boys here before +me. + +GRANDMOTHER: Fiddlesticks. + +FELIX: You haven't read Darwin, have you, Uncle Silas? + +SILAS: Who? + +FELIX: Darwin, the great new man--and his theory of the survival of the +fittest? + +SILAS: No. No, I don't know things like that, Felix. + +FELIX: I think he might make you feel better about the Indians. In the +struggle for existence many must go down. The fittest survive. This--had +to be. + +SILAS: Us and the Indians? Guess I don't know what you mean--fittest. + +FELIX: He calls it that. Best fitted to the place in which one finds +one's self, having the qualities that can best cope with conditions--do +things. From the beginning of life it's been like that. He shows the +growth of life from forms that were hardly alive, the lowest animal +forms--jellyfish--up to man. + +SILAS: Oh, yes, that's the thing the churches are so upset about--that +we come from monkeys. + +FELIX: Yes. One family of ape is the direct ancestor of man. + +GRANDMOTHER: You'd better read your Bible, Felix. + +SILAS: Do people believe this? + +FELIX: The whole intellectual world is at war about it. The best +scientists accept it. Teachers are losing their positions for believing +it. Of course, ministers can't believe it. + +GRANDMOTHER: I should think not. Anyway, what's the use believing a +thing that's so discouraging? + +FEJEVARY: (_gently_) But is it that? It almost seems to me we have to +accept it because it is so encouraging. (_holding out his hand_) Why +have we hands? + +GRANDMOTHER: Cause God gave them to us, I s'pose. + +FEJEVARY: But that's rather general, and there isn't much in it to give +us self-confidence. But when you think we have hands because ages +back--before life had taken form as man, there was an impulse to do what +had never been done--when you think that we have hands today because +from the first of life there have been adventurers--those of best brain +and courage who wanted to be more than life had been, and that from +aspiration has come doing, and doing has shaped the thing with which to +do--it gives our hand a history which should make us want to use it +well. + +SILAS: (_breathed from deep_) Well, by God! And you've known this all +this while! Dog-gone you--why didn't you tell me? + +FEJEVARY: I've been thinking about it. I haven't known what to believe. +This hurts--beliefs of earlier years. + +FELIX: The things it hurts will have to go. + +FEJEVARY: I don't know about that, Felix. Perhaps in time we'll find +truth in them. + +FELIX: Oh, if you feel that way, father. + +FEJEVARY: Don't be kind to me, my boy, I'm not that old. + +SILAS: But think what it is you've said! If it's true that we made +ourselves--made ourselves out of the wanting to be more--created +ourselves you might say, by our own courage--our--what is +it?--aspiration. Why, I can't take it in. I haven't got the mind to take +it in. And what mind I have got says no. It's too-- + +FEJEVARY: It fights with what's there. + +SILAS: (_nodding_) But it's like I got this (_very slowly_) other way +around. From underneath. As if I'd known it all along--but have just +found out I know it! Yes. The earth told me. The beasts told me. + +GRANDMOTHER: Fine place to learn things from. + +SILAS: Anyhow, haven't I seen it? (_to_ FEJEVARY) In your face haven't I +seen thinking make a finer face? How long has this taken, Felix, +to--well, you might say, bring us where we are now? + +FELIX: Oh, we don't know how many millions of years since earth first +stirred. + +SILAS: Then we are what we are because through all that time there've +been them that wanted to be more than life had been. + +FELIX: That's it, Uncle Silas. + +SILAS: But--why, then we aren't _finished_ yet! + +FEJEVARY: No. We take it on from here. + +SILAS: (_slowly_) Then if we don't be--the most we can be, if we don't +be more than life has been, we go back on all that life behind us; go +back on--the-- + +(_Unable to formulate it, he looks to_ FEJEVARY.) + +FEJEVARY: Go back on the dreaming and the daring of a million years. + +(_After a moment's pause_ SILAS _gets up, opens the closet door_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: Silas, what you doing? + +SILAS: (_who has taken out a box_) I'm lookin' for the deed to the hill. + +GRANDMOTHER: What you going to do with it? + +SILAS: I'm going to get it out of my hands. + +GRANDMOTHER: Get it out of your hands? (_he has it now_) Deed your +father got from the government the very year the government got it from +the Indians? + +(_rising_) Give me that! (_she turns to_ FEJEVARY) Tell him he's crazy. +We got the best land 'cause we was first here. We got a right to keep +it. + +FEJEVARY: (_going soothingly to her_) It's true, Silas, it is a serious +thing to give away one's land. + +SILAS: You ought to know. You did it. Are you sorry you did it? + +FEJEVARY: No. But wasn't that different? + +SILAS: How was it different? Yours was a fight to make life more, wasn't +it? Well, let this be our way. + +GRANDMOTHER: What's all that got to do with giving up the land that +should provide for our own children? + +SILAS: Isn't it providing for them to give them a better world to live +in? Felix--you're young, I ask you, ain't it providing for them to give +them a chance to be more than we are? + +FELIX: I think you're entirely right, Uncle Silas. But it's the +practical question that-- + +SILAS: If you're right, the practical question is just a thing to fix +up. + +FEJEVARY: I fear you don't realize the immense amount of money required +to finance a college. The land would be a start. You would have to +interest rich men; you'd have to have a community in sympathy with the +thing you wanted to do. + +GRANDMOTHER: Can't you see, Silas, that we're all against you? + +SILAS: All against me? (_to_ FEJEVARY) But how can you be? Look at the +land we walked in and took! Was there ever such a chance to make life +more? Why, the buffalo here before us was more than we if we do nothing +but prosper! God damn us if we sit here rich and fat and forget man's in +the makin'. (_affirming against this_) There will one day be a college +in these cornfields by the Mississippi because long ago a great dream +was fought for in Hungary. And I say to that old dream, Wake up, old +dream! Wake up and fight! You say rich men. (_holding it out, but it is +not taken_) I give you this deed to take to rich men to show them one +man believes enough in this to give the best land he's got. That ought +to make rich men stop and think. + +GRANDMOTHER: Stop and think he's a fool. + +SILAS: (_to_ FEJEVARY) It's you can make them know he's not a fool. When +you tell this way you can tell it, they'll feel in you what's more than +them. They'll listen. + +GRANDMOTHER: I tell you, Silas, folks are too busy. + +SILAS: Too busy!' Too busy bein' nothin'? If it's true that we created +ourselves out of the thoughts that came, then thought is not something +_outside_ the business of life. Thought--(_with his gift for wonder_) +why, thought's our chance. I know now. Why I can't forget the Indians. +We killed their joy before we killed them. We made them less, (_to_ +FEJEVARY, _and as if sure he is now making it clear_) I got to give it +back--their hill. I give it back to joy--a better joy--joy o'aspiration. + +FEJEVARY: (_moved but unconvinced_) But, my friend, there are men who +have no aspiration. That's why, to me, this is as a light shining from +too far. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_old things waked in her_) Light shining from far. We used +to do that. We never pulled the curtain. I used to want to--you like to +be to yourself when night conies--but we always left a lighted window +for the traveller who'd lost his way. + +FELIX: I should think that would have exposed you to the Indians. + +GRANDMOTHER: Yes. (_impatiently_) Well, you can't put out a light just +because it may light the wrong person. + +FEJEVARY: No. (_and this is as a light to him. He turns to the hill_) +No. + +SILAS: (_with gentleness, and profoundly_) That's it. Look again. Maybe +your eyes are stronger now. Don't you see it? I see that college rising +as from the soil itself, as if it was what come at the last of that +thinking that breathes from the earth. I see it--but I want to know it's +real before I stop knowing. Then maybe I can lie under the same sod with +the red boys and not be ashamed. We're not old! Let's fight! Wake in +other men what you woke in me! + +FEJEVARY: And so could I pay my debt to America. (_His hand goes out_.) + +SILAS: (_giving him the deed_) And to the dreams of a million years! +(_Standing near the open door, their hands are gripped in compact_.) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT II + + +SCENE: _A corridor in the library of Morton College, October of the year +1920, upon the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of its founding. +This is an open place in the stacks of books, which are seen at both +sides. There is a reading-table before the big rear window. This window +opens out, but does not extend to the floor; only a part of its height +is seen, indicating a very high window. Outside is seen the top of a +tree. This outer wall of the building is on a slant, so that the +entrance right is near, and the left is front. Right front is a section +of a huge square column. On the rear of this, facing the window, is hung +a picture of SILAS MORTON. Two men are standing before this portrait_. + +SENATOR LEWIS _is the Midwestern state senator. He is not of the city +from which Morton College rises, but of a more country community farther +in-state_. FELIX FEJEVARY, _now nearing the age of his father in the +first act, is an American of the more sophisticated type--prosperous, +having the poise of success in affairs and place in society_. + +SENATOR: And this was the boy who founded the place, eh? It was his +idea? + +FEJEVARY: Yes, and his hill. I was there the afternoon he told my father +there must be a college here. I wasn't any older then than my boy is +now. + +(_As if himself surprised by this_.) + +SENATOR: Well, he enlisted a good man when he let you in on it. I've +been told the college wouldn't be what it is today but for you, Mr +Fejevary. + +FEJEVARY: I have a sentiment about it, and where our sentiment is, there +our work goes also. + +SENATOR: Yes. Well, it was those mainsprings of sentiment that won the +war. + +(_He is pleased with this_.) + +FEJEVARY: (_nodding_) Morton College did her part in winning the war. + +SENATOR: I know. A fine showing. + +FEJEVARY: And we're holding up our end right along. You'll see the boys +drill this afternoon. It's a great place for them, here on the +hill--shows up from so far around. They're a fine lot of fellows. You +know, I presume, that they went in as strike-breakers during the trouble +down here at the steel works. The plant would have had to close but for +Morton College. That's one reason I venture to propose this thing of a +state appropriation for enlargement. Why don't we sit down a moment? +There's no conflict with the state university--they have their +territory, we have ours. Ours is an important one--industrially +speaking. The state will lose nothing in having a good strong college +here--a one-hundred-per-cent-American college. + +SENATOR: I admit I am very favourably impressed. + +FEJEVARY: I hope you'll tell your committee so--and let me have a chance +to talk to them. + +SENATOR: Let's see, haven't you a pretty radical man here? + +FEJEVARY: I wonder if you mean Holden? + +SENATOR: Holden's the man. I've read things that make me question his +Americanism. + +FEJEVARY: Oh--(_gesture of depreciation_) I don't think he is so much a +radical as a particularly human human-being. + +SENATOR: But we don't want radical human beings. + +FEJEVARY: He has a genuine sympathy with youth. That's invaluable in a +teacher, you know. And then--he's a scholar. + +(_He betrays here his feeling of superiority to his companion, but too +subtly for his companion to get it_.) + +SENATOR: Oh--scholar. We can get scholars enough. What we want is +Americans. + +FEJEVARY: Americans who are scholars. + +SENATOR: You can pick 'em off every bush--pay them a little more than +they're paid in some other cheap John College. Excuse me--I don't mean +this is a cheap John College. + +FEJEVARY: Of course not. One couldn't think that of Morton College. But +that--pay them a little more, interests me. That's another reason I want +to talk to your committee on appropriations. We claim to value education +and then we let highly trained, gifted men fall behind the plumber. + +SENATOR: Well, that's the plumber's fault. Let the teachers talk to the +plumber. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a smile_) No. Better not let them talk to the plumber. +He might tell them what to do about it. In fact, is telling them. + +SENATOR: That's ridiculous. They can't serve both God and mammon. + +FEJEVARY: Then let God give them mammon. I mean, let the state +appropriate. + +SENATOR: Of course this state, Mr Fejevary, appropriates no money for +radicals. Excuse me, but why do you keep this man Holden? + +FEJEVARY: In the scholar's world we're known because of him. And really, +Holden's not a radical--in the worst sense. What he doesn't see +is--expediency. Not enough the man of affairs to realize that we can't +always have literally what we have theoretically. He's an idealist. +Something of the--man of vision. + +SENATOR: If he had the right vision he'd see that we don't every minute +have literally what we have theoretically because we're fighting to keep +the thing we have. Oh, I sometimes think the man of affairs has the only +vision. Take you, Mr Fejevary--a banker. These teachers--books--books! +(_pushing all books back_) Why, if they had to take for one day the +responsibility that falls on your shoulders--big decisions to make--man +among men--and all the time worries, irritations, particularly now with +labour riding the high horse like a fool! I know something about these +things. I went to the State House because my community persuaded me it +was my duty. But I'm the man of affairs myself. + +FEJEVARY: Oh yes, I know. Your company did much to develop that whole +northern part of the state. + +SENATOR: I think I may say we did. Well, that's why, after three +sessions, I'm chairman of the appropriations committee. I know how to +use money to promote the state. So--teacher? That would be a perpetual +vacation to me. Now, if you want my advice, Mr Fejevary,--I think your +case before the state would be stronger if you let this fellow Holden +go. + +FEJEVARY: I'm going to have a talk with Professor Holden. + +SENATOR: Tell him it's for his own good. The idea of a college professor +standing up for conscientious objectors! + +FEJEVARY: That doesn't quite state the case. Fred Jordan was one of +Holden's students--a student he valued. He felt Jordan was perfectly +sincere in his objection. + +SENATOR: Sincere in his objections! The nerve of him thinking it was his +business to be sincere! + +FEJEVARY: He was expelled from college--you may remember; that was how +we felt about it. + +SENATOR: I should hope so. + +FEJEVARY: Holden fought that, but within the college. What brought him +into the papers was his protest against the way the boy has been treated +in prison. + +SENATOR: What's the difference how he's treated? You know how I'd treat +him? (_a movement as though pulling a trigger_) If I didn't know you for +the American you are, I wouldn't understand your speaking so calmly. + +FEJEVARY: I'm simply trying to see it all sides around. + +SENATOR: Makes me see red. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a smile_) But we mustn't meet red with red. + +SENATOR: What's Holden fussing about--that they don't give him caviare +on toast? + +FEJEVARY: That they didn't give him books. Holden felt it was his +business to fuss about that. + +SENATOR: Well, when your own boy 'stead of whining around about his +conscience, stood up and offered his life! + +FEJEVARY: Yes. And my nephew gave his life. + +SENATOR: That so? + +FEJEVARY: Silas Morton's grandson died in France. My sister Madeline +married Ira Morton, son of Silas Morton. + +SENATOR: I knew there was a family connection between you and the +Mortons. + +FEJEVARY: (_speaking with reserve_) They played together as children and +married as soon as they were grown up. + +SENATOR: So this was your sister's boy? (FEJEVARY _nods_) One of the +mothers to give her son! + +FEJEVARY: (_speaking of her with effort_) My sister died--long ago. +(_pulled to an old feeling; with an effort releasing himself_) But Ira +is still out at the old place--place the Mortons took up when they +reached the end of their trail--as Uncle Silas used to put it. Why, it's +a hundred years ago that Grandmother Morton began--making cookies here. +She was the first white woman in this country. + +SENATOR: Proud woman! To have begun the life of this state! Oh, our +pioneers! If they could only see us now, and know what they did! +(FEJEVARY _is silent; he does not look quite happy_) I suppose Silas +Morton's son is active in the college management. + +FEJEVARY: No, Ira is not a social being. Fred's death about finished +him. He had been--strange for years, ever since my sister died--when the +children were little. It was--(_again pulled back to that old feeling_) +under pretty terrible circumstances. + +SENATOR: I can see that you thought a great deal of your sister, Mr +Fejevary. + +FEJEVARY: Oh, she was beautiful and--(_bitterly_) it shouldn't have gone +like that. + +SENATOR: Seems to me I've heard something about Silas Morton's +son--though perhaps it wasn't this one. + +FEJEVARY: Ira is the only one living here now; the others have gone +farther west. + +SENATOR: Isn't there something about corn? + +FEJEVARY: Yes. His corn has several years taken the prize--best in the +state. He's experimented with it--created a new kind. They've given it +his name--Morton corn. It seems corn is rather fascinating to work +with--very mutable stuff. It's a good thing Ira has it, for it's about +the only thing he does care for now. Oh, Madeline, of course. He has a +daughter here in the college--Madeline Morton, senior this year--one of +our best students. I'd like to have you meet Madeline--she's a great +girl, though--peculiar. + +SENATOR: Well, that makes a girl interesting, if she isn't peculiar the +wrong way. Sounds as if her home life might make her a little peculiar. + +FEJEVARY: Madeline stays here in town with us a good part of the time. +Mrs Fejevary is devoted to her--we all are. (_a boy starts to come +through from right_) Hello, see who's here. This is my boy. Horace, this +is Senator Lewis, who is interested in the college. + +HORACE: (_shaking hands_) How do you do, Senator Lewis? + +SENATOR: Pleased to see you, my boy. + +HORACE: Am I butting in? + +FEJEVARY: Not seriously; but what are you doing in the library? I +thought this was a day off. + +HORACE: I'm looking for a book. + +FEJEVARY: (_affectionately bantering_) You are, Horace? Now how does +that happen? + +HORACE: I want the speeches of Abraham Lincoln. + +SENATOR: You couldn't do better. + +HORACE: I'll show those dirty dagoes where they get off! + +FEJEVARY: You couldn't show them a little more elegantly? + +HORACE: I'm going to sick the Legion on 'em. + +FEJEVARY: Are you talking about the Hindus? + +HORACE: Yes, the dirty dagoes. + +FEJEVARY: Hindus aren't dagoes you know, Horace. + +HORACE: Well, what's the difference? This foreign element gets my goat. + +SENATOR: My boy, you talk like an American. But what do you +mean--Hindus? + +FEJEVARY: There are two young Hindus here as students. And they're good +students. + +HORACE: Sissies. + +FEJEVARY: But they must preach the gospel of free India--non-British +India. + +SENATOR: Oh, that won't do. + +HORACE: They're nothing but Reds, I'll say. Well, one of 'em's going +back to get his. (_grins_) + +FEJEVARY: There were three of them last year. One of them is wanted back +home. + +SENATOR: I remember now. He's to be deported. + +HORACE: And when they get him--(_movement as of pulling a rope_) They +hang there. + +FEJEVARY: The other two protest against our not fighting the deportation +of their comrade. They insist it means death to him. (_brushing off a +thing that is inclined to worry him_) But we can't handle India's +affairs. + +SENATOR: I should think not! + +HORACE: Why, England's our ally! That's what I told them. But you can't +argue with people like that. Just wait till I find the speeches of +Abraham Lincoln! + +(_Passes through to left_) + +SENATOR: Fine boy you have, Mr Fejevary. + +FEJEVARY: He's a live one. You should see him in a football game. +Wouldn't hurt my feelings in the least to have him a little more of a +student, but-- + +SENATOR: Oh, well, you want him to be a regular fellow, don't you, and +grow into a man among men? + +FEJEVARY: He'll do that, I think. It was he who organized our boys for +the steel strike--went right in himself and took a striker's job. He +came home with a black eye one night, presented to him by a picket who +started something by calling him a scab. But Horace wasn't thinking +about his eye. According to him, it was not in the class with the +striker's upper lip. 'Father,' he said, 'I gave him more red than he +could swallow. The blood just--' Well, I'll spare you--but Horace's +muscle is one hundred per cent American. (_going to the window_) Let me +show you something. You can see the old Morton place off on that first +little hill. (_pointing left_) The first rise beyond the valley. + +SENATOR: The long low house? + +FEJEVARY: That's it. You see, the town for the most part swung around +the other side of the hill, so the Morton place is still a farm. + +SENATOR: But you're growing all the while. The town'll take the +cornfield yet. + +FEJEVARY: Yes, our steel works is making us a city. + +SENATOR: And this old boy (_turning to the portrait of_ SILAS MORTON) +can look out on his old home--and watch the valley grow. + +FEJEVARY: Yes--that was my idea. His picture really should be in +Memorial Hall, but I thought Uncle Silas would like to be up here among +the books, and facing the old place. (_with a laugh_) I confess to being +a little sentimental. + +SENATOR: We Americans have lots of sentiment, Mr Fejevary. It's what +makes us--what we are. (FEJEVARY _does not speak; there are times when +the senator seems to trouble him_) Well, this is a great site for a +college. You can see it from the whole country round. + +FEJEVARY: Yes, that was Uncle Silas' idea. He had a reverence for +education. It grew, in part, out of his feeling for my father. He was a +poet--really, Uncle Silas. (_looking at the picture_) He gave this hill +for a college that we might become a deeper, more sensitive people-- + +(_Two girls, convulsed with the giggles, come tumbling in_.) + +DORIS: (_confused_) Oh--oh, excuse us. + +FUSSIE: (_foolishly_) We didn't know anybody was here. + +(MR FEJEVARY _looks at them sternly. The girls retreat_.) + +SENATOR: (_laughing_) Oh, well girls will be girls. I've got three of my +own. + +(HORACE _comes back, carrying an open book_.) + +HORACE: Say, this must be a misprint. + +FEJEVARY: (_glancing at the back of the book_) Oh, I think not. + +HORACE: From his first inaugural address to Congress, March 4, 1861. +(_reads_) 'This country with its institutions belong to the people who +inhabit it.' Well, that's all right. 'Whenever they shall grow weary of +the existing government they can exercise their constitutional right of +amending it'--(_after a brief consideration_) I suppose that that's all +right--but listen! 'or their revolutionary right to dismember or +overthrow it.' + +FEJEVARY: He was speaking in another age. An age of different values. + +SENATOR: Terms change their significance from generation to generation. + +HORACE: I suppose they do--but that puts me in bad with these lice. They +quoted this and I said they were liars. + +SENATOR: And what's the idea? They're weary of our existing government +and are about to dismember or overthrow it? + +HORACE: I guess that's the dope. + +FEJEVARY: Look here, Horace--speak accurately. Was it in relation to +America they quoted this? + +HORACE: Well, maybe they were talking about India then. But they were +standing up for being revolutionists. We were giving them an earful +about it, and then they spring Lincoln on us. Got their nerve--I'll +say--quoting Lincoln to us. + +SENATOR: The fact that they are quoting it shows it's being misapplied. + +HORACE: (_approvingly_) I'll tell them that. But gee--Lincoln oughta +been more careful what he said. Ignorant people don't know how to take +such things. + +(_Goes back with book_.) + +FEJEVARY: Want to take a look through the rest of the library? We +haven't been up this way yet--(_motioning left_) We need a better +scientific library. (_they are leaving now_) Oh, we simply must have +more money. The whole thing is fairly bursting its shell. + +DORIS: (_venturing in cautiously from the other side, looking back, +beckoning_) They've gone. + +FUSSIE: Sure? + +DORIS: Well, are they here? And I saw them, I tell you--they went up to +science. + +FUSSIE: (_moving the_ SENATOR'S _hat on the table_) But they'll come +back. + +DORIS: What if they do? We're only looking at a book. (_running her hand +along the books_) Matthew Arnold. + +(_Takes a paper from_ FUSSIE, _puts it in the book. They are bent with +giggling as_ HORACE _returns_.) + +HORACE: For the love o' Pete, what's the joke? (_taking the book from +the helpless girl_) Matthew Arnold. My idea of nowhere to go for a +laugh. When I wrote my theme on him last week he was so dry I had to go +out and get a Morton Sundee (_the girls are freshly attacked, though all +of this in a subdued way, mindful of others in the library_) Say, how'd +you get that way? + +DORIS: Now, Horace, don't you _tell_. + +HORACE: What'd I tell, except--(_seeing the paper_) Um hum--what's this? + +DORIS: (_trying to get it from him_) Horace, now _don't_ you (_a +tussle_) You great strong mean thing! Fussie! Make him _stop_. + +(_She gets the paper by tearing it_.) + +HORACE: My dad's around here--showing the college off to a politician. +If you don't come across with that sheet of mystery, I'll back you both +out there (_starts to do it_) and-- + +DORIS: Horace! You're just _horrid_. + +HORACE: Sure I'm horrid. That's the way I want to be. (_takes the paper, +reads_) + + 'To Eben + You are the idol of my dreams + I worship from afar.' +What is this? + +FUSSIE: Now, listen, Horace, and don't you _tell_. You know Eben Weeks. +He's the homeliest man in school. Wouldn't you say so? + +HORACE: Awful jay. Like to get some of the jays out of here. + +DORIS: But listen. Of course, no girl would _look_ at him. So we've +thought up the most _killing_ joke, (_stopped by giggles from herself +and_ FUSSIE) Now, he hasn't handed in his Matthew Arnold dope. I heard +old Mac hold him up for it--and what'd you think he said? That he'd been +_ploughing_. Said he was trying to run a farm and go to college at the +same time! Isn't it a _scream_? + +HORACE: We oughta--make it more unpleasant for some of those jays. Gives +the school a bad name. + +FUSSIE: But, listen, Horace, honest--you'll just _die_. He said he was +going to get the book this afternoon. Now you know what he _looks_ like, +but he turns to--(_both girls are convulsed_) + +DORIS: It'll get him all fussed up! And for nothing at all! + +HORACE: Too bad that class of people come here. I think I'll go to +Harvard next year. Haven't broken it to my parents--but I've about made +up my mind. + +DORIS: Don't you think Morton's a good school, Horace? + +HORACE: Morton's all right. Fine for the--(_kindly_) people who would +naturally come here. But one gets an acquaintance at Harvard. Wher'd'y' +want these passionate lines? + +(FUSSIE _and_ DORIS _are off again convulsed_.) + +HORACE: (_eye falling on the page where he opens the book_) Say, old +Bones could spill the English--what? Listen to this flyer. 'For when we +say that culture is to know the best that has been thought and said in +the world, we simply imply that for culture a system directly tending to +that end is necessary in our reading.' (_he reads it with mock +solemnity, delighting_ FUSSIE _and_ DORIS) The best that has been +thought and said in the world!' + +(MADELINE MORTON _comes in from right; she carries a tennis racket_.) + +MADELINE: (_both critical and good-humoured_) You haven't made a large +contribution to that, have you, Horace? + +HORACE: Madeline, you don't want to let this sarcastic habit grow on +you. + +MADELINE: Thanks for the tip. + +FUSSIE: Oh--_Madeline, (holds out her hand to take the book from_ HORACE +_and shows it to_ MADELINE) You know-- + +DORIS: S-h Don't be silly, (_to cover this_) Who you playing with? + +HORACE: Want me to play with you, Madeline? + +MADELINE: (_genially_) I'd rather play with you than talk to you. + +HORACE: Same here. + +FUSSIE: Aren't cousins affectionate? + +MADELINE: (_moving through to the other part of the library_) But first +I'm looking for a book. + +HORACE: Well, I can tell you without your looking it up, he did say it. +But that was an age of different values. Anyway, the fact that they're +quoting it shows it's being misapplied. + +MADELINE: (_smiling_) Father said so. + +HORACE: (_on his dignity_) Oh, of course--if you don't want to be +serious. + +(MADELINE _laughs and passes on through_.) + +DORIS: What are you two talking about? + +HORACE: Madeline happened to overhear a little discussion down on the +campus. + +FUSSIE: Listen. You know something? Sometimes I think Madeline Morton is +a highbrow in disguise. + +HORACE: Say, you don't want to start anything like that. Madeline's all +right. She and I treat each other rough--but that's being in the family. + +FUSSIE: Well, I'll _tell_ you something. I heard Professor Holden say +Madeline Morton has a great deal more mind than she'd let herself know. + +HORACE: Oh, well--Holden, he's erratic. Look at how popular Madeline is. + +DORIS: I should say. What's the matter with you, Fussie? + +FUSSIE: Oh, I didn't mean it really _hurt_ her. + +HORACE: Guess it don't hurt her much at a dance. Say, what's this new +jazz they were springing last night? + +DORIS: I know! Now look here, Horace--L'me show you. (_she shows him a +step_) + +HORACE: I get you. (_He begins to dance with her; the book he holds +slips to the floor. He kicks it under the table_.) + +FUSSIE: Be careful. They'll be coming back here, (_glances off left_) + +DORIS: Keep an eye out, Fussie. + +FUSSIE: (_from her post_) They're coming! I tell you, they're _coming!_ + +DORIS: Horace, come on. + +(_He teasingly keeps hold of her, continuing the dance. At sound of +voices, they run off, right_. FUSSIE _considers rescuing the book, +decides she has not time_.) + +SENATOR: (_at first speaking off_) Yes, it could be done. There is that +surplus, and as long as Morton College is socially valuable--right here +above the steel works, and making this feature of military +training--(_he has picked up his hat_) But your Americanism must be +unimpeachable, Mr Fejevary. This man Holden stands in the way. + +FEJEVARY: I'm going to have a talk with Professor Holden this afternoon. +If he remains he will--(_it is not easy for him to say_) give no +trouble. (MADELINE _returns_) Oh, here's Madeline--Silas Morton's +granddaughter, Madeline Fejevary Morton. This is Senator Lewis, +Madeline. + +SENATOR: (_holding out his hand_) How do you do, Miss Morton. I suppose +this is a great day for you. + +MADELINE: Why--I don't know. + +SENATOR: The fortieth anniversary of the founding of your grandfather's +college? You must be very proud of your illustrious ancestor. + +MADELINE: I get a bit bored with him. + +SENATOR: Bored with him? My dear young lady! + +MADELINE: I suppose because I've heard so many speeches about him--'The +sainted pioneer'--'the grand old man of the prairies'--I'm sure I +haven't any idea what he really was like. + +FEJEVARY: I've tried to tell you, Madeline. + +MADELINE: Yes. + +SENATOR: I should think you would be proud to be the granddaughter of +this man of vision. + +MADELINE: (_her smile flashing_) Wouldn't you hate to be the +granddaughter of a phrase? + +FEJEVARY: (_trying to laugh it off_) Madeline! How absurd. + +MADELINE: Well, I'm off for tennis. + +(_Nods good-bye and passes on_.) + +FEJEVARY: (_calling to her_) Oh, Madeline, if your Aunt Isabel is out +there--will you tell her where we are? + +MADELINE: (_calling back_) All right. + +FEJEVARY: (_after a look at his companion_) Queer girl, Madeline. +Rather--moody. + +SENATOR: (_disapprovingly_) Well--yes. + +FEJEVARY: (_again trying to laugh it off_) She's been hearing a great +many speeches about her grandfather. + +SENATOR: She should be proud to hear them. + +FEJEVARY: Of course she should. (_looking in the direction_ MADELINE +_has gone_) I want you to meet my wife, Senator Lewis. + +SENATOR: I should be pleased to meet Mrs Fejevary. I have heard what she +means to the college--socially. + +FEJEVARY: I think she has given it something it wouldn't have had +without her. Certainly a place in the town that is--good for it. And you +haven't met our president yet. + +SENATOR: Guess, I've met the real president. + +FEJEVARY: Oh--no. I'm merely president of the board of trustees. + +SENATOR: 'Merely!' + +FEJEVARY: I want you to know President Welling. He's very much the +cultivated gentleman. + +SENATOR: Cultivated gentlemen are all right. I'd hate to see a world +they ran. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a laugh_) I'll just take a look up here, then we can go +down the shorter way. + +(_He goes out right_. SENATOR LEWIS _turns and examines the books_. +FUSSIE _slips in, looks at him, hesitates, and then stoops under the +table for the Matthew Arnold (and her poem) which_ HORACE _has kicked +there. He turns_.) + +FUSSIE: (_not out from under the table_) Oh, I was just looking for a +book. + +SENATOR: Quite a place to look for a book. + +FUSSIE: (_crawling out_) Yes, it got there. I thought I'd put it back. +Somebody--might want it. + +SENATOR: I see, young lady, that you have a regard for books. + +FUSSIE: Oh, yes, I do have a regard for them. + +SENATOR: (_holding out his hand_) And what is your book? + +FUSSIE: Oh--it's--it's nothing. + +(_As he continues to hold out his hand, she reluctantly gives the +book_.) + +SENATOR: (_solemnly_) Matthew Arnold? Nothing? + +FUSSIE: Oh, I didn't mean _him_. + +SENATOR: A master of English! I am glad, young woman, that you value +this book. + +FUSSIE: Oh yes, I'm--awfully fond of it. + +(_Growing more and more nervous as in turning the pages he nears the +poem_.) + +SENATOR: I am interested in you young people of Morton College. + +FUSSIE: That's so good of you. + +SENATOR: What is your favourite study? + +FUSSIE: Well--(_an inspiration_) I like all of them. + +SENATOR: Morton College is coming on very fast, I understand. + +FUSSIE: Oh yes, it's getting more and more of the right people. It used +to be a little jay, you know. Of course, the Fejevarys give it class. +Mrs Fejevary--isn't she wonderful? + +SENATOR: I haven't seen her yet. Waiting here now to meet her. + +FUSSIE: (_worried by this_) Oh, I must--must be going. Shall I put the +book back? (_holding out her hand_) + +SENATOR: No, I'll just look it over a bit. (_sits down_) + +FUSSIE: (_unable to think of any way of getting it_) This is where it +belongs. + +SENATOR: Thank you. + +(_Reluctantly she goes out_. SENATOR LEWIS _pursues Matthew Arnold with +the conscious air of a half literate man reading a 'great book'. The_ +FEJEVARYS _come in_) + +FEJEVARY: I found my wife, Senator Lewis. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_she is a woman of social distinction and charm_) How do +you do, Senator Lewis? (_They shake hands_.) + +SENATOR: It's a great pleasure to meet you, Mrs Fejevary. + +AUNT ISABEL: Why don't we carry Senator Lewis home for lunch? + +SENATOR: Why, you're very kind. + +AUNT ISABEL: I'm sure there's a great deal to talk about, so why not +talk comfortably, and really get acquainted? And we want to tell you the +whole story of Morton College--the good old American spirit behind it. + +SENATOR: I am glad to find you an American, Mrs Fejevary. + +AUNT ISABEL: Oh, we are that. Morton College is one hundred per cent +American. Our boys-- + +(_Her boy_ HORACE _rushes in_.) + +HORACE: (_wildly_) Father! Will you go after Madeline? The police have +got her! + +FEJEVARY: _What!_ + +AUNT ISABEL: (_as he is getting his breath_) What absurd thing are you +saying, Horace? + +HORACE: Awful row down on the campus. The Hindus. I told them to keep +their mouths shut about Abraham Lincoln. I told them the fact they were +quoting him-- + +FEJEVARY: Never mind what you told them! What happened? + +HORACE: We started--to rustle them along a bit. Why, they had +_handbills_ (_holding one up as if presenting incriminating +evidence--the_ SENATOR _takes it from him_) telling America what to do +about deportation! Not on this campus--I say. So we were--we were +putting a stop to it. They resisted--particularly the fat one. The cop +at the corner saw the row--came up. He took hold of Bakhshish, and when +the dirty anarchist didn't move along fast enough, he took hold of +him--well, a bit rough, you might say, when up rushes Madeline and calls +to the cop, 'Let that boy alone!' Gee--I don't know just what did +happen--awful mix-up. Next thing I knew Madeline hauled off and pasted +the policeman a fierce one with her tennis racket! + +SENATOR: She _struck_ the officer? + +HORACE: I should say she did. Twice. The second time-- + +AUNT ISABEL: _Horace_. (_looking at her husband_) I--I can't believe it. + +HORACE: I could have squared it, even then, but for Madeline herself. I +told the policeman that she didn't understand--that I was her cousin, +and apologized for her. And she called over at me, 'Better apologize for +yourself!' As if there was any sense to that--that she--she looked like +a _tiger_. Honest, everybody was afraid of her. I kept right on trying +to square it, told the cop she was the granddaughter of the man that +founded the college--that you were her uncle--he would have gone off +with just the Hindu, fixed this up later, but Madeline balled it up +again--didn't care who was her uncle--Gee! (_he throws open the window_) +There! You can see them, at the foot of the hill. A nice thing--member +of our family led off to the police station! + +FEJEVARY: (_to the_ SENATOR) Will you excuse me? + +AUNT ISABEL: (_trying to return to the manner of pleasant social +things_) Senator Lewis will go on home with me, and you--(_he is +hurrying out_) come when you can. (_to the_ SENATOR) Madeline is such a +high-spirited girl. + +SENATOR: If she had no regard for the living, she might--on this day of +all others--have considered her grandfather's memory. + +(_Raises his eyes to the picture of_ SILAS MORTON.) + +HORACE: Gee! Wouldn't you _say_ so? + + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT III + +SCENE: _The same as Act II three hours later_. PROFESSOR HOLDEN _is +seated at the table, books before him. He is a man in the fifties. At +the moment his care-worn face is lighted by that lift of the spirit +which sometimes rewards the scholar who has imaginative feeling_. HARRY, +_a student clerk, comes hurrying in. Looks back_. + +HARRY: Here's Professor Holden, Mr Fejevary. + +HOLDEN: Mr Fejevary is looking for me? + +HARRY: Yes. + +(_He goes back, a moment later_ MR FEJEVARY _enters. He has his hat, +gloves, stick; seems tired and disturbed_.) + +HOLDEN: Was I mistaken? I thought our appointment was for five. + +FEJEVARY: Quite right. But things have changed, so I wondered if I might +have a little talk with you now. + +HOLDEN: To be sure. (_rising_) Shall we go downstairs? + +FEJEVARY: I don't know. Nice and quiet up here. (_to_ HARRY, _who is now +passing through_) Harry, the library is closed now, is it? + +HARRY: Yes, it's locked. + +FEJEVARY: And there's no one in here? + +HARRY: No, I've been all through. + +FEJEVARY: There's a committee downstairs. Oh, this is a terrible day. +(_putting his things on the table_) We'd better stay up here. Harry, +when my niece--when Miss Morton arrives--I want you to come and let me +know. Ask her not to leave the building without seeing me. + +HARRY: Yes, sir. (_he goes out_) + +FEJEVARY: Well, (_wearily_) it's been a day. Not the day I was looking +for. + +HOLDEN: No. + +FEJEVARY: You're very serene up here. + +HOLDEN: Yes, I wanted to be--serene for a little while. + +FEJEVARY: (_looking at the books_) Emerson. Whitman. (_with a smile_) +Have they anything new to say on economics? + +HOLDEN: Perhaps not; but I wanted to forget economics for a time. I came +up here by myself to try and celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the +founding of Morton College. (_answering the other man's look_) Yes, I +confess I've been disappointed in the anniversary. As I left Memorial +Hall after the exercises this morning, Emerson's words came into my +mind-- + 'Give me truth, + For I am tired of surfaces + And die of inanition.' +Well, then I went home--(_stops, troubled_) + +FEJEVARY: How is Mrs Holden? + +HOLDEN: Better, thank you, but--not strong. + +FEJEVARY: She needs the very best of care for a time, doesn't she? + +HOLDEN: Yes. (_silent a moment_) Then, this is something more than the +fortieth anniversary, you know. It's the first of the month. + +FEJEVARY: And illness hasn't reduced the bills? + +HOLDEN: (_shaking his head_) I didn't want this day to go like that; so +I came up here to try and touch what used to be here. + +FEJEVARY: But you speak despondently of us. And there's been such a fine +note of optimism in the exercises. (_speaks with the heartiness of one +who would keep himself assured_) + +HOLDEN: I didn't seem to want a fine note of optimism. (_with +roughness_) I wanted--a gleam from reality. + +FEJEVARY: To me this is reality--the robust spirit created by all these +young people. + +HOLDEN: Do you think it is robust? (_hand affectionately on the book +before him_) I've been reading Whitman. + +FEJEVARY: This day has to be itself. Certain things go--others come; +life is change. + +HOLDEN: Perhaps it's myself I'm discouraged with. Do you remember the +tenth anniversary of the founding of Morton College. + +FEJEVARY: The tenth? Oh yes, that was when this library was opened. + +HOLDEN: I shall never forget your father, Mr Fejevary, as he stood out +there and said the few words which gave these books to the students. Not +many books, but he seemed to baptize them in the very spirit from which +books are born. + +FEJEVARY: He died the following year. + +HOLDEN: One felt death near. But that didn't seem the important thing. A +student who had fought for liberty for mind. Of course his face would be +sensitive. You must be very proud of your heritage. + +FEJEVARY: Yes. (_a little testily_) Well, I have certainly worked for +the college. I'm doing my best now to keep it a part of these times. + +HOLDEN: (_as if this has not reached him_) It was later that same +afternoon I talked with Silas Morton. We stood at this window and looked +out over the valley to the lower hill that was his home. He told me how +from that hill he had for years looked up to this one, and why there had +to be a college here. I never felt America as that old farmer made me +feel it. + +FEJEVARY: (_drawn by this, then shifting in irritation because he is +drawn_) I'm sorry to break in with practical things, but alas, I am a +practical man--forced to be. I too have made a fight--though the fight +to finance never appears an idealistic one. But I'm deep in that now, +and I must have a little help; at least, I must not have--stumbling-blocks. + +HOLDEN: Am I a stumbling-block? + +FEJEVARY: Candidly (_with a smile_) you are a little hard to finance. +Here's the situation. The time for being a little college has passed. We +must take our place as one of the important colleges--I make bold to say +one of the important universities--of the Middle West. But we have to +enlarge before we can grow. (_answering_ HOLDEN's _smile_) Yes, it is +ironic, but that's the way of it. It was a nice thing to open the +anniversary with fifty thousand from the steel works--but fifty thousand +dollars--nowadays--to an institution? (_waves the fifty thousand aside_) +They'll do more later, I think, when they see us coming into our own. +Meanwhile, as you know, there's this chance for an appropriation from +the state. I find that the legislature, the members who count, are very +friendly to Morton College. They like the spirit we have here. Well, now +I come to you, and you are one of the big reasons for my wanting to put +this over. Your salary makes me blush. It's all wrong that a man like +you should have these petty worries, particularly with Mrs Holden so in +need of the things a little money can do. Now this man Lewis is a +reactionary. So, naturally, he doesn't approve of you. + +HOLDEN: So naturally I am to go. + +FEJEVARY: Go? Not at all. What have I just been saying? + +HOLDEN: Be silent, then. + +FEJEVARY: Not that either--not--not really. But--be a little more +discreet. (_seeing him harden_) This is what I want to put up to you. +Why not give things a chance to mature in your own mind? Candidly, I +don't feel you know just what you do think; is it so awfully important +to express--confusion? + +HOLDEN: The only man who knows just what he thinks at the present moment +is the man who hasn't done any new thinking in the past ten years. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a soothing gesture_) You and I needn't quarrel about +it. I understand you, but I find it a little hard to interpret you to a +man like Lewis. + +HOLDEN: Then why not let a man like Lewis go to thunder? + +FEJEVARY: And let the college go to thunder? I'm not willing to do that. +I've made a good many sacrifices for this college. Given more money than +I could afford to give; given time and thought that I could have used +for personal gain. + +HOLDEN: That's true, I know. + +FEJEVARY: I don't know just why I've done it. Sentiment, I suppose. I +had a very strong feeling about my father, Professor Holden. And this +friend Silas Morton. This college is the child of that friendship. Those +are noble words in our manifesto: 'Morton College was born because there +came to this valley a man who held his vision for mankind above his own +advantage; and because that man found in this valley a man who wanted +beauty for his fellow-men as he wanted no other thing.' + +HOLDEN: (_taking it up_) 'Born of the fight for freedom and the +aspiration to richer living, we believe that Morton College--rising as +from the soil itself--may strengthen all those here and everywhere who +fight for the life there is in freedom, and may, to the measure it can, +loosen for America the beauty that breathes from knowledge.' (_moved by +the words he has spoken_) Do you know, I would rather do that--really do +that--than--grow big. + +FEJEVARY: Yes. But you see, or rather, what you don't see is, you have +to look at the world in which you find yourself. The only way to stay +alive is to grow big. It's been hard, but I have tried to--carry on. + +HOLDEN: And so have I tried to carry on. But it is very hard--carrying +on a dream. + +FEJEVARY: Well, I'm trying to make it easier. + +HOLDEN: Make it easier by destroying the dream? + +FEJEVARY: Not at all. What I want is scope for dreams. + +HOLDEN: Are you sure we'd have the dreams after we've paid this price +for the scope? + +FEJEVARY: Now let's not get rhetorical with one another. + +HOLDEN: Mr Fejevary, you have got to let me be as honest with you as you +say you are being with me. You have got to let me say what I feel. + +FEJEVARY: Certainly. That's why I wanted this talk with you. + +HOLDEN: You say you have made sacrifices for Morton College. So have I. + +FEJEVARY: How well I know that. + +HOLDEN: You don't know all of it. I'm not sure you understand any of it. + +FEJEVARY: (_charmingly_) Oh, I think you're hard on me. + +HOLDEN: I spoke of the tenth anniversary. I was a young man then, just +home from Athens, (_pulled back into an old feeling_) I don't know why I +felt I had to go to Greece. I knew then that I was going to teach +something within sociology, and I didn't want anything I felt about +beauty to be left out of what I formulated about society. The Greeks-- + +FEJEVARY: (_as_ HOLDEN _has paused before what he sees_) I remember you +told me the Greeks were the passion of your student days. + +HOLDEN: Not so much because they created beauty, but because they were +able to let beauty flow into their lives--to create themselves in +beauty. So as a romantic young man (_smiles_), it seemed if I could go +where they had been--what I had felt might take form. Anyway, I had a +wonderful time there. Oh, what wouldn't I give to have again that +feeling of life's infinite possibilities! + +FEJEVARY: (_nodding_) A youthful feeling. + +HOLDEN: (_softly_) I like youth. Well, I was just back, visiting my +sister here, at the time of the tenth anniversary. I had a chance then +to go to Harvard as instructor. A good chance, for I would have been +under a man who liked me. But that afternoon I heard your father speak +about books. I talked with Silas Morton. I found myself telling him +about Greece. No one had ever felt it as he felt it. It seemed to become +of the very bone of him. + +FEJEVARY: (_affectionately_) I know how he used to do. + +HOLDEN: He put his hands on my shoulders. He said, 'Young man, don't go +away. We need you here. Give us this great thing you've got!' And so I +stayed, for I felt that here was soil in which I could grow, and that +one's whole life was not too much to give to a place with roots like +that. (_a little bitterly_) Forgive me if this seems rhetoric. + +FEJEVARY: (_a gesture of protest. Silent a moment_) You make it--hard +for me. (_with exasperation_) Don't you think I'd like to indulge myself +in an exalted mood? And why don't I? I can't afford it--not now. Won't +you have a little patience? And faith--faith that the thing we want will +be there for us after we've worked our way through the woods. We are in +the woods now. It's going to take our combined brains to get us out. I +don't mean just Morton College. + +HOLDEN: No--America. As to getting out, I think you are all wrong. + +FEJEVARY: That's one of your sweeping statements, Holden. Nobody's all +wrong. Even you aren't. + +HOLDEN: And in what ways am I wrong--from the standpoint of your Senator +Lewis? + +FEJEVARY: He's not my Senator Lewis, he's the state's, and we have to +take him as he is. Why, he objects, of course, to your radical +activities. He spoke of your defence of conscientious objectors. + +HOLDEN: (_slowly_) I think a man who is willing to go to prison for what +he believes has stuff in him no college needs turn its back on. + +FEJEVARY: Well, he doesn't agree with you--nor do I. + +HOLDEN: (_still quietly_) And I think a society which permits things to +go on which I can prove go on in our federal prisons had better stop and +take a fresh look at itself. To stand for that and then talk of +democracy and idealism--oh, it shows no mentality, for one thing. + +FEJEVARY: (_easily_) I presume the prisons do need a cleaning up. As to +Fred Jordan, you can't expect me to share your admiration. Our own +Fred--my nephew Fred Morton, went to France and gave his life. There's +some little courage, Holden, in doing that. + +HOLDEN: I'm not trying to belittle it. But he had the whole spirit of +his age with him--fortunate boy. The man who stands outside the idealism +of this time-- + +FEJEVARY: Takes a good deal upon himself, I should say. + +HOLDEN: There isn't any other such loneliness. You know in your heart +it's a noble courage. + +FEJEVARY: It lacks--humility. (HOLDEN _laughs scoffingly_) And I think +you lack it. I'm asking you to co-operate with me for the good of Morton +College. + +HOLDEN: Why not do it the other way? You say enlarge that we may grow. +That's false. It isn't of the nature of growth. Why not do it the way of +Silas Morton and Walt Whitman--each man being his purest and intensest +self. I was full of this fervour when you came in. I'm more and more +disappointed in our students. They're empty--flippant. No sensitive +moment opens them to beauty. No exaltation makes them--what they hadn't +known they were. I concluded some of the fault must be mine. The only +students I reach are the Hindus. Perhaps Madeline Morton--I don't quite +make her out. I too must have gone into a dead stratum. But I can get +back. Here alone this afternoon--(_softly_) I was back. + +FEJEVARY: I think we'll have to let the Hindus go. + +HOLDEN: (_astonished_) Go? Our best students? + +FEJEVARY: This college is for Americans. I'm not going to have foreign +revolutionists come here and block the things I've spent my life working +for. + +HOLDEN: I don't seem to know what you mean at all. + +FEJEVARY: Why, that disgraceful performance this morning. I can settle +Madeline all right, (_looking at his watch_) She should be here by now. +But I'm convinced our case before the legislature will be stronger with +the Hindus out of here. + +HOLDEN: Well, I seem to have missed something--disgraceful +performance--the Hindus, Madeline--(_stops, bewildered_) + +FEJEVARY: You mean to say you don't know about the disturbance out here? + +HOLDEN: I went right home after the address. Then came up here alone. + +FEJEVARY: Upon my word, you do lead a serene life. While you've been +sitting here in contemplation I've been to the police court--trying to +get my niece out of jail. That's what comes of having radicals around. + +HOLDEN: What happened? + +FEJEVARY: One of our beloved Hindus made himself obnoxious on the +campus. Giving out handbills about freedom for India--howling over +deportation. Our American boys wouldn't stand for it. A policeman saw +the fuss--came up and started to put the Hindu in his place. Then +Madeline rushes in, and it ended in her pounding the policeman with her +tennis racket. + +HOLDEN: Madeline Morton did that! + +FEJEVARY: (_sharply_) You seem pleased. + +HOLDEN: I am--interested. + +FEJEVARY: Well, I'm not interested. I'm disgusted. My niece mixing up in +a free-for-all fight and getting taken to the police station! It's the +first disgrace we've ever had in our family. + +HOLDEN: (_as one who has been given courage_) Wasn't there another +disgrace? + +FEJEVARY: What do you mean? + +HOLDEN: When your father fought his government and was banished from his +country. + +FEJEVARY: That was not a disgrace! + +HOLDEN: (_as if in surprise_) Wasn't it? + +FEJEVARY: See here, Holden, you can't talk to me like that. + +HOLDEN: I don't admit you can talk to me as you please and that I can't +talk to you. I'm a professor--not a servant. + +FEJEVARY: Yes, and you're a damned difficult professor. I certainly have +tried to-- + +HOLDEN: (_smiling_) Handle me? + +FEJEVARY: I ask you this. Do you know any other institution where you +could sit and talk with the executive head as you have here with me? + +HOLDEN: I don't know. Perhaps not. + +FEJEVARY: Then be reasonable. No one is entirely free. That's naïve. +It's rather egotistical to want to be. We're held by our relations to +others--by our obligations to the (_vaguely_)--the ultimate thing. Come +now--you admit certain dissatisfactions with yourself, so--why not go +with intensity into just the things you teach--and not touch quite so +many other things? + +HOLDEN: I couldn't teach anything if I didn't feel free to go wherever +that thing took me. Thirty years ago I was asked to come to this college +precisely because my science was not in isolation, because of my vivid +feeling of us as a moment in a long sweep, because of my faith in the +greater beauty our further living may unfold. + +(HARRY _enters_.) + +HARRY: Excuse me. Miss Morton is here now, Mr Fejevary. + +FEJEVARY: (_frowns, hesitates_) Ask her to come up here in five minutes +(_After_ HARRY _has gone_) I think we've thrown a scare into Madeline. I +thought as long as she'd been taken to jail it would be no worse for us +to have her stay there awhile. She's been held since one o'clock. That +ought to teach her reason. + +HOLDEN: Is there a case against her? + +FEJEVARY: No, I got it fixed up. Explained that it was just college girl +foolishness--wouldn't happen again. One reason I wanted this talk with +you first, if I do have any trouble with Madeline I want you to help me. + +HOLDEN: Oh, I can't do that. + +FEJEVARY: You aren't running out and clubbing the police. Tell her +she'll have to think things over and express herself with a little more +dignity. + +HOLDEN: I ask to be excused from being present while you talk with her. + +FEJEVARY: But why not stay in the library--in case I should need you. +Just take your books over to the east alcove and go on with what you +were doing when I came in. + +HOLDEN: (_with a faint smile_) I fear I can hardly do that. As to +Madeline-- + +FEJEVARY: You don't want to see the girl destroy herself, do you? I +confess I've always worried about Madeline. If my sister had lived--But +Madeline's mother died, you know, when she was a baby. Her father--well, +you and I talked that over just the other day--there's no getting to +him. Fred never worried me a bit--just the fine normal boy. But +Madeline--(_with an effort throwing it off_) Oh, it'll be all right, I +haven't a doubt. And it'll be all right between you and me, won't it? +Caution over a hard strip of the road, then--bigger things ahead. + +HOLDEN: (_slowly, knowing what it may mean_) I shall continue to do all +I can toward getting Fred Jordan out of prison. It's a disgrace to +America that two years after the war closes he should be kept +there--much of the time in solitary confinement--because he couldn't +believe in war. It's small--vengeful--it's the Russia of the Czars. I +shall do what is in my power to fight the deportation of Gurkul Singh. +And certainly I shall leave no stone unturned if you persist in your +amazing idea of dismissing the other Hindus from college. For what--I +ask you? Dismissed--for _what_? Because they love liberty enough to give +their lives to it! The day you dismiss them, burn our high-sounding +manifesto, Mr Fejevary, and admit that Morton College now sells her soul +to the--committee on appropriations! + +FEJEVARY: Well, you force me to be as specific as you are. If you do +these things, I can no longer fight for you. + +HOLDEN: Very well then, I go. + +FEJEVARY: Go where? + +HOLDEN: I don't know--at the moment. + +FEJEVARY: I fear you'll find it harder than you know. Meanwhile, what of +your family? + +HOLDEN: We will have to manage some way. + +FEJEVARY: It is not easy for a woman whose health--in fact, whose +life--is a matter of the best of care to 'manage some way'. (_with real +feeling_) What is an intellectual position alongside that reality? You'd +like, of course, to be just what you want to be--but isn't there +something selfish in that satisfaction? I'm talking as a friend now--you +must know that. You and I have a good many ties, Holden. I don't believe +you know how much Mrs Fejevary thinks of Mrs Holden. + +HOLDEN: She has been very, very good to her. + +FEJEVARY: And will be. She cares for her. And our children have been +growing up together--I love to watch it. Isn't that the reality? Doing +for them as best we can, making sacrifices of--of _every_ kind. Don't +let some tenuous, remote thing destroy this flesh and blood thing. + +HOLDEN: (_as one fighting to keep his head above water_) Honesty is not +a tenuous, remote thing. + +FEJEVARY: There's a kind of honesty in selfishness. We can't always have +it. Oh, I used to--go through things. But I've struck a pace--one +does--and goes ahead. + +HOLDEN: Forgive me, but I don't think you've had certain temptations +to--selfishness. + +FEJEVARY: How do you know what I've had? You have no way of knowing +what's in me--what other thing I might have been? You know my heritage; +you think that's left nothing? But I find myself here in America. I love +those dependent on me. My wife--who's used to a certain manner of +living; my children--who are to become part of the America of their +time. I've never said this to another human being--I've never looked at +myself--but it's pretty arrogant to think you're the only man who has +made a sacrifice to fit himself into the age in which he lives. I hear +Madeline. This hasn't left me in very good form for talking with her. +Please don't go away. Just-- + +(MADELINE _comes in, right. She has her tennis racket. Nods to the two +men_. HOLDEN _goes out, left_.) + +MADELINE: (_looking after_ HOLDEN--_feeling something going on. Then +turning to her uncle, who is still looking after_ HOLDEN) You wanted to +speak to me, Uncle Felix? + +FEJEVARY: Of course I want to speak to you. + +MADELINE: I feel just awfully sorry about--banging up my racket like +this. The second time it came down on this club. Why do they carry those +things? Perfectly fantastic, I'll say, going around with a club. But as +long as you were asking me what I wanted for my birthday-- + +FEJEVARY: Madeline, I am not here to discuss your birthday. + +MADELINE: I'm sorry--(_smiles_) to hear that. + +FEJEVARY: You don't seem much chastened. + +MADELINE: Chastened? Was that the idea? Well, if you think that keeping +a person where she doesn't want to be chastens her! I never felt less +'chastened' than when I walked out of that slimy spot and looked across +the street at your nice bank. I should think you'd hate to--(_with +friendly concern_) Why, Uncle Felix, you look tired out. + +FEJEVARY: I am tired out, Madeline. I've had a nerve-racking day. + +MADELINE: Isn't that too bad? Those speeches were so boresome, and that +old senator person--wasn't he a stuff? But can't you go home now and let +auntie give you tea and-- + +FEJEVARY: (_sharply_) Madeline, have you no intelligence? Hasn't it +occurred to you that your performance would worry me a little? + +MADELINE: I suppose it was a nuisance. And on such a busy day. +(_changing_) But if you're going to worry, Horace is the one you should +worry about. (_answering his look_) Why, he got it all up. He made me +ashamed! + +FEJEVARY: And you're not at all ashamed of what you have done? + +MADELINE: Ashamed? Why--no. + +FEJEVARY: Then you'd better be! A girl who rushes in and assaults an +officer! + +MADELINE: (_earnestly explaining it_) But, Uncle Felix, I had to stop +him. No one else did. + +FEJEVARY: Madeline, I don't know whether you're trying to be naïve-- + +MADELINE: (_angrily_) Well, I'm _not_. I like that! I think I'll go +home. + +FEJEVARY: I think you will not! It's stupid of you not to know this is +serious. You could be dismissed from school for what you did. + +MADELINE: Well, I'm good and ready to be dismissed from any school that +would dismiss for that! + +FEJEVARY: (_in a new manner--quietly, from feeling_) Madeline, have you +no love for this place? + +MADELINE: (_doggedly, after thinking_) Yes, I have. (_she sits down_) +And I don't know why I have. + +FEJEVARY: Certainly it's not strange. If ever a girl had a background, +Morton College is Madeline Fejevary Morton's background. (_he too now +seated by the table_) Do you remember your Grandfather Morton? + +MADELINE: Not very well. (_a quality which seems sullenness_) I couldn't +bear to look at him. He shook so. + +FEJEVARY: (_turning away, real pain_) Oh--how cruel! + +MADELINE: (_surprised, gently_) Cruel? Me--cruel? + +FEJEVARY: Not just you. The way it passes--(_to himself_) so _fast_ it +passes. + +MADELINE: I'm sorry. (_troubled_) You see, he was too old then-- + +FEJEVARY: (_his hand up to stop her_) I wish I could bring him back for +a moment, so you could see what he was before he (_bitterly_) shook so. +He was a powerful man, who was as real as the earth. He was strangely of +the earth, as if something went from it to him. (_looking at her +intently_) Queer you should be the one to have no sentiment about him, +for you and he--sometimes when I'm with you it's as if--he were near. He +had no personal ambition, Madeline. He was ambitious for the earth and +its people. I wonder if you can realize what it meant to my father--in a +strange land, where he might so easily have been misunderstood, pushed +down, to find a friend like that? It wasn't so much the material +things--though Uncle Silas was always making them right--and as if--oh, +hardly conscious what he was doing--so little it mattered. It was the +way he _got_ father, and by that very valuing kept alive what was there +to value. Why, he literally laid this country at my father's feet--as if +that was what this country was for, as if it made up for the hard early +things--for the wrong things. + +MADELINE: He must really have been a pretty nice old party. No doubt I +would have hit it off with him all right. I don't seem to hit it off +with the--speeches about him. Somehow I want to say, 'Oh, give us a +rest.' + +FEJEVARY: (_offended_) And that, I presume, is what you want to say to +me. + +MADELINE: No, no, I didn't mean you, Uncle. Though (_hesitatingly_) I +was wondering how you could think you were talking on your side. + +FEJEVARY: What do you mean--my side? + +MADELINE: Oh, I don't--exactly. That's nice about him being--of the +earth. Sometimes when I'm out for a tramp--way off by myself--yes, I +know. And I wonder if that doesn't explain his feeling about the +Indians. Father told me how grandfather took it to heart about the +Indians. + +FEJEVARY: He felt it as you'd feel it if it were your brother. So he +must give his choicest land to the thing we might become. 'Then maybe I +can lie under the same sod with the red boys and not be ashamed.' + +(MADELINE _nods, appreciatively_.) + +MADELINE: Yes, that's really--all right. + +FEJEVARY: (_irritated by what seems charily stated approval_) 'All +right!' Well, I am not willing to let this man's name pass from our +time. And it seems rather bitter that Silas Morton's granddaughter +should be the one to stand in my way. + +MADELINE: Why, Uncle Felix, I'm not standing in your way. Of course I +wouldn't do that. I--(_rather bashfully_) I love the Hill. I was +thinking about it in jail. I got fuddled on direction in there, so I +asked the woman who hung around which way was College Hill. 'Right +through there', she said. A blank wall. I sat and looked through that +wall--long time. (_she looks front, again looking through that blank +wall_) It was all--kind of funny. Then later she came and told me you +were out there, and I thought it was corking of you to come and tell +them they couldn't put that over on College Hill. And I know Bakhshish +will appreciate it too. I wonder where he went? + +FEJEVARY: Went? I fancy he won't go much of anywhere to-night. + +MADELINE: What do you mean? + +FEJEVARY: Why, he's held for this hearing, of course. + +MADELINE: You mean--you came and got just me--and left him there? + +FEJEVARY: Certainly. + +MADELINE: (_rising_) Then I'll have to go and get him! + +FEJEVARY: Madeline, don't be so absurd. You don't get people out of jail +by stopping in and calling for them. + +MADELINE: But you got me. + +FEJEVARY: Because of years of influence. At that, it wasn't simple. +Things of this nature are pretty serious nowadays. It was only your +ignorance got you out. + +MADELINE: I do seem ignorant. While you were fixing it up for me, why +didn't you arrange for him too? + +FEJEVARY: Because I am not in the business of getting foreign +revolutionists out of jail. + +MADELINE: But he didn't do as much as I did. + +FEJEVARY: It isn't what he did. It's what he is. We don't want him here. + +MADELINE: Well, I guess I'm not for that! + +FEJEVARY: May I ask why you have appointed yourself guardian of these +strangers? + +MADELINE: Perhaps because they are strangers. + +FEJEVARY: Well, they're the wrong kind of strangers. + +MADELINE: Is it true that the Hindu who was here last year is to be +deported? Is America going to turn him over to the government he fought? + +FEJEVARY: I have an idea they will all be deported. I'm not so sorry +this thing happened. It will get them into the courts--and I don't think +they have money to fight. + +MADELINE: (_giving it clean and straight_) Gee, I think that's rotten! + +FEJEVARY: Quite likely your inelegance will not affect it one way or the +other. + +MADELINE: (_she has taken her seat again, is thinking it out_) I'm +twenty-one next Tuesday. Isn't it on my twenty-first birthday I get that +money Grandfather Morton left me? + +FEJEVARY: What are you driving at? + +MADELINE: (_simply_) They can have my money. + +FEJEVARY: Are you crazy? What _are_ these people to you? + +MADELINE: They're people from the other side of the world who came here +believing in us, drawn from the far side of the world by things we say +about ourselves. Well, I'm going to pretend--just for fun--that the +things we say about ourselves are true. So if you'll--arrange so I can +get it, Uncle Felix, as soon as it's mine. + +FEJEVARY: And this is what you say to me at the close of my years of +trusteeship! If you could know how I've nursed that little legacy +along--until now it is--(_breaking off in anger_) I shall not permit you +to destroy yourself! + +MADELINE: (_quietly_) I don't see how you can keep me from 'destroying +myself'. + +FEJEVARY: (_looking at her, seeing that this may be true. In genuine +amazement, and hurt_) Why--but it's incredible. Have I--has my +house--been nothing to you all these years? + +MADELINE: I've had my best times at your house. Things wouldn't have +been--very gay for me--without you all--though Horace gets my goat! + +FEJEVARY: And does your Aunt Isabel--'get your goat'? + +MADELINE: I love auntie. (_rather resentfully_) You know that. What has +that got to do with it? + +FEJEVARY: So you are going to use Silas Morton's money to knife his +college. + +MADELINE: Oh, Uncle Felix, that's silly. + +FEJEVARY: It's a long way from silly. You know a little about what I'm +trying to do--this appropriation that would assure our future. If Silas +Morton's granddaughter casts in her lot with revolutionists, Morton +College will get no help from the state. Do you know enough about what +you are doing to assume this responsibility? + +MADELINE: I am not casting 'in my lot with revolutionists'. If it's +true, as you say, that you have to have money in order to get justice-- + +FEJEVARY: I didn't say it! + +MADELINE: Why, you did, Uncle Felix. You said so. And if it's true that +these strangers in our country are going to be abused because they're +poor,--what else could I do with my money and not feel like a skunk? + +FEJEVARY: (_trying a different tack, laughing_) Oh, you're a romantic +girl, Madeline--skunk and all. Rather nice, at that. But the thing is +perfectly fantastic, from every standpoint. You speak as if you had +millions. And if you did, it wouldn't matter, not really. You are going +against the spirit of this country; with or without money, that can't be +done. Take a man like Professor Holden. He's radical in his +sympathies--but does he run out and club the police? + +MADELINE: (_in a smouldering way_) I thought America was a democracy. + +FEJEVARY: We have just fought a great war for democracy. + +MADELINE: Well, is that any reason for not having it? + +FEJEVARY: I should think you would have a little emotion about the +war--about America--when you consider where your brother is. + +MADELINE: Fred had--all kinds of reasons for going to France. He wanted +a trip. (_answering his exclamation_) Why, he _said_ so. Heavens, Fred +didn't make speeches about himself. Wanted to see Paris--poor kid, he +never did see Paris. Wanted to be with a lot of fellows--knock the +Kaiser's block off--end war, get a French girl. It was all mixed up--the +way things are. But Fred was a pretty decent sort. I'll say so. He had +such kind, honest eyes. (_this has somehow said itself; her own eyes +close and what her shut eyes see makes feeling hot_) One thing I do +know! Fred never went over the top and out to back up the argument +you're making now! + +FEJEVARY: (_stiffly_) Very well, I will discontinue the argument I'm +making now. I've been trying to save you from--pretty serious things. +The regret of having stood in the way of Morton College--(_his voice +falling_) the horror of having driven your father insane. + +MADELINE: _What?_ + +FEJEVARY: One more thing would do it. Just the other day I was talking +with Professor Holden about your father. His idea of him relates back to +the pioneer life--another price paid for this country. The lives back of +him were too hard. Your great-grandmother Morton--the first white woman +in this region--she dared too much, was too lonely, feared and bore too +much. They did it, for the task gave them a courage for the task. But +it--left a scar. + +MADELINE: And father is that--(_can hardly say it_)--scar. (_fighting +the idea_) But Grandfather Morton was not like that. + +FEJEVARY: No; he had the vision of the future; he was robust with +feeling for others. (_gently_) But Holden feels your father is +the--dwarfed pioneer child. The way he concentrates on corn--excludes +all else--as if unable to free himself from their old battle with the +earth. + +MADELINE: (_almost crying_) I think it's pretty terrible to--wish all +that on poor father. + +FEJEVARY: Well, my dear child, it's life has 'wished it on him'. It's +just one other way of paying the price for his country. We needn't get +it for nothing. I feel that all our chivalry should go to your father in +his--heritage of loneliness. + +MADELINE: Father couldn't always have been--dwarfed. Mother wouldn't +have cared for him if he had always been--like that. + +FEJEVARY: No, if he could have had love to live in. But no endurance for +losing it. Too much had been endured just before life got to him. + +MADELINE: Do you know, Uncle Felix--I'm afraid that's true? (_he nods_) +Sometimes when I'm with father I feel those things near--the--the too +much--the too hard,--feel them as you'd feel the cold. And now that it's +different--easier--he can't come into the world that's been earned. Oh, +I wish I could help him! + +(_As they sit there together, now for the first time really together, +there is a shrill shout of derision from outside_.) + +MADELINE: What's that? (_a whistled call_) Horace! That's Horace's call. +That's for his gang. Are they going to start something now that will get +Atma in jail? + +FEJEVARY: More likely he's trying to start something. (_they are both +listening intently_) I don't think our boys will stand much more. + +(_A scoffing whoop_. MADELINE _springs to the window; he reaches it +ahead and holds it_.) + +FEJEVARY: This window stays closed. + +(_She starts to go away, he takes hold of her_.) + +MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here? + +FEJEVARY: Listen, Madeline--plain, straight truth. If you go out there +and get in trouble a second time, I can't make it right for you. + +MADELINE: You needn't! + +FEJEVARY: You don't know what it means. These things are not child's +play--not today. You could get twenty years in prison for things you'll +say if you rush out there now. (_she laughs_) You laugh because you're +ignorant. Do you know that in America today there are women in our +prisons for saying no more than you've said here to me! + +MADELINE: Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself! + +FEJEVARY: I? Ashamed of myself? + +MADELINE: Yes! Aren't you an American? (_a whistle_) Isn't that a +policeman's whistle? Are they coming back? Are they hanging around here +to--(_pulling away from her uncle as he turns to look, she jumps up in +the deep sill and throws open the window. Calling down_) +Here--Officer--_You_--Let that boy alone! + +FEJEVARY: (_going left, calling sharply_) Holden. Professor +Holden--here--quick! + +VOICE: (_coming up from below, outside_) Who says so? + +MADELINE: I say so! + +VOICE: And who are you talking for? + +MADELINE: I am talking for Morton College! + +FEJEVARY: (_returning--followed, reluctantly, by_ HOLDEN) Indeed you are +not. Close that window or you'll be expelled from Morton College. + +(_Sounds of a growing crowd outside_.) + +VOICE: Didn't I see you at the station? + +MADELINE: Sure you saw me at the station. And you'll see me there again, +if you come bullying around here. You're not what this place is for! +(_her uncle comes up behind, right, and tries to close the window--she +holds it out_) My grandfather gave this hill to Morton College--a place +where anybody--from any land--can come and say what he believes to be +true! Why, you poor simp--this is America! Beat it from here! Atna! +Don't let him take hold of you like that! He has no right to--Oh, let me +_down_ there! + +(_Springs down, would go off right, her uncle spreads out his arms to +block that passage. She turns to go the other way_.) + +FEJEVARY: Holden! Bring her to her senses. Stand there. (HOLDEN _has not +moved from the place he entered, left, and so blocks the doorway_) Don't +let her pass. + +(_Shouts of derision outside_.) + +MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here--with that going on out +there? (_Moves nearer_ HOLDEN, _stands there before him, taut, looking +him straight in the eye. After a moment, slowly, as one compelled, he +steps aside for her to pass. Sound of her running footsteps. The two +men's eyes meet. A door slams_.) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT IV + + +SCENE: _At the_ MORTON _place, the same room in which_ SILAS MORTON +_told his friend_ FELIX FEJEVARY _of his plan for the hill. The room has +not altogether changed since that day in 1879. The table around which +they dreamed for the race is in its old place. One of the old chairs is +there, the other two are modern chairs. In a corner is the rocker in +which_ GRANDMOTHER MORTON _sat. This is early afternoon, a week after +the events of Act II_. + +MADELINE _is sitting at the table, in her hand a torn, wrinkled piece of +brown paper-peering at writing almost too fine to read. After a moment +her hand goes out to a beautiful dish on the table--an old dish of +coloured Hungarian glass. She is about to take something from this, but +instead lets her hand rest an instant on the dish itself Then turns and +through the open door looks out at the hill, sitting where her_ +GRANDFATHER MORTON _sat when he looked out at the hill._ + +_Her father_, IRA MORTON, _appears outside, walking past the window, +left. He enters, carrying a grain sack, partly filled. He seems hardly +aware of_ MADELINE, _but taking a chair near the door, turned from her, +opens the sack and takes out a couple of ears of corn. As he is bent +over them, examining in a shrewd, greedy way_, MADELINE _looks at that +lean, tormented, rather desperate profile, the look of one confirming a +thing she fears. Then takes up her piece of paper_. + +MADELINE: Do you remember Fred Jordan, father? Friend of our Fred--and +of mine? + +IRA: (_not wanting to take his mind from the corn_) No. I don't remember +him. (_his voice has that timbre of one not related to others_) + +MADELINE: He's in prison now. + +IRA: Well I can't help that. (_after taking out another ear_) This is +the best corn I ever had. (_he says it gloatingly to himself_) + +MADELINE: He got this letter out to me--written on this scrap of paper. +They don't give him paper. (_peering_) Written so fine I can hardly read +it. He's in what they call 'the hold', father--a punishment cell. (_with +difficulty reading it_) It's two and a half feet at one end, three feet +at the other, and six feet long. He'd been there ten days when he wrote +this. He gets two slices of bread a day; he gets water; that's all he +gets. This because he balled the deputy warden out for chaining another +prisoner up by the wrists. + +IRA: Well, he'd better a-minded his own business. And you better mind +yours. I've got no money to spend in the courts. (_with excitement_) +I'll not mortgage this farm! It's been clear since the day my father's +father got it from the government--and it stays clear--till I'm gone. It +grows the best corn in the state--best corn in the Mississippi Valley. +Not for _anything_--you hear me?--would I mortgage this farm my father +handed down to me. + +MADELINE: (_hurt_) Well, father, I'm not asking you to. + +IRA: Then go and see your Uncle Felix. Make it up with him. He'll help +you--if you say you're sorry. + +MADELINE: I'll not go to Uncle Felix. + +IRA: Who will you go to then? (_pause_) Who will help you then? (_again +he waits_) You come before this United States Commissioner with no one +behind you, he'll hold you for the grand jury. Judge Watkins told Felix +there's not a doubt of it. You know what that means? It means you're on +your way to a cell. Nice thing for a Morton, people who've had their own +land since we got it from the Indians. What's the matter with your +uncle? Ain't he always been good to you? I'd like to know what things +would 'a' been for you without Felix and Isabel and all their friends. +You want to think a little. You like good times too well to throw all +that away. + +MADELINE: I do like good times. So does Fred Jordan like good times. +(_smooths the wrinkled paper_) I don't know anybody--unless it is +myself--loves to be out, as he does. (_she tries to look out, but +cannot; sits very still, seeing what it is pain to see. Rises, goes to +that corner closet, the same one from which_ SILAS MORTON _took the deed +to the hill. She gets a yard stick, looks in a box and finds a piece of +chalk. On the floor she marks off_ FRED JORDAN'S _cell. Slowly, at the +end left unchalked, as for a door, she goes in. Her hand goes up as +against a wall; looks at her other hand, sees it is out too far, brings +it in, giving herself the width of the cell. Walks its length, halts, +looks up_.) And one window--too high up to see out. + +(_In the moment she stands there, she is in that cell; she is all the +people who are in those cells_. EMIL JOHNSON _appears from outside; he +is the young man brought up on a farm, a crudely Americanized Swede_.) + +MADELINE: (_stepping out of the cell door, and around it_) Hello, Emil. + +EMIL: How are you, Madeline? How do, Mr Morton. (IRA _barely nods and +does not turn. In an excited manner he begins gathering up the corn he +has taken from the sack_. EMIL _turns back to_ MADELINE) Well, I'm just +from the courthouse. Looks like you and I might take a ride together, +Madeline. You come before the Commissioner at four. + +IRA: What have you got to do with it? + +MADELINE: Oh, Emil has a courthouse job now, father. He's part of the +law. + +IRA: Well, he's not going to take you to the law! Anybody else--not Emil +Johnson! + +MADELINE: (_astonished--and gently, to make up for his rudeness_) +Why--father, why not Emil? Since I'm going, I think it's nice to go in +with someone I know--with a neighbour like Emil. + +IRA: If _this_ is what he lived for! If this is why-- + +(_He twists the ear of corn until some of the kernels drip off_. +MADELINE _and_ EMIL _look at one another in bewilderment_.) + +EMIL: It's too bad anybody has to take Madeline in. I should think your +uncle could fix it up. (_low_) And with your father taking it like +this--(_to help_ IRA) That's fine corn, Mr Morton. My corn's getting +better all the time, but I'd like to get some of this for seed. + +IRA: (_rising and turning on him_) You get my corn? I raise this corn +for you? (_not to them--his mind now going where it is shut off from any +other mind_) If I could make the _wind_ stand still! I want to _turn the +wind around_. + +MADELINE: (_going to him_) Why--father. I don't understand at all. + +IRA: Don't understand. Nobody understands. (_a curse with a sob in it_) +God damn the wind! + +(_Sits down, his back to them_.) + +EMIL: (_after a silence_) Well, I'll go. (_but he continues to look at_ +IRA, _who is holding the sack of com shut, as if someone may take it_) +Too bad--(_stopped by a sign from_ MADELINE, _not to speak of it_) Well, +I was saying, I have go on to Beard's Crossing. I'll stop for you on my +way back. (_confidentially_) Couldn't you telephone your uncle? He could +do something. You don't know what you're going up against. You heard +what the Hindus got, I suppose. + +MADELINE: No. I haven't seen anyone to-day. + +EMIL: They're held for the grand jury. They're locked up now. No bail +for them. I've got the inside dope about them. They're going to get what +this country can hand 'em; then after we've given them a nice little +taste of prison life in America, they're going to be sent back home--to +see what India can treat them to. + +MADELINE: Why are you so pleased about this, Emil? + +EMIL: Pleased? It's nothin' to me--I'm just telling you. Guess you don't +know much about the Espionage Act or you'd go and make a little friendly +call on your uncle. When your case comes to trial--and Judge Lenon may +be on the bench--(_whistles_) He's one fiend for Americanism. But if +your uncle was to tell the right parties that you're just a girl, and +didn't realize what you were saying-- + +MADELINE: I did realize what I was saying, and every word you've just +said makes me know I meant what I said. I said if this was what our +country has come to, then I'm not for our country. I said that--and +a-plenty more--and I'll say it again! + +EMIL: Well--gee, you don't know what it means. + +MADELINE: I do know what it means, but it means not being a coward. + +EMIL: Oh, well--Lord, you can't say everything you think. If everybody +did that, things'd be worse off than they are now. + +MADELINE: Once in a while you have to say what you think--or hate +yourself. + +EMIL: (_with a grin_) Then hate yourself. + +MADELINE: (_smiling too_) No thank you; it spoils my fun. + +EMIL: Well, look-a-here, Madeline, aren't you spoiling your fun now? +You're a girl who liked to be out. Ain't I seen you from our place, with +this one and that one, sometimes all by yourself, strikin' out over the +country as if you was crazy about it? How'd you like to be where you +couldn't even see out? + +MADELINE: (_a step nearer the cell_) There oughtn't to be such places. + +EMIL: Oh, well--Jesus, if you're going to talk about that--! You can't +change the way things are. + +MADELINE: (_quietly_) Why can't I? + +EMIL: Well, say, who do you think you are? + +MADELINE: I think I'm an American. And for that reason I think I have +something to say about America. + +EMIL: Huh! America'll lock you up for your pains. + +MADELINE: All right. If it's come to that, maybe I'd rather be a +locked-up American than a free American. + +EMIL: I don't think you'd like the place, Madeline. There's not much +tennis played there. Jesus--what's Hindus? + +MADELINE: You aren't really asking Jesus, are you, Emil? (_smiles_) You +mightn't like his answer. + +EMIL: (_from the door_) Take a tip. Telephone your uncle. + +(_He goes_.) + +IRA: (_not looking at her_) There might be a fine, and they'd come down +on me and take my land. + +MADELINE: Oh, no, father, I think not. Anyway, I have a little money of +my own. Grandfather Morton left me something. Have you forgotten that? + +IRA: No. No, I know he left you something. (_the words seem to bother +him_) I know he left you something. + +MADELINE: I get it to-day. (_wistfully_) This is my birthday, father. +I'm twenty-one. + +IRA: Your birthday? Twenty-one? (_in pain_) Was that twenty-one years +ago? (_it is not to his daughter this has turned him_) + +MADELINE: It's the first birthday I can remember that I haven't had a +party. + +IRA: It was your Aunt Isabel gave you your parties. + +MADELINE: Yes. + +IRA: Well, you see now. + +MADELINE: (_stoutly_) Oh, well, I don't need a party. I'm grown up now. + +(_She reaches out for the old Hungarian dish on the table; holding it, +she looks to her father, whose back is still turned. Her face tender, +she is about to speak when he speaks_.) + +IRA: Grown up now--and going off and leaving me alone. You too--the last +one. And--_what for? (turning, looking around the room as for those long +gone_) There used to be so many in this house. My grandmother. She sat +there. (_pointing to the place near the open door_) Fine days like +this--in that chair (_points to the rocker_) she'd sit there--tell me +stories of the Indians. Father. It wasn't ever lonely where father was. +Then Madeline Fejevary--my Madeline came to this house. Lived with me in +this house. Then one day she--walked out of this house. Through that +door--through the field--out of this house. (_bitter silence_) Then +Fred--out of this house. Now you. With Emil Johnson! (_insanely, and +almost with relief at leaving things more sane_) Don't let him touch my +corn. If he touches one kernel of this corn! (_with the suspicion of the +tormented mind_) I wonder where he went? How do I know he went where he +_said_ he was going? (_getting up_) I dunno as that south bin's locked. + +MADELINE: Oh--father! + +IRA: I'll find out. How do I know what he's doing? + +(_He goes out, turning left_. MADELINE _goes to the window and looks +after him. A moment later, hearing someone at the door, she turns and +finds her_ AUNT ISABEL, _who has appeared from right. Goes swiftly to +her, hands out_.) + +MADELINE: Oh, _auntie_--I'm glad you came! It's my birthday, and +I'm--lonely. + +AUNT ISABEL: You dear little girl! (_again giving her a hug, which_ +MADELINE _returns, lovingly_) Don't I know it's your birthday? Don't +think that day will ever get by while your Aunt Isabel's around. Just +see what's here for your birthday. (_hands her the package she is +carrying_) + +MADELINE: (_with a gasp--suspecting from its shape_) Oh! (_her face +aglow_) Why--_is_ it? + +AUNT ISABEL: (_laughing affectionately_) Foolish child, open it and see. + +(MADELINE _loosens the paper and pulls out a tennis racket_.) + +MADELINE: (_excited, and moved_) Oh, aunt Isabel! that was dear of you. +I shouldn't have thought you'd--quite do that. + +AUNT ISABEL: I couldn't imagine Madeline without a racket. (_gathering +up the paper, lightly reproachful_) But be a little careful of it, +Madeline. It's meant for tennis balls. (_they laugh together_) + +MADELINE: (_making a return with it_) It's a _peach_. (_changing_) +Wonder where I'll play now. + +AUNT ISABEL: Why, you'll play on the courts at Morton College. Who has a +better right? + +MADELINE: Oh, I don't know. It's pretty much balled up, isn't it? + +AUNT ISABEL: Yes; we'll have to get it straightened out. (_gently_) It +was really dreadful of you, Madeline, to rush out a second time. It +isn't as if they were people who were anything to you. + +MADELINE: But, auntie, they are something to me. + +AUNT ISABEL: Oh, dear, that's what Horace said. + +MADELINE: What's what Horace said? + +AUNT ISABEL: That you must have a case on one of them. + +MADELINE: That's what Horace would say. That makes me sore! + +AUNT ISABEL: I'm sorry I spoke of it. Horace is absurd in some ways. + +MADELINE: He's a-- + +AUNT ISABEL: (_stopping it with her hand_) No, he isn't. He's a +headstrong boy, but a very loving one. He's dear with me, Madeline. + +MADELINE: Yes. You are good to each other. (_her eyes are drawn to the +cell_) + +AUNT ISABEL: Of course we are. We'd be a pretty poor sort if we weren't. +And these are days when we have to stand together--all of us who are the +same kind of people must stand together because the thing that makes us +the same kind of people is threatened. + +MADELINE: Don't you think we're rather threatening it ourselves, auntie? + +AUNT ISABEL: Why, no, we're fighting for it. + +MADELINE: Fighting for what? + +AUNT ISABEL: For Americanism; for--democracy. + +MADELINE: Horace is fighting for it? + +AUNT ISABEL: Well, Horace does go at it as if it were a football game, +but his heart's in the right place. + +MADELINE: Somehow, I don't seem to see my heart in that place. + +AUNT ISABEL: In what place? + +MADELINE: Where Horace's heart is. + +AUNT ISABEL: It's too bad you and Horace quarrel. But you and I don't +quarrel, Madeline. + +MADELINE: (_again drawn to the cell_) No. You and I don't quarrel. (_she +is troubled_) + +AUNT ISABEL: Funny child! Do you want us to? + +(MADELINE _turns, laughing a little, takes the dish from the table, +holds it out to her aunt_.) + +MADELINE: Have some fudge, auntie. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_taking the dish_) Do you _use_ them?--the old Hungarian +dishes? (_laughingly_) I'm not allowed to--your uncle is so choice of +the few pieces we have. And here are you with fudge in one of them. + +MADELINE: I made the fudge because--oh, I don't know, I had to do +something to celebrate my birthday. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_under her breath_) Dearie! + +MADELINE: And then that didn't seem to--make a birthday, so I happened +to see this, way up on a top shelf, and I remembered that it was my +mother's. It was nice to get it down and use it--almost as if mother was +giving me a birthday present. + +AUNT ISABEL: And how she would love to give you a birthday present. + +MADELINE: It was her mother's, I suppose, and they brought it from +Hungary. + +AUNT ISABEL: Yes. They brought only a very few things with them, and +left--oh, so many beautiful ones behind. + +MADELINE: (_quietly_) Rather nice of them, wasn't it? (_her aunt waits +inquiringly_) To leave their own beautiful things--their own beautiful +life behind--simply because they believed life should be more beautiful +for more people. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_with constraint_) Yes. (_gayly turning it_) Well, now, as +to the birthday. What do you suppose Sarah is doing this instant? +Putting red frosting on white frosting, (_writing it with her finger_) +Madeline. And what do you suppose Horace is doing? (_this a little +reproachfully_) Running around buying twenty-one red candles. +Twenty-two--one to grow on. Big birthday cake. Party to-night. + +MADELINE: But, auntie, I don't see how I can be there. + +AUNT ISABEL: Listen, dear. Now, we've got to use our wits and all pull +together. Of course we'd do anything in the world rather than see +you--left to outsiders. I've never seen your uncle as worried, +and--truly, Madeline, as sad. Oh, my dear, it's these human things that +count! What would life be without the love we have for each other? + +MADELINE: The love we have for each other? + +AUNT ISABEL: Why, yes, dearest. Don't turn away from me Madeline. +Don't--don't be strange. I wonder if you realize how your uncle has +worked to have life a happy thing for all of us? Be a little generous to +him. He's had this great burden of bringing something from another day +on into this day. It is not as simple as it may seem. He's done it as +best he could. It will hurt him as nothing has ever hurt him if you now +undo that work of his life. Truly, dear, do you feel you know enough +about it to do that? Another thing: people are a little absurd out of +their own places. We need to be held in our relationships--against our +background--or we are--I don't know--grotesque. Come now, Madeline, +where's your sense of humour? Isn't it a little absurd for you to leave +home over India's form of government? + +MADELINE: It's not India. It's America. A sense of humour is nothing to +hide behind! + +AUNT ISABEL: (_with a laugh_) I knew I wouldn't be a success at world +affairs--better leave that to Professor Holden. (_a quick keen look +from_ MADELINE) They've driven on to the river--they'll be back for me, +and then he wants to stop in for a visit with you while I take Mrs +Holden for a further ride. I'm worried about her. She doesn't gain +strength at all since her operation. I'm going to try keeping her out in +the air all I can. + +MADELINE: It's dreadful about families! + +AUNT ISABEL: Dreadful? Professor Holden's devotion to his wife is one of +the most beautiful things I've ever seen. + +MADELINE: And is that all you see it in? + +AUNT ISABEL: You mean the--responsibility it brings? Oh, well--that's +what life is. Doing for one another. Sacrificing for one another. + +MADELINE: I hope I never have a family. + +AUNT ISABEL: Well, I hope you do. You'll miss the best of life if you +don't. Anyway, you have a family. Where is your father? + +MADELINE: I don't know. + +AUNT ISABEL: I'd like to see him. + +MADELINE: There's no use seeing him today. + +AUNT ISABEL: He's--? + +MADELINE: Strange--shut in--afraid something's going to be taken from +him. + +AUNT ISABEL: Poor Ira. So much has been taken from him. And now you. +Don't hurt him again, Madeline. He can't bear it. You see what it does +to him. + +MADELINE: He has--the wrong idea about things. + +AUNT ISABEL: 'The wrong idea!' Oh, my child--that's awfully young and +hard. It's so much deeper than that. Life has made him into +something--something he can't escape. + +MADELINE: (_with what seems sullenness_) Well, I don't want to be made +into that thing. + +AUNT ISABEL: Of course not. But you want to help him, don't you? Now, +dear--about your birthday party-- + +MADELINE: The United States Commissioner is giving me my birthday party. + +AUNT ISABEL: Well, he'll have to put his party off. Your uncle has been +thinking it all out. We're to go to his office and you'll have a talk +with him and with Judge Watkins. He's off the state supreme bench +now--practising again, and as a favour to your uncle he will be your +lawyer. You don't know how relieved we are at this, for Judge Watkins +can do--anything he wants to do, practically. Then you and I will go on +home and call up some of the crowd to come in and dance to-night. We +have some beautiful new records. There's a Hungarian waltz-- + +MADELINE: And what's the price of all this, auntie? + +AUNT ISABEL: The--Oh, you mean--Why, simply say you felt sorry for the +Hindu students because they seemed rather alone; that you hadn't +realized--what they were, hadn't thought out what you were saying-- + +MADELINE: And that I'm sorry and will never do it again. + +AUNT ISABEL: I don't know that you need say that. It would be gracious, +I think, to indicate it. + +MADELINE: I'm sorry you--had the cake made. I suppose you can eat it, +anyway. I (_turning away_)--can't eat it. + +AUNT ISABEL: Why--Madeline. + +(_Seeing how she has hurt her_, MADELINE _goes out to her aunt_.) + +MADELINE: Auntie, dear! I'm sorry--if I hurt your feelings. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_quick to hold out a loving hand, laughing a little_) +They've been good birthday cakes, haven't they, Madeline? + +MADELINE: (_she now trying not to cry_) I don't know--what I'd have done +without them. Don't know--what I will do without them. I don't--see it. + +AUNT ISABEL: Don't try to. Please don't see it! Just let me go on +helping you. That's all I ask. (_she draws_ MADELINE _to her_) Ah, +dearie, I held you when you were a little baby without your mother. All +those years count for something, Madeline. There's just nothing to life +if years of love don't count for something. (_listening_) I think I hear +them. And here are we, weeping like two idiots. (MADELINE _brushes away +tears_, AUNT ISABEL _arranges her veil, regaining her usual poise_) +Professor Holden was hoping you'd take a tramp with him. Wouldn't that +do you good? Anyway, a talk with him will be nice. I know he admires you +immensely, and really--perhaps I shouldn't let you know +this--sympathizes with your feeling. So I think his maturer way of +looking at things will show you just the adjustment you need to become a +really big and useful person. There's so much to be done in the world, +Madeline. Of course we ought to make it a better world. (_in a manner of +agreement with_ MADELINE) I feel very strongly about all that. Perhaps +we can do some things together. I'd love that. Don't think I'm hopeless! +Way down deep we have the same feeling. Yes, here's Professor Holden. + +(HOLDEN _comes in. He seems older_.) + +HOLDEN: And how are you, Madeline? (_holding out his hand_) + +MADELINE: I'm--all right. + +HOLDEN: Many happy returns of the day. (_embarrassed by her half laugh_) +The birthday. + +AUNT ISABEL: And did you have a nice look up the river? + +HOLDEN: I never saw this country as lovely as it is to-day. Mary is just +drinking it in. + +AUNT ISABEL: You don't think the further ride will be too much? + +HOLDEN: Oh, no--not in that car. + +AUNT ISABEL: Then we'll go on--perhaps as far as Laughing Creek. If you +two decide on a tramp--take that road and we'll pick you up. (_smiling +warmly, she goes out_) + +HOLDEN: How good she is. + +MADELINE: Yes. That's just the trouble. + +HOLDEN: (_with difficulty getting past this_) How about a little tramp? +There'll never be another such day. + +MADELINE: I used to tramp with Fred Jordan. This is where he is now. +(_stepping inside the cell_) He doesn't even see out. + +HOLDEN: It's all wrong that he should be where he is. But for you to +stay indoors won't help him, Madeline. + +MADELINE: It won't help him, but--today--I can't go out. + +HOLDEN: I'm sorry, my child. When this sense of wrongs done first comes +down upon one, it does crush. + +MADELINE: And later you get used to it and don't care. + +HOLDEN: You care. You try not to destroy yourself needlessly. (_he turns +from her look_) + +MADELINE: Play safe. + +HOLDEN: If it's playing safe it's that one you love more than yourself +be safe. It would be a luxury to--destroy one's self. + +MADELINE: That sounds like Uncle Felix. (_seeing she has hurt him, she +goes over and sits across from him at the table_) I'm sorry. I say the +wrong things today. + +HOLDEN: I don't know that you do. + +MADELINE: But isn't uncle funny? His left mind doesn't know what his +right mind is doing. He has to think of himself as a person of +sentiment--idealism, and--quite a job, at times. Clever--how he gets +away with it. The war must have been a godsend to people who were in +danger of getting on to themselves. But I should think you could fool +all of yourself all the time. + +HOLDEN: You don't. (_he is rubbing his hand on the table_) + +MADELINE: Grandfather Morton made this table. I suppose he and +Grandfather Fejevary used to sit here and talk--they were great old +pals. (_slowly_ HOLDEN _turns and looks out at the hill_) Yes. How +beautiful the hill must have been--before there was a college there. +(_he looks away from the hill_) Did you know Grandfather Morton? + +HOLDEN: Yes, I knew him. (_speaking of it against his will_) I had a +wonderful talk with him once; about Greece--and the cornfields, and +life. + +MADELINE: I'd like to have been a pioneer! Some ways they had it fierce, +but think of the fun they had! A whole big land to open up! A big new +life to begin! (_her hands closing in from wideness to a smaller thing_) +Why did so much get shut out? Just a little way back--anything might +have been. What happened? + +HOLDEN: (_speaking with difficulty_) It got--set too soon. + +MADELINE: (_all of her mind open, trying to know_) And why did it? +Prosperous, I suppose. That seems to set things--set them in fear. Silas +Morton wasn't afraid of Felix Fejevary, the Hungarian revolutionist. He +laid this country at that refugee's feet! That's what Uncle Felix says +himself--with the left half of his mind. Now--the Hindu +revolutionists--! (_pause_) I took a walk late yesterday afternoon. +Night came, and for some reason I thought of how many nights have +come--nights the earth has known long before we knew the earth. The moon +came up and I thought of how moonlight made this country beautiful +before any man knew that moonlight was beautiful. It gave me a feeling +of coming from something a long way back. Moving toward--what will be +here when I'm not here. Moving. We seem here, now, in America, to have +forgotten we're moving. Think it's just _us_--just now. Of course, that +would make us afraid, and--ridiculous. + +(_Her father comes in_.) + +IRA: Your Aunt Isabel--did she go away--and leave you? + +MADELINE: She's coming back. + +IRA: For you? + +MADELINE: She--wants me to go with her. This is Professor Holden, +father. + +HOLDEN: How do you do, Mr Morton? + +IRA: (_nods, not noticing_ HOLDEN_'s offered hand_) How'do. When is she +coming back? + +MADELINE: Soon. + +IRA: And then you're going with her? + +MADELINE: I--don't know. + +IRA: I say you go with her. You want them all to come down on us? (_to_ +HOLDEN) What are you here for? + +MADELINE: Aunt Isabel brought Professor Holden, father. + +IRA: Oh. Then you--you tell her what to do. You make her do it. (_he +goes into the room at left_) + +MADELINE: (_sadly, after a silence_) Father's like something touched by +an early frost. + +HOLDEN: Yes. (_seeing his opening and forcing himself to take it_) But +do you know, Madeline, there are other ways of that happening--'touched +by an early frost'. I've seen it happen to people I know--people of fine +and daring mind. They do a thing that puts them apart--it may be the +big, brave thing--but the apartness does something to them. I've seen it +many times--so many times--so many times, I fear for you. You do this +thing and you'll find yourself with people who in many ways you don't +care for at all; find yourself apart from people who in most ways are +your own people. You're many-sided, Madeline. (_moves her tennis +racket_) I don't know about it's all going to one side. I hate to see +you, so young, close a door on so much life. I'm being just as honest +with you as I know how. I myself am making compromises to stay within. I +don't like it, but there are--reasons for doing it. I can't see you +leave that main body without telling you all it is you are leaving. It's +not a clean-cut case--the side of the world or the side of the angels. I +hate to see you lose the--fullness of life. + +MADELINE: (_a slight start, as she realizes the pause. As one recalled +from far_) I'm sorry. I was listening to what you were saying--but all +the time--something else was happening. Grandfather Morton, big and--oh, +terrible. He was here. And we went to that walled-up hole in the +ground--(_rising and pointing down at the chalked cell_)--where they +keep Fred Jordan on bread and water because he couldn't be a part of +nations of men killing each other--and Silas Morton--only he was all +that is back of us, tore open that cell--it was his voice tore it +open--his voice as he cried, 'God damn you, this is America!' (_sitting +down, as if rallying from a tremendous experience_) I'm sorry--it should +have happened, while you were speaking. Won't you--go on? + +HOLDEN: That's a pretty hard thing to go on against. (_after a moment_) +I can't go on. + +MADELINE: You were thinking of leaving the college, and then--decided to +stay? (_he nods_) And you feel there's more--fullness of life for you +inside the college than outside? + +HOLDEN: No--not exactly. (_again a pause_) It's very hard for me to talk +to you. + +MADELINE: (_gently_) Perhaps we needn't do it. + +HOLDEN: (_something in him forcing him to say it_) I'm staying for +financial reasons. + +MADELINE: (_kind, but not going to let the truth get away_) You don't +think that--having to stay within--or deciding to, rather, makes you +think these things of the--blight of being without? + +HOLDEN: I think there is danger to you in--so young, becoming alien to +society. + +MADELINE: As great as the danger of staying within--and becoming like +the thing I'm within? + +HOLDEN: You wouldn't become like it. + +MADELINE: Why wouldn't I? That's what it does to the rest of you. I +don't see it--this fullness of life business. I don't see that Uncle +Felix has got it--or even Aunt Isabel, and you--I think that in buying +it you're losing it. + +HOLDEN: I don't think you know what a cruel thing you are saying. + +MADELINE: There must be something pretty rotten about Morton College if +you have to sell your soul to stay in it! + +HOLDEN: You don't 'sell your soul'. You persuade yourself to wait. + +MADELINE: (_unable to look at him, as if feeling shame_) You have had a +talk with Uncle Felix since that day in the library you stepped aside +for me to pass. + +HOLDEN: Yes; and with my wife's physician. If you sell your soul--it's +to love you sell it. + +MADELINE: (_low_) That's strange. It's love that--brings life along, and +then it's love--holds life back. + +HOLDEN: (_and all the time with this effort against hopelessness_) +Leaving me out of it, I'd like to see you give yourself a little more +chance for detachment. You need a better intellectual equipment if +you're going to fight the world you find yourself in. I think you will +count for more if you wait, and when you strike, strike more maturely. + +MADELINE: Detachment. (_pause_) This is one thing they do at this place. +(_she moves to the open door_) Chain them up to the bars--just like +this. (_in the doorway where her two grandfathers once pledged faith +with the dreams of a million years, she raises clasped hands as high as +they will go_) Eight hours a day--day after day. Just hold your arms up +like this one hour then sit down and think about--(_as if tortured by +all who have been so tortured, her body begins to give with sobs, arms +drop, the last word is a sob_) detachment. + +HOLDEN _is standing helplessly by when her father comes in_. + +IRA: (_wildly_) Don't cry. No! Not in this house! I can't--Your aunt and +uncle will fix it up. The law won't take you this time--and you won't do +it again. + +MADELINE: Oh, what does _that_ matter--what they do to _me_? + +IRA: What are you crying about then? + +MADELINE: It's--the _world_. It's-- + +IRA: The _world_? If that's all you've got to cry about! (_to_ HOLDEN) +Tell her that's nothing to cry about. What's the matter with you. +Mad'line? That's crazy--cryin' about the world! What good has ever come +to this house through carin' about the world? What good's that college? +Better we had that hill. Why is there no one in this house to-day but me +and you? Where's your mother? Where's your brother? The _world_. + +HOLDEN: I think your father would like to talk to you. I'll go +outside--walk a little, and come back for you with your aunt. You must +let us see you through this, Madeline. You couldn't bear the things it +would bring you to. I see that now. (_as he passes her in the doorway +his hand rests an instant on her bent head_) You're worth too much to +break. + +IRA: (_turning away_) I don't want to talk to you. What good comes of +talking? (_In moving, he has stepped near the sack of corn. Takes hold +of it_.) But not with Emil Johnson! That's not--what your mother died +for. + +MADELINE: Father, you must talk to me. What did my mother die for? No +one has ever told me about her--except that she was beautiful--not like +other people here. I got a feeling of--something from far away. +Something from long ago. Rare. Why can't Uncle Felix talk about her? Why +can't you? Wouldn't she want me to know her? Tell me about her. It's my +birthday and I need my mother. + +IRA: (_as if afraid he is going to do it_) How can you touch--what +you've not touched in nineteen years? Just once--in nineteen years--and +that did no good. + +MADELINE: Try. Even though it hurts. Didn't you use to talk to her? +Well, I'm her daughter. Talk to me. What has she to do with Emil +Johnson? + +IRA: (_the pent-up thing loosed_) What has she to do with him? She died +so he could live. He lives because she's dead, (_in anguish_) And what +is _he_ alongside her? Yes. Something from far away. Something from long +ago. Rare. How'd you know that? Finding in me--what I didn't know was +there. Then _she_ came--that ignorant Swede--Emil Johnson's +mother--running through the cornfield like a crazy woman--'Miss Morton! +Miss Morton! Come help me! My children are choking!' Diphtheria they +had--the whole of 'em--but out of this house she ran--my Madeline, +leaving you--her own baby--running as fast as she could through the +cornfield after that immigrant woman. She stumbled in the rough +field--fell to her knees. That was the last I saw of her. She choked to +death in that Swede's house. They lived. + +MADELINE: (_going to him_) Oh--father, (_voice rich_) But how lovely of +her. + +IRA: Lovely? Lovely to leave you without a mother--leave me without her +after I'd had her? Wasn't she worth more than them. + +MADELINE: (_proudly_) Yes. She was worth so much that she never stopped +to think how much she was worth. + +IRA: Ah, if you'd known her you couldn't take it like that. And now you +cry about the world! That's what the world is--all coming to nothing. My +father used to sit there at the table and talk about the world--my +father and her father. They thought 'twas all for something--that what +you were went on into something more than you. That's the talk I always +heard in this house. But it's just talk. The rare thing that came here +was killed by the common thing that came here. Just happens--and happens +cruel. Look at your brother! Gone--(_snaps his fingers_) like that. I +told him not to go to war. He didn't have to go--they'd been glad enough +to have him stay here on the farm. But no,--he must--make the world safe +for democracy! Well, you see how safe he made it, don't you? Now I'm +alone on the farm and he--buried on some Frenchman's farm. That is, I +hope they buried him--I hope they didn't just--(_tormented_) + +MADELINE: Oh, father--of course not. I know they did. + +IRA: How do you know? What do you care--once they got him? _He_ talked +about the world--better world--end war. Now he's in his grave--I hope he +is--and look at the front page of the paper! No such thing--war to end +war! + +MADELINE: But he thought there was, father. Fred believed that--so what +else could he do? + +IRA: He could 'a' minded his own business. + +MADELINE: No--oh, no. It was fine of him to give his life to what he +believed should be. + +IRA: The light in his eyes as he talked of it, now--eyes gone--and the +world he died for all hate and war. Waste. Waste. Nothin' but waste--the +life of this house. Why, folks to-day'd laugh to hear my father talk. He +gave his best land for ideas to live. Thought was going to make us a +better people. What was his word? (_waits_) Aspiration. (_says it as if +it is a far-off thing_) Well, look at your friend, young Jordan. Kicked +from the college to prison for ideas of a better world. (_laughs_) His +'aspiration' puts him in a hole on bread and water! So--mind your own +business, that's all that's so in this country. (_constantly tormented +anew_) Oh, I told your brother all that--the night I tried to keep him. +Told him about his mother--to show what come of running to other folks. +And he said--standing right there--(_pointing_) eyes all bright, he +said, 'Golly, I think that's great!' And then _he_--walked out of this +house. (_fear takes him_) Madeline! (_she stoops over him, her arm +around him_) Don't you leave me--all alone in this house--where so many +was once. What's Hindus--alongside your own father--and him needing you? +It won't be long. After a little I'll be dead--or crazy--or something. +But not here alone where so many was once. + +MADELINE: Oh--father. I don't know what to do. + +IRA: Nothing stays at home. Not even the corn stays at home. If only the +wind wouldn't blow! Why can't I have my field to myself? Why can't I +keep what's mine? All these years I've worked to make it better. I +wanted it to be--the most that it could be. My father used to talk about +the Indians--how our land was their land, and how we must be more than +them. He had his own ideas of bein' more--well, what's that come to? The +Indians lived happier than we--wars, strikes, prisons. But I've made the +corn more! This land that was once Indian maize now grows corn--I'd like +to have the Indians see my corn! I'd like to see them side by +side!--their Indian maize, my corn. And how'd I get it? Ah, by +thinkin'--always tryin', changin', carin'. Plant this corn by that corn, +and the pollen blows from corn to corn--the golden dust it blows, in the +sunshine and of nights--blows from corn to corn like a--(_the word +hurts_) gift. No, you don't understand it, but (_proudly_) corn don't +stay what it is! You can make it anything--according to what you do, +'cording to the corn it's alongside. (_changing_) But that's it. I want +it to stay in my field. It goes away. The prevailin' wind takes it on to +the Johnsons--them Swedes that took my Madeline! I hear it! Oh, nights +when I can't help myself--and in the sunshine I can see it--pollen--soft +golden dust to make new life--goin' on to _them_,--and them too ignorant +to know what's makin' their corn better! I want my field to myself. +What'd I work all my life for? Work that's had to take the place o' what +I lost--is that to go to Emil Johnson? No! The wind shall stand still! +I'll make it. I'll find a way. Let me alone and I--I'll think it out. +Let me alone, I say. + +(_A mind burned to one idea, with greedy haste he shuts himself in the +room at left_. MADELINE _has been standing there as if mist is parting +and letting her see. And as the vision grows power grows in her. She is +thus flooded with richer life when her_ AUNT _and Professor_ HOLDEN +_come back. Feeling something new, for a moment they do not speak_.) + +AUNT ISABEL: Ready, dear? It's time for us to go now. + +MADELINE: (_with the quiet of plentitude_) I'm going in with Emil +Johnson. + +AUNT ISABEL: Why--Madeline. (_falteringly_) We thought you'd go with us. + +MADELINE: No. I have to be--the most I can be. I want the wind to have +something to carry. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_after a look at Professor_ HOLDEN, _who is looking +intensely at_ MADELINE) I don't understand. + +MADELINE: The world is all a--moving field. (_her hands move, voice too +is of a moving field_) Nothing is to itself. If America thinks +so--America is like father. I don't feel alone any more. The wind has +come through--wind rich from lives now gone. Grandfather Fejevary, gift +from a field far off. Silas Morton. No, not alone any more. And afraid? +I'm not even afraid of being absurd! + +AUNT ISABEL: But Madeline--you're leaving your father? + +MADELINE: (_after thinking it out_) I'm not leaving--what's greater in +him than he knows. + +AUNT ISABEL: You're leaving Morton College? + +MADELINE: That runt on a high hill? Yes, I'm leaving grandfather's +college--then maybe I can one day lie under the same sod with him, and +not be ashamed. Though I must tell you (_a little laugh_) under the sod +is my idea of no place to be. I want to be a long time--where the wind +blows. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_who is trying not to cry_) I'm afraid it won't blow in +prison, dear. + +MADELINE: I don't know. Might be the only place it would blow. (EMIL +_passes the window, hesitates at the door_) I'll be ready in just a +moment, Emil. + +(_He waits outside_.) + +AUNT ISABEL: Madeline, I didn't tell you--I hoped it wouldn't be +necessary, but your uncle said--if you refused to do it his way, he +could do absolutely nothing for you, not even--bail. + +MADELINE: Of course not. I wouldn't expect him to. + +AUNT ISABEL: He feels so deeply about these things--America--loyalty, he +said if you didn't come with us it would be final, Madeline. +Even--(_breaks_) between you and me. + +MADELINE: I'm sorry, auntie. You know how I love you. (_and her voice +tells it_) But father has been telling me about the corn. It gives +itself away all the time--the best corn a gift to other corn. What you +are--that doesn't stay with you. Then--(_not with assurance, but feeling +her way_) be the most you can be, so life will be more because you were. +(_freed by the truth she has found_) Oh--do that! Why do we three go +apart? Professor Holden, his beautiful trained mind; Aunt Isabel--her +beautiful love, love that could save the world if only you'd--throw it +to the winds. (_moving nearer_ HOLDEN, _hands out to him_) Why +do--(_seeing it is not to be, she turns away. Low, with sorrow for that +great beauty lost_) Oh, have we brought mind, have we brought heart, up +to this place--only to turn them against mind and heart? + +HOLDEN: (_unable to bear more_) I think we--must go. (_going to_ +MADELINE, _holding out his hand and speaking from his sterile life to +her fullness of life_) Good-bye, Madeline. Good luck. + +MADELINE: Good-bye, Professor Holden. (_hesitates_) Luck to you. + +(_Shaking his head, stooped, he hurries out_.) + +MADELINE: (_after a moment when neither can speak_) Good-bye--auntie +dearest. Thank you--for the birthday present--the cake--everything. +Everything--all the years. + +(_There is something_ AUNT ISABEL _would say, but she can only hold +tight to_ MADELINE_'s hands. At last, with a smile that speaks for love, +a little nod, she goes_. EMIL _comes in_.) + +EMIL: You better go with them, Madeline. It'd make it better for you. + +MADELINE: Oh no, it wouldn't. I'll be with you in an instant, Emil. I +want to--say good-bye to my father. + +(_But she waits before that door, a door hard to go through. Alone_, +EMIL _looks around the room. Sees the bag of corn, takes a couple of +ears and is looking at them as_ MADELINE _returns. She remains by the +door, shaken with sobs, turns, as if pulled back to the pain she has +left_.) + +EMIL: Gee. This is great corn. + +MADELINE: (_turning now to him_) It is, isn't it, Emil? + +EMIL: None like it. + +MADELINE: And you say--your corn is getting better? + +EMIL: Oh, yes--I raise better corn every year now. + +MADELINE: (_low_) That's nice. I'll be right out, Emil. + +(_He puts the corn back, goes out. From the closet_ MADELINE _takes her +hat and wrap. Putting them on, she sees the tennis racket on the table. +She goes to it, takes it up, holds it a moment, then takes it to the +closet, puts it carefully away, closes the door behind it. A moment she +stands there in the room, as if listening to something. Then she leaves +that house_.) + + +CURTAIN + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Plays, by Susan Glaspell + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10623 *** diff --git a/10623-h/10623-h.htm b/10623-h/10623-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..524645e --- /dev/null +++ b/10623-h/10623-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6714 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta name="generator" content= +"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 1st November 2003), see www.w3.org"> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= +"text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<meta content="pg2html (binary version 0.12a)" name="generator"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of PLAYS by SUSAN +GLASPELL.</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + body {margin-left: 8%; margin-right: 8%;} + p {text-align: justify; text-indent:-.25em;} + h1,h2,h3,h4 {text-align: center; } + h1 {margin-bottom: 4em; } + h2 {margin-top: 6em; margin-bottom: 2em; } + h3 {margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; } + h4 {margin-top: 2em; font-size: 1.4em; } + hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + .poem {margin-left:5%; margin-right:10%; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem p.i2 {margin-left: 1em;} + .scene {text-align: justify; text-indent: 0em; margin-left: -2em; } + .dir {text-align: justify; text-indent: 0em; margin-left: 6em; } +.center {text-align:center; padding: 10px;} +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10623 ***</div> + +<h2>Plays by</h2> +<h1>Susan Glaspell</h1> +<h4><a href="#TRIFLES">TRIFLES</a></h4> +<h4><a href="#THE_OUTSIDE">THE OUTSIDE</a></h4> +<h4><a href="#THE_VERGE">THE VERGE</a></h4> +<h4><a href="#INHERITORS">INHERITORS</a></h4> +<a name="TRIFLES"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<h2>TRIFLES</h2> +<p>First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Wharf +Theatre, Provincetown, Mass., August 8, 1916.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>GEORGE HENDERSON (County Attorney)</p> +<p>HENRY PETERS (Sheriff)</p> +<p>LEWIS HALE, A neighboring farmer</p> +<p>MRS PETERS</p> +<p>MRS HALE</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="scene">SCENE: <i>The kitchen is the now abandoned +farmhouse of</i> JOHN WRIGHT, <i>a gloomy kitchen, and left without +having been put in order—unwashed pans under the sink, a loaf +of bread outside the bread-box, a dish-towel on the +table—other signs of incompleted work. At the rear the outer +door opens and the</i> SHERIFF <i>comes in followed by the</i> +COUNTY ATTORNEY <i>and</i> HALE. <i>The</i> SHERIFF <i>and</i> HALE +<i>are men in middle life, the</i> COUNTY ATTORNEY <i>is a young +man; all are much bundled up and go at once to the stove. They are +followed by the two women—the</i> SHERIFF<i>'s wife first; +she is a slight wiry woman, a thin nervous face</i>. MRS HALE <i>is +larger and would ordinarily be called more comfortable looking, but +she is disturbed now and looks fearfully about as she enters. The +women have come in slowly, and stand close together near the +door</i>.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>rubbing his hands</i>) This feels good. +Come up to the fire, ladies.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>after taking a step forward</i>) I'm +not—cold.</p> +<p>SHERIFF: (<i>unbuttoning his overcoat and stepping away from the +stove as if to mark the beginning of official business</i>) Now, Mr +Hale, before we move things about, you explain to Mr Henderson just +what you saw when you came here yesterday morning.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: By the way, has anything been moved? Are things +just as you left them yesterday?</p> +<p>SHERIFF: (<i>looking about</i>) It's just the same. When it +dropped below zero last night I thought I'd better send Frank out +this morning to make a fire for us—no use getting pneumonia +with a big case on, but I told him not to touch anything except the +stove—and you know Frank.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Somebody should have been left here +yesterday.</p> +<p>SHERIFF: Oh—yesterday. When I had to send Frank to Morris +Center for that man who went crazy—I want you to know I had +my hands full yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by +today and as long as I went over everything here myself—</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, Mr Hale, tell just what happened when you +came here yesterday morning.</p> +<p>HALE: Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes. +We came along the road from my place and as I got here I said, I'm +going to see if I can't get John Wright to go in with me on a party +telephone.' I spoke to Wright about it once before and he put me +off, saying folks talked too much anyway, and all he asked was +peace and quiet—I guess you know about how much he talked +himself; but I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked +about it before his wife, though I said to Harry that I didn't know +as what his wife wanted made much difference to John—</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Let's talk about that later, Mr Hale. I do want +to talk about that, but tell now just what happened when you got to +the house.</p> +<p>HALE: I didn't hear or see anything; I knocked at the door, and +still it was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up, it was past +eight o'clock. So I knocked again, and I thought I heard somebody +say, 'Come in.' I wasn't sure, I'm not sure yet, but I opened the +door—this door (<i>indicating the door by which the two women +are still standing</i>) and there in that rocker—(<i>pointing +to it</i>) sat Mrs Wright.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>They all look at the rocker</i>.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: What—was she doing?</p> +<p>HALE: She was rockin' back and forth. She had her apron in her +hand and was kind of—pleating it.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: And how did she—look?</p> +<p>HALE: Well, she looked queer.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: How do you mean—queer?</p> +<p>HALE: Well, as if she didn't know what she was going to do next. +And kind of done up.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: How did she seem to feel about your coming?</p> +<p>HALE: Why, I don't think she minded—one way or other. She +didn't pay much attention. I said, 'How do, Mrs Wright it's cold, +ain't it?' And she said, 'Is it?'—and went on kind of +pleating at her apron. Well, I was surprised; she didn't ask me to +come up to the stove, or to set down, but just sat there, not even +looking at me, so I said, 'I want to see John.' And then +she—laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh. I thought of +Harry and the team outside, so I said a little sharp: 'Can't I see +John?' 'No', she says, kind o' dull like. 'Ain't he home?' says I. +'Yes', says she, 'he's home'. 'Then why can't I see him?' I asked +her, out of patience. ''Cause he's dead', says she. <i>'Dead</i>?' +says I. She just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but +rockin' back and forth. 'Why—where is he?' says I, not +knowing what to say. She just pointed upstairs—like that +(<i>himself pointing to the room above</i>) I got up, with the idea +of going up there. I walked from there to here—then I says, +'Why, what did he die of?' 'He died of a rope round his neck', says +she, and just went on pleatin' at her apron. Well, I went out and +called Harry. I thought I might—need help. We went upstairs +and there he was lyin'—</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: I think I'd rather have you go into that +upstairs, where you can point it all out. Just go on now with the +rest of the story.</p> +<p>HALE: Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked +... (<i>stops, his face twitches</i>) ... but Harry, he went up to +him, and he said, 'No, he's dead all right, and we'd better not +touch anything.' So we went back down stairs. She was still sitting +that same way. 'Has anybody been notified?' I asked. 'No', says she +unconcerned. 'Who did this, Mrs Wright?' said Harry. He said it +business-like—and she stopped pleatin' of her apron. 'I don't +know', she says. 'You don't <i>know</i>?' says Harry. 'No', says +she. 'Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with him?' says Harry. 'Yes', +says she, 'but I was on the inside'. 'Somebody slipped a rope round +his neck and strangled him and you didn't wake up?' says Harry. 'I +didn't wake up', she said after him. We must 'a looked as if we +didn't see how that could be, for after a minute she said, 'I sleep +sound'. Harry was going to ask her more questions but I said maybe +we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner, or the +sheriff, so Harry went fast as he could to Rivers' place, where +there's a telephone.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: And what did Mrs Wright do when she knew that +you had gone for the coroner?</p> +<p>HALE: She moved from that chair to this one over here +(<i>pointing to a small chair in the corner</i>) and just sat there +with her hands held together and looking down. I got a feeling that +I ought to make some conversation, so I said I had come in to see +if John wanted to put in a telephone, and at that she started to +laugh, and then she stopped and looked at me—scared, +(<i>the</i> COUNTY ATTORNEY, <i>who has had his notebook out, makes +a note</i>) I dunno, maybe it wasn't scared. I wouldn't like to say +it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr Lloyd came, and you, Mr +Peters, and so I guess that's all I know that you don't.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>looking around</i>) I guess we'll go +upstairs first—and then out to the barn and around there, +(<i>to the</i> SHERIFF) You're convinced that there was nothing +important here—nothing that would point to any motive.</p> +<p>SHERIFF: Nothing here but kitchen things.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The</i> COUNTY ATTORNEY, <i>after again looking +around the kitchen, opens the door of a cupboard closet. He gets up +on a chair and looks on a shelf. Pulls his hand away, +sticky</i>.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Here's a nice mess.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The women draw nearer</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>to the other woman</i>) Oh, her fruit; it did +freeze, (<i>to the</i> LAWYER) She worried about that when it +turned so cold. She said the fire'd go out and her jars would +break.</p> +<p>SHERIFF: Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and +worryin' about her preserves.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: I guess before we're through she may have +something more serious than preserves to worry about.</p> +<p>HALE: Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The two women move a little closer +together</i>.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>with the gallantry of a young +politician</i>) And yet, for all their worries, what would we do +without the ladies? (<i>the women do not unbend. He goes to the +sink, takes a dipperful of water from the pail and pouring it into +a basin, washes his hands. Starts to wipe them on the roller-towel, +turns it for a cleaner place</i>) Dirty towels! (<i>kicks his foot +against the pans under the sink</i>) Not much of a housekeeper, +would you say, ladies?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>stiffly</i>) There's a great deal of work to be +done on a farm.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: To be sure. And yet (<i>with a little bow to +her</i>) I know there are some Dickson county farmhouses which do +not have such roller towels. (<i>He gives it a pull to expose its +length again</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't +always as clean as they might be.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Ah, loyal to your sex, I see. But you and Mrs +Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>shaking her head</i>) I've not seen much of her of +late years. I've not been in this house—it's more than a +year.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: And why was that? You didn't like her?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I liked her all well enough. Farmers' wives have their +hands full, Mr Henderson. And then—</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes—?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>looking about</i>) It never seemed a very cheerful +place.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: No—it's not cheerful. I shouldn't say she +had the homemaking instinct.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Well, I don't know as Wright had, either.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: You mean that they didn't get on very well?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: No, I don't mean anything. But I don't think a place'd +be any cheerfuller for John Wright's being in it.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'd like to talk more of that a little later. I +want to get the lay of things upstairs now. (<i>He goes to the +left, where three steps lead to a stair door</i>.)</p> +<p>SHERIFF: I suppose anything Mrs Peters does'll be all right. She +was to take in some clothes for her, you know, and a few little +things. We left in such a hurry yesterday.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes, but I would like to see what you take, Mrs +Peters, and keep an eye out for anything that might be of use to +us.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Yes, Mr Henderson.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The women listen to the men's steps on the +stairs, then look about the kitchen</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I'd hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping +around and criticising.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She arranges the pans under sink which the</i> +LAWYER <i>had shoved out of place</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Of course it's no more than their duty.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Duty's all right, but I guess that deputy sheriff that +came out to make the fire might have got a little of this on. +(<i>gives the roller towel a pull</i>) Wish I'd thought of that +sooner. Seems mean to talk about her for not having things slicked +up when she had to come away in such a hurry.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>who has gone to a small table in the left rear +corner of the room, and lifted one end of a towel that covers a +pan</i>) She had bread set. (<i>Stands still</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>eyes fixed on a loaf of bread beside the +bread-box, which is on a low shelf at the other side of the room. +Moves slowly toward it</i>) She was going to put this in there, +(<i>picks up loaf, then abruptly drops it. In a manner of returning +to familiar things</i>) It's a shame about her fruit. I wonder if +it's all gone. (<i>gets up on the chair and looks</i>) I think +there's some here that's all right, Mrs Peters. Yes—here; +(<i>holding it toward the window</i>) this is cherries, too. +(<i>looking again</i>) I declare I believe that's the only one. +(<i>gets down, bottle in her hand. Goes to the sink and wipes it +off on the outside</i>) She'll feel awful bad after all her hard +work in the hot weather. I remember the afternoon I put up my +cherries last summer.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She puts the bottle on the big kitchen table, +center of the room. With a sigh, is about to sit down in the +rocking-chair. Before she is seated realizes what chair it is; with +a slow look at it, steps back. The chair which she has touched +rocks back and forth</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Well, I must get those things from the front room +closet, (<i>she goes to the door at the right, but after looking +into the other room, steps back</i>) You coming with me, Mrs Hale? +You could help me carry them.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>They go in the other room; reappear,</i> MRS +PETERS <i>carrying a dress and skirt,</i> MRS HALE <i>following +with a pair of shoes.</i>)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: My, it's cold in there.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She puts the clothes on the big table, and +hurries to the stove.</i>)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>examining the skirt</i>) Wright was close. I think +maybe that's why she kept so much to herself. She didn't even +belong to the Ladies Aid. I suppose she felt she couldn't do her +part, and then you don't enjoy things when you feel shabby. She +used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie +Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir. But +that—oh, that was thirty years ago. This all you was to take +in?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: She said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want, +for there isn't much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But +I suppose just to make her feel more natural. She said they was in +the top drawer in this cupboard. Yes, here. And then her little +shawl that always hung behind the door. (<i>opens stair door and +looks</i>) Yes, here it is.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Quickly shuts door leading upstairs.</i>)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>abruptly moving toward her</i>) Mrs Peters?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Do you think she did it?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>in a frightened voice</i>) Oh, I don't know.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Well, I don't think she did. Asking for an apron and +her little shawl. Worrying about her fruit.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>starts to speak, glances up, where footsteps are +heard in the room above. In a low voice</i>) Mr Peters says it +looks bad for her. Mr Henderson is awful sarcastic in a speech and +he'll make fun of her sayin' she didn't wake up.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Well, I guess John Wright didn't wake when they was +slipping that rope under his neck.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: No, it's strange. It must have been done awful +crafty and still. They say it was such a—funny way to kill a +man, rigging it all up like that.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: That's just what Mr Hale said. There was a gun in the +house. He says that's what he can't understand.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Mr Henderson said coming out that what was needed +for the case was a motive; something to show anger, or—sudden +feeling.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>who is standing by the table</i>) Well, I don't +see any signs of anger around here, (<i>she puts her hand on the +dish towel which lies on the table, stands looking down at table, +one half of which is clean, the other half messy</i>) It's wiped to +here, (<i>makes a move as if to finish work, then turns and looks +at loaf of bread outside the breadbox. Drops towel. In that voice +of coming back to familiar things.</i>) Wonder how they are finding +things upstairs. I hope she had it a little more red-up up there. +You know, it seems kind of sneaking. Locking her up in town and +then coming out here and trying to get her own house to turn +against her!</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: But Mrs Hale, the law is the law.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I s'pose 'tis, (<i>unbuttoning her coat</i>) Better +loosen up your things, Mrs Peters. You won't feel them when you go +out.</p> +<p>(MRS PETERS <i>takes off her fur tippet, goes to hang it on hook +at back of room, stands looking at the under part of the small +corner table</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: She was piecing a quilt. (<i>She brings the large +sewing basket and they look at the bright pieces</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: It's log cabin pattern. Pretty, isn't it? I wonder if +she was goin' to quilt it or just knot it?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Footsteps have been heard coming down the +stairs</i>. The SHERIFF enters followed by HALE and the COUNTY +ATTORNEY.)</p> +<p>SHERIFF: They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot +it! (<i>The men laugh, the women look abashed</i>.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>rubbing his hands over the stove</i>) +Frank's fire didn't do much up there, did it? Well, let's go out to +the barn and get that cleared up. (<i>The men go outside</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>resentfully</i>) I don't know as there's anything +so strange, our takin' up our time with little things while we're +waiting for them to get the evidence. (<i>she sits down at the big +table smoothing out a block with decision</i>) I don't see as it's +anything to laugh about.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>apologetically</i>) Of course they've got awful +important things on their minds.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Pulls up a chair and joins MRS HALE at the +table</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>examining another block</i>) Mrs Peters, look at +this one. Here, this is the one she was working on, and look at the +sewing! All the rest of it has been so nice and even. And look at +this! It's all over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn't know +what she was about!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>After she has said this they look at each other, +then start to glance back at the door. After an instant</i> MRS +HALE <i>has pulled at a knot and ripped the sewing</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Oh, what are you doing, Mrs Hale?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>mildly</i>) Just pulling out a stitch or two +that's not sewed very good. (<i>threading a needle</i>) Bad sewing +always made me fidgety.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (nervously) I don't think we ought to touch +things.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I'll just finish up this end. (<i>suddenly stopping +and leaning forward</i>) Mrs Peters?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: What do you suppose she was so nervous about?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Oh—I don't know. I don't know as she was +nervous. I sometimes sew awful queer when I'm just tired. (MRS HALE +<i>starts to say something, looks at</i> MRS PETERS, <i>then goes +on sewing</i>) Well I must get these things wrapped up. They may be +through sooner than we think, (<i>putting apron and other things +together</i>) I wonder where I can find a piece of paper, and +string.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: In that cupboard, maybe.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>looking in cupboard</i>) Why, here's a +bird-cage, (<i>holds it up</i>) Did she have a bird, Mrs Hale?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Why, I don't know whether she did or not—I've +not been here for so long. There was a man around last year selling +canaries cheap, but I don't know as she took one; maybe she did. +She used to sing real pretty herself.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>glancing around</i>) Seems funny to think of a +bird here. But she must have had one, or why would she have a cage? +I wonder what happened to it.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I s'pose maybe the cat got it.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: No, she didn't have a cat. She's got that feeling +some people have about cats—being afraid of them. My cat got +in her room and she was real upset and asked me to take it out.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: My sister Bessie was like that. Queer, ain't it?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>examining the cage</i>) Why, look at this door. +It's broke. One hinge is pulled apart.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>looking too</i>) Looks as if someone must have +been rough with it.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Why, yes.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She brings the cage forward and puts it on the +table</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I wish if they're going to find any evidence they'd be +about it. I don't like this place.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs Hale. It +would be lonesome for me sitting here alone.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: It would, wouldn't it? (<i>dropping her sewing</i>) +But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs Peters. I wish I had come over +sometimes when <i>she</i> was here. I—(<i>looking around the +room</i>)—wish I had.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: But of course you were awful busy, Mrs +Hale—your house and your children.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I could've come. I stayed away because it weren't +cheerful—and that's why I ought to have come. I—I've +never liked this place. Maybe because it's down in a hollow and you +don't see the road. I dunno what it is, but it's a lonesome place +and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster +sometimes. I can see now—(<i>shakes her head</i>)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Well, you mustn't reproach yourself, Mrs Hale. +Somehow we just don't see how it is with other folks +until—something comes up.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Not having children makes less work—but it makes +a quiet house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when +he did come in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs Peters?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Not to know him; I've seen him in town. They say he +was a good man.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Yes—good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as +well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, +Mrs Peters. Just to pass the time of day with +him—(<i>shivers</i>) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone, +(<i>pauses, her eye falling on the cage</i>) I should think she +would 'a wanted a bird. But what do you suppose went with it?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: I don't know, unless it got sick and died.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She reaches over and swings the broken door, +swings it again, both women watch it</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: You weren't raised round here, were you? (<i>MRS +PETERS shakes her head</i>) You didn't know—her?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Not till they brought her yesterday.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: She—come to think of it, she was kind of like a +bird herself—real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid +and—fluttery. How—she—did—change. +(<i>silence; then as if struck by a happy thought and relieved to +get back to everyday things</i>) Tell you what, Mrs Peters, why +don't you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her +mind.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs Hale. +There couldn't possibly be any objection to it, could there? Now, +just what would I take? I wonder if her patches are in +here—and her things.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>They look in the sewing basket</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Here's some red. I expect this has got sewing things +in it. (<i>brings out a fancy box</i>) What a pretty box. Looks +like something somebody would give you. Maybe her scissors are in +here. (<i>Opens box. Suddenly puts her hand to her nose</i>) +Why—(MRS PETERS <i>bends nearer, then turns her face +away</i>) There's something wrapped up in this piece of silk.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Why, this isn't her scissors.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>lifting the silk</i>) Oh, Mrs +Peters—it's—</p> +<p class="dir">(MRS PETERS <i>bends closer</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: It's the bird.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>jumping up</i>) But, Mrs Peters—look at it! +It's neck! Look at its neck!</p> +<p>It's all—other side <i>to</i>.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Somebody—wrung—its—neck.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Their eyes meet. A look of growing +comprehension, of horror. Steps are heard outside</i>. MRS HALE +<i>slips box under quilt pieces, and sinks into her chair. +Enter</i> SHERIFF <i>and</i> COUNTY ATTORNEY. MRS PETERS +<i>rises</i>.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>as one turning from serious things to +little pleasantries</i>) Well ladies, have you decided whether she +was going to quilt it or knot it?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: We think she was going to—knot it.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, that's interesting, I'm sure. (<i>seeing +the birdcage</i>) Has the bird flown?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>putting more quilt pieces over the box</i>) We +think the—cat got it.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>preoccupied</i>) Is there a cat?</p> +<p class="dir">(MRS HALE <i>glances in a quick covert way at</i> +MRS PETERS.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Well, not now. They're superstitious, you know. They +leave.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>to</i> SHERIFF PETERS, <i>continuing an +interrupted conversation</i>) No sign at all of anyone having come +from the outside. Their own rope. Now let's go up again and go over +it piece by piece. (<i>they start upstairs</i>) It would have to +have been someone who knew just the—</p> +<p class="dir">(MRS PETERS <i>sits down. The two women sit there +not looking at one another, but as if peering into something and at +the same time holding back. When they talk now it is in the manner +of feeling their way over strange ground, as if afraid of what they +are saying, but as if they can not help saying it</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that +pretty box.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>in a whisper</i>) When I was a girl—my +kitten—there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my +eyes—and before I could get there—(<i>covers her face +an instant</i>) If they hadn't held me back I would +have—(<i>catches herself, looks upstairs where steps are +heard, falters weakly</i>)—hurt him.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>with a slow look around her</i>) I wonder how it +would seem never to have had any children around, (<i>pause</i>) +No, Wright wouldn't like the bird—a thing that sang. She used +to sing. He killed that, too.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>moving uneasily</i>) We don't know who killed +the bird.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I knew John Wright.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: It was an awful thing was done in this house that +night, Mrs Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope +around his neck that choked the life out of him.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: His neck. Choked the life out of him.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Her hand goes out and rests on the +bird-cage</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>with rising voice</i>) We don't know who killed +him. We don't <i>know</i>.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>her own feeling not interrupted</i>) If there'd +been years and years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it +would be awful—still, after the bird was still.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>something within her speaking</i>) I know what +stillness is. When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby +died—after he was two years old, and me with no other +then—</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>moving</i>) How soon do you suppose they'll be +through, looking for the evidence?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: I know what stillness is. (<i>pulling herself +back</i>) The law has got to punish crime, Mrs Hale.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>not as if answering that</i>) I wish you'd seen +Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and +stood up there in the choir and sang. (<i>a look around the +room</i>) Oh, I <i>wish</i> I'd come over here once in a while! +That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to punish that?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>looking upstairs</i>) We mustn't—take +on.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I might have known she needed help! I know how things +can be—for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs Peters. We live +close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same +things—it's all just a different kind of the same thing, +(<i>brushes her eyes, noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for +it</i>) If I was you, I wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone. Tell +her it <i>ain't</i>. Tell her it's all right. Take this in to prove +it to her. She—she may never know whether it was broke or +not.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>takes the bottle, looks about for something to +wrap it in; takes petticoat from the clothes brought from the other +room, very nervously begins winding this around the bottle. In a +false voice</i>) My, it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us. +Wouldn't they just laugh! Getting all stirred up over a little +thing like a—dead canary. As if that could have anything to +do with—with—wouldn't they <i>laugh</i>!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The men are heard coming down stairs</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>under her breath</i>) Maybe they would—maybe +they wouldn't.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: No, Peters, it's all perfectly clear except a +reason for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If +there was some definite thing. Something to show—something to +make a story about—a thing that would connect up with this +strange way of doing it—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The women's eyes meet for an instant. Enter HALE +from outer door</i>.)</p> +<p>HALE: Well, I've got the team around. Pretty cold out there.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'm going to stay here a while by myself, +(<i>to the</i> SHERIFF) You can send Frank out for me, can't you? I +want to go over everything. I'm not satisfied that we can't do +better.</p> +<p>SHERIFF: Do you want to see what Mrs Peters is going to take +in?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The</i> LAWYER <i>goes to the table, picks up +the apron, laughs</i>.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Oh, I guess they're not very dangerous things +the ladies have picked out. (<i>Moves a few things about, +disturbing the quilt pieces which cover the box. Steps back</i>) +No, Mrs Peters doesn't need supervising. For that matter, a +sheriff's wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, +Mrs Peters?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Not—just that way.</p> +<p>SHERIFF: (<i>chuckling</i>) Married to the law. (<i>moves toward +the other room</i>) I just want you to come in here a minute, +George. We ought to take a look at these windows.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>scoffingly</i>) Oh, windows!</p> +<p>SHERIFF: We'll be right out, Mr Hale.</p> +<p class="dir">(HALE <i>goes outside. The</i> SHERIFF <i>follows +the</i> COUNTY ATTORNEY <i>into the other room. Then</i> MRS HALE +<i>rises, hands tight together, looking intensely at</i> MRS +PETERS, <i>whose eyes make a slow turn, finally meeting</i> MRS +HALE<i>'s. A moment</i> MRS HALE <i>holds her, then her own eyes +point the way to where the box is concealed. Suddenly</i> MRS +PETERS <i>throws back quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the +bag she is wearing. It is too big. She opens box, starts to take +bird out, cannot touch it, goes to pieces, stands there helpless. +Sound of a knob turning in the other room</i>. MRS HALE <i>snatches +the box and puts it in the pocket of her big coat. Enter</i> COUNTY +ATTORNEY <i>and</i> SHERIFF.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>facetiously</i>) Well, Henry, at least we +found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going +to—what is it you call it, ladies?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>her hand against her pocket</i>) We call +it—knot it, Mr Henderson.</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<a name="THE_OUTSIDE"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<h2>THE OUTSIDE</h2> +<p>First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Playwrights' +Theatre, December 28, 1917.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>CAPTAIN (of 'The Bars' Life-Saving Station)</p> +<p>BRADFORD (a Life-Saver)</p> +<p>TONY (a Portuguese Life-Saver)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK (who lives in the abandoned Station)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO (who works for her)</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="scene">SCENE: <i>A room in a house which was once a +life-saving station. Since ceasing to be that it has taken on no +other character, except that of a place which no one cares either +to preserve or change. It is painted the life-saving grey, but has +not the life-saving freshness. This is one end of what was the big +boat room, and at the ceiling is seen a part of the frame work from +which the boat once swung. About two thirds of the back wall is +open, because of the big sliding door, of the type of barn door, +and through this open door are seen the sand dunes, and beyond them +the woods. At one point the line where woods and dunes meet stands +out clearly and there are indicated the rude things, vines, bushes, +which form the outer uneven rim of the woods—the only things +that grow in the sand. At another point a sand-hill is menacing the +woods. This old life-saving station is at a point where the sea +curves, so through the open door the sea also is seen. (The station +is located on the outside shore of Cape Cod, at the point, near the +tip of the Cape, where it makes that final curve which forms the +Provincetown Harbor.) The dunes are hills and strange forms of sand +on which, in places, grows the stiff beach grass—struggle; +dogged growing against odds. At right of the big sliding door is a +drift of sand and the top of buried beach grass is seen on this. +There is a door left, and at right of big sliding door is a +slanting wall. Door in this is ajar at rise of curtain, and through +this door</i> BRADFORD <i>and</i> TONY, <i>life-savers, are seen +bending over a man's body, attempting to restore respiration. The +captain of the life-savers comes into view outside the big open +door, at left; he appears to have been hurrying, peers in, sees the +men, goes quickly to them.</i></p> +<p>CAPTAIN: I'll take this now, boys.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: No need for anybody to take it, Capt'n. He was dead +when we picked him up.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: Dannie Sears was dead when we picked him up. But we +brought him back. I'll go on awhile.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The two men who have been bending over the body +rise, stretch to relax, and come into the room.</i>)</p> +<p>BRADFORD: (<i>pushing back his arms and putting his hands on his +chest</i>) Work,—tryin to put life in the dead.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: Where'd you find him, Joe?</p> +<p>BRADFORD: In front of this house. Not forty feet out.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: What'd you bring him up here for?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He speaks in an abstracted way, as if the +working part of his mind is on something else, and in the muffled +voice of one bending over.</i>)</p> +<p>BRADFORD: (<i>with a sheepish little laugh</i>) Force of habit, +I guess. We brought so many of 'em back up here, (<i>looks around +the room</i>) And then it was kind of unfriendly down where he +was—the wind spittin' the sea onto you till he'd have no way +of knowin' he was ashore.</p> +<p>TONY: Lucky I was not sooner or later as I walk by from my +watch.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: You have accommodating ways, Tony. No sooner or later. +I wouldn't say it of many Portagees. But the sea (<i>calling it in +to the</i> CAPTAIN) is friendly as a kitten alongside the women +that live <i>here</i>. Allie Mayo—they're <i>both</i> +crazy—had that door open (<i>moving his head toward the big +sliding door</i>) sweepin' out, and when we come along she backs +off and stands lookin' at us, <i>lookin</i>'—Lord, I just +wanted to get him somewhere else. So I kicked this door open with +my foot (<i>jerking his hand toward the room where the</i> CAPTAIN +<i>is seen bending over the man</i>) and got him <i>away. (under +his voice</i>) If he did have any notion of comin' back to life, he +wouldn't a come if he'd seen her. (<i>more genially</i>) I +wouldn't.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: You know who he is, Joe?</p> +<p>BRADFORD: I never saw him before.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: Mitchell telephoned from High Head that a dory came +ashore there.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Last night wasn't the <i>best</i> night for a dory. +(<i>to</i> TONY, <i>boastfully</i>) Not that I couldn't 'a' stayed +in one. Some men can stay in a dory and some can't. (<i>going to +the inner door</i>) That boy's dead, Capt'n.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: Then I'm not doing him any harm.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: (<i>going over and shaking the frame where the boat +once swung</i>) This the first time you ever been in this place, +ain't it, Tony?</p> +<p>TONY: I never was here before.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Well, <i>I</i> was here before. (<i>a laugh</i>) And +the old man—(<i>nodding toward the</i> CAPTAIN) he lived here +for twenty-seven years. Lord, the things that happened <i>here</i>. +There've been dead ones carried through <i>that</i> door. +(<i>pointing to the outside door</i>) Lord—the ones +<i>I've</i> carried. I carried in Bill Collins, and Lou Harvey +and—huh! 'sall over now. You ain't seen no <i>wrecks</i>. +Don't ever think you have. I was here the night the Jennie Snow was +out there. (<i>pointing to the sea</i>) There was a <i>wreck</i>. +We got the boat that stood here (<i>again shaking the frame</i>) +down that bank. (<i>goes to the door and looks out</i>) Lord, how'd +we ever do it? The sand has put his place on the blink all right. +And then when it gets too God-for-saken for a life-savin' station, +a lady takes it for a summer residence—and then spends the +winter. She's a cheerful one.</p> +<p>TONY: A woman—she makes things pretty. This not like a +place where a woman live. On the floor there is nothing—on +the wall there is nothing. Things—(<i>trying to express it +with his hands</i>) do not hang on other things.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: (<i>imitating</i> TONY<i>'s gesture</i>) +No—things do not hang on other things. In my opinion the +woman's crazy—sittin' over there on the sand—(<i>a +gesture towards the dunes</i>) what's she <i>lookin'</i> at? There +ain't nothin' to <i>see</i>. And I know the woman that works for +her's crazy—Allie Mayo. She's a Provincetown girl. She was +all right once, but—</p> +<p class="dir">(MRS PATRICK <i>comes in from the hall at the right. +She is a 'city woman', a sophisticated person who has been caught +into something as unlike the old life as the dunes are unlike a +meadow. At the moment she is excited and angry</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: You have no right here. This isn't the life-saving +station any more. Just because it used to be—I don't see why +you should think—This is my house! And—I want my house +to myself!</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: (<i>putting his head through the door. One arm of the +man he is working with is raised, and the hand reaches through the +doorway</i>) Well I must say, lady, I would think that any house +could be a life-saving station when the sea had sent a man to +it.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>who has turned away so she cannot see the +hand</i>) I don't want him here! I—(<i>defiant, yet +choking</i>) I must have my house to myself!</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: You'll get your house to yourself when I've made up my +mind there's no more life in this man. A good many lives have been +saved in this house, Mrs Patrick—I believe that's your +name—and if there's any chance of bringing one more back from +the dead, the fact that you own the house ain't goin' to make a +damn bit of difference to me!</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>in a thin wild way</i>) I must have my house to +myself.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: Hell with such a woman!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Moves the man he is working with and slams the +door shut. As the</i> CAPTAIN <i>says, 'And if there's any chance +of bringing one more back from the dead</i>', ALLIE MAYO <i>has +appeared outside the wide door which gives on to the dunes, a bleak +woman, who at first seems little more than a part of the sand +before which she stands. But as she listens to this conflict one +suspects in her that peculiar intensity of twisted things which +grow in unfavoring places</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: I—I don't want them here! I must—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>But suddenly she retreats, and is gone</i>.)</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Well, I couldn't say, Allie Mayo, that you work for +any too kind-hearted a lady. What's the matter with the woman? Does +she want folks to die? Appears to break her all up to see somebody +trying to save a life. What d'you work for such a fish for? A crazy +fish—that's what I call the woman. I've seen her—day +after day—settin' over there where the dunes meet the woods, +just sittin' there, lookin'. (<i>suddenly thinking of it</i>) I +believe she <i>likes</i> to see the sand slippin' down on the +woods. Pleases her to see somethin' gettin' buried, I guess.</p> +<p class="dir">(ALLIE MAYO, <i>who has stepped inside the door and +moved half across the room, toward the corridor at the right, is +arrested by this last—stands a moment as if seeing through +something, then slowly on, and out</i>.)</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Some coffee'd taste good. But coffee, in this house? +Oh, no. It might make somebody feel better. (<i>opening the door +that was slammed shut</i>) Want me now, Capt'n?</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: No.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Oh, that boy's dead, Capt'n.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: (<i>snarling</i>) Dannie Sears was dead, too. Shut that +door. I don't want to hear that woman's voice again, ever.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Closing the door and sitting on a bench built +into that corner between the big sliding door and the room where +the</i> CAPTAIN <i>is</i>.)</p> +<p>BRADFORD: They're a cheerful pair of women—livin' in this +cheerful place—a place that life savers had to turn over to +the sand—huh! This Patrick woman used to be all right. She +and her husband was summer folks over in town. They used to picnic +over here on the outside. It was Joe Dyer—he's always talkin' +to summer folks—told 'em the government was goin' to build +the new station and sell this one by sealed bids. I heard them +talkin' about it. They was sittin' right down there on the beach, +eatin' their supper. They was goin' to put in a fire-place and they +was goin' to paint it bright colors, and have parties over +here—summer folk notions. Their bid won it—who'd want +it?—a buried house you couldn't move.</p> +<p>TONY: I see no bright colors.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Don't you? How astonishin'! You must be color blind. +And I guess <i>we're</i> the first party. (<i>laughs</i>) I was in +Bill Joseph's grocery store, one day last November, when in she +comes—Mrs Patrick, from New York. 'I've come to take the old +life-saving station', says she. 'I'm going to sleep over there +tonight!' Huh! Bill is used to queer ways—he deals with +summer folks, but that got <i>him</i>. November—an empty +house, a buried house, you might say, off here on the outside +shore—way across the sand from man or beast. He got it out of +her, not by what she said, but by the way she looked at what he +said, that her husband had died, and she was runnin' off to hide +herself, I guess. A person'd feel sorry for her if she weren't so +stand-offish, and so doggon <i>mean</i>. But mean folks have got +minds of their own. She slept here that night. Bill had men hauling +things till after dark—bed, stove, coal. And then she wanted +somebody to work for her. 'Somebody', says she, 'that doesn't say +an unnecessary word!' Well, then Bill come to the back of the +store, I said, 'Looks to me as if Allie Mayo was the party she's +lookin' for.' Allie Mayo has got a prejudice against words. Or +maybe she likes 'em so well she's savin' of 'em. She's not spoke an +unnecessary word for twenty years. She's got her reasons. Women +whose men go to sea ain't always talkative.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The</i> CAPTAIN <i>comes out. He closes door +behind him and stands there beside it. He looks tired and +disappointed. Both look at him. Pause</i>.)</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: Wonder who he was.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Young. Guess he's not been much at sea.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: I hate to leave even the dead in this house. But we can +get right back for him. (<i>a look around</i>) The old place used +to be more friendly. (<i>moves to outer door, hesitates, hating to +leave like this</i>) Well, Joe, we brought a good many of them back +here.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Dannie Sears is tendin' bar in Boston now.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The three men go; as they are going around the +drift of sand</i> ALLIE MAYO <i>comes in carrying a pot of coffee; +sees them leaving, puts down the coffee pot, looks at the door +the</i> CAPTAIN <i>has closed, moves toward it, as if drawn</i>. +MRS PATRICK <i>follows her in</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: They've gone?</p> +<p class="dir">(MRS MAYO <i>nods, facing the closed door</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: And they're leaving—him? (<i>again the other +woman nods</i>) Then he's—? (MRS MAYO <i>just stands +there</i>) They have no right—just because it used to be +their place—! I want my house to myself!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Snatches her coat and scarf from a hook and +starts through the big door toward the dunes</i>.)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Wait.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>When she has said it she sinks into that corner +seat—as if overwhelmed by what she has done. The other woman +is held</i>.)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: (<i>to herself.</i>) If I could say that, I can say +more. (<i>looking at woman she has arrested, but speaking more to +herself</i>) That boy in there—his face—uncovered +something—(<i>her open hand on her chest. But she waits, as +if she cannot go on; when she speaks it is in labored +way—slow, monotonous, as if snowed in by silent years</i>) +For twenty years, I did what you are doing. And I can tell +you—it's not the way. (<i>her voice has fallen to a whisper; +she stops, looking ahead at something remote and veiled</i>) We had +been married—two years. (<i>a start, as of sudden pain. Says +it again, as if to make herself say it</i>) Married—two +years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler. Times hard. He had +to go. A year and a half—it was to be. A year and a half. Two +years we'd been married.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She sits silent, moving a little back and +forth.</i>)</p> +<p>The day he went away. (<i>not spoken, but breathed from +pain</i>) The days after he was gone.</p> +<p>I heard at first. Last letter said farther north—not +another chance to write till on the way home. (<i>a wait</i>)</p> +<p>Six months. Another, I did not hear. (<i>long wait</i>) Nobody +ever heard. (<i>after it seems she is held there, and will not go +on</i>) I used to talk as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim +used to tease me about my talking. But they'd come in to talk to +me. They'd say—'You may hear <i>yet.</i>' They'd talk about +what must have happened. And one day a woman who'd been my friend +all my life said—'Suppose he was to walk <i>in!</i>' I got up +and drove her from my kitchen—and from that time till this +I've not said a word I didn't have to say. (<i>she has become +almost wild in telling this. That passes. In a whisper</i>) The ice +that caught Jim—caught me. (<i>a moment as if held in ice. +Comes from it. To</i> MRS PATRICK <i>simply</i>) It's not the way. +(<i>a sudden change</i>) You're not the only woman in the world +whose husband is dead!</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>with a cry of the hurt</i>) Dead? My husband's +not <i>dead</i>.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: He's <i>not?</i> (<i>slowly understands</i>) Oh.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks +up her coat which has fallen to the floor and steps +outside.</i>)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: (<i>almost failing to do it</i>) Wait.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: Wait? Don't you think you've said enough? They told +me you didn't say an unnecessary word!</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: I don't.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: And you can see, I should think, that you've +bungled into things you know nothing about!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she +pushes the sand by the door down on the half buried +grass—though not as if knowing what she is doing.</i>)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: (<i>slowly</i>) When you keep still for twenty years +you know—things you didn't know you knew. I know why you're +doing that. (<i>she looks up at her, startled</i>) Don't bury the +only thing that will grow. Let it grow.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The woman outside still crying under her breath +turns abruptly and starts toward the line where dunes and woods +meet.</i>)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: I know where you're going! (MRS PATRICK <i>turns but +not as if she wants to</i>) What you'll try to do. Over there. +(<i>pointing to the line of woods</i>) Bury it. The life in you. +Bury it—watching the sand bury the woods. But I'll tell you +something! <i>They</i> fight too. The woods! They fight for life +the way that Captain fought for life in there!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Pointing to the closed door</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>with a strange exultation</i>) And lose the way +he lost in there!</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: (<i>sure, sombre</i>) They don't lose.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: Don't <i>lose</i>? (<i>triumphant</i>) I have +walked on the tops of buried trees!</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: (<i>slow, sombre, yet large</i>) And vines will grow +over the sand that covers the trees, and hold it. And other trees +will grow over the buried trees.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: I've watched the sand slip down on the vines that +reach out farthest.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Another vine will reach that spot. (<i>under her +breath, tenderly</i>) Strange little things that reach out +farthest!</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: And will be buried soonest!</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: And hold the sand for things behind them. They save +a wood that guards a town.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: I care nothing about a wood to guard a town. This +is the outside—these dunes where only beach grass grows, this +outer shore where men can't live. The Outside. You who were born +here and who die here have named it that.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Yes, we named it that, and we had reason. He died +here (<i>reaches her hand toward the closed door</i>) and many a +one before him. But many another reached the harbor! (<i>slowly +raises her arm, bends it to make the form of the Cape. Touches the +outside of her bent arm</i>) The Outside. But an arm that bends to +make a harbor—where men are safe.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: I'm outside the harbor—on the dunes, land not +life.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Dunes meet woods and woods hold dunes from a town +that's shore to a harbor.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: This is the Outside. Sand (<i>picking some of it up +in her hand and letting it fall on the beach grass</i>) Sand that +<i>covers</i>—hills of sand that move and cover.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from +Provincetown. Provincetown—where they turn when boats can't +live at sea. Did you ever see the sails come round here when the +sky is dark? A line of them—swift to the harbor—where +their children live. Go back! (<i>pointing</i>) Back to your edge +of the woods that's the <i>edge of the dunes</i>.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: The edge of life. Where life trails off to dwarfed +things not worth a name.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Suddenly sits down in the doorway</i>.)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Not worth a name. And—meeting the Outside!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Big with the sense of the wonder of +life</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>lifting sand and letting it drift through her +hand</i>.) They're what the sand will let them be. They take +strange shapes like shapes of blown sand.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Meeting the Outside. (<i>moving nearer; speaking +more personally</i>) I know why you came here. To this house that +had been given up; on this shore where only savers of life try to +live. I know what holds you on these dunes, and draws you over +there. But other things are true beside the things you want to +see.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: How do you know they are? Where have you been for +twenty years?</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Outside. Twenty years. That's why I know how brave +<i>they</i> are (<i>indicating the edge of the woods. Suddenly +different</i>) You'll not find peace there again! Go back and watch +them <i>fight</i>!</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>swiftly rising</i>) You're a cruel +woman—a hard, insolent woman! I knew what I was doing! What +do you know about it? About me? I didn't go to the Outside. I was +left there. I'm only—trying to get along. Everything that can +hurt me I want buried—buried deep. Spring is here. This +morning I <i>knew</i> it. Spring—coming through the +storm—to take me—take me to hurt me. That's why I +couldn't bear—(<i>she looks at the closed door</i>) things +that made me know I feel. You haven't felt for so long you don't +know what it means! But I tell you, Spring is here! And now you'd +take <i>that</i> from me—(<i>looking now toward the edge of +the woods</i>) the thing that made me know they would be buried in +my heart—those things I can't <i>live</i> and know I feel. +You're more cruel than the sea! 'But other things are true beside +the things you want to see!' Outside. Springs will come when I will +not know that it is spring. (<i>as if resentful of not more deeply +believing what she says</i>) What would there be for me but the +Outside? What was there for you? What did you ever find after you +lost the thing you wanted?</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: I found—what I find now I know. The edge of +life—to hold life behind me—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>A slight gesture toward</i> MRS PATRICK.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>stepping back</i>) You call what you are life? +(<i>laughs</i>) Bleak as those ugly things that grow in the +sand!</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: (<i>under her breath, as one who speaks tenderly of +beauty</i>) Ugly!</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>passionately</i>) I have <i>known</i> life. I +have known <i>life</i>. You're like this Cape. A line of land way +out to sea—land not life.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: A harbor far at sea. (<i>raises her arm, curves it +in as if around something she loves</i>) Land that encloses and +gives shelter from storm.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>facing the sea, as if affirming what will hold +all else out</i>) Outside sea. Outer shore. Dunes—land not +life.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Outside sea—outer shore, dark with the wood +that once was ships—dunes, strange land not life—woods, +town and harbor. The line! Stunted straggly line that meets the +Outside face to face—and fights for what itself can never be. +Lonely line. Brave growing.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: It loses.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: It wins.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: The farthest life is buried.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: And life grows over buried life! (<i>lifted into +that; then, as one who states a simple truth with feeling</i>) It +will. And Springs will come when you will want to know that it is +Spring.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The</i> CAPTAIN <i>and</i> BRADFORD <i>appear +behind the drift of sand. They have a stretcher. To get away from +them</i> MRS PATRICK <i>steps farther into the room</i>; ALLIE MAYO +<i>shrinks into her corner. The men come in, open the closed door +and go in the room where they left the dead man. A moment later +they are seen outside the big open door, bearing the man away</i>. +MRS PATRICK <i>watches them from sight</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>bitter, exultant</i>) Savers of life! +(<i>to</i> ALLIE MAYO) You savers of life! 'Meeting the Outside!' +Meeting—(<i>but she cannot say it mockingly again; in saying +it, something of what it means has broken through, rises. Herself +lost, feeling her way into the wonder of life</i>) Meeting the +Outside!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>It grows in her as</i> CURTAIN <i>lowers +slowly</i>.)</p> +<a name="THE_VERGE"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<h2>THE VERGE</h2> +<p>First performed at the Provincetown Playhouse on November 14, +1921.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>PERSONS OF THE PLAY</p> +<p>ANTHONY</p> +<p>HARRY ARCHER, Claire's husband</p> +<p>HATTIE, The maid</p> +<p>CLAIRE</p> +<p>DICK, Richard Demming</p> +<p>TOM EDGEWORTHY</p> +<p>ELIZABETH, Claire's daughter</p> +<p>ADELAIDE, Claire's sister</p> +<p>DR EMMONS</p> +<h3>ACT I</h3> +<p class="scene"><i>The Curtain lifts on a place that is dark, save +for a shaft of light from below which comes up through an open +trap-door in the floor. This slants up and strikes the long leaves +and the huge brilliant blossom of a strange plant whose twisted +stem projects from right front. Nothing is seen except this plant +and its shadow. A violent wind is heard. A moment later a buzzer. +It buzzes once long and three short. Silence. Again the buzzer. +Then from below—his shadow blocking the light, comes</i> +ANTHONY, <i>a rugged man past middle life;—he emerges from +the stairway into the darkness of the room. Is dimly seen taking up +a phone.</i></p> +<p>ANTHONY: Yes, Miss Claire?—I'll see. (<i>he brings a +thermometer to the stairway for light, looks sharply, then returns +to the phone</i>) It's down to forty-nine. The plants are in +danger—(<i>with great relief and approval</i>) Oh, that's +fine! (<i>hangs up the receiver</i>) Fine!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He goes back down the stairway, closing the +trap-door upon himself, and the curtain is drawn upon darkness and +wind. It opens a moment later on the greenhouse in the sunshine of +a snowy morning. The snow piled outside is at times blown through +the air. The frost has made patterns on the glass as if—as +Plato would have it—the patterns inherent in abstract nature +and behind all life had to come out, not only in the creative heat +within, but in the creative cold on the other side of the glass. +And the wind makes patterns of sound around the glass +house.</i></p> +<p>The back wall is low; the glass roof slopes sharply up. There is +an outside door, a little toward the right. From outside two steps +lead down to it. At left a glass partition and a door into the +inner room. One sees a little way into this room. At right there is +no dividing wall save large plants and vines, a narrow aisle +between shelves of plants leads off.</p> +<p>This is not a greenhouse where plants are being displayed, nor +the usual workshop for the growing of them, but a place for +experiment with plants, a laboratory.</p> +<p>At the back grows a strange vine. It is arresting rather than +beautiful. It creeps along the low wall, and one branch gets a +little way up the glass. You might see the form of a cross in it, +if you happened to think it that way. The leaves of this vine are +not the form that leaves have been. They are at once repellent and +significant.</p> +<p>ANTHONY <i>is at work preparing soil—mixing, sifting. As +the wind tries the door he goes anxiously to the thermometer, nods +as if reassured and returns to his work. The buzzer sounds. He +starts to answer the telephone, remembers something, halts and +listens sharply. It does not buzz once long and three short. Then +he returns to his work. The buzzer goes on and on in impatient +jerks which mount in anger. Several times</i> ANTHONY <i>is almost +compelled by this insistence, but the thing that holds him back is +stronger. At last, after a particularly mad splutter, to which</i> +ANTHONY <i>longs to make retort, the buzzer gives it up</i>. +ANTHONY <i>goes on preparing soil.</i></p> +<p>A moment later the glass door swings violently in, snow blowing +in, and also MR HARRY ARCHER, <i>wrapped in a rug.</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Oh, please close the door, sir.</p> +<p>HARRY: Do you think I'm not trying to? (<i>he holds it open to +say this</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: But please <i>do</i>. This stormy air is not good for +the plants.</p> +<p>HARRY: I suppose it's just the thing for me! Now, what do you +mean, Anthony, by not answering the phone when I buzz for you?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Miss Claire—Mrs Archer told me not to.</p> +<p>HARRY: Told you not to answer me?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Not you especially—nobody but her.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, I like her nerve—and yours.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: You see, she thought it took my mind from my work to be +interrupted when I'm out here. And so it does. So she buzzes once +long and—Well, she buzzes her way, and all other +buzzing—</p> +<p>HARRY: May buzz.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>nodding gravely</i>) She thought it would be better +for the flowers.</p> +<p>HARRY: I am not a flower—true, but I too need a little +attention—and a little heat. Will you please tell me why the +house is frigid?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Miss Claire ordered all the heat turned out here, +(<i>patiently explaining it to</i> MISS CLAIRE's <i>speechless +husband</i>) You see the roses need a great deal of heat.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>reading the thermometer</i>) The roses have +seventy-three I have forty-five.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Yes, the roses need seventy-three.</p> +<p>HARRY: Anthony, this is an outrage!</p> +<p>ANTHONY: I think it is myself; when you consider what we paid +for the heating plant—but as long as it is +defective—Why, Miss Claire would never have done what she has +if she hadn't looked out for her plants in just such ways as this. +Have you forgotten that Breath of Life is about to flower?</p> +<p>HARRY: And where's my breakfast about to flower?—that's +what I want to know.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Why, Miss Claire got up at five o'clock to order the +heat turned off from the house.</p> +<p>HARRY: I see you admire her vigilance.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Oh, I do. (<i>fervently</i>) I do. Harm was near, and +that woke her up.</p> +<p>HARRY: And what about the harm to—(<i>tapping his +chest</i>) Do roses get pneumonia?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Oh, yes—yes, indeed they do. Why, Mr Archer, look +at Miss Claire herself. Hasn't she given her heat to the roses?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>pulling the rug around him, preparing for the +blizzard</i>) She has the fire within.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>delighted</i>) Now isn't that true! How well you +said it. (<i>with a glare for this appreciation</i>, HARRY <i>opens +the door. It blows away from him</i>) Please do close the door!</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>furiously</i>) You think it is the aim of my life to +hold it open?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>getting hold of it</i>) Growing things need an even +temperature, (<i>while saying this he gets the man out into the +snow</i>)</p> +<p class="dir">(ANTHONY <i>consults the thermometer, not as pleased +this time as he was before. He then looks minutely at two of the +plants—one is a rose, the other a flower without a name +because it has not long enough been a flower. Peers into the hearts +of them. Then from a drawer under a shelf, takes two paper bags, +puts one over each of these flowers, closing them down at the +bottom. Again the door blows wildly in, also</i> HATTIE, <i>a maid +with a basket</i>.)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: What do you mean—blowing in here like this? Mrs +Archer has ordered—</p> +<p>HATTIE: Mr Archer has ordered breakfast served here, (<i>she +uncovers the basket and takes out an electric toaster</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: <i>Breakfast</i>—here? <i>Eat</i>—here? +Where plants grow?</p> +<p>HATTIE: The plants won't poison him, will they? (<i>at a loss to +know what to do with things, she puts the toaster under the strange +vine at the back, whose leaves lift up against the glass which has +frost leaves on the outer side</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>snatching it away</i>) You—you think you can +cook eggs under the Edge Vine?</p> +<p>HATTIE: I guess Mr Archer's eggs are as important as a vine. I +guess my work's as important as yours.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: There's a million people like you—and like Mr +Archer. In all the world there is only one Edge Vine.</p> +<p>HATTIE: Well, maybe one's enough. It don't look like nothin', +anyhow.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: And you've not got the wit to know that that's why it's +the Edge Vine.</p> +<p>HATTIE: You want to look out, Anthony. You talk nutty. Everybody +says so.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Miss Claire don't say so.</p> +<p>HATTIE: No, because she's—</p> +<p>ANTHONY: You talk too much!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Door opens, admitting</i> HARRY; <i>after +looking around for the best place to eat breakfast, moves a box of +earth from the table</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: Just give me a hand, will you, Hattie?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>They bring it to the open space and he and</i> +HATTIE <i>arrange breakfast things</i>, HATTIE <i>with triumphant +glances at the distressed</i> ANTHONY)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>deciding he must act</i>) Mr Archer, this is not +the place to eat breakfast!</p> +<p>HARRY: Dead wrong, old boy. The place that has heat is the place +to eat breakfast. (<i>to</i> HATTIE) Tell the other +gentlemen—I heard Mr Demming up, and Mr Edgeworthy, if he +appears, that as long as it is such a pleasant morning, we're +having breakfast outside. To the conservatory for coffee.</p> +<p class="dir">(HATTIE <i>giggles, is leaving</i>.)</p> +<p>And let's see, have we got everything? (<i>takes the one shaker, +shakes a little pepper on his hand. Looks in vain for the other +shaker</i>) And tell Mr Demming to bring the salt.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: But Miss Claire will be very angry.</p> +<p>HARRY: I am very angry. Did I choose to eat my breakfast at the +other end of a blizzard?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>an exclamation of horror at the thermometer</i>) +The temperature is falling. I must report. (<i>he punches the +buzzer, takes up the phone</i>) Miss Claire? It is Anthony. A +terrible thing has happened. Mr Archer—what? Yes, a terrible +thing.—Yes, it is about Mr Archer.—No—no, not +dead. But here. He is here. Yes, he is well, he seems well, but he +is eating his breakfast. Yes, he is having breakfast served out +here—for himself, and the other gentlemen are to come +too.—Well, he seemed to be annoyed because the heat had been +turned off from the house. But the door keeps opening—this +stormy wind blowing right over the plants. The temperature has +already fallen.—Yes, yes. I thought you would want to +come.</p> +<p class="dir">(ANTHONY <i>opens the trap-door and goes below</i>. +HARRY <i>looks disapprovingly down into this openness at his feet, +returns to his breakfast</i>. ANTHONY <i>comes up, bearing a +box</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>turning his face away</i>) Phew! What a smell.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Yes. Fertilizer has to smell.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, it doesn't have to smell up my breakfast!</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>with a patient sense of order</i>) The smell +belongs here. (<i>he and the smell go to the inner room</i>)</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The outer door opens just enough to admit</i> +CLAIRE—<i>is quickly closed. With</i> CLAIRE <i>in a room +another kind of aliveness is there</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: What are you doing here?</p> +<p>HARRY: Getting breakfast. (<i>all the while doing so</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'll not have you in my place!</p> +<p>HARRY: If you take all the heat then you have to take me.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'll show you how I have to take you. (<i>with her hands +begins scooping upon him the soil</i> ANTHONY <i>has +prepared</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>jumping up, laughing, pinning down her arms, putting +his arms around her</i>) Claire—be decent. What harm do I do +here?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You pull down the temperature.</p> +<p>HARRY: Not after I'm in.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And you told Tom and Dick to come and make it +uneven.</p> +<p>HARRY: Tom and Dick are our guests. We can't eat where it's warm +and leave them to eat where it's cold.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I don't see why not.</p> +<p>HARRY: You only see what you want to see.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: That's not true. I wish it were. No; no, I don't either. +(<i>she is disturbed—that troubled thing which rises from +within, from deep, and takes</i> CLAIRE. <i>She turns to the Edge +Vine, examines. Regretfully to</i> ANTHONY, <i>who has come in with +a plant</i>) It's turning back, isn't it?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Can you be sure yet, Miss Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh yes—it's had its chance. It doesn't want to +be—what hasn't been.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>who has turned at this note in her voice. Speaks +kindly</i>) Don't take it so seriously, Claire. (CLAIRE +<i>laughs</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No, I suppose not. But it <i>does</i> matter—and +why should I pretend it doesn't, just because I've failed with +it?</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, I don't want to see it get you—it's not +important enough for that.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>in her brooding way</i>) Anything is important +enough for that—if it's important at all. (<i>to the +vine</i>) I thought you were out, but you're—going back +home.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: But you're doing it this time, Miss Claire. When Breath +of Life opens—and we see its heart—</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE <i>looks toward the inner room. Because of +intervening plants they do not see what is seen from the +front—a plant like caught motion, and of a greater +transparency than plants have had. Its leaves, like waves that +curl, close around a heart that is not seen. This plant stands by +itself in what, because of the arrangement of things about it, is a +hidden place. But nothing is between it and the light</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, if the heart has (<i>a little laugh</i>) held its +own, then Breath of Life is alive in its otherness. But Edge Vine +is running back to what it broke out of.</p> +<p>HARRY: Come, have some coffee, Claire.</p> +<p class="dir">(ANTHONY <i>returns to the inner room, the outer +door opens</i>. DICK <i>is hurled in</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>going to the door, as he gasps for breath before +closing it</i>) How dare you make my temperature uneven! (<i>she +shuts the door and leans against it</i>)</p> +<p>DICK: Is that what I do?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>A laugh, a look between them, which is held into +significance</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>who is not facing them</i>) Where's the salt?</p> +<p>DICK: Oh, I fell down in the snow. I must have left the salt +where I fell. I'll go back and look for it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And change the temperature? We don't need salt.</p> +<p>HARRY: You don't need salt, Claire. But we eat eggs.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I must tell you I don't like the idea of any food being +eaten here, where things have their own way to go. Please eat as +little as possible, and as quickly.</p> +<p>HARRY: A hostess calculated to put one at one's ease.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with no ill-nature</i>) I care nothing about your +ease. Or about Dick's ease.</p> +<p>DICK: And no doubt that's what makes you so fascinating a +hostess.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Was I a fascinating hostess last night, Dick? (<i>softly +sings</i>) 'Oh, night of love—' (<i>from the Barcorole of +'Tales of Hoffman'</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: We've got to have salt.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He starts for the door.</i> CLAIRE <i>slips in +ahead of him, locks it, takes the key. He marches off, +right</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>calling after him</i>) That end's always locked.</p> +<p>DICK: Claire darling, I wish you wouldn't say those startling +things. You do get away with it, but I confess it gives me a +shock—and really, it's unwise.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Haven't you learned that the best place to hide is in +the truth? (<i>as</i> HARRY <i>returns</i>) Why won't you believe +me, Harry, when I tell you the truth—about doors being +locked?</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire, it's selfish of you to keep us from eating salt +just because you don't eat salt.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with one of her swift changes</i>) Oh, Harry! Try +your egg without salt. Please—please try it without salt! +(<i>an intensity which seems all out of proportion to the +subject</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: An egg demands salt.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: 'An egg demands salt.' Do you know, Harry, why you are +such an unseasoned person? 'An egg demands salt.'</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, it doesn't always get it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But your spirit gets no lift from the salt withheld.</p> +<p>HARRY: Not an inch of lift. (<i>going back to his +breakfast</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And pleased—so pleased with itself, for getting no +lift. Sure, it is just the right kind of spirit—because it +gets no lift. (<i>more brightly</i>) But, Dick, you must have tried +your egg without salt.</p> +<p>DICK: I'll try it now. (<i>he goes to the breakfast +table</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You must have tried and tried things. Isn't that the way +one leaves the normal and gets into the byways of perversion?</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire.</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>pushing back his egg</i>) If so, I prefer to wait for +the salt.</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire, there is a <i>limit</i>.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Precisely what I had in mind. To perversion too there is +a limit. So—the fortifications are unassailable. If one ever +does get out, I suppose it is—quite unexpectedly, and +perhaps—a bit terribly.</p> +<p>HARRY: Get out where?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with a bright smile</i>) Where you, darling, will +never go.</p> +<p>HARRY: And from which you, darling, had better beat it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I wish I could. (<i>to herself</i>) No—no I don't +either</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Again this troubled thing turns her to the +plant. She puts by themselves the two which</i> ANTHONY <i>covered +with paper bags. Is about to remove these papers</i>. HARRY +<i>strikes a match</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>turning sharply</i>) You can't smoke here. The +plants are not used to it.</p> +<p>HARRY: Then I should think smoking would be just the thing for +them.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: There is design.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>to</i> DICK) Am I supposed to be answered? I never +can be quite sure at what moment I am answered.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>They both watch</i> CLAIRE, <i>who has uncovered +the plants and is looking intently into the flowers. From a drawer +she takes some tools. Very carefully gives the rose pollen to an +unfamiliar flower—rather wistfully unfamiliar, which stands +above on a small shelf near the door of the inner room</i>.)</p> +<p>DICK: What is this you're doing, Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Pollenizing. Crossing for fragrance.</p> +<p>DICK: It's all rather mysterious, isn't it?</p> +<p>HARRY: And Claire doesn't make it any less so.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Can I make life any less mysterious?</p> +<p>HARRY: If you know what you are doing, why can't you tell +Dick?</p> +<p>DICK: Never mind. After all, why should I be told? (<i>he turns +away</i>)</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>At that she wants to tell him. Helpless, as one +who cannot get across a stream, starts uncertainly</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I want to give fragrance to Breath of Life (<i>faces the +room beyond the wall of glass</i>)—the flower I have created +that is outside what flowers have been. What has gone out should +bring fragrance from what it has left. But no definite fragrance, +no limiting enclosing thing. I call the fragrance I am trying to +create Reminiscence. (<i>her hand on the pot of the wistful little +flower she has just given pollen</i>) Reminiscent of the rose, the +violet, arbutus—but a new thing—itself. Breath of Life +may be lonely out in what hasn't been. Perhaps some day I can give +it reminiscence.</p> +<p>DICK: I see, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I wonder if you do.</p> +<p>HARRY: Now, Claire, you're going to be gay to-day, aren't you? +These are Tom's last couple of days with us.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: That doesn't make me especially gay.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, you want him to remember you as yourself, don't +you?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I would like him to. Oh—I would like him to!</p> +<p>HARRY: Then be amusing. That's really you, isn't it, Dick?</p> +<p>DICK: Not quite all of her—I should say.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>gaily</i>) Careful, Dick. Aren't you indiscreet? +Harry will be suspecting that I am your latest strumpet.</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire! What language you use! A person knowing you only +by certain moments could never be made to believe you are a refined +woman.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: True, isn't it, Dick?</p> +<p>HARRY: It would be a good deal of a lark to let them listen in +at times—then tell them that here is the flower of New +England!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Well, if this is the flower of New England, then the +half has never been told.</p> +<p>DICK: About New England?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I thought I meant that. Perhaps I meant—about +me.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>going on with his own entertainment</i>) Explain that +this is what came of the men who made the laws that made New +England, that here is the flower of those gentlemen of culture +who—</p> +<p>DICK: Moulded the American mind!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh! (<i>it is pain</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Now what's the matter?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I want to get away from them!</p> +<p>HARRY: Rest easy, little one—you do.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm not so sure—that I do. But it can be done! We +need not be held in forms moulded for us. There is +outness—and otherness.</p> +<p>HARRY: Now, Claire—I didn't mean to start anything +serious.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No; you never mean to do that. I want to break it up! I +tell you, I want to break it up! If it were all in pieces, we'd be +(<i>a little laugh</i>) shocked to aliveness (<i>to</i> +DICK)—wouldn't we? There would be strange new comings +together—mad new comings together, and we would know what it +is to be born, and then we might know—that we are. Smash it. +(<i>her hand is near an egg</i>) As you'd smash an egg. (<i>she +pushes the egg over the edge of the table and leans over and looks, +as over a precipice</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>with a sigh</i>) Well, all you've smashed is the egg, +and all that amounts to is that now Tom gets no egg. So that's +that.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with difficulty, drawing herself back from the +fascination of the precipice</i>) You think I can't smash anything? +You think life can't break up, and go outside what it was? Because +you've gone dead in the form in which you found yourself, you think +that's all there is to the whole adventure? And that is called +sanity. And made a virtue—to lock one in. You never worked +with things that grow! Things that take a sporting chance—go +mad—that sanity mayn't lock them in—from life +untouched—from life—that waits, (<i>she turns toward +the inner room</i>) Breath of Life. (<i>she goes in there</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Oh, I wish Claire wouldn't be strange like that, +(<i>helplessly</i>) What is it? What's the matter?</p> +<p>DICK: It's merely the excess of a particularly rich +temperament.</p> +<p>HARRY: But it's growing on her. I sometimes wonder if all this +(<i>indicating the place around him</i>) is a good thing. It would +be all right if she'd just do what she did in the +beginning—make the flowers as good as possible of their kind. +That's an awfully nice thing for a woman to do—raise flowers. +But there's something about this—changing things into other +things—putting things together and making queer new +things—this—</p> +<p>DICK: Creating?</p> +<p>HARRY: Give it any name you want it to have—it's +unsettling for a woman. They say Claire's a shark at it, but what's +the good of it, if it gets her? What is the good of it, anyway? +Suppose we can produce new things. Lord—look at the one ones +we've got. (<i>looks outside; turns back</i>) Heavens, what a noise +the wind does make around this place, (<i>but now it is not all the +wind, but</i> TOM EDGEWORTHY, <i>who is trying to let himself in at +the locked door, their backs are to him</i>) I want my <i>egg</i>. +You can't eat an egg without salt. I must say I don't get Claire +lately. I'd like to have Charlie Emmons see her—he's fixed up +a lot of people shot to pieces in the war. Claire needs something +to tone her nerves <i>up</i>. You think it would irritate her?</p> +<p>DICK: She'd probably get no little entertainment out of it.</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes, dog-gone her, she would. (TOM <i>now takes more +heroic measures to make himself heard at the door</i>) +Funny—how the wind can fool you. Now by not looking around I +could imagine—why, I could imagine anything. Funny, isn't it, +about imagination? And Claire says I haven't got any!</p> +<p>DICK: It would make an amusing drawing—what the wind makes +you think is there. (<i>first makes forms with his hands, then +levelling the soil prepared by</i> ANTHONY, <i>traces lines with +his finger</i>) Yes, really—quite jolly.</p> +<p class="dir">(TOM, <i>after a moment of peering in at them, +smiles, goes away.</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: You're another one of the queer ducks, aren't you? Come +now—give me the dirt. Have you queer ones really got +anything—or do you just put it over on us that you have?</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>smiles, draws on</i>) Not saying anything, eh? Well, I +guess you're wise there. If you keep mum—how are we going to +prove there's nothing there?</p> +<p>DICK: I don't keep mum. I draw.</p> +<p>HARRY: Lines that don't make anything—how can they tell +you anything? Well, all I ask is, don't make Claire queer. Claire's +a first water good sport—really, so don't encourage her to be +queer.</p> +<p>DICK: Trouble is, if you're queer enough to be amusing, it +might—open the door to queerness.</p> +<p>HARRY: Now don't say things like that to Claire.</p> +<p>DICK: I don't have to.</p> +<p>HARRY: Then <i>you</i> think she's queer, do you? Queer as you +are, you think she's queer. I would like to have Dr Emmons come +out. (<i>after a moment of silently watching</i> DICK, <i>who is +having a good time with his drawing</i>) You know, frankly, I doubt +if you're a good influence for Claire. (DICK <i>lifts his head ever +so slightly</i>) Oh, I don't worry a bit about—things a +husband might worry about. I suppose an intellectual +woman—and for all Claire's hate of her ancestors, she's got +the bug herself. Why, she has times of boring into things until she +doesn't know you're there. What do you think I caught her doing the +other day? Reading Latin. Well—a woman that reads Latin +needn't worry a husband much.</p> +<p>DICK: They said a good deal in Latin.</p> +<p>HARRY: But I was saying, I suppose a woman who lives a good deal +in her mind never does have much—well, what you might call +passion, (<i>uses the word as if it shouldn't be used. Brows +knitted, is looking ahead, does not see</i> DICK<i>'s face. Turning +to him with a laugh</i>) I suppose you know pretty much all there +is to know about women?</p> +<p>DICK: Perhaps one or two details have escaped me.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, for that matter, you might know all there is to +know about women and not know much about Claire. But now about +(<i>does not want to say passion again</i>)—oh, +feeling—Claire has a certain—well, a certain—</p> +<p>DICK: Irony?</p> +<p>HARRY: Which is really more—more—</p> +<p>DICK: More fetching, perhaps.</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes! Than the thing itself. But of course—you +wouldn't have much of a thing that you have irony about.</p> +<p>DICK: Oh—wouldn't you! I mean—a man might.</p> +<p>HARRY: I'd like to talk to Edgeworth about Claire. But it's not +easy to talk to Tom about Claire—or to Claire about Tom.</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>alert</i>) They're very old friends, aren't they?</p> +<p>HARRY: Why—yes, they are. Though they've not been together +much of late years, Edgeworthy always going to the ends of the +earth to—meditate about something. I must say I don't get it. +If you have a place—that's the place for you to be. And he +did have a place—best kind of family connections, and it was +a very good business his father left him. Publishing +business—in good shape, too, when old Edgeworthy died. I +wouldn't call Tom a great success in life—but Claire does +listen to what he says.</p> +<p>DICK: Yes, I've noticed that.</p> +<p>HARRY: So, I'd like to get him to tell her to quit this queer +business of making things grow that never grew before.</p> +<p>DICK: But are you sure that's what he would tell her? Isn't he +in the same business himself?</p> +<p>HARRY: Why, he doesn't raise anything.</p> +<p class="dir">(TOM <i>is again at the door</i>.)</p> +<p>DICK: Anyway, I think he might have some idea that we can't very +well reach each other.</p> +<p>HARRY: Damn nonsense. What have we got intelligence for?</p> +<p>DICK: To let each other alone, I suppose. Only we haven't enough +to do it.</p> +<p class="dir">(TOM <i>is now knocking on the door with a +revolver</i>. HARRY <i>half turns, decides to be too intelligent to +turn</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: Don't tell me I'm getting nerves. But the way some of you +people talk is enough to make even an aviator jumpy. Can't reach +each other! Then we're fools. If I'm here and you're there, why +can't we reach each other?</p> +<p>DICK: Because I am I and you are you.</p> +<p>HARRY: No wonder your drawing's queer. A man who can't reach +another man—(TOM <i>here reaches them by pointing the +revolver in the air and firing it</i>. DICK <i>digs his hand into +the dirt</i>. HARRY <i>jumps to one side, fearfully looks +around</i>. TOM, <i>with a pleased smile to see he at last has +their attention, moves the handle to indicate he would be glad to +come in</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: Why—it's Tom! What the—? (<i>going to the +door</i>) He's locked out. And Claire's got the key. (<i>goes to +the inner door, tries it</i>) And she's locked in! (<i>trying to +see her in there</i>) Claire! Claire! (<i>returning to the outer +door</i>) Claire's got the key—and I can't get to Claire. +(<i>makes a futile attempt at getting the door open without a key, +goes back to inner door—peers, pounds</i>) Claire! Are you +there? Didn't you hear the revolver? Has she gone down the cellar? +(<i>tries the trap-door</i>) Bolted! Well, I love the way she keeps +people locked out!</p> +<p>DICK: And in.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>getting angry, shouting at the trap-door</i>) Didn't +you hear the revolver? (<i>going to</i> TOM) Awfully sorry, old +man, but—(<i>in astonishment to</i> DICK) He can't hear me. +(TOM, <i>knocking with the revolver to get their attention, makes a +gesture of inquiry with it</i>) No—no—no! Is he asking +if he shall shoot himself? (<i>shaking his head violently</i>) Oh, +no—no! Um—<i>um</i>!</p> +<p>DICK: Hardly seems a man would shoot himself because he can't +get to his breakfast.</p> +<p>HARRY: I'm coming to believe people would do anything! (TOM +<i>is making another inquiry with the revolver</i>) No! not here. +Don't shoot yourself. (<i>trying hard to get the word through</i>) +<i>Shoot</i> yourself. I mean—don't, (<i>petulantly to</i> +DICK) It's ridiculous that you can't make a man understand you when +he looks right at you like that. (<i>turning back to</i> TOM) Read +my lips. Lips. I'm saying—Oh damn. Where is Claire? All +right—I'll explain it with motions. We wanted the salt ... +(<i>going over it to himself</i>) and Claire wouldn't let us go out +for it on account of the temperature. Salt. Temperature. (<i>takes +his egg-cup to the door, violent motion of shaking in salt</i>) +But—no (<i>shakes his head</i>) No salt. (<i>he then takes +the thermometer, a flower pot, holds them up to</i> TOM) On account +of the temperature. Tem-per-a—(TOM <i>is not getting it</i>) +Oh—well, what can you do when a man don't <i>get</i> a thing? +(TOM <i>seems to be preparing the revolver for action</i>. HARRY +<i>pounds on the inner door</i>) Claire! Do you want Tom to shoot +himself?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>As he looks in there, the trap-door lifts, and +CLAIRE comes half-way up.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Why, what is Tom doing out there, with a revolver?</p> +<p>HARRY: He is about to shoot himself because you've locked him +out from his breakfast.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: He must know more interesting ways of destroying +himself. (<i>bowing to</i> TOM) Good morning. (<i>from his side of +the glass</i> TOM <i>bows and smiles back</i>) Isn't it +strange—our being in here—and he being out there?</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire, have you no ideas of hospitality? Let him in!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: In? Perhaps that isn't hospitality.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, whatever hospitality is, what is out there is +snow—and wind—and our guest—who was asked to come +here for his breakfast. To think a man has to <i>such</i> +things.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm going to let him in. Though I like his looks out +there. (<i>she takes the key from her pocket</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Thank heaven the door's coming open. Somebody can go for +salt, and we can have our eggs.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And open the door again—to let the salt in? No. If +you insist on salt, tell Tom now to go back and get it. It's a +stormy morning and there'll be just one opening of the door.</p> +<p>HARRY: How can we tell him what we can't make him hear? And why +does he think we're holding this conversation instead of letting +him in?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It would be interesting to know. I wonder if he'll tell +us?</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire! Is this any time to wonder anything?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Give up the idea of salt for your egg and I'll let him +in. (<i>holds up the key to</i> TOM to indicate that for her part +she is quite ready to let him in)</p> +<p>HARRY: I want my egg!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Then ask him to bring the salt. It's quite simple.</p> +<p class="dir">(HARRY <i>goes through another pantomime with the +egg-cup and the missing shaker.</i> CLAIRE, <i>still standing +half-way down cellar, sneezes.</i> HARRY, <i>growing all the while +less amiable, explains with thermometer and flower-pot that there +can only be one opening of the door.</i> TOM <i>looks interested, +but unenlightened. But suddenly he smiles, nods, vanishes.</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, thank heaven (<i>exhausted</i>) that's over.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>sitting on the top step</i>) It was all so queer. He +locked out on his side of the door. You locked in on yours. Looking +right at each other and—</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>in mockery</i>) And me trying to tell him to kindly +fetch the salt!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>to</i> DICK) Well, I didn't do so bad a job, did I? +Quite an idea, explaining our situation with the thermometer and +the flower-pot. That was really an apology for keeping him out +there. Heaven knows—some explanation was in order, (<i>he is +watching, and sees</i> TOM <i>coming</i>) Now there he is, Claire. +And probably pretty well fed up with the weather.</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE <i>goes to the door, stops before it. She +and</i> TOM <i>look at each other through the glass. Then she lets +him in.</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: And now I am in. For a time it seemed I was not to be in. +But after I got the idea that you were keeping me out there to see +if I could get the idea—it would be too humiliating for a +wall of glass to keep one from understanding. (<i>taking it from +his pocket</i>) So there's the other thermometer. Where do you want +it? (CLAIRE <i>takes it</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And where's the pepper?</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>putting it on the table</i>) And here's the pepper.</p> +<p>HARRY: Pepper?</p> +<p>TOM: When Claire sneezed I knew—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, I knew if I sneezed you would bring the pepper.</p> +<p>TOM: Funny how one always remembers the salt, but the pepper +gets overlooked in preparations. And what is an egg without +pepper?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>nastily</i>) There's your egg, Edgeworth. +(<i>pointing to it on the floor</i>) Claire decided it would be a +good idea to smash everything, so she began with your egg.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>looking at his egg</i>) The idea of smashing everything +is really more intriguing than an egg.</p> +<p>HARRY: Nice that you feel that way about it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>giving</i> TOM <i>his coffee</i>) You want to hear +something amusing? I married Harry because I thought he would smash +something.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, that was an error in judgment.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm such a naive trusting person (HARRY +<i>laughs</i>—CLAIRE <i>gives him a surprised look, continues +simply</i>). Such a guileless soul that I thought flying would do +something to a man. But it didn't take us out. We just took it +in.</p> +<p>TOM: It's only our own spirit can take us out.</p> +<p>HARRY: Whatever you mean by out.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>after looking intently at</i> TOM, <i>and +considering it</i>) But our own spirit is not something on the +loose. Mine isn't. It has something to do with what I do. To fly. +To be free in air. To look from above on the world of all my days. +Be where man has never been! Yes—wouldn't you think the +spirit could get the idea? The earth grows smaller. I am leaving. +What are they—running around down there? Why do they run +around down there? Houses? Houses are funny lines and down-going +slants—houses are vanishing slants. I am alone. Can I breathe +this rarer air? Shall I go higher? Shall I go too high? I am loose. +I am out. But no; man flew, and returned to earth the man who left +it.</p> +<p>HARRY: And jolly well likely not to have returned at all if he'd +had those flighty notions while operating a machine.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh, Harry! (<i>not lightly asked</i>) Can't you see it +would be better not to have returned than to return the man who +left it?</p> +<p>HARRY: I have some regard for human life.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Why, no—I am the one who has the regard for human +life, (<i>more lightly</i>) That was why I swiftly divorced my +stick-in-the-mud artist and married—the man of flight. But I +merely passed from a stick-in-the-mud artist to a—</p> +<p>DICK: Stick-in-the-air aviator?</p> +<p>HARRY: Speaking of your stick-in-the-mud artist, as you +romantically call your first blunder, isn't his daughter—and +yours—due here to-day?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I knew something was disturbing me. Elizabeth. A +daughter is being delivered unto me this morning. I have a feeling +it will be more painful than the original delivery. She has been, +as they quaintly say, educated; prepared for her place in life.</p> +<p>HARRY: And fortunately Claire has a sister who is willing to +give her young niece that place.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: The idea of giving anyone a place in life.</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes! The very idea!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes! (<i>as often, the mocking thing gives true +expression to what lies sombrely in her</i>) The war. There was +another gorgeous chance.</p> +<p>HARRY: Chance for what? I call you, Claire. I ask you to say +what you mean.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I don't know—precisely. If I did—there'd be +no use saying it. (<i>at</i> HARRY's <i>impatient exclamation she +turns to</i> TOM)</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>nodding</i>) The only thing left worth saying is the +thing we can't say.</p> +<p>HARRY: Help!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes. But the war didn't help. Oh, it was a stunning +chance! But fast as we could—scuttled right back to the trim +little thing we'd been shocked out of.</p> +<p>HARRY: You bet we did—showing our good sense.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Showing our incapacity—for madness.</p> +<p>HARRY: Oh, come now, Claire—snap out of it. You're not +really trying to say that capacity for madness is a good thing to +have?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>in simple surprise</i>) Why yes, of course.</p> +<p>DICK: But I should say the war did leave enough madness to give +you a gleam of hope.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Not the madness that—breaks through. And it +was—a stunning chance! Mankind massed to kill. We have +failed. We are through. We will destroy. Break this up—it +can't go farther. In the air above—in the sea below—it +is to kill! All we had thought we were—we aren't. We were +shut in with what wasn't so. Is there one ounce of energy has not +gone to this killing? Is there one love not torn in two? Throw it +in! Now? Ready? Break up. Push. Harder. Break up. And +then—and then—But we didn't say—'And then—' +The spirit didn't take the tip.</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire! Come now (<i>looking to the others for +help</i>)—let's talk of something else.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Plants do it. The big leap—it's called. Explode +their species—because something in them knows they've gone as +far as they can go. Something in them knows they're shut in to just +that. So—go mad—that life may not be prisoned. Break +themselves up into crazy things—into lesser things, and from +the pieces—may come one sliver of life with vitality to find +the future. How beautiful. How brave.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>as if he would call her from too far—or would let +her know he has gone with her</i>) Claire!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>her eyes turning to him</i>) Why should we mind +lying under the earth? We who have no such initiative—no +proud madness? Why think it death to lie under life so +flexible—so ruthless and ever-renewing?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>from the door of the inner room</i>) Miss +Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>after an instant</i>) Yes? (<i>she goes with him, as +they disappear his voice heard</i>,'show me now ... want those +violets bedded')</p> +<p>HARRY: Oh, this has got to <i>stop</i>. I've got to—put a +stop to it some way. Why, Claire used to be the best sport a man +ever played around with. I can't stand it to see her getting +hysterical.</p> +<p>TOM: That was not hysterical.</p> +<p>HARRY: What was it then—I want to know?</p> +<p>TOM: It was—a look.</p> +<p>HARRY: Oh, I might have known I'd get no help from either of +you. Even you, Edgeworthy—much as she thinks of you—and +fine sort as I've no doubt you are, you're doing Claire no +good—encouraging her in these queer ways.</p> +<p>TOM: I couldn't change Claire if I would.</p> +<p>HARRY: And wouldn't if you could.</p> +<p>TOM: No. But you don't have to worry about me. I'm going away in +a day or two. And I shall not be back.</p> +<p>HARRY: Trouble with you is, it makes little difference whether +you're here or away. Just the fact of your existence does encourage +Claire in this—this way she's going.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>with a smile</i>) But you wouldn't ask me to go so far +as to stop my existence? Though I would do that for Claire—if +it were the way to help her.</p> +<p>HARRY: By Jove, you say that as if you meant it.</p> +<p>TOM: Do you think I would say anything about Claire I didn't +mean?</p> +<p>HARRY: You think a lot of her, don't you? (TOM <i>nods</i>) You +don't mean (<i>a laugh letting him say it</i>)—that +you're—in love with Claire!</p> +<p>TOM: In love? Oh, that's much too easy. Certainly I do love +Claire.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, you're a cool one!</p> +<p>TOM: Let her be herself. Can't you see she's troubled?</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, what is there to trouble Claire? Now I ask you. It +seems to me she has everything.</p> +<p>TOM: She's left so—open. Too exposed, (<i>as</i> HARRY +<i>moves impatiently</i>) Please don't be annoyed with me. I'm +doing my best at saying it. You see Claire isn't hardened into one +of those forms she talks about. She's too—aware. Always +pulled toward what could be—tormented by the lost +adventure.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, there's danger in all that. Of course there's +danger.</p> +<p>TOM: But you can't help that.</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire was the best fun a woman could be. Is yet—at +times.</p> +<p>TOM: Let her be—at times. As much as she can and will. She +does need that. Don't keep her from it by making her feel you're +holding her in it. Above all, don't try to stop what she's doing +here. If she can do it with plants, perhaps she won't have to do it +with herself.</p> +<p>HARRY: Do what?</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>low, after a pause</i>) Break up what exists. Open the +door to destruction in the hope of—a door on the far side of +destruction.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, you give me the willies, (<i>moves around in +irritation, troubled. To</i> ANTHONY, <i>who is passing through +with a sprayer</i>) Anthony, have any arrangements been made about +Miss Claire's daughter?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: I haven't heard of any arrangements.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, she'll have to have some heat in her room. We can't +all live out here.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Indeed you cannot. It is not good for the plants.</p> +<p>HARRY: I'm going where I can <i>smoke</i>, (<i>goes out</i>)</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>lightly, but fascinated by the idea</i>) You think +there is a door on the—hinter side of destruction?</p> +<p>TOM: How can one tell—where a door may be? One thing I +want to say to you—for it is about you. (<i>regards</i> DICK +<i>and not with his usual impersonal contemplation</i>) I don't +think Claire should have—any door closed to her. +(<i>pause</i>) You know, I think, what I mean. And perhaps you can +guess how it hurts to say it. Whether it's—mere escape +within,—rather shameful escape within, or the wild hope of +that door through, it's—(<i>suddenly all human</i>) Be good +to her! (<i>after a difficult moment, smiles</i>) Going away for +ever is like dying, so one can say things.</p> +<p>DICK: Why do you do it—go away for ever?</p> +<p>TOM: I haven't succeeded here.</p> +<p>DICK: But you've tried the going away before.</p> +<p>TOM: Never knowing I would not come back. So that wasn't going +away. My hope is that this will be like looking at life from +outside life.</p> +<p>DICK: But then you'll not be in it.</p> +<p>TOM: I haven't been able to look at it while in it.</p> +<p>DICK: Isn't it more important to be in it than to look at +it?</p> +<p>TOM: Not what I mean by look.</p> +<p>DICK: It's hard for me to conceive of—loving Claire and +going away from her for ever.</p> +<p>TOM: Perhaps it's harder to do than to conceive of.</p> +<p>DICK: Then why do it?</p> +<p>TOM: It's my only way of keeping her.</p> +<p>DICK: I'm afraid I'm like Harry now. I don't get you.</p> +<p>TOM: I suppose not. Your way is different, (<i>with calm, with +sadness—not with malice</i>) But I shall have her longer. And +from deeper.</p> +<p>DICK: I know that.</p> +<p>TOM: Though I miss much. Much, (<i>the buzzer</i>. TOM <i>looks +around to see if anyone is coming to answer it, then goes to the +phone</i>) Yes?... I'll see if I can get her. (<i>to</i> DICK) +Claire's daughter has arrived, (<i>looking in the inner +room—returns to phone</i>) I don't see her. (<i>catching a +glimpse of ANTHONY off right</i>) Oh, Anthony, where's Miss Claire? +Her daughter has arrived.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: She's working at something very important in her +experiments.</p> +<p>DICK: But isn't her daughter one of her experiments?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>after a baffled moment</i>) Her daughter is +finished.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>at the phone</i>) Sorry—but I can't get to +Claire. She appears to have gone below. (ANTHONY <i>closes the +trap-door</i>) I did speak to Anthony, but he says that Claire is +working at one of her experiments and that her daughter is +finished. I don't know how to make her hear—I took the +revolver back to the house. Anyway you will remember Claire doesn't +answer the revolver. I hate to reach Claire when she doesn't want +to be reached. Why, of course—a daughter is very important, +but oh, that's too bad. (<i>putting down the receiver</i>) He says +the girl's feelings are hurt. Isn't that annoying? (<i>gingerly +pounds on the trap-door. Then with the other hand. Waits</i>. +ANTHONY <i>has a gentle smile for the gentle tapping—nods +approval as,</i> TOM <i>returns to the phone</i>) She doesn't come +up. Indeed I did—with both fists—Sorry.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Please, you won't try again to disturb Miss Claire, +will you?</p> +<p>DICK: Her daughter is here, Anthony. She hasn't seen her +daughter for a year.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Well, if she got along without a mother for a +year—(<i>goes back to his work</i>)</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>smiling after</i> ANTHONY) Plants are queer. Perhaps +it's <i>safer</i> to do it with pencil (<i>regards</i> +TOM)—or with pure thought. Things that grow in the +earth—</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>nodding</i>) I suppose because we grew in the +earth.</p> +<p>DICK: I'm always shocked to find myself in agreement with Harry, +but I too am worried about Claire—and this, (<i>looking at +the plants</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: It's her best chance.</p> +<p>DICK: Don't you hate to go away to India—for +ever—leaving Claire's future uncertain?</p> +<p>TOM: You're cruel now. And you knew that you were being +cruel.</p> +<p>DICK: Yes, I like the lines of your face when you suffer.</p> +<p>TOM: The lines of yours when you're causing suffering—I +don't like them.</p> +<p>DICK: Perhaps that's your limitation.</p> +<p>TOM: I grant you it may be. (<i>They are silent</i>) I had an +odd feeling that you and I sat here once before, long ago, and that +we were plants. And you were a beautiful plant, and I—I was a +very ugly plant. I confess it surprised me—finding myself so +ugly a plant.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>A young girl is seen outside</i>. HARRY <i>gets +the door open for her and brings</i> ELIZABETH <i>in</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: There's heat here. And two of your mother's friends. Mr +Demming—Richard Demming—the artist—and I think +you and Mr Edgeworthy are old friends.</p> +<p class="dir">(ELIZABETH <i>comes forward. She is the creditable +young American—well built, poised, 'cultivated', so sound an +expression of the usual as to be able to meet the world with +assurance—assurance which training has made rather graceful. +She is about seventeen—and mature. You feel solid things +behind her</i>.)</p> +<p>TOM: I knew you when you were a baby. You used to kick a great +deal then.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>laughing, with ease</i>) And scream, I haven't a +doubt. But I've stopped that. One does, doesn't one? And it was you +who gave me the idol.</p> +<p>TOM: Proselytizing, I'm afraid.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: I beg—? Oh—<i>yes (laughing +cordially</i>) I <i>see. (she doesn't</i>) I dressed the idol up in +my doll's clothes. They fitted perfectly—the idol was just +the size of my doll Ailine. But mother didn't like the idol that +way, and tore the clothes getting them off. (<i>to</i> HARRY, +<i>after looking around</i>) Is mother here?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>crossly</i>) Yes, she's here. Of course she's here. +And she must know you're here, (<i>after looking in the inner room +he goes to the trap-door and makes a great noise</i>)</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Oh—<i>please</i>. Really—it doesn't make +the least difference.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, all I can say is, your manners are better than your +mother's.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: But you see I don't do anything interesting, so I +have to have good manners. (<i>lightly, but leaving the impression +there is a certain superiority in not doing anything interesting. +Turning cordially to</i> DICK) My father was an artist.</p> +<p>DICK: Yes, I know.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: He was a portrait painter. Do you do portraits?</p> +<p>DICK: Well, not the kind people buy.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: They bought father's.</p> +<p>DICK: Yes, I know he did that kind.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>still irritated</i>) Why, you don't do portraits.</p> +<p>DICK: I did one of you the other day. You thought it was a +milk-can.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>laughing delightedly</i>) No? Not really? Did you +think—How could you think—(<i>as</i> HARRY <i>does not +join the laugh</i>) Oh, I beg your pardon. I—Does mother grow +beautiful roses now?</p> +<p>HARRY: No, she does not.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The trap-door begins to move</i>. CLAIRE's +<i>head appears</i>.)</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Mother! It's been so long—(<i>she tries to +overcome the difficulties and embrace her mother</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>protecting a box she has</i>) Careful, Elizabeth. We +mustn't upset the lice.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>retreating</i>) Lice? (<i>but quickly equal even +to lice</i>) Oh—yes. You take it—them—off plants, +don't you?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm putting them on certain plants.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>weakly</i>) Oh, I thought you took them off.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>calling</i>) Anthony! (<i>he comes</i>) The lice. +(<i>he takes them from her</i>) (CLAIRE, <i>who has not fully +ascended, looks at</i> ELIZABETH, <i>hesitates, then suddenly +starts back down the stairs</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>outraged</i>) Claire! (<i>slowly she +re-ascends—sits on the top step. After a long pause in which +he has waited for</i> CLAIRE <i>to open a conversation with her +daughter</i>.) Well, and what have you been doing at school all +this time?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Oh—studying.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Studying what?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why—the things one studies, mother.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh! The things one studies. (<i>looks down cellar +again</i>)</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>after another wait</i>) And what have you been doing +besides studying?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Oh—the things one does. Tennis and skating and +dancing and—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: The things one does.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Yes. All the things. The—the things one does. +Though I haven't been in school these last few months, you know. +Miss Lane took us to Europe.</p> +<p>TOM: And how did you like Europe?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>capably</i>) Oh, I thought it was awfully +amusing. All the girls were quite mad about Europe. Of course, I'm +glad I'm an American.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Why?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>laughing</i>) Why—mother! Of course one is +glad one is an American. All the girls—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>turning away</i>) O—h! (<i>a moan under the +breath</i>)</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why, mother—aren't you well?</p> +<p>HARRY: Your mother has been working pretty hard at all this.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Oh, I do so want to know all about it? Perhaps I can +help you! I think it's just awfully amusing that you're doing +something. One does nowadays, doesn't one?—if you know what I +mean. It was the war, wasn't it, made it the thing to do +something?</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>slyly</i>) And you thought, Claire, that the war was +lost.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: The <i>war? Lost!</i> (<i>her capable laugh</i>) +Fancy our losing a war! Miss Lane says we should give +<i>thanks</i>. She says we should each do some expressive +thing—you know what I mean? And that this is the +<i>keynote</i> of the age. Of course, one's own kind of thing. Like +mother—growing flowers.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You think that is one's own kind of thing?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why, of course I do, mother. And so does Miss Lane. +All the girls—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>shaking her head as if to get something out</i>) +S-hoo.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: What is it, mother?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: A fly shut up in my ear—'All the girls!'</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>laughing</i>) Mother was always so amusing. So +<i>different</i>—if you know what I mean. Vacations I've +lived mostly with Aunt Adelaide, you know.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: My sister who is fitted to rear children.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, somebody has to do it.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: And I do love Aunt Adelaide, but I think its going to +be awfully amusing to be around with mother now—and help her +with her work. Help do some useful beautiful thing.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I am not doing any useful beautiful thing.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Oh, but you are, mother. Of course you are. Miss Lane +says so. She says it is your splendid heritage gives you this +impulse to do a beautiful thing for the race. She says you are +doing in your way what the great teachers and preachers behind you +did in theirs.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>who is good for little more</i>) Well, all I can say +is, Miss Lane is stung.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Mother! What a thing to say of Miss Lane. (<i>from +this slipping into more of a little girl manner</i>) Oh, she gave +me a spiel one day about living up to the men I come from.</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE <i>turns and regards her daughter</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You'll do it, Elizabeth.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Well, I don't know. Quite a job, I'll say. Of course, +I'd have to do it in my way. I'm not going to teach or preach or be +a stuffy person. But now that—(<i>she here becomes the +product of a superior school</i>) values have shifted and such +sensitive new things have been liberated in the world—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>low</i>) Don't use those words.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why—why not?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Because you don't know what they mean.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why, of course I know what they mean!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>turning away</i>) You're—stepping on the +plants.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>hastily</i>) Your mother has been working awfully +hard at all this.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Well, now that I'm here you'll let me help you, won't +you, mother?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>trying for control</i>) You +needn't—bother.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: But I <i>want</i> to. Help add to the wealth of the +world.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Will you please get it out of your head that I am adding +to the wealth of the world!</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: But, mother—of course you are. To produce a new +and better kind of plant—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: They may be new. I don't give a damn whether they're +better.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: But—but what are they then?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>as if choked out of her</i>) They're different.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>thinks a minute, then laughs triumphantly</i>) +But what's the use of making them different if they aren't +better?</p> +<p>HARRY: A good square question, Claire. Why don't you answer +it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I don't have to answer it.</p> +<p>HARRY: Why not give the girl a fair show? You never have, you +know. Since she's interested, why not tell her what it is you're +doing?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: She is not interested.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: But I am, mother. Indeed I am. I do want awfully to +understand what you are doing, and help you.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You can't help me, Elizabeth.</p> +<p>HARRY: Why not let her try?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Why do you ask me to do that? This is my own thing. Why +do you make me feel I should—(<i>goes to</i> ELIZABETH) I +will be good to you, Elizabeth. We'll go around together. I haven't +done it, but—you'll see. We'll do gay things. I'll have a lot +of beaus around for you. Anything else. Not—this is—Not +this.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: As you like, mother, of course. I just would have +been so glad to—to share the thing that interests you. +(<i>hurt borne with good breeding and a smile</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire! (<i>which says, 'How can you?'</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>who is looking at</i> ELIZABETH) Yes, I will +try.</p> +<p>TOM: I don't think so. As Claire says—anything else.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why, of course—I don't at all want to +intrude.</p> +<p>HARRY: It'll do Claire good to take someone in. To get down to +brass tacks and actually say what she's driving at.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh—<i>Harry</i>. But yes—I will try. +(<i>does try, but no words come. Laughs</i>) When you come to say +it it's not—One would rather not nail it to a cross of +words—(<i>laughs again</i>) with brass tacks.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>affectionately</i>) But I want to see you put things +into words, Claire, and realize just where you are.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>oddly</i>) You think that's a—good idea?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>in her manner of holding the world capably in her +hands</i>) Now let's talk of something else. I hadn't the least +idea of making mother feel badly.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>desperately</i>) No, we'll go on. Though I don't +know—where we'll end. I can't answer for that. These +plants—(<i>beginning flounderingly</i>) Perhaps they are less +beautiful—less sound—than the plants from which they +diverged. But they have found—otherness, (<i>laughs a little +shrilly</i>) If you know—what I mean.</p> +<p>TOM: Claire—stop this! (<i>To</i> HARRY) This is +wrong.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>excitedly</i>) No; I'm going on. They have been +shocked out of what they were—into something they were not; +they've broken from the forms in which they found themselves. They +are alien. Outside. That's it, outside; if you—know what I +mean.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>not shocked from what she is</i>) But of course, +the object of it all is to make them better plants. Otherwise, what +would be the sense of doing it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>not reached by</i> ELIZABETH) Out +there—(<i>giving it with her hands</i>) lies all that's not +been touched—lies life that waits. Back here—the old +pattern, done again, again and again. So long done it doesn't even +know itself for a pattern—in immensity. But this—has +invaded. Crept a little way into—what wasn't. Strange lines +in life unused. And when you make a pattern new you know a +pattern's made with life. And then you know that anything may +be—if only you know how to reach it. (<i>this has taken form, +not easily, but with great struggle between feeling and +words</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>cordially</i>) Now I begin to get you, Claire. I +never knew before why you called it the Edge Vine.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I should destroy the Edge Vine. It isn't—over the +edge. It's running, back to—'all the girls'. It's a little +afraid of Miss Lane, (<i>looking sombrely at it</i>) You are out, +but you are not alive.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why, it looks all right, mother.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Didn't carry life with it from the life it left. +Dick—you know what I mean. At least you ought to. (<i>her +ruthless way of not letting anyone's feelings stand in the way of +truth</i>) Then destroy it for me! It's hard to do it—with +the hands that made it.</p> +<p>DICK: But what's the point in destroying it, Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>impatiently</i>) I've told you. It cannot +create.</p> +<p>DICK: But you say you can go on producing it, and it's +interesting in form.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And you think I'll stop with that? Be shut in—with +different life—that can't creep on? (<i>after trying to put +destroying hands upon it</i>) It's hard to—get past what +we've done. Our own dead things—block the way.</p> +<p>TOM: But you're doing it this next time, Claire, (<i>nodding to +the inner room</i>.) In there!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>turning to that room</i>) I'm not sure.</p> +<p>TOM: But you told me Breath of Life has already produced itself. +Doesn't that show it has brought life from the life it left?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But timidly, rather—wistfully. A little homesick. +If it is less sure this time, then it is going back to—Miss +Lane. But if the pattern's clearer now, then it has made friends of +life that waits. I'll know to-morrow.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: You know, something tells me this is +<i>wrong</i>.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: The hymn-singing ancestors are tuning up.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: I don't know what you mean by that, mother +but—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But we will now sing, 'Nearer, my God, to Thee: Nearer +to—'</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>laughingly breaking in</i>) Well, I don't care. +Of course you can make fun at me, but something does tell me this +is wrong. To do what—what—</p> +<p>DICK: What God did?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Well—yes. Unless you do it to make them +better—to <i>do</i> it just to do it—that doesn't seem +right to me.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>roughly</i>) 'Right to you!' And that's all you know +of adventure—and of anguish. Do you know it is +you—world of which you're so true a flower—makes me +have to leave? You're there to hold the door shut! Because you're +young and of a gayer world, you think I can't <i>see</i> +them—those old men? Do you know why you're so sure of +yourself? Because you can't <i>feel</i>. Can't feel—the +limitless—out there—a sea just over the hill. I will +not stay with you! (<i>buries her hands in the earth around the +Edge Vine. But suddenly steps back from it as she had from</i> +ELIZABETH) And I will not stay with <i>you! (grasps it as we grasp +what we would kill, is trying to pull it up. They all step forward +in horror. ANTHONY is drawn in by this harm to the plant</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Miss Claire! Miss Claire! The work of years!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: May only make a prison! (<i>struggling with</i> HARRY, +<i>who is trying to stop her</i>) You think I too will die on the +edge? (<i>she has thrown him away, is now struggling with the +vine</i>) Why did I make you? To get past you! (<i>as she twists +it</i>) Oh yes, I know you have thorns! The Edge Vine should have +thorns, (<i>with a long tremendous pull for deep roots, she has it +up. As she holds the torn roots</i>) Oh, I have loved you so! You +took me where I hadn't been.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>who has been looking on with a certain practical +horror</i>) Well, I'd say it would be better not to go there!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Now I know what you are for! (<i>flings her arm back to +strike</i> ELIZABETH with the Edge Vine)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>wresting it from her</i>) Claire! Are you mad?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No, I'm not mad. I'm—too sane! (<i>pointing to</i> +ELIZABETH—<i>and the words come from mighty roots</i>) To +think that object ever moved my belly and sucked my breast! +(ELIZABETH <i>hides her face as if struck</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>going to</i> ELIZABETH, <i>turning to</i> CLAIRE) +This is atrocious! You're cruel.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He leads</i> ELIZABETH <i>to the door and out. +After an irresolute moment in which he looks from</i> CLAIRE +<i>to</i> TOM, DICK <i>follows.</i> ANTHONY <i>cannot bear to go. +He stoops to take the Edge Vine from the floor.</i> CLAIRE's +<i>gesture stops him. He goes into the inner room.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>kicking the Edge Vine out of her way, drawing deep +breaths, smiling</i>) O-h. How good I feel! Light! (<i>a movement +as if she could fly</i>) Read me something, Tom dear. Or say +something pleasant—about God. But be very careful what you +say about him! I have a feeling—he's not far off.</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<h3>ACT II</h3> +<p class="scene"><i>Late afternoon of the following day.</i> CLAIRE +<i>is alone in the tower—a tower which is thought to be round +but does not complete the circle. The back is curved, then jagged +lines break from that, and the front is a queer bulging +window—in a curve that leans. The whole structure is as if +given a twist by some terrific force—like something wrong. It +is lighted by an old-fashioned watchman's lantern hanging from the +ceiling; the innumerable pricks and slits in the metal throw a +marvellous pattern on the curved wall—like some masonry that +hasn't been.</i></p> +<p class="scene">There are no windows at back, and there is no door +save an opening in the floor. The delicately distorted rail of a +spiral staircase winds up from below. CLAIRE <i>is seen through the +huge ominous window as if shut into the tower. She is lying on a +seat at the back looking at a book of drawings. To do this she has +left the door of her lantern a little open—and her own face +is clearly seen.</i></p> +<p class="scene">A door is heard opening below; laughing voices, +CLAIRE <i>listens, not pleased.</i></p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>voice coming up</i>) Dear—dear, why do they +make such twisting steps.</p> +<p>HARRY: Take your time, most up now. (HARRY<i>'s head appears, he +looks back.</i>) Making it all right?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: I can't tell yet. (<i>laughingly</i>) No, I don't +think so.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>reaching back a hand for her</i>) The last +lap—is the bad lap. (ADELAIDE <i>is up, and occupied with +getting her breath.</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Since you wouldn't come down, Claire, we thought we'd +come up.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>as</i> CLAIRE <i>does not greet her</i>) I'm sorry +to intrude, but I have to see you, Claire. There are things to be +arranged. (CLAIRE <i>volunteering nothing about arrangements,</i> +ADELAIDE <i>surveys the tower. An unsympathetic eye goes from the +curves to the lines which diverge. Then she looks from the +window</i>) Well, at least you have a view.</p> +<p>HARRY: This is the first time you've been up here?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Yes, in the five years you've had the house I was +never asked up here before.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>amiably enough</i>) You weren't asked up here +now.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Harry asked me.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It isn't Harry's tower. But never mind—since you +don't like it—it's all right.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>her eyes again rebuking the irregularities of the +tower</i>) No, I confess I do not care for it. A round tower should +go on being round.</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire calls this the thwarted tower. She bought the +house because of it. (<i>going over and sitting by her, his hand on +her ankle</i>) Didn't you, old girl? She says she'd like to have +known the architect.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Probably a tiresome person too incompetent to make a +perfect tower.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Well, now he's disposed of, what next?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>sitting down in a manner of capably opening a +conference</i>) Next, Elizabeth, and you, Claire. Just what is the +matter with Elizabeth?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>whose voice is cool, even, as if herself is not +really engaged by this</i>) Nothing is the matter with her. She is +a tower that is a tower.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Well, is that anything against her?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: She's just like one of her father's portraits. They +never interested me. Nor does she. (<i>looks at the drawings which +do interest her</i>)</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: A mother cannot cast off her own child simply because +she does not interest her!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>an instant raising cool eyes to</i> ADELAIDE) Why +can't she?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Because it would be monstrous!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And why can't she be monstrous—if she has to +be?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: You don't have to be. That's where I'm out of patience +with you Claire. You are really a particularly intelligent, +competent person, and it's time for you to call a halt to this +nonsense and be the woman you were meant to be!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>holding the book up to see another way</i>) What +inside dope have you on what I was meant to be?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: I know what you came from.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Well, isn't it about time somebody got loose from that? +What I came from made you, so—</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>stiffly</i>) I see.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: So—you being such a tower of strength, why need I +too be imprisoned in what I came from?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: It isn't being imprisoned. Right there is where you +make your mistake, Claire. Who's in a tower—in an +unsuccessful tower? Not I. I go about in the world—free, +busy, happy. Among people, I have no time to think of myself.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: No. My family. The things that interest them; from +morning till night it's—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, I know you have a large family, Adelaide; five and +Elizabeth makes six.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: We'll speak of Elizabeth later. But if you would just +get out of yourself and enter into other people's lives—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Then I would become just like you. And we should all be +just alike in order to assure one another that we're all just +right. But since you and Harry and Elizabeth and ten million other +people bolster each other up, why do you especially need me?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>not unkindly</i>) We don't need you as much as you +need us.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>a wry face</i>) I never liked what I needed.</p> +<p>HARRY: I am convinced I am the worst thing in the world for you, +Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with a smile for his tactics, but shaking her +head</i>) I'm afraid you're not. I don't know—perhaps you +are.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Well, what is it you want, Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>simply</i>) You wouldn't know if I told you.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: That's rather arrogant.</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes, take a chance, Claire. I have been known to get an +idea—and Adelaide quite frequently gets one.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>the first resentment she has shown</i>) You two feel +very superior, don't you?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: I don't think we are the ones who are feeling +superior.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you are. Very superior to what you think is my +feeling of superiority, comparing my—isolation with your +'heart of humanity'. Soon we will speak of the beauty of common +experiences, of the—Oh, I could say it all before we come to +it.</p> +<p>HARRY: Adelaide came up here to help you, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Adelaide came up here to lock me in. Well, she can't do +it.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>gently</i>) But can't you see that one may do that +to one's self?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>thinks of this, looks suddenly tired—then +smiles</i>) Well, at least I've changed the keys.</p> +<p>HARRY: 'Locked in.' Bunkum. Get that our of your head, Claire. +Who's locked in? Nobody that I know of, we're all free Americans. +Free as air.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: I wish you'd come and hear one of Mr Morley's sermons, +Claire. You're very old-fashioned if you think sermons are what +they used to be.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with interest</i>) And do they still sing 'Nearer, +my God, to Thee'?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: They do, and a noble old hymn it is. It would do you +no harm at all to sing it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>eagerly</i>) Sing it to me, Adelaide. I'd like to +hear you sing it.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: It would be sacrilege to sing it to you in this +mood.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>falling back</i>) Oh, I don't know. I'm not so sure +God would agree with you. That would be one on you, wouldn't +it?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: It's easy to feel one's self set apart!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No, it isn't.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>beginning anew</i>) It's a new age, Claire. +Spiritual values—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Spiritual values! (<i>in her brooding way</i>) So you +have pulled that up. (<i>with cunning</i>) Don't think I don't know +what it is you do.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Well, what do I do? I'm sure I have no idea what +you're talking about.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>affectionately, as</i> CLAIRE <i>is looking with +intentness at what he does not see</i>) What does she do, +Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It's rather clever, what she does. Snatching the +phrase—(<i>a movement as if pulling something up</i>) +standing it up between her and—the life that's there. And by +saying it enough—'We have life! We have life! We have life!' +Very good come-back at one who would really be—'Just so! +<i>We</i> are that. Right this way, please—'That, I suppose +is what we mean by needing each other. All join in the chorus, +'This is it! This is it! This is it!' And anyone who won't join is +to be—visited by relatives, (<i>regarding</i> ADELAIDE +<i>with curiosity</i>) Do you really think that anything is going +on in you?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>stiffly</i>) I am not one to hold myself up as a +perfect example of what the human race may be.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>brightly</i>) Well, that's good.</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Humility's a <i>real</i> thing—not just a fine +name for laziness.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, Lord A'mighty, you can't call Adelaide lazy.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: She stays in one place because she hasn't the energy to +go anywhere else.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>as if the last word in absurdity has been said) +I</i> haven't energy?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>mildly</i>) You haven't any energy at all, Adelaide. +That's why you keep so busy.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: <i>Well</i>—Claire's nerves are in a worse state +than I had realized.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: So perhaps we'd better look at Blake's drawings, +(<i>takes up the book</i>)</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: It would be all right for me to look at Blake's +drawings. You'd better look at the Sistine Madonna, +(<i>affectionately, after she has watched</i> CLAIRE<i>'s face a +moment</i>) What is it, Claire? Why do you shut yourself out from +us?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I told you. Because I do not want to be shut in with +you.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: All of this is not very pleasant for Harry.</p> +<p>HARRY: I want Claire to be gay.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Funny—you should want that, (<i>speaks +unwillingly, a curious, wistful unwillingness</i>) Did you ever say +a preposterous thing, then go trailing after the thing you've said +and find it wasn't so preposterous? Here is the circle we are +in.<i>describes a big circle</i>) Being gay. It shoots little darts +through the circle, and a minute later—gaiety all gone, and +you looking through that little hole the gaiety left.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>going to her, as she is still looking through that +little hole</i>) Claire, dear, I wish I could make you feel how +much I care for you. (<i>simply, with real feeling</i>) You can +call me all the names you like—dull, commonplace, +lazy—that is a new idea, I confess, but the rest of our +family's gone now, and the love that used to be there between us +all—the only place for it now is between you and me. You were +so much loved, Claire. You oughtn't to try and get away from a +world in which you are so much loved, (<i>to</i> HARRY) +Mother—father—all of us, always loved Claire best. We +always loved Claire's queer gaiety. Now you've got to hand it to us +for that, as the children say.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>moved, but eyes shining with a queer bright +loneliness</i>) But never one of you—once—looked with +me through the little pricks the gaiety made—never one of +you—once, looked with me at the queer light that came in +through the pricks.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: And can't you see, dear, that it's better for us we +didn't? And that it would be better for you now if you would just +resolutely look somewhere else? You must see yourself that you +haven't the poise of people who are held—well, within the +circle, if you choose to put it that way. There's something about +being in that main body, having one's roots in the big common +experiences, gives a calm which you have missed. That's <i>why</i> +I want you to take Elizabeth, forget yourself, and—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I do want calm. But mine would have to be a calm +I—worked my way to. A calm all prepared for me—would +stink.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>less sympathetically</i>) I know you have to be +yourself, Claire. But I don't admit you have a right to hurt other +people.</p> +<p>HARRY: I think Claire and I had better take a nice long +trip.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Now why don't you?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I am taking a trip.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Well, Harry isn't, and he'd like to go and wants you +to go with him. Go to Paris and get yourself some awfully +good-looking clothes—and have one grand fling at the gay +world. You really love that, Claire, and you've been awfully dull +lately. I think that's the whole trouble.</p> +<p>HARRY: I think so too.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: This sober business of growing plants—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Not sober—it's mad.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: All the more reason for quitting it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But madness that is the only chance for sanity.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Come, come, now—let's not juggle words.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>springing up</i>) How dare you say that to me, +Adelaide. You who are such a liar and thief and whore with +words!</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>facing her, furious</i>) How <i>dare</i> +you—</p> +<p>HARRY: Of course not, Claire. You have the most preposterous way +of using words.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I respect words.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Well, you'll please respect me enough not to dare use +certain words to me!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, I do dare. I'm tired of what you do—you and +all of you. +Life—experience—values—calm—sensitive words +which raise their heads as indications. And you <i>pull them +up</i>—to decorate your stagnant little minds—and think +that makes you—And because you have pulled that word from the +life that grew it you won't let one who's honest, and aware, and +troubled, try to reach through to—to what she doesn't know is +there, (<i>she is moved, excited, as if a cruel thing has been +done</i>) Why did you come here?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: To try and help you. But I begin to fear I can't do +it. It's pretty egotistical to claim that what so many people are, +is wrong.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>CLAIRE, after looking intently at ADELAIDE, +slowly, smiling a little, describes a circle. With deftly used +hands makes a quick vicious break in the circle which is there in +the air.</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>going to her, taking her hands</i>) It's getting +close to dinner-time. You were thinking of something else, Claire, +when I told you Charlie Emmons was coming to dinner to-night, +(<i>answering her look</i>) Sure—he is a neurologist, and I +want him to see you. I'm perfectly honest with you—cards all +on the table, you know that. I'm hoping if you like him—and +he's the best scout in the world, that he can help you. (<i>talking +hurriedly against the stillness which follows her look from him to +ADELAIDE, where she sees between them an 'understanding' about +her</i>) Sure you need help, Claire. Your nerves are a little on +the blink—from all you've been doing. No use making a mystery +of it—or a tragedy. Emmons is a cracker-jack, and naturally I +want you to get a move on yourself and be happy again.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>who has gone over to the window</i>) And this +neurologist can make me happy?</p> +<p>HARRY: Can make you well—and then you'll be happy.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>in the voice of now fixing it all up</i>) And I +had just an idea about Elizabeth. Instead of working with mere +plants, why not think of Elizabeth as a plant and—</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE, <i>who has been looking out of the window, +now throws open one of the panes that swings out—or seems to, +and calls down in great excitement.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Tom! <i>Tom!</i> Quick! Up here! I'm in trouble!</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>going to the window</i>) That's a rotten thing to do, +Claire! You've frightened him.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, how fast he can run. He was deep in thought and I +stabbed right through.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, he'll be none too pleased when he gets up here and +finds there was no reason for the stabbing!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>They wait for his footsteps,</i> HARRY +<i>annoyed,</i> ADELAIDE <i>offended, but stealing worried looks +at</i> CLAIRE, <i>who is looking fixedly at the place in the floor +where</i> TOM <i>will appear.—Running footsteps.</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>his voice getting there before he does</i>) Yes, +Claire—yes—yes—(<i>as his head appears</i>) What +is it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>at once presenting him and answering his +question</i>) My sister.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>gasping</i>) Oh,—why—is that all? I +mean—how do you do? Pardon, I (<i>panting</i>) came +up—rather hurriedly.</p> +<p>HARRY: If you want to slap Claire, Tom, I for one have no +objection.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Adelaide has the most interesting idea, Tom. She +proposes that I take Elizabeth and roll her in the gutter. Just let +her lie there until she breaks up into—</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: <i>Claire!</i> I don't see how—even in +fun—pretty vulgar fun—you can speak in those terms of a +pure young girl. I'm beginning to think I had better take +Elizabeth.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh, I've thought that all along.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: And I'm also beginning to suspect that—oddity +may be just a way of shifting responsibility.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>cordially interested in this possibility</i>) Now +you know—that might be.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: A mother who does not love her own child! You are an +unnatural woman, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Well, at least it saves me from being a natural one.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Oh—I know, you think you have a great deal! But +let me tell you, you've missed a great deal! You've never known the +faintest stirring of a mother's love.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: That's not true.</p> +<p>HARRY: No. Claire loved our boy.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm glad he didn't live.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>low</i>) Claire!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I loved him. Why should I want him to live?</p> +<p>HARRY: Come, dear, I'm sorry I spoke of him—when you're +not feeling well.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm feeling all right. <i>Just</i> because I'm seeing +something, it doesn't mean I'm sick.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, let's go down now. About dinner-time. I shouldn't +wonder if Emmons were here. (<i>as ADELAIDE is starting down +stairs</i>) Coming, Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No.</p> +<p>HARRY: But it's time to go down for dinner.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm not hungry.</p> +<p>HARRY: But we have a guest. Two guests—Adelaide's staying +too.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Then you're not alone.</p> +<p>HARRY: But I invited Dr Emmons to meet you.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>her smile flashing</i>) Tell him I am violent +to-night.</p> +<p>HARRY: Dearest—how can you joke about such things!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: So you do think they're serious?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>irritated</i>) No, I do not! But I want you to come +down for dinner!</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Come, come, Claire; you know quite well this is not +the sort of thing one does.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Why go on saying one doesn't, when you are seeing one +does (<i>to</i> TOM) Will you stay with me a while? I want to +purify the tower.</p> +<p class="dir">(ADELAIDE <i>begins to disappear</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Fine time to choose for a +<i>tête-à-tête. (as he is leaving</i>) I'd think +more of you, Edgeworthy, if you refused to humour Claire in her +ill-breeding.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>her severe voice coming from below</i>) It is not +what she was taught.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No, it's not what I was taught, (<i>laughing rather +timidly</i>) And perhaps you'd rather have your dinner?</p> +<p>TOM: No.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: We'll get something later. I want to talk to you. +(<i>but she does not—laughs</i>) Absurd that I should feel +bashful with you. Why am I so awkward with words when I go to talk +to you?</p> +<p>TOM: The words know they're not needed.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No, they're not needed. There's something +underneath—an open way—down below the way that words +can go. (<i>rather desperately</i>) It is there, isn't it?</p> +<p>TOM: Oh, yes, it is there.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Then why do we never—go it?</p> +<p>TOM: If we went it, it would not be there.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Is that true? How terrible, if that is true.</p> +<p>TOM: Not terrible, wonderful—that it should—of +itself—be there.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with the simplicity that can say anything</i>) I +want to go it, Tom, I'm lonely up on top here. Is it that I have +more faith than you, or is it only that I'm greedier? You see, you +don't know (<i>her reckless laugh</i>) what you're missing. You +don't know how I could love you.</p> +<p>TOM: Don't, Claire; that isn't—how it is—between you +and me.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But why can't it be—every way—between you +and me?</p> +<p>TOM: Because we'd lose—the open way. (<i>the quality of +his denial shows how strong is his feeling for her</i>) With anyone +else—not with you.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But you are the only one I want. The only one—all +of me wants.</p> +<p>TOM: I know; but that's the way it is.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You're cruel.</p> +<p>TOM: Oh, Claire, I'm trying so hard to—save it for us. +Isn't it our beauty and our safeguard that underneath our separate +lives, no matter where we may be, with what other, there is this +open way between us? That's so much more than anything we could +bring to being.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Perhaps. But—it's different with me. I'm +not—all spirit.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>his hand on her</i>) Dear!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No, don't touch me—since (<i>moving</i>) you're +going away to-morrow? (<i>he nods</i>) For—always? (<i>his +head just moves assent</i>) India is just another country. But +there are undiscovered countries.</p> +<p>TOM: Yes, but we are so feeble we have to reach our country +through the actual country lying nearest. Don't you do that +yourself, Claire? Reach your country through the plants' +country?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: My country? You mean—outside?</p> +<p>TOM: No, I don't think it that way.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you do.</p> +<p>TOM: Your country is the inside, Claire. The innermost. You are +disturbed because you lie too close upon the heart of life.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>restlessly</i>) I don't know; you can think it one +way—or another. No way says it, and that's good—at +least it's not shut up in saying. (<i>she is looking at her +enclosing hand, as if something is shut up there</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: But also, you know, things may be freed by expression. Come +from the unrealized into the fabric of life.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, but why does the fabric of life have +to—freeze into its pattern? It should (<i>doing it with her +hands</i>) flow, (<i>then turning like an unsatisfied child to +him</i>) But I wanted to talk to you.</p> +<p>TOM: You are talking to me. Tell me about your flower that never +was before—your Breath of Life.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'll know to-morrow. You'll not go until I know?</p> +<p>TOM: I'll try to stay.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It seems to me, if it has—then I have, integrity +in—(<i>smiles, it is as if the smile lets her say it</i>) +otherness. I don't want to die on the edge!</p> +<p>TOM: Not you!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Many do. It's what makes them too smug in +allness—those dead things on the edge, died, +distorted—trying to get through. Oh—don't think I don't +see—The Edge Vine! (<i>a pause, then swiftly</i>) Do you know +what I mean? Or do you think I'm just a fool, or crazy?</p> +<p>TOM: I think I know what you mean, and you know I don't think +you are a fool, or crazy.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Stabbed to awareness—no matter where it takes you, +isn't that more than a safe place to stay? (<i>telling him very +simply despite the pattern of pain in her voice</i>) Anguish may be +a thread—making patterns that haven't been. A +thread—blue and burning.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>to take her from what even he fears for her</i>) But +you were telling me about the flower you breathed to life. What is +your Breath of Life?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>an instant playing</i>) It's a secret. A +secret?—it's a trick. Distilled from the most fragile flowers +there are. It's only air—pausing—playing; except, far +in, one stab of red, its quivering heart—that asks a +question. But here's the trick—I bred the air-form to +strength. The strength shut up behind us I've sent—far out. +(<i>troubled</i>) I'll know tomorrow. And I have another gift for +Breath of Life; some day—though days of work lie in +between—some day I'll give it reminiscence. Fragrance that +is—no one thing in here but—reminiscent. (<i>silence, +she raises wet eyes</i>) We need the haunting beauty from the life +we've left. I need that, (<i>he takes her hands and breathes her +name</i>) Let me reach my country with you. I'm not a plant. After +all, they don't—accept me. Who does—accept me? Will +you?</p> +<p>TOM: My dear—dear, dear, Claire—you move me so! You +stand alone in a clearness that breaks my heart, (<i>her hands move +up his arms. He takes them to hold them from where they would +go—though he can hardly do it</i>) But you've asked what you +yourself could answer best. We'd only stop in the country where +everyone stops.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: We might come through—to radiance.</p> +<p>TOM: Radiance is an enclosing place.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Perhaps radiance lighting forms undreamed, (<i>her +reckless laugh</i>) I'd be willing to—take a chance, I'd +rather lose than never know.</p> +<p>TOM: No, Claire. Knowing you from underneath, I know you +couldn't bear to lose.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Wouldn't men say you were a fool!</p> +<p>TOM: They would.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And perhaps you are. (<i>he smiles a little</i>) I feel +so desperate, because if only I could—show you what I am, you +might see I could have without losing. But I'm a stammering thing +with you.</p> +<p>TOM: You do show me what you are.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I've known a few moments that were life. Why don't they +help me now? One was in the air. I was up with +Harry—flying—high. It was about four months before +David was born—the doctor was furious—pregnant women +are supposed to keep to earth. We were going fast—I +<i>was</i> flying—I had left the earth. And then—within +me, movement, for the first time—stirred to life far in +air—movement within. The man unborn, he too, would fly. And +so—I always loved him. He was movement—and wonder. In +his short life were many flights. I never told anyone about the +last one. His little bed was by the window—he wasn't four +years old. It was night, but him not asleep. He saw the morning +star—you know—the morning star. +Brighter—stranger—reminiscent—and a promise. He +pointed—'Mother', he asked me, 'what is there—beyond +the stars?' A baby, a sick baby—the morning star. Next +night—the finger that pointed was—(<i>suddenly bites +her own finger</i>) But, yes, I am glad. He would always have tried +to move and too much would hold him. Wonder would die—and +he'd laugh at soaring, (<i>looking down, sidewise</i>) Though I +liked his voice. So I wish you'd stay near me—for I like your +voice, too.</p> +<p>TOM: Claire! That's (<i>choked</i>) almost too much.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>one of her swift glances—canny, almost +practical</i>) Well, I'm glad if it is. How can I make it more? +(<i>but what she sees brings its own change</i>) I know what it is +you're afraid of. It's because I have so much—yes, why +shouldn't I say it?—passion. You feel that in me, don't you? +You think it would swamp everything. But that isn't all there is to +me.</p> +<p>TOM: Oh, I know it! My dearest—why, it's because I know +it! You think I <i>am</i>—a fool?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It's a thing that's—sometimes more than I am. And +yet I—I am more than it is.</p> +<p>TOM: I know. I know about you.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I don't know that you do. Perhaps if you really knew +about me—you wouldn't go away.</p> +<p>TOM: You're making me suffer, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I know I am. I want to. Why shouldn't you suffer? +(<i>now seeing it more clearly than she has ever seen it</i>) You +know what I think about you? You're afraid of suffering, and so you +stop this side—in what you persuade yourself is suffering, +(<i>waits, then sends it straight</i>) You know—how it +is—with me and Dick? (<i>as she sees him suffer</i>) Oh, no, +I don't want to hurt you! Let it be you! I'll teach you—you +needn't scorn it. It's rather wonderful.</p> +<p>TOM: Stop that, Claire! That isn't you.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Why are you so afraid—of letting me be +low—if that is low? You see—(<i>cannily</i>) I believe +in beauty. I have the faith that can be bad as well as good. And +you know why I have the faith? Because sometimes—from my +lowest moments—beauty has opened as the sea. From a cave I +saw immensity.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>My love, you're going away—</p> +<p>Let me tell you how it is with me;</p> +<p>I want to touch you—somehow touch you once before I +die—</p> +<p>Let me tell you how it is with me.</p> +<p class="i2">I do not want to work,</p> +<p>I want to be;</p> +<p>Do not want to make a rose or make a poem—</p> +<p>Want to lie upon the earth and know. (<i>closes her +eyes</i>)</p> +<p>Stop doing that!—words going into patterns;</p> +<p>They do it sometimes when I let come what's there.</p> +<p>Thoughts take pattern—then the pattern is the thing.</p> +<p>But let me tell you how it is with me. (<i>it flows +again</i>)</p> +<p>All that I do or say—it is to what it comes from,</p> +<p>A drop lifted from the sea.</p> +<p>I want to lie upon the earth and know.</p> +<p>But—scratch a little dirt and make a flower;</p> +<p>Scratch a bit of brain—something like a poem. (<i>covering +her face</i>)</p> +<p>Stop <i>doing</i> that. Help me stop doing that!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>TOM: (<i>and from the place where she had carried him</i>)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Don't talk at all. Lie still and know—</p> +<p>And know that I am knowing.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>CLAIRE:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Yes; but we are so weak we have to talk;</p> +<p>To talk—to touch.</p> +<p>Why can't I rest in knowing I would give my life to reach +you?</p> +<p>That has—all there is.</p> +<p>But I must—put my timid hands upon you,</p> +<p>Do something about infinity.</p> +<p>Oh, let what will flow into us,</p> +<p>And fill us full—and leave us still.</p> +<p>Wring me dry,</p> +<p>And let me fill again with life more pure.</p> +<p>To know—to feel,</p> +<p>And do nothing with what I feel and know—</p> +<p>That's being good. That's nearer God.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>drenched in the feeling that has flowed through +her—but surprised—helpless</i>) Why, I said your thing, +didn't I? Opened my life to bring you to me, and what came—is +what sends you away.</p> +<p>TOM: No! What came is what holds us together. What came is what +saves us from ever going apart. (<i>brokenly</i>) My beautiful one. +You—you brave flower of all our knowing.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I am not a flower. I am too torn. If you have +anything—help me. Breathe, Breathe the healing oneness, and +let me know in calm. (<i>with a sob his head rests upon +her</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>her hands on his head, but looking far</i>) +Beauty—you pure one thing. Breathe—Let me know in calm. +Then—trouble me, trouble me, for other moments—in +farther calm. (<i>slow, motionless, barely articulate</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>as she does not move he lifts his head. And even as he +looks at her, she does not move, nor look at him</i>) +Claire—(<i>his hand out to her, a little afraid</i>) You went +away from me then. You are away from me now.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, and I could go on. But I will come back, (<i>it is +hard to do. She brings much with her</i>) That, too, I will give +you—my by-myself-ness. That's the uttermost I can give. I +never thought—to try to give it. But let us do it—the +great sacrilege! Yes! (<i>excited, she rises; she has his hands, +and bring him up beside her</i>) Let us take the mad chance! +Perhaps it's the only way to save—what's there. How do we +know? How can we know? Risk. Risk everything. From all that flows +into us, let it rise! All that we never thought to use to make a +moment—let it flow into what could be! Bring all into life +between us—or send all down to death! Oh, do you know what I +am doing? Risk, risk everything, why are you so afraid to lose? +What holds you from me? Test all. Let it live or let it die. It is +our chance—our chance to bear—what's there. My dear +one—I will love you so. With all of me. I am not afraid +now—of—all of me. Be generous. Be unafraid. Life is for +<i>life</i>—though it cuts us from the farthest life. How can +I make you know that's true? All that we're open +to—(<i>hesitates, shudders</i>) But yes—I will, I will +risk the life that waits. Perhaps only he who gives his +loneliness—shall find. You never keep by holding, (<i>gesture +of giving</i>) To the uttermost. And it is gone—or it is +there. You do not know and—that makes the +moment—(<i>music has begun—a phonograph downstairs; +they do not heed it</i>) Just as I would cut my +wrists—(<i>holding them out</i>) Yes, perhaps this lesser +thing will tell it—would cut my wrists and let the blood flow +out till all is gone if my last drop would make—would +make—(<i>looking at them fascinated</i>) I want to see it +doing that! Let me give my last chance for life to—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He snatches her—they are on the brink of +their moment; now that there are no words the phonograph from +downstairs is louder. It is playing languorously the Barcarole; +they become conscious of this—they do not want to be touched +by the love song.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Don't listen. That's nothing. This isn't that, +(<i>fearing</i>) I tell you—it isn't that. Yes, I +know—that's amorous—enclosing. I know—a little +place. This isn't that, (<i>her arms going around him—all the +lure of 'that' while she pleads against it as it comes up to +them</i>) We will come out—to radiance—in far places +(<i>admitting, using</i>) Oh, then let it be that! Go with it. Give +up—the otherness. I will! And in the giving up—perhaps +a door—we'd never find by searching. And if it's no +more—than all have known, I only say it's worth the allness! +(<i>her arms wrapped round him</i>) My love—my love—let +go your pride in loneliness and let me give you joy!</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>drenched in her passion, but fighting</i>) It's +<i>you</i>. (<i>in anguish</i>) You rare thing +untouched—not—not into this—not back into +this—by me—lover of your apartness.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She steps back. She sees he cannot. She stands +there, before what she wanted more than life, and almost had, and +lost. A long moment. Then she runs down the stairs.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>her voice coming up</i>) Harry! Choke that +phonograph! If you want to be lewd—do it yourselves! You +tawdry things—you cheap little lewd cowards, (<i>a door heard +opening below</i>) Harry! If you don't stop that music, I'll kill +myself.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>far down, steps on stairs</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire, what <i>is</i> this?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Stop that phonograph or I'll—</p> +<p>HARRY: Why, of course I'll stop it. What—what is there to +get so excited about? Now—now just a minute, dear. It'll take +a minute.</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE <i>comes back upstairs, dragging steps, face +ghastly. The amorous song still comes up, and louder now that doors +are open. She and</i> TOM <i>do not look at one another. Then, on a +languorous swell the music comes to a grating stop. They do not +speak or move. Quick footsteps</i>—HARRY <i>comes +up</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: What in the world were you saying, Claire? Certainly you +could have asked me more quietly to turn off the Victrola. Though +what harm was it doing you—way up here? (<i>a sharp little +sound from</i> CLAIRE; <i>she checks it, her hand over her +mouth</i>. HARRY <i>looks from her to</i> TOM) Well, I think you +two would better have had your dinner. Won't you come down now and +have some?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>only now taking her hand from her mouth</i>) Harry, +tell him to come up here—that insanity man. I—want to +ask him something.</p> +<p>HARRY: 'Insanity man!' How absurd. He's a nerve specialist. +There's a vast difference.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Is there? Anyway, ask him to come up here. Want +to—ask him something.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>speaking with difficulty</i>) Wouldn't it be better for +us to go down there?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No. So nice up here! Everybody—up here!</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>worried</i>) You'll—be yourself, will you, +Claire? (<i>She checks a laugh, nods</i>.) I think he can help +you.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Want to ask him to—help me.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>as he is starting down</i>) He's here as a guest +to-night, you know, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I suppose a guest can—help one.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>when the silence rejects it</i>) Claire, you must know, +it's because it is so much, so—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Be still. There isn't anything to say.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>torn—tortured</i>) If it only weren't +<i>you</i>!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes,—so you said. If it weren't. I suppose I +wouldn't be so—interested! (<i>hears them starting up +below—keeps looking at the place where they will +appear</i>)</p> +<p class="dir">(HARRY <i>is heard to call</i>, 'Coming, Dick?' +<i>and</i> DICK's <i>voice replies</i>, 'In a moment or two.' +ADELAIDE <i>comes first</i>.)</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>as her head appears</i>) Well, these stairs should +keep down weight. You missed an awfully good dinner, Claire. And +kept Mr Edgeworth from a good dinner.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes. We missed our dinner. (<i>her eyes do not leave the +place where</i> DR EMMONS <i>will come up</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>as he and</i> EMMONS <i>appear</i>) Claire, this +is—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, I know who he is. I want to ask you—</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Let the poor man get his breath before you ask him +anything. (<i>he nods, smiles, looks at</i> CLAIRE <i>with +interest. Careful not to look too long at her, surveys the +tower</i>)</p> +<p>EMMONS: Curious place.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Yes; it lacks form, doesn't it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: What do you mean? How <i>dare</i> you?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>It is impossible to ignore her agitation; she is +backed against the curved wall, as far as possible from them.</i> +HARRY <i>looks at her in alarm, then in resentment at</i> TOM, +<i>who takes a step nearer</i> CLAIRE.)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>trying to be light</i>) Don't take it so hard, +Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>to</i> EMMONS) It must be very +interesting—helping people go insane.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Claire! How preposterous.</p> +<p>EMMONS: (<i>easily</i>) I hope that's not precisely what we +do.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>with the smile of one who is going to 'cover +it'.</i>) Trust Claire to put it in the unique and—amusing +way.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Amusing? You are amused? But it doesn't matter, (<i>to +the doctor</i>) I think it is very kind of you—helping people +go insane. I suppose they have all sorts of reasons for having to +do it—reasons why they can't stay sane any longer. But tell +me, how do they do it? It's not so easy to—get out. How do so +many manage it?</p> +<p>EMMONS: I'd like immensely to have a talk with you about all +this some day.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Certainly this is not the time, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: The time? When you—can't go any +farther—isn't that that—</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>capably taking the whole thing into +matter-of-factness</i>) What I think is, Claire has worked too long +with plants. There's something—not quite sound about making +one thing into another thing. What we need is unity. (<i>from</i> +CLAIRE <i>something like a moan</i>) Yes, dear, we do need it. +(<i>to the doctor</i>) I can't say that I believe in making life +over like this. I don't think the new species are worth it. At +least I don't believe in it for Claire. If one is an intense, +sensitive person—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Isn't there any way to <i>stop</i> her? +Always—always smothering it with the word for it?</p> +<p>EMMONS: (<i>soothingly</i>) But she can't smother it. Anything +that's really there—she can't hurt with words.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>looking at him with eyes too bright</i>) Then you +don't see it either, (<i>angry</i>) Yes, she can hurt it! Piling it +up—always piling it up—between us and—What there. +Clogging the way—always, (<i>to</i> EMMONS) I want to cease +to know! That's all I ask. Darken it. Darken it. If you came to +help me, strike me blind!</p> +<p>EMMONS: You're really all tired out, aren't you? Oh, we've got +to get you rested.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: They—deny it saying they have it; and he (<i>half +looks at</i> TOM<i>—quickly looks away</i>)—others, +deny it—afraid of losing it. We're in the way. Can't you see +the dead stuff piled in the path? (<i>Pointing.</i>)</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>voice coming up</i>) Me too?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>staring at the path, hearing his voice a moment +after it has come</i>) Yes, Dick—you too. Why not—you +too. (<i>after he has come up</i>) What is there any more than you +are?</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>embarrassed by the intensity, but laughing</i>) A +question not at all displeasing to me. Who can answer it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>more and more excited</i>) Yes! Who can answer it? +(<i>going to him, in terror</i>) Let me go with you—and be +with you—and know nothing else!</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>gasping</i>) Why—!</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire! This is going a little too—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Far? But you have to go far to—(<i>clinging to</i> +DICK) Only a place to hide your head—what else is there to +hope for? I can't stay with them—piling it up! +Always—piling it up! I can't get through to—he won't +let me through to—what I don't know is there! (DICK <i>would +help her regain herself</i>) Don't push me away! Don't—don't +stand me up, I will go back—to the worst we ever were! Go +back—and remember—what we've tried to forget!</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: It's time to stop this by force—if there's no +other way. (<i>the doctor shakes his head</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: All I ask is to die in the gutter with everyone spitting +on me. (<i>changes to a curious weary smiling quiet</i>) Still, why +should they bother to do that?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>brokenly</i>) You're sick, Claire. There's no denying +it. (<i>looks at</i> EMMONS, <i>who nods</i>)</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Something to quiet her—to stop it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>throwing her arms around</i> DICK) You, Dick. Not +them. Not—any of them.</p> +<p>DICK: Claire, you are overwrought. You must—</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>to</i> DICK, <i>as if only now realizing that phase +of it</i>) I'll tell you one thing, you'll answer to me for this! +(<i>he starts for</i> DICK—<i>is restrained by</i> EMMONS, +<i>chiefly by his grave shake of the head. With</i> HARRY<i>'s move +to them,</i> DICK <i>has shielded</i> CLAIRE)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes—hold me. Keep me. You have mercy! You will +have mercy. Anything—everything—that will let me be +nothing!</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<h3>ACT III</h3> +<p class="scene"><i>In the greenhouse, the same as Act I.</i> +ANTHONY <i>is bedding small plants where the Edge Vine grew. In the +inner room the plant like caught motion glows as from a light +within.</i> HATTIE, <i>the Maid, rushes in from outside.</i></p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>turning angrily</i>) You are not what this +place—</p> +<p>HATTIE: Anthony, come in the house. I'm afraid. Mr Archer, I +never saw him like this. He's talking to Mr Demming—something +about Mrs Archer.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>who in spite of himself is disturbed by her +agitation</i>) And if it is, it's no business of yours.</p> +<p>HATTIE: You don't know how he <i>is</i>. I went in the room +and—</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Well, he won't hurt you, will he?</p> +<p>HATTIE: How do I know who he'll hurt—a person's +whose—(<i>seeing how to get him</i>) Maybe he'll hurt Mrs +Archer.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>startled, then smiles</i>) No; he won't hurt Miss +Claire.</p> +<p>HATTIE: What do you know about it?—out here in the plant +house?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: And I don't want to know about it. This is a very +important day for me. It's Breath of Life I'm thinking of +today—not you and Mr Archer.</p> +<p>HATTIE: Well, suppose he does something to Mr Demming?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Mr Demming will have to look out for himself, I am at +work.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>resuming work</i>)</p> +<p>HATTIE: Don't you think I ought to tell Mrs Archer +that—</p> +<p>ANTHONY: You let her alone! This is no day for her to be +bothered by you. At eleven o'clock (<i>looks at watch</i>) she +comes out here—to Breath of Life.</p> +<p>HATTIE: (<i>with greed for gossip</i>) Did you see any of them +when they came downstairs last night?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: I was attending to my own affairs.</p> +<p>HATTIE: They was all excited. Mr Edgeworth—he went away. +He was gone all night, I guess. I saw him coming back just as the +milkman woke me up. Now he's packing his things. <i>He</i> wanted +to get to Mrs Archer too—just a little while ago. But she +won't open her door for none of them. I can't even get in to do her +room.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Then do some other room—and leave me alone in +this room.</p> +<p>HATTIE: (<i>a little afraid of what she is asking</i>) Is she +sick, Anthony—or what? (<i>vindicating herself, as he gives +her a look</i>) The doctor, he stayed here late. But she'd locked +herself in. I heard Mr Archer—</p> +<p>ANTHONY: You heard too much! (<i>he starts for the door, to make +her leave, but</i> DICK <i>rushes in. Looks around wildly, goes to +the trap-door, finds it locked</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: What are you doing here?</p> +<p>DICK: Trying not to be shot—if you must know. This is the +only place I can think of—till he comes to his senses and I +can get away. Open that, will you? +Rather—ignominious—but better be absurd than be +dead.</p> +<p>HATTIE: Has he got the revolver?</p> +<p>DICK: Gone for it. Thought I wouldn't sit there till he got +back, (<i>to</i> ANTHONY) Look here—don't you get the idea? +Get me some place where he can't come.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: It is not what this place is for.</p> +<p>DICK: Any place is for saving a man's life.</p> +<p>HATTIE: Sure, Anthony. Mrs Archer wouldn't want Mr Demming +shot.</p> +<p>DICK: That's right, Anthony. Miss Claire will be angry at you if +you get me shot. (<i>he makes for the door of the inner +room</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: You can't go in there. It's locked. (HARRY <i>rushes in +from outside</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: I thought so! (<i>he has the revolver</i>. HATTIE +<i>screams</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Now, Mr Archer, if you'll just stop and think, you'll +know Miss Claire wouldn't want Mr Demming shot.</p> +<p>HARRY: You think that can stop me? You think you can stop me? +(<i>raising the revolver</i>) A dog that—</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>keeping squarely between</i> HARRY <i>and</i> DICK) +Well, you can't shoot him in here. It is not good for the plants. +(HARRY <i>is arrested by this reason</i>) And especially not today. +Why, Mr Archer, Breath of Life may flower today. It's years Miss +Claire's been working for this day.</p> +<p>HARRY: I never thought to see this day!</p> +<p>ANTHONY: No, did you? Oh, it will be a wonderful day. And how +she has worked for it. She has an eye that sees what isn't right in +what looks right. Many's the time I've thought—Here the form +is set—and then she'd say, 'We'll try this one', and it +had—what I hadn't known was there. She's like that.</p> +<p>HARRY: I've always been pleased, Anthony, at the way you've +worked with Miss Claire. This is hardly the time to stand there +eulogizing her. And she's (<i>can hardly say it</i>) things you +don't know she is.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>proudly</i>) Oh, I know that! You think I could +work with her and not know she's more than I know she is?</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, if you love her you've got to let me shoot the +dirty dog that drags her down!</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Not in here. Not today. More than like you'd break the +glass. And Breath of Life's in there.</p> +<p>HARRY: Anthony, this is pretty clever of +you—but—</p> +<p>ANTHONY: I'm not clever. But I know how easy it is to turn life +back. No, I'm not clever at all (CLAIRE <i>has appeared and is +looking in from outside</i>), but I do know—there are things +you mustn't hurt, (<i>he sees her</i>) Yes, here's Miss Claire.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She comes in. She is looking +immaculate.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: From the gutter I rise again, refreshed. One does, you +know. Nothing is fixed—not even the gutter, (<i>smilingly +to</i> HARRY <i>and refusing to notice revolver or agitation</i>) +How did you like the way I entertained the nerve specialist?</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire! You can <i>joke</i> about it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>taking the revolver from the hand she has shocked to +limpness</i>) Whom are you trying to make hear?</p> +<p>HARRY: I'm trying to make the world hear that (<i>pointing</i>) +there stands a dirty dog who—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Listen, Harry, (<i>turning to</i> HATTIE, <i>who is over +by the tall plants at right, not wanting to be shot but not wanting +to miss the conversation</i>) You can do my room now, Hattie. +(<i>HATTIE goes</i>) If you're thinking of shooting Dick, you can't +shoot him while he's backed up against that door.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Just what I told them, Miss Claire. Just what I told +them.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And for that matter, it's quite dull of you to have any +idea of shooting him.</p> +<p>HARRY: I may be dull—I know you think I am—but I'll +show you that I've enough of the man in me to—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: To make yourself ridiculous? If I ran out and hid my +head in the mud, would you think you had to shoot the mud?</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>stung out of fear</i>) That's pretty cruel!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Well, would you rather be shot?</p> +<p>HARRY: So you just said it to protect him!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I change it to grass, (<i>nodding to</i> DICK) Grass. If +I hid my face in the grass, would you have to burn the grass?</p> +<p>HARRY: Oh, Claire, how <i>can</i> you? When you know how I love +you—and how I'm suffering?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with interest</i>) Are you suffering?</p> +<p>HARRY: Haven't you <i>eyes</i>?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I should think it would—do something to you.</p> +<p>HARRY: God! Have you no heart? (<i>the door opens.</i> TOM +<i>comes in</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>scarcely saying it</i>) Yes, I have a heart.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>after a pause</i>) I came to say good-bye.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: God! Have you no heart? Can't you at least wait till +Dick is shot?</p> +<p>TOM: Claire! (<i>now sees the revolver in her hand that is +turned from him. Going to her</i>) Claire!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And even you think this is so important? (<i>carelessly +raises the revolver, and with her left hand out flat, tells</i> TOM +<i>not to touch her</i>) Harry thinks it important he shoot Dick, +and Dick thinks it important not to be shot, and you think I +mustn't shoot anybody—even myself—and can't any of you +see that none of that is as important as—where revolvers +can't reach? (<i>putting revolver where there is no Edge Vine</i>) +I shall never shoot myself. I'm too interested in destruction to +cut it short by shooting. (<i>after looking from one to the other, +laughs. Pointing</i>) One—two—three. You-love-me. But +why do you bring it out here?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>who has resumed work</i>) It is not what this place +is for.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No this place is for the destruction that can get +through.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Miss Claire, it is eleven. At eleven we are to go in +and see—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Whether it has gone through. But how can we +go—with Dick against the door?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: He'll have to move.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And be shot?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>irritably</i>) Oh, he'll not be shot. Claire can +spoil anything.</p> +<p class="dir">(DICK <i>steps away from the door</i>; CLAIRE +<i>takes a step nearer it</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>halting</i>) Have I spoiled everything? I don't want +to go in there.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: We're going in together, Miss Claire. Don't you +remember? Oh (<i>looking resentfully at the others</i>) don't let +any little thing spoil it for you—the work of all those +days—the hope of so many days.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes—that's it.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: You're afraid you haven't done it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, but—afraid I have.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>cross, but kindly</i>) That's just nervousness, +Claire. I've had the same feeling myself about making a record in +flying.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>curiously grateful</i>) You have, Harry?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>glad enough to be back in a more usual world</i>) +Sure. I've been afraid to know, and almost as afraid of having done +it as of not having done it.</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE <i>nods, steps nearer, then again pulls +back</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I can't go in there. (<i>she almost looks at</i> TOM) +Not today.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: But, Miss Claire, there'll be things to see today we +can't see tomorrow.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You bring it in here!</p> +<p>ANTHONY: In—out from its own place? (<i>she nods</i>) +And—where they are? (<i>again she nods. Reluctantly he goes +to the door</i>) I will not look into the heart. No one must know +before you know.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>In the inner room, his head a little turned +away, he is seen very carefully to lift the plant which glows from +within. As he brings it in, no one looks at it</i>. HARRY <i>takes +a box of seedlings from a stand and puts them on the floor, that +the newcomer may have a place</i>.)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Breath of Life is here, Miss Claire.</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE <i>half turns, then stops.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Look—and see—what you see.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: No one should see what you've not seen.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I can't see—until I know.</p> +<p class="dir">(ANTHONY <i>looks into the flower.</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>agitated</i>) Miss Claire!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It has come through?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: It has gone on.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Stronger?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Stronger, surer.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And more fragile?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: And more fragile.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Look deep. No—turning back?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>after a searching look</i>) The form is set. (<i>he +steps back from it</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Then it is—out. (<i>from where she stands she +turns slowly to the plant</i>) You weren't. You are.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: But come and see, Miss Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It's so much more than—I'd see.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, I'm going to see. (<i>looking into it</i>) I never +saw anything like that before! There seems something +alive—inside this outer shell.</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>he too looking in and he has an artist's manner of a +hand up to make the light right</i>) It's quite new in form. +It—says something about form.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>cordially to</i> CLAIRE, <i>who stands apart</i>) So +you've really put it over. Well, well,—congratulations. It's +a good deal of novelty, I should say, and I've no doubt you'll have +a considerable success with it—people always like something +new. I'm mighty glad—after all your work, and I hope it +will—set you up.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>low—and like a machine</i>) Will you +all—go away?</p> +<p class="dir">(ANTHONY <i>goes—into the other room.</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Why—why, yes. But—oh, Claire! Can't you take +some pleasure in your work? (<i>as she stands there very still</i>) +Emmons says you need a good long rest—and I think he's +right.</p> +<p>TOM: Can't this help you, Claire? Let this be release. +This—breath of the uncaptured.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>and though speaking, she remains just as +still</i>)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Breath of the uncaptured?</p> +<p>You are a novelty.</p> +<p>Out?</p> +<p>You have been brought in.</p> +<p>A thousand years from now, when you are but a form too long +repeated,</p> +<p>Perhaps the madness that gave you birth will burst again,</p> +<p>And from the prison that is you will leap pent queernesses</p> +<p>To make a form that hasn't been—</p> +<p>To make a person new.</p> +<p>And this we call creation, (<i>very low, her head not coming +up</i>)</p> +<p>Go away!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(TOM <i>goes</i>; HARRY <i>hesitates, looking in +anxiety at</i> CLAIRE. <i>He starts to go, stops, looks at</i> +DICK, <i>from him to</i> CLAIRE. <i>But goes. A moment later</i> +DICK <i>moves near</i> CLAIRE; <i>stands uncertainly, then puts a +hand upon her. She starts, only then knowing he is there.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>a slight shrinking away, but not really reached</i>) +Um, um.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He goes</i>. CLAIRE <i>steps nearer her +creation. She looks into what hasn't been. With her breath, and by +a gentle moving of her hands, she fans it to fuller openness. As +she does this</i> TOM <i>returns and from outside is looking in at +her. Softly he opens the door and comes in. She does not know that +he is there. In the way she looks at the flower he looks at +her.</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: Claire, (<i>she lifts her head</i>) As you stood there, +looking into the womb you breathed to life, you were beautiful to +me beyond any other beauty. You were life and its reach and its +anguish. I can't go away from you. I will never go away from you. +It shall all be—as you wish. I can go with you where I could +not go alone. If this is delusion, I want that delusion. It's more +than any reality I could attain, (<i>as she does not move</i>) +Speak to me, Claire. You—are glad?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>from far</i>) Speak to you? (<i>pause</i>) Do I know +who you are?</p> +<p>TOM: I think you do.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh, yes. I love you. That's who you are. (<i>waits +again</i>) But why are you something—very far away?</p> +<p>TOM: Come nearer.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Nearer? (<i>feeling it with her voice</i>) Nearer. But I +think I am going—the other way.</p> +<p>TOM: No, Claire—come to me. Did you understand, dear? I am +not going away.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You're not going away?</p> +<p>TOM: Not without you, Claire. And you and I will be together. Is +that—what you wanted?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Wanted? (<i>as if wanting is something that harks far +back. But the word calls to her passion</i>) Wanted! (<i>a sob, +hands out, she goes to him. But before his arms can take her, she +steps back</i>) Are you trying to pull me down into what I wanted? +Are you here to make me stop?</p> +<p>TOM: How can you ask that? I love you because it is not in you +to stop.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And loving me for that—would stop me? Oh, help me +see it! It is so important that I see it.</p> +<p>TOM: It is important. It is our lives.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And more than that. I cannot see it because it is so +much more than that.</p> +<p>TOM: Don't try to see all that it is. From peace you'll see a +little more.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Peace? (<i>troubled as we are when looking at what we +cannot see clearly</i>) What is peace? Peace is what the struggle +knows in moments very far apart. Peace—that is not a place to +rest. Are you resting? What are you? You who'd take me from what I +am to something else?</p> +<p>TOM: I thought you knew, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I know—what you pass for. But are you beauty? +Beauty is that only living pattern—the trying to take +pattern. Are you trying?</p> +<p>TOM: Within myself, Claire. I never thought you doubted +that.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Beauty is it. (<i>she turns to Breath of Life, as if to +learn it there, but turns away with a sob</i>) If I cannot go to +you now—I will always be alone.</p> +<p class="dir">(TOM <i>takes her in his arms. She is shaken, then +comes to rest.</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: Yes—rest. And then—come into joy. You have so +much life for joy.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>raising her head, called by promised gladness</i>) +We'll run around together. (<i>lovingly he nods</i>) Up hills. All +night on hills.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>tenderly</i>) All night on hills.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: We'll go on the sea in a little boat.</p> +<p>TOM: On the sea in a little boat.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But—there are other boats on other seas, +(<i>drawing back from him, troubled</i>) There are other boats on +other seas.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>drawing her back to him</i>) My dearest—not now, +not now.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>her arms going round him</i>) Oh, I would love those +hours with you. I want them. I want you! (<i>they kiss—but +deep in her is sobbing</i>) Reminiscence, (<i>her hand feeling his +arm as we touch what we would remember</i>) Reminiscence. (<i>with +one of her swift changes steps back from him</i>) How dare you pass +for what you're not? We are tired, and so we think it's you. Stop +with you. Don't get through—to what you're in the way of. +Beauty is not something you say about beauty.</p> +<p>TOM: I say little about beauty, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Your life says it. By standing far off you pass for it. +Smother it with a life that passes for it. But +beauty—(<i>getting it from the flower</i>) Beauty is the +humility breathed from the shame of succeeding.</p> +<p>TOM: But it may all be within one's self, dear.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>drawn by this, but held, and desperate because she +is held</i>) When I have wanted you with all my wanting—why +must I distrust you now? When I love you—with all of me, why +do I know that only you are worth my hate?</p> +<p>TOM: It's the fear of easy satisfactions. I love you for it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>over the flower</i>) Breath of Life—you here? +Are you lonely—Breath of Life?</p> +<p>TOM: Claire—hear me! Don't go where we can't go. As there +you made a shell for life within, make for yourself a life in which +to live. It must be so.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: As you made for yourself a shell called beauty?</p> +<p>TOM: What is there for you, if you'll have no touch with what we +have?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: What is there? There are the dreams we haven't dreamed. +There is the long and flowing pattern, (<i>she follows that, but +suddenly and as if blindly goes to him</i>) I am tired. I am +lonely. I'm afraid, (<i>he holds her, soothing. But she steps back +from him</i>) And because we are tired—lonely—and +afraid, we stop with you. Don't get through—to what you're in +the way of.</p> +<p>TOM: Then you don't love me?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm fighting for my chance. I don't know—which +chance.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Is drawn to the other chance, to Breath of Life. +Looks into it as if to look through to the uncaptured. And through +this life just caught comes the truth she chants.</i>)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I've wallowed at a coarse man's feet,</p> +<p>I'm sprayed with dreams we've not yet come to.</p> +<p>I've gone so low that words can't get there,</p> +<p>I've never pulled the mantle of my fears around me</p> +<p>And called it loneliness—And called it God.</p> +<p>Only with life that waits have I kept faith.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>with effort raising her eyes to the man</i>)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And only you have ever threatened me.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>TOM: (<i>coming to her, and with strength now</i>) And I will +threaten you. I'm here to hold you from where I know you cannot go. +You're trying what we can't do.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: What else is there worth trying?</p> +<p>TOM: I love you, and I will keep you—from +fartherness—from harm. You are mine, and you will stay with +me! (<i>roughly</i>) You hear me? You will stay with me!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>her head on his breast, in ecstasy of rest. +Drowsily</i>) You can keep me?</p> +<p>TOM: Darling! I can keep you. I will keep you—safe.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>troubled by the word, but barely able to raise her +head</i>) Safe?</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>bringing her to rest again</i>) Trust me, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>not lifting her head, but turning it so she sees +Breath of Life</i>) Now can I trust—what is? (<i>suddenly +pushing him roughly away</i>) No! I will beat my life to pieces in +the struggle to—</p> +<p>TOM: To <i>what</i>, Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Not to stop it by seeming to have it. (<i>with fury</i>) +I will keep my life low—low—that I may never stop +myself—or anyone—with the thought it's what <i>I</i> +have. I'd rather be the steam rising from the manure than be a +thing called beautiful! (<i>with sight too clear</i>) Now I know +who you are. It is you puts out the breath of life. Image of +beauty—<i>You fill the place—should be a gate.</i> +(<i>in agony</i>) Oh, that it is <i>you</i>—fill the +place—should be a gate! My darling! That it should be you +who—(<i>her hands moving on him</i>) Let me tell you +something. Never was loving strong as my loving of you! Do you know +that? Oh, know that! Know it now! (<i>her arms go around his +neck</i>) Hours with you—I'd give my life to have! That it +should be you—(<i>he would loosen her hands, for he cannot +breathe. But when she knows she is choking him, that knowledge is +fire burning its way into the last passion</i>) It <i>is</i> you. +It is you.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>words coming from a throat not free</i>) Claire! What +are you doing? (<i>then she knows what she is doing</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>to his resistance</i>) No! You are <i>too much</i>! +You are <i>not enough</i>. (<i>still wanting not to hurt her, he is +slow in getting free. He keeps stepping backward trying, in growing +earnest, to loosen her hands. But he does not loosen them before +she has found the place in his throat that cuts off breath. As he +gasps</i>)</p> +<p>Breath of Life—my gift—to you!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She has pushed him against one of the plants at +right as he sways, strength she never had before pushes him over +backward, just as they have struggled from sight. Violent crash of +glass is heard.</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>faint smothered voice</i>) <i>No</i>. +I'm—hurt.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>in the frenzy and agony of killing</i>) Oh, gift! +Oh, gift! (<i>there is no sound.</i></p> +<p>CLAIRE <i>rises—steps back—is seen now; is looking +down</i>) Gift.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Like one who does not know where she is, she +moves into the room—looks around. Takes a step toward Breath +of Life; turns and goes quickly to the door. Stops, as if stopped. +Sees the revolver where the Edge Vine was. Slowly goes to it. Holds +it as if she cannot think what it is for. Then raises it high and +fires above through the place in the glass left open for +ventilation</i>. ANTHONY <i>comes from the inner room. His eyes go +from her to the body beyond</i>. HARRY <i>rushes in from +outside</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: Who fired that?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I did. Lonely.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Seeing</i> ANTHONY'S <i>look</i>, HARRY <i>'s +eyes follow it</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: Oh! What? What? (DICK <i>comes running in</i>) Who? +Claire!</p> +<p class="dir">(DICK <i>sees—goes to</i> TOM)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes. I did it. MY—Gift.</p> +<p>HARRY: Is he—? He isn't—? He isn't—?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Tries to go in there. Cannot—there is the +sound of broken glass, of a position being changed—then</i> +DICK <i>reappears</i>.)</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>his voice in jerks</i>) It's—it's no use, but +I'll go for a doctor.</p> +<p>HARRY: No—no. Oh, I suppose—(<i>falling down +beside</i> CLAIRE—<i>his face against her</i>) My darling! +How can I save you now?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>speaking each word very carefully</i>) +Saved—myself.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: I did it. Don't you see? I didn't want so many around. +Not—what this place is for.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>snatching at this but lets it go</i>) She wouldn't +let—(<i>looking up at</i> CLAIRE—<i>then quickly hiding +his face</i>) And—don't you see?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Out. (<i>a little like a child's pleased surprise</i>) +Out.</p> +<p class="dir">(DICK <i>stands there, as if unable to get to the +door—his face distorted, biting his hand</i>.)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Miss Claire! You can do anything—won't you +try?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Reminiscence? (<i>speaking the word as if she has left +even that, but smiles a little</i>)</p> +<p class="dir">(ANTHONY <i>takes Reminiscence, the flower she was +breeding for fragrance for Breath of Life—holds it out to +her. But she has taken a step forward, past them all</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Out. (<i>as if feeling her way</i>)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Nearer,</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Her voice now feeling the way to it</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza">Nearer—</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Voice almost upon it</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>—my God,</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Falling upon it with surprise</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>to Thee,</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Breathing it</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Nearer—to Thee,</p> +<p>E'en though it be—</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>A slight turn of the head toward the dead man +she loves—a mechanical turn just as far the other +way</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>a cross</p> +<p>That</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Her head going down</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>raises me;</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Her head slowly coming up—singing +it</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Still all my song shall be,</p> +<p>Nearer, my—</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Slowly the curtain begins to shut her out. The +last word heard is the final</i> Nearer—<i>a faint breath +from far</i>.)</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<a name="INHERITORS"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<h2>INHERITORS</h2> +<p><i>Inheritors</i> was first performed at the Provincetown +Playhouse on April 27, 1921.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>SMITH (a young business man)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER (SILAS MORTON'S mother)</p> +<p>SILAS MORTON (a pioneer farmer)</p> +<p>FELIX FEJEVARY, the First (an exiled Hungarian nobleman)</p> +<p>FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second (his son, a Harvard student)</p> +<p>FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second (a banker)</p> +<p>SENATOR LEWIS (a State Senator)</p> +<p>HORACE FEJEVARY (son of FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second)</p> +<p>DORIS (a student at Morton College)</p> +<p>FUSSIE (another college girl)</p> +<p>MADELINE FEJEVARY MORTON (daughter of IRA MORTON, and +granddaughter of</p> +<p>SILAS MORTON)</p> +<p>ISABEL FEJEVARY (wife of FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second, and +MADELINE'S aunt)</p> +<p>HARRY (a student clerk)</p> +<p>HOLDEN (Professor at Morton College)</p> +<p>IRA MORTON (son of SILAS MORTON, and MADELINE'S father)</p> +<p>EMIL JOHNSON (an Americanized Swede)</p> +<h3>ACT I</h3> +<p class="scene">SCENE: <i>Sitting-room of the Mortons' farmhouse +in the Middle West—on the rolling prairie just back from the +Mississippi. A room that has been long and comfortably lived in, +and showing that first-hand contact with materials which was +pioneer life. The hospitable table was made on the place—well +and strongly made; there are braided rugs, and the wooden chairs +have patchwork cushions. There is a corner closet—left rear. +A picture of Abraham Lincoln. On the floor a home-made toy boat. At +rise of curtain there are on the stage an old woman and a young +man.</i> GRANDMOTHER MORTON <i>is in her rocking-chair near the +open door, facing left. On both sides of door are windows, looking +out on a generous land. She has a sewing basket and is patching a +boy's pants. She is very old. Her hands tremble. Her spirit +remembers the days of her strength.</i></p> +<p>SMITH <i>has just come in and, hat in hand, is standing by the +table. This was lived in the year 1879, afternoon of Fourth of +July.</i></p> +<p>SMITH: But the celebration was over two hours ago.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Oh, celebration, that's just the beginning of it. +Might as well set down. When them boys that fought together all get +in one square—they have to swap stories all over again. +That's the worst of a war—you have to go on hearing about it +so long. Here it is—1879—and we haven't taken +Gettysburg yet. Well, it was the same way with the war of 1832.</p> +<p>SMITH: (<i>who is now seated at the table</i>) The war of +1832?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: News to you that we had a war with the Indians?</p> +<p>SMITH: That's right—the Blackhawk war. I've heard of +it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Heard of it!</p> +<p>SMITH: Were your men in that war?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I was in that war. I threw an Indian in the cellar +and stood on the door. I was heavier then.</p> +<p>SMITH: Those were stirring times.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: More stirring than you'll ever see. This +war—Lincoln's war—it's all a cut and dried business +now. We used to fight with anything we could lay hands +on—dish water—whatever was handy.</p> +<p>SMITH: I guess you believe the saying that the only good Indian +is a dead Indian.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. We roiled them up considerable. They was +mostly friendly when let be. Didn't want to give up their +land—but I've noticed something of the same nature in white +folks.</p> +<p>SMITH: Your son has—something of that nature, hasn't +he?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: He's not keen to sell. Why should he? It'll never +be worth less.</p> +<p>SMITH: But since he has more land than any man can use, and if +he gets his price—</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: That what you've come to talk to him about?</p> +<p>SMITH: I—yes.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, you're not the first. Many a man older than +you has come to argue it.</p> +<p>SMITH: (<i>smiling</i>) They thought they'd try a young one.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Some one that knew him thought that up. Silas'd +help a young one if he could. What is it you're set on buying?</p> +<p>SMITH: Oh, I don't know that we're set on buying anything. If we +could have the hill (<i>looking off to the right</i>) at a fair +price—</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: The hill above the town? Silas'd rather sell me and +the cat.</p> +<p>SMITH: But what's he going to do with it?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Maybe he's going to climb it once a week.</p> +<p>SMITH: But if the development of the town demands its +use—</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>smiling</i>) You the development of the +town?</p> +<p>SMITH: I represent it. This town has been growing so +fast—</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: This town began to grow the day I got here.</p> +<p>SMITH: You—you began it?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: My husband and I began it—and our baby +Silas.</p> +<p>SMITH: When was that?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: 1820, that was.</p> +<p>SMITH: And—you mean you were here all alone?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: No, we weren't alone. We had the Owens ten miles +down the river.</p> +<p>SMITH: But how did you get here?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Got here in a wagon, how do you s'pose? +(<i>gaily</i>) Think we flew?</p> +<p>SMITH: But wasn't it unsafe?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Them set on safety stayed back in Ohio.</p> +<p>SMITH: But one family! I should think the Indians would have +wiped you out.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: The way they wiped us out was to bring fish and +corn. We'd have starved to death that first winter hadn't been for +the Indians.</p> +<p>SMITH: But they were such good neighbours—why did you +throw dish water at them?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: That was after other white folks had roiled them +up—white folks that didn't know how to treat 'em. This very +land—land you want to buy—was the land they +loved—Blackhawk and his Indians. They came here for their +games. This was where their fathers—as they called +'em—were buried. I've seen my husband and Blackhawk climb +that hill together. (<i>a backward point right</i>) He used to love +that hill—Blackhawk. He talked how the red man and the white +man could live together. But poor old Blackhawk—what he +didn't know was how many white man there was. After the +war—when he was beaten but not conquered in his +heart—they took him east—Washington, Philadelphia, New +York—and when he saw the white man's cities—it was a +different Indian came back. He just let his heart break without +ever turning a hand.</p> +<p>SMITH: But we paid them for their lands. (<i>she looks at +him</i>) Paid them something.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Something. For fifteen million acres of this +Mississippi Valley land—best on this globe, we paid two +thousand two hundred and thirty-four dollars and fifty cents, and +promised to deliver annually goods to the value of one thousand +dollars. Not a fancy price—even for them days, (<i>children's +voices are heard outside. She leans forward and looks through the +door, left</i>) Ira! Let that cat be!</p> +<p>SMITH: (<i>looking from the window</i>) These, I suppose, are +your grandchildren?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: The boy's my grandson. The little girl is Madeline +Fejevary—Mr Fejevary's youngest child.</p> +<p>SMITH: The Fejevary place adjoins on this side? (<i>pointing +right, down</i>)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Yes. We've been neighbours ever since the Fejevarys +came here from Hungary after 1848. He was a count at home—and +he's a man of learning. But he was a refugee because he fought for +freedom in his country. Nothing Silas could do for him was too +good. Silas sets great store by learning—and freedom.</p> +<p>SMITH: (<i>thinking of his own project, looking off toward the +hill—the hill is not seen from the front</i>) I suppose then +Mr Fejevary has great influence with your son?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: More 'an anybody. Silas thinks 'twas a great thing +for our family to have a family like theirs next place to. +Well—so 'twas, for we've had no time for the things their +family was brought up on. Old Mrs Fejevary (<i>with her shrewd +smile</i>)—she weren't stuck up—but she did have an +awful ladylike way of feeding the chickens. Silas thinks—oh, +my son has all kinds of notions—though a harder worker never +found his bed at night.</p> +<p>SMITH: And Mr Fejevary—is he a veteran too?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>dryly</i>) You don't seem to know these parts +well—for one that's all stirred up about the development of +the town. Yes—Felix Fejevary and Silas Morton went off +together, down that road (<i>motioning with her hand, +right</i>)—when them of their age was wanted. Fejevary came +back with one arm less than he went with. Silas brought home +everything he took—and something he didn't. Rheumatiz. So now +they set more store by each other 'an ever. Seems nothing draws men +together like killing other men. (<i>a boy's voice teasingly +imitating a cat</i>) Madeline, make Ira let that cat be. (<i>a +whoop from the girl—a boy's whoop</i>) (<i>looking</i>) There +they go, off for the creek. If they set in it—(<i>seems about +to call after them, gives this up</i>) Well, they're not the +first.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>rather dreams over this</i>)</p> +<p>SMITH: You must feel as if you pretty near owned this +country.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: We worked. A country don't make itself. When the +sun was up we were up, and when the sun went down we didn't. (<i>as +if this renews the self of those days</i>) Here—let me set +out something for you to eat. (<i>gets up with difficulty</i>)</p> +<p>SMITH: Oh, no, please—never mind. I had something in town +before I came out.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Dunno as that's any reason you shouldn't have +something here.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She goes off, right; he stands at the door, +looking toward the hill until she returns with a glass of milk, a +plate of cookies.</i>)</p> +<p>SMITH: Well, this looks good.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I've fed a lot of folks—take it by and large. +I didn't care how many I had to feed in the daytime—what's +ten or fifteen more when you're up and around. But to get +up—after sixteen hours on your feet—<i>I</i> was +willin', but my bones complained some.</p> +<p>SMITH: But did you—keep a tavern?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Keep a tavern? I guess we did. Every house is a +tavern when houses are sparse. You think the way to settle a +country is to go on ahead and build hotels? That's all you folks +know. Why, I never went to bed without leaving something on the +stove for the new ones that might be coming. And we never went away +from home without seein' there was a-plenty for them that might +stop.</p> +<p>SMITH: They'd come right in and take your food?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: What else could they do? There was a woman I always +wanted to know. She made a kind of bread I never had +before—and left a-plenty for our supper when we got back with +the ducks and berries. And she left the kitchen handier than it had +ever been. I often wondered about her—where she came from, +and where she went, (<i>as she dreams over this there is laughing +and talking at the side of the house</i>) There come the boys.</p> +<p class="dir">(MR FEJEVARY <i>comes in, followed by</i> SILAS +MORTON. <i>They are men not far from sixty, wearing their army +uniforms, carrying the muskets they used in the parade</i>. +FEJEVARY <i>has a lean, distinguished face, his dark eyes are +penetrating and rather wistful. The left sleeve of his old uniform +is empty</i>. SILAS MORTON <i>is a strong man who has borne the +burden of the land, and not for himself alone—the pioneer. +Seeing the stranger, he sets his musket against the wall and holds +out his hand to him, as</i> MR FEJEVARY <i>goes up to</i> +GRANDMOTHER MORTON.)</p> +<p>SILAS: How do, stranger?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And how are you today, Mrs Morton?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I'm not abed—and don't expect to be.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>letting go of the balloons he has bought</i>) Where's +Ira? and Madeline?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Mr Fejevary's Delia brought them home with her. +They've gone down to dam the creek, I guess. This young man's been +waiting to see you, Silas.</p> +<p>SMITH: Yes, I wanted to have a little talk with you.</p> +<p>SILAS: Well, why not? (<i>he is tying the gay balloons to his +gun, then as he talks, hangs his hat in the corner closet</i>) +We've been having a little talk ourselves. Mother, Nat Rice was +there. I've not seen Nat Rice since the day we had to leave him on +the road with his torn leg—him cursing like a pirate. I +wanted to bring him home, but he had to go back to Chicago. His +wife's dead, mother.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, I guess she's not sorry.</p> +<p>SILAS: Why, mother.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: 'Why, mother.' Nat Rice is a mean, stingy, +complaining man—his leg notwithstanding. Where'd you leave +the folks?</p> +<p>SILAS: Oh—scattered around. Everybody visitin' with +anybody that'll visit with them. Wish you could have gone.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I've heard it all. (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) Your folks +well?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: All well, Mrs Morton. And my boy Felix is home. He'll +stop in here to see you by and by.</p> +<p>SILAS: Oh, he's a fine-looking boy, mother. And think of what he +knows! (<i>cordially including the young man</i>) Mr Fejevary's son +has been to Harvard College.</p> +<p>SMITH: Well, well—quite a trip. Well, Mr Morton, I hope +this is not a bad time for me to—present a little matter to +you?</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>genially</i>) That depends, of course, on what you're +going to present. (<i>attracted by a sound outside</i>) Mind if I +present a little matter to your horse? Like to uncheck him so's he +can geta a bit o'grass.</p> +<p>SMITH: Why—yes. I suppose he would like that.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>going out</i>) You bet he'd like it. Wouldn't you, +old boy?</p> +<p>SMITH: Your son is fond of animals.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Lots of people's fond of 'em—and good to 'em. +Silas—I dunno, it's as if he was that animal.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He has imagination.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>with surprise</i>) Think so?</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>returning and sitting down at the table by the young +man</i>) Now, what's in your mind, my boy?</p> +<p>SMITH: This town is growing very fast, Mr Morton.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes. (<i>slyly—with humour</i>) I know that.</p> +<p>SMITH: I presume you, as one of the early settlers—as in +fact a son of the earliest settler, feel a certain responsibility +about the welfare of—</p> +<p>SILAS: I haven't got in mind to do the town a bit of harm. +So—what's your point?</p> +<p>SMITH: More people—more homes. And homes must be in the +healthiest places—the—the most beautiful places. Isn't +it true, Mr Fejevary, that it means a great deal to people to have +a beautiful outlook from their homes? A—well, an expanse.</p> +<p>SILAS: What is it they want to buy—these fellows that are +figuring on making something out of—expanse? (<i>a gesture +for expanse, then a reassuring gesture</i>) It's all right, +but—just what is it?</p> +<p>SMITH: I am prepared to make you an offer—a gilt-edged +offer for that (<i>pointing toward it</i>) hill above the town.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>shaking his head—with the smile of the strong +man who is a dreamer</i>) The hill is not for sale.</p> +<p>SMITH: But wouldn't you consider a—particularly good +offer, Mr Morton?</p> +<p class="dir">(SILAS, <i>who has turned so he can look out at the +hill, slowly shakes his head</i>.)</p> +<p>SMITH: Do you feel you have the right—the moral right to +hold it?</p> +<p>SILAS: It's not for myself I'm holding it.</p> +<p>SMITH: Oh,—for the children?</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes, the children.</p> +<p>SMITH: But—if you'll excuse me—there are other +investments might do the children even more good.</p> +<p>SILAS: This seems to me—the best investment.</p> +<p>SMITH: But after all there are other people's children to +consider.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes, I know. That's it.</p> +<p>SMITH: I wonder if I understand you, Mr Morton?</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>kindly</i>) I don't believe you do. I don't see how +you could. And I can't explain myself just now. So—the hill +is not for sale. I'm not making anybody homeless. There's land +enough for all—all sides round. But the hill—</p> +<p>SMITH: (<i>rising</i>) Is yours.</p> +<p>SILAS: You'll see.</p> +<p>SMITH: I am prepared to offer you—</p> +<p>SILAS: You're not prepared to offer me anything I'd consider +alongside what I am considering. So—I wish you good luck in +your business undertakings.</p> +<p>SMITH: Sorry—you won't let us try to help the town.</p> +<p>SILAS: Don't sit up nights worrying about my chokin' the +town.</p> +<p>SMITH: We could make you a rich man, Mr Morton. Do you think +what you have in mind will make you so much richer?</p> +<p>SILAS: Much richer.</p> +<p>SMITH: Well, good-bye. Good day, sir. Good day, ma'am.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>following him to the door</i>) Nice horse you've +got.</p> +<p>SMITH: Yes, seems all right.</p> +<p class="dir">(SILAS <i>stands in the doorway and looks off at the +hill</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: What are you going to do with the hill, Silas?</p> +<p>SILAS: After I get a little glass of wine—to celebrate +Felix and me being here instead of farther south—I'd like to +tell you what I want for the hill. (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY <i>rather +bashfully</i>) I've been wanting to tell you.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I want to know.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>getting the wine from the closet</i>) Just a little +something to show our gratitude with.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Goes off right for glasses</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe it'd be better to sell the +hill—while they're anxious.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He seems to have another plan for it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I hope the other plan does bring him +something. Silas has worked—all the days of his life.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I know.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: You don't know the hull of it. But I know. +(<i>rather to herself</i>) Know too well to think about it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>as</i> SILAS <i>returns</i>) I'll get more +cookies.</p> +<p>SILAS: I'll get them, mother.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Get 'em myself. Pity if a woman can't get out her +own cookies.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>seeing how hard it is for her</i>) I wish mother +would let us do things for her.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: That strength is a flame frailness can't put out. It's +a great thing for us to have her,—this touch with the life +behind us.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes. And it's a great thing for us to have you—who +can see those things and say them. What a lot I'd 'a' missed if I +hadn't had what you've seen.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Oh, you only think that because you've got to be +generous.</p> +<p>SILAS: I'm not generous. <i>I'm</i> seeing something now. +Something about you. I've been thinking of it a good deal +lately—it's got something to do with—with the hill. +I've been thinkin' what it's meant all these years to have a family +like yours next place to. They did something pretty nice for the +corn belt when they drove you out of Hungary. Funny—how +things don't end the way they begin. I mean, what begins don't end. +It's another thing ends. Set out to do something for your own +country—and maybe you don't quite do the thing you set out to +do—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No.</p> +<p>SILAS: But do something for a country a long way off.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I've not done much for any country.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>brusquely</i>) Where's your left arm—may I be +so bold as to inquire? Though your left arm's nothing +alongside—what can't be measured.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: When I think of what I dreamed as a young man—it +seems to me my life has failed.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>raising his glass</i>) Well, if your life's +failed—I like failure.</p> +<p class="dir">(GRANDMOTHER MORTON <i>returns with her +cookies</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: There's two kinds—Mr Fejevary. These have +seeds in 'em.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Thank you. I'll try a seed cookie first.</p> +<p>SILAS: Mother, you'll have a glass of wine?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I don't need wine.</p> +<p>SILAS: Well, I don't know as we need it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: No, I don't know as you do. But I didn't go to +war.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Then have a little wine to celebrate that.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, just a mite to warm me up. Not that it's +cold. (FEJEVARY <i>brings it to her, and the cookies</i>) The +Indians used to like cookies. I was talking to that young +whippersnapper about the Indians. One time I saw an Indian watching +me from a bush, (<i>points</i>) Right out there. I was never afraid +of Indians when you could see the whole of 'em—but when you +could see nothin' but their bright eyes—movin' through +leaves—I declare they made me nervous. After he'd been there +an hour I couldn't seem to put my mind on my work. So I thought, +Red or White, a man's a man—I'll take him some cookies.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It succeeded?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: So well that those leaves had eyes next day. But he +brought me a fish to trade. He was a nice boy.</p> +<p>SILAS: Probably we killed him.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe he killed us. Will Owens' family was +massacred just after this. Like as not my cookie Indian helped out +there. Something kind of uncertain about the Indians.</p> +<p>SILAS: I guess they found something kind of uncertain about +us.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Six o' one and half a dozen of another. Usually +is.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) I wonder if I'm wrong. You see, I +never went to school—</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I don't know why you say that, Silas. There was two +winters you went to school.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes, mother, and I'm glad I did, for I learned to read +there, and liked the geography globe. It made the earth so nice to +think about. And one day the teacher told us all about the stars, +and I had that to think of when I was driving at night. The other +boys didn't believe it was so. But I knew it was so! But I mean +school—the way Mr Fejevary went to school. He went to +universities. In his own countries—in other countries. All +the things men have found out, the wisest and finest things men +have thought since first they began to think—all that was put +before them.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>with a gentle smile</i>) I fear I left a good deal +of it untouched.</p> +<p>SILAS: You took a plenty. Tell in your eyes you've thought lots +about what's been thought. And that's what I was setting out to +say. It makes something of men—learning. A house that's full +of books makes a different kind of people. Oh, of course, if the +books aren't there just to show off.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Like in Mary Baldwin's new house.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>trying hard to see it</i>) It's not the learning +itself—it's the life that grows up from learning. Learning's +like soil. Like—like fertilizer. Get richer. See more. Feel +more. You believe that?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Culture should do it.</p> +<p>SILAS: Does in your house. You somehow know how it is for the +other fellow more'n we do.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, Silas Morton, when you've your wood to chop +an' your water to carry, when you kill your own cattle and hogs, +tend your own horses and hens, make your butter, soap, and cook for +whoever the Lord sends—there's none too many hours of the day +left to be polite in.</p> +<p>SILAS: You're right, mother. It had to be that way. But now that +we buy our soap—we don't want to say what soap-making made +us.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: We're honest.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes. In a way. But there's another kind o' honesty, seems +to me, goes with that more seein' kind of kindness. Our honesty +with the Indians was little to brag on.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: You fret more about the Indians than anybody else +does.</p> +<p>SILAS: To look out at that hill sometimes makes me ashamed.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Land sakes, you didn't do it. It was the +government. And what a government does is nothing for a person to +be ashamed of.</p> +<p>SILAS: I don't know about that. Why is <i>he</i> here? Why is +Felix Fejevary not rich and grand in Hungary to-day? 'Cause he was +ashamed of what his government was.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, that was a foreign government.</p> +<p>SILAS: A seeing how 'tis for the other person—<i>a +bein'</i> that other person, kind of honesty. Joke of it, 'twould +do something for <i>you</i>. 'Twould 'a' done something for us to +have <i>been</i> Indians a little more. My father used to talk +about Blackhawk—they was friends. I saw Blackhawk +once—when I was a boy. (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) Guess I told you. +You know what he looked like? He looked like the great of the +earth. Noble. Noble like the forests—and the +Mississippi—and the stars. His face was long and thin and you +could see the bones, and the bones were beautiful. Looked like +something that's never been caught. He was something many nights in +his canoe had made him. Sometimes I feel that the land itself has +got a mind that the land would rather have had the Indians.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, don't let folks hear you say it. They'd think +you was plum crazy.</p> +<p>SILAS: I s'pose they would, (<i>turning to</i> FEJEVARY) But +after you've walked a long time over the earth—and you all +alone, didn't you ever feel something coming up from it that's like +thought?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I never did. But—I wish I had.</p> +<p>SILAS: I love land—this land. I suppose that's why I never +have the feeling that I own it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: If you don't own it—I want to know! What do +you think we come here for—your father and me? What do you +think we left our folks for—left the world of white +folks—schools and stores and doctors, and set out in a +covered wagon for we didn't know what? We lost a horse. Lost our +way—weeks longer than we thought 'twould be. You were born in +that covered wagon. You know that. But what you don't know is what +<i>that's</i> like—without your own roof—or +fire—without—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She turns her face away.</i>)</p> +<p>SILAS: No. No, mother, of course not. Now—now isn't this +too bad? I don't say things right. It's because I never went to +school.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>her face shielded</i>) You went to school two +winters.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes. Yes, mother. So I did. And I'm glad I did.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>with the determination of one who will not have +her own pain looked at</i>) Mrs Fejevary's pansy bed doing well +this summer?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It's beautiful this summer. She was so pleased with +the new purple kind you gave her. I do wish you could get over to +see them.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I've seen lots of pansies. Suppose it +was pretty fine-sounding speeches they had in town?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Too fine-sounding to seem much like the war.</p> +<p>SILAS: I'd like to go to a war celebration where they never +mentioned war. There'd be a way to celebrate victory, (<i>hearing a +step, looking out</i>) Mother, here's Felix.</p> +<p class="dir">(FELIX, <i>a well-dressed young man, comes +in</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: How do, Felix?</p> +<p>FELIX: And how do you do, Grandmother Morton?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, I'm still here.</p> +<p>FELIX: Of course you are. It wouldn't be coming home if you +weren't.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I've got some cookies for you, Felix. I set 'em +out, so you wouldn't have to steal them. John and Felix was hard on +the cookie jar.</p> +<p>FELIX: Where is John?</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>who is pouring a glass of wine for</i> FELIX) You've +not seen John yet? He was in town for the exercises. I bet those +young devils ran off to the race-track. I heard whisperin' goin' +round. But everybody'll be home some time. Mary and the +girls—don't ask me where they are. They'll drive old Bess all +over the country before they drive her to the bam. Your father and +I come on home 'cause I wanted to have a talk with him.</p> +<p>FELIX: Getting into the old uniforms makes you want to talk it +all over again?</p> +<p>SILAS: The war? Well, we did do that. But all that makes me want +to talk about what's to come, about—what 'twas all for. Great +things are to come, Felix. And before you are through.</p> +<p>FELIX: I've been thinking about them myself—walking around +the town to-day. It's grown so much this year, and in a way that +means more growing—that big glucose plant going up down the +river, the new lumber mill—all that means many more +people.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And they've even bought ground for a steel works.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes, a city will rise from these cornfields—a big +rich place—that's bound to be. It's written in the lay o' the +land and the way the river flows. But first tell us about Harvard +College, Felix. Ain't it a fine thing for us all to have Felix +coming home from that wonderful place!</p> +<p>FELIX: You make it seem wonderful.</p> +<p>SILAS: Ah, you know it's wonderful—know it so well you +don't have to say it. It's something you've got. But to me it's +wonderful the way the stars are wonderful—this place where +all that the world has learned is to be drawn from me—like a +spring.</p> +<p>FELIX: You almost say what Matthew Arnold says—a +distinguished new English writer who speaks of: 'The best that has +been thought and said in the world'.</p> +<p>SILAS: 'The best that has been thought and said in the world!' +(<i>slowly rising, and as if the dream of years is bringing him to +his feet</i>) That's what that hill is for! (<i>pointing</i>) Don't +you see it? End of our trail, we climb a hill and plant a college. +Plant a college, so's after we are gone that college says for us, +says in people learning has made more: 'That is why we took this +land.'</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>incredulous</i>) You mean, Silas, you're going +to <i>give the hill away</i>?</p> +<p>SILAS: The hill at the end of our trail—how could we keep +that?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, I want to know why not! Hill or +level—land's land and not a thing you give away.</p> +<p>SILAS: Well, don't scold <i>me</i>. I'm not giving it away. It's +giving itself away, get down to it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Don't talk to me as if I was feeble-minded.</p> +<p>SILAS: I'm talking with all the mind I've got. If there's not +mind in what I say, it's because I've got no mind. But I have got a +mind, (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY, <i>humorously</i>) Haven't I? You ought +to know. Seeing as you gave it to me.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Ah, no—I didn't give it to you.</p> +<p>SILAS: Well, you made me know 'twas there. You said things that +woke things in me and I thought about them as I ploughed. And that +made me know there had to be a college there—wake things in +minds—so ploughing's more than ploughing. What do you say, +Felix?</p> +<p>FELIX: It—it's a big idea, Uncle Silas. I love the way you +put it. It's only that I'm wondering—</p> +<p>SILAS: Wondering how it can ever be a Harvard College? Well, it +can't. And it needn't be (<i>stubbornly</i>) It's a college in the +cornfields—where the Indian maize once grew. And it's for the +boys of the cornfields—and the girls. There's few can go to +Harvard College—but more can climb that hill, (<i>turn of the +head from the hill to</i> FELIX) Harvard on a hill? (<i>As</i> +FELIX <i>smiles no</i>, SILAS <i>turns back to the hill</i>) A +college should be on a hill. They can see it then from far around. +See it as they go out to the barn in the morning; see it when +they're shutting up at night. 'Twill make a difference—even +to them that never go.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Now, Silas—don't be hasty.</p> +<p>SILAS: Hasty? It's been company to me for years. Came to me one +night—must 'a' been ten years ago—middle of a starry +night as I was comin' home from your place (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) I'd +gone over to lend a hand with a sick horse an'—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>with a grateful smile</i>) That was nothing +new.</p> +<p>SILAS: Well, say, I'd sit up with a sick horse that belonged to +the meanest man unhung. But—there were stars that night had +never been there before. Leastways I'd not seen 'em. And the +hill—Felix, in all your travels east, did you ever see +anything more beautiful than that hill?</p> +<p>FELIX: It's like sculpture.</p> +<p>SILAS: Hm. (<i>the wistfulness with which he speaks of that +outside his knowledge</i>) I s'pose 'tis. It's the way it +rises—somehow—as if it knew it rose from wide and +fertile lands. I climbed the hill that night, (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) +You'd been talkin'. As we waited between medicines you told me +about your life as a young man. All you'd lived through seemed +to—open up to you that night—way things do at times. +Guess it was 'cause you thought you was goin' to lose your horse. +See, that was Colonel, the sorrel, wasn't it?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes. Good old Colonel.</p> +<p>SILAS: You'd had a long run o' off luck. Hadn't got things back +in shape since the war. But say, you didn't lose him, did you?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Thanks to you.</p> +<p>SILAS: Thanks to the medicine I keep in the back kitchen.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You encouraged him.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Silas has a way with all the beasts.</p> +<p>SILAS: We've got the same kind of minds—the beasts and +me.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Silas, I wish you wouldn't talk like that—and +with Felix just home from Harvard College.</p> +<p>SILAS: Same kind of minds—except that mine goes on a +little farther.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well I'm glad to hear you say that.</p> +<p>SILAS: Well, there we sat—you an' me—middle of a +starry night, out beside your barn. And I guess it came over you +kind of funny you should be there with me—way off the +Mississippi, tryin' to save a sick horse. Seemed to—bring +your life to life again. You told me what you studied in that fine +old university you loved—the Vienna,—and why you became +a revolutionist. The old dreams took hold o' you and you +talked—way you used to, I suppose. The years, o' course, had +rubbed some of it off. Your face as you went on about the +vision—you called it, vision of what life could be. I knew +that night there was things I never got wind of. When I went +away—knew I ought to go home to bed—hayin' at daybreak. +'Go to bed?' I said to myself. 'Strike this dead when you've never +had it before, may never have it again?' I climbed the hill. +Blackhawk was there.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Why, he was <i>dead</i>.</p> +<p>SILAS: He was there—on his own old hill, with me and the +stars. And I said to him—</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Silas!</p> +<p>SILAS: Says I to him, 'Yes—that's true; it's more yours +than mine, you had it first and loved it best. But it's neither +yours nor mine,—though both yours and mine. Not my hill, not +your hill, but—hill of vision', said I to him. 'Here shall +come visions of a better world than was ever seen by you or me, old +Indian chief.' Oh, I was drunk, plum drunk.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I should think you was. And what about the next +day's hay?</p> +<p>SILAS: A day in the hayfield is a day's hayin'—but a night +on the hill—</p> +<p>FELIX: We don't have them often, do we, Uncle Silas?</p> +<p>SILAS: I wouldn't 'a' had that one but for your father, Felix. +Thank God they drove you out o' Hungary! And it's all so dog-gone +<i>queer</i>. Ain't it queer how things blow from mind to +mind—like seeds. Lord A'mighty—you don't know where +they'll take hold.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Children's voices off</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: There come those children up from the +creek—soppin' wet, I warrant. Well, I don't know how children +ever get raised. But we raise more of 'em than we used to. I buried +three—first ten years I was here. Needn't 'a' +happened—if we'd known what we know now, and if we hadn't +been alone. (<i>With all her strength</i>.) I don't know what you +mean—the hill's not yours!</p> +<p>SILAS: It's the future's, mother—so's we can know more +than we know now.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: We know it now. 'Twas then we didn't know it. I +worked for that hill! And I tell you to leave it to your own +children.</p> +<p>SILAS: There's other land for my own children. This is for all +the children.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: What's all the children to you?</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>derisively</i>) Oh, mother—what a thing for you +to say! You who were never too tired to give up your own bed so the +stranger could have a better bed.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: That was different. They was folks on their +way.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: So are we.</p> +<p class="dir">(SILAS <i>turns to him with quick +appreciation</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: That's just talk. We're settled now. Children of +other old settlers are getting rich. I should think you'd want +yours to.</p> +<p>SILAS: I want other things more. I want to pay my debts 'fore +I'm too old to know they're debts.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>momentarily startled</i>) Debts? Huh! More +talk. You don't owe any man.</p> +<p>SILAS: I owe him (<i>nodding to</i> FEJEVARY). And the red boys +here before me.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Fiddlesticks.</p> +<p>FELIX: You haven't read Darwin, have you, Uncle Silas?</p> +<p>SILAS: Who?</p> +<p>FELIX: Darwin, the great new man—and his theory of the +survival of the fittest?</p> +<p>SILAS: No. No, I don't know things like that, Felix.</p> +<p>FELIX: I think he might make you feel better about the Indians. +In the struggle for existence many must go down. The fittest +survive. This—had to be.</p> +<p>SILAS: Us and the Indians? Guess I don't know what you +mean—fittest.</p> +<p>FELIX: He calls it that. Best fitted to the place in which one +finds one's self, having the qualities that can best cope with +conditions—do things. From the beginning of life it's been +like that. He shows the growth of life from forms that were hardly +alive, the lowest animal forms—jellyfish—up to man.</p> +<p>SILAS: Oh, yes, that's the thing the churches are so upset +about—that we come from monkeys.</p> +<p>FELIX: Yes. One family of ape is the direct ancestor of man.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: You'd better read your Bible, Felix.</p> +<p>SILAS: Do people believe this?</p> +<p>FELIX: The whole intellectual world is at war about it. The best +scientists accept it. Teachers are losing their positions for +believing it. Of course, ministers can't believe it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I should think not. Anyway, what's the use +believing a thing that's so discouraging?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>gently</i>) But is it that? It almost seems to me +we have to accept it because it is so encouraging. (<i>holding out +his hand</i>) Why have we hands?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Cause God gave them to us, I s'pose.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: But that's rather general, and there isn't much in it +to give us self-confidence. But when you think we have hands +because ages back—before life had taken form as man, there +was an impulse to do what had never been done—when you think +that we have hands today because from the first of life there have +been adventurers—those of best brain and courage who wanted +to be more than life had been, and that from aspiration has come +doing, and doing has shaped the thing with which to do—it +gives our hand a history which should make us want to use it +well.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>breathed from deep</i>) Well, by God! And you've +known this all this while! Dog-gone you—why didn't you tell +me?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I've been thinking about it. I haven't known what to +believe. This hurts—beliefs of earlier years.</p> +<p>FELIX: The things it hurts will have to go.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I don't know about that, Felix. Perhaps in time we'll +find truth in them.</p> +<p>FELIX: Oh, if you feel that way, father.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Don't be kind to me, my boy, I'm not that old.</p> +<p>SILAS: But think what it is you've said! If it's true that we +made ourselves—made ourselves out of the wanting to be +more—created ourselves you might say, by our own +courage—our—what is it?—aspiration. Why, I can't +take it in. I haven't got the mind to take it in. And what mind I +have got says no. It's too—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It fights with what's there.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>nodding</i>) But it's like I got this (<i>very +slowly</i>) other way around. From underneath. As if I'd known it +all along—but have just found out I know it! Yes. The earth +told me. The beasts told me.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Fine place to learn things from.</p> +<p>SILAS: Anyhow, haven't I seen it? (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) In your +face haven't I seen thinking make a finer face? How long has this +taken, Felix, to—well, you might say, bring us where we are +now?</p> +<p>FELIX: Oh, we don't know how many millions of years since earth +first stirred.</p> +<p>SILAS: Then we are what we are because through all that time +there've been them that wanted to be more than life had been.</p> +<p>FELIX: That's it, Uncle Silas.</p> +<p>SILAS: But—why, then we aren't <i>finished</i> yet!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No. We take it on from here.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>slowly</i>) Then if we don't be—the most we can +be, if we don't be more than life has been, we go back on all that +life behind us; go back on—the—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Unable to formulate it, he looks to</i> +FEJEVARY.)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Go back on the dreaming and the daring of a million +years.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>After a moment's pause</i> SILAS <i>gets up, +opens the closet door</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Silas, what you doing?</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>who has taken out a box</i>) I'm lookin' for the deed +to the hill.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: What you going to do with it?</p> +<p>SILAS: I'm going to get it out of my hands.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Get it out of your hands? (<i>he has it now</i>) +Deed your father got from the government the very year the +government got it from the Indians?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>rising</i>) Give me that! (<i>she turns to</i> +FEJEVARY) Tell him he's crazy. We got the best land 'cause we was +first here. We got a right to keep it.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>going soothingly to her</i>) It's true, Silas, it +is a serious thing to give away one's land.</p> +<p>SILAS: You ought to know. You did it. Are you sorry you did +it?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No. But wasn't that different?</p> +<p>SILAS: How was it different? Yours was a fight to make life +more, wasn't it? Well, let this be our way.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: What's all that got to do with giving up the land +that should provide for our own children?</p> +<p>SILAS: Isn't it providing for them to give them a better world +to live in? Felix—you're young, I ask you, ain't it providing +for them to give them a chance to be more than we are?</p> +<p>FELIX: I think you're entirely right, Uncle Silas. But it's the +practical question that—</p> +<p>SILAS: If you're right, the practical question is just a thing +to fix up.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I fear you don't realize the immense amount of money +required to finance a college. The land would be a start. You would +have to interest rich men; you'd have to have a community in +sympathy with the thing you wanted to do.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Can't you see, Silas, that we're all against +you?</p> +<p>SILAS: All against me? (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) But how can you be? +Look at the land we walked in and took! Was there ever such a +chance to make life more? Why, the buffalo here before us was more +than we if we do nothing but prosper! God damn us if we sit here +rich and fat and forget man's in the makin'. (<i>affirming against +this</i>) There will one day be a college in these cornfields by +the Mississippi because long ago a great dream was fought for in +Hungary. And I say to that old dream, Wake up, old dream! Wake up +and fight! You say rich men. (<i>holding it out, but it is not +taken</i>) I give you this deed to take to rich men to show them +one man believes enough in this to give the best land he's got. +That ought to make rich men stop and think.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Stop and think he's a fool.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) It's you can make them know he's not +a fool. When you tell this way you can tell it, they'll feel in you +what's more than them. They'll listen.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I tell you, Silas, folks are too busy.</p> +<p>SILAS: Too busy!' Too busy bein' nothin'? If it's true that we +created ourselves out of the thoughts that came, then thought is +not something <i>outside</i> the business of life. +Thought—(<i>with his gift for wonder</i>) why, thought's our +chance. I know now. Why I can't forget the Indians. We killed their +joy before we killed them. We made them less, (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY, +<i>and as if sure he is now making it clear</i>) I got to give it +back—their hill. I give it back to joy—a better +joy—joy o'aspiration.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>moved but unconvinced</i>) But, my friend, there +are men who have no aspiration. That's why, to me, this is as a +light shining from too far.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>old things waked in her</i>) Light shining from +far. We used to do that. We never pulled the curtain. I used to +want to—you like to be to yourself when night +conies—but we always left a lighted window for the traveller +who'd lost his way.</p> +<p>FELIX: I should think that would have exposed you to the +Indians.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Yes. (<i>impatiently</i>) Well, you can't put out a +light just because it may light the wrong person.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No. (<i>and this is as a light to him. He turns to the +hill</i>) No.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>with gentleness, and profoundly</i>) That's it. Look +again. Maybe your eyes are stronger now. Don't you see it? I see +that college rising as from the soil itself, as if it was what come +at the last of that thinking that breathes from the earth. I see +it—but I want to know it's real before I stop knowing. Then +maybe I can lie under the same sod with the red boys and not be +ashamed. We're not old! Let's fight! Wake in other men what you +woke in me!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And so could I pay my debt to America. (<i>His hand +goes out</i>.)</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>giving him the deed</i>) And to the dreams of a +million years! (<i>Standing near the open door, their hands are +gripped in compact</i>.)</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<h3>ACT II</h3> +<p class="scene">SCENE: <i>A corridor in the library of Morton +College, October of the year 1920, upon the occasion of the +fortieth anniversary of its founding. This is an open place in the +stacks of books, which are seen at both sides. There is a +reading-table before the big rear window. This window opens out, +but does not extend to the floor; only a part of its height is +seen, indicating a very high window. Outside is seen the top of a +tree. This outer wall of the building is on a slant, so that the +entrance right is near, and the left is front. Right front is a +section of a huge square column. On the rear of this, facing the +window, is hung a picture of SILAS MORTON. Two men are standing +before this portrait</i>.</p> +<p class="scene">SENATOR LEWIS <i>is the Midwestern state senator. +He is not of the city from which Morton College rises, but of a +more country community farther in-state</i>. FELIX FEJEVARY, <i>now +nearing the age of his father in the first act, is an American of +the more sophisticated type—prosperous, having the poise of +success in affairs and place in society</i>.</p> +<p>SENATOR: And this was the boy who founded the place, eh? It was +his idea?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes, and his hill. I was there the afternoon he told +my father there must be a college here. I wasn't any older then +than my boy is now.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>As if himself surprised by this</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: Well, he enlisted a good man when he let you in on it. +I've been told the college wouldn't be what it is today but for +you, Mr Fejevary.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I have a sentiment about it, and where our sentiment +is, there our work goes also.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Yes. Well, it was those mainsprings of sentiment that +won the war.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He is pleased with this</i>.)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>nodding</i>) Morton College did her part in +winning the war.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I know. A fine showing.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And we're holding up our end right along. You'll see +the boys drill this afternoon. It's a great place for them, here on +the hill—shows up from so far around. They're a fine lot of +fellows. You know, I presume, that they went in as strike-breakers +during the trouble down here at the steel works. The plant would +have had to close but for Morton College. That's one reason I +venture to propose this thing of a state appropriation for +enlargement. Why don't we sit down a moment? There's no conflict +with the state university—they have their territory, we have +ours. Ours is an important one—industrially speaking. The +state will lose nothing in having a good strong college +here—a one-hundred-per-cent-American college.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I admit I am very favourably impressed.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I hope you'll tell your committee so—and let me +have a chance to talk to them.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Let's see, haven't you a pretty radical man here?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I wonder if you mean Holden?</p> +<p>SENATOR: Holden's the man. I've read things that make me +question his Americanism.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Oh—(<i>gesture of depreciation</i>) I don't +think he is so much a radical as a particularly human +human-being.</p> +<p>SENATOR: But we don't want radical human beings.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He has a genuine sympathy with youth. That's +invaluable in a teacher, you know. And then—he's a +scholar.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He betrays here his feeling of superiority to +his companion, but too subtly for his companion to get it</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: Oh—scholar. We can get scholars enough. What we +want is Americans.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Americans who are scholars.</p> +<p>SENATOR: You can pick 'em off every bush—pay them a little +more than they're paid in some other cheap John College. Excuse +me—I don't mean this is a cheap John College.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Of course not. One couldn't think that of Morton +College. But that—pay them a little more, interests me. +That's another reason I want to talk to your committee on +appropriations. We claim to value education and then we let highly +trained, gifted men fall behind the plumber.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Well, that's the plumber's fault. Let the teachers talk +to the plumber.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>with a smile</i>) No. Better not let them talk to +the plumber. He might tell them what to do about it. In fact, is +telling them.</p> +<p>SENATOR: That's ridiculous. They can't serve both God and +mammon.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Then let God give them mammon. I mean, let the state +appropriate.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Of course this state, Mr Fejevary, appropriates no +money for radicals. Excuse me, but why do you keep this man +Holden?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: In the scholar's world we're known because of him. And +really, Holden's not a radical—in the worst sense. What he +doesn't see is—expediency. Not enough the man of affairs to +realize that we can't always have literally what we have +theoretically. He's an idealist. Something of the—man of +vision.</p> +<p>SENATOR: If he had the right vision he'd see that we don't every +minute have literally what we have theoretically because we're +fighting to keep the thing we have. Oh, I sometimes think the man +of affairs has the only vision. Take you, Mr Fejevary—a +banker. These teachers—books—books! (<i>pushing all +books back</i>) Why, if they had to take for one day the +responsibility that falls on your shoulders—big decisions to +make—man among men—and all the time worries, +irritations, particularly now with labour riding the high horse +like a fool! I know something about these things. I went to the +State House because my community persuaded me it was my duty. But +I'm the man of affairs myself.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Oh yes, I know. Your company did much to develop that +whole northern part of the state.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I think I may say we did. Well, that's why, after three +sessions, I'm chairman of the appropriations committee. I know how +to use money to promote the state. So—teacher? That would be +a perpetual vacation to me. Now, if you want my advice, Mr +Fejevary,—I think your case before the state would be +stronger if you let this fellow Holden go.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I'm going to have a talk with Professor Holden.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Tell him it's for his own good. The idea of a college +professor standing up for conscientious objectors!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: That doesn't quite state the case. Fred Jordan was one +of Holden's students—a student he valued. He felt Jordan was +perfectly sincere in his objection.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Sincere in his objections! The nerve of him thinking it +was his business to be sincere!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He was expelled from college—you may remember; +that was how we felt about it.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I should hope so.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Holden fought that, but within the college. What +brought him into the papers was his protest against the way the boy +has been treated in prison.</p> +<p>SENATOR: What's the difference how he's treated? You know how +I'd treat him? (<i>a movement as though pulling a trigger</i>) If I +didn't know you for the American you are, I wouldn't understand +your speaking so calmly.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I'm simply trying to see it all sides around.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Makes me see red.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>with a smile</i>) But we mustn't meet red with +red.</p> +<p>SENATOR: What's Holden fussing about—that they don't give +him caviare on toast?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: That they didn't give him books. Holden felt it was +his business to fuss about that.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Well, when your own boy 'stead of whining around about +his conscience, stood up and offered his life!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes. And my nephew gave his life.</p> +<p>SENATOR: That so?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Silas Morton's grandson died in France. My sister +Madeline married Ira Morton, son of Silas Morton.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I knew there was a family connection between you and +the Mortons.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>speaking with reserve</i>) They played together as +children and married as soon as they were grown up.</p> +<p>SENATOR: So this was your sister's boy? (FEJEVARY <i>nods</i>) +One of the mothers to give her son!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>speaking of her with effort</i>) My sister +died—long ago. (<i>pulled to an old feeling; with an effort +releasing himself</i>) But Ira is still out at the old +place—place the Mortons took up when they reached the end of +their trail—as Uncle Silas used to put it. Why, it's a +hundred years ago that Grandmother Morton began—making +cookies here. She was the first white woman in this country.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Proud woman! To have begun the life of this state! Oh, +our pioneers! If they could only see us now, and know what they +did! (FEJEVARY <i>is silent; he does not look quite happy</i>) I +suppose Silas Morton's son is active in the college management.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No, Ira is not a social being. Fred's death about +finished him. He had been—strange for years, ever since my +sister died—when the children were little. It +was—(<i>again pulled back to that old feeling</i>) under +pretty terrible circumstances.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I can see that you thought a great deal of your sister, +Mr Fejevary.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Oh, she was beautiful and—(<i>bitterly</i>) it +shouldn't have gone like that.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Seems to me I've heard something about Silas Morton's +son—though perhaps it wasn't this one.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Ira is the only one living here now; the others have +gone farther west.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Isn't there something about corn?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes. His corn has several years taken the +prize—best in the state. He's experimented with +it—created a new kind. They've given it his name—Morton +corn. It seems corn is rather fascinating to work with—very +mutable stuff. It's a good thing Ira has it, for it's about the +only thing he does care for now. Oh, Madeline, of course. He has a +daughter here in the college—Madeline Morton, senior this +year—one of our best students. I'd like to have you meet +Madeline—she's a great girl, though—peculiar.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Well, that makes a girl interesting, if she isn't +peculiar the wrong way. Sounds as if her home life might make her a +little peculiar.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Madeline stays here in town with us a good part of the +time. Mrs Fejevary is devoted to her—we all are. (<i>a boy +starts to come through from right</i>) Hello, see who's here. This +is my boy. Horace, this is Senator Lewis, who is interested in the +college.</p> +<p>HORACE: (<i>shaking hands</i>) How do you do, Senator Lewis?</p> +<p>SENATOR: Pleased to see you, my boy.</p> +<p>HORACE: Am I butting in?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Not seriously; but what are you doing in the library? +I thought this was a day off.</p> +<p>HORACE: I'm looking for a book.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>affectionately bantering</i>) You are, Horace? Now +how does that happen?</p> +<p>HORACE: I want the speeches of Abraham Lincoln.</p> +<p>SENATOR: You couldn't do better.</p> +<p>HORACE: I'll show those dirty dagoes where they get off!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You couldn't show them a little more elegantly?</p> +<p>HORACE: I'm going to sick the Legion on 'em.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Are you talking about the Hindus?</p> +<p>HORACE: Yes, the dirty dagoes.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Hindus aren't dagoes you know, Horace.</p> +<p>HORACE: Well, what's the difference? This foreign element gets +my goat.</p> +<p>SENATOR: My boy, you talk like an American. But what do you +mean—Hindus?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: There are two young Hindus here as students. And +they're good students.</p> +<p>HORACE: Sissies.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: But they must preach the gospel of free +India—non-British India.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Oh, that won't do.</p> +<p>HORACE: They're nothing but Reds, I'll say. Well, one of 'em's +going back to get his. (<i>grins</i>)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: There were three of them last year. One of them is +wanted back home.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I remember now. He's to be deported.</p> +<p>HORACE: And when they get him—(<i>movement as of pulling a +rope</i>) They hang there.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: The other two protest against our not fighting the +deportation of their comrade. They insist it means death to him. +(<i>brushing off a thing that is inclined to worry him</i>) But we +can't handle India's affairs.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I should think not!</p> +<p>HORACE: Why, England's our ally! That's what I told them. But +you can't argue with people like that. Just wait till I find the +speeches of Abraham Lincoln!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Passes through to left</i>)</p> +<p>SENATOR: Fine boy you have, Mr Fejevary.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He's a live one. You should see him in a football +game. Wouldn't hurt my feelings in the least to have him a little +more of a student, but—</p> +<p>SENATOR: Oh, well, you want him to be a regular fellow, don't +you, and grow into a man among men?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He'll do that, I think. It was he who organized our +boys for the steel strike—went right in himself and took a +striker's job. He came home with a black eye one night, presented +to him by a picket who started something by calling him a scab. But +Horace wasn't thinking about his eye. According to him, it was not +in the class with the striker's upper lip. 'Father,' he said, 'I +gave him more red than he could swallow. The blood just—' +Well, I'll spare you—but Horace's muscle is one hundred per +cent American. (<i>going to the window</i>) Let me show you +something. You can see the old Morton place off on that first +little hill. (<i>pointing left</i>) The first rise beyond the +valley.</p> +<p>SENATOR: The long low house?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: That's it. You see, the town for the most part swung +around the other side of the hill, so the Morton place is still a +farm.</p> +<p>SENATOR: But you're growing all the while. The town'll take the +cornfield yet.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes, our steel works is making us a city.</p> +<p>SENATOR: And this old boy (<i>turning to the portrait of</i> +SILAS MORTON) can look out on his old home—and watch the +valley grow.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes—that was my idea. His picture really should +be in Memorial Hall, but I thought Uncle Silas would like to be up +here among the books, and facing the old place. (<i>with a +laugh</i>) I confess to being a little sentimental.</p> +<p>SENATOR: We Americans have lots of sentiment, Mr Fejevary. It's +what makes us—what we are. (FEJEVARY <i>does not speak; there +are times when the senator seems to trouble him</i>) Well, this is +a great site for a college. You can see it from the whole country +round.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes, that was Uncle Silas' idea. He had a reverence +for education. It grew, in part, out of his feeling for my father. +He was a poet—really, Uncle Silas. (<i>looking at the +picture</i>) He gave this hill for a college that we might become a +deeper, more sensitive people—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Two girls, convulsed with the giggles, come +tumbling in</i>.)</p> +<p>DORIS: (<i>confused</i>) Oh—oh, excuse us.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>foolishly</i>) We didn't know anybody was here.</p> +<p class="dir">(MR FEJEVARY <i>looks at them sternly. The girls +retreat</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: (<i>laughing</i>) Oh, well girls will be girls. I've +got three of my own.</p> +<p class="dir">(HORACE <i>comes back, carrying an open +book</i>.)</p> +<p>HORACE: Say, this must be a misprint.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>glancing at the back of the book</i>) Oh, I think +not.</p> +<p>HORACE: From his first inaugural address to Congress, March 4, +1861. (<i>reads</i>) 'This country with its institutions belong to +the people who inhabit it.' Well, that's all right. 'Whenever they +shall grow weary of the existing government they can exercise their +constitutional right of amending it'—(<i>after a brief +consideration</i>) I suppose that that's all right—but +listen! 'or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow +it.'</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He was speaking in another age. An age of different +values.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Terms change their significance from generation to +generation.</p> +<p>HORACE: I suppose they do—but that puts me in bad with +these lice. They quoted this and I said they were liars.</p> +<p>SENATOR: And what's the idea? They're weary of our existing +government and are about to dismember or overthrow it?</p> +<p>HORACE: I guess that's the dope.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Look here, Horace—speak accurately. Was it in +relation to America they quoted this?</p> +<p>HORACE: Well, maybe they were talking about India then. But they +were standing up for being revolutionists. We were giving them an +earful about it, and then they spring Lincoln on us. Got their +nerve—I'll say—quoting Lincoln to us.</p> +<p>SENATOR: The fact that they are quoting it shows it's being +misapplied.</p> +<p>HORACE: (<i>approvingly</i>) I'll tell them that. But +gee—Lincoln oughta been more careful what he said. Ignorant +people don't know how to take such things.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Goes back with book</i>.)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Want to take a look through the rest of the library? +We haven't been up this way yet—(<i>motioning left</i>) We +need a better scientific library. (<i>they are leaving now</i>) Oh, +we simply must have more money. The whole thing is fairly bursting +its shell.</p> +<p>DORIS: (<i>venturing in cautiously from the other side, looking +back, beckoning</i>) They've gone.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Sure?</p> +<p>DORIS: Well, are they here? And I saw them, I tell +you—they went up to science.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>moving the</i> SENATOR'S <i>hat on the table</i>) +But they'll come back.</p> +<p>DORIS: What if they do? We're only looking at a book. +(<i>running her hand along the books</i>) Matthew Arnold.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Takes a paper from</i> FUSSIE, <i>puts it in the +book. They are bent with giggling as</i> HORACE +<i>returns</i>.)</p> +<p>HORACE: For the love o' Pete, what's the joke? (<i>taking the +book from the helpless girl</i>) Matthew Arnold. My idea of nowhere +to go for a laugh. When I wrote my theme on him last week he was so +dry I had to go out and get a Morton Sundee (<i>the girls are +freshly attacked, though all of this in a subdued way, mindful of +others in the library</i>) Say, how'd you get that way?</p> +<p>DORIS: Now, Horace, don't you <i>tell</i>.</p> +<p>HORACE: What'd I tell, except—(<i>seeing the paper</i>) Um +hum—what's this?</p> +<p>DORIS: (<i>trying to get it from him</i>) Horace, now +<i>don't</i> you (<i>a tussle</i>) You great strong mean thing! +Fussie! Make him <i>stop</i>.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She gets the paper by tearing it</i>.)</p> +<p>HORACE: My dad's around here—showing the college off to a +politician. If you don't come across with that sheet of mystery, +I'll back you both out there (<i>starts to do it</i>) +and—</p> +<p>DORIS: Horace! You're just <i>horrid</i>.</p> +<p>HORACE: Sure I'm horrid. That's the way I want to be. (<i>takes +the paper, reads</i>)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'To Eben</p> +<p>You are the idol of my dreams</p> +<p>I worship from afar.'</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>What is this?</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Now, listen, Horace, and don't you <i>tell</i>. You know +Eben Weeks. He's the homeliest man in school. Wouldn't you say +so?</p> +<p>HORACE: Awful jay. Like to get some of the jays out of here.</p> +<p>DORIS: But listen. Of course, no girl would <i>look</i> at him. +So we've thought up the most <i>killing</i> joke, (<i>stopped by +giggles from herself and</i> FUSSIE) Now, he hasn't handed in his +Matthew Arnold dope. I heard old Mac hold him up for it—and +what'd you think he said? That he'd been <i>ploughing</i>. Said he +was trying to run a farm and go to college at the same time! Isn't +it a <i>scream</i>?</p> +<p>HORACE: We oughta—make it more unpleasant for some of +those jays. Gives the school a bad name.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: But, listen, Horace, honest—you'll just +<i>die</i>. He said he was going to get the book this afternoon. +Now you know what he <i>looks</i> like, but he turns +to—(<i>both girls are convulsed</i>)</p> +<p>DORIS: It'll get him all fussed up! And for nothing at all!</p> +<p>HORACE: Too bad that class of people come here. I think I'll go +to Harvard next year. Haven't broken it to my parents—but +I've about made up my mind.</p> +<p>DORIS: Don't you think Morton's a good school, Horace?</p> +<p>HORACE: Morton's all right. Fine for the—(<i>kindly</i>) +people who would naturally come here. But one gets an acquaintance +at Harvard. Wher'd'y' want these passionate lines?</p> +<p class="dir">(FUSSIE <i>and</i> DORIS <i>are off again +convulsed</i>.)</p> +<p>HORACE: (<i>eye falling on the page where he opens the book</i>) +Say, old Bones could spill the English—what? Listen to this +flyer. 'For when we say that culture is to know the best that has +been thought and said in the world, we simply imply that for +culture a system directly tending to that end is necessary in our +reading.' (<i>he reads it with mock solemnity, delighting</i> +FUSSIE <i>and</i> DORIS) The best that has been thought and said in +the world!'</p> +<p class="dir">(MADELINE MORTON <i>comes in from right; she carries +a tennis racket</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>both critical and good-humoured</i>) You haven't +made a large contribution to that, have you, Horace?</p> +<p>HORACE: Madeline, you don't want to let this sarcastic habit +grow on you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Thanks for the tip.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh—<i>Madeline, (holds out her hand to take the +book from</i> HORACE <i>and shows it to</i> MADELINE) You +know—</p> +<p>DORIS: S-h Don't be silly, (<i>to cover this</i>) Who you +playing with?</p> +<p>HORACE: Want me to play with you, Madeline?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>genially</i>) I'd rather play with you than talk +to you.</p> +<p>HORACE: Same here.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Aren't cousins affectionate?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>moving through to the other part of the +library</i>) But first I'm looking for a book.</p> +<p>HORACE: Well, I can tell you without your looking it up, he did +say it. But that was an age of different values. Anyway, the fact +that they're quoting it shows it's being misapplied.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>smiling</i>) Father said so.</p> +<p>HORACE: (<i>on his dignity</i>) Oh, of course—if you don't +want to be serious.</p> +<p class="dir">(MADELINE <i>laughs and passes on through</i>.)</p> +<p>DORIS: What are you two talking about?</p> +<p>HORACE: Madeline happened to overhear a little discussion down +on the campus.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Listen. You know something? Sometimes I think Madeline +Morton is a highbrow in disguise.</p> +<p>HORACE: Say, you don't want to start anything like that. +Madeline's all right. She and I treat each other rough—but +that's being in the family.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Well, I'll <i>tell</i> you something. I heard Professor +Holden say Madeline Morton has a great deal more mind than she'd +let herself know.</p> +<p>HORACE: Oh, well—Holden, he's erratic. Look at how popular +Madeline is.</p> +<p>DORIS: I should say. What's the matter with you, Fussie?</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh, I didn't mean it really <i>hurt</i> her.</p> +<p>HORACE: Guess it don't hurt her much at a dance. Say, what's +this new jazz they were springing last night?</p> +<p>DORIS: I know! Now look here, Horace—L'me show you. +(<i>she shows him a step</i>)</p> +<p>HORACE: I get you. (<i>He begins to dance with her; the book he +holds slips to the floor. He kicks it under the table</i>.)</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Be careful. They'll be coming back here, (<i>glances off +left</i>)</p> +<p>DORIS: Keep an eye out, Fussie.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>from her post</i>) They're coming! I tell you, +they're <i>coming!</i></p> +<p>DORIS: Horace, come on.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He teasingly keeps hold of her, continuing the +dance. At sound of voices, they run off, right</i>. FUSSIE +<i>considers rescuing the book, decides she has not time</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: (<i>at first speaking off</i>) Yes, it could be done. +There is that surplus, and as long as Morton College is socially +valuable—right here above the steel works, and making this +feature of military training—(<i>he has picked up his +hat</i>) But your Americanism must be unimpeachable, Mr Fejevary. +This man Holden stands in the way.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I'm going to have a talk with Professor Holden this +afternoon. If he remains he will—(<i>it is not easy for him +to say</i>) give no trouble. (MADELINE <i>returns</i>) Oh, here's +Madeline—Silas Morton's granddaughter, Madeline Fejevary +Morton. This is Senator Lewis, Madeline.</p> +<p>SENATOR: (<i>holding out his hand</i>) How do you do, Miss +Morton. I suppose this is a great day for you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Why—I don't know.</p> +<p>SENATOR: The fortieth anniversary of the founding of your +grandfather's college? You must be very proud of your illustrious +ancestor.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I get a bit bored with him.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Bored with him? My dear young lady!</p> +<p>MADELINE: I suppose because I've heard so many speeches about +him—'The sainted pioneer'—'the grand old man of the +prairies'—I'm sure I haven't any idea what he really was +like.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I've tried to tell you, Madeline.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Yes.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I should think you would be proud to be the +granddaughter of this man of vision.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>her smile flashing</i>) Wouldn't you hate to be +the granddaughter of a phrase?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>trying to laugh it off</i>) Madeline! How +absurd.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Well, I'm off for tennis.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Nods good-bye and passes on</i>.)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>calling to her</i>) Oh, Madeline, if your Aunt +Isabel is out there—will you tell her where we are?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>calling back</i>) All right.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>after a look at his companion</i>) Queer girl, +Madeline. Rather—moody.</p> +<p>SENATOR: (<i>disapprovingly</i>) Well—yes.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>again trying to laugh it off</i>) She's been +hearing a great many speeches about her grandfather.</p> +<p>SENATOR: She should be proud to hear them.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Of course she should. (<i>looking in the direction</i> +MADELINE <i>has gone</i>) I want you to meet my wife, Senator +Lewis.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I should be pleased to meet Mrs Fejevary. I have heard +what she means to the college—socially.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I think she has given it something it wouldn't have +had without her. Certainly a place in the town that is—good +for it. And you haven't met our president yet.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Guess, I've met the real president.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Oh—no. I'm merely president of the board of +trustees.</p> +<p>SENATOR: 'Merely!'</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I want you to know President Welling. He's very much +the cultivated gentleman.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Cultivated gentlemen are all right. I'd hate to see a +world they ran.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>with a laugh</i>) I'll just take a look up here, +then we can go down the shorter way.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He goes out right</i>. SENATOR LEWIS <i>turns +and examines the books</i>. FUSSIE <i>slips in, looks at him, +hesitates, and then stoops under the table for the Matthew Arnold +(and her poem) which</i> HORACE <i>has kicked there. He +turns</i>.)</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>not out from under the table</i>) Oh, I was just +looking for a book.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Quite a place to look for a book.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>crawling out</i>) Yes, it got there. I thought I'd +put it back. Somebody—might want it.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I see, young lady, that you have a regard for +books.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh, yes, I do have a regard for them.</p> +<p>SENATOR: (<i>holding out his hand</i>) And what is your +book?</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh—it's—it's nothing.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>As he continues to hold out his hand, she +reluctantly gives the book</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: (<i>solemnly</i>) Matthew Arnold? Nothing?</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh, I didn't mean <i>him</i>.</p> +<p>SENATOR: A master of English! I am glad, young woman, that you +value this book.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh yes, I'm—awfully fond of it.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Growing more and more nervous as in turning the +pages he nears the poem</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: I am interested in you young people of Morton +College.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: That's so good of you.</p> +<p>SENATOR: What is your favourite study?</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Well—(<i>an inspiration</i>) I like all of +them.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Morton College is coming on very fast, I +understand.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh yes, it's getting more and more of the right people. +It used to be a little jay, you know. Of course, the Fejevarys give +it class. Mrs Fejevary—isn't she wonderful?</p> +<p>SENATOR: I haven't seen her yet. Waiting here now to meet +her.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>worried by this</i>) Oh, I must—must be going. +Shall I put the book back? (<i>holding out her hand</i>)</p> +<p>SENATOR: No, I'll just look it over a bit. (<i>sits +down</i>)</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>unable to think of any way of getting it</i>) This +is where it belongs.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Thank you.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Reluctantly she goes out</i>. SENATOR LEWIS +<i>pursues Matthew Arnold with the conscious air of a half literate +man reading a 'great book'. The</i> FEJEVARYS <i>come in</i>)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I found my wife, Senator Lewis.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>she is a woman of social distinction and +charm</i>) How do you do, Senator Lewis? (<i>They shake +hands</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: It's a great pleasure to meet you, Mrs Fejevary.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Why don't we carry Senator Lewis home for +lunch?</p> +<p>SENATOR: Why, you're very kind.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: I'm sure there's a great deal to talk about, so why +not talk comfortably, and really get acquainted? And we want to +tell you the whole story of Morton College—the good old +American spirit behind it.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I am glad to find you an American, Mrs Fejevary.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Oh, we are that. Morton College is one hundred per +cent American. Our boys—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Her boy</i> HORACE <i>rushes in</i>.)</p> +<p>HORACE: (<i>wildly</i>) Father! Will you go after Madeline? The +police have got her!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: <i>What!</i></p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>as he is getting his breath</i>) What absurd +thing are you saying, Horace?</p> +<p>HORACE: Awful row down on the campus. The Hindus. I told them to +keep their mouths shut about Abraham Lincoln. I told them the fact +they were quoting him—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Never mind what you told them! What happened?</p> +<p>HORACE: We started—to rustle them along a bit. Why, they +had <i>handbills</i> (<i>holding one up as if presenting +incriminating evidence—the</i> SENATOR <i>takes it from +him</i>) telling America what to do about deportation! Not on this +campus—I say. So we were—we were putting a stop to it. +They resisted—particularly the fat one. The cop at the corner +saw the row—came up. He took hold of Bakhshish, and when the +dirty anarchist didn't move along fast enough, he took hold of +him—well, a bit rough, you might say, when up rushes Madeline +and calls to the cop, 'Let that boy alone!' Gee—I don't know +just what did happen—awful mix-up. Next thing I knew Madeline +hauled off and pasted the policeman a fierce one with her tennis +racket!</p> +<p>SENATOR: She <i>struck</i> the officer?</p> +<p>HORACE: I should say she did. Twice. The second time—</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: <i>Horace</i>. (<i>looking at her husband</i>) +I—I can't believe it.</p> +<p>HORACE: I could have squared it, even then, but for Madeline +herself. I told the policeman that she didn't understand—that +I was her cousin, and apologized for her. And she called over at +me, 'Better apologize for yourself!' As if there was any sense to +that—that she—she looked like a <i>tiger</i>. Honest, +everybody was afraid of her. I kept right on trying to square it, +told the cop she was the granddaughter of the man that founded the +college—that you were her uncle—he would have gone off +with just the Hindu, fixed this up later, but Madeline balled it up +again—didn't care who was her uncle—Gee! (<i>he throws +open the window</i>) There! You can see them, at the foot of the +hill. A nice thing—member of our family led off to the police +station!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>to the</i> SENATOR) Will you excuse me?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>trying to return to the manner of pleasant +social things</i>) Senator Lewis will go on home with me, and +you—(<i>he is hurrying out</i>) come when you can. (<i>to +the</i> SENATOR) Madeline is such a high-spirited girl.</p> +<p>SENATOR: If she had no regard for the living, she might—on +this day of all others—have considered her grandfather's +memory.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Raises his eyes to the picture of</i> SILAS +MORTON.)</p> +<p>HORACE: Gee! Wouldn't you <i>say</i> so?</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<h3>ACT III</h3> +<p class="scene">SCENE: <i>The same as Act II three hours +later</i>. PROFESSOR HOLDEN <i>is seated at the table, books before +him. He is a man in the fifties. At the moment his care-worn face +is lighted by that lift of the spirit which sometimes rewards the +scholar who has imaginative feeling</i>. HARRY, <i>a student clerk, +comes hurrying in. Looks back</i>.</p> +<p>HARRY: Here's Professor Holden, Mr Fejevary.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Mr Fejevary is looking for me?</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He goes back, a moment later</i> MR FEJEVARY +<i>enters. He has his hat, gloves, stick; seems tired and +disturbed</i>.)</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Was I mistaken? I thought our appointment was for +five.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Quite right. But things have changed, so I wondered if +I might have a little talk with you now.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: To be sure. (<i>rising</i>) Shall we go downstairs?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I don't know. Nice and quiet up here. (<i>to</i> +HARRY, <i>who is now passing through</i>) Harry, the library is +closed now, is it?</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes, it's locked.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And there's no one in here?</p> +<p>HARRY: No, I've been all through.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: There's a committee downstairs. Oh, this is a terrible +day. (<i>putting his things on the table</i>) We'd better stay up +here. Harry, when my niece—when Miss Morton arrives—I +want you to come and let me know. Ask her not to leave the building +without seeing me.</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes, sir. (<i>he goes out</i>)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, (<i>wearily</i>) it's been a day. Not the day I +was looking for.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: No.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You're very serene up here.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Yes, I wanted to be—serene for a little while.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>looking at the books</i>) Emerson. Whitman. +(<i>with a smile</i>) Have they anything new to say on +economics?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Perhaps not; but I wanted to forget economics for a +time. I came up here by myself to try and celebrate the fortieth +anniversary of the founding of Morton College. (<i>answering the +other man's look</i>) Yes, I confess I've been disappointed in the +anniversary. As I left Memorial Hall after the exercises this +morning, Emerson's words came into my mind—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Give me truth,</p> +<p>For I am tired of surfaces</p> +<p>And die of inanition.'</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Well, then I went home—(<i>stops, troubled</i>)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: How is Mrs Holden?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Better, thank you, but—not strong.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: She needs the very best of care for a time, doesn't +she?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Yes. (<i>silent a moment</i>) Then, this is something +more than the fortieth anniversary, you know. It's the first of the +month.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And illness hasn't reduced the bills?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>shaking his head</i>) I didn't want this day to go +like that; so I came up here to try and touch what used to be +here.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: But you speak despondently of us. And there's been +such a fine note of optimism in the exercises. (<i>speaks with the +heartiness of one who would keep himself assured</i>)</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I didn't seem to want a fine note of optimism. (<i>with +roughness</i>) I wanted—a gleam from reality.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: To me this is reality—the robust spirit created +by all these young people.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Do you think it is robust? (<i>hand affectionately on +the book before him</i>) I've been reading Whitman.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: This day has to be itself. Certain things +go—others come; life is change.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Perhaps it's myself I'm discouraged with. Do you +remember the tenth anniversary of the founding of Morton +College.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: The tenth? Oh yes, that was when this library was +opened.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I shall never forget your father, Mr Fejevary, as he +stood out there and said the few words which gave these books to +the students. Not many books, but he seemed to baptize them in the +very spirit from which books are born.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He died the following year.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: One felt death near. But that didn't seem the important +thing. A student who had fought for liberty for mind. Of course his +face would be sensitive. You must be very proud of your +heritage.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes. (<i>a little testily</i>) Well, I have certainly +worked for the college. I'm doing my best now to keep it a part of +these times.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>as if this has not reached him</i>) It was later +that same afternoon I talked with Silas Morton. We stood at this +window and looked out over the valley to the lower hill that was +his home. He told me how from that hill he had for years looked up +to this one, and why there had to be a college here. I never felt +America as that old farmer made me feel it.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>drawn by this, then shifting in irritation because +he is drawn</i>) I'm sorry to break in with practical things, but +alas, I am a practical man—forced to be. I too have made a +fight—though the fight to finance never appears an idealistic +one. But I'm deep in that now, and I must have a little help; at +least, I must not have—stumbling-blocks.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Am I a stumbling-block?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Candidly (<i>with a smile</i>) you are a little hard +to finance. Here's the situation. The time for being a little +college has passed. We must take our place as one of the important +colleges—I make bold to say one of the important +universities—of the Middle West. But we have to enlarge +before we can grow. (<i>answering</i> HOLDEN's <i>smile</i>) Yes, +it is ironic, but that's the way of it. It was a nice thing to open +the anniversary with fifty thousand from the steel works—but +fifty thousand dollars—nowadays—to an institution? +(<i>waves the fifty thousand aside</i>) They'll do more later, I +think, when they see us coming into our own. Meanwhile, as you +know, there's this chance for an appropriation from the state. I +find that the legislature, the members who count, are very friendly +to Morton College. They like the spirit we have here. Well, now I +come to you, and you are one of the big reasons for my wanting to +put this over. Your salary makes me blush. It's all wrong that a +man like you should have these petty worries, particularly with Mrs +Holden so in need of the things a little money can do. Now this man +Lewis is a reactionary. So, naturally, he doesn't approve of +you.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: So naturally I am to go.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Go? Not at all. What have I just been saying?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Be silent, then.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Not that either—not—not really. +But—be a little more discreet. (<i>seeing him harden</i>) +This is what I want to put up to you. Why not give things a chance +to mature in your own mind? Candidly, I don't feel you know just +what you do think; is it so awfully important to +express—confusion?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: The only man who knows just what he thinks at the +present moment is the man who hasn't done any new thinking in the +past ten years.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>with a soothing gesture</i>) You and I needn't +quarrel about it. I understand you, but I find it a little hard to +interpret you to a man like Lewis.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Then why not let a man like Lewis go to thunder?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And let the college go to thunder? I'm not willing to +do that. I've made a good many sacrifices for this college. Given +more money than I could afford to give; given time and thought that +I could have used for personal gain.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: That's true, I know.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I don't know just why I've done it. Sentiment, I +suppose. I had a very strong feeling about my father, Professor +Holden. And this friend Silas Morton. This college is the child of +that friendship. Those are noble words in our manifesto: 'Morton +College was born because there came to this valley a man who held +his vision for mankind above his own advantage; and because that +man found in this valley a man who wanted beauty for his fellow-men +as he wanted no other thing.'</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>taking it up</i>) 'Born of the fight for freedom and +the aspiration to richer living, we believe that Morton +College—rising as from the soil itself—may strengthen +all those here and everywhere who fight for the life there is in +freedom, and may, to the measure it can, loosen for America the +beauty that breathes from knowledge.' (<i>moved by the words he has +spoken</i>) Do you know, I would rather do that—really do +that—than—grow big.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes. But you see, or rather, what you don't see is, +you have to look at the world in which you find yourself. The only +way to stay alive is to grow big. It's been hard, but I have tried +to—carry on.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: And so have I tried to carry on. But it is very +hard—carrying on a dream.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, I'm trying to make it easier.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Make it easier by destroying the dream?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Not at all. What I want is scope for dreams.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Are you sure we'd have the dreams after we've paid this +price for the scope?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Now let's not get rhetorical with one another.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Mr Fejevary, you have got to let me be as honest with +you as you say you are being with me. You have got to let me say +what I feel.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Certainly. That's why I wanted this talk with you.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: You say you have made sacrifices for Morton College. So +have I.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: How well I know that.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: You don't know all of it. I'm not sure you understand +any of it.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>charmingly</i>) Oh, I think you're hard on me.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I spoke of the tenth anniversary. I was a young man +then, just home from Athens, (<i>pulled back into an old +feeling</i>) I don't know why I felt I had to go to Greece. I knew +then that I was going to teach something within sociology, and I +didn't want anything I felt about beauty to be left out of what I +formulated about society. The Greeks—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>as</i> HOLDEN <i>has paused before what he +sees</i>) I remember you told me the Greeks were the passion of +your student days.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Not so much because they created beauty, but because +they were able to let beauty flow into their lives—to create +themselves in beauty. So as a romantic young man (<i>smiles</i>), +it seemed if I could go where they had been—what I had felt +might take form. Anyway, I had a wonderful time there. Oh, what +wouldn't I give to have again that feeling of life's infinite +possibilities!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>nodding</i>) A youthful feeling.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>softly</i>) I like youth. Well, I was just back, +visiting my sister here, at the time of the tenth anniversary. I +had a chance then to go to Harvard as instructor. A good chance, +for I would have been under a man who liked me. But that afternoon +I heard your father speak about books. I talked with Silas Morton. +I found myself telling him about Greece. No one had ever felt it as +he felt it. It seemed to become of the very bone of him.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>affectionately</i>) I know how he used to do.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: He put his hands on my shoulders. He said, 'Young man, +don't go away. We need you here. Give us this great thing you've +got!' And so I stayed, for I felt that here was soil in which I +could grow, and that one's whole life was not too much to give to a +place with roots like that. (<i>a little bitterly</i>) Forgive me +if this seems rhetoric.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>a gesture of protest. Silent a moment</i>) You +make it—hard for me. (<i>with exasperation</i>) Don't you +think I'd like to indulge myself in an exalted mood? And why don't +I? I can't afford it—not now. Won't you have a little +patience? And faith—faith that the thing we want will be +there for us after we've worked our way through the woods. We are +in the woods now. It's going to take our combined brains to get us +out. I don't mean just Morton College.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: No—America. As to getting out, I think you are all +wrong.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: That's one of your sweeping statements, Holden. +Nobody's all wrong. Even you aren't.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: And in what ways am I wrong—from the standpoint of +your Senator Lewis?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He's not my Senator Lewis, he's the state's, and we +have to take him as he is. Why, he objects, of course, to your +radical activities. He spoke of your defence of conscientious +objectors.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>slowly</i>) I think a man who is willing to go to +prison for what he believes has stuff in him no college needs turn +its back on.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, he doesn't agree with you—nor do I.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>still quietly</i>) And I think a society which +permits things to go on which I can prove go on in our federal +prisons had better stop and take a fresh look at itself. To stand +for that and then talk of democracy and idealism—oh, it shows +no mentality, for one thing.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>easily</i>) I presume the prisons do need a +cleaning up. As to Fred Jordan, you can't expect me to share your +admiration. Our own Fred—my nephew Fred Morton, went to +France and gave his life. There's some little courage, Holden, in +doing that.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I'm not trying to belittle it. But he had the whole +spirit of his age with him—fortunate boy. The man who stands +outside the idealism of this time—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Takes a good deal upon himself, I should say.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: There isn't any other such loneliness. You know in your +heart it's a noble courage.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It lacks—humility. (HOLDEN <i>laughs +scoffingly</i>) And I think you lack it. I'm asking you to +co-operate with me for the good of Morton College.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Why not do it the other way? You say enlarge that we may +grow. That's false. It isn't of the nature of growth. Why not do it +the way of Silas Morton and Walt Whitman—each man being his +purest and intensest self. I was full of this fervour when you came +in. I'm more and more disappointed in our students. They're +empty—flippant. No sensitive moment opens them to beauty. No +exaltation makes them—what they hadn't known they were. I +concluded some of the fault must be mine. The only students I reach +are the Hindus. Perhaps Madeline Morton—I don't quite make +her out. I too must have gone into a dead stratum. But I can get +back. Here alone this afternoon—(<i>softly</i>) I was +back.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I think we'll have to let the Hindus go.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>astonished</i>) Go? Our best students?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: This college is for Americans. I'm not going to have +foreign revolutionists come here and block the things I've spent my +life working for.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I don't seem to know what you mean at all.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Why, that disgraceful performance this morning. I can +settle Madeline all right, (<i>looking at his watch</i>) She should +be here by now. But I'm convinced our case before the legislature +will be stronger with the Hindus out of here.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Well, I seem to have missed something—disgraceful +performance—the Hindus, Madeline—(<i>stops, +bewildered</i>)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You mean to say you don't know about the disturbance +out here?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I went right home after the address. Then came up here +alone.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Upon my word, you do lead a serene life. While you've +been sitting here in contemplation I've been to the police +court—trying to get my niece out of jail. That's what comes +of having radicals around.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: What happened?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: One of our beloved Hindus made himself obnoxious on +the campus. Giving out handbills about freedom for +India—howling over deportation. Our American boys wouldn't +stand for it. A policeman saw the fuss—came up and started to +put the Hindu in his place. Then Madeline rushes in, and it ended +in her pounding the policeman with her tennis racket.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Madeline Morton did that!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>sharply</i>) You seem pleased.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I am—interested.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, I'm not interested. I'm disgusted. My niece +mixing up in a free-for-all fight and getting taken to the police +station! It's the first disgrace we've ever had in our family.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>as one who has been given courage</i>) Wasn't there +another disgrace?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: What do you mean?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: When your father fought his government and was banished +from his country.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: That was not a disgrace!</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>as if in surprise</i>) Wasn't it?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: See here, Holden, you can't talk to me like that.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I don't admit you can talk to me as you please and that +I can't talk to you. I'm a professor—not a servant.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes, and you're a damned difficult professor. I +certainly have tried to—</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>smiling</i>) Handle me?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I ask you this. Do you know any other institution +where you could sit and talk with the executive head as you have +here with me?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I don't know. Perhaps not.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Then be reasonable. No one is entirely free. That's +naïve. It's rather egotistical to want to be. We're held by +our relations to others—by our obligations to the +(<i>vaguely</i>)—the ultimate thing. Come now—you admit +certain dissatisfactions with yourself, so—why not go with +intensity into just the things you teach—and not touch quite +so many other things?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I couldn't teach anything if I didn't feel free to go +wherever that thing took me. Thirty years ago I was asked to come +to this college precisely because my science was not in isolation, +because of my vivid feeling of us as a moment in a long sweep, +because of my faith in the greater beauty our further living may +unfold.</p> +<p class="dir">(HARRY <i>enters</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: Excuse me. Miss Morton is here now, Mr Fejevary.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>frowns, hesitates</i>) Ask her to come up here in +five minutes (<i>After</i> HARRY <i>has gone</i>) I think we've +thrown a scare into Madeline. I thought as long as she'd been taken +to jail it would be no worse for us to have her stay there awhile. +She's been held since one o'clock. That ought to teach her +reason.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Is there a case against her?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No, I got it fixed up. Explained that it was just +college girl foolishness—wouldn't happen again. One reason I +wanted this talk with you first, if I do have any trouble with +Madeline I want you to help me.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Oh, I can't do that.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You aren't running out and clubbing the police. Tell +her she'll have to think things over and express herself with a +little more dignity.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I ask to be excused from being present while you talk +with her.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: But why not stay in the library—in case I should +need you. Just take your books over to the east alcove and go on +with what you were doing when I came in.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>with a faint smile</i>) I fear I can hardly do that. +As to Madeline—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You don't want to see the girl destroy herself, do +you? I confess I've always worried about Madeline. If my sister had +lived—But Madeline's mother died, you know, when she was a +baby. Her father—well, you and I talked that over just the +other day—there's no getting to him. Fred never worried me a +bit—just the fine normal boy. But Madeline—(<i>with an +effort throwing it off</i>) Oh, it'll be all right, I haven't a +doubt. And it'll be all right between you and me, won't it? Caution +over a hard strip of the road, then—bigger things ahead.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>slowly, knowing what it may mean</i>) I shall +continue to do all I can toward getting Fred Jordan out of prison. +It's a disgrace to America that two years after the war closes he +should be kept there—much of the time in solitary +confinement—because he couldn't believe in war. It's +small—vengeful—it's the Russia of the Czars. I shall do +what is in my power to fight the deportation of Gurkul Singh. And +certainly I shall leave no stone unturned if you persist in your +amazing idea of dismissing the other Hindus from college. For +what—I ask you? Dismissed—for <i>what</i>? Because they +love liberty enough to give their lives to it! The day you dismiss +them, burn our high-sounding manifesto, Mr Fejevary, and admit that +Morton College now sells her soul to the—committee on +appropriations!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, you force me to be as specific as you are. If +you do these things, I can no longer fight for you.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Very well then, I go.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Go where?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I don't know—at the moment.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I fear you'll find it harder than you know. Meanwhile, +what of your family?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: We will have to manage some way.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It is not easy for a woman whose health—in fact, +whose life—is a matter of the best of care to 'manage some +way'. (<i>with real feeling</i>) What is an intellectual position +alongside that reality? You'd like, of course, to be just what you +want to be—but isn't there something selfish in that +satisfaction? I'm talking as a friend now—you must know that. +You and I have a good many ties, Holden. I don't believe you know +how much Mrs Fejevary thinks of Mrs Holden.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: She has been very, very good to her.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And will be. She cares for her. And our children have +been growing up together—I love to watch it. Isn't that the +reality? Doing for them as best we can, making sacrifices +of—of <i>every</i> kind. Don't let some tenuous, remote thing +destroy this flesh and blood thing.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>as one fighting to keep his head above water</i>) +Honesty is not a tenuous, remote thing.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: There's a kind of honesty in selfishness. We can't +always have it. Oh, I used to—go through things. But I've +struck a pace—one does—and goes ahead.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Forgive me, but I don't think you've had certain +temptations to—selfishness.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: How do you know what I've had? You have no way of +knowing what's in me—what other thing I might have been? You +know my heritage; you think that's left nothing? But I find myself +here in America. I love those dependent on me. My wife—who's +used to a certain manner of living; my children—who are to +become part of the America of their time. I've never said this to +another human being—I've never looked at myself—but +it's pretty arrogant to think you're the only man who has made a +sacrifice to fit himself into the age in which he lives. I hear +Madeline. This hasn't left me in very good form for talking with +her. Please don't go away. Just—</p> +<p class="dir">(MADELINE <i>comes in, right. She has her tennis +racket. Nods to the two men</i>. HOLDEN <i>goes out, left</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>looking after</i> HOLDEN—<i>feeling +something going on. Then turning to her uncle, who is still looking +after</i> HOLDEN) You wanted to speak to me, Uncle Felix?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Of course I want to speak to you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I feel just awfully sorry about—banging up my +racket like this. The second time it came down on this club. Why do +they carry those things? Perfectly fantastic, I'll say, going +around with a club. But as long as you were asking me what I wanted +for my birthday—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Madeline, I am not here to discuss your birthday.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'm sorry—(<i>smiles</i>) to hear that.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You don't seem much chastened.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Chastened? Was that the idea? Well, if you think that +keeping a person where she doesn't want to be chastens her! I never +felt less 'chastened' than when I walked out of that slimy spot and +looked across the street at your nice bank. I should think you'd +hate to—(<i>with friendly concern</i>) Why, Uncle Felix, you +look tired out.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I am tired out, Madeline. I've had a nerve-racking +day.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Isn't that too bad? Those speeches were so boresome, +and that old senator person—wasn't he a stuff? But can't you +go home now and let auntie give you tea and—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>sharply</i>) Madeline, have you no intelligence? +Hasn't it occurred to you that your performance would worry me a +little?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I suppose it was a nuisance. And on such a busy day. +(<i>changing</i>) But if you're going to worry, Horace is the one +you should worry about. (<i>answering his look</i>) Why, he got it +all up. He made me ashamed!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And you're not at all ashamed of what you have +done?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Ashamed? Why—no.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Then you'd better be! A girl who rushes in and +assaults an officer!</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>earnestly explaining it</i>) But, Uncle Felix, I +had to stop him. No one else did.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Madeline, I don't know whether you're trying to be +naïve—</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>angrily</i>) Well, I'm <i>not</i>. I like that! I +think I'll go home.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I think you will not! It's stupid of you not to know +this is serious. You could be dismissed from school for what you +did.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Well, I'm good and ready to be dismissed from any +school that would dismiss for that!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>in a new manner—quietly, from feeling</i>) +Madeline, have you no love for this place?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>doggedly, after thinking</i>) Yes, I have. (<i>she +sits down</i>) And I don't know why I have.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Certainly it's not strange. If ever a girl had a +background, Morton College is Madeline Fejevary Morton's +background. (<i>he too now seated by the table</i>) Do you remember +your Grandfather Morton?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Not very well. (<i>a quality which seems +sullenness</i>) I couldn't bear to look at him. He shook so.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>turning away, real pain</i>) Oh—how +cruel!</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>surprised, gently</i>) Cruel? Me—cruel?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Not just you. The way it passes—(<i>to +himself</i>) so <i>fast</i> it passes.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'm sorry. (<i>troubled</i>) You see, he was too old +then—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>his hand up to stop her</i>) I wish I could bring +him back for a moment, so you could see what he was before he +(<i>bitterly</i>) shook so. He was a powerful man, who was as real +as the earth. He was strangely of the earth, as if something went +from it to him. (<i>looking at her intently</i>) Queer you should +be the one to have no sentiment about him, for you and +he—sometimes when I'm with you it's as if—he were near. +He had no personal ambition, Madeline. He was ambitious for the +earth and its people. I wonder if you can realize what it meant to +my father—in a strange land, where he might so easily have +been misunderstood, pushed down, to find a friend like that? It +wasn't so much the material things—though Uncle Silas was +always making them right—and as if—oh, hardly conscious +what he was doing—so little it mattered. It was the way he +<i>got</i> father, and by that very valuing kept alive what was +there to value. Why, he literally laid this country at my father's +feet—as if that was what this country was for, as if it made +up for the hard early things—for the wrong things.</p> +<p>MADELINE: He must really have been a pretty nice old party. No +doubt I would have hit it off with him all right. I don't seem to +hit it off with the—speeches about him. Somehow I want to +say, 'Oh, give us a rest.'</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>offended</i>) And that, I presume, is what you +want to say to me.</p> +<p>MADELINE: No, no, I didn't mean you, Uncle. Though +(<i>hesitatingly</i>) I was wondering how you could think you were +talking on your side.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: What do you mean—my side?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, I don't—exactly. That's nice about him +being—of the earth. Sometimes when I'm out for a +tramp—way off by myself—yes, I know. And I wonder if +that doesn't explain his feeling about the Indians. Father told me +how grandfather took it to heart about the Indians.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He felt it as you'd feel it if it were your brother. +So he must give his choicest land to the thing we might become. +'Then maybe I can lie under the same sod with the red boys and not +be ashamed.'</p> +<p class="dir">(MADELINE <i>nods, appreciatively</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Yes, that's really—all right.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>irritated by what seems charily stated +approval</i>) 'All right!' Well, I am not willing to let this man's +name pass from our time. And it seems rather bitter that Silas +Morton's granddaughter should be the one to stand in my way.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Why, Uncle Felix, I'm not standing in your way. Of +course I wouldn't do that. I—(<i>rather bashfully</i>) I love +the Hill. I was thinking about it in jail. I got fuddled on +direction in there, so I asked the woman who hung around which way +was College Hill. 'Right through there', she said. A blank wall. I +sat and looked through that wall—long time. (<i>she looks +front, again looking through that blank wall</i>) It was +all—kind of funny. Then later she came and told me you were +out there, and I thought it was corking of you to come and tell +them they couldn't put that over on College Hill. And I know +Bakhshish will appreciate it too. I wonder where he went?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Went? I fancy he won't go much of anywhere +to-night.</p> +<p>MADELINE: What do you mean?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Why, he's held for this hearing, of course.</p> +<p>MADELINE: You mean—you came and got just me—and left +him there?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Certainly.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>rising</i>) Then I'll have to go and get him!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Madeline, don't be so absurd. You don't get people out +of jail by stopping in and calling for them.</p> +<p>MADELINE: But you got me.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Because of years of influence. At that, it wasn't +simple. Things of this nature are pretty serious nowadays. It was +only your ignorance got you out.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I do seem ignorant. While you were fixing it up for +me, why didn't you arrange for him too?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Because I am not in the business of getting foreign +revolutionists out of jail.</p> +<p>MADELINE: But he didn't do as much as I did.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It isn't what he did. It's what he is. We don't want +him here.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Well, I guess I'm not for that!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: May I ask why you have appointed yourself guardian of +these strangers?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Perhaps because they are strangers.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, they're the wrong kind of strangers.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Is it true that the Hindu who was here last year is to +be deported? Is America going to turn him over to the government he +fought?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I have an idea they will all be deported. I'm not so +sorry this thing happened. It will get them into the +courts—and I don't think they have money to fight.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>giving it clean and straight</i>) Gee, I think +that's rotten!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Quite likely your inelegance will not affect it one +way or the other.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>she has taken her seat again, is thinking it +out</i>) I'm twenty-one next Tuesday. Isn't it on my twenty-first +birthday I get that money Grandfather Morton left me?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: What are you driving at?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>simply</i>) They can have my money.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Are you crazy? What <i>are</i> these people to +you?</p> +<p>MADELINE: They're people from the other side of the world who +came here believing in us, drawn from the far side of the world by +things we say about ourselves. Well, I'm going to +pretend—just for fun—that the things we say about +ourselves are true. So if you'll—arrange so I can get it, +Uncle Felix, as soon as it's mine.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And this is what you say to me at the close of my +years of trusteeship! If you could know how I've nursed that little +legacy along—until now it is—(<i>breaking off in +anger</i>) I shall not permit you to destroy yourself!</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>quietly</i>) I don't see how you can keep me from +'destroying myself'.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>looking at her, seeing that this may be true. In +genuine amazement, and hurt</i>) Why—but it's incredible. +Have I—has my house—been nothing to you all these +years?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I've had my best times at your house. Things wouldn't +have been—very gay for me—without you all—though +Horace gets my goat!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And does your Aunt Isabel—'get your goat'?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I love auntie. (<i>rather resentfully</i>) You know +that. What has that got to do with it?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: So you are going to use Silas Morton's money to knife +his college.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, Uncle Felix, that's silly.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It's a long way from silly. You know a little about +what I'm trying to do—this appropriation that would assure +our future. If Silas Morton's granddaughter casts in her lot with +revolutionists, Morton College will get no help from the state. Do +you know enough about what you are doing to assume this +responsibility?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I am not casting 'in my lot with revolutionists'. If +it's true, as you say, that you have to have money in order to get +justice—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I didn't say it!</p> +<p>MADELINE: Why, you did, Uncle Felix. You said so. And if it's +true that these strangers in our country are going to be abused +because they're poor,—what else could I do with my money and +not feel like a skunk?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>trying a different tack, laughing</i>) Oh, you're +a romantic girl, Madeline—skunk and all. Rather nice, at +that. But the thing is perfectly fantastic, from every standpoint. +You speak as if you had millions. And if you did, it wouldn't +matter, not really. You are going against the spirit of this +country; with or without money, that can't be done. Take a man like +Professor Holden. He's radical in his sympathies—but does he +run out and club the police?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>in a smouldering way</i>) I thought America was a +democracy.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: We have just fought a great war for democracy.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Well, is that any reason for not having it?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I should think you would have a little emotion about +the war—about America—when you consider where your +brother is.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Fred had—all kinds of reasons for going to +France. He wanted a trip. (<i>answering his exclamation</i>) Why, +he <i>said</i> so. Heavens, Fred didn't make speeches about +himself. Wanted to see Paris—poor kid, he never did see +Paris. Wanted to be with a lot of fellows—knock the Kaiser's +block off—end war, get a French girl. It was all mixed +up—the way things are. But Fred was a pretty decent sort. +I'll say so. He had such kind, honest eyes. (<i>this has somehow +said itself; her own eyes close and what her shut eyes see makes +feeling hot</i>) One thing I do know! Fred never went over the top +and out to back up the argument you're making now!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>stiffly</i>) Very well, I will discontinue the +argument I'm making now. I've been trying to save you +from—pretty serious things. The regret of having stood in the +way of Morton College—(<i>his voice falling</i>) the horror +of having driven your father insane.</p> +<p>MADELINE: <i>What?</i></p> +<p>FEJEVARY: One more thing would do it. Just the other day I was +talking with Professor Holden about your father. His idea of him +relates back to the pioneer life—another price paid for this +country. The lives back of him were too hard. Your +great-grandmother Morton—the first white woman in this +region—she dared too much, was too lonely, feared and bore +too much. They did it, for the task gave them a courage for the +task. But it—left a scar.</p> +<p>MADELINE: And father is that—(<i>can hardly say +it</i>)—scar. (<i>fighting the idea</i>) But Grandfather +Morton was not like that.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No; he had the vision of the future; he was robust +with feeling for others. (<i>gently</i>) But Holden feels your +father is the—dwarfed pioneer child. The way he concentrates +on corn—excludes all else—as if unable to free himself +from their old battle with the earth.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>almost crying</i>) I think it's pretty terrible +to—wish all that on poor father.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, my dear child, it's life has 'wished it on him'. +It's just one other way of paying the price for his country. We +needn't get it for nothing. I feel that all our chivalry should go +to your father in his—heritage of loneliness.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Father couldn't always have been—dwarfed. Mother +wouldn't have cared for him if he had always been—like +that.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No, if he could have had love to live in. But no +endurance for losing it. Too much had been endured just before life +got to him.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Do you know, Uncle Felix—I'm afraid that's true? +(<i>he nods</i>) Sometimes when I'm with father I feel those things +near—the—the too much—the too hard,—feel +them as you'd feel the cold. And now that it's +different—easier—he can't come into the world that's +been earned. Oh, I wish I could help him!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>As they sit there together, now for the first +time really together, there is a shrill shout of derision from +outside</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: What's that? (<i>a whistled call</i>) Horace! That's +Horace's call. That's for his gang. Are they going to start +something now that will get Atma in jail?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: More likely he's trying to start something. (<i>they +are both listening intently</i>) I don't think our boys will stand +much more.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>A scoffing whoop</i>. MADELINE <i>springs to the +window; he reaches it ahead and holds it</i>.)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: This window stays closed.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She starts to go away, he takes hold of +her</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Listen, Madeline—plain, straight truth. If you +go out there and get in trouble a second time, I can't make it +right for you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: You needn't!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You don't know what it means. These things are not +child's play—not today. You could get twenty years in prison +for things you'll say if you rush out there now. (<i>she +laughs</i>) You laugh because you're ignorant. Do you know that in +America today there are women in our prisons for saying no more +than you've said here to me!</p> +<p>MADELINE: Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I? Ashamed of myself?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Yes! Aren't you an American? (<i>a whistle</i>) Isn't +that a policeman's whistle? Are they coming back? Are they hanging +around here to—(<i>pulling away from her uncle as he turns to +look, she jumps up in the deep sill and throws open the window. +Calling down</i>) Here—Officer—<i>You</i>—Let +that boy alone!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>going left, calling sharply</i>) Holden. Professor +Holden—here—quick!</p> +<p>VOICE: (<i>coming up from below, outside</i>) Who says so?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I say so!</p> +<p>VOICE: And who are you talking for?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I am talking for Morton College!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>returning—followed, reluctantly, by</i> +HOLDEN) Indeed you are not. Close that window or you'll be expelled +from Morton College.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Sounds of a growing crowd outside</i>.)</p> +<p>VOICE: Didn't I see you at the station?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Sure you saw me at the station. And you'll see me +there again, if you come bullying around here. You're not what this +place is for! (<i>her uncle comes up behind, right, and tries to +close the window—she holds it out</i>) My grandfather gave +this hill to Morton College—a place where anybody—from +any land—can come and say what he believes to be true! Why, +you poor simp—this is America! Beat it from here! Atna! Don't +let him take hold of you like that! He has no right to—Oh, +let me <i>down</i> there!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Springs down, would go off right, her uncle +spreads out his arms to block that passage. She turns to go the +other way</i>.)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Holden! Bring her to her senses. Stand there. (HOLDEN +<i>has not moved from the place he entered, left, and so blocks the +doorway</i>) Don't let her pass.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Shouts of derision outside</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here—with that +going on out there? (<i>Moves nearer</i> HOLDEN, <i>stands there +before him, taut, looking him straight in the eye. After a moment, +slowly, as one compelled, he steps aside for her to pass. Sound of +her running footsteps. The two men's eyes meet. A door +slams</i>.)</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<h3>ACT IV</h3> +<p class="scene">SCENE: <i>At the</i> MORTON <i>place, the same +room in which</i> SILAS MORTON <i>told his friend</i> FELIX +FEJEVARY <i>of his plan for the hill. The room has not altogether +changed since that day in 1879. The table around which they dreamed +for the race is in its old place. One of the old chairs is there, +the other two are modern chairs. In a corner is the rocker in +which</i> GRANDMOTHER MORTON <i>sat. This is early afternoon, a +week after the events of Act II</i>.</p> +<p class="scene">MADELINE <i>is sitting at the table, in her hand a +torn, wrinkled piece of brown paper-peering at writing almost too +fine to read. After a moment her hand goes out to a beautiful dish +on the table—an old dish of coloured Hungarian glass. She is +about to take something from this, but instead lets her hand rest +an instant on the dish itself Then turns and through the open door +looks out at the hill, sitting where her</i> GRANDFATHER MORTON +<i>sat when he looked out at the hill.</i></p> +<p class="scene"><i>Her father</i>, IRA MORTON, <i>appears outside, +walking past the window, left. He enters, carrying a grain sack, +partly filled. He seems hardly aware of</i> MADELINE, <i>but taking +a chair near the door, turned from her, opens the sack and takes +out a couple of ears of corn. As he is bent over them, examining in +a shrewd, greedy way</i>, MADELINE <i>looks at that lean, +tormented, rather desperate profile, the look of one confirming a +thing she fears. Then takes up her piece of paper</i>.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Do you remember Fred Jordan, father? Friend of our +Fred—and of mine?</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>not wanting to take his mind from the corn</i>) No. I +don't remember him. (<i>his voice has that timbre of one not +related to others</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: He's in prison now.</p> +<p>IRA: Well I can't help that. (<i>after taking out another +ear</i>) This is the best corn I ever had. (<i>he says it +gloatingly to himself</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: He got this letter out to me—written on this +scrap of paper. They don't give him paper. (<i>peering</i>) Written +so fine I can hardly read it. He's in what they call 'the hold', +father—a punishment cell. (<i>with difficulty reading it</i>) +It's two and a half feet at one end, three feet at the other, and +six feet long. He'd been there ten days when he wrote this. He gets +two slices of bread a day; he gets water; that's all he gets. This +because he balled the deputy warden out for chaining another +prisoner up by the wrists.</p> +<p>IRA: Well, he'd better a-minded his own business. And you better +mind yours. I've got no money to spend in the courts. (<i>with +excitement</i>) I'll not mortgage this farm! It's been clear since +the day my father's father got it from the government—and it +stays clear—till I'm gone. It grows the best corn in the +state—best corn in the Mississippi Valley. Not for +<i>anything</i>—you hear me?—would I mortgage this farm +my father handed down to me.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>hurt</i>) Well, father, I'm not asking you to.</p> +<p>IRA: Then go and see your Uncle Felix. Make it up with him. +He'll help you—if you say you're sorry.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'll not go to Uncle Felix.</p> +<p>IRA: Who will you go to then? (<i>pause</i>) Who will help you +then? (<i>again he waits</i>) You come before this United States +Commissioner with no one behind you, he'll hold you for the grand +jury. Judge Watkins told Felix there's not a doubt of it. You know +what that means? It means you're on your way to a cell. Nice thing +for a Morton, people who've had their own land since we got it from +the Indians. What's the matter with your uncle? Ain't he always +been good to you? I'd like to know what things would 'a' been for +you without Felix and Isabel and all their friends. You want to +think a little. You like good times too well to throw all that +away.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I do like good times. So does Fred Jordan like good +times. (<i>smooths the wrinkled paper</i>) I don't know +anybody—unless it is myself—loves to be out, as he +does. (<i>she tries to look out, but cannot; sits very still, +seeing what it is pain to see. Rises, goes to that corner closet, +the same one from which</i> SILAS MORTON <i>took the deed to the +hill. She gets a yard stick, looks in a box and finds a piece of +chalk. On the floor she marks off</i> FRED JORDAN'S <i>cell. +Slowly, at the end left unchalked, as for a door, she goes in. Her +hand goes up as against a wall; looks at her other hand, sees it is +out too far, brings it in, giving herself the width of the cell. +Walks its length, halts, looks up</i>.) And one window—too +high up to see out.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>In the moment she stands there, she is in that +cell; she is all the people who are in those cells</i>. EMIL +JOHNSON <i>appears from outside; he is the young man brought up on +a farm, a crudely Americanized Swede</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>stepping out of the cell door, and around it</i>) +Hello, Emil.</p> +<p>EMIL: How are you, Madeline? How do, Mr Morton. (IRA <i>barely +nods and does not turn. In an excited manner he begins gathering up +the corn he has taken from the sack</i>. EMIL <i>turns back to</i> +MADELINE) Well, I'm just from the courthouse. Looks like you and I +might take a ride together, Madeline. You come before the +Commissioner at four.</p> +<p>IRA: What have you got to do with it?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, Emil has a courthouse job now, father. He's part +of the law.</p> +<p>IRA: Well, he's not going to take you to the law! Anybody +else—not Emil Johnson!</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>astonished—and gently, to make up for his +rudeness</i>) Why—father, why not Emil? Since I'm going, I +think it's nice to go in with someone I know—with a neighbour +like Emil.</p> +<p>IRA: If <i>this</i> is what he lived for! If this is +why—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He twists the ear of corn until some of the +kernels drip off</i>. MADELINE <i>and</i> EMIL <i>look at one +another in bewilderment</i>.)</p> +<p>EMIL: It's too bad anybody has to take Madeline in. I should +think your uncle could fix it up. (<i>low</i>) And with your father +taking it like this—(<i>to help</i> IRA) That's fine corn, Mr +Morton. My corn's getting better all the time, but I'd like to get +some of this for seed.</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>rising and turning on him</i>) You get my corn? I raise +this corn for you? (<i>not to them—his mind now going where +it is shut off from any other mind</i>) If I could make the +<i>wind</i> stand still! I want to <i>turn the wind around</i>.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>going to him</i>) Why—father. I don't +understand at all.</p> +<p>IRA: Don't understand. Nobody understands. (<i>a curse with a +sob in it</i>) God damn the wind!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Sits down, his back to them</i>.)</p> +<p>EMIL: (<i>after a silence</i>) Well, I'll go. (<i>but he +continues to look at</i> IRA, <i>who is holding the sack of com +shut, as if someone may take it</i>) Too bad—(<i>stopped by a +sign from</i> MADELINE, <i>not to speak of it</i>) Well, I was +saying, I have go on to Beard's Crossing. I'll stop for you on my +way back. (<i>confidentially</i>) Couldn't you telephone your +uncle? He could do something. You don't know what you're going up +against. You heard what the Hindus got, I suppose.</p> +<p>MADELINE: No. I haven't seen anyone to-day.</p> +<p>EMIL: They're held for the grand jury. They're locked up now. No +bail for them. I've got the inside dope about them. They're going +to get what this country can hand 'em; then after we've given them +a nice little taste of prison life in America, they're going to be +sent back home—to see what India can treat them to.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Why are you so pleased about this, Emil?</p> +<p>EMIL: Pleased? It's nothin' to me—I'm just telling you. +Guess you don't know much about the Espionage Act or you'd go and +make a little friendly call on your uncle. When your case comes to +trial—and Judge Lenon may be on the +bench—(<i>whistles</i>) He's one fiend for Americanism. But +if your uncle was to tell the right parties that you're just a +girl, and didn't realize what you were saying—</p> +<p>MADELINE: I did realize what I was saying, and every word you've +just said makes me know I meant what I said. I said if this was +what our country has come to, then I'm not for our country. I said +that—and a-plenty more—and I'll say it again!</p> +<p>EMIL: Well—gee, you don't know what it means.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I do know what it means, but it means not being a +coward.</p> +<p>EMIL: Oh, well—Lord, you can't say everything you think. +If everybody did that, things'd be worse off than they are now.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Once in a while you have to say what you +think—or hate yourself.</p> +<p>EMIL: (<i>with a grin</i>) Then hate yourself.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>smiling too</i>) No thank you; it spoils my +fun.</p> +<p>EMIL: Well, look-a-here, Madeline, aren't you spoiling your fun +now? You're a girl who liked to be out. Ain't I seen you from our +place, with this one and that one, sometimes all by yourself, +strikin' out over the country as if you was crazy about it? How'd +you like to be where you couldn't even see out?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>a step nearer the cell</i>) There oughtn't to be +such places.</p> +<p>EMIL: Oh, well—Jesus, if you're going to talk about +that—! You can't change the way things are.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>quietly</i>) Why can't I?</p> +<p>EMIL: Well, say, who do you think you are?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I think I'm an American. And for that reason I think I +have something to say about America.</p> +<p>EMIL: Huh! America'll lock you up for your pains.</p> +<p>MADELINE: All right. If it's come to that, maybe I'd rather be a +locked-up American than a free American.</p> +<p>EMIL: I don't think you'd like the place, Madeline. There's not +much tennis played there. Jesus—what's Hindus?</p> +<p>MADELINE: You aren't really asking Jesus, are you, Emil? +(<i>smiles</i>) You mightn't like his answer.</p> +<p>EMIL: (<i>from the door</i>) Take a tip. Telephone your +uncle.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He goes</i>.)</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>not looking at her</i>) There might be a fine, and +they'd come down on me and take my land.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, no, father, I think not. Anyway, I have a little +money of my own. Grandfather Morton left me something. Have you +forgotten that?</p> +<p>IRA: No. No, I know he left you something. (<i>the words seem to +bother him</i>) I know he left you something.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I get it to-day. (<i>wistfully</i>) This is my +birthday, father. I'm twenty-one.</p> +<p>IRA: Your birthday? Twenty-one? (<i>in pain</i>) Was that +twenty-one years ago? (<i>it is not to his daughter this has turned +him</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: It's the first birthday I can remember that I haven't +had a party.</p> +<p>IRA: It was your Aunt Isabel gave you your parties.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Yes.</p> +<p>IRA: Well, you see now.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>stoutly</i>) Oh, well, I don't need a party. I'm +grown up now.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She reaches out for the old Hungarian dish on +the table; holding it, she looks to her father, whose back is still +turned. Her face tender, she is about to speak when he +speaks</i>.)</p> +<p>IRA: Grown up now—and going off and leaving me alone. You +too—the last one. And—<i>what for? (turning, looking +around the room as for those long gone</i>) There used to be so +many in this house. My grandmother. She sat there. (<i>pointing to +the place near the open door</i>) Fine days like this—in that +chair (<i>points to the rocker</i>) she'd sit there—tell me +stories of the Indians. Father. It wasn't ever lonely where father +was. Then Madeline Fejevary—my Madeline came to this house. +Lived with me in this house. Then one day she—walked out of +this house. Through that door—through the field—out of +this house. (<i>bitter silence</i>) Then Fred—out of this +house. Now you. With Emil Johnson! (<i>insanely, and almost with +relief at leaving things more sane</i>) Don't let him touch my +corn. If he touches one kernel of this corn! (<i>with the suspicion +of the tormented mind</i>) I wonder where he went? How do I know he +went where he <i>said</i> he was going? (<i>getting up</i>) I dunno +as that south bin's locked.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh—father!</p> +<p>IRA: I'll find out. How do I know what he's doing?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He goes out, turning left</i>. MADELINE <i>goes +to the window and looks after him. A moment later, hearing someone +at the door, she turns and finds her</i> AUNT ISABEL, <i>who has +appeared from right. Goes swiftly to her, hands out</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, <i>auntie</i>—I'm glad you came! It's my +birthday, and I'm—lonely.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: You dear little girl! (<i>again giving her a hug, +which</i> MADELINE <i>returns, lovingly</i>) Don't I know it's your +birthday? Don't think that day will ever get by while your Aunt +Isabel's around. Just see what's here for your birthday. (<i>hands +her the package she is carrying</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>with a gasp—suspecting from its shape</i>) +Oh! (<i>her face aglow</i>) Why—<i>is</i> it?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>laughing affectionately</i>) Foolish child, +open it and see.</p> +<p class="dir">(MADELINE <i>loosens the paper and pulls out a +tennis racket</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>excited, and moved</i>) Oh, aunt Isabel! that was +dear of you. I shouldn't have thought you'd—quite do +that.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: I couldn't imagine Madeline without a racket. +(<i>gathering up the paper, lightly reproachful</i>) But be a +little careful of it, Madeline. It's meant for tennis balls. +(<i>they laugh together</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>making a return with it</i>) It's a <i>peach</i>. +(<i>changing</i>) Wonder where I'll play now.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Why, you'll play on the courts at Morton College. +Who has a better right?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, I don't know. It's pretty much balled up, isn't +it?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Yes; we'll have to get it straightened out. +(<i>gently</i>) It was really dreadful of you, Madeline, to rush +out a second time. It isn't as if they were people who were +anything to you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: But, auntie, they are something to me.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Oh, dear, that's what Horace said.</p> +<p>MADELINE: What's what Horace said?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: That you must have a case on one of them.</p> +<p>MADELINE: That's what Horace would say. That makes me sore!</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: I'm sorry I spoke of it. Horace is absurd in some +ways.</p> +<p>MADELINE: He's a—</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>stopping it with her hand</i>) No, he isn't. +He's a headstrong boy, but a very loving one. He's dear with me, +Madeline.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Yes. You are good to each other. (<i>her eyes are +drawn to the cell</i>)</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Of course we are. We'd be a pretty poor sort if we +weren't. And these are days when we have to stand +together—all of us who are the same kind of people must stand +together because the thing that makes us the same kind of people is +threatened.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Don't you think we're rather threatening it ourselves, +auntie?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Why, no, we're fighting for it.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Fighting for what?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: For Americanism; for—democracy.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Horace is fighting for it?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Well, Horace does go at it as if it were a football +game, but his heart's in the right place.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Somehow, I don't seem to see my heart in that +place.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: In what place?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Where Horace's heart is.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: It's too bad you and Horace quarrel. But you and I +don't quarrel, Madeline.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>again drawn to the cell</i>) No. You and I don't +quarrel. (<i>she is troubled</i>)</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Funny child! Do you want us to?</p> +<p class="dir">(MADELINE <i>turns, laughing a little, takes the +dish from the table, holds it out to her aunt</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Have some fudge, auntie.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>taking the dish</i>) Do you <i>use</i> +them?—the old Hungarian dishes? (<i>laughingly</i>) I'm not +allowed to—your uncle is so choice of the few pieces we have. +And here are you with fudge in one of them.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I made the fudge because—oh, I don't know, I had +to do something to celebrate my birthday.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>under her breath</i>) Dearie!</p> +<p>MADELINE: And then that didn't seem to—make a birthday, so +I happened to see this, way up on a top shelf, and I remembered +that it was my mother's. It was nice to get it down and use +it—almost as if mother was giving me a birthday present.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: And how she would love to give you a birthday +present.</p> +<p>MADELINE: It was her mother's, I suppose, and they brought it +from Hungary.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Yes. They brought only a very few things with them, +and left—oh, so many beautiful ones behind.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>quietly</i>) Rather nice of them, wasn't it? +(<i>her aunt waits inquiringly</i>) To leave their own beautiful +things—their own beautiful life behind—simply because +they believed life should be more beautiful for more people.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>with constraint</i>) Yes. (<i>gayly turning +it</i>) Well, now, as to the birthday. What do you suppose Sarah is +doing this instant? Putting red frosting on white frosting, +(<i>writing it with her finger</i>) Madeline. And what do you +suppose Horace is doing? (<i>this a little reproachfully</i>) +Running around buying twenty-one red candles. Twenty-two—one +to grow on. Big birthday cake. Party to-night.</p> +<p>MADELINE: But, auntie, I don't see how I can be there.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Listen, dear. Now, we've got to use our wits and +all pull together. Of course we'd do anything in the world rather +than see you—left to outsiders. I've never seen your uncle as +worried, and—truly, Madeline, as sad. Oh, my dear, it's these +human things that count! What would life be without the love we +have for each other?</p> +<p>MADELINE: The love we have for each other?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Why, yes, dearest. Don't turn away from me +Madeline. Don't—don't be strange. I wonder if you realize how +your uncle has worked to have life a happy thing for all of us? Be +a little generous to him. He's had this great burden of bringing +something from another day on into this day. It is not as simple as +it may seem. He's done it as best he could. It will hurt him as +nothing has ever hurt him if you now undo that work of his life. +Truly, dear, do you feel you know enough about it to do that? +Another thing: people are a little absurd out of their own places. +We need to be held in our relationships—against our +background—or we are—I don't know—grotesque. Come +now, Madeline, where's your sense of humour? Isn't it a little +absurd for you to leave home over India's form of government?</p> +<p>MADELINE: It's not India. It's America. A sense of humour is +nothing to hide behind!</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>with a laugh</i>) I knew I wouldn't be a +success at world affairs—better leave that to Professor +Holden. (<i>a quick keen look from</i> MADELINE) They've driven on +to the river—they'll be back for me, and then he wants to +stop in for a visit with you while I take Mrs Holden for a further +ride. I'm worried about her. She doesn't gain strength at all since +her operation. I'm going to try keeping her out in the air all I +can.</p> +<p>MADELINE: It's dreadful about families!</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Dreadful? Professor Holden's devotion to his wife +is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.</p> +<p>MADELINE: And is that all you see it in?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: You mean the—responsibility it brings? Oh, +well—that's what life is. Doing for one another. Sacrificing +for one another.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I hope I never have a family.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Well, I hope you do. You'll miss the best of life +if you don't. Anyway, you have a family. Where is your father?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I don't know.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: I'd like to see him.</p> +<p>MADELINE: There's no use seeing him today.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: He's—?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Strange—shut in—afraid something's going +to be taken from him.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Poor Ira. So much has been taken from him. And now +you. Don't hurt him again, Madeline. He can't bear it. You see what +it does to him.</p> +<p>MADELINE: He has—the wrong idea about things.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: 'The wrong idea!' Oh, my child—that's awfully +young and hard. It's so much deeper than that. Life has made him +into something—something he can't escape.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>with what seems sullenness</i>) Well, I don't want +to be made into that thing.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Of course not. But you want to help him, don't you? +Now, dear—about your birthday party—</p> +<p>MADELINE: The United States Commissioner is giving me my +birthday party.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Well, he'll have to put his party off. Your uncle +has been thinking it all out. We're to go to his office and you'll +have a talk with him and with Judge Watkins. He's off the state +supreme bench now—practising again, and as a favour to your +uncle he will be your lawyer. You don't know how relieved we are at +this, for Judge Watkins can do—anything he wants to do, +practically. Then you and I will go on home and call up some of the +crowd to come in and dance to-night. We have some beautiful new +records. There's a Hungarian waltz—</p> +<p>MADELINE: And what's the price of all this, auntie?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: The—Oh, you mean—Why, simply say you +felt sorry for the Hindu students because they seemed rather alone; +that you hadn't realized—what they were, hadn't thought out +what you were saying—</p> +<p>MADELINE: And that I'm sorry and will never do it again.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: I don't know that you need say that. It would be +gracious, I think, to indicate it.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'm sorry you—had the cake made. I suppose you +can eat it, anyway. I (<i>turning away</i>)—can't eat it.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Why—Madeline.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Seeing how she has hurt her</i>, MADELINE +<i>goes out to her aunt</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Auntie, dear! I'm sorry—if I hurt your +feelings.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>quick to hold out a loving hand, laughing a +little</i>) They've been good birthday cakes, haven't they, +Madeline?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>she now trying not to cry</i>) I don't +know—what I'd have done without them. Don't know—what I +will do without them. I don't—see it.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Don't try to. Please don't see it! Just let me go +on helping you. That's all I ask. (<i>she draws</i> MADELINE <i>to +her</i>) Ah, dearie, I held you when you were a little baby without +your mother. All those years count for something, Madeline. There's +just nothing to life if years of love don't count for something. +(<i>listening</i>) I think I hear them. And here are we, weeping +like two idiots. (MADELINE <i>brushes away tears</i>, AUNT ISABEL +<i>arranges her veil, regaining her usual poise</i>) Professor +Holden was hoping you'd take a tramp with him. Wouldn't that do you +good? Anyway, a talk with him will be nice. I know he admires you +immensely, and really—perhaps I shouldn't let you know +this—sympathizes with your feeling. So I think his maturer +way of looking at things will show you just the adjustment you need +to become a really big and useful person. There's so much to be +done in the world, Madeline. Of course we ought to make it a better +world. (<i>in a manner of agreement with</i> MADELINE) I feel very +strongly about all that. Perhaps we can do some things together. +I'd love that. Don't think I'm hopeless! Way down deep we have the +same feeling. Yes, here's Professor Holden.</p> +<p class="dir">(HOLDEN <i>comes in. He seems older</i>.)</p> +<p>HOLDEN: And how are you, Madeline? (<i>holding out his +hand</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'm—all right.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Many happy returns of the day. (<i>embarrassed by her +half laugh</i>) The birthday.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: And did you have a nice look up the river?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I never saw this country as lovely as it is to-day. Mary +is just drinking it in.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: You don't think the further ride will be too +much?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Oh, no—not in that car.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Then we'll go on—perhaps as far as Laughing +Creek. If you two decide on a tramp—take that road and we'll +pick you up. (<i>smiling warmly, she goes out</i>)</p> +<p>HOLDEN: How good she is.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Yes. That's just the trouble.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>with difficulty getting past this</i>) How about a +little tramp? There'll never be another such day.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I used to tramp with Fred Jordan. This is where he is +now. (<i>stepping inside the cell</i>) He doesn't even see out.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: It's all wrong that he should be where he is. But for +you to stay indoors won't help him, Madeline.</p> +<p>MADELINE: It won't help him, but—today—I can't go +out.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I'm sorry, my child. When this sense of wrongs done +first comes down upon one, it does crush.</p> +<p>MADELINE: And later you get used to it and don't care.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: You care. You try not to destroy yourself needlessly. +(<i>he turns from her look</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Play safe.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: If it's playing safe it's that one you love more than +yourself be safe. It would be a luxury to—destroy one's +self.</p> +<p>MADELINE: That sounds like Uncle Felix. (<i>seeing she has hurt +him, she goes over and sits across from him at the table</i>) I'm +sorry. I say the wrong things today.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I don't know that you do.</p> +<p>MADELINE: But isn't uncle funny? His left mind doesn't know what +his right mind is doing. He has to think of himself as a person of +sentiment—idealism, and—quite a job, at times. +Clever—how he gets away with it. The war must have been a +godsend to people who were in danger of getting on to themselves. +But I should think you could fool all of yourself all the time.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: You don't. (<i>he is rubbing his hand on the +table</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Grandfather Morton made this table. I suppose he and +Grandfather Fejevary used to sit here and talk—they were +great old pals. (<i>slowly</i> HOLDEN <i>turns and looks out at the +hill</i>) Yes. How beautiful the hill must have been—before +there was a college there. (<i>he looks away from the hill</i>) Did +you know Grandfather Morton?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Yes, I knew him. (<i>speaking of it against his +will</i>) I had a wonderful talk with him once; about +Greece—and the cornfields, and life.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'd like to have been a pioneer! Some ways they had it +fierce, but think of the fun they had! A whole big land to open up! +A big new life to begin! (<i>her hands closing in from wideness to +a smaller thing</i>) Why did so much get shut out? Just a little +way back—anything might have been. What happened?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>speaking with difficulty</i>) It got—set too +soon.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>all of her mind open, trying to know</i>) And why +did it? Prosperous, I suppose. That seems to set things—set +them in fear. Silas Morton wasn't afraid of Felix Fejevary, the +Hungarian revolutionist. He laid this country at that refugee's +feet! That's what Uncle Felix says himself—with the left half +of his mind. Now—the Hindu revolutionists—! +(<i>pause</i>) I took a walk late yesterday afternoon. Night came, +and for some reason I thought of how many nights have +come—nights the earth has known long before we knew the +earth. The moon came up and I thought of how moonlight made this +country beautiful before any man knew that moonlight was beautiful. +It gave me a feeling of coming from something a long way back. +Moving toward—what will be here when I'm not here. Moving. We +seem here, now, in America, to have forgotten we're moving. Think +it's just <i>us</i>—just now. Of course, that would make us +afraid, and—ridiculous.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Her father comes in</i>.)</p> +<p>IRA: Your Aunt Isabel—did she go away—and leave +you?</p> +<p>MADELINE: She's coming back.</p> +<p>IRA: For you?</p> +<p>MADELINE: She—wants me to go with her. This is Professor +Holden, father.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: How do you do, Mr Morton?</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>nods, not noticing</i> HOLDEN<i>'s offered hand</i>) +How'do. When is she coming back?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Soon.</p> +<p>IRA: And then you're going with her?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I—don't know.</p> +<p>IRA: I say you go with her. You want them all to come down on +us? (<i>to</i> HOLDEN) What are you here for?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Aunt Isabel brought Professor Holden, father.</p> +<p>IRA: Oh. Then you—you tell her what to do. You make her do +it. (<i>he goes into the room at left</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>sadly, after a silence</i>) Father's like +something touched by an early frost.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Yes. (<i>seeing his opening and forcing himself to take +it</i>) But do you know, Madeline, there are other ways of that +happening—'touched by an early frost'. I've seen it happen to +people I know—people of fine and daring mind. They do a thing +that puts them apart—it may be the big, brave thing—but +the apartness does something to them. I've seen it many +times—so many times—so many times, I fear for you. You +do this thing and you'll find yourself with people who in many ways +you don't care for at all; find yourself apart from people who in +most ways are your own people. You're many-sided, Madeline. +(<i>moves her tennis racket</i>) I don't know about it's all going +to one side. I hate to see you, so young, close a door on so much +life. I'm being just as honest with you as I know how. I myself am +making compromises to stay within. I don't like it, but there +are—reasons for doing it. I can't see you leave that main +body without telling you all it is you are leaving. It's not a +clean-cut case—the side of the world or the side of the +angels. I hate to see you lose the—fullness of life.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>a slight start, as she realizes the pause. As one +recalled from far</i>) I'm sorry. I was listening to what you were +saying—but all the time—something else was happening. +Grandfather Morton, big and—oh, terrible. He was here. And we +went to that walled-up hole in the ground—(<i>rising and +pointing down at the chalked cell</i>)—where they keep Fred +Jordan on bread and water because he couldn't be a part of nations +of men killing each other—and Silas Morton—only he was +all that is back of us, tore open that cell—it was his voice +tore it open—his voice as he cried, 'God damn you, this is +America!' (<i>sitting down, as if rallying from a tremendous +experience</i>) I'm sorry—it should have happened, while you +were speaking. Won't you—go on?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: That's a pretty hard thing to go on against. (<i>after a +moment</i>) I can't go on.</p> +<p>MADELINE: You were thinking of leaving the college, and +then—decided to stay? (<i>he nods</i>) And you feel there's +more—fullness of life for you inside the college than +outside?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: No—not exactly. (<i>again a pause</i>) It's very +hard for me to talk to you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>gently</i>) Perhaps we needn't do it.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>something in him forcing him to say it</i>) I'm +staying for financial reasons.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>kind, but not going to let the truth get away</i>) +You don't think that—having to stay within—or deciding +to, rather, makes you think these things of the—blight of +being without?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I think there is danger to you in—so young, +becoming alien to society.</p> +<p>MADELINE: As great as the danger of staying within—and +becoming like the thing I'm within?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: You wouldn't become like it.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Why wouldn't I? That's what it does to the rest of +you. I don't see it—this fullness of life business. I don't +see that Uncle Felix has got it—or even Aunt Isabel, and +you—I think that in buying it you're losing it.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I don't think you know what a cruel thing you are +saying.</p> +<p>MADELINE: There must be something pretty rotten about Morton +College if you have to sell your soul to stay in it!</p> +<p>HOLDEN: You don't 'sell your soul'. You persuade yourself to +wait.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>unable to look at him, as if feeling shame</i>) +You have had a talk with Uncle Felix since that day in the library +you stepped aside for me to pass.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Yes; and with my wife's physician. If you sell your +soul—it's to love you sell it.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>low</i>) That's strange. It's love +that—brings life along, and then it's love—holds life +back.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>and all the time with this effort against +hopelessness</i>) Leaving me out of it, I'd like to see you give +yourself a little more chance for detachment. You need a better +intellectual equipment if you're going to fight the world you find +yourself in. I think you will count for more if you wait, and when +you strike, strike more maturely.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Detachment. (<i>pause</i>) This is one thing they do +at this place. (<i>she moves to the open door</i>) Chain them up to +the bars—just like this. (<i>in the doorway where her two +grandfathers once pledged faith with the dreams of a million years, +she raises clasped hands as high as they will go</i>) Eight hours a +day—day after day. Just hold your arms up like this one hour +then sit down and think about—(<i>as if tortured by all who +have been so tortured, her body begins to give with sobs, arms +drop, the last word is a sob</i>) detachment.</p> +<p>HOLDEN <i>is standing helplessly by when her father comes +in</i>.</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>wildly</i>) Don't cry. No! Not in this house! I +can't—Your aunt and uncle will fix it up. The law won't take +you this time—and you won't do it again.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, what does <i>that</i> matter—what they do to +<i>me</i>?</p> +<p>IRA: What are you crying about then?</p> +<p>MADELINE: It's—the <i>world</i>. It's—</p> +<p>IRA: The <i>world</i>? If that's all you've got to cry about! +(<i>to</i> HOLDEN) Tell her that's nothing to cry about. What's the +matter with you. Mad'line? That's crazy—cryin' about the +world! What good has ever come to this house through carin' about +the world? What good's that college? Better we had that hill. Why +is there no one in this house to-day but me and you? Where's your +mother? Where's your brother? The <i>world</i>.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I think your father would like to talk to you. I'll go +outside—walk a little, and come back for you with your aunt. +You must let us see you through this, Madeline. You couldn't bear +the things it would bring you to. I see that now. (<i>as he passes +her in the doorway his hand rests an instant on her bent head</i>) +You're worth too much to break.</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>turning away</i>) I don't want to talk to you. What +good comes of talking? (<i>In moving, he has stepped near the sack +of corn. Takes hold of it</i>.) But not with Emil Johnson! That's +not—what your mother died for.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Father, you must talk to me. What did my mother die +for? No one has ever told me about her—except that she was +beautiful—not like other people here. I got a feeling +of—something from far away. Something from long ago. Rare. +Why can't Uncle Felix talk about her? Why can't you? Wouldn't she +want me to know her? Tell me about her. It's my birthday and I need +my mother.</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>as if afraid he is going to do it</i>) How can you +touch—what you've not touched in nineteen years? Just +once—in nineteen years—and that did no good.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Try. Even though it hurts. Didn't you use to talk to +her? Well, I'm her daughter. Talk to me. What has she to do with +Emil Johnson?</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>the pent-up thing loosed</i>) What has she to do with +him? She died so he could live. He lives because she's dead, (<i>in +anguish</i>) And what is <i>he</i> alongside her? Yes. Something +from far away. Something from long ago. Rare. How'd you know that? +Finding in me—what I didn't know was there. Then <i>she</i> +came—that ignorant Swede—Emil Johnson's +mother—running through the cornfield like a crazy +woman—'Miss Morton! Miss Morton! Come help me! My children +are choking!' Diphtheria they had—the whole of 'em—but +out of this house she ran—my Madeline, leaving you—her +own baby—running as fast as she could through the cornfield +after that immigrant woman. She stumbled in the rough +field—fell to her knees. That was the last I saw of her. She +choked to death in that Swede's house. They lived.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>going to him</i>) Oh—father, (<i>voice +rich</i>) But how lovely of her.</p> +<p>IRA: Lovely? Lovely to leave you without a mother—leave me +without her after I'd had her? Wasn't she worth more than them.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>proudly</i>) Yes. She was worth so much that she +never stopped to think how much she was worth.</p> +<p>IRA: Ah, if you'd known her you couldn't take it like that. And +now you cry about the world! That's what the world is—all +coming to nothing. My father used to sit there at the table and +talk about the world—my father and her father. They thought +'twas all for something—that what you were went on into +something more than you. That's the talk I always heard in this +house. But it's just talk. The rare thing that came here was killed +by the common thing that came here. Just happens—and happens +cruel. Look at your brother! Gone—(<i>snaps his fingers</i>) +like that. I told him not to go to war. He didn't have to +go—they'd been glad enough to have him stay here on the farm. +But no,—he must—make the world safe for democracy! +Well, you see how safe he made it, don't you? Now I'm alone on the +farm and he—buried on some Frenchman's farm. That is, I hope +they buried him—I hope they didn't +just—(<i>tormented</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, father—of course not. I know they did.</p> +<p>IRA: How do you know? What do you care—once they got him? +<i>He</i> talked about the world—better world—end war. +Now he's in his grave—I hope he is—and look at the +front page of the paper! No such thing—war to end war!</p> +<p>MADELINE: But he thought there was, father. Fred believed +that—so what else could he do?</p> +<p>IRA: He could 'a' minded his own business.</p> +<p>MADELINE: No—oh, no. It was fine of him to give his life +to what he believed should be.</p> +<p>IRA: The light in his eyes as he talked of it, now—eyes +gone—and the world he died for all hate and war. Waste. +Waste. Nothin' but waste—the life of this house. Why, folks +to-day'd laugh to hear my father talk. He gave his best land for +ideas to live. Thought was going to make us a better people. What +was his word? (<i>waits</i>) Aspiration. (<i>says it as if it is a +far-off thing</i>) Well, look at your friend, young Jordan. Kicked +from the college to prison for ideas of a better world. +(<i>laughs</i>) His 'aspiration' puts him in a hole on bread and +water! So—mind your own business, that's all that's so in +this country. (<i>constantly tormented anew</i>) Oh, I told your +brother all that—the night I tried to keep him. Told him +about his mother—to show what come of running to other folks. +And he said—standing right there—(<i>pointing</i>) eyes +all bright, he said, 'Golly, I think that's great!' And then +<i>he</i>—walked out of this house. (<i>fear takes him</i>) +Madeline! (<i>she stoops over him, her arm around him</i>) Don't +you leave me—all alone in this house—where so many was +once. What's Hindus—alongside your own father—and him +needing you? It won't be long. After a little I'll be dead—or +crazy—or something. But not here alone where so many was +once.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh—father. I don't know what to do.</p> +<p>IRA: Nothing stays at home. Not even the corn stays at home. If +only the wind wouldn't blow! Why can't I have my field to myself? +Why can't I keep what's mine? All these years I've worked to make +it better. I wanted it to be—the most that it could be. My +father used to talk about the Indians—how our land was their +land, and how we must be more than them. He had his own ideas of +bein' more—well, what's that come to? The Indians lived +happier than we—wars, strikes, prisons. But I've made the +corn more! This land that was once Indian maize now grows +corn—I'd like to have the Indians see my corn! I'd like to +see them side by side!—their Indian maize, my corn. And how'd +I get it? Ah, by thinkin'—always tryin', changin', carin'. +Plant this corn by that corn, and the pollen blows from corn to +corn—the golden dust it blows, in the sunshine and of +nights—blows from corn to corn like a—(<i>the word +hurts</i>) gift. No, you don't understand it, but (<i>proudly</i>) +corn don't stay what it is! You can make it +anything—according to what you do, 'cording to the corn it's +alongside. (<i>changing</i>) But that's it. I want it to stay in my +field. It goes away. The prevailin' wind takes it on to the +Johnsons—them Swedes that took my Madeline! I hear it! Oh, +nights when I can't help myself—and in the sunshine I can see +it—pollen—soft golden dust to make new life—goin' +on to <i>them</i>,—and them too ignorant to know what's +makin' their corn better! I want my field to myself. What'd I work +all my life for? Work that's had to take the place o' what I +lost—is that to go to Emil Johnson? No! The wind shall stand +still! I'll make it. I'll find a way. Let me alone and I—I'll +think it out. Let me alone, I say.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>A mind burned to one idea, with greedy haste he +shuts himself in the room at left</i>. MADELINE <i>has been +standing there as if mist is parting and letting her see. And as +the vision grows power grows in her. She is thus flooded with +richer life when her</i> AUNT <i>and Professor</i> HOLDEN <i>come +back. Feeling something new, for a moment they do not +speak</i>.)</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Ready, dear? It's time for us to go now.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>with the quiet of plentitude</i>) I'm going in +with Emil Johnson.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Why—Madeline. (<i>falteringly</i>) We thought +you'd go with us.</p> +<p>MADELINE: No. I have to be—the most I can be. I want the +wind to have something to carry.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>after a look at Professor</i> HOLDEN, <i>who is +looking intensely at</i> MADELINE) I don't understand.</p> +<p>MADELINE: The world is all a—moving field. (<i>her hands +move, voice too is of a moving field</i>) Nothing is to itself. If +America thinks so—America is like father. I don't feel alone +any more. The wind has come through—wind rich from lives now +gone. Grandfather Fejevary, gift from a field far off. Silas +Morton. No, not alone any more. And afraid? I'm not even afraid of +being absurd!</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: But Madeline—you're leaving your father?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>after thinking it out</i>) I'm not +leaving—what's greater in him than he knows.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: You're leaving Morton College?</p> +<p>MADELINE: That runt on a high hill? Yes, I'm leaving +grandfather's college—then maybe I can one day lie under the +same sod with him, and not be ashamed. Though I must tell you (<i>a +little laugh</i>) under the sod is my idea of no place to be. I +want to be a long time—where the wind blows.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>who is trying not to cry</i>) I'm afraid it +won't blow in prison, dear.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I don't know. Might be the only place it would blow. +(EMIL <i>passes the window, hesitates at the door</i>) I'll be +ready in just a moment, Emil.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He waits outside</i>.)</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Madeline, I didn't tell you—I hoped it +wouldn't be necessary, but your uncle said—if you refused to +do it his way, he could do absolutely nothing for you, not +even—bail.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Of course not. I wouldn't expect him to.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: He feels so deeply about these +things—America—loyalty, he said if you didn't come with +us it would be final, Madeline. Even—(<i>breaks</i>) between +you and me.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'm sorry, auntie. You know how I love you. (<i>and +her voice tells it</i>) But father has been telling me about the +corn. It gives itself away all the time—the best corn a gift +to other corn. What you are—that doesn't stay with you. +Then—(<i>not with assurance, but feeling her way</i>) be the +most you can be, so life will be more because you were. (<i>freed +by the truth she has found</i>) Oh—do that! Why do we three +go apart? Professor Holden, his beautiful trained mind; Aunt +Isabel—her beautiful love, love that could save the world if +only you'd—throw it to the winds. (<i>moving nearer</i> +HOLDEN, <i>hands out to him</i>) Why do—(<i>seeing it is not +to be, she turns away. Low, with sorrow for that great beauty +lost</i>) Oh, have we brought mind, have we brought heart, up to +this place—only to turn them against mind and heart?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>unable to bear more</i>) I think we—must go. +(<i>going to</i> MADELINE, <i>holding out his hand and speaking +from his sterile life to her fullness of life</i>) Good-bye, +Madeline. Good luck.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Good-bye, Professor Holden. (<i>hesitates</i>) Luck to +you.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Shaking his head, stooped, he hurries +out</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>after a moment when neither can speak</i>) +Good-bye—auntie dearest. Thank you—for the birthday +present—the cake—everything. Everything—all the +years.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>There is something</i> AUNT ISABEL <i>would say, +but she can only hold tight to</i> MADELINE<i>'s hands. At last, +with a smile that speaks for love, a little nod, she goes</i>. EMIL +<i>comes in</i>.)</p> +<p>EMIL: You better go with them, Madeline. It'd make it better for +you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh no, it wouldn't. I'll be with you in an instant, +Emil. I want to—say good-bye to my father.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>But she waits before that door, a door hard to +go through. Alone</i>, EMIL <i>looks around the room. Sees the bag +of corn, takes a couple of ears and is looking at them as</i> +MADELINE <i>returns. She remains by the door, shaken with sobs, +turns, as if pulled back to the pain she has left</i>.)</p> +<p>EMIL: Gee. This is great corn.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>turning now to him</i>) It is, isn't it, Emil?</p> +<p>EMIL: None like it.</p> +<p>MADELINE: And you say—your corn is getting better?</p> +<p>EMIL: Oh, yes—I raise better corn every year now.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>low</i>) That's nice. I'll be right out, Emil.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He puts the corn back, goes out. From the +closet</i> MADELINE <i>takes her hat and wrap. Putting them on, she +sees the tennis racket on the table. She goes to it, takes it up, +holds it a moment, then takes it to the closet, puts it carefully +away, closes the door behind it. A moment she stands there in the +room, as if listening to something. Then she leaves that +house</i>.)</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10623 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..997d8c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10623 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10623) diff --git a/old/10623-8.txt b/old/10623-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1172bff --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10623-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8609 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Plays, by Susan Glaspell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Plays + +Author: Susan Glaspell + +Release Date: January 7, 2004 [EBook #10623] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +Plays by + +Susan Glaspell + + +TRIFLES + +THE OUTSIDE + +THE VERGE + +INHERITORS + + + + +TRIFLES + + +First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Wharf Theatre, +Provincetown, Mass., August 8, 1916. + + +GEORGE HENDERSON (County Attorney) + +HENRY PETERS (Sheriff) + +LEWIS HALE, A neighboring farmer + +MRS PETERS + +MRS HALE + + +SCENE: _The kitchen is the now abandoned farmhouse of_ JOHN WRIGHT, _a +gloomy kitchen, and left without having been put in order--unwashed pans +under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the bread-box, a dish-towel on +the table--other signs of incompleted work. At the rear the outer door +opens and the_ SHERIFF _comes in followed by the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _and_ +HALE. _The_ SHERIFF _and_ HALE _are men in middle life, the_ COUNTY +ATTORNEY _is a young man; all are much bundled up and go at once to the +stove. They are followed by the two women--the_ SHERIFF_'s wife first; +she is a slight wiry woman, a thin nervous face_. MRS HALE _is larger +and would ordinarily be called more comfortable looking, but she is +disturbed now and looks fearfully about as she enters. The women have +come in slowly, and stand close together near the door_. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_rubbing his hands_) This feels good. Come up to the +fire, ladies. + +MRS PETERS: (_after taking a step forward_) I'm not--cold. + +SHERIFF: (_unbuttoning his overcoat and stepping away from the stove as +if to mark the beginning of official business_) Now, Mr Hale, before we +move things about, you explain to Mr Henderson just what you saw when +you came here yesterday morning. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: By the way, has anything been moved? Are things just as +you left them yesterday? + +SHERIFF: (_looking about_) It's just the same. When it dropped below +zero last night I thought I'd better send Frank out this morning to make +a fire for us--no use getting pneumonia with a big case on, but I told +him not to touch anything except the stove--and you know Frank. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Somebody should have been left here yesterday. + +SHERIFF: Oh--yesterday. When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for +that man who went crazy--I want you to know I had my hands full +yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by today and as long as +I went over everything here myself-- + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, Mr Hale, tell just what happened when you came +here yesterday morning. + +HALE: Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes. We came +along the road from my place and as I got here I said, I'm going to see +if I can't get John Wright to go in with me on a party telephone.' I +spoke to Wright about it once before and he put me off, saying folks +talked too much anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet--I guess +you know about how much he talked himself; but I thought maybe if I went +to the house and talked about it before his wife, though I said to Harry +that I didn't know as what his wife wanted made much difference to +John-- + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Let's talk about that later, Mr Hale. I do want to talk +about that, but tell now just what happened when you got to the house. + +HALE: I didn't hear or see anything; I knocked at the door, and still it +was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up, it was past eight o'clock. +So I knocked again, and I thought I heard somebody say, 'Come in.' I +wasn't sure, I'm not sure yet, but I opened the door--this door +(_indicating the door by which the two women are still standing_) and +there in that rocker--(_pointing to it_) sat Mrs Wright. + +(_They all look at the rocker_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: What--was she doing? + +HALE: She was rockin' back and forth. She had her apron in her hand and +was kind of--pleating it. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: And how did she--look? + +HALE: Well, she looked queer. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: How do you mean--queer? + +HALE: Well, as if she didn't know what she was going to do next. And +kind of done up. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: How did she seem to feel about your coming? + +HALE: Why, I don't think she minded--one way or other. She didn't pay +much attention. I said, 'How do, Mrs Wright it's cold, ain't it?' And +she said, 'Is it?'--and went on kind of pleating at her apron. Well, I +was surprised; she didn't ask me to come up to the stove, or to set +down, but just sat there, not even looking at me, so I said, 'I want to +see John.' And then she--laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh. I +thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said a little sharp: 'Can't +I see John?' 'No', she says, kind o' dull like. 'Ain't he home?' says I. +'Yes', says she, 'he's home'. 'Then why can't I see him?' I asked her, +out of patience. ''Cause he's dead', says she. _'Dead_?' says I. She +just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but rockin' back and +forth. 'Why--where is he?' says I, not knowing what to say. She just +pointed upstairs--like that (_himself pointing to the room above_) I got +up, with the idea of going up there. I walked from there to here--then I +says, 'Why, what did he die of?' 'He died of a rope round his neck', +says she, and just went on pleatin' at her apron. Well, I went out and +called Harry. I thought I might--need help. We went upstairs and there +he was lyin'-- + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: I think I'd rather have you go into that upstairs, +where you can point it all out. Just go on now with the rest of the +story. + +HALE: Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked ... +(_stops, his face twitches_) ... but Harry, he went up to him, and he +said, 'No, he's dead all right, and we'd better not touch anything.' So +we went back down stairs. She was still sitting that same way. 'Has +anybody been notified?' I asked. 'No', says she unconcerned. 'Who did +this, Mrs Wright?' said Harry. He said it business-like--and she stopped +pleatin' of her apron. 'I don't know', she says. 'You don't _know_?' +says Harry. 'No', says she. 'Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with him?' +says Harry. 'Yes', says she, 'but I was on the inside'. 'Somebody +slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him and you didn't wake up?' +says Harry. 'I didn't wake up', she said after him. We must 'a looked as +if we didn't see how that could be, for after a minute she said, 'I +sleep sound'. Harry was going to ask her more questions but I said maybe +we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner, or the sheriff, +so Harry went fast as he could to Rivers' place, where there's a +telephone. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: And what did Mrs Wright do when she knew that you had +gone for the coroner? + +HALE: She moved from that chair to this one over here (_pointing to a +small chair in the corner_) and just sat there with her hands held +together and looking down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some +conversation, so I said I had come in to see if John wanted to put in a +telephone, and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and +looked at me--scared, (_the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY, _who has had his notebook +out, makes a note_) I dunno, maybe it wasn't scared. I wouldn't like to +say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr Lloyd came, and you, Mr +Peters, and so I guess that's all I know that you don't. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_looking around_) I guess we'll go upstairs first--and +then out to the barn and around there, (_to the_ SHERIFF) You're +convinced that there was nothing important here--nothing that would +point to any motive. + +SHERIFF: Nothing here but kitchen things. + +(_The_ COUNTY ATTORNEY, _after again looking around the kitchen, opens +the door of a cupboard closet. He gets up on a chair and looks on a +shelf. Pulls his hand away, sticky_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Here's a nice mess. + +(_The women draw nearer_.) + +MRS PETERS: (_to the other woman_) Oh, her fruit; it did freeze, (_to +the_ LAWYER) She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the +fire'd go out and her jars would break. + +SHERIFF: Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin' +about her preserves. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: I guess before we're through she may have something +more serious than preserves to worry about. + +HALE: Well, women are used to worrying over trifles. + +(_The two women move a little closer together_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_with the gallantry of a young politician_) And yet, +for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies? (_the women +do not unbend. He goes to the sink, takes a dipperful of water from the +pail and pouring it into a basin, washes his hands. Starts to wipe them +on the roller-towel, turns it for a cleaner place_) Dirty towels! +(_kicks his foot against the pans under the sink_) Not much of a +housekeeper, would you say, ladies? + +MRS HALE: (_stiffly_) There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: To be sure. And yet (_with a little bow to her_) I know +there are some Dickson county farmhouses which do not have such roller +towels. (_He gives it a pull to expose its length again_.) + +MRS HALE: Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always +as clean as they might be. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Ah, loyal to your sex, I see. But you and Mrs Wright +were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too. + +MRS HALE: (_shaking her head_) I've not seen much of her of late years. +I've not been in this house--it's more than a year. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: And why was that? You didn't like her? + +MRS HALE: I liked her all well enough. Farmers' wives have their hands +full, Mr Henderson. And then-- + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes--? + +MRS HALE: (_looking about_) It never seemed a very cheerful place. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: No--it's not cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the +homemaking instinct. + +MRS HALE: Well, I don't know as Wright had, either. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: You mean that they didn't get on very well? + +MRS HALE: No, I don't mean anything. But I don't think a place'd be any +cheerfuller for John Wright's being in it. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'd like to talk more of that a little later. I want to +get the lay of things upstairs now. (_He goes to the left, where three +steps lead to a stair door_.) + +SHERIFF: I suppose anything Mrs Peters does'll be all right. She was to +take in some clothes for her, you know, and a few little things. We left +in such a hurry yesterday. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes, but I would like to see what you take, Mrs Peters, +and keep an eye out for anything that might be of use to us. + +MRS PETERS: Yes, Mr Henderson. + +(_The women listen to the men's steps on the stairs, then look about the +kitchen_.) + +MRS HALE: I'd hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around +and criticising. + +(_She arranges the pans under sink which the_ LAWYER _had shoved out of +place_.) + +MRS PETERS: Of course it's no more than their duty. + +MRS HALE: Duty's all right, but I guess that deputy sheriff that came +out to make the fire might have got a little of this on. (_gives the +roller towel a pull_) Wish I'd thought of that sooner. Seems mean to +talk about her for not having things slicked up when she had to come +away in such a hurry. + +MRS PETERS: (_who has gone to a small table in the left rear corner of +the room, and lifted one end of a towel that covers a pan_) She had +bread set. (_Stands still_.) + +MRS HALE: (_eyes fixed on a loaf of bread beside the bread-box, which is +on a low shelf at the other side of the room. Moves slowly toward it_) +She was going to put this in there, (_picks up loaf, then abruptly drops +it. In a manner of returning to familiar things_) It's a shame about her +fruit. I wonder if it's all gone. (_gets up on the chair and looks_) I +think there's some here that's all right, Mrs Peters. Yes--here; +(_holding it toward the window_) this is cherries, too. (_looking +again_) I declare I believe that's the only one. (_gets down, bottle in +her hand. Goes to the sink and wipes it off on the outside_) She'll feel +awful bad after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the +afternoon I put up my cherries last summer. + +(_She puts the bottle on the big kitchen table, center of the room. With +a sigh, is about to sit down in the rocking-chair. Before she is seated +realizes what chair it is; with a slow look at it, steps back. The chair +which she has touched rocks back and forth_.) + +MRS PETERS: Well, I must get those things from the front room closet, +(_she goes to the door at the right, but after looking into the other +room, steps back_) You coming with me, Mrs Hale? You could help me carry +them. + +(_They go in the other room; reappear,_ MRS PETERS _carrying a dress and +skirt,_ MRS HALE _following with a pair of shoes._) + +MRS PETERS: My, it's cold in there. + +(_She puts the clothes on the big table, and hurries to the stove._) + +MRS HALE: (_examining the skirt_) Wright was close. I think maybe that's +why she kept so much to herself. She didn't even belong to the Ladies +Aid. I suppose she felt she couldn't do her part, and then you don't +enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and +be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in +the choir. But that--oh, that was thirty years ago. This all you was to +take in? + +MRS PETERS: She said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want, for there +isn't much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just +to make her feel more natural. She said they was in the top drawer in +this cupboard. Yes, here. And then her little shawl that always hung +behind the door. (_opens stair door and looks_) Yes, here it is. + +(_Quickly shuts door leading upstairs._) + +MRS HALE: (_abruptly moving toward her_) Mrs Peters? + +MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale? + +MRS HALE: Do you think she did it? + +MRS PETERS: (_in a frightened voice_) Oh, I don't know. + +MRS HALE: Well, I don't think she did. Asking for an apron and her +little shawl. Worrying about her fruit. + +MRS PETERS: (_starts to speak, glances up, where footsteps are heard in +the room above. In a low voice_) Mr Peters says it looks bad for her. Mr +Henderson is awful sarcastic in a speech and he'll make fun of her +sayin' she didn't wake up. + +MRS HALE: Well, I guess John Wright didn't wake when they was slipping +that rope under his neck. + +MRS PETERS: No, it's strange. It must have been done awful crafty and +still. They say it was such a--funny way to kill a man, rigging it all +up like that. + +MRS HALE: That's just what Mr Hale said. There was a gun in the house. +He says that's what he can't understand. + +MRS PETERS: Mr Henderson said coming out that what was needed for the +case was a motive; something to show anger, or--sudden feeling. + +MRS HALE: (_who is standing by the table_) Well, I don't see any signs +of anger around here, (_she puts her hand on the dish towel which lies +on the table, stands looking down at table, one half of which is clean, +the other half messy_) It's wiped to here, (_makes a move as if to +finish work, then turns and looks at loaf of bread outside the breadbox. +Drops towel. In that voice of coming back to familiar things._) Wonder +how they are finding things upstairs. I hope she had it a little more +red-up up there. You know, it seems kind of sneaking. Locking her up in +town and then coming out here and trying to get her own house to turn +against her! + +MRS PETERS: But Mrs Hale, the law is the law. + +MRS HALE: I s'pose 'tis, (_unbuttoning her coat_) Better loosen up your +things, Mrs Peters. You won't feel them when you go out. + +(MRS PETERS _takes off her fur tippet, goes to hang it on hook at back +of room, stands looking at the under part of the small corner table_.) + +MRS PETERS: She was piecing a quilt. (_She brings the large sewing +basket and they look at the bright pieces_.) + +MRS HALE: It's log cabin pattern. Pretty, isn't it? I wonder if she was +goin' to quilt it or just knot it? + +(_Footsteps have been heard coming down the stairs_. The SHERIFF enters +followed by HALE and the COUNTY ATTORNEY.) + +SHERIFF: They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it! (_The +men laugh, the women look abashed_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_rubbing his hands over the stove_) Frank's fire +didn't do much up there, did it? Well, let's go out to the barn and get +that cleared up. (_The men go outside_.) + +MRS HALE: (_resentfully_) I don't know as there's anything so strange, +our takin' up our time with little things while we're waiting for them +to get the evidence. (_she sits down at the big table smoothing out a +block with decision_) I don't see as it's anything to laugh about. + +MRS PETERS: (_apologetically_) Of course they've got awful important +things on their minds. + +(_Pulls up a chair and joins MRS HALE at the table_.) + +MRS HALE: (_examining another block_) Mrs Peters, look at this one. +Here, this is the one she was working on, and look at the sewing! All +the rest of it has been so nice and even. And look at this! It's all +over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn't know what she was about! + +(_After she has said this they look at each other, then start to glance +back at the door. After an instant_ MRS HALE _has pulled at a knot and +ripped the sewing_.) + +MRS PETERS: Oh, what are you doing, Mrs Hale? + +MRS HALE: (_mildly_) Just pulling out a stitch or two that's not sewed +very good. (_threading a needle_) Bad sewing always made me fidgety. + +MRS PETERS: (nervously) I don't think we ought to touch things. + +MRS HALE: I'll just finish up this end. (_suddenly stopping and leaning +forward_) Mrs Peters? + +MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale? + +MRS HALE: What do you suppose she was so nervous about? + +MRS PETERS: Oh--I don't know. I don't know as she was nervous. I +sometimes sew awful queer when I'm just tired. (MRS HALE _starts to say +something, looks at_ MRS PETERS, _then goes on sewing_) Well I must get +these things wrapped up. They may be through sooner than we think, +(_putting apron and other things together_) I wonder where I can find a +piece of paper, and string. + +MRS HALE: In that cupboard, maybe. + +MRS PETERS: (_looking in cupboard_) Why, here's a bird-cage, (_holds it +up_) Did she have a bird, Mrs Hale? + +MRS HALE: Why, I don't know whether she did or not--I've not been here +for so long. There was a man around last year selling canaries cheap, +but I don't know as she took one; maybe she did. She used to sing real +pretty herself. + +MRS PETERS: (_glancing around_) Seems funny to think of a bird here. But +she must have had one, or why would she have a cage? I wonder what +happened to it. + +MRS HALE: I s'pose maybe the cat got it. + +MRS PETERS: No, she didn't have a cat. She's got that feeling some +people have about cats--being afraid of them. My cat got in her room and +she was real upset and asked me to take it out. + +MRS HALE: My sister Bessie was like that. Queer, ain't it? + +MRS PETERS: (_examining the cage_) Why, look at this door. It's broke. +One hinge is pulled apart. + +MRS HALE: (_looking too_) Looks as if someone must have been rough with +it. + +MRS PETERS: Why, yes. + +(_She brings the cage forward and puts it on the table_.) + +MRS HALE: I wish if they're going to find any evidence they'd be about +it. I don't like this place. + +MRS PETERS: But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs Hale. It would be +lonesome for me sitting here alone. + +MRS HALE: It would, wouldn't it? (_dropping her sewing_) But I tell you +what I do wish, Mrs Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when _she_ +was here. I--(_looking around the room_)--wish I had. + +MRS PETERS: But of course you were awful busy, Mrs Hale--your house and +your children. + +MRS HALE: I could've come. I stayed away because it weren't +cheerful--and that's why I ought to have come. I--I've never liked this +place. Maybe because it's down in a hollow and you don't see the road. I +dunno what it is, but it's a lonesome place and always was. I wish I had +come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now--(_shakes her +head_) + +MRS PETERS: Well, you mustn't reproach yourself, Mrs Hale. Somehow we +just don't see how it is with other folks until--something comes up. + +MRS HALE: Not having children makes less work--but it makes a quiet +house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come +in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs Peters? + +MRS PETERS: Not to know him; I've seen him in town. They say he was a +good man. + +MRS HALE: Yes--good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, +I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs Peters. Just to +pass the time of day with him--(_shivers_) Like a raw wind that gets to +the bone, (_pauses, her eye falling on the cage_) I should think she +would 'a wanted a bird. But what do you suppose went with it? + +MRS PETERS: I don't know, unless it got sick and died. + +(_She reaches over and swings the broken door, swings it again, both +women watch it_.) + +MRS HALE: You weren't raised round here, were you? (_MRS PETERS shakes +her head_) You didn't know--her? + +MRS PETERS: Not till they brought her yesterday. + +MRS HALE: She--come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird +herself--real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and--fluttery. +How--she--did--change. (_silence; then as if struck by a happy thought +and relieved to get back to everyday things_) Tell you what, Mrs Peters, +why don't you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her mind. + +MRS PETERS: Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs Hale. There +couldn't possibly be any objection to it, could there? Now, just what +would I take? I wonder if her patches are in here--and her things. + +(_They look in the sewing basket_.) + +MRS HALE: Here's some red. I expect this has got sewing things in it. +(_brings out a fancy box_) What a pretty box. Looks like something +somebody would give you. Maybe her scissors are in here. (_Opens box. +Suddenly puts her hand to her nose_) Why--(MRS PETERS _bends nearer, +then turns her face away_) There's something wrapped up in this piece of +silk. + +MRS PETERS: Why, this isn't her scissors. + +MRS HALE: (_lifting the silk_) Oh, Mrs Peters--it's-- + +(MRS PETERS _bends closer_.) + +MRS PETERS: It's the bird. + +MRS HALE: (_jumping up_) But, Mrs Peters--look at it! It's neck! Look at +its neck! + +It's all--other side _to_. + +MRS PETERS: Somebody--wrung--its--neck. + +(_Their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension, of horror. Steps are +heard outside_. MRS HALE _slips box under quilt pieces, and sinks into +her chair. Enter_ SHERIFF _and_ COUNTY ATTORNEY. MRS PETERS _rises_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_as one turning from serious things to little +pleasantries_) Well ladies, have you decided whether she was going to +quilt it or knot it? + +MRS PETERS: We think she was going to--knot it. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, that's interesting, I'm sure. (_seeing the +birdcage_) Has the bird flown? + +MRS HALE: (_putting more quilt pieces over the box_) We think the--cat +got it. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_preoccupied_) Is there a cat? + +(MRS HALE _glances in a quick covert way at_ MRS PETERS.) + +MRS PETERS: Well, not now. They're superstitious, you know. They leave. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_to_ SHERIFF PETERS, _continuing an interrupted +conversation_) No sign at all of anyone having come from the outside. +Their own rope. Now let's go up again and go over it piece by piece. +(_they start upstairs_) It would have to have been someone who knew just +the-- + +(MRS PETERS _sits down. The two women sit there not looking at one +another, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding +back. When they talk now it is in the manner of feeling their way over +strange ground, as if afraid of what they are saying, but as if they can +not help saying it_.) + +MRS HALE: She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty +box. + +MRS PETERS: (_in a whisper_) When I was a girl--my kitten--there was a +boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes--and before I could get +there--(_covers her face an instant_) If they hadn't held me back I +would have--(_catches herself, looks upstairs where steps are heard, +falters weakly_)--hurt him. + +MRS HALE: (_with a slow look around her_) I wonder how it would seem +never to have had any children around, (_pause_) No, Wright wouldn't +like the bird--a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too. + +MRS PETERS: (_moving uneasily_) We don't know who killed the bird. + +MRS HALE: I knew John Wright. + +MRS PETERS: It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs +Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope around his neck that +choked the life out of him. + +MRS HALE: His neck. Choked the life out of him. + +(_Her hand goes out and rests on the bird-cage_.) + +MRS PETERS: (_with rising voice_) We don't know who killed him. We don't +_know_. + +MRS HALE: (_her own feeling not interrupted_) If there'd been years and +years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful--still, +after the bird was still. + +MRS PETERS: (_something within her speaking_) I know what stillness is. +When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died--after he was two +years old, and me with no other then-- + +MRS HALE: (_moving_) How soon do you suppose they'll be through, looking +for the evidence? + +MRS PETERS: I know what stillness is. (_pulling herself back_) The law +has got to punish crime, Mrs Hale. + +MRS HALE: (_not as if answering that_) I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster +when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the +choir and sang. (_a look around the room_) Oh, I _wish_ I'd come over +here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to +punish that? + +MRS PETERS: (_looking upstairs_) We mustn't--take on. + +MRS HALE: I might have known she needed help! I know how things can +be--for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs Peters. We live close +together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things--it's +all just a different kind of the same thing, (_brushes her eyes, +noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for it_) If I was you, I +wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her it _ain't_. Tell her it's +all right. Take this in to prove it to her. She--she may never know +whether it was broke or not. + +MRS PETERS: (_takes the bottle, looks about for something to wrap it in; +takes petticoat from the clothes brought from the other room, very +nervously begins winding this around the bottle. In a false voice_) My, +it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us. Wouldn't they just laugh! +Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a--dead canary. As if +that could have anything to do with--with--wouldn't they _laugh_! + +(_The men are heard coming down stairs_.) + +MRS HALE: (_under her breath_) Maybe they would--maybe they wouldn't. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: No, Peters, it's all perfectly clear except a reason +for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was +some definite thing. Something to show--something to make a story +about--a thing that would connect up with this strange way of doing it-- + +(_The women's eyes meet for an instant. Enter HALE from outer door_.) + +HALE: Well, I've got the team around. Pretty cold out there. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'm going to stay here a while by myself, (_to the_ +SHERIFF) You can send Frank out for me, can't you? I want to go over +everything. I'm not satisfied that we can't do better. + +SHERIFF: Do you want to see what Mrs Peters is going to take in? + +(_The_ LAWYER _goes to the table, picks up the apron, laughs_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Oh, I guess they're not very dangerous things the +ladies have picked out. (_Moves a few things about, disturbing the quilt +pieces which cover the box. Steps back_) No, Mrs Peters doesn't need +supervising. For that matter, a sheriff's wife is married to the law. +Ever think of it that way, Mrs Peters? + +MRS PETERS: Not--just that way. + +SHERIFF: (_chuckling_) Married to the law. (_moves toward the other +room_) I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to +take a look at these windows. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_scoffingly_) Oh, windows! + +SHERIFF: We'll be right out, Mr Hale. + +(HALE _goes outside. The_ SHERIFF _follows the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _into +the other room. Then_ MRS HALE _rises, hands tight together, looking +intensely at_ MRS PETERS, _whose eyes make a slow turn, finally meeting_ +MRS HALE_'s. A moment_ MRS HALE _holds her, then her own eyes point the +way to where the box is concealed. Suddenly_ MRS PETERS _throws back +quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing. It is +too big. She opens box, starts to take bird out, cannot touch it, goes +to pieces, stands there helpless. Sound of a knob turning in the other +room_. MRS HALE _snatches the box and puts it in the pocket of her big +coat. Enter_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _and_ SHERIFF.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_facetiously_) Well, Henry, at least we found out that +she was not going to quilt it. She was going to--what is it you call it, +ladies? + +MRS HALE: (_her hand against her pocket_) We call it--knot it, Mr +Henderson. + + +(CURTAIN) + + + + +THE OUTSIDE + + +First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Playwrights' Theatre, +December 28, 1917. + + +CAPTAIN (of 'The Bars' Life-Saving Station) + +BRADFORD (a Life-Saver) + +TONY (a Portuguese Life-Saver) + +MRS PATRICK (who lives in the abandoned Station) + +ALLIE MAYO (who works for her) + + +SCENE: _A room in a house which was once a life-saving station. Since +ceasing to be that it has taken on no other character, except that of a +place which no one cares either to preserve or change. It is painted the +life-saving grey, but has not the life-saving freshness. This is one end +of what was the big boat room, and at the ceiling is seen a part of the +frame work from which the boat once swung. About two thirds of the back +wall is open, because of the big sliding door, of the type of barn door, +and through this open door are seen the sand dunes, and beyond them the +woods. At one point the line where woods and dunes meet stands out +clearly and there are indicated the rude things, vines, bushes, which +form the outer uneven rim of the woods--the only things that grow in the +sand. At another point a sand-hill is menacing the woods. This old +life-saving station is at a point where the sea curves, so through the +open door the sea also is seen. (The station is located on the outside +shore of Cape Cod, at the point, near the tip of the Cape, where it +makes that final curve which forms the Provincetown Harbor.) The dunes +are hills and strange forms of sand on which, in places, grows the stiff +beach grass--struggle; dogged growing against odds. At right of the big +sliding door is a drift of sand and the top of buried beach grass is +seen on this. There is a door left, and at right of big sliding door is +a slanting wall. Door in this is ajar at rise of curtain, and through +this door_ BRADFORD _and_ TONY, _life-savers, are seen bending over a +man's body, attempting to restore respiration. The captain of the +life-savers comes into view outside the big open door, at left; he +appears to have been hurrying, peers in, sees the men, goes quickly to +them._ + +CAPTAIN: I'll take this now, boys. + +BRADFORD: No need for anybody to take it, Capt'n. He was dead when we +picked him up. + +CAPTAIN: Dannie Sears was dead when we picked him up. But we brought him +back. I'll go on awhile. + +(_The two men who have been bending over the body rise, stretch to +relax, and come into the room._) + +BRADFORD: (_pushing back his arms and putting his hands on his chest_) +Work,--tryin to put life in the dead. + +CAPTAIN: Where'd you find him, Joe? + +BRADFORD: In front of this house. Not forty feet out. + +CAPTAIN: What'd you bring him up here for? + +(_He speaks in an abstracted way, as if the working part of his mind is +on something else, and in the muffled voice of one bending over._) + +BRADFORD: (_with a sheepish little laugh_) Force of habit, I guess. We +brought so many of 'em back up here, (_looks around the room_) And then +it was kind of unfriendly down where he was--the wind spittin' the sea +onto you till he'd have no way of knowin' he was ashore. + +TONY: Lucky I was not sooner or later as I walk by from my watch. + +BRADFORD: You have accommodating ways, Tony. No sooner or later. I +wouldn't say it of many Portagees. But the sea (_calling it in to the_ +CAPTAIN) is friendly as a kitten alongside the women that live _here_. +Allie Mayo--they're _both_ crazy--had that door open (_moving his head +toward the big sliding door_) sweepin' out, and when we come along she +backs off and stands lookin' at us, _lookin_'--Lord, I just wanted to +get him somewhere else. So I kicked this door open with my foot +(_jerking his hand toward the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is seen bending +over the man_) and got him _away. (under his voice_) If he did have any +notion of comin' back to life, he wouldn't a come if he'd seen her. +(_more genially_) I wouldn't. + +CAPTAIN: You know who he is, Joe? + +BRADFORD: I never saw him before. + +CAPTAIN: Mitchell telephoned from High Head that a dory came ashore +there. + +BRADFORD: Last night wasn't the _best_ night for a dory. (_to_ TONY, +_boastfully_) Not that I couldn't 'a' stayed in one. Some men can stay +in a dory and some can't. (_going to the inner door_) That boy's dead, +Capt'n. + +CAPTAIN: Then I'm not doing him any harm. + +BRADFORD: (_going over and shaking the frame where the boat once swung_) +This the first time you ever been in this place, ain't it, Tony? + +TONY: I never was here before. + +BRADFORD: Well, _I_ was here before. (_a laugh_) And the old +man--(_nodding toward the_ CAPTAIN) he lived here for twenty-seven +years. Lord, the things that happened _here_. There've been dead ones +carried through _that_ door. (_pointing to the outside door_) Lord--the +ones _I've_ carried. I carried in Bill Collins, and Lou Harvey and--huh! +'sall over now. You ain't seen no _wrecks_. Don't ever think you have. I +was here the night the Jennie Snow was out there. (_pointing to the +sea_) There was a _wreck_. We got the boat that stood here (_again +shaking the frame_) down that bank. (_goes to the door and looks out_) +Lord, how'd we ever do it? The sand has put his place on the blink all +right. And then when it gets too God-for-saken for a life-savin' +station, a lady takes it for a summer residence--and then spends the +winter. She's a cheerful one. + +TONY: A woman--she makes things pretty. This not like a place where a +woman live. On the floor there is nothing--on the wall there is nothing. +Things--(_trying to express it with his hands_) do not hang on other +things. + +BRADFORD: (_imitating_ TONY_'s gesture_) No--things do not hang on other +things. In my opinion the woman's crazy--sittin' over there on the +sand--(_a gesture towards the dunes_) what's she _lookin'_ at? There +ain't nothin' to _see_. And I know the woman that works for her's +crazy--Allie Mayo. She's a Provincetown girl. She was all right once, +but-- + +(MRS PATRICK _comes in from the hall at the right. She is a 'city +woman', a sophisticated person who has been caught into something as +unlike the old life as the dunes are unlike a meadow. At the moment she +is excited and angry_.) + +MRS PATRICK: You have no right here. This isn't the life-saving station +any more. Just because it used to be--I don't see why you should +think--This is my house! And--I want my house to myself! + +CAPTAIN: (_putting his head through the door. One arm of the man he is +working with is raised, and the hand reaches through the doorway_) Well +I must say, lady, I would think that any house could be a life-saving +station when the sea had sent a man to it. + +MRS PATRICK: (_who has turned away so she cannot see the hand_) I don't +want him here! I--(_defiant, yet choking_) I must have my house to +myself! + +CAPTAIN: You'll get your house to yourself when I've made up my mind +there's no more life in this man. A good many lives have been saved in +this house, Mrs Patrick--I believe that's your name--and if there's any +chance of bringing one more back from the dead, the fact that you own +the house ain't goin' to make a damn bit of difference to me! + +MRS PATRICK: (_in a thin wild way_) I must have my house to myself. + +CAPTAIN: Hell with such a woman! + +(_Moves the man he is working with and slams the door shut. As the_ +CAPTAIN _says, 'And if there's any chance of bringing one more back from +the dead_', ALLIE MAYO _has appeared outside the wide door which gives +on to the dunes, a bleak woman, who at first seems little more than a +part of the sand before which she stands. But as she listens to this +conflict one suspects in her that peculiar intensity of twisted things +which grow in unfavoring places_.) + +MRS PATRICK: I--I don't want them here! I must-- + +(_But suddenly she retreats, and is gone_.) + +BRADFORD: Well, I couldn't say, Allie Mayo, that you work for any too +kind-hearted a lady. What's the matter with the woman? Does she want +folks to die? Appears to break her all up to see somebody trying to save +a life. What d'you work for such a fish for? A crazy fish--that's what I +call the woman. I've seen her--day after day--settin' over there where +the dunes meet the woods, just sittin' there, lookin'. (_suddenly +thinking of it_) I believe she _likes_ to see the sand slippin' down on +the woods. Pleases her to see somethin' gettin' buried, I guess. + +(ALLIE MAYO, _who has stepped inside the door and moved half across the +room, toward the corridor at the right, is arrested by this last--stands +a moment as if seeing through something, then slowly on, and out_.) + +BRADFORD: Some coffee'd taste good. But coffee, in this house? Oh, no. +It might make somebody feel better. (_opening the door that was slammed +shut_) Want me now, Capt'n? + +CAPTAIN: No. + +BRADFORD: Oh, that boy's dead, Capt'n. + +CAPTAIN: (_snarling_) Dannie Sears was dead, too. Shut that door. I +don't want to hear that woman's voice again, ever. + +(_Closing the door and sitting on a bench built into that corner between +the big sliding door and the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is_.) + +BRADFORD: They're a cheerful pair of women--livin' in this cheerful +place--a place that life savers had to turn over to the sand--huh! This +Patrick woman used to be all right. She and her husband was summer folks +over in town. They used to picnic over here on the outside. It was Joe +Dyer--he's always talkin' to summer folks--told 'em the government was +goin' to build the new station and sell this one by sealed bids. I heard +them talkin' about it. They was sittin' right down there on the beach, +eatin' their supper. They was goin' to put in a fire-place and they was +goin' to paint it bright colors, and have parties over here--summer folk +notions. Their bid won it--who'd want it?--a buried house you couldn't +move. + +TONY: I see no bright colors. + +BRADFORD: Don't you? How astonishin'! You must be color blind. And I +guess _we're_ the first party. (_laughs_) I was in Bill Joseph's grocery +store, one day last November, when in she comes--Mrs Patrick, from New +York. 'I've come to take the old life-saving station', says she. 'I'm +going to sleep over there tonight!' Huh! Bill is used to queer ways--he +deals with summer folks, but that got _him_. November--an empty house, a +buried house, you might say, off here on the outside shore--way across +the sand from man or beast. He got it out of her, not by what she said, +but by the way she looked at what he said, that her husband had died, +and she was runnin' off to hide herself, I guess. A person'd feel sorry +for her if she weren't so stand-offish, and so doggon _mean_. But mean +folks have got minds of their own. She slept here that night. Bill had +men hauling things till after dark--bed, stove, coal. And then she +wanted somebody to work for her. 'Somebody', says she, 'that doesn't say +an unnecessary word!' Well, then Bill come to the back of the store, I +said, 'Looks to me as if Allie Mayo was the party she's lookin' for.' +Allie Mayo has got a prejudice against words. Or maybe she likes 'em so +well she's savin' of 'em. She's not spoke an unnecessary word for twenty +years. She's got her reasons. Women whose men go to sea ain't always +talkative. + +(_The_ CAPTAIN _comes out. He closes door behind him and stands there +beside it. He looks tired and disappointed. Both look at him. Pause_.) + +CAPTAIN: Wonder who he was. + +BRADFORD: Young. Guess he's not been much at sea. + +CAPTAIN: I hate to leave even the dead in this house. But we can get +right back for him. (_a look around_) The old place used to be more +friendly. (_moves to outer door, hesitates, hating to leave like this_) +Well, Joe, we brought a good many of them back here. + +BRADFORD: Dannie Sears is tendin' bar in Boston now. + +(_The three men go; as they are going around the drift of sand_ ALLIE +MAYO _comes in carrying a pot of coffee; sees them leaving, puts down +the coffee pot, looks at the door the_ CAPTAIN _has closed, moves toward +it, as if drawn_. MRS PATRICK _follows her in_.) + +MRS PATRICK: They've gone? + +(MRS MAYO _nods, facing the closed door_.) + +MRS PATRICK: And they're leaving--him? (_again the other woman nods_) +Then he's--? (MRS MAYO _just stands there_) They have no right--just +because it used to be their place--! I want my house to myself! + +(_Snatches her coat and scarf from a hook and starts through the big +door toward the dunes_.) + +ALLIE MAYO: Wait. + +(_When she has said it she sinks into that corner seat--as if +overwhelmed by what she has done. The other woman is held_.) + +ALLIE MAYO: (_to herself._) If I could say that, I can say more. +(_looking at woman she has arrested, but speaking more to herself_) That +boy in there--his face--uncovered something--(_her open hand on her +chest. But she waits, as if she cannot go on; when she speaks it is in +labored way--slow, monotonous, as if snowed in by silent years_) For +twenty years, I did what you are doing. And I can tell you--it's not the +way. (_her voice has fallen to a whisper; she stops, looking ahead at +something remote and veiled_) We had been married--two years. (_a start, +as of sudden pain. Says it again, as if to make herself say it_) +Married--two years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler. Times hard. +He had to go. A year and a half--it was to be. A year and a half. Two +years we'd been married. + +(_She sits silent, moving a little back and forth._) + +The day he went away. (_not spoken, but breathed from pain_) The days +after he was gone. + +I heard at first. Last letter said farther north--not another chance to +write till on the way home. (_a wait_) + +Six months. Another, I did not hear. (_long wait_) Nobody ever heard. +(_after it seems she is held there, and will not go on_) I used to talk +as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim used to tease me about my +talking. But they'd come in to talk to me. They'd say--'You may hear +_yet._' They'd talk about what must have happened. And one day a woman +who'd been my friend all my life said--'Suppose he was to walk _in!_' I +got up and drove her from my kitchen--and from that time till this I've +not said a word I didn't have to say. (_she has become almost wild in +telling this. That passes. In a whisper_) The ice that caught +Jim--caught me. (_a moment as if held in ice. Comes from it. To_ MRS +PATRICK _simply_) It's not the way. (_a sudden change_) You're not the +only woman in the world whose husband is dead! + +MRS PATRICK: (_with a cry of the hurt_) Dead? My husband's not _dead_. + +ALLIE MAYO: He's _not?_ (_slowly understands_) Oh. + +(_The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks up her coat which has +fallen to the floor and steps outside._) + +ALLIE MAYO: (_almost failing to do it_) Wait. + +MRS PATRICK: Wait? Don't you think you've said enough? They told me you +didn't say an unnecessary word! + +ALLIE MAYO: I don't. + +MRS PATRICK: And you can see, I should think, that you've bungled into +things you know nothing about! + +(_As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she pushes the sand by the +door down on the half buried grass--though not as if knowing what she is +doing._) + +ALLIE MAYO: (_slowly_) When you keep still for twenty years you +know--things you didn't know you knew. I know why you're doing that. +(_she looks up at her, startled_) Don't bury the only thing that will +grow. Let it grow. + +(_The woman outside still crying under her breath turns abruptly and +starts toward the line where dunes and woods meet._) + +ALLIE MAYO: I know where you're going! (MRS PATRICK _turns but not as if +she wants to_) What you'll try to do. Over there. (_pointing to the line +of woods_) Bury it. The life in you. Bury it--watching the sand bury the +woods. But I'll tell you something! _They_ fight too. The woods! They +fight for life the way that Captain fought for life in there! + +(_Pointing to the closed door_.) + +MRS PATRICK: (_with a strange exultation_) And lose the way he lost in +there! + +ALLIE MAYO: (_sure, sombre_) They don't lose. + +MRS PATRICK: Don't _lose_? (_triumphant_) I have walked on the tops of +buried trees! + +ALLIE MAYO: (_slow, sombre, yet large_) And vines will grow over the +sand that covers the trees, and hold it. And other trees will grow over +the buried trees. + +MRS PATRICK: I've watched the sand slip down on the vines that reach out +farthest. + +ALLIE MAYO: Another vine will reach that spot. (_under her breath, +tenderly_) Strange little things that reach out farthest! + +MRS PATRICK: And will be buried soonest! + +ALLIE MAYO: And hold the sand for things behind them. They save a wood +that guards a town. + +MRS PATRICK: I care nothing about a wood to guard a town. This is the +outside--these dunes where only beach grass grows, this outer shore +where men can't live. The Outside. You who were born here and who die +here have named it that. + +ALLIE MAYO: Yes, we named it that, and we had reason. He died here +(_reaches her hand toward the closed door_) and many a one before him. +But many another reached the harbor! (_slowly raises her arm, bends it +to make the form of the Cape. Touches the outside of her bent arm_) The +Outside. But an arm that bends to make a harbor--where men are safe. + +MRS PATRICK: I'm outside the harbor--on the dunes, land not life. + +ALLIE MAYO: Dunes meet woods and woods hold dunes from a town that's +shore to a harbor. + +MRS PATRICK: This is the Outside. Sand (_picking some of it up in her +hand and letting it fall on the beach grass_) Sand that _covers_--hills +of sand that move and cover. + +ALLIE MAYO: Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from Provincetown. +Provincetown--where they turn when boats can't live at sea. Did you ever +see the sails come round here when the sky is dark? A line of +them--swift to the harbor--where their children live. Go back! +(_pointing_) Back to your edge of the woods that's the _edge of the +dunes_. + +MRS PATRICK: The edge of life. Where life trails off to dwarfed things +not worth a name. + +(_Suddenly sits down in the doorway_.) + +ALLIE MAYO: Not worth a name. And--meeting the Outside! + +(_Big with the sense of the wonder of life_.) + +MRS PATRICK: (_lifting sand and letting it drift through her hand_.) +They're what the sand will let them be. They take strange shapes like +shapes of blown sand. + +ALLIE MAYO: Meeting the Outside. (_moving nearer; speaking more +personally_) I know why you came here. To this house that had been given +up; on this shore where only savers of life try to live. I know what +holds you on these dunes, and draws you over there. But other things are +true beside the things you want to see. + +MRS PATRICK: How do you know they are? Where have you been for twenty +years? + +ALLIE MAYO: Outside. Twenty years. That's why I know how brave _they_ +are (_indicating the edge of the woods. Suddenly different_) You'll not +find peace there again! Go back and watch them _fight_! + +MRS PATRICK: (_swiftly rising_) You're a cruel woman--a hard, insolent +woman! I knew what I was doing! What do you know about it? About me? I +didn't go to the Outside. I was left there. I'm only--trying to get +along. Everything that can hurt me I want buried--buried deep. Spring is +here. This morning I _knew_ it. Spring--coming through the storm--to +take me--take me to hurt me. That's why I couldn't bear--(_she looks at +the closed door_) things that made me know I feel. You haven't felt for +so long you don't know what it means! But I tell you, Spring is here! +And now you'd take _that_ from me--(_looking now toward the edge of the +woods_) the thing that made me know they would be buried in my +heart--those things I can't _live_ and know I feel. You're more cruel +than the sea! 'But other things are true beside the things you want to +see!' Outside. Springs will come when I will not know that it is spring. +(_as if resentful of not more deeply believing what she says_) What +would there be for me but the Outside? What was there for you? What did +you ever find after you lost the thing you wanted? + +ALLIE MAYO: I found--what I find now I know. The edge of life--to hold +life behind me-- + +(_A slight gesture toward_ MRS PATRICK.) + +MRS PATRICK: (_stepping back_) You call what you are life? (_laughs_) +Bleak as those ugly things that grow in the sand! + +ALLIE MAYO: (_under her breath, as one who speaks tenderly of beauty_) +Ugly! + +MRS PATRICK: (_passionately_) I have _known_ life. I have known _life_. +You're like this Cape. A line of land way out to sea--land not life. + +ALLIE MAYO: A harbor far at sea. (_raises her arm, curves it in as if +around something she loves_) Land that encloses and gives shelter from +storm. + +MRS PATRICK: (_facing the sea, as if affirming what will hold all else +out_) Outside sea. Outer shore. Dunes--land not life. + +ALLIE MAYO: Outside sea--outer shore, dark with the wood that once was +ships--dunes, strange land not life--woods, town and harbor. The line! +Stunted straggly line that meets the Outside face to face--and fights +for what itself can never be. Lonely line. Brave growing. + +MRS PATRICK: It loses. + +ALLIE MAYO: It wins. + +MRS PATRICK: The farthest life is buried. + +ALLIE MAYO: And life grows over buried life! (_lifted into that; then, +as one who states a simple truth with feeling_) It will. And Springs +will come when you will want to know that it is Spring. + +(_The_ CAPTAIN _and_ BRADFORD _appear behind the drift of sand. They +have a stretcher. To get away from them_ MRS PATRICK _steps farther into +the room_; ALLIE MAYO _shrinks into her corner. The men come in, open +the closed door and go in the room where they left the dead man. A +moment later they are seen outside the big open door, bearing the man +away_. MRS PATRICK _watches them from sight_.) + +MRS PATRICK: (_bitter, exultant_) Savers of life! (_to_ ALLIE MAYO) You +savers of life! 'Meeting the Outside!' Meeting--(_but she cannot say it +mockingly again; in saying it, something of what it means has broken +through, rises. Herself lost, feeling her way into the wonder of life_) +Meeting the Outside! + +(_It grows in her as_ CURTAIN _lowers slowly_.) + + + + +THE VERGE + + +First performed at the Provincetown Playhouse on November 14, 1921. + + +PERSONS OF THE PLAY + +ANTHONY + +HARRY ARCHER, Claire's husband + +HATTIE, The maid + +CLAIRE + +DICK, Richard Demming + +TOM EDGEWORTHY + +ELIZABETH, Claire's daughter + +ADELAIDE, Claire's sister + +DR EMMONS + + +ACT I + +_The Curtain lifts on a place that is dark, save for a shaft of light +from below which comes up through an open trap-door in the floor. This +slants up and strikes the long leaves and the huge brilliant blossom of +a strange plant whose twisted stem projects from right front. Nothing is +seen except this plant and its shadow. A violent wind is heard. A moment +later a buzzer. It buzzes once long and three short. Silence. Again the +buzzer. Then from below--his shadow blocking the light, comes_ ANTHONY, +_a rugged man past middle life;--he emerges from the stairway into the +darkness of the room. Is dimly seen taking up a phone._ + +ANTHONY: Yes, Miss Claire?--I'll see. (_he brings a thermometer to the +stairway for light, looks sharply, then returns to the phone_) It's down +to forty-nine. The plants are in danger--(_with great relief and +approval_) Oh, that's fine! (_hangs up the receiver_) Fine! + +(_He goes back down the stairway, closing the trap-door upon himself, +and the curtain is drawn upon darkness and wind. It opens a moment later +on the greenhouse in the sunshine of a snowy morning. The snow piled +outside is at times blown through the air. The frost has made patterns +on the glass as if--as Plato would have it--the patterns inherent in +abstract nature and behind all life had to come out, not only in the +creative heat within, but in the creative cold on the other side of the +glass. And the wind makes patterns of sound around the glass house. + +The back wall is low; the glass roof slopes sharply up. There is an +outside door, a little toward the right. From outside two steps lead +down to it. At left a glass partition and a door into the inner room. +One sees a little way into this room. At right there is no dividing wall +save large plants and vines, a narrow aisle between shelves of plants +leads off. + +This is not a greenhouse where plants are being displayed, nor the usual +workshop for the growing of them, but a place for experiment with +plants, a laboratory. + +At the back grows a strange vine. It is arresting rather than beautiful. +It creeps along the low wall, and one branch gets a little way up the +glass. You might see the form of a cross in it, if you happened to think +it that way. The leaves of this vine are not the form that leaves have +been. They are at once repellent and significant_. + +ANTHONY _is at work preparing soil--mixing, sifting. As the wind tries +the door he goes anxiously to the thermometer, nods as if reassured and +returns to his work. The buzzer sounds. He starts to answer the +telephone, remembers something, halts and listens sharply. It does not +buzz once long and three short. Then he returns to his work. The buzzer +goes on and on in impatient jerks which mount in anger. Several times_ +ANTHONY _is almost compelled by this insistence, but the thing that +holds him back is stronger. At last, after a particularly mad splutter, +to which_ ANTHONY _longs to make retort, the buzzer gives it up_. +ANTHONY _goes on preparing soil. + +A moment later the glass door swings violently in, snow blowing in, and +also_ MR HARRY ARCHER, _wrapped in a rug._) + +ANTHONY: Oh, please close the door, sir. + +HARRY: Do you think I'm not trying to? (_he holds it open to say this_) + +ANTHONY: But please _do_. This stormy air is not good for the plants. + +HARRY: I suppose it's just the thing for me! Now, what do you mean, +Anthony, by not answering the phone when I buzz for you? + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire--Mrs Archer told me not to. + +HARRY: Told you not to answer me? + +ANTHONY: Not you especially--nobody but her. + +HARRY: Well, I like her nerve--and yours. + +ANTHONY: You see, she thought it took my mind from my work to be +interrupted when I'm out here. And so it does. So she buzzes once long +and--Well, she buzzes her way, and all other buzzing-- + +HARRY: May buzz. + +ANTHONY: (_nodding gravely_) She thought it would be better for the +flowers. + +HARRY: I am not a flower--true, but I too need a little attention--and a +little heat. Will you please tell me why the house is frigid? + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire ordered all the heat turned out here, (_patiently +explaining it to_ MISS CLAIRE's _speechless husband_) You see the roses +need a great deal of heat. + +HARRY: (_reading the thermometer_) The roses have seventy-three I have +forty-five. + +ANTHONY: Yes, the roses need seventy-three. + +HARRY: Anthony, this is an outrage! + +ANTHONY: I think it is myself; when you consider what we paid for the +heating plant--but as long as it is defective--Why, Miss Claire would +never have done what she has if she hadn't looked out for her plants in +just such ways as this. Have you forgotten that Breath of Life is about +to flower? + +HARRY: And where's my breakfast about to flower?--that's what I want to +know. + +ANTHONY: Why, Miss Claire got up at five o'clock to order the heat +turned off from the house. + +HARRY: I see you admire her vigilance. + +ANTHONY: Oh, I do. (_fervently_) I do. Harm was near, and that woke her +up. + +HARRY: And what about the harm to--(_tapping his chest_) Do roses get +pneumonia? + +ANTHONY: Oh, yes--yes, indeed they do. Why, Mr Archer, look at Miss +Claire herself. Hasn't she given her heat to the roses? + +HARRY: (_pulling the rug around him, preparing for the blizzard_) She +has the fire within. + +ANTHONY: (_delighted_) Now isn't that true! How well you said it. (_with +a glare for this appreciation_, HARRY _opens the door. It blows away +from him_) Please do close the door! + +HARRY: (_furiously_) You think it is the aim of my life to hold it open? + +ANTHONY: (_getting hold of it_) Growing things need an even temperature, +(_while saying this he gets the man out into the snow_) + +(ANTHONY _consults the thermometer, not as pleased this time as he was +before. He then looks minutely at two of the plants--one is a rose, the +other a flower without a name because it has not long enough been a +flower. Peers into the hearts of them. Then from a drawer under a shelf, +takes two paper bags, puts one over each of these flowers, closing them +down at the bottom. Again the door blows wildly in, also_ HATTIE, _a +maid with a basket_.) + +ANTHONY: What do you mean--blowing in here like this? Mrs Archer has +ordered-- + +HATTIE: Mr Archer has ordered breakfast served here, (_she uncovers the +basket and takes out an electric toaster_) + +ANTHONY: _Breakfast_--here? _Eat_--here? Where plants grow? + +HATTIE: The plants won't poison him, will they? (_at a loss to know what +to do with things, she puts the toaster under the strange vine at the +back, whose leaves lift up against the glass which has frost leaves on +the outer side_) + +ANTHONY: (_snatching it away_) You--you think you can cook eggs under +the Edge Vine? + +HATTIE: I guess Mr Archer's eggs are as important as a vine. I guess my +work's as important as yours. + +ANTHONY: There's a million people like you--and like Mr Archer. In all +the world there is only one Edge Vine. + +HATTIE: Well, maybe one's enough. It don't look like nothin', anyhow. + +ANTHONY: And you've not got the wit to know that that's why it's the +Edge Vine. + +HATTIE: You want to look out, Anthony. You talk nutty. Everybody says +so. + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire don't say so. + +HATTIE: No, because she's-- + +ANTHONY: You talk too much! + +(_Door opens, admitting_ HARRY; _after looking around for the best place +to eat breakfast, moves a box of earth from the table_.) + +HARRY: Just give me a hand, will you, Hattie? + +(_They bring it to the open space and he and_ HATTIE _arrange breakfast +things_, HATTIE _with triumphant glances at the distressed_ ANTHONY) + +ANTHONY: (_deciding he must act_) Mr Archer, this is not the place to +eat breakfast! + +HARRY: Dead wrong, old boy. The place that has heat is the place to eat +breakfast. (_to_ HATTIE) Tell the other gentlemen--I heard Mr Demming +up, and Mr Edgeworthy, if he appears, that as long as it is such a +pleasant morning, we're having breakfast outside. To the conservatory +for coffee. + +(HATTIE _giggles, is leaving_.) + +And let's see, have we got everything? (_takes the one shaker, shakes a +little pepper on his hand. Looks in vain for the other shaker_) And tell +Mr Demming to bring the salt. + +ANTHONY: But Miss Claire will be very angry. + +HARRY: I am very angry. Did I choose to eat my breakfast at the other +end of a blizzard? + +ANTHONY: (_an exclamation of horror at the thermometer_) The temperature +is falling. I must report. (_he punches the buzzer, takes up the phone_) +Miss Claire? It is Anthony. A terrible thing has happened. Mr +Archer--what? Yes, a terrible thing.--Yes, it is about Mr +Archer.--No--no, not dead. But here. He is here. Yes, he is well, he +seems well, but he is eating his breakfast. Yes, he is having breakfast +served out here--for himself, and the other gentlemen are to come +too.--Well, he seemed to be annoyed because the heat had been turned off +from the house. But the door keeps opening--this stormy wind blowing +right over the plants. The temperature has already fallen.--Yes, yes. I +thought you would want to come. + +(ANTHONY _opens the trap-door and goes below_. HARRY _looks +disapprovingly down into this openness at his feet, returns to his +breakfast_. ANTHONY _comes up, bearing a box_.) + +HARRY: (_turning his face away_) Phew! What a smell. + +ANTHONY: Yes. Fertilizer has to smell. + +HARRY: Well, it doesn't have to smell up my breakfast! + +ANTHONY: (_with a patient sense of order_) The smell belongs here. (_he +and the smell go to the inner room_) + +(_The outer door opens just enough to admit_ CLAIRE--_is quickly closed. +With_ CLAIRE _in a room another kind of aliveness is there_.) + +CLAIRE: What are you doing here? + +HARRY: Getting breakfast. (_all the while doing so_) + +CLAIRE: I'll not have you in my place! + +HARRY: If you take all the heat then you have to take me. + +CLAIRE: I'll show you how I have to take you. (_with her hands begins +scooping upon him the soil_ ANTHONY _has prepared_) + +HARRY: (_jumping up, laughing, pinning down her arms, putting his arms +around her_) Claire--be decent. What harm do I do here? + +CLAIRE: You pull down the temperature. + +HARRY: Not after I'm in. + +CLAIRE: And you told Tom and Dick to come and make it uneven. + +HARRY: Tom and Dick are our guests. We can't eat where it's warm and +leave them to eat where it's cold. + +CLAIRE: I don't see why not. + +HARRY: You only see what you want to see. + +CLAIRE: That's not true. I wish it were. No; no, I don't either. (_she +is disturbed--that troubled thing which rises from within, from deep, +and takes_ CLAIRE. _She turns to the Edge Vine, examines. Regretfully +to_ ANTHONY, _who has come in with a plant_) It's turning back, isn't +it? + +ANTHONY: Can you be sure yet, Miss Claire? + +CLAIRE: Oh yes--it's had its chance. It doesn't want to be--what hasn't +been. + +HARRY: (_who has turned at this note in her voice. Speaks kindly_) Don't +take it so seriously, Claire. (CLAIRE _laughs_) + +CLAIRE: No, I suppose not. But it _does_ matter--and why should I +pretend it doesn't, just because I've failed with it? + +HARRY: Well, I don't want to see it get you--it's not important enough +for that. + +CLAIRE: (_in her brooding way_) Anything is important enough for +that--if it's important at all. (_to the vine_) I thought you were out, +but you're--going back home. + +ANTHONY: But you're doing it this time, Miss Claire. When Breath of Life +opens--and we see its heart-- + +(CLAIRE _looks toward the inner room. Because of intervening plants they +do not see what is seen from the front--a plant like caught motion, and +of a greater transparency than plants have had. Its leaves, like waves +that curl, close around a heart that is not seen. This plant stands by +itself in what, because of the arrangement of things about it, is a +hidden place. But nothing is between it and the light_.) + +CLAIRE: Yes, if the heart has (_a little laugh_) held its own, then +Breath of Life is alive in its otherness. But Edge Vine is running back +to what it broke out of. + +HARRY: Come, have some coffee, Claire. + +(ANTHONY _returns to the inner room, the outer door opens_. DICK _is +hurled in_.) + +CLAIRE: (_going to the door, as he gasps for breath before closing it_) +How dare you make my temperature uneven! (_she shuts the door and leans +against it_) + +DICK: Is that what I do? + +(_A laugh, a look between them, which is held into significance_.) + +HARRY: (_who is not facing them_) Where's the salt? + +DICK: Oh, I fell down in the snow. I must have left the salt where I +fell. I'll go back and look for it. + +CLAIRE: And change the temperature? We don't need salt. + +HARRY: You don't need salt, Claire. But we eat eggs. + +CLAIRE: I must tell you I don't like the idea of any food being eaten +here, where things have their own way to go. Please eat as little as +possible, and as quickly. + +HARRY: A hostess calculated to put one at one's ease. + +CLAIRE: (_with no ill-nature_) I care nothing about your ease. Or about +Dick's ease. + +DICK: And no doubt that's what makes you so fascinating a hostess. + +CLAIRE: Was I a fascinating hostess last night, Dick? (_softly sings_) +'Oh, night of love--' (_from the Barcorole of 'Tales of Hoffman'_) + +HARRY: We've got to have salt. + +(_He starts for the door._ CLAIRE _slips in ahead of him, locks it, +takes the key. He marches off, right_.) + +CLAIRE: (_calling after him_) That end's always locked. + +DICK: Claire darling, I wish you wouldn't say those startling things. +You do get away with it, but I confess it gives me a shock--and really, +it's unwise. + +CLAIRE: Haven't you learned that the best place to hide is in the truth? +(_as_ HARRY _returns_) Why won't you believe me, Harry, when I tell you +the truth--about doors being locked? + +HARRY: Claire, it's selfish of you to keep us from eating salt just +because you don't eat salt. + +CLAIRE: (_with one of her swift changes_) Oh, Harry! Try your egg +without salt. Please--please try it without salt! (_an intensity which +seems all out of proportion to the subject_) + +HARRY: An egg demands salt. + +CLAIRE: 'An egg demands salt.' Do you know, Harry, why you are such an +unseasoned person? 'An egg demands salt.' + +HARRY: Well, it doesn't always get it. + +CLAIRE: But your spirit gets no lift from the salt withheld. + +HARRY: Not an inch of lift. (_going back to his breakfast_) + +CLAIRE: And pleased--so pleased with itself, for getting no lift. Sure, +it is just the right kind of spirit--because it gets no lift. (_more +brightly_) But, Dick, you must have tried your egg without salt. + +DICK: I'll try it now. (_he goes to the breakfast table_) + +CLAIRE: You must have tried and tried things. Isn't that the way one +leaves the normal and gets into the byways of perversion? + +HARRY: Claire. + +DICK: (_pushing back his egg_) If so, I prefer to wait for the salt. + +HARRY: Claire, there is a _limit_. + +CLAIRE: Precisely what I had in mind. To perversion too there is a +limit. So--the fortifications are unassailable. If one ever does get +out, I suppose it is--quite unexpectedly, and perhaps--a bit terribly. + +HARRY: Get out where? + +CLAIRE: (_with a bright smile_) Where you, darling, will never go. + +HARRY: And from which you, darling, had better beat it. + +CLAIRE: I wish I could. (_to herself_) No--no I don't either + +(_Again this troubled thing turns her to the plant. She puts by +themselves the two which_ ANTHONY _covered with paper bags. Is about to +remove these papers_. HARRY _strikes a match_.) + +CLAIRE: (_turning sharply_) You can't smoke here. The plants are not +used to it. + +HARRY: Then I should think smoking would be just the thing for them. + +CLAIRE: There is design. + +HARRY: (_to_ DICK) Am I supposed to be answered? I never can be quite +sure at what moment I am answered. + +(_They both watch_ CLAIRE, _who has uncovered the plants and is looking +intently into the flowers. From a drawer she takes some tools. Very +carefully gives the rose pollen to an unfamiliar flower--rather +wistfully unfamiliar, which stands above on a small shelf near the door +of the inner room_.) + +DICK: What is this you're doing, Claire? + +CLAIRE: Pollenizing. Crossing for fragrance. + +DICK: It's all rather mysterious, isn't it? + +HARRY: And Claire doesn't make it any less so. + +CLAIRE: Can I make life any less mysterious? + +HARRY: If you know what you are doing, why can't you tell Dick? + +DICK: Never mind. After all, why should I be told? (_he turns away_) + +(_At that she wants to tell him. Helpless, as one who cannot get across +a stream, starts uncertainly_.) + +CLAIRE: I want to give fragrance to Breath of Life (_faces the room +beyond the wall of glass_)--the flower I have created that is outside +what flowers have been. What has gone out should bring fragrance from +what it has left. But no definite fragrance, no limiting enclosing +thing. I call the fragrance I am trying to create Reminiscence. (_her +hand on the pot of the wistful little flower she has just given pollen_) +Reminiscent of the rose, the violet, arbutus--but a new thing--itself. +Breath of Life may be lonely out in what hasn't been. Perhaps some day I +can give it reminiscence. + +DICK: I see, Claire. + +CLAIRE: I wonder if you do. + +HARRY: Now, Claire, you're going to be gay to-day, aren't you? These are +Tom's last couple of days with us. + +CLAIRE: That doesn't make me especially gay. + +HARRY: Well, you want him to remember you as yourself, don't you? + +CLAIRE: I would like him to. Oh--I would like him to! + +HARRY: Then be amusing. That's really you, isn't it, Dick? + +DICK: Not quite all of her--I should say. + +CLAIRE: (_gaily_) Careful, Dick. Aren't you indiscreet? Harry will be +suspecting that I am your latest strumpet. + +HARRY: Claire! What language you use! A person knowing you only by +certain moments could never be made to believe you are a refined woman. + +CLAIRE: True, isn't it, Dick? + +HARRY: It would be a good deal of a lark to let them listen in at +times--then tell them that here is the flower of New England! + +CLAIRE: Well, if this is the flower of New England, then the half has +never been told. + +DICK: About New England? + +CLAIRE: I thought I meant that. Perhaps I meant--about me. + +HARRY: (_going on with his own entertainment_) Explain that this is what +came of the men who made the laws that made New England, that here is +the flower of those gentlemen of culture who-- + +DICK: Moulded the American mind! + +CLAIRE: Oh! (_it is pain_) + +HARRY: Now what's the matter? + +CLAIRE: I want to get away from them! + +HARRY: Rest easy, little one--you do. + +CLAIRE: I'm not so sure--that I do. But it can be done! We need not be +held in forms moulded for us. There is outness--and otherness. + +HARRY: Now, Claire--I didn't mean to start anything serious. + +CLAIRE: No; you never mean to do that. I want to break it up! I tell +you, I want to break it up! If it were all in pieces, we'd be (_a little +laugh_) shocked to aliveness (_to_ DICK)--wouldn't we? There would be +strange new comings together--mad new comings together, and we would +know what it is to be born, and then we might know--that we are. Smash +it. (_her hand is near an egg_) As you'd smash an egg. (_she pushes the +egg over the edge of the table and leans over and looks, as over a +precipice_) + +HARRY: (_with a sigh_) Well, all you've smashed is the egg, and all that +amounts to is that now Tom gets no egg. So that's that. + +CLAIRE: (_with difficulty, drawing herself back from the fascination of +the precipice_) You think I can't smash anything? You think life can't +break up, and go outside what it was? Because you've gone dead in the +form in which you found yourself, you think that's all there is to the +whole adventure? And that is called sanity. And made a virtue--to lock +one in. You never worked with things that grow! Things that take a +sporting chance--go mad--that sanity mayn't lock them in--from life +untouched--from life--that waits, (_she turns toward the inner room_) +Breath of Life. (_she goes in there_) + +HARRY: Oh, I wish Claire wouldn't be strange like that, (_helplessly_) +What is it? What's the matter? + +DICK: It's merely the excess of a particularly rich temperament. + +HARRY: But it's growing on her. I sometimes wonder if all this +(_indicating the place around him_) is a good thing. It would be all +right if she'd just do what she did in the beginning--make the flowers +as good as possible of their kind. That's an awfully nice thing for a +woman to do--raise flowers. But there's something about this--changing +things into other things--putting things together and making queer new +things--this-- + +DICK: Creating? + +HARRY: Give it any name you want it to have--it's unsettling for a +woman. They say Claire's a shark at it, but what's the good of it, if it +gets her? What is the good of it, anyway? Suppose we can produce new +things. Lord--look at the one ones we've got. (_looks outside; turns +back_) Heavens, what a noise the wind does make around this place, (_but +now it is not all the wind, but_ TOM EDGEWORTHY, _who is trying to let +himself in at the locked door, their backs are to him_) I want my _egg_. +You can't eat an egg without salt. I must say I don't get Claire lately. +I'd like to have Charlie Emmons see her--he's fixed up a lot of people +shot to pieces in the war. Claire needs something to tone her nerves +_up_. You think it would irritate her? + +DICK: She'd probably get no little entertainment out of it. + +HARRY: Yes, dog-gone her, she would. (TOM _now takes more heroic +measures to make himself heard at the door_) Funny--how the wind can +fool you. Now by not looking around I could imagine--why, I could +imagine anything. Funny, isn't it, about imagination? And Claire says I +haven't got any! + +DICK: It would make an amusing drawing--what the wind makes you think is +there. (_first makes forms with his hands, then levelling the soil +prepared by_ ANTHONY, _traces lines with his finger_) Yes, really--quite +jolly. + +(TOM, _after a moment of peering in at them, smiles, goes away._) + +HARRY: You're another one of the queer ducks, aren't you? Come now--give +me the dirt. Have you queer ones really got anything--or do you just put +it over on us that you have? + +DICK: (_smiles, draws on_) Not saying anything, eh? Well, I guess you're +wise there. If you keep mum--how are we going to prove there's nothing +there? + +DICK: I don't keep mum. I draw. + +HARRY: Lines that don't make anything--how can they tell you anything? +Well, all I ask is, don't make Claire queer. Claire's a first water good +sport--really, so don't encourage her to be queer. + +DICK: Trouble is, if you're queer enough to be amusing, it might--open +the door to queerness. + +HARRY: Now don't say things like that to Claire. + +DICK: I don't have to. + +HARRY: Then _you_ think she's queer, do you? Queer as you are, you think +she's queer. I would like to have Dr Emmons come out. (_after a moment +of silently watching_ DICK, _who is having a good time with his +drawing_) You know, frankly, I doubt if you're a good influence for +Claire. (DICK _lifts his head ever so slightly_) Oh, I don't worry a bit +about--things a husband might worry about. I suppose an intellectual +woman--and for all Claire's hate of her ancestors, she's got the bug +herself. Why, she has times of boring into things until she doesn't know +you're there. What do you think I caught her doing the other day? +Reading Latin. Well--a woman that reads Latin needn't worry a husband +much. + +DICK: They said a good deal in Latin. + +HARRY: But I was saying, I suppose a woman who lives a good deal in her +mind never does have much--well, what you might call passion, (_uses the +word as if it shouldn't be used. Brows knitted, is looking ahead, does +not see_ DICK_'s face. Turning to him with a laugh_) I suppose you know +pretty much all there is to know about women? + +DICK: Perhaps one or two details have escaped me. + +HARRY: Well, for that matter, you might know all there is to know about +women and not know much about Claire. But now about (_does not want to +say passion again_)--oh, feeling--Claire has a certain--well, a +certain-- + +DICK: Irony? + +HARRY: Which is really more--more-- + +DICK: More fetching, perhaps. + +HARRY: Yes! Than the thing itself. But of course--you wouldn't have much +of a thing that you have irony about. + +DICK: Oh--wouldn't you! I mean--a man might. + +HARRY: I'd like to talk to Edgeworth about Claire. But it's not easy to +talk to Tom about Claire--or to Claire about Tom. + +DICK: (_alert_) They're very old friends, aren't they? + +HARRY: Why--yes, they are. Though they've not been together much of late +years, Edgeworthy always going to the ends of the earth to--meditate +about something. I must say I don't get it. If you have a place--that's +the place for you to be. And he did have a place--best kind of family +connections, and it was a very good business his father left him. +Publishing business--in good shape, too, when old Edgeworthy died. I +wouldn't call Tom a great success in life--but Claire does listen to +what he says. + +DICK: Yes, I've noticed that. + +HARRY: So, I'd like to get him to tell her to quit this queer business +of making things grow that never grew before. + +DICK: But are you sure that's what he would tell her? Isn't he in the +same business himself? + +HARRY: Why, he doesn't raise anything. + +(TOM _is again at the door_.) + +DICK: Anyway, I think he might have some idea that we can't very well +reach each other. + +HARRY: Damn nonsense. What have we got intelligence for? + +DICK: To let each other alone, I suppose. Only we haven't enough to do +it. + +(TOM _is now knocking on the door with a revolver_. HARRY _half turns, +decides to be too intelligent to turn_.) + +HARRY: Don't tell me I'm getting nerves. But the way some of you people +talk is enough to make even an aviator jumpy. Can't reach each other! +Then we're fools. If I'm here and you're there, why can't we reach each +other? + +DICK: Because I am I and you are you. + +HARRY: No wonder your drawing's queer. A man who can't reach another +man--(TOM _here reaches them by pointing the revolver in the air and +firing it_. DICK _digs his hand into the dirt_. HARRY _jumps to one +side, fearfully looks around_. TOM, _with a pleased smile to see he at +last has their attention, moves the handle to indicate he would be glad +to come in_.) + +HARRY: Why--it's Tom! What the--? (_going to the door_) He's locked out. +And Claire's got the key. (_goes to the inner door, tries it_) And she's +locked in! (_trying to see her in there_) Claire! Claire! (_returning to +the outer door_) Claire's got the key--and I can't get to Claire. +(_makes a futile attempt at getting the door open without a key, goes +back to inner door--peers, pounds_) Claire! Are you there? Didn't you +hear the revolver? Has she gone down the cellar? (_tries the trap-door_) +Bolted! Well, I love the way she keeps people locked out! + +DICK: And in. + +HARRY: (_getting angry, shouting at the trap-door_) Didn't you hear the +revolver? (_going to_ TOM) Awfully sorry, old man, but--(_in +astonishment to_ DICK) He can't hear me. (TOM, _knocking with the +revolver to get their attention, makes a gesture of inquiry with it_) +No--no--no! Is he asking if he shall shoot himself? (_shaking his head +violently_) Oh, no--no! Um--_um_! + +DICK: Hardly seems a man would shoot himself because he can't get to his +breakfast. + +HARRY: I'm coming to believe people would do anything! (TOM _is making +another inquiry with the revolver_) No! not here. Don't shoot yourself. +(_trying hard to get the word through_) _Shoot_ yourself. I mean--don't, +(_petulantly to_ DICK) It's ridiculous that you can't make a man +understand you when he looks right at you like that. (_turning back to_ +TOM) Read my lips. Lips. I'm saying--Oh damn. Where is Claire? All +right--I'll explain it with motions. We wanted the salt ... (_going over +it to himself_) and Claire wouldn't let us go out for it on account of +the temperature. Salt. Temperature. (_takes his egg-cup to the door, +violent motion of shaking in salt_) But--no (_shakes his head_) No salt. +(_he then takes the thermometer, a flower pot, holds them up to_ TOM) On +account of the temperature. Tem-per-a--(TOM _is not getting it_) +Oh--well, what can you do when a man don't _get_ a thing? (TOM _seems to +be preparing the revolver for action_. HARRY _pounds on the inner door_) +Claire! Do you want Tom to shoot himself? + +(_As he looks in there, the trap-door lifts, and CLAIRE comes half-way +up._) + +CLAIRE: Why, what is Tom doing out there, with a revolver? + +HARRY: He is about to shoot himself because you've locked him out from +his breakfast. + +CLAIRE: He must know more interesting ways of destroying himself. +(_bowing to_ TOM) Good morning. (_from his side of the glass_ TOM _bows +and smiles back_) Isn't it strange--our being in here--and he being out +there? + +HARRY: Claire, have you no ideas of hospitality? Let him in! + +CLAIRE: In? Perhaps that isn't hospitality. + +HARRY: Well, whatever hospitality is, what is out there is snow--and +wind--and our guest--who was asked to come here for his breakfast. To +think a man has to _such_ things. + +CLAIRE: I'm going to let him in. Though I like his looks out there. +(_she takes the key from her pocket_) + +HARRY: Thank heaven the door's coming open. Somebody can go for salt, +and we can have our eggs. + +CLAIRE: And open the door again--to let the salt in? No. If you insist +on salt, tell Tom now to go back and get it. It's a stormy morning and +there'll be just one opening of the door. + +HARRY: How can we tell him what we can't make him hear? And why does he +think we're holding this conversation instead of letting him in? + +CLAIRE: It would be interesting to know. I wonder if he'll tell us? + +HARRY: Claire! Is this any time to wonder anything? + +CLAIRE: Give up the idea of salt for your egg and I'll let him in. +(_holds up the key to _TOM_ to indicate that for her part she is quite +ready to let him in_) + +HARRY: I want my egg! + +CLAIRE: Then ask him to bring the salt. It's quite simple. + +(HARRY _goes through another pantomime with the egg-cup and the missing +shaker._ CLAIRE, _still standing half-way down cellar, sneezes._ HARRY, +_growing all the while less amiable, explains with thermometer and +flower-pot that there can only be one opening of the door._ TOM _looks +interested, but unenlightened. But suddenly he smiles, nods, vanishes._) + +HARRY: Well, thank heaven (_exhausted_) that's over. + +CLAIRE: (_sitting on the top step_) It was all so queer. He locked out +on his side of the door. You locked in on yours. Looking right at each +other and-- + +HARRY: (_in mockery_) And me trying to tell him to kindly fetch the +salt! + +CLAIRE: Yes. + +HARRY: (_to_ DICK) Well, I didn't do so bad a job, did I? Quite an idea, +explaining our situation with the thermometer and the flower-pot. That +was really an apology for keeping him out there. Heaven knows--some +explanation was in order, (_he is watching, and sees_ TOM _coming_) Now +there he is, Claire. And probably pretty well fed up with the weather. + +(CLAIRE _goes to the door, stops before it. She and_ TOM _look at each +other through the glass. Then she lets him in._) + +TOM: And now I am in. For a time it seemed I was not to be in. But after +I got the idea that you were keeping me out there to see if I could get +the idea--it would be too humiliating for a wall of glass to keep one +from understanding. (_taking it from his pocket_) So there's the other +thermometer. Where do you want it? (CLAIRE _takes it_) + +CLAIRE: And where's the pepper? + +TOM: (_putting it on the table_) And here's the pepper. + +HARRY: Pepper? + +TOM: When Claire sneezed I knew-- + +CLAIRE: Yes, I knew if I sneezed you would bring the pepper. + +TOM: Funny how one always remembers the salt, but the pepper gets +overlooked in preparations. And what is an egg without pepper? + +HARRY: (_nastily_) There's your egg, Edgeworth. (_pointing to it on the +floor_) Claire decided it would be a good idea to smash everything, so +she began with your egg. + +TOM: (_looking at his egg_) The idea of smashing everything is really +more intriguing than an egg. + +HARRY: Nice that you feel that way about it. + +CLAIRE: (_giving_ TOM _his coffee_) You want to hear something amusing? +I married Harry because I thought he would smash something. + +HARRY: Well, that was an error in judgment. + +CLAIRE: I'm such a naive trusting person (HARRY _laughs_--CLAIRE _gives +him a surprised look, continues simply_). Such a guileless soul that I +thought flying would do something to a man. But it didn't take us out. +We just took it in. + +TOM: It's only our own spirit can take us out. + +HARRY: Whatever you mean by out. + +CLAIRE: (_after looking intently at_ TOM, _and considering it_) But our +own spirit is not something on the loose. Mine isn't. It has something +to do with what I do. To fly. To be free in air. To look from above on +the world of all my days. Be where man has never been! Yes--wouldn't you +think the spirit could get the idea? The earth grows smaller. I am +leaving. What are they--running around down there? Why do they run +around down there? Houses? Houses are funny lines and down-going +slants--houses are vanishing slants. I am alone. Can I breathe this +rarer air? Shall I go higher? Shall I go too high? I am loose. I am out. +But no; man flew, and returned to earth the man who left it. + +HARRY: And jolly well likely not to have returned at all if he'd had +those flighty notions while operating a machine. + +CLAIRE: Oh, Harry! (_not lightly asked_) Can't you see it would be +better not to have returned than to return the man who left it? + +HARRY: I have some regard for human life. + +CLAIRE: Why, no--I am the one who has the regard for human life, (_more +lightly_) That was why I swiftly divorced my stick-in-the-mud artist and +married--the man of flight. But I merely passed from a stick-in-the-mud +artist to a-- + +DICK: Stick-in-the-air aviator? + +HARRY: Speaking of your stick-in-the-mud artist, as you romantically +call your first blunder, isn't his daughter--and yours--due here to-day? + +CLAIRE: I knew something was disturbing me. Elizabeth. A daughter is +being delivered unto me this morning. I have a feeling it will be more +painful than the original delivery. She has been, as they quaintly say, +educated; prepared for her place in life. + +HARRY: And fortunately Claire has a sister who is willing to give her +young niece that place. + +CLAIRE: The idea of giving anyone a place in life. + +HARRY: Yes! The very idea! + +CLAIRE: Yes! (_as often, the mocking thing gives true expression to what +lies sombrely in her_) The war. There was another gorgeous chance. + +HARRY: Chance for what? I call you, Claire. I ask you to say what you +mean. + +CLAIRE: I don't know--precisely. If I did--there'd be no use saying it. +(_at_ HARRY's _impatient exclamation she turns to_ TOM) + +TOM: (_nodding_) The only thing left worth saying is the thing we can't +say. + +HARRY: Help! + +CLAIRE: Yes. But the war didn't help. Oh, it was a stunning chance! But +fast as we could--scuttled right back to the trim little thing we'd been +shocked out of. + +HARRY: You bet we did--showing our good sense. + +CLAIRE: Showing our incapacity--for madness. + +HARRY: Oh, come now, Claire--snap out of it. You're not really trying to +say that capacity for madness is a good thing to have? + +CLAIRE: (_in simple surprise_) Why yes, of course. + +DICK: But I should say the war did leave enough madness to give you a +gleam of hope. + +CLAIRE: Not the madness that--breaks through. And it was--a stunning +chance! Mankind massed to kill. We have failed. We are through. We will +destroy. Break this up--it can't go farther. In the air above--in the +sea below--it is to kill! All we had thought we were--we aren't. We were +shut in with what wasn't so. Is there one ounce of energy has not gone +to this killing? Is there one love not torn in two? Throw it in! Now? +Ready? Break up. Push. Harder. Break up. And then--and then--But we +didn't say--'And then--' The spirit didn't take the tip. + +HARRY: Claire! Come now (_looking to the others for help_)--let's talk +of something else. + +CLAIRE: Plants do it. The big leap--it's called. Explode their +species--because something in them knows they've gone as far as they can +go. Something in them knows they're shut in to just that. So--go +mad--that life may not be prisoned. Break themselves up into crazy +things--into lesser things, and from the pieces--may come one sliver of +life with vitality to find the future. How beautiful. How brave. + +TOM: (_as if he would call her from too far--or would let her know he +has gone with her_) Claire! + +CLAIRE: (_her eyes turning to him_) Why should we mind lying under the +earth? We who have no such initiative--no proud madness? Why think it +death to lie under life so flexible--so ruthless and ever-renewing? + +ANTHONY: (_from the door of the inner room_) Miss Claire? + +CLAIRE: (_after an instant_) Yes? (_she goes with him, as they disappear +his voice heard_,'show me now ... want those violets bedded') + +HARRY: Oh, this has got to _stop_. I've got to--put a stop to it some +way. Why, Claire used to be the best sport a man ever played around +with. I can't stand it to see her getting hysterical. + +TOM: That was not hysterical. + +HARRY: What was it then--I want to know? + +TOM: It was--a look. + +HARRY: Oh, I might have known I'd get no help from either of you. Even +you, Edgeworthy--much as she thinks of you--and fine sort as I've no +doubt you are, you're doing Claire no good--encouraging her in these +queer ways. + +TOM: I couldn't change Claire if I would. + +HARRY: And wouldn't if you could. + +TOM: No. But you don't have to worry about me. I'm going away in a day +or two. And I shall not be back. + +HARRY: Trouble with you is, it makes little difference whether you're +here or away. Just the fact of your existence does encourage Claire in +this--this way she's going. + +TOM: (_with a smile_) But you wouldn't ask me to go so far as to stop my +existence? Though I would do that for Claire--if it were the way to help +her. + +HARRY: By Jove, you say that as if you meant it. + +TOM: Do you think I would say anything about Claire I didn't mean? + +HARRY: You think a lot of her, don't you? (TOM _nods_) You don't mean +(_a laugh letting him say it_)--that you're--in love with Claire! + +TOM: In love? Oh, that's much too easy. Certainly I do love Claire. + +HARRY: Well, you're a cool one! + +TOM: Let her be herself. Can't you see she's troubled? + +HARRY: Well, what is there to trouble Claire? Now I ask you. It seems to +me she has everything. + +TOM: She's left so--open. Too exposed, (_as_ HARRY _moves impatiently_) +Please don't be annoyed with me. I'm doing my best at saying it. You see +Claire isn't hardened into one of those forms she talks about. She's +too--aware. Always pulled toward what could be--tormented by the lost +adventure. + +HARRY: Well, there's danger in all that. Of course there's danger. + +TOM: But you can't help that. + +HARRY: Claire was the best fun a woman could be. Is yet--at times. + +TOM: Let her be--at times. As much as she can and will. She does need +that. Don't keep her from it by making her feel you're holding her in +it. Above all, don't try to stop what she's doing here. If she can do it +with plants, perhaps she won't have to do it with herself. + +HARRY: Do what? + +TOM: (_low, after a pause_) Break up what exists. Open the door to +destruction in the hope of--a door on the far side of destruction. + +HARRY: Well, you give me the willies, (_moves around in irritation, +troubled. To_ ANTHONY, _who is passing through with a sprayer_) Anthony, +have any arrangements been made about Miss Claire's daughter? + +ANTHONY: I haven't heard of any arrangements. + +HARRY: Well, she'll have to have some heat in her room. We can't all +live out here. + +ANTHONY: Indeed you cannot. It is not good for the plants. + +HARRY: I'm going where I can _smoke_, (_goes out_) + +DICK: (_lightly, but fascinated by the idea_) You think there is a door +on the--hinter side of destruction? + +TOM: How can one tell--where a door may be? One thing I want to say to +you--for it is about you. (_regards_ DICK _and not with his usual +impersonal contemplation_) I don't think Claire should have--any door +closed to her. (_pause_) You know, I think, what I mean. And perhaps you +can guess how it hurts to say it. Whether it's--mere escape +within,--rather shameful escape within, or the wild hope of that door +through, it's--(_suddenly all human_) Be good to her! (_after a +difficult moment, smiles_) Going away for ever is like dying, so one can +say things. + +DICK: Why do you do it--go away for ever? + +TOM: I haven't succeeded here. + +DICK: But you've tried the going away before. + +TOM: Never knowing I would not come back. So that wasn't going away. My +hope is that this will be like looking at life from outside life. + +DICK: But then you'll not be in it. + +TOM: I haven't been able to look at it while in it. + +DICK: Isn't it more important to be in it than to look at it? + +TOM: Not what I mean by look. + +DICK: It's hard for me to conceive of--loving Claire and going away from +her for ever. + +TOM: Perhaps it's harder to do than to conceive of. + +DICK: Then why do it? + +TOM: It's my only way of keeping her. + +DICK: I'm afraid I'm like Harry now. I don't get you. + +TOM: I suppose not. Your way is different, (_with calm, with +sadness--not with malice_) But I shall have her longer. And from deeper. + +DICK: I know that. + +TOM: Though I miss much. Much, (_the buzzer_. TOM _looks around to see +if anyone is coming to answer it, then goes to the phone_) Yes?... I'll +see if I can get her. (_to_ DICK) Claire's daughter has arrived, +(_looking in the inner room--returns to phone_) I don't see her. +(_catching a glimpse of ANTHONY off right_) Oh, Anthony, where's Miss +Claire? Her daughter has arrived. + +ANTHONY: She's working at something very important in her experiments. + +DICK: But isn't her daughter one of her experiments? + +ANTHONY: (_after a baffled moment_) Her daughter is finished. + +TOM: (_at the phone_) Sorry--but I can't get to Claire. She appears to +have gone below. (ANTHONY _closes the trap-door_) I did speak to +Anthony, but he says that Claire is working at one of her experiments +and that her daughter is finished. I don't know how to make her hear--I +took the revolver back to the house. Anyway you will remember Claire +doesn't answer the revolver. I hate to reach Claire when she doesn't +want to be reached. Why, of course--a daughter is very important, but +oh, that's too bad. (_putting down the receiver_) He says the girl's +feelings are hurt. Isn't that annoying? (_gingerly pounds on the +trap-door. Then with the other hand. Waits_. ANTHONY _has a gentle smile +for the gentle tapping--nods approval as,_ TOM _returns to the phone_) +She doesn't come up. Indeed I did--with both fists--Sorry. + +ANTHONY: Please, you won't try again to disturb Miss Claire, will you? + +DICK: Her daughter is here, Anthony. She hasn't seen her daughter for a +year. + +ANTHONY: Well, if she got along without a mother for a year--(_goes back +to his work_) + +DICK: (_smiling after_ ANTHONY) Plants are queer. Perhaps it's _safer_ +to do it with pencil (_regards_ TOM)--or with pure thought. Things that +grow in the earth-- + +TOM: (_nodding_) I suppose because we grew in the earth. + +DICK: I'm always shocked to find myself in agreement with Harry, but I +too am worried about Claire--and this, (_looking at the plants_) + +TOM: It's her best chance. + +DICK: Don't you hate to go away to India--for ever--leaving Claire's +future uncertain? + +TOM: You're cruel now. And you knew that you were being cruel. + +DICK: Yes, I like the lines of your face when you suffer. + +TOM: The lines of yours when you're causing suffering--I don't like +them. + +DICK: Perhaps that's your limitation. + +TOM: I grant you it may be. (_They are silent_) I had an odd feeling +that you and I sat here once before, long ago, and that we were plants. +And you were a beautiful plant, and I--I was a very ugly plant. I +confess it surprised me--finding myself so ugly a plant. + +(_A young girl is seen outside_. HARRY _gets the door open for her and +brings_ ELIZABETH _in_.) + +HARRY: There's heat here. And two of your mother's friends. Mr +Demming--Richard Demming--the artist--and I think you and Mr Edgeworthy +are old friends. + +(ELIZABETH _comes forward. She is the creditable young American--well +built, poised, 'cultivated', so sound an expression of the usual as to +be able to meet the world with assurance--assurance which training has +made rather graceful. She is about seventeen--and mature. You feel solid +things behind her_.) + +TOM: I knew you when you were a baby. You used to kick a great deal +then. + +ELIZABETH: (_laughing, with ease_) And scream, I haven't a doubt. But +I've stopped that. One does, doesn't one? And it was you who gave me the +idol. + +TOM: Proselytizing, I'm afraid. + +ELIZABETH: I beg--? Oh--_yes (laughing cordially_) I _see. (she +doesn't_) I dressed the idol up in my doll's clothes. They fitted +perfectly--the idol was just the size of my doll Ailine. But mother +didn't like the idol that way, and tore the clothes getting them off. +(_to_ HARRY, _after looking around_) Is mother here? + +HARRY: (_crossly_) Yes, she's here. Of course she's here. And she must +know you're here, (_after looking in the inner room he goes to the +trap-door and makes a great noise_) + +ELIZABETH: Oh--_please_. Really--it doesn't make the least difference. + +HARRY: Well, all I can say is, your manners are better than your +mother's. + +ELIZABETH: But you see I don't do anything interesting, so I have to +have good manners. (_lightly, but leaving the impression there is a +certain superiority in not doing anything interesting. Turning cordially +to_ DICK) My father was an artist. + +DICK: Yes, I know. + +ELIZABETH: He was a portrait painter. Do you do portraits? + +DICK: Well, not the kind people buy. + +ELIZABETH: They bought father's. + +DICK: Yes, I know he did that kind. + +HARRY: (_still irritated_) Why, you don't do portraits. + +DICK: I did one of you the other day. You thought it was a milk-can. + +ELIZABETH: (_laughing delightedly_) No? Not really? Did you think--How +could you think--(_as_ HARRY _does not join the laugh_) Oh, I beg your +pardon. I--Does mother grow beautiful roses now? + +HARRY: No, she does not. + +(_The trap-door begins to move_. CLAIRE's _head appears_.) + +ELIZABETH: Mother! It's been so long--(_she tries to overcome the +difficulties and embrace her mother_) + +CLAIRE: (_protecting a box she has_) Careful, Elizabeth. We mustn't +upset the lice. + +ELIZABETH: (_retreating_) Lice? (_but quickly equal even to lice_) +Oh--yes. You take it--them--off plants, don't you? + +CLAIRE: I'm putting them on certain plants. + +ELIZABETH: (_weakly_) Oh, I thought you took them off. + +CLAIRE: (_calling_) Anthony! (_he comes_) The lice. (_he takes them from +her_) (CLAIRE, _who has not fully ascended, looks at_ ELIZABETH, +_hesitates, then suddenly starts back down the stairs_.) + +HARRY: (_outraged_) Claire! (_slowly she re-ascends--sits on the top +step. After a long pause in which he has waited for_ CLAIRE _to open a +conversation with her daughter_.) Well, and what have you been doing at +school all this time? + +ELIZABETH: Oh--studying. + +CLAIRE: Studying what? + +ELIZABETH: Why--the things one studies, mother. + +CLAIRE: Oh! The things one studies. (_looks down cellar again_) + +DICK: (_after another wait_) And what have you been doing besides +studying? + +ELIZABETH: Oh--the things one does. Tennis and skating and dancing and-- + +CLAIRE: The things one does. + +ELIZABETH: Yes. All the things. The--the things one does. Though I +haven't been in school these last few months, you know. Miss Lane took +us to Europe. + +TOM: And how did you like Europe? + +ELIZABETH: (_capably_) Oh, I thought it was awfully amusing. All the +girls were quite mad about Europe. Of course, I'm glad I'm an American. + +CLAIRE: Why? + +ELIZABETH: (_laughing_) Why--mother! Of course one is glad one is an +American. All the girls-- + +CLAIRE: (_turning away_) O--h! (_a moan under the breath_) + +ELIZABETH: Why, mother--aren't you well? + +HARRY: Your mother has been working pretty hard at all this. + +ELIZABETH: Oh, I do so want to know all about it? Perhaps I can help +you! I think it's just awfully amusing that you're doing something. One +does nowadays, doesn't one?--if you know what I mean. It was the war, +wasn't it, made it the thing to do something? + +DICK: (_slyly_) And you thought, Claire, that the war was lost. + +ELIZABETH: The _war? Lost!_ (_her capable laugh_) Fancy our losing a +war! Miss Lane says we should give _thanks_. She says we should each do +some expressive thing--you know what I mean? And that this is the +_keynote_ of the age. Of course, one's own kind of thing. Like +mother--growing flowers. + +CLAIRE: You think that is one's own kind of thing? + +ELIZABETH: Why, of course I do, mother. And so does Miss Lane. All the +girls-- + +CLAIRE: (_shaking her head as if to get something out_) S-hoo. + +ELIZABETH: What is it, mother? + +CLAIRE: A fly shut up in my ear--'All the girls!' + +ELIZABETH: (_laughing_) Mother was always so amusing. So _different_--if +you know what I mean. Vacations I've lived mostly with Aunt Adelaide, +you know. + +CLAIRE: My sister who is fitted to rear children. + +HARRY: Well, somebody has to do it. + +ELIZABETH: And I do love Aunt Adelaide, but I think its going to be +awfully amusing to be around with mother now--and help her with her +work. Help do some useful beautiful thing. + +CLAIRE: I am not doing any useful beautiful thing. + +ELIZABETH: Oh, but you are, mother. Of course you are. Miss Lane says +so. She says it is your splendid heritage gives you this impulse to do a +beautiful thing for the race. She says you are doing in your way what +the great teachers and preachers behind you did in theirs. + +CLAIRE: (_who is good for little more_) Well, all I can say is, Miss +Lane is stung. + +ELIZABETH: Mother! What a thing to say of Miss Lane. (_from this +slipping into more of a little girl manner_) Oh, she gave me a spiel one +day about living up to the men I come from. + +(CLAIRE _turns and regards her daughter_.) + +CLAIRE: You'll do it, Elizabeth. + +ELIZABETH: Well, I don't know. Quite a job, I'll say. Of course, I'd +have to do it in my way. I'm not going to teach or preach or be a stuffy +person. But now that--(_she here becomes the product of a superior +school_) values have shifted and such sensitive new things have been +liberated in the world-- + +CLAIRE: (_low_) Don't use those words. + +ELIZABETH: Why--why not? + +CLAIRE: Because you don't know what they mean. + +ELIZABETH: Why, of course I know what they mean! + +CLAIRE: (_turning away_) You're--stepping on the plants. + +HARRY: (_hastily_) Your mother has been working awfully hard at all +this. + +ELIZABETH: Well, now that I'm here you'll let me help you, won't you, +mother? + +CLAIRE: (_trying for control_) You needn't--bother. + +ELIZABETH: But I _want_ to. Help add to the wealth of the world. + +CLAIRE: Will you please get it out of your head that I am adding to the +wealth of the world! + +ELIZABETH: But, mother--of course you are. To produce a new and better +kind of plant-- + +CLAIRE: They may be new. I don't give a damn whether they're better. + +ELIZABETH: But--but what are they then? + +CLAIRE: (_as if choked out of her_) They're different. + +ELIZABETH: (_thinks a minute, then laughs triumphantly_) But what's the +use of making them different if they aren't better? + +HARRY: A good square question, Claire. Why don't you answer it? + +CLAIRE: I don't have to answer it. + +HARRY: Why not give the girl a fair show? You never have, you know. +Since she's interested, why not tell her what it is you're doing? + +CLAIRE: She is not interested. + +ELIZABETH: But I am, mother. Indeed I am. I do want awfully to +understand what you are doing, and help you. + +CLAIRE: You can't help me, Elizabeth. + +HARRY: Why not let her try? + +CLAIRE: Why do you ask me to do that? This is my own thing. Why do you +make me feel I should--(_goes to_ ELIZABETH) I will be good to you, +Elizabeth. We'll go around together. I haven't done it, but--you'll see. +We'll do gay things. I'll have a lot of beaus around for you. Anything +else. Not--this is--Not this. + +ELIZABETH: As you like, mother, of course. I just would have been so +glad to--to share the thing that interests you. (_hurt borne with good +breeding and a smile_) + +HARRY: Claire! (_which says, 'How can you?'_) + +CLAIRE: (_who is looking at_ ELIZABETH) Yes, I will try. + +TOM: I don't think so. As Claire says--anything else. + +ELIZABETH: Why, of course--I don't at all want to intrude. + +HARRY: It'll do Claire good to take someone in. To get down to brass +tacks and actually say what she's driving at. + +CLAIRE: Oh--_Harry_. But yes--I will try. (_does try, but no words come. +Laughs_) When you come to say it it's not--One would rather not nail it +to a cross of words--(_laughs again_) with brass tacks. + +HARRY: (_affectionately_) But I want to see you put things into words, +Claire, and realize just where you are. + +CLAIRE: (_oddly_) You think that's a--good idea? + +ELIZABETH: (_in her manner of holding the world capably in her hands_) +Now let's talk of something else. I hadn't the least idea of making +mother feel badly. + +CLAIRE: (_desperately_) No, we'll go on. Though I don't know--where +we'll end. I can't answer for that. These plants--(_beginning +flounderingly_) Perhaps they are less beautiful--less sound--than the +plants from which they diverged. But they have found--otherness, +(_laughs a little shrilly_) If you know--what I mean. + +TOM: Claire--stop this! (_To_ HARRY) This is wrong. + +CLAIRE: (_excitedly_) No; I'm going on. They have been shocked out of +what they were--into something they were not; they've broken from the +forms in which they found themselves. They are alien. Outside. That's +it, outside; if you--know what I mean. + +ELIZABETH: (_not shocked from what she is_) But of course, the object of +it all is to make them better plants. Otherwise, what would be the sense +of doing it? + +CLAIRE: (_not reached by_ ELIZABETH) Out there--(_giving it with her +hands_) lies all that's not been touched--lies life that waits. Back +here--the old pattern, done again, again and again. So long done it +doesn't even know itself for a pattern--in immensity. But this--has +invaded. Crept a little way into--what wasn't. Strange lines in life +unused. And when you make a pattern new you know a pattern's made with +life. And then you know that anything may be--if only you know how to +reach it. (_this has taken form, not easily, but with great struggle +between feeling and words_) + +HARRY: (_cordially_) Now I begin to get you, Claire. I never knew before +why you called it the Edge Vine. + +CLAIRE: I should destroy the Edge Vine. It isn't--over the edge. It's +running, back to--'all the girls'. It's a little afraid of Miss Lane, +(_looking sombrely at it_) You are out, but you are not alive. + +ELIZABETH: Why, it looks all right, mother. + +CLAIRE: Didn't carry life with it from the life it left. Dick--you know +what I mean. At least you ought to. (_her ruthless way of not letting +anyone's feelings stand in the way of truth_) Then destroy it for me! +It's hard to do it--with the hands that made it. + +DICK: But what's the point in destroying it, Claire? + +CLAIRE: (_impatiently_) I've told you. It cannot create. + +DICK: But you say you can go on producing it, and it's interesting in +form. + +CLAIRE: And you think I'll stop with that? Be shut in--with different +life--that can't creep on? (_after trying to put destroying hands upon +it_) It's hard to--get past what we've done. Our own dead things--block +the way. + +TOM: But you're doing it this next time, Claire, (_nodding to the inner +room_.) In there! + +CLAIRE: (_turning to that room_) I'm not sure. + +TOM: But you told me Breath of Life has already produced itself. Doesn't +that show it has brought life from the life it left? + +CLAIRE: But timidly, rather--wistfully. A little homesick. If it is less +sure this time, then it is going back to--Miss Lane. But if the +pattern's clearer now, then it has made friends of life that waits. I'll +know to-morrow. + +ELIZABETH: You know, something tells me this is _wrong_. + +CLAIRE: The hymn-singing ancestors are tuning up. + +ELIZABETH: I don't know what you mean by that, mother but-- + +CLAIRE: But we will now sing, 'Nearer, my God, to Thee: Nearer to--' + +ELIZABETH: (_laughingly breaking in_) Well, I don't care. Of course you +can make fun at me, but something does tell me this is wrong. To do +what--what-- + +DICK: What God did? + +ELIZABETH: Well--yes. Unless you do it to make them better--to _do_ it +just to do it--that doesn't seem right to me. + +CLAIRE: (_roughly_) 'Right to you!' And that's all you know of +adventure--and of anguish. Do you know it is you--world of which you're +so true a flower--makes me have to leave? You're there to hold the door +shut! Because you're young and of a gayer world, you think I can't _see_ +them--those old men? Do you know why you're so sure of yourself? Because +you can't _feel_. Can't feel--the limitless--out there--a sea just over +the hill. I will not stay with you! (_buries her hands in the earth +around the Edge Vine. But suddenly steps back from it as she had from_ +ELIZABETH) And I will not stay with _you! (grasps it as we grasp what we +would kill, is trying to pull it up. They all step forward in horror. +ANTHONY is drawn in by this harm to the plant_) + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire! Miss Claire! The work of years! + +CLAIRE: May only make a prison! (_struggling with_ HARRY, _who is trying +to stop her_) You think I too will die on the edge? (_she has thrown him +away, is now struggling with the vine_) Why did I make you? To get past +you! (_as she twists it_) Oh yes, I know you have thorns! The Edge Vine +should have thorns, (_with a long tremendous pull for deep roots, she +has it up. As she holds the torn roots_) Oh, I have loved you so! You +took me where I hadn't been. + +ELIZABETH: (_who has been looking on with a certain practical horror_) +Well, I'd say it would be better not to go there! + +CLAIRE: Now I know what you are for! (_flings her arm back to strike_ +ELIZABETH _with the Edge Vine_) + +HARRY: (_wresting it from her_) Claire! Are you mad? + +CLAIRE: No, I'm not mad. I'm--too sane! (_pointing to_ ELIZABETH--_and +the words come from mighty roots_) To think that object ever moved my +belly and sucked my breast! (ELIZABETH _hides her face as if struck_) + +HARRY: (_going to_ ELIZABETH, _turning to_ CLAIRE) This is atrocious! +You're cruel. + +(_He leads_ ELIZABETH _to the door and out. After an irresolute moment +in which he looks from_ CLAIRE _to_ TOM, DICK _follows._ ANTHONY _cannot +bear to go. He stoops to take the Edge Vine from the floor._ CLAIRE's +_gesture stops him. He goes into the inner room._) + +CLAIRE: (_kicking the Edge Vine out of her way, drawing deep breaths, +smiling_) O-h. How good I feel! Light! (_a movement as if she could +fly_) Read me something, Tom dear. Or say something pleasant--about God. +But be very careful what you say about him! I have a feeling--he's not +far off. + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT II + + +_Late afternoon of the following day._ CLAIRE _is alone in the tower--a +tower which is thought to be round but does not complete the circle. The +back is curved, then jagged lines break from that, and the front is a +queer bulging window--in a curve that leans. The whole structure is as +if given a twist by some terrific force--like something wrong. It is +lighted by an old-fashioned watchman's lantern hanging from the ceiling; +the innumerable pricks and slits in the metal throw a marvellous pattern +on the curved wall--like some masonry that hasn't been. + +There are no windows at back, and there is no door save an opening in +the floor. The delicately distorted rail of a spiral staircase winds up +from below._ CLAIRE _is seen through the huge ominous window as if shut +into the tower. She is lying on a seat at the back looking at a book of +drawings. To do this she has left the door of her lantern a little +open--and her own face is clearly seen. + +A door is heard opening below; laughing voices,_ CLAIRE _listens, not +pleased._ + +ADELAIDE: (_voice coming up_) Dear--dear, why do they make such +twisting steps. + +HARRY: Take your time, most up now. (HARRY_'s head appears, he looks +back._) Making it all right? + +ADELAIDE: I can't tell yet. (_laughingly_) No, I don't think so. + +HARRY: (_reaching back a hand for her_) The last lap--is the bad lap. +(ADELAIDE _is up, and occupied with getting her breath._) + +HARRY: Since you wouldn't come down, Claire, we thought we'd come up. + +ADELAIDE: (_as_ CLAIRE _does not greet her_) I'm sorry to intrude, but I +have to see you, Claire. There are things to be arranged. (CLAIRE +_volunteering nothing about arrangements,_ ADELAIDE _surveys the tower. +An unsympathetic eye goes from the curves to the lines which diverge. +Then she looks from the window_) Well, at least you have a view. + +HARRY: This is the first time you've been up here? + +ADELAIDE: Yes, in the five years you've had the house I was never asked +up here before. + +CLAIRE: (_amiably enough_) You weren't asked up here now. + +ADELAIDE: Harry asked me. + +CLAIRE: It isn't Harry's tower. But never mind--since you don't like +it--it's all right. + +ADELAIDE: (_her eyes again rebuking the irregularities of the tower_) +No, I confess I do not care for it. A round tower should go on being +round. + +HARRY: Claire calls this the thwarted tower. She bought the house +because of it. (_going over and sitting by her, his hand on her ankle_) +Didn't you, old girl? She says she'd like to have known the architect. + +ADELAIDE: Probably a tiresome person too incompetent to make a perfect +tower. + +CLAIRE: Well, now he's disposed of, what next? + +ADELAIDE: (_sitting down in a manner of capably opening a conference_) +Next, Elizabeth, and you, Claire. Just what is the matter with +Elizabeth? + +CLAIRE: (_whose voice is cool, even, as if herself is not really engaged +by this_) Nothing is the matter with her. She is a tower that is a +tower. + +ADELAIDE: Well, is that anything against her? + +CLAIRE: She's just like one of her father's portraits. They never +interested me. Nor does she. (_looks at the drawings which do interest +her_) + +ADELAIDE: A mother cannot cast off her own child simply because she does +not interest her! + +CLAIRE: (_an instant raising cool eyes to_ ADELAIDE) Why can't she? + +ADELAIDE: Because it would be monstrous! + +CLAIRE: And why can't she be monstrous--if she has to be? + +ADELAIDE: You don't have to be. That's where I'm out of patience with +you Claire. You are really a particularly intelligent, competent person, +and it's time for you to call a halt to this nonsense and be the woman +you were meant to be! + +CLAIRE: (_holding the book up to see another way_) What inside dope have +you on what I was meant to be? + +ADELAIDE: I know what you came from. + +CLAIRE: Well, isn't it about time somebody got loose from that? What I +came from made you, so-- + +ADELAIDE: (_stiffly_) I see. + +CLAIRE: So--you being such a tower of strength, why need I too be +imprisoned in what I came from? + +ADELAIDE: It isn't being imprisoned. Right there is where you make your +mistake, Claire. Who's in a tower--in an unsuccessful tower? Not I. I go +about in the world--free, busy, happy. Among people, I have no time to +think of myself. + +CLAIRE: No. + +ADELAIDE: No. My family. The things that interest them; from morning +till night it's-- + +CLAIRE: Yes, I know you have a large family, Adelaide; five and +Elizabeth makes six. + +ADELAIDE: We'll speak of Elizabeth later. But if you would just get out +of yourself and enter into other people's lives-- + +CLAIRE: Then I would become just like you. And we should all be just +alike in order to assure one another that we're all just right. But +since you and Harry and Elizabeth and ten million other people bolster +each other up, why do you especially need me? + +ADELAIDE: (_not unkindly_) We don't need you as much as you need us. + +CLAIRE: (_a wry face_) I never liked what I needed. + +HARRY: I am convinced I am the worst thing in the world for you, Claire. + +CLAIRE: (_with a smile for his tactics, but shaking her head_) I'm +afraid you're not. I don't know--perhaps you are. + +ADELAIDE: Well, what is it you want, Claire? + +CLAIRE: (_simply_) You wouldn't know if I told you. + +ADELAIDE: That's rather arrogant. + +HARRY: Yes, take a chance, Claire. I have been known to get an idea--and +Adelaide quite frequently gets one. + +CLAIRE: (_the first resentment she has shown_) You two feel very +superior, don't you? + +ADELAIDE: I don't think we are the ones who are feeling superior. + +CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you are. Very superior to what you think is my feeling +of superiority, comparing my--isolation with your 'heart of humanity'. +Soon we will speak of the beauty of common experiences, of the--Oh, I +could say it all before we come to it. + +HARRY: Adelaide came up here to help you, Claire. + +CLAIRE: Adelaide came up here to lock me in. Well, she can't do it. + +ADELAIDE: (_gently_) But can't you see that one may do that to one's +self? + +CLAIRE: (_thinks of this, looks suddenly tired--then smiles_) Well, at +least I've changed the keys. + +HARRY: 'Locked in.' Bunkum. Get that our of your head, Claire. Who's +locked in? Nobody that I know of, we're all free Americans. Free as air. + +ADELAIDE: I wish you'd come and hear one of Mr Morley's sermons, Claire. +You're very old-fashioned if you think sermons are what they used to be. + +CLAIRE: (_with interest_) And do they still sing 'Nearer, my God, to +Thee'? + +ADELAIDE: They do, and a noble old hymn it is. It would do you no harm +at all to sing it. + +CLAIRE: (_eagerly_) Sing it to me, Adelaide. I'd like to hear you sing +it. + +ADELAIDE: It would be sacrilege to sing it to you in this mood. + +CLAIRE: (_falling back_) Oh, I don't know. I'm not so sure God would +agree with you. That would be one on you, wouldn't it? + +ADELAIDE: It's easy to feel one's self set apart! + +CLAIRE: No, it isn't. + +ADELAIDE: (_beginning anew_) It's a new age, Claire. Spiritual values-- + +CLAIRE: Spiritual values! (_in her brooding way_) So you have pulled +that up. (_with cunning_) Don't think I don't know what it is you do. + +ADELAIDE: Well, what do I do? I'm sure I have no idea what you're +talking about. + +HARRY: (_affectionately, as_ CLAIRE _is looking with intentness at what +he does not see_) What does she do, Claire? + +CLAIRE: It's rather clever, what she does. Snatching the phrase--(_a +movement as if pulling something up_) standing it up between her +and--the life that's there. And by saying it enough--'We have life! We +have life! We have life!' Very good come-back at one who would really +be--'Just so! _We_ are that. Right this way, please--'That, I suppose is +what we mean by needing each other. All join in the chorus, 'This is it! +This is it! This is it!' And anyone who won't join is to be--visited by +relatives, (_regarding_ ADELAIDE _with curiosity_) Do you really think +that anything is going on in you? + +ADELAIDE: (_stiffly_) I am not one to hold myself up as a perfect +example of what the human race may be. + +CLAIRE: (_brightly_) Well, that's good. + +HARRY: Claire! + +CLAIRE: Humility's a _real_ thing--not just a fine name for laziness. + +HARRY: Well, Lord A'mighty, you can't call Adelaide lazy. + +CLAIRE: She stays in one place because she hasn't the energy to go +anywhere else. + +ADELAIDE: (_as if the last word in absurdity has been said) I_ haven't +energy? + +CLAIRE: (_mildly_) You haven't any energy at all, Adelaide. That's why +you keep so busy. + +ADELAIDE: _Well_--Claire's nerves are in a worse state than I had +realized. + +CLAIRE: So perhaps we'd better look at Blake's drawings, (_takes up the +book_) + +ADELAIDE: It would be all right for me to look at Blake's drawings. +You'd better look at the Sistine Madonna, (_affectionately, after she +has watched_ CLAIRE_'s face a moment_) What is it, Claire? Why do you +shut yourself out from us? + +CLAIRE: I told you. Because I do not want to be shut in with you. + +ADELAIDE: All of this is not very pleasant for Harry. + +HARRY: I want Claire to be gay. + +CLAIRE: Funny--you should want that, (_speaks unwillingly, a curious, +wistful unwillingness_) Did you ever say a preposterous thing, then go +trailing after the thing you've said and find it wasn't so preposterous? +Here is the circle we are in._describes a big circle_) Being gay. It +shoots little darts through the circle, and a minute later--gaiety all +gone, and you looking through that little hole the gaiety left. + +ADELAIDE: (_going to her, as she is still looking through that little +hole_) Claire, dear, I wish I could make you feel how much I care for +you. (_simply, with real feeling_) You can call me all the names you +like--dull, commonplace, lazy--that is a new idea, I confess, but the +rest of our family's gone now, and the love that used to be there +between us all--the only place for it now is between you and me. You +were so much loved, Claire. You oughtn't to try and get away from a +world in which you are so much loved, (_to_ HARRY) Mother--father--all +of us, always loved Claire best. We always loved Claire's queer gaiety. +Now you've got to hand it to us for that, as the children say. + +CLAIRE: (_moved, but eyes shining with a queer bright loneliness_) But +never one of you--once--looked with me through the little pricks the +gaiety made--never one of you--once, looked with me at the queer light +that came in through the pricks. + +ADELAIDE: And can't you see, dear, that it's better for us we didn't? +And that it would be better for you now if you would just resolutely +look somewhere else? You must see yourself that you haven't the poise of +people who are held--well, within the circle, if you choose to put it +that way. There's something about being in that main body, having one's +roots in the big common experiences, gives a calm which you have missed. +That's _why_ I want you to take Elizabeth, forget yourself, and-- + +CLAIRE: I do want calm. But mine would have to be a calm I--worked my +way to. A calm all prepared for me--would stink. + +ADELAIDE: (_less sympathetically_) I know you have to be yourself, +Claire. But I don't admit you have a right to hurt other people. + +HARRY: I think Claire and I had better take a nice long trip. + +ADELAIDE: Now why don't you? + +CLAIRE: I am taking a trip. + +ADELAIDE: Well, Harry isn't, and he'd like to go and wants you to go +with him. Go to Paris and get yourself some awfully good-looking +clothes--and have one grand fling at the gay world. You really love +that, Claire, and you've been awfully dull lately. I think that's the +whole trouble. + +HARRY: I think so too. + +ADELAIDE: This sober business of growing plants-- + +CLAIRE: Not sober--it's mad. + +ADELAIDE: All the more reason for quitting it. + +CLAIRE: But madness that is the only chance for sanity. + +ADELAIDE: Come, come, now--let's not juggle words. + +CLAIRE: (_springing up_) How dare you say that to me, Adelaide. You who +are such a liar and thief and whore with words! + +ADELAIDE: (_facing her, furious_) How _dare_ you-- + +HARRY: Of course not, Claire. You have the most preposterous way of +using words. + +CLAIRE: I respect words. + +ADELAIDE: Well, you'll please respect me enough not to dare use certain +words to me! + +CLAIRE: Yes, I do dare. I'm tired of what you do--you and all of you. +Life--experience--values--calm--sensitive words which raise their heads +as indications. And you _pull them up_--to decorate your stagnant little +minds--and think that makes you--And because you have pulled that word +from the life that grew it you won't let one who's honest, and aware, +and troubled, try to reach through to--to what she doesn't know is +there, (_she is moved, excited, as if a cruel thing has been done_) Why +did you come here? + +ADELAIDE: To try and help you. But I begin to fear I can't do it. It's +pretty egotistical to claim that what so many people are, is wrong. + +(_CLAIRE, after looking intently at ADELAIDE, slowly, smiling a little, +describes a circle. With deftly used hands makes a quick vicious break +in the circle which is there in the air._) + +HARRY: (_going to her, taking her hands_) It's getting close to +dinner-time. You were thinking of something else, Claire, when I told +you Charlie Emmons was coming to dinner to-night, (_answering her look_) +Sure--he is a neurologist, and I want him to see you. I'm perfectly +honest with you--cards all on the table, you know that. I'm hoping if +you like him--and he's the best scout in the world, that he can help +you. (_talking hurriedly against the stillness which follows her look +from him to ADELAIDE, where she sees between them an 'understanding' +about her_) Sure you need help, Claire. Your nerves are a little on the +blink--from all you've been doing. No use making a mystery of it--or a +tragedy. Emmons is a cracker-jack, and naturally I want you to get a +move on yourself and be happy again. + +CLAIRE: (_who has gone over to the window_) And this neurologist can +make me happy? + +HARRY: Can make you well--and then you'll be happy. + +ADELAIDE: (_in the voice of now fixing it all up_) And I had just an +idea about Elizabeth. Instead of working with mere plants, why not think +of Elizabeth as a plant and-- + +(CLAIRE, _who has been looking out of the window, now throws open one of +the panes that swings out--or seems to, and calls down in great +excitement._) + +CLAIRE: Tom! _Tom!_ Quick! Up here! I'm in trouble! + +HARRY: (_going to the window_) That's a rotten thing to do, Claire! +You've frightened him. + +CLAIRE: Yes, how fast he can run. He was deep in thought and I stabbed +right through. + +HARRY: Well, he'll be none too pleased when he gets up here and finds +there was no reason for the stabbing! + +(_They wait for his footsteps,_ HARRY _annoyed,_ ADELAIDE _offended, but +stealing worried looks at_ CLAIRE, _who is looking fixedly at the place +in the floor where_ TOM _will appear.--Running footsteps._) + +TOM: (_his voice getting there before he does_) Yes, +Claire--yes--yes--(_as his head appears_) What is it? + +CLAIRE: (_at once presenting him and answering his question_) My sister. + +TOM: (_gasping_) Oh,--why--is that all? I mean--how do you do? Pardon, I +(_panting_) came up--rather hurriedly. + +HARRY: If you want to slap Claire, Tom, I for one have no objection. + +CLAIRE: Adelaide has the most interesting idea, Tom. She proposes that I +take Elizabeth and roll her in the gutter. Just let her lie there until +she breaks up into-- + +ADELAIDE: _Claire!_ I don't see how--even in fun--pretty vulgar fun--you +can speak in those terms of a pure young girl. I'm beginning to think I +had better take Elizabeth. + +CLAIRE: Oh, I've thought that all along. + +ADELAIDE: And I'm also beginning to suspect that--oddity may be just a +way of shifting responsibility. + +CLAIRE: (_cordially interested in this possibility_) Now you know--that +might be. + +ADELAIDE: A mother who does not love her own child! You are an unnatural +woman, Claire. + +CLAIRE: Well, at least it saves me from being a natural one. + +ADELAIDE: Oh--I know, you think you have a great deal! But let me tell +you, you've missed a great deal! You've never known the faintest +stirring of a mother's love. + +CLAIRE: That's not true. + +HARRY: No. Claire loved our boy. + +CLAIRE: I'm glad he didn't live. + +HARRY: (_low_) Claire! + +CLAIRE: I loved him. Why should I want him to live? + +HARRY: Come, dear, I'm sorry I spoke of him--when you're not feeling +well. + +CLAIRE: I'm feeling all right. _Just_ because I'm seeing something, it +doesn't mean I'm sick. + +HARRY: Well, let's go down now. About dinner-time. I shouldn't wonder if +Emmons were here. (_as ADELAIDE is starting down stairs_) Coming, +Claire? + +CLAIRE: No. + +HARRY: But it's time to go down for dinner. + +CLAIRE: I'm not hungry. + +HARRY: But we have a guest. Two guests--Adelaide's staying too. + +CLAIRE: Then you're not alone. + +HARRY: But I invited Dr Emmons to meet you. + +CLAIRE: (_her smile flashing_) Tell him I am violent to-night. + +HARRY: Dearest--how can you joke about such things! + +CLAIRE: So you do think they're serious? + +HARRY: (_irritated_) No, I do not! But I want you to come down for +dinner! + +ADELAIDE: Come, come, Claire; you know quite well this is not the sort +of thing one does. + +CLAIRE: Why go on saying one doesn't, when you are seeing one does (_to_ +TOM) Will you stay with me a while? I want to purify the tower. + +(ADELAIDE _begins to disappear_) + +HARRY: Fine time to choose for a _tête-à-tête. (as he is leaving_) I'd +think more of you, Edgeworthy, if you refused to humour Claire in her +ill-breeding. + +ADELAIDE: (_her severe voice coming from below_) It is not what she was +taught. + +CLAIRE: No, it's not what I was taught, (_laughing rather timidly_) And +perhaps you'd rather have your dinner? + +TOM: No. + +CLAIRE: We'll get something later. I want to talk to you. (_but she does +not--laughs_) Absurd that I should feel bashful with you. Why am I so +awkward with words when I go to talk to you? + +TOM: The words know they're not needed. + +CLAIRE: No, they're not needed. There's something underneath--an open +way--down below the way that words can go. (_rather desperately_) It is +there, isn't it? + +TOM: Oh, yes, it is there. + +CLAIRE: Then why do we never--go it? + +TOM: If we went it, it would not be there. + +CLAIRE: Is that true? How terrible, if that is true. + +TOM: Not terrible, wonderful--that it should--of itself--be there. + +CLAIRE: (_with the simplicity that can say anything_) I want to go it, +Tom, I'm lonely up on top here. Is it that I have more faith than you, +or is it only that I'm greedier? You see, you don't know (_her reckless +laugh_) what you're missing. You don't know how I could love you. + +TOM: Don't, Claire; that isn't--how it is--between you and me. + +CLAIRE: But why can't it be--every way--between you and me? + +TOM: Because we'd lose--the open way. (_the quality of his denial shows +how strong is his feeling for her_) With anyone else--not with you. + +CLAIRE: But you are the only one I want. The only one--all of me wants. + +TOM: I know; but that's the way it is. + +CLAIRE: You're cruel. + +TOM: Oh, Claire, I'm trying so hard to--save it for us. Isn't it our +beauty and our safeguard that underneath our separate lives, no matter +where we may be, with what other, there is this open way between us? +That's so much more than anything we could bring to being. + +CLAIRE: Perhaps. But--it's different with me. I'm not--all spirit. + +TOM: (_his hand on her_) Dear! + +CLAIRE: No, don't touch me--since (_moving_) you're going away +to-morrow? (_he nods_) For--always? (_his head just moves assent_) India +is just another country. But there are undiscovered countries. + +TOM: Yes, but we are so feeble we have to reach our country through the +actual country lying nearest. Don't you do that yourself, Claire? Reach +your country through the plants' country? + +CLAIRE: My country? You mean--outside? + +TOM: No, I don't think it that way. + +CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you do. + +TOM: Your country is the inside, Claire. The innermost. You are +disturbed because you lie too close upon the heart of life. + +CLAIRE: (_restlessly_) I don't know; you can think it one way--or +another. No way says it, and that's good--at least it's not shut up in +saying. (_she is looking at her enclosing hand, as if something is shut +up there_) + +TOM: But also, you know, things may be freed by expression. Come from +the unrealized into the fabric of life. + +CLAIRE: Yes, but why does the fabric of life have to--freeze into its +pattern? It should (_doing it with her hands_) flow, (_then turning like +an unsatisfied child to him_) But I wanted to talk to you. + +TOM: You are talking to me. Tell me about your flower that never was +before--your Breath of Life. + +CLAIRE: I'll know to-morrow. You'll not go until I know? + +TOM: I'll try to stay. + +CLAIRE: It seems to me, if it has--then I have, integrity in--(_smiles, +it is as if the smile lets her say it_) otherness. I don't want to die +on the edge! + +TOM: Not you! + +CLAIRE: Many do. It's what makes them too smug in allness--those dead +things on the edge, died, distorted--trying to get through. Oh--don't +think I don't see--The Edge Vine! (_a pause, then swiftly_) Do you know +what I mean? Or do you think I'm just a fool, or crazy? + +TOM: I think I know what you mean, and you know I don't think you are a +fool, or crazy. + +CLAIRE: Stabbed to awareness--no matter where it takes you, isn't that +more than a safe place to stay? (_telling him very simply despite the +pattern of pain in her voice_) Anguish may be a thread--making patterns +that haven't been. A thread--blue and burning. + +TOM: (_to take her from what even he fears for her_) But you were +telling me about the flower you breathed to life. What is your Breath of +Life? + +CLAIRE: (_an instant playing_) It's a secret. A secret?--it's a trick. +Distilled from the most fragile flowers there are. It's only +air--pausing--playing; except, far in, one stab of red, its quivering +heart--that asks a question. But here's the trick--I bred the air-form +to strength. The strength shut up behind us I've sent--far out. +(_troubled_) I'll know tomorrow. And I have another gift for Breath of +Life; some day--though days of work lie in between--some day I'll give +it reminiscence. Fragrance that is--no one thing in here +but--reminiscent. (_silence, she raises wet eyes_) We need the haunting +beauty from the life we've left. I need that, (_he takes her hands and +breathes her name_) Let me reach my country with you. I'm not a plant. +After all, they don't--accept me. Who does--accept me? Will you? + +TOM: My dear--dear, dear, Claire--you move me so! You stand alone in a +clearness that breaks my heart, (_her hands move up his arms. He takes +them to hold them from where they would go--though he can hardly do it_) +But you've asked what you yourself could answer best. We'd only stop in +the country where everyone stops. + +CLAIRE: We might come through--to radiance. + +TOM: Radiance is an enclosing place. + +CLAIRE: Perhaps radiance lighting forms undreamed, (_her reckless +laugh_) I'd be willing to--take a chance, I'd rather lose than never +know. + +TOM: No, Claire. Knowing you from underneath, I know you couldn't bear +to lose. + +CLAIRE: Wouldn't men say you were a fool! + +TOM: They would. + +CLAIRE: And perhaps you are. (_he smiles a little_) I feel so desperate, +because if only I could--show you what I am, you might see I could have +without losing. But I'm a stammering thing with you. + +TOM: You do show me what you are. + +CLAIRE: I've known a few moments that were life. Why don't they help me +now? One was in the air. I was up with Harry--flying--high. It was about +four months before David was born--the doctor was furious--pregnant +women are supposed to keep to earth. We were going fast--I _was_ +flying--I had left the earth. And then--within me, movement, for the +first time--stirred to life far in air--movement within. The man unborn, +he too, would fly. And so--I always loved him. He was movement--and +wonder. In his short life were many flights. I never told anyone about +the last one. His little bed was by the window--he wasn't four years +old. It was night, but him not asleep. He saw the morning star--you +know--the morning star. Brighter--stranger--reminiscent--and a promise. +He pointed--'Mother', he asked me, 'what is there--beyond the stars?' A +baby, a sick baby--the morning star. Next night--the finger that pointed +was--(_suddenly bites her own finger_) But, yes, I am glad. He would +always have tried to move and too much would hold him. Wonder would +die--and he'd laugh at soaring, (_looking down, sidewise_) Though I +liked his voice. So I wish you'd stay near me--for I like your voice, +too. + +TOM: Claire! That's (_choked_) almost too much. + +CLAIRE: (_one of her swift glances--canny, almost practical_) Well, I'm +glad if it is. How can I make it more? (_but what she sees brings its +own change_) I know what it is you're afraid of. It's because I have so +much--yes, why shouldn't I say it?--passion. You feel that in me, don't +you? You think it would swamp everything. But that isn't all there is to +me. + +TOM: Oh, I know it! My dearest--why, it's because I know it! You think I +_am_--a fool? + +CLAIRE: It's a thing that's--sometimes more than I am. And yet I--I am +more than it is. + +TOM: I know. I know about you. + +CLAIRE: I don't know that you do. Perhaps if you really knew about +me--you wouldn't go away. + +TOM: You're making me suffer, Claire. + +CLAIRE: I know I am. I want to. Why shouldn't you suffer? (_now seeing +it more clearly than she has ever seen it_) You know what I think about +you? You're afraid of suffering, and so you stop this side--in what you +persuade yourself is suffering, (_waits, then sends it straight_) You +know--how it is--with me and Dick? (_as she sees him suffer_) Oh, no, I +don't want to hurt you! Let it be you! I'll teach you--you needn't scorn +it. It's rather wonderful. + +TOM: Stop that, Claire! That isn't you. + +CLAIRE: Why are you so afraid--of letting me be low--if that is low? You +see--(_cannily_) I believe in beauty. I have the faith that can be bad +as well as good. And you know why I have the faith? Because +sometimes--from my lowest moments--beauty has opened as the sea. From a +cave I saw immensity. + + My love, you're going away-- + Let me tell you how it is with me; + I want to touch you--somehow touch you once before I die-- + Let me tell you how it is with me. + I do not want to work, + I want to be; + Do not want to make a rose or make a poem-- + Want to lie upon the earth and know. (_closes her eyes_) + Stop doing that!--words going into patterns; + They do it sometimes when I let come what's there. + Thoughts take pattern--then the pattern is the thing. + But let me tell you how it is with me. (_it flows again_) + All that I do or say--it is to what it comes from, + A drop lifted from the sea. + I want to lie upon the earth and know. + But--scratch a little dirt and make a flower; + Scratch a bit of brain--something like a poem. (_covering her face_) + Stop _doing_ that. Help me stop doing that! + +TOM: (_and from the place where she had carried him_) + Don't talk at all. Lie still and know-- + And know that I am knowing. + +CLAIRE: + Yes; but we are so weak we have to talk; + To talk--to touch. + Why can't I rest in knowing I would give my life to reach you? + That has--all there is. + But I must--put my timid hands upon you, + Do something about infinity. + Oh, let what will flow into us, + And fill us full--and leave us still. + Wring me dry, + And let me fill again with life more pure. + To know--to feel, + And do nothing with what I feel and know-- + That's being good. That's nearer God. + +(_drenched in the feeling that has flowed through her--but +surprised--helpless_) Why, I said your thing, didn't I? Opened my life +to bring you to me, and what came--is what sends you away. + +TOM: No! What came is what holds us together. What came is what saves us +from ever going apart. (_brokenly_) My beautiful one. You--you brave +flower of all our knowing. + +CLAIRE: I am not a flower. I am too torn. If you have anything--help me. +Breathe, Breathe the healing oneness, and let me know in calm. (_with a +sob his head rests upon her_) + +CLAIRE: (_her hands on his head, but looking far_) Beauty--you pure one +thing. Breathe--Let me know in calm. Then--trouble me, trouble me, for +other moments--in farther calm. (_slow, motionless, barely articulate_) + +TOM: (_as she does not move he lifts his head. And even as he looks at +her, she does not move, nor look at him_) Claire--(_his hand out to her, +a little afraid_) You went away from me then. You are away from me now. + +CLAIRE: Yes, and I could go on. But I will come back, (_it is hard to +do. She brings much with her_) That, too, I will give you--my +by-myself-ness. That's the uttermost I can give. I never thought--to try +to give it. But let us do it--the great sacrilege! Yes! (_excited, she +rises; she has his hands, and bring him up beside her_) Let us take the +mad chance! Perhaps it's the only way to save--what's there. How do we +know? How can we know? Risk. Risk everything. From all that flows into +us, let it rise! All that we never thought to use to make a moment--let +it flow into what could be! Bring all into life between us--or send all +down to death! Oh, do you know what I am doing? Risk, risk everything, +why are you so afraid to lose? What holds you from me? Test all. Let it +live or let it die. It is our chance--our chance to bear--what's there. +My dear one--I will love you so. With all of me. I am not afraid +now--of--all of me. Be generous. Be unafraid. Life is for _life_--though +it cuts us from the farthest life. How can I make you know that's true? +All that we're open to--(_hesitates, shudders_) But yes--I will, I will +risk the life that waits. Perhaps only he who gives his +loneliness--shall find. You never keep by holding, (_gesture of giving_) +To the uttermost. And it is gone--or it is there. You do not know +and--that makes the moment--(_music has begun--a phonograph downstairs; +they do not heed it_) Just as I would cut my wrists--(_holding them +out_) Yes, perhaps this lesser thing will tell it--would cut my wrists +and let the blood flow out till all is gone if my last drop would +make--would make--(_looking at them fascinated_) I want to see it doing +that! Let me give my last chance for life to-- + +(_He snatches her--they are on the brink of their moment; now that there +are no words the phonograph from downstairs is louder. It is playing +languorously the Barcarole; they become conscious of this--they do not +want to be touched by the love song._) + +CLAIRE: Don't listen. That's nothing. This isn't that, (_fearing_) I +tell you--it isn't that. Yes, I know--that's amorous--enclosing. I +know--a little place. This isn't that, (_her arms going around him--all +the lure of 'that' while she pleads against it as it comes up to them_) +We will come out--to radiance--in far places (_admitting, using_) Oh, +then let it be that! Go with it. Give up--the otherness. I will! And in +the giving up--perhaps a door--we'd never find by searching. And if it's +no more--than all have known, I only say it's worth the allness! (_her +arms wrapped round him_) My love--my love--let go your pride in +loneliness and let me give you joy! + +TOM: (_drenched in her passion, but fighting_) It's _you_. (_in +anguish_) You rare thing untouched--not--not into this--not back into +this--by me--lover of your apartness. + +(_She steps back. She sees he cannot. She stands there, before what she +wanted more than life, and almost had, and lost. A long moment. Then she +runs down the stairs._) + +CLAIRE: (_her voice coming up_) Harry! Choke that phonograph! If you +want to be lewd--do it yourselves! You tawdry things--you cheap little +lewd cowards, (_a door heard opening below_) Harry! If you don't stop +that music, I'll kill myself. + +(_far down, steps on stairs_) + +HARRY: Claire, what _is_ this? + +CLAIRE: Stop that phonograph or I'll-- + +HARRY: Why, of course I'll stop it. What--what is there to get so +excited about? Now--now just a minute, dear. It'll take a minute. + +(CLAIRE _comes back upstairs, dragging steps, face ghastly. The amorous +song still comes up, and louder now that doors are open. She and_ TOM +_do not look at one another. Then, on a languorous swell the music comes +to a grating stop. They do not speak or move. Quick footsteps_--HARRY +_comes up_.) + +HARRY: What in the world were you saying, Claire? Certainly you could +have asked me more quietly to turn off the Victrola. Though what harm +was it doing you--way up here? (_a sharp little sound from_ CLAIRE; _she +checks it, her hand over her mouth_. HARRY _looks from her to_ TOM) +Well, I think you two would better have had your dinner. Won't you come +down now and have some? + +CLAIRE: (_only now taking her hand from her mouth_) Harry, tell him to +come up here--that insanity man. I--want to ask him something. + +HARRY: 'Insanity man!' How absurd. He's a nerve specialist. There's a +vast difference. + +CLAIRE: Is there? Anyway, ask him to come up here. Want to--ask him +something. + +TOM: (_speaking with difficulty_) Wouldn't it be better for us to go +down there? + +CLAIRE: No. So nice up here! Everybody--up here! + +HARRY: (_worried_) You'll--be yourself, will you, Claire? (_She checks a +laugh, nods_.) I think he can help you. + +CLAIRE: Want to ask him to--help me. + +HARRY: (_as he is starting down_) He's here as a guest to-night, you +know, Claire. + +CLAIRE: I suppose a guest can--help one. + +TOM: (_when the silence rejects it_) Claire, you must know, it's because +it is so much, so-- + +CLAIRE: Be still. There isn't anything to say. + +TOM: (_torn--tortured_) If it only weren't _you_! + +CLAIRE: Yes,--so you said. If it weren't. I suppose I wouldn't be +so--interested! (_hears them starting up below--keeps looking at the +place where they will appear_) + +(HARRY _is heard to call_, 'Coming, Dick?' _and_ DICK's _voice replies_, +'In a moment or two.' ADELAIDE _comes first_.) + +ADELAIDE: (_as her head appears_) Well, these stairs should keep down +weight. You missed an awfully good dinner, Claire. And kept Mr Edgeworth +from a good dinner. + +CLAIRE: Yes. We missed our dinner. (_her eyes do not leave the place +where_ DR EMMONS _will come up_) + +HARRY: (_as he and_ EMMONS _appear_) Claire, this is-- + +CLAIRE: Yes, I know who he is. I want to ask you-- + +ADELAIDE: Let the poor man get his breath before you ask him anything. +(_he nods, smiles, looks at_ CLAIRE _with interest. Careful not to look +too long at her, surveys the tower_) + +EMMONS: Curious place. + +ADELAIDE: Yes; it lacks form, doesn't it? + +CLAIRE: What do you mean? How _dare_ you? + +(_It is impossible to ignore her agitation; she is backed against the +curved wall, as far as possible from them._ HARRY _looks at her in +alarm, then in resentment at_ TOM, _who takes a step nearer_ CLAIRE.) + +HARRY: (_trying to be light_) Don't take it so hard, Claire. + +CLAIRE: (_to_ EMMONS) It must be very interesting--helping people go +insane. + +ADELAIDE: Claire! How preposterous. + +EMMONS: (_easily_) I hope that's not precisely what we do. + +ADELAIDE: (_with the smile of one who is going to 'cover it'._) Trust +Claire to put it in the unique and--amusing way. + +CLAIRE: Amusing? You are amused? But it doesn't matter, (_to the +doctor_) I think it is very kind of you--helping people go insane. I +suppose they have all sorts of reasons for having to do it--reasons why +they can't stay sane any longer. But tell me, how do they do it? It's +not so easy to--get out. How do so many manage it? + +EMMONS: I'd like immensely to have a talk with you about all this some +day. + +ADELAIDE: Certainly this is not the time, Claire. + +CLAIRE: The time? When you--can't go any farther--isn't that that-- + +ADELAIDE: (_capably taking the whole thing into matter-of-factness_) +What I think is, Claire has worked too long with plants. There's +something--not quite sound about making one thing into another thing. +What we need is unity. (_from_ CLAIRE _something like a moan_) Yes, +dear, we do need it. (_to the doctor_) I can't say that I believe in +making life over like this. I don't think the new species are worth it. +At least I don't believe in it for Claire. If one is an intense, +sensitive person-- + +CLAIRE: Isn't there any way to _stop_ her? Always--always smothering it +with the word for it? + +EMMONS: (_soothingly_) But she can't smother it. Anything that's really +there--she can't hurt with words. + +CLAIRE: (_looking at him with eyes too bright_) Then you don't see it +either, (_angry_) Yes, she can hurt it! Piling it up--always piling it +up--between us and--What there. Clogging the way--always, (_to_ EMMONS) +I want to cease to know! That's all I ask. Darken it. Darken it. If you +came to help me, strike me blind! + +EMMONS: You're really all tired out, aren't you? Oh, we've got to get +you rested. + +CLAIRE: They--deny it saying they have it; and he (_half looks at_ +TOM_--quickly looks away_)--others, deny it--afraid of losing it. We're +in the way. Can't you see the dead stuff piled in the path? +(_Pointing._) + +DICK: (_voice coming up_) Me too? + +CLAIRE: (_staring at the path, hearing his voice a moment after it has +come_) Yes, Dick--you too. Why not--you too. (_after he has come up_) +What is there any more than you are? + +DICK: (_embarrassed by the intensity, but laughing_) A question not at +all displeasing to me. Who can answer it? + +CLAIRE: (_more and more excited_) Yes! Who can answer it? (_going to +him, in terror_) Let me go with you--and be with you--and know nothing +else! + +ADELAIDE: (_gasping_) Why--! + +HARRY: Claire! This is going a little too-- + +CLAIRE: Far? But you have to go far to--(_clinging to_ DICK) Only a +place to hide your head--what else is there to hope for? I can't stay +with them--piling it up! Always--piling it up! I can't get through +to--he won't let me through to--what I don't know is there! (DICK _would +help her regain herself_) Don't push me away! Don't--don't stand me up, +I will go back--to the worst we ever were! Go back--and remember--what +we've tried to forget! + +ADELAIDE: It's time to stop this by force--if there's no other way. +(_the doctor shakes his head_) + +CLAIRE: All I ask is to die in the gutter with everyone spitting on me. +(_changes to a curious weary smiling quiet_) Still, why should they +bother to do that? + +HARRY: (_brokenly_) You're sick, Claire. There's no denying it. (_looks +at_ EMMONS, _who nods_) + +ADELAIDE: Something to quiet her--to stop it. + +CLAIRE: (_throwing her arms around_ DICK) You, Dick. Not them. Not--any +of them. + +DICK: Claire, you are overwrought. You must-- + +HARRY: (_to_ DICK, _as if only now realizing that phase of it_) I'll +tell you one thing, you'll answer to me for this! (_he starts for_ +DICK--_is restrained by_ EMMONS, _chiefly by his grave shake of the +head. With_ HARRY_'s move to them,_ DICK _has shielded_ CLAIRE) + +CLAIRE: Yes--hold me. Keep me. You have mercy! You will have mercy. +Anything--everything--that will let me be nothing! + + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT III + + +_In the greenhouse, the same as Act I._ ANTHONY _is bedding small plants +where the Edge Vine grew. In the inner room the plant like caught motion +glows as from a light within._ HATTIE, _the Maid, rushes in from +outside._ + +ANTHONY: (_turning angrily_) You are not what this place-- + +HATTIE: Anthony, come in the house. I'm afraid. Mr Archer, I never saw +him like this. He's talking to Mr Demming--something about Mrs Archer. + +ANTHONY: (_who in spite of himself is disturbed by her agitation_) And +if it is, it's no business of yours. + +HATTIE: You don't know how he _is_. I went in the room and-- + +ANTHONY: Well, he won't hurt you, will he? + +HATTIE: How do I know who he'll hurt--a person's whose--(_seeing how to +get him_) Maybe he'll hurt Mrs Archer. + +ANTHONY: (_startled, then smiles_) No; he won't hurt Miss Claire. + +HATTIE: What do you know about it?--out here in the plant house? + +ANTHONY: And I don't want to know about it. This is a very important day +for me. It's Breath of Life I'm thinking of today--not you and Mr +Archer. + +HATTIE: Well, suppose he does something to Mr Demming? + +ANTHONY: Mr Demming will have to look out for himself, I am at work. + +(_resuming work_) + +HATTIE: Don't you think I ought to tell Mrs Archer that-- + +ANTHONY: You let her alone! This is no day for her to be bothered by +you. At eleven o'clock (_looks at watch_) she comes out here--to Breath +of Life. + +HATTIE: (_with greed for gossip_) Did you see any of them when they came +downstairs last night? + +ANTHONY: I was attending to my own affairs. + +HATTIE: They was all excited. Mr Edgeworth--he went away. He was gone +all night, I guess. I saw him coming back just as the milkman woke me +up. Now he's packing his things. _He_ wanted to get to Mrs Archer +too--just a little while ago. But she won't open her door for none of +them. I can't even get in to do her room. + +ANTHONY: Then do some other room--and leave me alone in this room. + +HATTIE: (_a little afraid of what she is asking_) Is she sick, +Anthony--or what? (_vindicating herself, as he gives her a look_) The +doctor, he stayed here late. But she'd locked herself in. I heard Mr +Archer-- + +ANTHONY: You heard too much! (_he starts for the door, to make her +leave, but_ DICK _rushes in. Looks around wildly, goes to the trap-door, +finds it locked_) + +ANTHONY: What are you doing here? + +DICK: Trying not to be shot--if you must know. This is the only place I +can think of--till he comes to his senses and I can get away. Open that, +will you? Rather--ignominious--but better be absurd than be dead. + +HATTIE: Has he got the revolver? + +DICK: Gone for it. Thought I wouldn't sit there till he got back, (_to_ +ANTHONY) Look here--don't you get the idea? Get me some place where he +can't come. + +ANTHONY: It is not what this place is for. + +DICK: Any place is for saving a man's life. + +HATTIE: Sure, Anthony. Mrs Archer wouldn't want Mr Demming shot. + +DICK: That's right, Anthony. Miss Claire will be angry at you if you get +me shot. (_he makes for the door of the inner room_) + +ANTHONY: You can't go in there. It's locked. (HARRY _rushes in from +outside_.) + +HARRY: I thought so! (_he has the revolver_. HATTIE _screams_) + +ANTHONY: Now, Mr Archer, if you'll just stop and think, you'll know Miss +Claire wouldn't want Mr Demming shot. + +HARRY: You think that can stop me? You think you can stop me? (_raising +the revolver_) A dog that-- + +ANTHONY: (_keeping squarely between_ HARRY _and_ DICK) Well, you can't +shoot him in here. It is not good for the plants. (HARRY _is arrested by +this reason_) And especially not today. Why, Mr Archer, Breath of Life +may flower today. It's years Miss Claire's been working for this day. + +HARRY: I never thought to see this day! + +ANTHONY: No, did you? Oh, it will be a wonderful day. And how she has +worked for it. She has an eye that sees what isn't right in what looks +right. Many's the time I've thought--Here the form is set--and then +she'd say, 'We'll try this one', and it had--what I hadn't known was +there. She's like that. + +HARRY: I've always been pleased, Anthony, at the way you've worked with +Miss Claire. This is hardly the time to stand there eulogizing her. And +she's (_can hardly say it_) things you don't know she is. + +ANTHONY: (_proudly_) Oh, I know that! You think I could work with her +and not know she's more than I know she is? + +HARRY: Well, if you love her you've got to let me shoot the dirty dog +that drags her down! + +ANTHONY: Not in here. Not today. More than like you'd break the glass. +And Breath of Life's in there. + +HARRY: Anthony, this is pretty clever of you--but-- + +ANTHONY: I'm not clever. But I know how easy it is to turn life back. +No, I'm not clever at all (CLAIRE _has appeared and is looking in from +outside_), but I do know--there are things you mustn't hurt, (_he sees +her_) Yes, here's Miss Claire. + +(_She comes in. She is looking immaculate._) + +CLAIRE: From the gutter I rise again, refreshed. One does, you know. +Nothing is fixed--not even the gutter, (_smilingly to_ HARRY _and +refusing to notice revolver or agitation_) How did you like the way I +entertained the nerve specialist? + +HARRY: Claire! You can _joke_ about it? + +CLAIRE: (_taking the revolver from the hand she has shocked to +limpness_) Whom are you trying to make hear? + +HARRY: I'm trying to make the world hear that (_pointing_) there stands +a dirty dog who-- + +CLAIRE: Listen, Harry, (_turning to_ HATTIE, _who is over by the tall +plants at right, not wanting to be shot but not wanting to miss the +conversation_) You can do my room now, Hattie. (_HATTIE goes_) If you're +thinking of shooting Dick, you can't shoot him while he's backed up +against that door. + +ANTHONY: Just what I told them, Miss Claire. Just what I told them. + +CLAIRE: And for that matter, it's quite dull of you to have any idea of +shooting him. + +HARRY: I may be dull--I know you think I am--but I'll show you that I've +enough of the man in me to-- + +CLAIRE: To make yourself ridiculous? If I ran out and hid my head in the +mud, would you think you had to shoot the mud? + +DICK: (_stung out of fear_) That's pretty cruel! + +CLAIRE: Well, would you rather be shot? + +HARRY: So you just said it to protect him! + +CLAIRE: I change it to grass, (_nodding to_ DICK) Grass. If I hid my +face in the grass, would you have to burn the grass? + +HARRY: Oh, Claire, how _can_ you? When you know how I love you--and how +I'm suffering? + +CLAIRE: (_with interest_) Are you suffering? + +HARRY: Haven't you _eyes_? + +CLAIRE: I should think it would--do something to you. + +HARRY: God! Have you no heart? (_the door opens._ TOM _comes in_) + +CLAIRE: (_scarcely saying it_) Yes, I have a heart. + +TOM: (_after a pause_) I came to say good-bye. + +CLAIRE: God! Have you no heart? Can't you at least wait till Dick is +shot? + +TOM: Claire! (_now sees the revolver in her hand that is turned from +him. Going to her_) Claire! + +CLAIRE: And even you think this is so important? (_carelessly raises the +revolver, and with her left hand out flat, tells_ TOM _not to touch +her_) Harry thinks it important he shoot Dick, and Dick thinks it +important not to be shot, and you think I mustn't shoot anybody--even +myself--and can't any of you see that none of that is as important +as--where revolvers can't reach? (_putting revolver where there is no +Edge Vine_) I shall never shoot myself. I'm too interested in +destruction to cut it short by shooting. (_after looking from one to the +other, laughs. Pointing_) One--two--three. You-love-me. But why do you +bring it out here? + +ANTHONY: (_who has resumed work_) It is not what this place is for. + +CLAIRE: No this place is for the destruction that can get through. + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire, it is eleven. At eleven we are to go in and see-- + +CLAIRE: Whether it has gone through. But how can we go--with Dick +against the door? + +ANTHONY: He'll have to move. + +CLAIRE: And be shot? + +HARRY: (_irritably_) Oh, he'll not be shot. Claire can spoil anything. + +(DICK _steps away from the door_; CLAIRE _takes a step nearer it_.) + +CLAIRE: (_halting_) Have I spoiled everything? I don't want to go in +there. + +ANTHONY: We're going in together, Miss Claire. Don't you remember? Oh +(_looking resentfully at the others_) don't let any little thing spoil +it for you--the work of all those days--the hope of so many days. + +CLAIRE: Yes--that's it. + +ANTHONY: You're afraid you haven't done it? + +CLAIRE: Yes, but--afraid I have. + +HARRY: (_cross, but kindly_) That's just nervousness, Claire. I've had +the same feeling myself about making a record in flying. + +CLAIRE: (_curiously grateful_) You have, Harry? + +HARRY: (_glad enough to be back in a more usual world_) Sure. I've been +afraid to know, and almost as afraid of having done it as of not having +done it. + +(CLAIRE _nods, steps nearer, then again pulls back_.) + +CLAIRE: I can't go in there. (_she almost looks at_ TOM) Not today. + +ANTHONY: But, Miss Claire, there'll be things to see today we can't see +tomorrow. + +CLAIRE: You bring it in here! + +ANTHONY: In--out from its own place? (_she nods_) And--where they are? +(_again she nods. Reluctantly he goes to the door_) I will not look into +the heart. No one must know before you know. + +(_In the inner room, his head a little turned away, he is seen very +carefully to lift the plant which glows from within. As he brings it in, +no one looks at it_. HARRY _takes a box of seedlings from a stand and +puts them on the floor, that the newcomer may have a place_.) + +ANTHONY: Breath of Life is here, Miss Claire. + +(CLAIRE _half turns, then stops._) + +CLAIRE: Look--and see--what you see. + +ANTHONY: No one should see what you've not seen. + +CLAIRE: I can't see--until I know. + +(ANTHONY _looks into the flower._) + +ANTHONY: (_agitated_) Miss Claire! + +CLAIRE: It has come through? + +ANTHONY: It has gone on. + +CLAIRE: Stronger? + +ANTHONY: Stronger, surer. + +CLAIRE: And more fragile? + +ANTHONY: And more fragile. + +CLAIRE: Look deep. No--turning back? + +ANTHONY: (_after a searching look_) The form is set. (_he steps back +from it_) + +CLAIRE: Then it is--out. (_from where she stands she turns slowly to the +plant_) You weren't. You are. + +ANTHONY: But come and see, Miss Claire. + +CLAIRE: It's so much more than--I'd see. + +HARRY: Well, I'm going to see. (_looking into it_) I never saw anything +like that before! There seems something alive--inside this outer shell. + +DICK: (_he too looking in and he has an artist's manner of a hand up to +make the light right_) It's quite new in form. It--says something about +form. + +HARRY: (_cordially to_ CLAIRE, _who stands apart_) So you've really put +it over. Well, well,--congratulations. It's a good deal of novelty, I +should say, and I've no doubt you'll have a considerable success with +it--people always like something new. I'm mighty glad--after all your +work, and I hope it will--set you up. + +CLAIRE: (_low--and like a machine_) Will you all--go away? + +(ANTHONY _goes--into the other room._) + +HARRY: Why--why, yes. But--oh, Claire! Can't you take some pleasure in +your work? (_as she stands there very still_) Emmons says you need a +good long rest--and I think he's right. + +TOM: Can't this help you, Claire? Let this be release. This--breath of +the uncaptured. + +CLAIRE: (_and though speaking, she remains just as still_) + Breath of the uncaptured? + You are a novelty. + Out? + You have been brought in. + A thousand years from now, when you are but a form too long repeated, + Perhaps the madness that gave you birth will burst again, + And from the prison that is you will leap pent queernesses + To make a form that hasn't been-- + To make a person new. + And this we call creation, (_very low, her head not coming up_) + Go away! + +(TOM _goes_; HARRY _hesitates, looking in anxiety at_ CLAIRE. _He starts +to go, stops, looks at_ DICK, _from him to_ CLAIRE. _But goes. A moment +later_ DICK _moves near_ CLAIRE; _stands uncertainly, then puts a hand +upon her. She starts, only then knowing he is there._) + +CLAIRE: (_a slight shrinking away, but not really reached_) Um, um. + +(_He goes_. CLAIRE _steps nearer her creation. She looks into what +hasn't been. With her breath, and by a gentle moving of her hands, she +fans it to fuller openness. As she does this_ TOM _returns and from +outside is looking in at her. Softly he opens the door and comes in. She +does not know that he is there. In the way she looks at the flower he +looks at her._) + +TOM: Claire, (_she lifts her head_) As you stood there, looking into the +womb you breathed to life, you were beautiful to me beyond any other +beauty. You were life and its reach and its anguish. I can't go away +from you. I will never go away from you. It shall all be--as you wish. I +can go with you where I could not go alone. If this is delusion, I want +that delusion. It's more than any reality I could attain, (_as she does +not move_) Speak to me, Claire. You--are glad? + +CLAIRE: (_from far_) Speak to you? (_pause_) Do I know who you are? + +TOM: I think you do. + +CLAIRE: Oh, yes. I love you. That's who you are. (_waits again_) But why +are you something--very far away? + +TOM: Come nearer. + +CLAIRE: Nearer? (_feeling it with her voice_) Nearer. But I think I am +going--the other way. + +TOM: No, Claire--come to me. Did you understand, dear? I am not going +away. + +CLAIRE: You're not going away? + +TOM: Not without you, Claire. And you and I will be together. Is +that--what you wanted? + +CLAIRE: Wanted? (_as if wanting is something that harks far back. But +the word calls to her passion_) Wanted! (_a sob, hands out, she goes to +him. But before his arms can take her, she steps back_) Are you trying +to pull me down into what I wanted? Are you here to make me stop? + +TOM: How can you ask that? I love you because it is not in you to stop. + +CLAIRE: And loving me for that--would stop me? Oh, help me see it! It is +so important that I see it. + +TOM: It is important. It is our lives. + +CLAIRE: And more than that. I cannot see it because it is so much more +than that. + +TOM: Don't try to see all that it is. From peace you'll see a little +more. + +CLAIRE: Peace? (_troubled as we are when looking at what we cannot see +clearly_) What is peace? Peace is what the struggle knows in moments +very far apart. Peace--that is not a place to rest. Are you resting? +What are you? You who'd take me from what I am to something else? + +TOM: I thought you knew, Claire. + +CLAIRE: I know--what you pass for. But are you beauty? Beauty is that +only living pattern--the trying to take pattern. Are you trying? + +TOM: Within myself, Claire. I never thought you doubted that. + +CLAIRE: Beauty is it. (_she turns to Breath of Life, as if to learn it +there, but turns away with a sob_) If I cannot go to you now--I will +always be alone. + +(TOM _takes her in his arms. She is shaken, then comes to rest._) + +TOM: Yes--rest. And then--come into joy. You have so much life for joy. + +CLAIRE: (_raising her head, called by promised gladness_) We'll run +around together. (_lovingly he nods_) Up hills. All night on hills. + +TOM: (_tenderly_) All night on hills. + +CLAIRE: We'll go on the sea in a little boat. + +TOM: On the sea in a little boat. + +CLAIRE: But--there are other boats on other seas, (_drawing back from +him, troubled_) There are other boats on other seas. + +TOM: (_drawing her back to him_) My dearest--not now, not now. + +CLAIRE: (_her arms going round him_) Oh, I would love those hours with +you. I want them. I want you! (_they kiss--but deep in her is sobbing_) +Reminiscence, (_her hand feeling his arm as we touch what we would +remember_) Reminiscence. (_with one of her swift changes steps back from +him_) How dare you pass for what you're not? We are tired, and so we +think it's you. Stop with you. Don't get through--to what you're in the +way of. Beauty is not something you say about beauty. + +TOM: I say little about beauty, Claire. + +CLAIRE: Your life says it. By standing far off you pass for it. Smother +it with a life that passes for it. But beauty--(_getting it from the +flower_) Beauty is the humility breathed from the shame of succeeding. + +TOM: But it may all be within one's self, dear. + +CLAIRE: (_drawn by this, but held, and desperate because she is held_) +When I have wanted you with all my wanting--why must I distrust you now? +When I love you--with all of me, why do I know that only you are worth +my hate? + +TOM: It's the fear of easy satisfactions. I love you for it. + +CLAIRE: (_over the flower_) Breath of Life--you here? Are you +lonely--Breath of Life? + +TOM: Claire--hear me! Don't go where we can't go. As there you made a +shell for life within, make for yourself a life in which to live. It +must be so. + +CLAIRE: As you made for yourself a shell called beauty? + +TOM: What is there for you, if you'll have no touch with what we have? + +CLAIRE: What is there? There are the dreams we haven't dreamed. There is +the long and flowing pattern, (_she follows that, but suddenly and as if +blindly goes to him_) I am tired. I am lonely. I'm afraid, (_he holds +her, soothing. But she steps back from him_) And because we are +tired--lonely--and afraid, we stop with you. Don't get through--to what +you're in the way of. + +TOM: Then you don't love me? + +CLAIRE: I'm fighting for my chance. I don't know--which chance. + +(_Is drawn to the other chance, to Breath of Life. Looks into it as if +to look through to the uncaptured. And through this life just caught +comes the truth she chants._) + + I've wallowed at a coarse man's feet, + I'm sprayed with dreams we've not yet come to. + I've gone so low that words can't get there, + I've never pulled the mantle of my fears around me + And called it loneliness--And called it God. + Only with life that waits have I kept faith. + +(_with effort raising her eyes to the man_) + + And only you have ever threatened me. + +TOM: (_coming to her, and with strength now_) And I will threaten you. +I'm here to hold you from where I know you cannot go. You're trying what +we can't do. + +CLAIRE: What else is there worth trying? + +TOM: I love you, and I will keep you--from fartherness--from harm. You +are mine, and you will stay with me! (_roughly_) You hear me? You will +stay with me! + +CLAIRE: (_her head on his breast, in ecstasy of rest. Drowsily_) You can +keep me? + +TOM: Darling! I can keep you. I will keep you--safe. + +CLAIRE: (_troubled by the word, but barely able to raise her head_) +Safe? + +TOM: (_bringing her to rest again_) Trust me, Claire. + +CLAIRE: (_not lifting her head, but turning it so she sees Breath of +Life_) Now can I trust--what is? (_suddenly pushing him roughly away_) +No! I will beat my life to pieces in the struggle to-- + +TOM: To _what_, Claire? + +CLAIRE: Not to stop it by seeming to have it. (_with fury_) I will keep +my life low--low--that I may never stop myself--or anyone--with the +thought it's what _I_ have. I'd rather be the steam rising from the +manure than be a thing called beautiful! (_with sight too clear_) Now I +know who you are. It is you puts out the breath of life. Image of +beauty--_You fill the place--should be a gate._ (_in agony_) Oh, that it +is _you_--fill the place--should be a gate! My darling! That it should +be you who--(_her hands moving on him_) Let me tell you something. Never +was loving strong as my loving of you! Do you know that? Oh, know that! +Know it now! (_her arms go around his neck_) Hours with you--I'd give my +life to have! That it should be you--(_he would loosen her hands, for he +cannot breathe. But when she knows she is choking him, that knowledge is +fire burning its way into the last passion_) It _is_ you. It is you. + +TOM: (_words coming from a throat not free_) Claire! What are you doing? +(_then she knows what she is doing_) + +CLAIRE: (_to his resistance_) No! You are _too much_! You are _not +enough_. (_still wanting not to hurt her, he is slow in getting free. He +keeps stepping backward trying, in growing earnest, to loosen her hands. +But he does not loosen them before she has found the place in his throat +that cuts off breath. As he gasps_) + +Breath of Life--my gift--to you! + +(_She has pushed him against one of the plants at right as he sways, +strength she never had before pushes him over backward, just as they +have struggled from sight. Violent crash of glass is heard._) + +TOM: (_faint smothered voice_) _No_. I'm--hurt. + +CLAIRE: (_in the frenzy and agony of killing_) Oh, gift! Oh, gift! +(_there is no sound._ + +CLAIRE _rises--steps back--is seen now; is looking down_) Gift. + +(_Like one who does not know where she is, she moves into the +room--looks around. Takes a step toward Breath of Life; turns and goes +quickly to the door. Stops, as if stopped. Sees the revolver where the +Edge Vine was. Slowly goes to it. Holds it as if she cannot think what +it is for. Then raises it high and fires above through the place in the +glass left open for ventilation_. ANTHONY _comes from the inner room. +His eyes go from her to the body beyond_. HARRY _rushes in from +outside_.) + +HARRY: Who fired that? + +CLAIRE: I did. Lonely. + +(_Seeing_ ANTHONY'S _look_, HARRY _'s eyes follow it_.) + +HARRY: Oh! What? What? (DICK _comes running in_) Who? Claire! + +(DICK _sees--goes to_ TOM) + +CLAIRE: Yes. I did it. MY--Gift. + +HARRY: Is he--? He isn't--? He isn't--? + +(_Tries to go in there. Cannot--there is the sound of broken glass, of a +position being changed--then_ DICK _reappears_.) + +DICK: (_his voice in jerks_) It's--it's no use, but I'll go for a +doctor. + +HARRY: No--no. Oh, I suppose--(_falling down beside_ CLAIRE--_his face +against her_) My darling! How can I save you now? + +CLAIRE: (_speaking each word very carefully_) Saved--myself. + +ANTHONY: I did it. Don't you see? I didn't want so many around. +Not--what this place is for. + +HARRY: (_snatching at this but lets it go_) She wouldn't let--(_looking +up at_ CLAIRE--_then quickly hiding his face_) And--don't you see? + +CLAIRE: Out. (_a little like a child's pleased surprise_) Out. + +(DICK _stands there, as if unable to get to the door--his face +distorted, biting his hand_.) + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire! You can do anything--won't you try? + +CLAIRE: Reminiscence? (_speaking the word as if she has left even that, +but smiles a little_) + +(ANTHONY _takes Reminiscence, the flower she was breeding for fragrance +for Breath of Life--holds it out to her. But she has taken a step +forward, past them all_.) + +CLAIRE: Out. (_as if feeling her way_) + Nearer, + (_Her voice now feeling the way to it_.) + Nearer-- + (_Voice almost upon it_.) + --my God, + (_Falling upon it with surprise_.) + to Thee, + (_Breathing it_.) + Nearer--to Thee, + E'en though it be-- + (_A slight turn of the head toward the dead man she loves--a + mechanical turn just as far the other way_.) + a cross + That + (_Her head going down_.) + raises me; + (_Her head slowly coming up--singing it_.) + Still all my song shall be, + Nearer, my-- + +(_Slowly the curtain begins to shut her out. The last word heard is the +final_ Nearer--_a faint breath from far_.) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +INHERITORS + +_Inheritors_ was first performed at the Provincetown Playhouse on April 27, 1921. + +SMITH (a young business man) + +GRANDMOTHER (SILAS MORTON'S mother) + +SILAS MORTON (a pioneer farmer) + +FELIX FEJEVARY, the First (an exiled Hungarian nobleman) + +FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second (his son, a Harvard student) + +FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second (a banker) + +SENATOR LEWIS (a State Senator) + +HORACE FEJEVARY (son of FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second) + +DORIS (a student at Morton College) + +FUSSIE (another college girl) + +MADELINE FEJEVARY MORTON (daughter of IRA MORTON, and granddaughter of +SILAS MORTON) + +ISABEL FEJEVARY (wife of FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second, and MADELINE'S +aunt) + +HARRY (a student clerk) + +HOLDEN (Professor at Morton College) + +IRA MORTON (son of SILAS MORTON, and MADELINE'S father) + +EMIL JOHNSON (an Americanized Swede) + + +ACT I + + +SCENE: _Sitting-room of the Mortons' farmhouse in the Middle West--on +the rolling prairie just back from the Mississippi. A room that has been +long and comfortably lived in, and showing that first-hand contact with +materials which was pioneer life. The hospitable table was made on the +place--well and strongly made; there are braided rugs, and the wooden +chairs have patchwork cushions. There is a corner closet--left rear. A +picture of Abraham Lincoln. On the floor a home-made toy boat. At rise +of curtain there are on the stage an old woman and a young man._ +GRANDMOTHER MORTON _is in her rocking-chair near the open door, facing +left. On both sides of door are windows, looking out on a generous land. +She has a sewing basket and is patching a boy's pants. She is very old. +Her hands tremble. Her spirit remembers the days of her strength._ + +SMITH _has just come in and, hat in hand, is standing by the table. This +was lived in the year 1879, afternoon of Fourth of July._ + +SMITH: But the celebration was over two hours ago. + +GRANDMOTHER: Oh, celebration, that's just the beginning of it. Might as +well set down. When them boys that fought together all get in one +square--they have to swap stories all over again. That's the worst of a +war--you have to go on hearing about it so long. Here it is--1879--and +we haven't taken Gettysburg yet. Well, it was the same way with the war +of 1832. + +SMITH: (_who is now seated at the table_) The war of 1832? + +GRANDMOTHER: News to you that we had a war with the Indians? + +SMITH: That's right--the Blackhawk war. I've heard of it. + +GRANDMOTHER: Heard of it! + +SMITH: Were your men in that war? + +GRANDMOTHER: I was in that war. I threw an Indian in the cellar and +stood on the door. I was heavier then. + +SMITH: Those were stirring times. + +GRANDMOTHER: More stirring than you'll ever see. This war--Lincoln's +war--it's all a cut and dried business now. We used to fight with +anything we could lay hands on--dish water--whatever was handy. + +SMITH: I guess you believe the saying that the only good Indian is a +dead Indian. + +GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. We roiled them up considerable. They was mostly +friendly when let be. Didn't want to give up their land--but I've +noticed something of the same nature in white folks. + +SMITH: Your son has--something of that nature, hasn't he? + +GRANDMOTHER: He's not keen to sell. Why should he? It'll never be worth +less. + +SMITH: But since he has more land than any man can use, and if he gets +his price-- + +GRANDMOTHER: That what you've come to talk to him about? + +SMITH: I--yes. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, you're not the first. Many a man older than you has +come to argue it. + +SMITH: (_smiling_) They thought they'd try a young one. + +GRANDMOTHER: Some one that knew him thought that up. Silas'd help a +young one if he could. What is it you're set on buying? + +SMITH: Oh, I don't know that we're set on buying anything. If we could +have the hill (_looking off to the right_) at a fair price-- + +GRANDMOTHER: The hill above the town? Silas'd rather sell me and the +cat. + +SMITH: But what's he going to do with it? + +GRANDMOTHER: Maybe he's going to climb it once a week. + +SMITH: But if the development of the town demands its use-- + +GRANDMOTHER: (_smiling_) You the development of the town? + +SMITH: I represent it. This town has been growing so fast-- + +GRANDMOTHER: This town began to grow the day I got here. + +SMITH: You--you began it? + +GRANDMOTHER: My husband and I began it--and our baby Silas. + +SMITH: When was that? + +GRANDMOTHER: 1820, that was. + +SMITH: And--you mean you were here all alone? + +GRANDMOTHER: No, we weren't alone. We had the Owens ten miles down the +river. + +SMITH: But how did you get here? + +GRANDMOTHER: Got here in a wagon, how do you s'pose? (_gaily_) Think we +flew? + +SMITH: But wasn't it unsafe? + +GRANDMOTHER: Them set on safety stayed back in Ohio. + +SMITH: But one family! I should think the Indians would have wiped you +out. + +GRANDMOTHER: The way they wiped us out was to bring fish and corn. We'd +have starved to death that first winter hadn't been for the Indians. + +SMITH: But they were such good neighbours--why did you throw dish water +at them? + +GRANDMOTHER: That was after other white folks had roiled them up--white +folks that didn't know how to treat 'em. This very land--land you want +to buy--was the land they loved--Blackhawk and his Indians. They came +here for their games. This was where their fathers--as they called +'em--were buried. I've seen my husband and Blackhawk climb that hill +together. (_a backward point right_) He used to love that +hill--Blackhawk. He talked how the red man and the white man could live +together. But poor old Blackhawk--what he didn't know was how many white +man there was. After the war--when he was beaten but not conquered in +his heart--they took him east--Washington, Philadelphia, New York--and +when he saw the white man's cities--it was a different Indian came back. +He just let his heart break without ever turning a hand. + +SMITH: But we paid them for their lands. (_she looks at him_) Paid them +something. + +GRANDMOTHER: Something. For fifteen million acres of this Mississippi +Valley land--best on this globe, we paid two thousand two hundred and +thirty-four dollars and fifty cents, and promised to deliver annually +goods to the value of one thousand dollars. Not a fancy price--even for +them days, (_children's voices are heard outside. She leans forward and +looks through the door, left_) Ira! Let that cat be! + +SMITH: (_looking from the window_) These, I suppose, are your +grandchildren? + +GRANDMOTHER: The boy's my grandson. The little girl is Madeline +Fejevary--Mr Fejevary's youngest child. + +SMITH: The Fejevary place adjoins on this side? (_pointing right, down_) + +GRANDMOTHER: Yes. We've been neighbours ever since the Fejevarys came +here from Hungary after 1848. He was a count at home--and he's a man of +learning. But he was a refugee because he fought for freedom in his +country. Nothing Silas could do for him was too good. Silas sets great +store by learning--and freedom. + +SMITH: (_thinking of his own project, looking off toward the hill--the +hill is not seen from the front_) I suppose then Mr Fejevary has great +influence with your son? + +GRANDMOTHER: More 'an anybody. Silas thinks 'twas a great thing for our +family to have a family like theirs next place to. Well--so 'twas, for +we've had no time for the things their family was brought up on. Old Mrs +Fejevary (_with her shrewd smile_)--she weren't stuck up--but she did +have an awful ladylike way of feeding the chickens. Silas thinks--oh, my +son has all kinds of notions--though a harder worker never found his bed +at night. + +SMITH: And Mr Fejevary--is he a veteran too? + +GRANDMOTHER: (_dryly_) You don't seem to know these parts well--for one +that's all stirred up about the development of the town. Yes--Felix +Fejevary and Silas Morton went off together, down that road (_motioning +with her hand, right_)--when them of their age was wanted. Fejevary came +back with one arm less than he went with. Silas brought home everything +he took--and something he didn't. Rheumatiz. So now they set more store +by each other 'an ever. Seems nothing draws men together like killing +other men. (_a boy's voice teasingly imitating a cat_) Madeline, make +Ira let that cat be. (_a whoop from the girl--a boy's whoop_) +(_looking_) There they go, off for the creek. If they set in it--(_seems +about to call after them, gives this up_) Well, they're not the first. + +(_rather dreams over this_) + +SMITH: You must feel as if you pretty near owned this country. + +GRANDMOTHER: We worked. A country don't make itself. When the sun was up +we were up, and when the sun went down we didn't. (_as if this renews +the self of those days_) Here--let me set out something for you to eat. +(_gets up with difficulty_) + +SMITH: Oh, no, please--never mind. I had something in town before I came +out. + +GRANDMOTHER: Dunno as that's any reason you shouldn't have something +here. + +(_She goes off, right; he stands at the door, looking toward the hill +until she returns with a glass of milk, a plate of cookies._) + +SMITH: Well, this looks good. + +GRANDMOTHER: I've fed a lot of folks--take it by and large. I didn't +care how many I had to feed in the daytime--what's ten or fifteen more +when you're up and around. But to get up--after sixteen hours on your +feet--_I_ was willin', but my bones complained some. + +SMITH: But did you--keep a tavern? + +GRANDMOTHER: Keep a tavern? I guess we did. Every house is a tavern when +houses are sparse. You think the way to settle a country is to go on +ahead and build hotels? That's all you folks know. Why, I never went to +bed without leaving something on the stove for the new ones that might +be coming. And we never went away from home without seein' there was +a-plenty for them that might stop. + +SMITH: They'd come right in and take your food? + +GRANDMOTHER: What else could they do? There was a woman I always wanted +to know. She made a kind of bread I never had before--and left a-plenty +for our supper when we got back with the ducks and berries. And she left +the kitchen handier than it had ever been. I often wondered about +her--where she came from, and where she went, (_as she dreams over this +there is laughing and talking at the side of the house_) There come the +boys. + +(MR FEJEVARY _comes in, followed by_ SILAS MORTON. _They are men not far +from sixty, wearing their army uniforms, carrying the muskets they used +in the parade_. FEJEVARY _has a lean, distinguished face, his dark eyes +are penetrating and rather wistful. The left sleeve of his old uniform +is empty_. SILAS MORTON _is a strong man who has borne the burden of the +land, and not for himself alone--the pioneer. Seeing the stranger, he +sets his musket against the wall and holds out his hand to him, as_ MR +FEJEVARY _goes up to_ GRANDMOTHER MORTON.) + +SILAS: How do, stranger? + +FEJEVARY: And how are you today, Mrs Morton? + +GRANDMOTHER: I'm not abed--and don't expect to be. + +SILAS: (_letting go of the balloons he has bought_) Where's Ira? and +Madeline? + +GRANDMOTHER: Mr Fejevary's Delia brought them home with her. They've +gone down to dam the creek, I guess. This young man's been waiting to +see you, Silas. + +SMITH: Yes, I wanted to have a little talk with you. + +SILAS: Well, why not? (_he is tying the gay balloons to his gun, then as +he talks, hangs his hat in the corner closet_) We've been having a +little talk ourselves. Mother, Nat Rice was there. I've not seen Nat +Rice since the day we had to leave him on the road with his torn +leg--him cursing like a pirate. I wanted to bring him home, but he had +to go back to Chicago. His wife's dead, mother. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, I guess she's not sorry. + +SILAS: Why, mother. + +GRANDMOTHER: 'Why, mother.' Nat Rice is a mean, stingy, complaining +man--his leg notwithstanding. Where'd you leave the folks? + +SILAS: Oh--scattered around. Everybody visitin' with anybody that'll +visit with them. Wish you could have gone. + +GRANDMOTHER: I've heard it all. (_to_ FEJEVARY) Your folks well? + +FEJEVARY: All well, Mrs Morton. And my boy Felix is home. He'll stop in +here to see you by and by. + +SILAS: Oh, he's a fine-looking boy, mother. And think of what he knows! +(_cordially including the young man_) Mr Fejevary's son has been to +Harvard College. + +SMITH: Well, well--quite a trip. Well, Mr Morton, I hope this is not a +bad time for me to--present a little matter to you? + +SILAS: (_genially_) That depends, of course, on what you're going to +present. (_attracted by a sound outside_) Mind if I present a little +matter to your horse? Like to uncheck him so's he can geta a bit +o'grass. + +SMITH: Why--yes. I suppose he would like that. + +SILAS: (_going out_) You bet he'd like it. Wouldn't you, old boy? + +SMITH: Your son is fond of animals. + +GRANDMOTHER: Lots of people's fond of 'em--and good to 'em. Silas--I +dunno, it's as if he was that animal. + +FEJEVARY: He has imagination. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_with surprise_) Think so? + +SILAS: (_returning and sitting down at the table by the young man_) Now, +what's in your mind, my boy? + +SMITH: This town is growing very fast, Mr Morton. + +SILAS: Yes. (_slyly--with humour_) I know that. + +SMITH: I presume you, as one of the early settlers--as in fact a son of +the earliest settler, feel a certain responsibility about the welfare +of-- + +SILAS: I haven't got in mind to do the town a bit of harm. So--what's +your point? + +SMITH: More people--more homes. And homes must be in the healthiest +places--the--the most beautiful places. Isn't it true, Mr Fejevary, that +it means a great deal to people to have a beautiful outlook from their +homes? A--well, an expanse. + +SILAS: What is it they want to buy--these fellows that are figuring on +making something out of--expanse? (_a gesture for expanse, then a +reassuring gesture_) It's all right, but--just what is it? + +SMITH: I am prepared to make you an offer--a gilt-edged offer for that +(_pointing toward it_) hill above the town. + +SILAS: (_shaking his head--with the smile of the strong man who is a +dreamer_) The hill is not for sale. + +SMITH: But wouldn't you consider a--particularly good offer, Mr Morton? + +(SILAS, _who has turned so he can look out at the hill, slowly shakes +his head_.) + +SMITH: Do you feel you have the right--the moral right to hold it? + +SILAS: It's not for myself I'm holding it. + +SMITH: Oh,--for the children? + +SILAS: Yes, the children. + +SMITH: But--if you'll excuse me--there are other investments might do +the children even more good. + +SILAS: This seems to me--the best investment. + +SMITH: But after all there are other people's children to consider. + +SILAS: Yes, I know. That's it. + +SMITH: I wonder if I understand you, Mr Morton? + +SILAS: (_kindly_) I don't believe you do. I don't see how you could. And +I can't explain myself just now. So--the hill is not for sale. I'm not +making anybody homeless. There's land enough for all--all sides round. +But the hill-- + +SMITH: (_rising_) Is yours. + +SILAS: You'll see. + +SMITH: I am prepared to offer you-- + +SILAS: You're not prepared to offer me anything I'd consider alongside +what I am considering. So--I wish you good luck in your business +undertakings. + +SMITH: Sorry--you won't let us try to help the town. + +SILAS: Don't sit up nights worrying about my chokin' the town. + +SMITH: We could make you a rich man, Mr Morton. Do you think what you +have in mind will make you so much richer? + +SILAS: Much richer. + +SMITH: Well, good-bye. Good day, sir. Good day, ma'am. + +SILAS: (_following him to the door_) Nice horse you've got. + +SMITH: Yes, seems all right. + +(SILAS _stands in the doorway and looks off at the hill_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: What are you going to do with the hill, Silas? + +SILAS: After I get a little glass of wine--to celebrate Felix and me +being here instead of farther south--I'd like to tell you what I want +for the hill. (_to_ FEJEVARY _rather bashfully_) I've been wanting to +tell you. + +FEJEVARY: I want to know. + +SILAS: (_getting the wine from the closet_) Just a little something to +show our gratitude with. + +(_Goes off right for glasses_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe it'd be better to sell the hill--while +they're anxious. + +FEJEVARY: He seems to have another plan for it. + +GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I hope the other plan does bring him something. +Silas has worked--all the days of his life. + +FEJEVARY: I know. + +GRANDMOTHER: You don't know the hull of it. But I know. (_rather to +herself_) Know too well to think about it. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_as_ SILAS _returns_) I'll get more cookies. + +SILAS: I'll get them, mother. + +GRANDMOTHER: Get 'em myself. Pity if a woman can't get out her own +cookies. + +SILAS: (_seeing how hard it is for her_) I wish mother would let us do +things for her. + +FEJEVARY: That strength is a flame frailness can't put out. It's a great +thing for us to have her,--this touch with the life behind us. + +SILAS: Yes. And it's a great thing for us to have you--who can see those +things and say them. What a lot I'd 'a' missed if I hadn't had what +you've seen. + +FEJEVARY: Oh, you only think that because you've got to be generous. + +SILAS: I'm not generous. _I'm_ seeing something now. Something about +you. I've been thinking of it a good deal lately--it's got something to +do with--with the hill. I've been thinkin' what it's meant all these +years to have a family like yours next place to. They did something +pretty nice for the corn belt when they drove you out of Hungary. +Funny--how things don't end the way they begin. I mean, what begins +don't end. It's another thing ends. Set out to do something for your own +country--and maybe you don't quite do the thing you set out to do-- + +FEJEVARY: No. + +SILAS: But do something for a country a long way off. + +FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I've not done much for any country. + +SILAS: (_brusquely_) Where's your left arm--may I be so bold as to +inquire? Though your left arm's nothing alongside--what can't be +measured. + +FEJEVARY: When I think of what I dreamed as a young man--it seems to me +my life has failed. + +SILAS: (_raising his glass_) Well, if your life's failed--I like +failure. + +(GRANDMOTHER MORTON _returns with her cookies_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: There's two kinds--Mr Fejevary. These have seeds in 'em. + +FEJEVARY: Thank you. I'll try a seed cookie first. + +SILAS: Mother, you'll have a glass of wine? + +GRANDMOTHER: I don't need wine. + +SILAS: Well, I don't know as we need it. + +GRANDMOTHER: No, I don't know as you do. But I didn't go to war. + +FEJEVARY: Then have a little wine to celebrate that. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, just a mite to warm me up. Not that it's cold. +(FEJEVARY _brings it to her, and the cookies_) The Indians used to like +cookies. I was talking to that young whippersnapper about the Indians. +One time I saw an Indian watching me from a bush, (_points_) Right out +there. I was never afraid of Indians when you could see the whole of +'em--but when you could see nothin' but their bright eyes--movin' +through leaves--I declare they made me nervous. After he'd been there an +hour I couldn't seem to put my mind on my work. So I thought, Red or +White, a man's a man--I'll take him some cookies. + +FEJEVARY: It succeeded? + +GRANDMOTHER: So well that those leaves had eyes next day. But he brought +me a fish to trade. He was a nice boy. + +SILAS: Probably we killed him. + +GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe he killed us. Will Owens' family was +massacred just after this. Like as not my cookie Indian helped out +there. Something kind of uncertain about the Indians. + +SILAS: I guess they found something kind of uncertain about us. + +GRANDMOTHER: Six o' one and half a dozen of another. Usually is. + +SILAS: (_to_ FEJEVARY) I wonder if I'm wrong. You see, I never went to +school-- + +GRANDMOTHER: I don't know why you say that, Silas. There was two winters +you went to school. + +SILAS: Yes, mother, and I'm glad I did, for I learned to read there, and +liked the geography globe. It made the earth so nice to think about. And +one day the teacher told us all about the stars, and I had that to think +of when I was driving at night. The other boys didn't believe it was so. +But I knew it was so! But I mean school--the way Mr Fejevary went to +school. He went to universities. In his own countries--in other +countries. All the things men have found out, the wisest and finest +things men have thought since first they began to think--all that was +put before them. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a gentle smile_) I fear I left a good deal of it +untouched. + +SILAS: You took a plenty. Tell in your eyes you've thought lots about +what's been thought. And that's what I was setting out to say. It makes +something of men--learning. A house that's full of books makes a +different kind of people. Oh, of course, if the books aren't there just +to show off. + +GRANDMOTHER: Like in Mary Baldwin's new house. + +SILAS: (_trying hard to see it_) It's not the learning itself--it's the +life that grows up from learning. Learning's like soil. Like--like +fertilizer. Get richer. See more. Feel more. You believe that? + +FEJEVARY: Culture should do it. + +SILAS: Does in your house. You somehow know how it is for the other +fellow more'n we do. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, Silas Morton, when you've your wood to chop an' your +water to carry, when you kill your own cattle and hogs, tend your own +horses and hens, make your butter, soap, and cook for whoever the Lord +sends--there's none too many hours of the day left to be polite in. + +SILAS: You're right, mother. It had to be that way. But now that we buy +our soap--we don't want to say what soap-making made us. + +GRANDMOTHER: We're honest. + +SILAS: Yes. In a way. But there's another kind o' honesty, seems to me, +goes with that more seein' kind of kindness. Our honesty with the +Indians was little to brag on. + +GRANDMOTHER: You fret more about the Indians than anybody else does. + +SILAS: To look out at that hill sometimes makes me ashamed. + +GRANDMOTHER: Land sakes, you didn't do it. It was the government. And +what a government does is nothing for a person to be ashamed of. + +SILAS: I don't know about that. Why is _he_ here? Why is Felix Fejevary +not rich and grand in Hungary to-day? 'Cause he was ashamed of what his +government was. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, that was a foreign government. + +SILAS: A seeing how 'tis for the other person--_a bein'_ that other +person, kind of honesty. Joke of it, 'twould do something for _you_. +'Twould 'a' done something for us to have _been_ Indians a little more. +My father used to talk about Blackhawk--they was friends. I saw +Blackhawk once--when I was a boy. (_to_ FEJEVARY) Guess I told you. You +know what he looked like? He looked like the great of the earth. Noble. +Noble like the forests--and the Mississippi--and the stars. His face was +long and thin and you could see the bones, and the bones were beautiful. +Looked like something that's never been caught. He was something many +nights in his canoe had made him. Sometimes I feel that the land itself +has got a mind that the land would rather have had the Indians. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, don't let folks hear you say it. They'd think you was +plum crazy. + +SILAS: I s'pose they would, (_turning to_ FEJEVARY) But after you've +walked a long time over the earth--and you all alone, didn't you ever +feel something coming up from it that's like thought? + +FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I never did. But--I wish I had. + +SILAS: I love land--this land. I suppose that's why I never have the +feeling that I own it. + +GRANDMOTHER: If you don't own it--I want to know! What do you think we +come here for--your father and me? What do you think we left our folks +for--left the world of white folks--schools and stores and doctors, and +set out in a covered wagon for we didn't know what? We lost a horse. +Lost our way--weeks longer than we thought 'twould be. You were born in +that covered wagon. You know that. But what you don't know is what +_that's_ like--without your own roof--or fire--without-- + +(_She turns her face away._) + +SILAS: No. No, mother, of course not. Now--now isn't this too bad? I +don't say things right. It's because I never went to school. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_her face shielded_) You went to school two winters. + +SILAS: Yes. Yes, mother. So I did. And I'm glad I did. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_with the determination of one who will not have her own +pain looked at_) Mrs Fejevary's pansy bed doing well this summer? + +FEJEVARY: It's beautiful this summer. She was so pleased with the new +purple kind you gave her. I do wish you could get over to see them. + +GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I've seen lots of pansies. Suppose it was pretty +fine-sounding speeches they had in town? + +FEJEVARY: Too fine-sounding to seem much like the war. + +SILAS: I'd like to go to a war celebration where they never mentioned +war. There'd be a way to celebrate victory, (_hearing a step, looking +out_) Mother, here's Felix. + +(FELIX, _a well-dressed young man, comes in_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: How do, Felix? + +FELIX: And how do you do, Grandmother Morton? + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, I'm still here. + +FELIX: Of course you are. It wouldn't be coming home if you weren't. + +GRANDMOTHER: I've got some cookies for you, Felix. I set 'em out, so you +wouldn't have to steal them. John and Felix was hard on the cookie jar. + +FELIX: Where is John? + +SILAS: (_who is pouring a glass of wine for_ FELIX) You've not seen John +yet? He was in town for the exercises. I bet those young devils ran off +to the race-track. I heard whisperin' goin' round. But everybody'll be +home some time. Mary and the girls--don't ask me where they are. They'll +drive old Bess all over the country before they drive her to the bam. +Your father and I come on home 'cause I wanted to have a talk with him. + +FELIX: Getting into the old uniforms makes you want to talk it all over +again? + +SILAS: The war? Well, we did do that. But all that makes me want to talk +about what's to come, about--what 'twas all for. Great things are to +come, Felix. And before you are through. + +FELIX: I've been thinking about them myself--walking around the town +to-day. It's grown so much this year, and in a way that means more +growing--that big glucose plant going up down the river, the new lumber +mill--all that means many more people. + +FEJEVARY: And they've even bought ground for a steel works. + +SILAS: Yes, a city will rise from these cornfields--a big rich +place--that's bound to be. It's written in the lay o' the land and the +way the river flows. But first tell us about Harvard College, Felix. +Ain't it a fine thing for us all to have Felix coming home from that +wonderful place! + +FELIX: You make it seem wonderful. + +SILAS: Ah, you know it's wonderful--know it so well you don't have to +say it. It's something you've got. But to me it's wonderful the way the +stars are wonderful--this place where all that the world has learned is +to be drawn from me--like a spring. + +FELIX: You almost say what Matthew Arnold says--a distinguished new +English writer who speaks of: 'The best that has been thought and said +in the world'. + +SILAS: 'The best that has been thought and said in the world!' (_slowly +rising, and as if the dream of years is bringing him to his feet_) +That's what that hill is for! (_pointing_) Don't you see it? End of our +trail, we climb a hill and plant a college. Plant a college, so's after +we are gone that college says for us, says in people learning has made +more: 'That is why we took this land.' + +GRANDMOTHER: (_incredulous_) You mean, Silas, you're going to _give the +hill away_? + +SILAS: The hill at the end of our trail--how could we keep that? + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, I want to know why not! Hill or level--land's land +and not a thing you give away. + +SILAS: Well, don't scold _me_. I'm not giving it away. It's giving +itself away, get down to it. + +GRANDMOTHER: Don't talk to me as if I was feeble-minded. + +SILAS: I'm talking with all the mind I've got. If there's not mind in +what I say, it's because I've got no mind. But I have got a mind, (_to_ +FEJEVARY, _humorously_) Haven't I? You ought to know. Seeing as you gave +it to me. + +FEJEVARY: Ah, no--I didn't give it to you. + +SILAS: Well, you made me know 'twas there. You said things that woke +things in me and I thought about them as I ploughed. And that made me +know there had to be a college there--wake things in minds--so +ploughing's more than ploughing. What do you say, Felix? + +FELIX: It--it's a big idea, Uncle Silas. I love the way you put it. It's +only that I'm wondering-- + +SILAS: Wondering how it can ever be a Harvard College? Well, it can't. +And it needn't be (_stubbornly_) It's a college in the cornfields--where +the Indian maize once grew. And it's for the boys of the cornfields--and +the girls. There's few can go to Harvard College--but more can climb +that hill, (_turn of the head from the hill to_ FELIX) Harvard on a +hill? (_As_ FELIX _smiles no_, SILAS _turns back to the hill_) A college +should be on a hill. They can see it then from far around. See it as +they go out to the barn in the morning; see it when they're shutting up +at night. 'Twill make a difference--even to them that never go. + +GRANDMOTHER: Now, Silas--don't be hasty. + +SILAS: Hasty? It's been company to me for years. Came to me one +night--must 'a' been ten years ago--middle of a starry night as I was +comin' home from your place (_to_ FEJEVARY) I'd gone over to lend a hand +with a sick horse an'-- + +FEJEVARY: (_with a grateful smile_) That was nothing new. + +SILAS: Well, say, I'd sit up with a sick horse that belonged to the +meanest man unhung. But--there were stars that night had never been +there before. Leastways I'd not seen 'em. And the hill--Felix, in all +your travels east, did you ever see anything more beautiful than that +hill? + +FELIX: It's like sculpture. + +SILAS: Hm. (_the wistfulness with which he speaks of that outside his +knowledge_) I s'pose 'tis. It's the way it rises--somehow--as if it knew +it rose from wide and fertile lands. I climbed the hill that night, +(_to_ FEJEVARY) You'd been talkin'. As we waited between medicines you +told me about your life as a young man. All you'd lived through seemed +to--open up to you that night--way things do at times. Guess it was +'cause you thought you was goin' to lose your horse. See, that was +Colonel, the sorrel, wasn't it? + +FEJEVARY: Yes. Good old Colonel. + +SILAS: You'd had a long run o' off luck. Hadn't got things back in shape +since the war. But say, you didn't lose him, did you? + +FEJEVARY: Thanks to you. + +SILAS: Thanks to the medicine I keep in the back kitchen. + +FEJEVARY: You encouraged him. + +GRANDMOTHER: Silas has a way with all the beasts. + +SILAS: We've got the same kind of minds--the beasts and me. + +GRANDMOTHER: Silas, I wish you wouldn't talk like that--and with Felix +just home from Harvard College. + +SILAS: Same kind of minds--except that mine goes on a little farther. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well I'm glad to hear you say that. + +SILAS: Well, there we sat--you an' me--middle of a starry night, out +beside your barn. And I guess it came over you kind of funny you should +be there with me--way off the Mississippi, tryin' to save a sick horse. +Seemed to--bring your life to life again. You told me what you studied +in that fine old university you loved--the Vienna,--and why you became a +revolutionist. The old dreams took hold o' you and you talked--way you +used to, I suppose. The years, o' course, had rubbed some of it off. +Your face as you went on about the vision--you called it, vision of what +life could be. I knew that night there was things I never got wind of. +When I went away--knew I ought to go home to bed--hayin' at daybreak. +'Go to bed?' I said to myself. 'Strike this dead when you've never had +it before, may never have it again?' I climbed the hill. Blackhawk was +there. + +GRANDMOTHER: Why, he was _dead_. + +SILAS: He was there--on his own old hill, with me and the stars. And I +said to him-- + +GRANDMOTHER: Silas! + +SILAS: Says I to him, 'Yes--that's true; it's more yours than mine, you +had it first and loved it best. But it's neither yours nor mine,--though +both yours and mine. Not my hill, not your hill, but--hill of vision', +said I to him. 'Here shall come visions of a better world than was ever +seen by you or me, old Indian chief.' Oh, I was drunk, plum drunk. + +GRANDMOTHER: I should think you was. And what about the next day's hay? + +SILAS: A day in the hayfield is a day's hayin'--but a night on the +hill-- + +FELIX: We don't have them often, do we, Uncle Silas? + +SILAS: I wouldn't 'a' had that one but for your father, Felix. Thank God +they drove you out o' Hungary! And it's all so dog-gone _queer_. Ain't +it queer how things blow from mind to mind--like seeds. Lord +A'mighty--you don't know where they'll take hold. + +(_Children's voices off_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: There come those children up from the creek--soppin' wet, I +warrant. Well, I don't know how children ever get raised. But we raise +more of 'em than we used to. I buried three--first ten years I was here. +Needn't 'a' happened--if we'd known what we know now, and if we hadn't +been alone. (_With all her strength_.) I don't know what you mean--the +hill's not yours! + +SILAS: It's the future's, mother--so's we can know more than we know +now. + +GRANDMOTHER: We know it now. 'Twas then we didn't know it. I worked for +that hill! And I tell you to leave it to your own children. + +SILAS: There's other land for my own children. This is for all the +children. + +GRANDMOTHER: What's all the children to you? + +SILAS: (_derisively_) Oh, mother--what a thing for you to say! You who +were never too tired to give up your own bed so the stranger could have +a better bed. + +GRANDMOTHER: That was different. They was folks on their way. + +FEJEVARY: So are we. + +(SILAS _turns to him with quick appreciation_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: That's just talk. We're settled now. Children of other old +settlers are getting rich. I should think you'd want yours to. + +SILAS: I want other things more. I want to pay my debts 'fore I'm too +old to know they're debts. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_momentarily startled_) Debts? Huh! More talk. You don't +owe any man. + +SILAS: I owe him (_nodding to_ FEJEVARY). And the red boys here before +me. + +GRANDMOTHER: Fiddlesticks. + +FELIX: You haven't read Darwin, have you, Uncle Silas? + +SILAS: Who? + +FELIX: Darwin, the great new man--and his theory of the survival of the +fittest? + +SILAS: No. No, I don't know things like that, Felix. + +FELIX: I think he might make you feel better about the Indians. In the +struggle for existence many must go down. The fittest survive. This--had +to be. + +SILAS: Us and the Indians? Guess I don't know what you mean--fittest. + +FELIX: He calls it that. Best fitted to the place in which one finds +one's self, having the qualities that can best cope with conditions--do +things. From the beginning of life it's been like that. He shows the +growth of life from forms that were hardly alive, the lowest animal +forms--jellyfish--up to man. + +SILAS: Oh, yes, that's the thing the churches are so upset about--that +we come from monkeys. + +FELIX: Yes. One family of ape is the direct ancestor of man. + +GRANDMOTHER: You'd better read your Bible, Felix. + +SILAS: Do people believe this? + +FELIX: The whole intellectual world is at war about it. The best +scientists accept it. Teachers are losing their positions for believing +it. Of course, ministers can't believe it. + +GRANDMOTHER: I should think not. Anyway, what's the use believing a +thing that's so discouraging? + +FEJEVARY: (_gently_) But is it that? It almost seems to me we have to +accept it because it is so encouraging. (_holding out his hand_) Why +have we hands? + +GRANDMOTHER: Cause God gave them to us, I s'pose. + +FEJEVARY: But that's rather general, and there isn't much in it to give +us self-confidence. But when you think we have hands because ages +back--before life had taken form as man, there was an impulse to do what +had never been done--when you think that we have hands today because +from the first of life there have been adventurers--those of best brain +and courage who wanted to be more than life had been, and that from +aspiration has come doing, and doing has shaped the thing with which to +do--it gives our hand a history which should make us want to use it +well. + +SILAS: (_breathed from deep_) Well, by God! And you've known this all +this while! Dog-gone you--why didn't you tell me? + +FEJEVARY: I've been thinking about it. I haven't known what to believe. +This hurts--beliefs of earlier years. + +FELIX: The things it hurts will have to go. + +FEJEVARY: I don't know about that, Felix. Perhaps in time we'll find +truth in them. + +FELIX: Oh, if you feel that way, father. + +FEJEVARY: Don't be kind to me, my boy, I'm not that old. + +SILAS: But think what it is you've said! If it's true that we made +ourselves--made ourselves out of the wanting to be more--created +ourselves you might say, by our own courage--our--what is +it?--aspiration. Why, I can't take it in. I haven't got the mind to take +it in. And what mind I have got says no. It's too-- + +FEJEVARY: It fights with what's there. + +SILAS: (_nodding_) But it's like I got this (_very slowly_) other way +around. From underneath. As if I'd known it all along--but have just +found out I know it! Yes. The earth told me. The beasts told me. + +GRANDMOTHER: Fine place to learn things from. + +SILAS: Anyhow, haven't I seen it? (_to_ FEJEVARY) In your face haven't I +seen thinking make a finer face? How long has this taken, Felix, +to--well, you might say, bring us where we are now? + +FELIX: Oh, we don't know how many millions of years since earth first +stirred. + +SILAS: Then we are what we are because through all that time there've +been them that wanted to be more than life had been. + +FELIX: That's it, Uncle Silas. + +SILAS: But--why, then we aren't _finished_ yet! + +FEJEVARY: No. We take it on from here. + +SILAS: (_slowly_) Then if we don't be--the most we can be, if we don't +be more than life has been, we go back on all that life behind us; go +back on--the-- + +(_Unable to formulate it, he looks to_ FEJEVARY.) + +FEJEVARY: Go back on the dreaming and the daring of a million years. + +(_After a moment's pause_ SILAS _gets up, opens the closet door_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: Silas, what you doing? + +SILAS: (_who has taken out a box_) I'm lookin' for the deed to the hill. + +GRANDMOTHER: What you going to do with it? + +SILAS: I'm going to get it out of my hands. + +GRANDMOTHER: Get it out of your hands? (_he has it now_) Deed your +father got from the government the very year the government got it from +the Indians? + +(_rising_) Give me that! (_she turns to_ FEJEVARY) Tell him he's crazy. +We got the best land 'cause we was first here. We got a right to keep +it. + +FEJEVARY: (_going soothingly to her_) It's true, Silas, it is a serious +thing to give away one's land. + +SILAS: You ought to know. You did it. Are you sorry you did it? + +FEJEVARY: No. But wasn't that different? + +SILAS: How was it different? Yours was a fight to make life more, wasn't +it? Well, let this be our way. + +GRANDMOTHER: What's all that got to do with giving up the land that +should provide for our own children? + +SILAS: Isn't it providing for them to give them a better world to live +in? Felix--you're young, I ask you, ain't it providing for them to give +them a chance to be more than we are? + +FELIX: I think you're entirely right, Uncle Silas. But it's the +practical question that-- + +SILAS: If you're right, the practical question is just a thing to fix +up. + +FEJEVARY: I fear you don't realize the immense amount of money required +to finance a college. The land would be a start. You would have to +interest rich men; you'd have to have a community in sympathy with the +thing you wanted to do. + +GRANDMOTHER: Can't you see, Silas, that we're all against you? + +SILAS: All against me? (_to_ FEJEVARY) But how can you be? Look at the +land we walked in and took! Was there ever such a chance to make life +more? Why, the buffalo here before us was more than we if we do nothing +but prosper! God damn us if we sit here rich and fat and forget man's in +the makin'. (_affirming against this_) There will one day be a college +in these cornfields by the Mississippi because long ago a great dream +was fought for in Hungary. And I say to that old dream, Wake up, old +dream! Wake up and fight! You say rich men. (_holding it out, but it is +not taken_) I give you this deed to take to rich men to show them one +man believes enough in this to give the best land he's got. That ought +to make rich men stop and think. + +GRANDMOTHER: Stop and think he's a fool. + +SILAS: (_to_ FEJEVARY) It's you can make them know he's not a fool. When +you tell this way you can tell it, they'll feel in you what's more than +them. They'll listen. + +GRANDMOTHER: I tell you, Silas, folks are too busy. + +SILAS: Too busy!' Too busy bein' nothin'? If it's true that we created +ourselves out of the thoughts that came, then thought is not something +_outside_ the business of life. Thought--(_with his gift for wonder_) +why, thought's our chance. I know now. Why I can't forget the Indians. +We killed their joy before we killed them. We made them less, (_to_ +FEJEVARY, _and as if sure he is now making it clear_) I got to give it +back--their hill. I give it back to joy--a better joy--joy o'aspiration. + +FEJEVARY: (_moved but unconvinced_) But, my friend, there are men who +have no aspiration. That's why, to me, this is as a light shining from +too far. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_old things waked in her_) Light shining from far. We used +to do that. We never pulled the curtain. I used to want to--you like to +be to yourself when night conies--but we always left a lighted window +for the traveller who'd lost his way. + +FELIX: I should think that would have exposed you to the Indians. + +GRANDMOTHER: Yes. (_impatiently_) Well, you can't put out a light just +because it may light the wrong person. + +FEJEVARY: No. (_and this is as a light to him. He turns to the hill_) +No. + +SILAS: (_with gentleness, and profoundly_) That's it. Look again. Maybe +your eyes are stronger now. Don't you see it? I see that college rising +as from the soil itself, as if it was what come at the last of that +thinking that breathes from the earth. I see it--but I want to know it's +real before I stop knowing. Then maybe I can lie under the same sod with +the red boys and not be ashamed. We're not old! Let's fight! Wake in +other men what you woke in me! + +FEJEVARY: And so could I pay my debt to America. (_His hand goes out_.) + +SILAS: (_giving him the deed_) And to the dreams of a million years! +(_Standing near the open door, their hands are gripped in compact_.) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT II + + +SCENE: _A corridor in the library of Morton College, October of the year +1920, upon the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of its founding. +This is an open place in the stacks of books, which are seen at both +sides. There is a reading-table before the big rear window. This window +opens out, but does not extend to the floor; only a part of its height +is seen, indicating a very high window. Outside is seen the top of a +tree. This outer wall of the building is on a slant, so that the +entrance right is near, and the left is front. Right front is a section +of a huge square column. On the rear of this, facing the window, is hung +a picture of SILAS MORTON. Two men are standing before this portrait_. + +SENATOR LEWIS _is the Midwestern state senator. He is not of the city +from which Morton College rises, but of a more country community farther +in-state_. FELIX FEJEVARY, _now nearing the age of his father in the +first act, is an American of the more sophisticated type--prosperous, +having the poise of success in affairs and place in society_. + +SENATOR: And this was the boy who founded the place, eh? It was his +idea? + +FEJEVARY: Yes, and his hill. I was there the afternoon he told my father +there must be a college here. I wasn't any older then than my boy is +now. + +(_As if himself surprised by this_.) + +SENATOR: Well, he enlisted a good man when he let you in on it. I've +been told the college wouldn't be what it is today but for you, Mr +Fejevary. + +FEJEVARY: I have a sentiment about it, and where our sentiment is, there +our work goes also. + +SENATOR: Yes. Well, it was those mainsprings of sentiment that won the +war. + +(_He is pleased with this_.) + +FEJEVARY: (_nodding_) Morton College did her part in winning the war. + +SENATOR: I know. A fine showing. + +FEJEVARY: And we're holding up our end right along. You'll see the boys +drill this afternoon. It's a great place for them, here on the +hill--shows up from so far around. They're a fine lot of fellows. You +know, I presume, that they went in as strike-breakers during the trouble +down here at the steel works. The plant would have had to close but for +Morton College. That's one reason I venture to propose this thing of a +state appropriation for enlargement. Why don't we sit down a moment? +There's no conflict with the state university--they have their +territory, we have ours. Ours is an important one--industrially +speaking. The state will lose nothing in having a good strong college +here--a one-hundred-per-cent-American college. + +SENATOR: I admit I am very favourably impressed. + +FEJEVARY: I hope you'll tell your committee so--and let me have a chance +to talk to them. + +SENATOR: Let's see, haven't you a pretty radical man here? + +FEJEVARY: I wonder if you mean Holden? + +SENATOR: Holden's the man. I've read things that make me question his +Americanism. + +FEJEVARY: Oh--(_gesture of depreciation_) I don't think he is so much a +radical as a particularly human human-being. + +SENATOR: But we don't want radical human beings. + +FEJEVARY: He has a genuine sympathy with youth. That's invaluable in a +teacher, you know. And then--he's a scholar. + +(_He betrays here his feeling of superiority to his companion, but too +subtly for his companion to get it_.) + +SENATOR: Oh--scholar. We can get scholars enough. What we want is +Americans. + +FEJEVARY: Americans who are scholars. + +SENATOR: You can pick 'em off every bush--pay them a little more than +they're paid in some other cheap John College. Excuse me--I don't mean +this is a cheap John College. + +FEJEVARY: Of course not. One couldn't think that of Morton College. But +that--pay them a little more, interests me. That's another reason I want +to talk to your committee on appropriations. We claim to value education +and then we let highly trained, gifted men fall behind the plumber. + +SENATOR: Well, that's the plumber's fault. Let the teachers talk to the +plumber. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a smile_) No. Better not let them talk to the plumber. +He might tell them what to do about it. In fact, is telling them. + +SENATOR: That's ridiculous. They can't serve both God and mammon. + +FEJEVARY: Then let God give them mammon. I mean, let the state +appropriate. + +SENATOR: Of course this state, Mr Fejevary, appropriates no money for +radicals. Excuse me, but why do you keep this man Holden? + +FEJEVARY: In the scholar's world we're known because of him. And really, +Holden's not a radical--in the worst sense. What he doesn't see +is--expediency. Not enough the man of affairs to realize that we can't +always have literally what we have theoretically. He's an idealist. +Something of the--man of vision. + +SENATOR: If he had the right vision he'd see that we don't every minute +have literally what we have theoretically because we're fighting to keep +the thing we have. Oh, I sometimes think the man of affairs has the only +vision. Take you, Mr Fejevary--a banker. These teachers--books--books! +(_pushing all books back_) Why, if they had to take for one day the +responsibility that falls on your shoulders--big decisions to make--man +among men--and all the time worries, irritations, particularly now with +labour riding the high horse like a fool! I know something about these +things. I went to the State House because my community persuaded me it +was my duty. But I'm the man of affairs myself. + +FEJEVARY: Oh yes, I know. Your company did much to develop that whole +northern part of the state. + +SENATOR: I think I may say we did. Well, that's why, after three +sessions, I'm chairman of the appropriations committee. I know how to +use money to promote the state. So--teacher? That would be a perpetual +vacation to me. Now, if you want my advice, Mr Fejevary,--I think your +case before the state would be stronger if you let this fellow Holden +go. + +FEJEVARY: I'm going to have a talk with Professor Holden. + +SENATOR: Tell him it's for his own good. The idea of a college professor +standing up for conscientious objectors! + +FEJEVARY: That doesn't quite state the case. Fred Jordan was one of +Holden's students--a student he valued. He felt Jordan was perfectly +sincere in his objection. + +SENATOR: Sincere in his objections! The nerve of him thinking it was his +business to be sincere! + +FEJEVARY: He was expelled from college--you may remember; that was how +we felt about it. + +SENATOR: I should hope so. + +FEJEVARY: Holden fought that, but within the college. What brought him +into the papers was his protest against the way the boy has been treated +in prison. + +SENATOR: What's the difference how he's treated? You know how I'd treat +him? (_a movement as though pulling a trigger_) If I didn't know you for +the American you are, I wouldn't understand your speaking so calmly. + +FEJEVARY: I'm simply trying to see it all sides around. + +SENATOR: Makes me see red. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a smile_) But we mustn't meet red with red. + +SENATOR: What's Holden fussing about--that they don't give him caviare +on toast? + +FEJEVARY: That they didn't give him books. Holden felt it was his +business to fuss about that. + +SENATOR: Well, when your own boy 'stead of whining around about his +conscience, stood up and offered his life! + +FEJEVARY: Yes. And my nephew gave his life. + +SENATOR: That so? + +FEJEVARY: Silas Morton's grandson died in France. My sister Madeline +married Ira Morton, son of Silas Morton. + +SENATOR: I knew there was a family connection between you and the +Mortons. + +FEJEVARY: (_speaking with reserve_) They played together as children and +married as soon as they were grown up. + +SENATOR: So this was your sister's boy? (FEJEVARY _nods_) One of the +mothers to give her son! + +FEJEVARY: (_speaking of her with effort_) My sister died--long ago. +(_pulled to an old feeling; with an effort releasing himself_) But Ira +is still out at the old place--place the Mortons took up when they +reached the end of their trail--as Uncle Silas used to put it. Why, it's +a hundred years ago that Grandmother Morton began--making cookies here. +She was the first white woman in this country. + +SENATOR: Proud woman! To have begun the life of this state! Oh, our +pioneers! If they could only see us now, and know what they did! +(FEJEVARY _is silent; he does not look quite happy_) I suppose Silas +Morton's son is active in the college management. + +FEJEVARY: No, Ira is not a social being. Fred's death about finished +him. He had been--strange for years, ever since my sister died--when the +children were little. It was--(_again pulled back to that old feeling_) +under pretty terrible circumstances. + +SENATOR: I can see that you thought a great deal of your sister, Mr +Fejevary. + +FEJEVARY: Oh, she was beautiful and--(_bitterly_) it shouldn't have gone +like that. + +SENATOR: Seems to me I've heard something about Silas Morton's +son--though perhaps it wasn't this one. + +FEJEVARY: Ira is the only one living here now; the others have gone +farther west. + +SENATOR: Isn't there something about corn? + +FEJEVARY: Yes. His corn has several years taken the prize--best in the +state. He's experimented with it--created a new kind. They've given it +his name--Morton corn. It seems corn is rather fascinating to work +with--very mutable stuff. It's a good thing Ira has it, for it's about +the only thing he does care for now. Oh, Madeline, of course. He has a +daughter here in the college--Madeline Morton, senior this year--one of +our best students. I'd like to have you meet Madeline--she's a great +girl, though--peculiar. + +SENATOR: Well, that makes a girl interesting, if she isn't peculiar the +wrong way. Sounds as if her home life might make her a little peculiar. + +FEJEVARY: Madeline stays here in town with us a good part of the time. +Mrs Fejevary is devoted to her--we all are. (_a boy starts to come +through from right_) Hello, see who's here. This is my boy. Horace, this +is Senator Lewis, who is interested in the college. + +HORACE: (_shaking hands_) How do you do, Senator Lewis? + +SENATOR: Pleased to see you, my boy. + +HORACE: Am I butting in? + +FEJEVARY: Not seriously; but what are you doing in the library? I +thought this was a day off. + +HORACE: I'm looking for a book. + +FEJEVARY: (_affectionately bantering_) You are, Horace? Now how does +that happen? + +HORACE: I want the speeches of Abraham Lincoln. + +SENATOR: You couldn't do better. + +HORACE: I'll show those dirty dagoes where they get off! + +FEJEVARY: You couldn't show them a little more elegantly? + +HORACE: I'm going to sick the Legion on 'em. + +FEJEVARY: Are you talking about the Hindus? + +HORACE: Yes, the dirty dagoes. + +FEJEVARY: Hindus aren't dagoes you know, Horace. + +HORACE: Well, what's the difference? This foreign element gets my goat. + +SENATOR: My boy, you talk like an American. But what do you +mean--Hindus? + +FEJEVARY: There are two young Hindus here as students. And they're good +students. + +HORACE: Sissies. + +FEJEVARY: But they must preach the gospel of free India--non-British +India. + +SENATOR: Oh, that won't do. + +HORACE: They're nothing but Reds, I'll say. Well, one of 'em's going +back to get his. (_grins_) + +FEJEVARY: There were three of them last year. One of them is wanted back +home. + +SENATOR: I remember now. He's to be deported. + +HORACE: And when they get him--(_movement as of pulling a rope_) They +hang there. + +FEJEVARY: The other two protest against our not fighting the deportation +of their comrade. They insist it means death to him. (_brushing off a +thing that is inclined to worry him_) But we can't handle India's +affairs. + +SENATOR: I should think not! + +HORACE: Why, England's our ally! That's what I told them. But you can't +argue with people like that. Just wait till I find the speeches of +Abraham Lincoln! + +(_Passes through to left_) + +SENATOR: Fine boy you have, Mr Fejevary. + +FEJEVARY: He's a live one. You should see him in a football game. +Wouldn't hurt my feelings in the least to have him a little more of a +student, but-- + +SENATOR: Oh, well, you want him to be a regular fellow, don't you, and +grow into a man among men? + +FEJEVARY: He'll do that, I think. It was he who organized our boys for +the steel strike--went right in himself and took a striker's job. He +came home with a black eye one night, presented to him by a picket who +started something by calling him a scab. But Horace wasn't thinking +about his eye. According to him, it was not in the class with the +striker's upper lip. 'Father,' he said, 'I gave him more red than he +could swallow. The blood just--' Well, I'll spare you--but Horace's +muscle is one hundred per cent American. (_going to the window_) Let me +show you something. You can see the old Morton place off on that first +little hill. (_pointing left_) The first rise beyond the valley. + +SENATOR: The long low house? + +FEJEVARY: That's it. You see, the town for the most part swung around +the other side of the hill, so the Morton place is still a farm. + +SENATOR: But you're growing all the while. The town'll take the +cornfield yet. + +FEJEVARY: Yes, our steel works is making us a city. + +SENATOR: And this old boy (_turning to the portrait of_ SILAS MORTON) +can look out on his old home--and watch the valley grow. + +FEJEVARY: Yes--that was my idea. His picture really should be in +Memorial Hall, but I thought Uncle Silas would like to be up here among +the books, and facing the old place. (_with a laugh_) I confess to being +a little sentimental. + +SENATOR: We Americans have lots of sentiment, Mr Fejevary. It's what +makes us--what we are. (FEJEVARY _does not speak; there are times when +the senator seems to trouble him_) Well, this is a great site for a +college. You can see it from the whole country round. + +FEJEVARY: Yes, that was Uncle Silas' idea. He had a reverence for +education. It grew, in part, out of his feeling for my father. He was a +poet--really, Uncle Silas. (_looking at the picture_) He gave this hill +for a college that we might become a deeper, more sensitive people-- + +(_Two girls, convulsed with the giggles, come tumbling in_.) + +DORIS: (_confused_) Oh--oh, excuse us. + +FUSSIE: (_foolishly_) We didn't know anybody was here. + +(MR FEJEVARY _looks at them sternly. The girls retreat_.) + +SENATOR: (_laughing_) Oh, well girls will be girls. I've got three of my +own. + +(HORACE _comes back, carrying an open book_.) + +HORACE: Say, this must be a misprint. + +FEJEVARY: (_glancing at the back of the book_) Oh, I think not. + +HORACE: From his first inaugural address to Congress, March 4, 1861. +(_reads_) 'This country with its institutions belong to the people who +inhabit it.' Well, that's all right. 'Whenever they shall grow weary of +the existing government they can exercise their constitutional right of +amending it'--(_after a brief consideration_) I suppose that that's all +right--but listen! 'or their revolutionary right to dismember or +overthrow it.' + +FEJEVARY: He was speaking in another age. An age of different values. + +SENATOR: Terms change their significance from generation to generation. + +HORACE: I suppose they do--but that puts me in bad with these lice. They +quoted this and I said they were liars. + +SENATOR: And what's the idea? They're weary of our existing government +and are about to dismember or overthrow it? + +HORACE: I guess that's the dope. + +FEJEVARY: Look here, Horace--speak accurately. Was it in relation to +America they quoted this? + +HORACE: Well, maybe they were talking about India then. But they were +standing up for being revolutionists. We were giving them an earful +about it, and then they spring Lincoln on us. Got their nerve--I'll +say--quoting Lincoln to us. + +SENATOR: The fact that they are quoting it shows it's being misapplied. + +HORACE: (_approvingly_) I'll tell them that. But gee--Lincoln oughta +been more careful what he said. Ignorant people don't know how to take +such things. + +(_Goes back with book_.) + +FEJEVARY: Want to take a look through the rest of the library? We +haven't been up this way yet--(_motioning left_) We need a better +scientific library. (_they are leaving now_) Oh, we simply must have +more money. The whole thing is fairly bursting its shell. + +DORIS: (_venturing in cautiously from the other side, looking back, +beckoning_) They've gone. + +FUSSIE: Sure? + +DORIS: Well, are they here? And I saw them, I tell you--they went up to +science. + +FUSSIE: (_moving the_ SENATOR'S _hat on the table_) But they'll come +back. + +DORIS: What if they do? We're only looking at a book. (_running her hand +along the books_) Matthew Arnold. + +(_Takes a paper from_ FUSSIE, _puts it in the book. They are bent with +giggling as_ HORACE _returns_.) + +HORACE: For the love o' Pete, what's the joke? (_taking the book from +the helpless girl_) Matthew Arnold. My idea of nowhere to go for a +laugh. When I wrote my theme on him last week he was so dry I had to go +out and get a Morton Sundee (_the girls are freshly attacked, though all +of this in a subdued way, mindful of others in the library_) Say, how'd +you get that way? + +DORIS: Now, Horace, don't you _tell_. + +HORACE: What'd I tell, except--(_seeing the paper_) Um hum--what's this? + +DORIS: (_trying to get it from him_) Horace, now _don't_ you (_a +tussle_) You great strong mean thing! Fussie! Make him _stop_. + +(_She gets the paper by tearing it_.) + +HORACE: My dad's around here--showing the college off to a politician. +If you don't come across with that sheet of mystery, I'll back you both +out there (_starts to do it_) and-- + +DORIS: Horace! You're just _horrid_. + +HORACE: Sure I'm horrid. That's the way I want to be. (_takes the paper, +reads_) + + 'To Eben + You are the idol of my dreams + I worship from afar.' +What is this? + +FUSSIE: Now, listen, Horace, and don't you _tell_. You know Eben Weeks. +He's the homeliest man in school. Wouldn't you say so? + +HORACE: Awful jay. Like to get some of the jays out of here. + +DORIS: But listen. Of course, no girl would _look_ at him. So we've +thought up the most _killing_ joke, (_stopped by giggles from herself +and_ FUSSIE) Now, he hasn't handed in his Matthew Arnold dope. I heard +old Mac hold him up for it--and what'd you think he said? That he'd been +_ploughing_. Said he was trying to run a farm and go to college at the +same time! Isn't it a _scream_? + +HORACE: We oughta--make it more unpleasant for some of those jays. Gives +the school a bad name. + +FUSSIE: But, listen, Horace, honest--you'll just _die_. He said he was +going to get the book this afternoon. Now you know what he _looks_ like, +but he turns to--(_both girls are convulsed_) + +DORIS: It'll get him all fussed up! And for nothing at all! + +HORACE: Too bad that class of people come here. I think I'll go to +Harvard next year. Haven't broken it to my parents--but I've about made +up my mind. + +DORIS: Don't you think Morton's a good school, Horace? + +HORACE: Morton's all right. Fine for the--(_kindly_) people who would +naturally come here. But one gets an acquaintance at Harvard. Wher'd'y' +want these passionate lines? + +(FUSSIE _and_ DORIS _are off again convulsed_.) + +HORACE: (_eye falling on the page where he opens the book_) Say, old +Bones could spill the English--what? Listen to this flyer. 'For when we +say that culture is to know the best that has been thought and said in +the world, we simply imply that for culture a system directly tending to +that end is necessary in our reading.' (_he reads it with mock +solemnity, delighting_ FUSSIE _and_ DORIS) The best that has been +thought and said in the world!' + +(MADELINE MORTON _comes in from right; she carries a tennis racket_.) + +MADELINE: (_both critical and good-humoured_) You haven't made a large +contribution to that, have you, Horace? + +HORACE: Madeline, you don't want to let this sarcastic habit grow on +you. + +MADELINE: Thanks for the tip. + +FUSSIE: Oh--_Madeline, (holds out her hand to take the book from_ HORACE +_and shows it to_ MADELINE) You know-- + +DORIS: S-h Don't be silly, (_to cover this_) Who you playing with? + +HORACE: Want me to play with you, Madeline? + +MADELINE: (_genially_) I'd rather play with you than talk to you. + +HORACE: Same here. + +FUSSIE: Aren't cousins affectionate? + +MADELINE: (_moving through to the other part of the library_) But first +I'm looking for a book. + +HORACE: Well, I can tell you without your looking it up, he did say it. +But that was an age of different values. Anyway, the fact that they're +quoting it shows it's being misapplied. + +MADELINE: (_smiling_) Father said so. + +HORACE: (_on his dignity_) Oh, of course--if you don't want to be +serious. + +(MADELINE _laughs and passes on through_.) + +DORIS: What are you two talking about? + +HORACE: Madeline happened to overhear a little discussion down on the +campus. + +FUSSIE: Listen. You know something? Sometimes I think Madeline Morton is +a highbrow in disguise. + +HORACE: Say, you don't want to start anything like that. Madeline's all +right. She and I treat each other rough--but that's being in the family. + +FUSSIE: Well, I'll _tell_ you something. I heard Professor Holden say +Madeline Morton has a great deal more mind than she'd let herself know. + +HORACE: Oh, well--Holden, he's erratic. Look at how popular Madeline is. + +DORIS: I should say. What's the matter with you, Fussie? + +FUSSIE: Oh, I didn't mean it really _hurt_ her. + +HORACE: Guess it don't hurt her much at a dance. Say, what's this new +jazz they were springing last night? + +DORIS: I know! Now look here, Horace--L'me show you. (_she shows him a +step_) + +HORACE: I get you. (_He begins to dance with her; the book he holds +slips to the floor. He kicks it under the table_.) + +FUSSIE: Be careful. They'll be coming back here, (_glances off left_) + +DORIS: Keep an eye out, Fussie. + +FUSSIE: (_from her post_) They're coming! I tell you, they're _coming!_ + +DORIS: Horace, come on. + +(_He teasingly keeps hold of her, continuing the dance. At sound of +voices, they run off, right_. FUSSIE _considers rescuing the book, +decides she has not time_.) + +SENATOR: (_at first speaking off_) Yes, it could be done. There is that +surplus, and as long as Morton College is socially valuable--right here +above the steel works, and making this feature of military +training--(_he has picked up his hat_) But your Americanism must be +unimpeachable, Mr Fejevary. This man Holden stands in the way. + +FEJEVARY: I'm going to have a talk with Professor Holden this afternoon. +If he remains he will--(_it is not easy for him to say_) give no +trouble. (MADELINE _returns_) Oh, here's Madeline--Silas Morton's +granddaughter, Madeline Fejevary Morton. This is Senator Lewis, +Madeline. + +SENATOR: (_holding out his hand_) How do you do, Miss Morton. I suppose +this is a great day for you. + +MADELINE: Why--I don't know. + +SENATOR: The fortieth anniversary of the founding of your grandfather's +college? You must be very proud of your illustrious ancestor. + +MADELINE: I get a bit bored with him. + +SENATOR: Bored with him? My dear young lady! + +MADELINE: I suppose because I've heard so many speeches about him--'The +sainted pioneer'--'the grand old man of the prairies'--I'm sure I +haven't any idea what he really was like. + +FEJEVARY: I've tried to tell you, Madeline. + +MADELINE: Yes. + +SENATOR: I should think you would be proud to be the granddaughter of +this man of vision. + +MADELINE: (_her smile flashing_) Wouldn't you hate to be the +granddaughter of a phrase? + +FEJEVARY: (_trying to laugh it off_) Madeline! How absurd. + +MADELINE: Well, I'm off for tennis. + +(_Nods good-bye and passes on_.) + +FEJEVARY: (_calling to her_) Oh, Madeline, if your Aunt Isabel is out +there--will you tell her where we are? + +MADELINE: (_calling back_) All right. + +FEJEVARY: (_after a look at his companion_) Queer girl, Madeline. +Rather--moody. + +SENATOR: (_disapprovingly_) Well--yes. + +FEJEVARY: (_again trying to laugh it off_) She's been hearing a great +many speeches about her grandfather. + +SENATOR: She should be proud to hear them. + +FEJEVARY: Of course she should. (_looking in the direction_ MADELINE +_has gone_) I want you to meet my wife, Senator Lewis. + +SENATOR: I should be pleased to meet Mrs Fejevary. I have heard what she +means to the college--socially. + +FEJEVARY: I think she has given it something it wouldn't have had +without her. Certainly a place in the town that is--good for it. And you +haven't met our president yet. + +SENATOR: Guess, I've met the real president. + +FEJEVARY: Oh--no. I'm merely president of the board of trustees. + +SENATOR: 'Merely!' + +FEJEVARY: I want you to know President Welling. He's very much the +cultivated gentleman. + +SENATOR: Cultivated gentlemen are all right. I'd hate to see a world +they ran. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a laugh_) I'll just take a look up here, then we can go +down the shorter way. + +(_He goes out right_. SENATOR LEWIS _turns and examines the books_. +FUSSIE _slips in, looks at him, hesitates, and then stoops under the +table for the Matthew Arnold (and her poem) which_ HORACE _has kicked +there. He turns_.) + +FUSSIE: (_not out from under the table_) Oh, I was just looking for a +book. + +SENATOR: Quite a place to look for a book. + +FUSSIE: (_crawling out_) Yes, it got there. I thought I'd put it back. +Somebody--might want it. + +SENATOR: I see, young lady, that you have a regard for books. + +FUSSIE: Oh, yes, I do have a regard for them. + +SENATOR: (_holding out his hand_) And what is your book? + +FUSSIE: Oh--it's--it's nothing. + +(_As he continues to hold out his hand, she reluctantly gives the +book_.) + +SENATOR: (_solemnly_) Matthew Arnold? Nothing? + +FUSSIE: Oh, I didn't mean _him_. + +SENATOR: A master of English! I am glad, young woman, that you value +this book. + +FUSSIE: Oh yes, I'm--awfully fond of it. + +(_Growing more and more nervous as in turning the pages he nears the +poem_.) + +SENATOR: I am interested in you young people of Morton College. + +FUSSIE: That's so good of you. + +SENATOR: What is your favourite study? + +FUSSIE: Well--(_an inspiration_) I like all of them. + +SENATOR: Morton College is coming on very fast, I understand. + +FUSSIE: Oh yes, it's getting more and more of the right people. It used +to be a little jay, you know. Of course, the Fejevarys give it class. +Mrs Fejevary--isn't she wonderful? + +SENATOR: I haven't seen her yet. Waiting here now to meet her. + +FUSSIE: (_worried by this_) Oh, I must--must be going. Shall I put the +book back? (_holding out her hand_) + +SENATOR: No, I'll just look it over a bit. (_sits down_) + +FUSSIE: (_unable to think of any way of getting it_) This is where it +belongs. + +SENATOR: Thank you. + +(_Reluctantly she goes out_. SENATOR LEWIS _pursues Matthew Arnold with +the conscious air of a half literate man reading a 'great book'. The_ +FEJEVARYS _come in_) + +FEJEVARY: I found my wife, Senator Lewis. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_she is a woman of social distinction and charm_) How do +you do, Senator Lewis? (_They shake hands_.) + +SENATOR: It's a great pleasure to meet you, Mrs Fejevary. + +AUNT ISABEL: Why don't we carry Senator Lewis home for lunch? + +SENATOR: Why, you're very kind. + +AUNT ISABEL: I'm sure there's a great deal to talk about, so why not +talk comfortably, and really get acquainted? And we want to tell you the +whole story of Morton College--the good old American spirit behind it. + +SENATOR: I am glad to find you an American, Mrs Fejevary. + +AUNT ISABEL: Oh, we are that. Morton College is one hundred per cent +American. Our boys-- + +(_Her boy_ HORACE _rushes in_.) + +HORACE: (_wildly_) Father! Will you go after Madeline? The police have +got her! + +FEJEVARY: _What!_ + +AUNT ISABEL: (_as he is getting his breath_) What absurd thing are you +saying, Horace? + +HORACE: Awful row down on the campus. The Hindus. I told them to keep +their mouths shut about Abraham Lincoln. I told them the fact they were +quoting him-- + +FEJEVARY: Never mind what you told them! What happened? + +HORACE: We started--to rustle them along a bit. Why, they had +_handbills_ (_holding one up as if presenting incriminating +evidence--the_ SENATOR _takes it from him_) telling America what to do +about deportation! Not on this campus--I say. So we were--we were +putting a stop to it. They resisted--particularly the fat one. The cop +at the corner saw the row--came up. He took hold of Bakhshish, and when +the dirty anarchist didn't move along fast enough, he took hold of +him--well, a bit rough, you might say, when up rushes Madeline and calls +to the cop, 'Let that boy alone!' Gee--I don't know just what did +happen--awful mix-up. Next thing I knew Madeline hauled off and pasted +the policeman a fierce one with her tennis racket! + +SENATOR: She _struck_ the officer? + +HORACE: I should say she did. Twice. The second time-- + +AUNT ISABEL: _Horace_. (_looking at her husband_) I--I can't believe it. + +HORACE: I could have squared it, even then, but for Madeline herself. I +told the policeman that she didn't understand--that I was her cousin, +and apologized for her. And she called over at me, 'Better apologize for +yourself!' As if there was any sense to that--that she--she looked like +a _tiger_. Honest, everybody was afraid of her. I kept right on trying +to square it, told the cop she was the granddaughter of the man that +founded the college--that you were her uncle--he would have gone off +with just the Hindu, fixed this up later, but Madeline balled it up +again--didn't care who was her uncle--Gee! (_he throws open the window_) +There! You can see them, at the foot of the hill. A nice thing--member +of our family led off to the police station! + +FEJEVARY: (_to the_ SENATOR) Will you excuse me? + +AUNT ISABEL: (_trying to return to the manner of pleasant social +things_) Senator Lewis will go on home with me, and you--(_he is +hurrying out_) come when you can. (_to the_ SENATOR) Madeline is such a +high-spirited girl. + +SENATOR: If she had no regard for the living, she might--on this day of +all others--have considered her grandfather's memory. + +(_Raises his eyes to the picture of_ SILAS MORTON.) + +HORACE: Gee! Wouldn't you _say_ so? + + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT III + +SCENE: _The same as Act II three hours later_. PROFESSOR HOLDEN _is +seated at the table, books before him. He is a man in the fifties. At +the moment his care-worn face is lighted by that lift of the spirit +which sometimes rewards the scholar who has imaginative feeling_. HARRY, +_a student clerk, comes hurrying in. Looks back_. + +HARRY: Here's Professor Holden, Mr Fejevary. + +HOLDEN: Mr Fejevary is looking for me? + +HARRY: Yes. + +(_He goes back, a moment later_ MR FEJEVARY _enters. He has his hat, +gloves, stick; seems tired and disturbed_.) + +HOLDEN: Was I mistaken? I thought our appointment was for five. + +FEJEVARY: Quite right. But things have changed, so I wondered if I might +have a little talk with you now. + +HOLDEN: To be sure. (_rising_) Shall we go downstairs? + +FEJEVARY: I don't know. Nice and quiet up here. (_to_ HARRY, _who is now +passing through_) Harry, the library is closed now, is it? + +HARRY: Yes, it's locked. + +FEJEVARY: And there's no one in here? + +HARRY: No, I've been all through. + +FEJEVARY: There's a committee downstairs. Oh, this is a terrible day. +(_putting his things on the table_) We'd better stay up here. Harry, +when my niece--when Miss Morton arrives--I want you to come and let me +know. Ask her not to leave the building without seeing me. + +HARRY: Yes, sir. (_he goes out_) + +FEJEVARY: Well, (_wearily_) it's been a day. Not the day I was looking +for. + +HOLDEN: No. + +FEJEVARY: You're very serene up here. + +HOLDEN: Yes, I wanted to be--serene for a little while. + +FEJEVARY: (_looking at the books_) Emerson. Whitman. (_with a smile_) +Have they anything new to say on economics? + +HOLDEN: Perhaps not; but I wanted to forget economics for a time. I came +up here by myself to try and celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the +founding of Morton College. (_answering the other man's look_) Yes, I +confess I've been disappointed in the anniversary. As I left Memorial +Hall after the exercises this morning, Emerson's words came into my +mind-- + 'Give me truth, + For I am tired of surfaces + And die of inanition.' +Well, then I went home--(_stops, troubled_) + +FEJEVARY: How is Mrs Holden? + +HOLDEN: Better, thank you, but--not strong. + +FEJEVARY: She needs the very best of care for a time, doesn't she? + +HOLDEN: Yes. (_silent a moment_) Then, this is something more than the +fortieth anniversary, you know. It's the first of the month. + +FEJEVARY: And illness hasn't reduced the bills? + +HOLDEN: (_shaking his head_) I didn't want this day to go like that; so +I came up here to try and touch what used to be here. + +FEJEVARY: But you speak despondently of us. And there's been such a fine +note of optimism in the exercises. (_speaks with the heartiness of one +who would keep himself assured_) + +HOLDEN: I didn't seem to want a fine note of optimism. (_with +roughness_) I wanted--a gleam from reality. + +FEJEVARY: To me this is reality--the robust spirit created by all these +young people. + +HOLDEN: Do you think it is robust? (_hand affectionately on the book +before him_) I've been reading Whitman. + +FEJEVARY: This day has to be itself. Certain things go--others come; +life is change. + +HOLDEN: Perhaps it's myself I'm discouraged with. Do you remember the +tenth anniversary of the founding of Morton College. + +FEJEVARY: The tenth? Oh yes, that was when this library was opened. + +HOLDEN: I shall never forget your father, Mr Fejevary, as he stood out +there and said the few words which gave these books to the students. Not +many books, but he seemed to baptize them in the very spirit from which +books are born. + +FEJEVARY: He died the following year. + +HOLDEN: One felt death near. But that didn't seem the important thing. A +student who had fought for liberty for mind. Of course his face would be +sensitive. You must be very proud of your heritage. + +FEJEVARY: Yes. (_a little testily_) Well, I have certainly worked for +the college. I'm doing my best now to keep it a part of these times. + +HOLDEN: (_as if this has not reached him_) It was later that same +afternoon I talked with Silas Morton. We stood at this window and looked +out over the valley to the lower hill that was his home. He told me how +from that hill he had for years looked up to this one, and why there had +to be a college here. I never felt America as that old farmer made me +feel it. + +FEJEVARY: (_drawn by this, then shifting in irritation because he is +drawn_) I'm sorry to break in with practical things, but alas, I am a +practical man--forced to be. I too have made a fight--though the fight +to finance never appears an idealistic one. But I'm deep in that now, +and I must have a little help; at least, I must not have--stumbling-blocks. + +HOLDEN: Am I a stumbling-block? + +FEJEVARY: Candidly (_with a smile_) you are a little hard to finance. +Here's the situation. The time for being a little college has passed. We +must take our place as one of the important colleges--I make bold to say +one of the important universities--of the Middle West. But we have to +enlarge before we can grow. (_answering_ HOLDEN's _smile_) Yes, it is +ironic, but that's the way of it. It was a nice thing to open the +anniversary with fifty thousand from the steel works--but fifty thousand +dollars--nowadays--to an institution? (_waves the fifty thousand aside_) +They'll do more later, I think, when they see us coming into our own. +Meanwhile, as you know, there's this chance for an appropriation from +the state. I find that the legislature, the members who count, are very +friendly to Morton College. They like the spirit we have here. Well, now +I come to you, and you are one of the big reasons for my wanting to put +this over. Your salary makes me blush. It's all wrong that a man like +you should have these petty worries, particularly with Mrs Holden so in +need of the things a little money can do. Now this man Lewis is a +reactionary. So, naturally, he doesn't approve of you. + +HOLDEN: So naturally I am to go. + +FEJEVARY: Go? Not at all. What have I just been saying? + +HOLDEN: Be silent, then. + +FEJEVARY: Not that either--not--not really. But--be a little more +discreet. (_seeing him harden_) This is what I want to put up to you. +Why not give things a chance to mature in your own mind? Candidly, I +don't feel you know just what you do think; is it so awfully important +to express--confusion? + +HOLDEN: The only man who knows just what he thinks at the present moment +is the man who hasn't done any new thinking in the past ten years. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a soothing gesture_) You and I needn't quarrel about +it. I understand you, but I find it a little hard to interpret you to a +man like Lewis. + +HOLDEN: Then why not let a man like Lewis go to thunder? + +FEJEVARY: And let the college go to thunder? I'm not willing to do that. +I've made a good many sacrifices for this college. Given more money than +I could afford to give; given time and thought that I could have used +for personal gain. + +HOLDEN: That's true, I know. + +FEJEVARY: I don't know just why I've done it. Sentiment, I suppose. I +had a very strong feeling about my father, Professor Holden. And this +friend Silas Morton. This college is the child of that friendship. Those +are noble words in our manifesto: 'Morton College was born because there +came to this valley a man who held his vision for mankind above his own +advantage; and because that man found in this valley a man who wanted +beauty for his fellow-men as he wanted no other thing.' + +HOLDEN: (_taking it up_) 'Born of the fight for freedom and the +aspiration to richer living, we believe that Morton College--rising as +from the soil itself--may strengthen all those here and everywhere who +fight for the life there is in freedom, and may, to the measure it can, +loosen for America the beauty that breathes from knowledge.' (_moved by +the words he has spoken_) Do you know, I would rather do that--really do +that--than--grow big. + +FEJEVARY: Yes. But you see, or rather, what you don't see is, you have +to look at the world in which you find yourself. The only way to stay +alive is to grow big. It's been hard, but I have tried to--carry on. + +HOLDEN: And so have I tried to carry on. But it is very hard--carrying +on a dream. + +FEJEVARY: Well, I'm trying to make it easier. + +HOLDEN: Make it easier by destroying the dream? + +FEJEVARY: Not at all. What I want is scope for dreams. + +HOLDEN: Are you sure we'd have the dreams after we've paid this price +for the scope? + +FEJEVARY: Now let's not get rhetorical with one another. + +HOLDEN: Mr Fejevary, you have got to let me be as honest with you as you +say you are being with me. You have got to let me say what I feel. + +FEJEVARY: Certainly. That's why I wanted this talk with you. + +HOLDEN: You say you have made sacrifices for Morton College. So have I. + +FEJEVARY: How well I know that. + +HOLDEN: You don't know all of it. I'm not sure you understand any of it. + +FEJEVARY: (_charmingly_) Oh, I think you're hard on me. + +HOLDEN: I spoke of the tenth anniversary. I was a young man then, just +home from Athens, (_pulled back into an old feeling_) I don't know why I +felt I had to go to Greece. I knew then that I was going to teach +something within sociology, and I didn't want anything I felt about +beauty to be left out of what I formulated about society. The Greeks-- + +FEJEVARY: (_as_ HOLDEN _has paused before what he sees_) I remember you +told me the Greeks were the passion of your student days. + +HOLDEN: Not so much because they created beauty, but because they were +able to let beauty flow into their lives--to create themselves in +beauty. So as a romantic young man (_smiles_), it seemed if I could go +where they had been--what I had felt might take form. Anyway, I had a +wonderful time there. Oh, what wouldn't I give to have again that +feeling of life's infinite possibilities! + +FEJEVARY: (_nodding_) A youthful feeling. + +HOLDEN: (_softly_) I like youth. Well, I was just back, visiting my +sister here, at the time of the tenth anniversary. I had a chance then +to go to Harvard as instructor. A good chance, for I would have been +under a man who liked me. But that afternoon I heard your father speak +about books. I talked with Silas Morton. I found myself telling him +about Greece. No one had ever felt it as he felt it. It seemed to become +of the very bone of him. + +FEJEVARY: (_affectionately_) I know how he used to do. + +HOLDEN: He put his hands on my shoulders. He said, 'Young man, don't go +away. We need you here. Give us this great thing you've got!' And so I +stayed, for I felt that here was soil in which I could grow, and that +one's whole life was not too much to give to a place with roots like +that. (_a little bitterly_) Forgive me if this seems rhetoric. + +FEJEVARY: (_a gesture of protest. Silent a moment_) You make it--hard +for me. (_with exasperation_) Don't you think I'd like to indulge myself +in an exalted mood? And why don't I? I can't afford it--not now. Won't +you have a little patience? And faith--faith that the thing we want will +be there for us after we've worked our way through the woods. We are in +the woods now. It's going to take our combined brains to get us out. I +don't mean just Morton College. + +HOLDEN: No--America. As to getting out, I think you are all wrong. + +FEJEVARY: That's one of your sweeping statements, Holden. Nobody's all +wrong. Even you aren't. + +HOLDEN: And in what ways am I wrong--from the standpoint of your Senator +Lewis? + +FEJEVARY: He's not my Senator Lewis, he's the state's, and we have to +take him as he is. Why, he objects, of course, to your radical +activities. He spoke of your defence of conscientious objectors. + +HOLDEN: (_slowly_) I think a man who is willing to go to prison for what +he believes has stuff in him no college needs turn its back on. + +FEJEVARY: Well, he doesn't agree with you--nor do I. + +HOLDEN: (_still quietly_) And I think a society which permits things to +go on which I can prove go on in our federal prisons had better stop and +take a fresh look at itself. To stand for that and then talk of +democracy and idealism--oh, it shows no mentality, for one thing. + +FEJEVARY: (_easily_) I presume the prisons do need a cleaning up. As to +Fred Jordan, you can't expect me to share your admiration. Our own +Fred--my nephew Fred Morton, went to France and gave his life. There's +some little courage, Holden, in doing that. + +HOLDEN: I'm not trying to belittle it. But he had the whole spirit of +his age with him--fortunate boy. The man who stands outside the idealism +of this time-- + +FEJEVARY: Takes a good deal upon himself, I should say. + +HOLDEN: There isn't any other such loneliness. You know in your heart +it's a noble courage. + +FEJEVARY: It lacks--humility. (HOLDEN _laughs scoffingly_) And I think +you lack it. I'm asking you to co-operate with me for the good of Morton +College. + +HOLDEN: Why not do it the other way? You say enlarge that we may grow. +That's false. It isn't of the nature of growth. Why not do it the way of +Silas Morton and Walt Whitman--each man being his purest and intensest +self. I was full of this fervour when you came in. I'm more and more +disappointed in our students. They're empty--flippant. No sensitive +moment opens them to beauty. No exaltation makes them--what they hadn't +known they were. I concluded some of the fault must be mine. The only +students I reach are the Hindus. Perhaps Madeline Morton--I don't quite +make her out. I too must have gone into a dead stratum. But I can get +back. Here alone this afternoon--(_softly_) I was back. + +FEJEVARY: I think we'll have to let the Hindus go. + +HOLDEN: (_astonished_) Go? Our best students? + +FEJEVARY: This college is for Americans. I'm not going to have foreign +revolutionists come here and block the things I've spent my life working +for. + +HOLDEN: I don't seem to know what you mean at all. + +FEJEVARY: Why, that disgraceful performance this morning. I can settle +Madeline all right, (_looking at his watch_) She should be here by now. +But I'm convinced our case before the legislature will be stronger with +the Hindus out of here. + +HOLDEN: Well, I seem to have missed something--disgraceful +performance--the Hindus, Madeline--(_stops, bewildered_) + +FEJEVARY: You mean to say you don't know about the disturbance out here? + +HOLDEN: I went right home after the address. Then came up here alone. + +FEJEVARY: Upon my word, you do lead a serene life. While you've been +sitting here in contemplation I've been to the police court--trying to +get my niece out of jail. That's what comes of having radicals around. + +HOLDEN: What happened? + +FEJEVARY: One of our beloved Hindus made himself obnoxious on the +campus. Giving out handbills about freedom for India--howling over +deportation. Our American boys wouldn't stand for it. A policeman saw +the fuss--came up and started to put the Hindu in his place. Then +Madeline rushes in, and it ended in her pounding the policeman with her +tennis racket. + +HOLDEN: Madeline Morton did that! + +FEJEVARY: (_sharply_) You seem pleased. + +HOLDEN: I am--interested. + +FEJEVARY: Well, I'm not interested. I'm disgusted. My niece mixing up in +a free-for-all fight and getting taken to the police station! It's the +first disgrace we've ever had in our family. + +HOLDEN: (_as one who has been given courage_) Wasn't there another +disgrace? + +FEJEVARY: What do you mean? + +HOLDEN: When your father fought his government and was banished from his +country. + +FEJEVARY: That was not a disgrace! + +HOLDEN: (_as if in surprise_) Wasn't it? + +FEJEVARY: See here, Holden, you can't talk to me like that. + +HOLDEN: I don't admit you can talk to me as you please and that I can't +talk to you. I'm a professor--not a servant. + +FEJEVARY: Yes, and you're a damned difficult professor. I certainly have +tried to-- + +HOLDEN: (_smiling_) Handle me? + +FEJEVARY: I ask you this. Do you know any other institution where you +could sit and talk with the executive head as you have here with me? + +HOLDEN: I don't know. Perhaps not. + +FEJEVARY: Then be reasonable. No one is entirely free. That's naïve. +It's rather egotistical to want to be. We're held by our relations to +others--by our obligations to the (_vaguely_)--the ultimate thing. Come +now--you admit certain dissatisfactions with yourself, so--why not go +with intensity into just the things you teach--and not touch quite so +many other things? + +HOLDEN: I couldn't teach anything if I didn't feel free to go wherever +that thing took me. Thirty years ago I was asked to come to this college +precisely because my science was not in isolation, because of my vivid +feeling of us as a moment in a long sweep, because of my faith in the +greater beauty our further living may unfold. + +(HARRY _enters_.) + +HARRY: Excuse me. Miss Morton is here now, Mr Fejevary. + +FEJEVARY: (_frowns, hesitates_) Ask her to come up here in five minutes +(_After_ HARRY _has gone_) I think we've thrown a scare into Madeline. I +thought as long as she'd been taken to jail it would be no worse for us +to have her stay there awhile. She's been held since one o'clock. That +ought to teach her reason. + +HOLDEN: Is there a case against her? + +FEJEVARY: No, I got it fixed up. Explained that it was just college girl +foolishness--wouldn't happen again. One reason I wanted this talk with +you first, if I do have any trouble with Madeline I want you to help me. + +HOLDEN: Oh, I can't do that. + +FEJEVARY: You aren't running out and clubbing the police. Tell her +she'll have to think things over and express herself with a little more +dignity. + +HOLDEN: I ask to be excused from being present while you talk with her. + +FEJEVARY: But why not stay in the library--in case I should need you. +Just take your books over to the east alcove and go on with what you +were doing when I came in. + +HOLDEN: (_with a faint smile_) I fear I can hardly do that. As to +Madeline-- + +FEJEVARY: You don't want to see the girl destroy herself, do you? I +confess I've always worried about Madeline. If my sister had lived--But +Madeline's mother died, you know, when she was a baby. Her father--well, +you and I talked that over just the other day--there's no getting to +him. Fred never worried me a bit--just the fine normal boy. But +Madeline--(_with an effort throwing it off_) Oh, it'll be all right, I +haven't a doubt. And it'll be all right between you and me, won't it? +Caution over a hard strip of the road, then--bigger things ahead. + +HOLDEN: (_slowly, knowing what it may mean_) I shall continue to do all +I can toward getting Fred Jordan out of prison. It's a disgrace to +America that two years after the war closes he should be kept +there--much of the time in solitary confinement--because he couldn't +believe in war. It's small--vengeful--it's the Russia of the Czars. I +shall do what is in my power to fight the deportation of Gurkul Singh. +And certainly I shall leave no stone unturned if you persist in your +amazing idea of dismissing the other Hindus from college. For what--I +ask you? Dismissed--for _what_? Because they love liberty enough to give +their lives to it! The day you dismiss them, burn our high-sounding +manifesto, Mr Fejevary, and admit that Morton College now sells her soul +to the--committee on appropriations! + +FEJEVARY: Well, you force me to be as specific as you are. If you do +these things, I can no longer fight for you. + +HOLDEN: Very well then, I go. + +FEJEVARY: Go where? + +HOLDEN: I don't know--at the moment. + +FEJEVARY: I fear you'll find it harder than you know. Meanwhile, what of +your family? + +HOLDEN: We will have to manage some way. + +FEJEVARY: It is not easy for a woman whose health--in fact, whose +life--is a matter of the best of care to 'manage some way'. (_with real +feeling_) What is an intellectual position alongside that reality? You'd +like, of course, to be just what you want to be--but isn't there +something selfish in that satisfaction? I'm talking as a friend now--you +must know that. You and I have a good many ties, Holden. I don't believe +you know how much Mrs Fejevary thinks of Mrs Holden. + +HOLDEN: She has been very, very good to her. + +FEJEVARY: And will be. She cares for her. And our children have been +growing up together--I love to watch it. Isn't that the reality? Doing +for them as best we can, making sacrifices of--of _every_ kind. Don't +let some tenuous, remote thing destroy this flesh and blood thing. + +HOLDEN: (_as one fighting to keep his head above water_) Honesty is not +a tenuous, remote thing. + +FEJEVARY: There's a kind of honesty in selfishness. We can't always have +it. Oh, I used to--go through things. But I've struck a pace--one +does--and goes ahead. + +HOLDEN: Forgive me, but I don't think you've had certain temptations +to--selfishness. + +FEJEVARY: How do you know what I've had? You have no way of knowing +what's in me--what other thing I might have been? You know my heritage; +you think that's left nothing? But I find myself here in America. I love +those dependent on me. My wife--who's used to a certain manner of +living; my children--who are to become part of the America of their +time. I've never said this to another human being--I've never looked at +myself--but it's pretty arrogant to think you're the only man who has +made a sacrifice to fit himself into the age in which he lives. I hear +Madeline. This hasn't left me in very good form for talking with her. +Please don't go away. Just-- + +(MADELINE _comes in, right. She has her tennis racket. Nods to the two +men_. HOLDEN _goes out, left_.) + +MADELINE: (_looking after_ HOLDEN--_feeling something going on. Then +turning to her uncle, who is still looking after_ HOLDEN) You wanted to +speak to me, Uncle Felix? + +FEJEVARY: Of course I want to speak to you. + +MADELINE: I feel just awfully sorry about--banging up my racket like +this. The second time it came down on this club. Why do they carry those +things? Perfectly fantastic, I'll say, going around with a club. But as +long as you were asking me what I wanted for my birthday-- + +FEJEVARY: Madeline, I am not here to discuss your birthday. + +MADELINE: I'm sorry--(_smiles_) to hear that. + +FEJEVARY: You don't seem much chastened. + +MADELINE: Chastened? Was that the idea? Well, if you think that keeping +a person where she doesn't want to be chastens her! I never felt less +'chastened' than when I walked out of that slimy spot and looked across +the street at your nice bank. I should think you'd hate to--(_with +friendly concern_) Why, Uncle Felix, you look tired out. + +FEJEVARY: I am tired out, Madeline. I've had a nerve-racking day. + +MADELINE: Isn't that too bad? Those speeches were so boresome, and that +old senator person--wasn't he a stuff? But can't you go home now and let +auntie give you tea and-- + +FEJEVARY: (_sharply_) Madeline, have you no intelligence? Hasn't it +occurred to you that your performance would worry me a little? + +MADELINE: I suppose it was a nuisance. And on such a busy day. +(_changing_) But if you're going to worry, Horace is the one you should +worry about. (_answering his look_) Why, he got it all up. He made me +ashamed! + +FEJEVARY: And you're not at all ashamed of what you have done? + +MADELINE: Ashamed? Why--no. + +FEJEVARY: Then you'd better be! A girl who rushes in and assaults an +officer! + +MADELINE: (_earnestly explaining it_) But, Uncle Felix, I had to stop +him. No one else did. + +FEJEVARY: Madeline, I don't know whether you're trying to be naïve-- + +MADELINE: (_angrily_) Well, I'm _not_. I like that! I think I'll go +home. + +FEJEVARY: I think you will not! It's stupid of you not to know this is +serious. You could be dismissed from school for what you did. + +MADELINE: Well, I'm good and ready to be dismissed from any school that +would dismiss for that! + +FEJEVARY: (_in a new manner--quietly, from feeling_) Madeline, have you +no love for this place? + +MADELINE: (_doggedly, after thinking_) Yes, I have. (_she sits down_) +And I don't know why I have. + +FEJEVARY: Certainly it's not strange. If ever a girl had a background, +Morton College is Madeline Fejevary Morton's background. (_he too now +seated by the table_) Do you remember your Grandfather Morton? + +MADELINE: Not very well. (_a quality which seems sullenness_) I couldn't +bear to look at him. He shook so. + +FEJEVARY: (_turning away, real pain_) Oh--how cruel! + +MADELINE: (_surprised, gently_) Cruel? Me--cruel? + +FEJEVARY: Not just you. The way it passes--(_to himself_) so _fast_ it +passes. + +MADELINE: I'm sorry. (_troubled_) You see, he was too old then-- + +FEJEVARY: (_his hand up to stop her_) I wish I could bring him back for +a moment, so you could see what he was before he (_bitterly_) shook so. +He was a powerful man, who was as real as the earth. He was strangely of +the earth, as if something went from it to him. (_looking at her +intently_) Queer you should be the one to have no sentiment about him, +for you and he--sometimes when I'm with you it's as if--he were near. He +had no personal ambition, Madeline. He was ambitious for the earth and +its people. I wonder if you can realize what it meant to my father--in a +strange land, where he might so easily have been misunderstood, pushed +down, to find a friend like that? It wasn't so much the material +things--though Uncle Silas was always making them right--and as if--oh, +hardly conscious what he was doing--so little it mattered. It was the +way he _got_ father, and by that very valuing kept alive what was there +to value. Why, he literally laid this country at my father's feet--as if +that was what this country was for, as if it made up for the hard early +things--for the wrong things. + +MADELINE: He must really have been a pretty nice old party. No doubt I +would have hit it off with him all right. I don't seem to hit it off +with the--speeches about him. Somehow I want to say, 'Oh, give us a +rest.' + +FEJEVARY: (_offended_) And that, I presume, is what you want to say to +me. + +MADELINE: No, no, I didn't mean you, Uncle. Though (_hesitatingly_) I +was wondering how you could think you were talking on your side. + +FEJEVARY: What do you mean--my side? + +MADELINE: Oh, I don't--exactly. That's nice about him being--of the +earth. Sometimes when I'm out for a tramp--way off by myself--yes, I +know. And I wonder if that doesn't explain his feeling about the +Indians. Father told me how grandfather took it to heart about the +Indians. + +FEJEVARY: He felt it as you'd feel it if it were your brother. So he +must give his choicest land to the thing we might become. 'Then maybe I +can lie under the same sod with the red boys and not be ashamed.' + +(MADELINE _nods, appreciatively_.) + +MADELINE: Yes, that's really--all right. + +FEJEVARY: (_irritated by what seems charily stated approval_) 'All +right!' Well, I am not willing to let this man's name pass from our +time. And it seems rather bitter that Silas Morton's granddaughter +should be the one to stand in my way. + +MADELINE: Why, Uncle Felix, I'm not standing in your way. Of course I +wouldn't do that. I--(_rather bashfully_) I love the Hill. I was +thinking about it in jail. I got fuddled on direction in there, so I +asked the woman who hung around which way was College Hill. 'Right +through there', she said. A blank wall. I sat and looked through that +wall--long time. (_she looks front, again looking through that blank +wall_) It was all--kind of funny. Then later she came and told me you +were out there, and I thought it was corking of you to come and tell +them they couldn't put that over on College Hill. And I know Bakhshish +will appreciate it too. I wonder where he went? + +FEJEVARY: Went? I fancy he won't go much of anywhere to-night. + +MADELINE: What do you mean? + +FEJEVARY: Why, he's held for this hearing, of course. + +MADELINE: You mean--you came and got just me--and left him there? + +FEJEVARY: Certainly. + +MADELINE: (_rising_) Then I'll have to go and get him! + +FEJEVARY: Madeline, don't be so absurd. You don't get people out of jail +by stopping in and calling for them. + +MADELINE: But you got me. + +FEJEVARY: Because of years of influence. At that, it wasn't simple. +Things of this nature are pretty serious nowadays. It was only your +ignorance got you out. + +MADELINE: I do seem ignorant. While you were fixing it up for me, why +didn't you arrange for him too? + +FEJEVARY: Because I am not in the business of getting foreign +revolutionists out of jail. + +MADELINE: But he didn't do as much as I did. + +FEJEVARY: It isn't what he did. It's what he is. We don't want him here. + +MADELINE: Well, I guess I'm not for that! + +FEJEVARY: May I ask why you have appointed yourself guardian of these +strangers? + +MADELINE: Perhaps because they are strangers. + +FEJEVARY: Well, they're the wrong kind of strangers. + +MADELINE: Is it true that the Hindu who was here last year is to be +deported? Is America going to turn him over to the government he fought? + +FEJEVARY: I have an idea they will all be deported. I'm not so sorry +this thing happened. It will get them into the courts--and I don't think +they have money to fight. + +MADELINE: (_giving it clean and straight_) Gee, I think that's rotten! + +FEJEVARY: Quite likely your inelegance will not affect it one way or the +other. + +MADELINE: (_she has taken her seat again, is thinking it out_) I'm +twenty-one next Tuesday. Isn't it on my twenty-first birthday I get that +money Grandfather Morton left me? + +FEJEVARY: What are you driving at? + +MADELINE: (_simply_) They can have my money. + +FEJEVARY: Are you crazy? What _are_ these people to you? + +MADELINE: They're people from the other side of the world who came here +believing in us, drawn from the far side of the world by things we say +about ourselves. Well, I'm going to pretend--just for fun--that the +things we say about ourselves are true. So if you'll--arrange so I can +get it, Uncle Felix, as soon as it's mine. + +FEJEVARY: And this is what you say to me at the close of my years of +trusteeship! If you could know how I've nursed that little legacy +along--until now it is--(_breaking off in anger_) I shall not permit you +to destroy yourself! + +MADELINE: (_quietly_) I don't see how you can keep me from 'destroying +myself'. + +FEJEVARY: (_looking at her, seeing that this may be true. In genuine +amazement, and hurt_) Why--but it's incredible. Have I--has my +house--been nothing to you all these years? + +MADELINE: I've had my best times at your house. Things wouldn't have +been--very gay for me--without you all--though Horace gets my goat! + +FEJEVARY: And does your Aunt Isabel--'get your goat'? + +MADELINE: I love auntie. (_rather resentfully_) You know that. What has +that got to do with it? + +FEJEVARY: So you are going to use Silas Morton's money to knife his +college. + +MADELINE: Oh, Uncle Felix, that's silly. + +FEJEVARY: It's a long way from silly. You know a little about what I'm +trying to do--this appropriation that would assure our future. If Silas +Morton's granddaughter casts in her lot with revolutionists, Morton +College will get no help from the state. Do you know enough about what +you are doing to assume this responsibility? + +MADELINE: I am not casting 'in my lot with revolutionists'. If it's +true, as you say, that you have to have money in order to get justice-- + +FEJEVARY: I didn't say it! + +MADELINE: Why, you did, Uncle Felix. You said so. And if it's true that +these strangers in our country are going to be abused because they're +poor,--what else could I do with my money and not feel like a skunk? + +FEJEVARY: (_trying a different tack, laughing_) Oh, you're a romantic +girl, Madeline--skunk and all. Rather nice, at that. But the thing is +perfectly fantastic, from every standpoint. You speak as if you had +millions. And if you did, it wouldn't matter, not really. You are going +against the spirit of this country; with or without money, that can't be +done. Take a man like Professor Holden. He's radical in his +sympathies--but does he run out and club the police? + +MADELINE: (_in a smouldering way_) I thought America was a democracy. + +FEJEVARY: We have just fought a great war for democracy. + +MADELINE: Well, is that any reason for not having it? + +FEJEVARY: I should think you would have a little emotion about the +war--about America--when you consider where your brother is. + +MADELINE: Fred had--all kinds of reasons for going to France. He wanted +a trip. (_answering his exclamation_) Why, he _said_ so. Heavens, Fred +didn't make speeches about himself. Wanted to see Paris--poor kid, he +never did see Paris. Wanted to be with a lot of fellows--knock the +Kaiser's block off--end war, get a French girl. It was all mixed up--the +way things are. But Fred was a pretty decent sort. I'll say so. He had +such kind, honest eyes. (_this has somehow said itself; her own eyes +close and what her shut eyes see makes feeling hot_) One thing I do +know! Fred never went over the top and out to back up the argument +you're making now! + +FEJEVARY: (_stiffly_) Very well, I will discontinue the argument I'm +making now. I've been trying to save you from--pretty serious things. +The regret of having stood in the way of Morton College--(_his voice +falling_) the horror of having driven your father insane. + +MADELINE: _What?_ + +FEJEVARY: One more thing would do it. Just the other day I was talking +with Professor Holden about your father. His idea of him relates back to +the pioneer life--another price paid for this country. The lives back of +him were too hard. Your great-grandmother Morton--the first white woman +in this region--she dared too much, was too lonely, feared and bore too +much. They did it, for the task gave them a courage for the task. But +it--left a scar. + +MADELINE: And father is that--(_can hardly say it_)--scar. (_fighting +the idea_) But Grandfather Morton was not like that. + +FEJEVARY: No; he had the vision of the future; he was robust with +feeling for others. (_gently_) But Holden feels your father is +the--dwarfed pioneer child. The way he concentrates on corn--excludes +all else--as if unable to free himself from their old battle with the +earth. + +MADELINE: (_almost crying_) I think it's pretty terrible to--wish all +that on poor father. + +FEJEVARY: Well, my dear child, it's life has 'wished it on him'. It's +just one other way of paying the price for his country. We needn't get +it for nothing. I feel that all our chivalry should go to your father in +his--heritage of loneliness. + +MADELINE: Father couldn't always have been--dwarfed. Mother wouldn't +have cared for him if he had always been--like that. + +FEJEVARY: No, if he could have had love to live in. But no endurance for +losing it. Too much had been endured just before life got to him. + +MADELINE: Do you know, Uncle Felix--I'm afraid that's true? (_he nods_) +Sometimes when I'm with father I feel those things near--the--the too +much--the too hard,--feel them as you'd feel the cold. And now that it's +different--easier--he can't come into the world that's been earned. Oh, +I wish I could help him! + +(_As they sit there together, now for the first time really together, +there is a shrill shout of derision from outside_.) + +MADELINE: What's that? (_a whistled call_) Horace! That's Horace's call. +That's for his gang. Are they going to start something now that will get +Atma in jail? + +FEJEVARY: More likely he's trying to start something. (_they are both +listening intently_) I don't think our boys will stand much more. + +(_A scoffing whoop_. MADELINE _springs to the window; he reaches it +ahead and holds it_.) + +FEJEVARY: This window stays closed. + +(_She starts to go away, he takes hold of her_.) + +MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here? + +FEJEVARY: Listen, Madeline--plain, straight truth. If you go out there +and get in trouble a second time, I can't make it right for you. + +MADELINE: You needn't! + +FEJEVARY: You don't know what it means. These things are not child's +play--not today. You could get twenty years in prison for things you'll +say if you rush out there now. (_she laughs_) You laugh because you're +ignorant. Do you know that in America today there are women in our +prisons for saying no more than you've said here to me! + +MADELINE: Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself! + +FEJEVARY: I? Ashamed of myself? + +MADELINE: Yes! Aren't you an American? (_a whistle_) Isn't that a +policeman's whistle? Are they coming back? Are they hanging around here +to--(_pulling away from her uncle as he turns to look, she jumps up in +the deep sill and throws open the window. Calling down_) +Here--Officer--_You_--Let that boy alone! + +FEJEVARY: (_going left, calling sharply_) Holden. Professor +Holden--here--quick! + +VOICE: (_coming up from below, outside_) Who says so? + +MADELINE: I say so! + +VOICE: And who are you talking for? + +MADELINE: I am talking for Morton College! + +FEJEVARY: (_returning--followed, reluctantly, by_ HOLDEN) Indeed you are +not. Close that window or you'll be expelled from Morton College. + +(_Sounds of a growing crowd outside_.) + +VOICE: Didn't I see you at the station? + +MADELINE: Sure you saw me at the station. And you'll see me there again, +if you come bullying around here. You're not what this place is for! +(_her uncle comes up behind, right, and tries to close the window--she +holds it out_) My grandfather gave this hill to Morton College--a place +where anybody--from any land--can come and say what he believes to be +true! Why, you poor simp--this is America! Beat it from here! Atna! +Don't let him take hold of you like that! He has no right to--Oh, let me +_down_ there! + +(_Springs down, would go off right, her uncle spreads out his arms to +block that passage. She turns to go the other way_.) + +FEJEVARY: Holden! Bring her to her senses. Stand there. (HOLDEN _has not +moved from the place he entered, left, and so blocks the doorway_) Don't +let her pass. + +(_Shouts of derision outside_.) + +MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here--with that going on out +there? (_Moves nearer_ HOLDEN, _stands there before him, taut, looking +him straight in the eye. After a moment, slowly, as one compelled, he +steps aside for her to pass. Sound of her running footsteps. The two +men's eyes meet. A door slams_.) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT IV + + +SCENE: _At the_ MORTON _place, the same room in which_ SILAS MORTON +_told his friend_ FELIX FEJEVARY _of his plan for the hill. The room has +not altogether changed since that day in 1879. The table around which +they dreamed for the race is in its old place. One of the old chairs is +there, the other two are modern chairs. In a corner is the rocker in +which_ GRANDMOTHER MORTON _sat. This is early afternoon, a week after +the events of Act II_. + +MADELINE _is sitting at the table, in her hand a torn, wrinkled piece of +brown paper-peering at writing almost too fine to read. After a moment +her hand goes out to a beautiful dish on the table--an old dish of +coloured Hungarian glass. She is about to take something from this, but +instead lets her hand rest an instant on the dish itself Then turns and +through the open door looks out at the hill, sitting where her_ +GRANDFATHER MORTON _sat when he looked out at the hill._ + +_Her father_, IRA MORTON, _appears outside, walking past the window, +left. He enters, carrying a grain sack, partly filled. He seems hardly +aware of_ MADELINE, _but taking a chair near the door, turned from her, +opens the sack and takes out a couple of ears of corn. As he is bent +over them, examining in a shrewd, greedy way_, MADELINE _looks at that +lean, tormented, rather desperate profile, the look of one confirming a +thing she fears. Then takes up her piece of paper_. + +MADELINE: Do you remember Fred Jordan, father? Friend of our Fred--and +of mine? + +IRA: (_not wanting to take his mind from the corn_) No. I don't remember +him. (_his voice has that timbre of one not related to others_) + +MADELINE: He's in prison now. + +IRA: Well I can't help that. (_after taking out another ear_) This is +the best corn I ever had. (_he says it gloatingly to himself_) + +MADELINE: He got this letter out to me--written on this scrap of paper. +They don't give him paper. (_peering_) Written so fine I can hardly read +it. He's in what they call 'the hold', father--a punishment cell. (_with +difficulty reading it_) It's two and a half feet at one end, three feet +at the other, and six feet long. He'd been there ten days when he wrote +this. He gets two slices of bread a day; he gets water; that's all he +gets. This because he balled the deputy warden out for chaining another +prisoner up by the wrists. + +IRA: Well, he'd better a-minded his own business. And you better mind +yours. I've got no money to spend in the courts. (_with excitement_) +I'll not mortgage this farm! It's been clear since the day my father's +father got it from the government--and it stays clear--till I'm gone. It +grows the best corn in the state--best corn in the Mississippi Valley. +Not for _anything_--you hear me?--would I mortgage this farm my father +handed down to me. + +MADELINE: (_hurt_) Well, father, I'm not asking you to. + +IRA: Then go and see your Uncle Felix. Make it up with him. He'll help +you--if you say you're sorry. + +MADELINE: I'll not go to Uncle Felix. + +IRA: Who will you go to then? (_pause_) Who will help you then? (_again +he waits_) You come before this United States Commissioner with no one +behind you, he'll hold you for the grand jury. Judge Watkins told Felix +there's not a doubt of it. You know what that means? It means you're on +your way to a cell. Nice thing for a Morton, people who've had their own +land since we got it from the Indians. What's the matter with your +uncle? Ain't he always been good to you? I'd like to know what things +would 'a' been for you without Felix and Isabel and all their friends. +You want to think a little. You like good times too well to throw all +that away. + +MADELINE: I do like good times. So does Fred Jordan like good times. +(_smooths the wrinkled paper_) I don't know anybody--unless it is +myself--loves to be out, as he does. (_she tries to look out, but +cannot; sits very still, seeing what it is pain to see. Rises, goes to +that corner closet, the same one from which_ SILAS MORTON _took the deed +to the hill. She gets a yard stick, looks in a box and finds a piece of +chalk. On the floor she marks off_ FRED JORDAN'S _cell. Slowly, at the +end left unchalked, as for a door, she goes in. Her hand goes up as +against a wall; looks at her other hand, sees it is out too far, brings +it in, giving herself the width of the cell. Walks its length, halts, +looks up_.) And one window--too high up to see out. + +(_In the moment she stands there, she is in that cell; she is all the +people who are in those cells_. EMIL JOHNSON _appears from outside; he +is the young man brought up on a farm, a crudely Americanized Swede_.) + +MADELINE: (_stepping out of the cell door, and around it_) Hello, Emil. + +EMIL: How are you, Madeline? How do, Mr Morton. (IRA _barely nods and +does not turn. In an excited manner he begins gathering up the corn he +has taken from the sack_. EMIL _turns back to_ MADELINE) Well, I'm just +from the courthouse. Looks like you and I might take a ride together, +Madeline. You come before the Commissioner at four. + +IRA: What have you got to do with it? + +MADELINE: Oh, Emil has a courthouse job now, father. He's part of the +law. + +IRA: Well, he's not going to take you to the law! Anybody else--not Emil +Johnson! + +MADELINE: (_astonished--and gently, to make up for his rudeness_) +Why--father, why not Emil? Since I'm going, I think it's nice to go in +with someone I know--with a neighbour like Emil. + +IRA: If _this_ is what he lived for! If this is why-- + +(_He twists the ear of corn until some of the kernels drip off_. +MADELINE _and_ EMIL _look at one another in bewilderment_.) + +EMIL: It's too bad anybody has to take Madeline in. I should think your +uncle could fix it up. (_low_) And with your father taking it like +this--(_to help_ IRA) That's fine corn, Mr Morton. My corn's getting +better all the time, but I'd like to get some of this for seed. + +IRA: (_rising and turning on him_) You get my corn? I raise this corn +for you? (_not to them--his mind now going where it is shut off from any +other mind_) If I could make the _wind_ stand still! I want to _turn the +wind around_. + +MADELINE: (_going to him_) Why--father. I don't understand at all. + +IRA: Don't understand. Nobody understands. (_a curse with a sob in it_) +God damn the wind! + +(_Sits down, his back to them_.) + +EMIL: (_after a silence_) Well, I'll go. (_but he continues to look at_ +IRA, _who is holding the sack of com shut, as if someone may take it_) +Too bad--(_stopped by a sign from_ MADELINE, _not to speak of it_) Well, +I was saying, I have go on to Beard's Crossing. I'll stop for you on my +way back. (_confidentially_) Couldn't you telephone your uncle? He could +do something. You don't know what you're going up against. You heard +what the Hindus got, I suppose. + +MADELINE: No. I haven't seen anyone to-day. + +EMIL: They're held for the grand jury. They're locked up now. No bail +for them. I've got the inside dope about them. They're going to get what +this country can hand 'em; then after we've given them a nice little +taste of prison life in America, they're going to be sent back home--to +see what India can treat them to. + +MADELINE: Why are you so pleased about this, Emil? + +EMIL: Pleased? It's nothin' to me--I'm just telling you. Guess you don't +know much about the Espionage Act or you'd go and make a little friendly +call on your uncle. When your case comes to trial--and Judge Lenon may +be on the bench--(_whistles_) He's one fiend for Americanism. But if +your uncle was to tell the right parties that you're just a girl, and +didn't realize what you were saying-- + +MADELINE: I did realize what I was saying, and every word you've just +said makes me know I meant what I said. I said if this was what our +country has come to, then I'm not for our country. I said that--and +a-plenty more--and I'll say it again! + +EMIL: Well--gee, you don't know what it means. + +MADELINE: I do know what it means, but it means not being a coward. + +EMIL: Oh, well--Lord, you can't say everything you think. If everybody +did that, things'd be worse off than they are now. + +MADELINE: Once in a while you have to say what you think--or hate +yourself. + +EMIL: (_with a grin_) Then hate yourself. + +MADELINE: (_smiling too_) No thank you; it spoils my fun. + +EMIL: Well, look-a-here, Madeline, aren't you spoiling your fun now? +You're a girl who liked to be out. Ain't I seen you from our place, with +this one and that one, sometimes all by yourself, strikin' out over the +country as if you was crazy about it? How'd you like to be where you +couldn't even see out? + +MADELINE: (_a step nearer the cell_) There oughtn't to be such places. + +EMIL: Oh, well--Jesus, if you're going to talk about that--! You can't +change the way things are. + +MADELINE: (_quietly_) Why can't I? + +EMIL: Well, say, who do you think you are? + +MADELINE: I think I'm an American. And for that reason I think I have +something to say about America. + +EMIL: Huh! America'll lock you up for your pains. + +MADELINE: All right. If it's come to that, maybe I'd rather be a +locked-up American than a free American. + +EMIL: I don't think you'd like the place, Madeline. There's not much +tennis played there. Jesus--what's Hindus? + +MADELINE: You aren't really asking Jesus, are you, Emil? (_smiles_) You +mightn't like his answer. + +EMIL: (_from the door_) Take a tip. Telephone your uncle. + +(_He goes_.) + +IRA: (_not looking at her_) There might be a fine, and they'd come down +on me and take my land. + +MADELINE: Oh, no, father, I think not. Anyway, I have a little money of +my own. Grandfather Morton left me something. Have you forgotten that? + +IRA: No. No, I know he left you something. (_the words seem to bother +him_) I know he left you something. + +MADELINE: I get it to-day. (_wistfully_) This is my birthday, father. +I'm twenty-one. + +IRA: Your birthday? Twenty-one? (_in pain_) Was that twenty-one years +ago? (_it is not to his daughter this has turned him_) + +MADELINE: It's the first birthday I can remember that I haven't had a +party. + +IRA: It was your Aunt Isabel gave you your parties. + +MADELINE: Yes. + +IRA: Well, you see now. + +MADELINE: (_stoutly_) Oh, well, I don't need a party. I'm grown up now. + +(_She reaches out for the old Hungarian dish on the table; holding it, +she looks to her father, whose back is still turned. Her face tender, +she is about to speak when he speaks_.) + +IRA: Grown up now--and going off and leaving me alone. You too--the last +one. And--_what for? (turning, looking around the room as for those long +gone_) There used to be so many in this house. My grandmother. She sat +there. (_pointing to the place near the open door_) Fine days like +this--in that chair (_points to the rocker_) she'd sit there--tell me +stories of the Indians. Father. It wasn't ever lonely where father was. +Then Madeline Fejevary--my Madeline came to this house. Lived with me in +this house. Then one day she--walked out of this house. Through that +door--through the field--out of this house. (_bitter silence_) Then +Fred--out of this house. Now you. With Emil Johnson! (_insanely, and +almost with relief at leaving things more sane_) Don't let him touch my +corn. If he touches one kernel of this corn! (_with the suspicion of the +tormented mind_) I wonder where he went? How do I know he went where he +_said_ he was going? (_getting up_) I dunno as that south bin's locked. + +MADELINE: Oh--father! + +IRA: I'll find out. How do I know what he's doing? + +(_He goes out, turning left_. MADELINE _goes to the window and looks +after him. A moment later, hearing someone at the door, she turns and +finds her_ AUNT ISABEL, _who has appeared from right. Goes swiftly to +her, hands out_.) + +MADELINE: Oh, _auntie_--I'm glad you came! It's my birthday, and +I'm--lonely. + +AUNT ISABEL: You dear little girl! (_again giving her a hug, which_ +MADELINE _returns, lovingly_) Don't I know it's your birthday? Don't +think that day will ever get by while your Aunt Isabel's around. Just +see what's here for your birthday. (_hands her the package she is +carrying_) + +MADELINE: (_with a gasp--suspecting from its shape_) Oh! (_her face +aglow_) Why--_is_ it? + +AUNT ISABEL: (_laughing affectionately_) Foolish child, open it and see. + +(MADELINE _loosens the paper and pulls out a tennis racket_.) + +MADELINE: (_excited, and moved_) Oh, aunt Isabel! that was dear of you. +I shouldn't have thought you'd--quite do that. + +AUNT ISABEL: I couldn't imagine Madeline without a racket. (_gathering +up the paper, lightly reproachful_) But be a little careful of it, +Madeline. It's meant for tennis balls. (_they laugh together_) + +MADELINE: (_making a return with it_) It's a _peach_. (_changing_) +Wonder where I'll play now. + +AUNT ISABEL: Why, you'll play on the courts at Morton College. Who has a +better right? + +MADELINE: Oh, I don't know. It's pretty much balled up, isn't it? + +AUNT ISABEL: Yes; we'll have to get it straightened out. (_gently_) It +was really dreadful of you, Madeline, to rush out a second time. It +isn't as if they were people who were anything to you. + +MADELINE: But, auntie, they are something to me. + +AUNT ISABEL: Oh, dear, that's what Horace said. + +MADELINE: What's what Horace said? + +AUNT ISABEL: That you must have a case on one of them. + +MADELINE: That's what Horace would say. That makes me sore! + +AUNT ISABEL: I'm sorry I spoke of it. Horace is absurd in some ways. + +MADELINE: He's a-- + +AUNT ISABEL: (_stopping it with her hand_) No, he isn't. He's a +headstrong boy, but a very loving one. He's dear with me, Madeline. + +MADELINE: Yes. You are good to each other. (_her eyes are drawn to the +cell_) + +AUNT ISABEL: Of course we are. We'd be a pretty poor sort if we weren't. +And these are days when we have to stand together--all of us who are the +same kind of people must stand together because the thing that makes us +the same kind of people is threatened. + +MADELINE: Don't you think we're rather threatening it ourselves, auntie? + +AUNT ISABEL: Why, no, we're fighting for it. + +MADELINE: Fighting for what? + +AUNT ISABEL: For Americanism; for--democracy. + +MADELINE: Horace is fighting for it? + +AUNT ISABEL: Well, Horace does go at it as if it were a football game, +but his heart's in the right place. + +MADELINE: Somehow, I don't seem to see my heart in that place. + +AUNT ISABEL: In what place? + +MADELINE: Where Horace's heart is. + +AUNT ISABEL: It's too bad you and Horace quarrel. But you and I don't +quarrel, Madeline. + +MADELINE: (_again drawn to the cell_) No. You and I don't quarrel. (_she +is troubled_) + +AUNT ISABEL: Funny child! Do you want us to? + +(MADELINE _turns, laughing a little, takes the dish from the table, +holds it out to her aunt_.) + +MADELINE: Have some fudge, auntie. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_taking the dish_) Do you _use_ them?--the old Hungarian +dishes? (_laughingly_) I'm not allowed to--your uncle is so choice of +the few pieces we have. And here are you with fudge in one of them. + +MADELINE: I made the fudge because--oh, I don't know, I had to do +something to celebrate my birthday. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_under her breath_) Dearie! + +MADELINE: And then that didn't seem to--make a birthday, so I happened +to see this, way up on a top shelf, and I remembered that it was my +mother's. It was nice to get it down and use it--almost as if mother was +giving me a birthday present. + +AUNT ISABEL: And how she would love to give you a birthday present. + +MADELINE: It was her mother's, I suppose, and they brought it from +Hungary. + +AUNT ISABEL: Yes. They brought only a very few things with them, and +left--oh, so many beautiful ones behind. + +MADELINE: (_quietly_) Rather nice of them, wasn't it? (_her aunt waits +inquiringly_) To leave their own beautiful things--their own beautiful +life behind--simply because they believed life should be more beautiful +for more people. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_with constraint_) Yes. (_gayly turning it_) Well, now, as +to the birthday. What do you suppose Sarah is doing this instant? +Putting red frosting on white frosting, (_writing it with her finger_) +Madeline. And what do you suppose Horace is doing? (_this a little +reproachfully_) Running around buying twenty-one red candles. +Twenty-two--one to grow on. Big birthday cake. Party to-night. + +MADELINE: But, auntie, I don't see how I can be there. + +AUNT ISABEL: Listen, dear. Now, we've got to use our wits and all pull +together. Of course we'd do anything in the world rather than see +you--left to outsiders. I've never seen your uncle as worried, +and--truly, Madeline, as sad. Oh, my dear, it's these human things that +count! What would life be without the love we have for each other? + +MADELINE: The love we have for each other? + +AUNT ISABEL: Why, yes, dearest. Don't turn away from me Madeline. +Don't--don't be strange. I wonder if you realize how your uncle has +worked to have life a happy thing for all of us? Be a little generous to +him. He's had this great burden of bringing something from another day +on into this day. It is not as simple as it may seem. He's done it as +best he could. It will hurt him as nothing has ever hurt him if you now +undo that work of his life. Truly, dear, do you feel you know enough +about it to do that? Another thing: people are a little absurd out of +their own places. We need to be held in our relationships--against our +background--or we are--I don't know--grotesque. Come now, Madeline, +where's your sense of humour? Isn't it a little absurd for you to leave +home over India's form of government? + +MADELINE: It's not India. It's America. A sense of humour is nothing to +hide behind! + +AUNT ISABEL: (_with a laugh_) I knew I wouldn't be a success at world +affairs--better leave that to Professor Holden. (_a quick keen look +from_ MADELINE) They've driven on to the river--they'll be back for me, +and then he wants to stop in for a visit with you while I take Mrs +Holden for a further ride. I'm worried about her. She doesn't gain +strength at all since her operation. I'm going to try keeping her out in +the air all I can. + +MADELINE: It's dreadful about families! + +AUNT ISABEL: Dreadful? Professor Holden's devotion to his wife is one of +the most beautiful things I've ever seen. + +MADELINE: And is that all you see it in? + +AUNT ISABEL: You mean the--responsibility it brings? Oh, well--that's +what life is. Doing for one another. Sacrificing for one another. + +MADELINE: I hope I never have a family. + +AUNT ISABEL: Well, I hope you do. You'll miss the best of life if you +don't. Anyway, you have a family. Where is your father? + +MADELINE: I don't know. + +AUNT ISABEL: I'd like to see him. + +MADELINE: There's no use seeing him today. + +AUNT ISABEL: He's--? + +MADELINE: Strange--shut in--afraid something's going to be taken from +him. + +AUNT ISABEL: Poor Ira. So much has been taken from him. And now you. +Don't hurt him again, Madeline. He can't bear it. You see what it does +to him. + +MADELINE: He has--the wrong idea about things. + +AUNT ISABEL: 'The wrong idea!' Oh, my child--that's awfully young and +hard. It's so much deeper than that. Life has made him into +something--something he can't escape. + +MADELINE: (_with what seems sullenness_) Well, I don't want to be made +into that thing. + +AUNT ISABEL: Of course not. But you want to help him, don't you? Now, +dear--about your birthday party-- + +MADELINE: The United States Commissioner is giving me my birthday party. + +AUNT ISABEL: Well, he'll have to put his party off. Your uncle has been +thinking it all out. We're to go to his office and you'll have a talk +with him and with Judge Watkins. He's off the state supreme bench +now--practising again, and as a favour to your uncle he will be your +lawyer. You don't know how relieved we are at this, for Judge Watkins +can do--anything he wants to do, practically. Then you and I will go on +home and call up some of the crowd to come in and dance to-night. We +have some beautiful new records. There's a Hungarian waltz-- + +MADELINE: And what's the price of all this, auntie? + +AUNT ISABEL: The--Oh, you mean--Why, simply say you felt sorry for the +Hindu students because they seemed rather alone; that you hadn't +realized--what they were, hadn't thought out what you were saying-- + +MADELINE: And that I'm sorry and will never do it again. + +AUNT ISABEL: I don't know that you need say that. It would be gracious, +I think, to indicate it. + +MADELINE: I'm sorry you--had the cake made. I suppose you can eat it, +anyway. I (_turning away_)--can't eat it. + +AUNT ISABEL: Why--Madeline. + +(_Seeing how she has hurt her_, MADELINE _goes out to her aunt_.) + +MADELINE: Auntie, dear! I'm sorry--if I hurt your feelings. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_quick to hold out a loving hand, laughing a little_) +They've been good birthday cakes, haven't they, Madeline? + +MADELINE: (_she now trying not to cry_) I don't know--what I'd have done +without them. Don't know--what I will do without them. I don't--see it. + +AUNT ISABEL: Don't try to. Please don't see it! Just let me go on +helping you. That's all I ask. (_she draws_ MADELINE _to her_) Ah, +dearie, I held you when you were a little baby without your mother. All +those years count for something, Madeline. There's just nothing to life +if years of love don't count for something. (_listening_) I think I hear +them. And here are we, weeping like two idiots. (MADELINE _brushes away +tears_, AUNT ISABEL _arranges her veil, regaining her usual poise_) +Professor Holden was hoping you'd take a tramp with him. Wouldn't that +do you good? Anyway, a talk with him will be nice. I know he admires you +immensely, and really--perhaps I shouldn't let you know +this--sympathizes with your feeling. So I think his maturer way of +looking at things will show you just the adjustment you need to become a +really big and useful person. There's so much to be done in the world, +Madeline. Of course we ought to make it a better world. (_in a manner of +agreement with_ MADELINE) I feel very strongly about all that. Perhaps +we can do some things together. I'd love that. Don't think I'm hopeless! +Way down deep we have the same feeling. Yes, here's Professor Holden. + +(HOLDEN _comes in. He seems older_.) + +HOLDEN: And how are you, Madeline? (_holding out his hand_) + +MADELINE: I'm--all right. + +HOLDEN: Many happy returns of the day. (_embarrassed by her half laugh_) +The birthday. + +AUNT ISABEL: And did you have a nice look up the river? + +HOLDEN: I never saw this country as lovely as it is to-day. Mary is just +drinking it in. + +AUNT ISABEL: You don't think the further ride will be too much? + +HOLDEN: Oh, no--not in that car. + +AUNT ISABEL: Then we'll go on--perhaps as far as Laughing Creek. If you +two decide on a tramp--take that road and we'll pick you up. (_smiling +warmly, she goes out_) + +HOLDEN: How good she is. + +MADELINE: Yes. That's just the trouble. + +HOLDEN: (_with difficulty getting past this_) How about a little tramp? +There'll never be another such day. + +MADELINE: I used to tramp with Fred Jordan. This is where he is now. +(_stepping inside the cell_) He doesn't even see out. + +HOLDEN: It's all wrong that he should be where he is. But for you to +stay indoors won't help him, Madeline. + +MADELINE: It won't help him, but--today--I can't go out. + +HOLDEN: I'm sorry, my child. When this sense of wrongs done first comes +down upon one, it does crush. + +MADELINE: And later you get used to it and don't care. + +HOLDEN: You care. You try not to destroy yourself needlessly. (_he turns +from her look_) + +MADELINE: Play safe. + +HOLDEN: If it's playing safe it's that one you love more than yourself +be safe. It would be a luxury to--destroy one's self. + +MADELINE: That sounds like Uncle Felix. (_seeing she has hurt him, she +goes over and sits across from him at the table_) I'm sorry. I say the +wrong things today. + +HOLDEN: I don't know that you do. + +MADELINE: But isn't uncle funny? His left mind doesn't know what his +right mind is doing. He has to think of himself as a person of +sentiment--idealism, and--quite a job, at times. Clever--how he gets +away with it. The war must have been a godsend to people who were in +danger of getting on to themselves. But I should think you could fool +all of yourself all the time. + +HOLDEN: You don't. (_he is rubbing his hand on the table_) + +MADELINE: Grandfather Morton made this table. I suppose he and +Grandfather Fejevary used to sit here and talk--they were great old +pals. (_slowly_ HOLDEN _turns and looks out at the hill_) Yes. How +beautiful the hill must have been--before there was a college there. +(_he looks away from the hill_) Did you know Grandfather Morton? + +HOLDEN: Yes, I knew him. (_speaking of it against his will_) I had a +wonderful talk with him once; about Greece--and the cornfields, and +life. + +MADELINE: I'd like to have been a pioneer! Some ways they had it fierce, +but think of the fun they had! A whole big land to open up! A big new +life to begin! (_her hands closing in from wideness to a smaller thing_) +Why did so much get shut out? Just a little way back--anything might +have been. What happened? + +HOLDEN: (_speaking with difficulty_) It got--set too soon. + +MADELINE: (_all of her mind open, trying to know_) And why did it? +Prosperous, I suppose. That seems to set things--set them in fear. Silas +Morton wasn't afraid of Felix Fejevary, the Hungarian revolutionist. He +laid this country at that refugee's feet! That's what Uncle Felix says +himself--with the left half of his mind. Now--the Hindu +revolutionists--! (_pause_) I took a walk late yesterday afternoon. +Night came, and for some reason I thought of how many nights have +come--nights the earth has known long before we knew the earth. The moon +came up and I thought of how moonlight made this country beautiful +before any man knew that moonlight was beautiful. It gave me a feeling +of coming from something a long way back. Moving toward--what will be +here when I'm not here. Moving. We seem here, now, in America, to have +forgotten we're moving. Think it's just _us_--just now. Of course, that +would make us afraid, and--ridiculous. + +(_Her father comes in_.) + +IRA: Your Aunt Isabel--did she go away--and leave you? + +MADELINE: She's coming back. + +IRA: For you? + +MADELINE: She--wants me to go with her. This is Professor Holden, +father. + +HOLDEN: How do you do, Mr Morton? + +IRA: (_nods, not noticing_ HOLDEN_'s offered hand_) How'do. When is she +coming back? + +MADELINE: Soon. + +IRA: And then you're going with her? + +MADELINE: I--don't know. + +IRA: I say you go with her. You want them all to come down on us? (_to_ +HOLDEN) What are you here for? + +MADELINE: Aunt Isabel brought Professor Holden, father. + +IRA: Oh. Then you--you tell her what to do. You make her do it. (_he +goes into the room at left_) + +MADELINE: (_sadly, after a silence_) Father's like something touched by +an early frost. + +HOLDEN: Yes. (_seeing his opening and forcing himself to take it_) But +do you know, Madeline, there are other ways of that happening--'touched +by an early frost'. I've seen it happen to people I know--people of fine +and daring mind. They do a thing that puts them apart--it may be the +big, brave thing--but the apartness does something to them. I've seen it +many times--so many times--so many times, I fear for you. You do this +thing and you'll find yourself with people who in many ways you don't +care for at all; find yourself apart from people who in most ways are +your own people. You're many-sided, Madeline. (_moves her tennis +racket_) I don't know about it's all going to one side. I hate to see +you, so young, close a door on so much life. I'm being just as honest +with you as I know how. I myself am making compromises to stay within. I +don't like it, but there are--reasons for doing it. I can't see you +leave that main body without telling you all it is you are leaving. It's +not a clean-cut case--the side of the world or the side of the angels. I +hate to see you lose the--fullness of life. + +MADELINE: (_a slight start, as she realizes the pause. As one recalled +from far_) I'm sorry. I was listening to what you were saying--but all +the time--something else was happening. Grandfather Morton, big and--oh, +terrible. He was here. And we went to that walled-up hole in the +ground--(_rising and pointing down at the chalked cell_)--where they +keep Fred Jordan on bread and water because he couldn't be a part of +nations of men killing each other--and Silas Morton--only he was all +that is back of us, tore open that cell--it was his voice tore it +open--his voice as he cried, 'God damn you, this is America!' (_sitting +down, as if rallying from a tremendous experience_) I'm sorry--it should +have happened, while you were speaking. Won't you--go on? + +HOLDEN: That's a pretty hard thing to go on against. (_after a moment_) +I can't go on. + +MADELINE: You were thinking of leaving the college, and then--decided to +stay? (_he nods_) And you feel there's more--fullness of life for you +inside the college than outside? + +HOLDEN: No--not exactly. (_again a pause_) It's very hard for me to talk +to you. + +MADELINE: (_gently_) Perhaps we needn't do it. + +HOLDEN: (_something in him forcing him to say it_) I'm staying for +financial reasons. + +MADELINE: (_kind, but not going to let the truth get away_) You don't +think that--having to stay within--or deciding to, rather, makes you +think these things of the--blight of being without? + +HOLDEN: I think there is danger to you in--so young, becoming alien to +society. + +MADELINE: As great as the danger of staying within--and becoming like +the thing I'm within? + +HOLDEN: You wouldn't become like it. + +MADELINE: Why wouldn't I? That's what it does to the rest of you. I +don't see it--this fullness of life business. I don't see that Uncle +Felix has got it--or even Aunt Isabel, and you--I think that in buying +it you're losing it. + +HOLDEN: I don't think you know what a cruel thing you are saying. + +MADELINE: There must be something pretty rotten about Morton College if +you have to sell your soul to stay in it! + +HOLDEN: You don't 'sell your soul'. You persuade yourself to wait. + +MADELINE: (_unable to look at him, as if feeling shame_) You have had a +talk with Uncle Felix since that day in the library you stepped aside +for me to pass. + +HOLDEN: Yes; and with my wife's physician. If you sell your soul--it's +to love you sell it. + +MADELINE: (_low_) That's strange. It's love that--brings life along, and +then it's love--holds life back. + +HOLDEN: (_and all the time with this effort against hopelessness_) +Leaving me out of it, I'd like to see you give yourself a little more +chance for detachment. You need a better intellectual equipment if +you're going to fight the world you find yourself in. I think you will +count for more if you wait, and when you strike, strike more maturely. + +MADELINE: Detachment. (_pause_) This is one thing they do at this place. +(_she moves to the open door_) Chain them up to the bars--just like +this. (_in the doorway where her two grandfathers once pledged faith +with the dreams of a million years, she raises clasped hands as high as +they will go_) Eight hours a day--day after day. Just hold your arms up +like this one hour then sit down and think about--(_as if tortured by +all who have been so tortured, her body begins to give with sobs, arms +drop, the last word is a sob_) detachment. + +HOLDEN _is standing helplessly by when her father comes in_. + +IRA: (_wildly_) Don't cry. No! Not in this house! I can't--Your aunt and +uncle will fix it up. The law won't take you this time--and you won't do +it again. + +MADELINE: Oh, what does _that_ matter--what they do to _me_? + +IRA: What are you crying about then? + +MADELINE: It's--the _world_. It's-- + +IRA: The _world_? If that's all you've got to cry about! (_to_ HOLDEN) +Tell her that's nothing to cry about. What's the matter with you. +Mad'line? That's crazy--cryin' about the world! What good has ever come +to this house through carin' about the world? What good's that college? +Better we had that hill. Why is there no one in this house to-day but me +and you? Where's your mother? Where's your brother? The _world_. + +HOLDEN: I think your father would like to talk to you. I'll go +outside--walk a little, and come back for you with your aunt. You must +let us see you through this, Madeline. You couldn't bear the things it +would bring you to. I see that now. (_as he passes her in the doorway +his hand rests an instant on her bent head_) You're worth too much to +break. + +IRA: (_turning away_) I don't want to talk to you. What good comes of +talking? (_In moving, he has stepped near the sack of corn. Takes hold +of it_.) But not with Emil Johnson! That's not--what your mother died +for. + +MADELINE: Father, you must talk to me. What did my mother die for? No +one has ever told me about her--except that she was beautiful--not like +other people here. I got a feeling of--something from far away. +Something from long ago. Rare. Why can't Uncle Felix talk about her? Why +can't you? Wouldn't she want me to know her? Tell me about her. It's my +birthday and I need my mother. + +IRA: (_as if afraid he is going to do it_) How can you touch--what +you've not touched in nineteen years? Just once--in nineteen years--and +that did no good. + +MADELINE: Try. Even though it hurts. Didn't you use to talk to her? +Well, I'm her daughter. Talk to me. What has she to do with Emil +Johnson? + +IRA: (_the pent-up thing loosed_) What has she to do with him? She died +so he could live. He lives because she's dead, (_in anguish_) And what +is _he_ alongside her? Yes. Something from far away. Something from long +ago. Rare. How'd you know that? Finding in me--what I didn't know was +there. Then _she_ came--that ignorant Swede--Emil Johnson's +mother--running through the cornfield like a crazy woman--'Miss Morton! +Miss Morton! Come help me! My children are choking!' Diphtheria they +had--the whole of 'em--but out of this house she ran--my Madeline, +leaving you--her own baby--running as fast as she could through the +cornfield after that immigrant woman. She stumbled in the rough +field--fell to her knees. That was the last I saw of her. She choked to +death in that Swede's house. They lived. + +MADELINE: (_going to him_) Oh--father, (_voice rich_) But how lovely of +her. + +IRA: Lovely? Lovely to leave you without a mother--leave me without her +after I'd had her? Wasn't she worth more than them. + +MADELINE: (_proudly_) Yes. She was worth so much that she never stopped +to think how much she was worth. + +IRA: Ah, if you'd known her you couldn't take it like that. And now you +cry about the world! That's what the world is--all coming to nothing. My +father used to sit there at the table and talk about the world--my +father and her father. They thought 'twas all for something--that what +you were went on into something more than you. That's the talk I always +heard in this house. But it's just talk. The rare thing that came here +was killed by the common thing that came here. Just happens--and happens +cruel. Look at your brother! Gone--(_snaps his fingers_) like that. I +told him not to go to war. He didn't have to go--they'd been glad enough +to have him stay here on the farm. But no,--he must--make the world safe +for democracy! Well, you see how safe he made it, don't you? Now I'm +alone on the farm and he--buried on some Frenchman's farm. That is, I +hope they buried him--I hope they didn't just--(_tormented_) + +MADELINE: Oh, father--of course not. I know they did. + +IRA: How do you know? What do you care--once they got him? _He_ talked +about the world--better world--end war. Now he's in his grave--I hope he +is--and look at the front page of the paper! No such thing--war to end +war! + +MADELINE: But he thought there was, father. Fred believed that--so what +else could he do? + +IRA: He could 'a' minded his own business. + +MADELINE: No--oh, no. It was fine of him to give his life to what he +believed should be. + +IRA: The light in his eyes as he talked of it, now--eyes gone--and the +world he died for all hate and war. Waste. Waste. Nothin' but waste--the +life of this house. Why, folks to-day'd laugh to hear my father talk. He +gave his best land for ideas to live. Thought was going to make us a +better people. What was his word? (_waits_) Aspiration. (_says it as if +it is a far-off thing_) Well, look at your friend, young Jordan. Kicked +from the college to prison for ideas of a better world. (_laughs_) His +'aspiration' puts him in a hole on bread and water! So--mind your own +business, that's all that's so in this country. (_constantly tormented +anew_) Oh, I told your brother all that--the night I tried to keep him. +Told him about his mother--to show what come of running to other folks. +And he said--standing right there--(_pointing_) eyes all bright, he +said, 'Golly, I think that's great!' And then _he_--walked out of this +house. (_fear takes him_) Madeline! (_she stoops over him, her arm +around him_) Don't you leave me--all alone in this house--where so many +was once. What's Hindus--alongside your own father--and him needing you? +It won't be long. After a little I'll be dead--or crazy--or something. +But not here alone where so many was once. + +MADELINE: Oh--father. I don't know what to do. + +IRA: Nothing stays at home. Not even the corn stays at home. If only the +wind wouldn't blow! Why can't I have my field to myself? Why can't I +keep what's mine? All these years I've worked to make it better. I +wanted it to be--the most that it could be. My father used to talk about +the Indians--how our land was their land, and how we must be more than +them. He had his own ideas of bein' more--well, what's that come to? The +Indians lived happier than we--wars, strikes, prisons. But I've made the +corn more! This land that was once Indian maize now grows corn--I'd like +to have the Indians see my corn! I'd like to see them side by +side!--their Indian maize, my corn. And how'd I get it? Ah, by +thinkin'--always tryin', changin', carin'. Plant this corn by that corn, +and the pollen blows from corn to corn--the golden dust it blows, in the +sunshine and of nights--blows from corn to corn like a--(_the word +hurts_) gift. No, you don't understand it, but (_proudly_) corn don't +stay what it is! You can make it anything--according to what you do, +'cording to the corn it's alongside. (_changing_) But that's it. I want +it to stay in my field. It goes away. The prevailin' wind takes it on to +the Johnsons--them Swedes that took my Madeline! I hear it! Oh, nights +when I can't help myself--and in the sunshine I can see it--pollen--soft +golden dust to make new life--goin' on to _them_,--and them too ignorant +to know what's makin' their corn better! I want my field to myself. +What'd I work all my life for? Work that's had to take the place o' what +I lost--is that to go to Emil Johnson? No! The wind shall stand still! +I'll make it. I'll find a way. Let me alone and I--I'll think it out. +Let me alone, I say. + +(_A mind burned to one idea, with greedy haste he shuts himself in the +room at left_. MADELINE _has been standing there as if mist is parting +and letting her see. And as the vision grows power grows in her. She is +thus flooded with richer life when her_ AUNT _and Professor_ HOLDEN +_come back. Feeling something new, for a moment they do not speak_.) + +AUNT ISABEL: Ready, dear? It's time for us to go now. + +MADELINE: (_with the quiet of plentitude_) I'm going in with Emil +Johnson. + +AUNT ISABEL: Why--Madeline. (_falteringly_) We thought you'd go with us. + +MADELINE: No. I have to be--the most I can be. I want the wind to have +something to carry. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_after a look at Professor_ HOLDEN, _who is looking +intensely at_ MADELINE) I don't understand. + +MADELINE: The world is all a--moving field. (_her hands move, voice too +is of a moving field_) Nothing is to itself. If America thinks +so--America is like father. I don't feel alone any more. The wind has +come through--wind rich from lives now gone. Grandfather Fejevary, gift +from a field far off. Silas Morton. No, not alone any more. And afraid? +I'm not even afraid of being absurd! + +AUNT ISABEL: But Madeline--you're leaving your father? + +MADELINE: (_after thinking it out_) I'm not leaving--what's greater in +him than he knows. + +AUNT ISABEL: You're leaving Morton College? + +MADELINE: That runt on a high hill? Yes, I'm leaving grandfather's +college--then maybe I can one day lie under the same sod with him, and +not be ashamed. Though I must tell you (_a little laugh_) under the sod +is my idea of no place to be. I want to be a long time--where the wind +blows. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_who is trying not to cry_) I'm afraid it won't blow in +prison, dear. + +MADELINE: I don't know. Might be the only place it would blow. (EMIL +_passes the window, hesitates at the door_) I'll be ready in just a +moment, Emil. + +(_He waits outside_.) + +AUNT ISABEL: Madeline, I didn't tell you--I hoped it wouldn't be +necessary, but your uncle said--if you refused to do it his way, he +could do absolutely nothing for you, not even--bail. + +MADELINE: Of course not. I wouldn't expect him to. + +AUNT ISABEL: He feels so deeply about these things--America--loyalty, he +said if you didn't come with us it would be final, Madeline. +Even--(_breaks_) between you and me. + +MADELINE: I'm sorry, auntie. You know how I love you. (_and her voice +tells it_) But father has been telling me about the corn. It gives +itself away all the time--the best corn a gift to other corn. What you +are--that doesn't stay with you. Then--(_not with assurance, but feeling +her way_) be the most you can be, so life will be more because you were. +(_freed by the truth she has found_) Oh--do that! Why do we three go +apart? Professor Holden, his beautiful trained mind; Aunt Isabel--her +beautiful love, love that could save the world if only you'd--throw it +to the winds. (_moving nearer_ HOLDEN, _hands out to him_) Why +do--(_seeing it is not to be, she turns away. Low, with sorrow for that +great beauty lost_) Oh, have we brought mind, have we brought heart, up +to this place--only to turn them against mind and heart? + +HOLDEN: (_unable to bear more_) I think we--must go. (_going to_ +MADELINE, _holding out his hand and speaking from his sterile life to +her fullness of life_) Good-bye, Madeline. Good luck. + +MADELINE: Good-bye, Professor Holden. (_hesitates_) Luck to you. + +(_Shaking his head, stooped, he hurries out_.) + +MADELINE: (_after a moment when neither can speak_) Good-bye--auntie +dearest. Thank you--for the birthday present--the cake--everything. +Everything--all the years. + +(_There is something_ AUNT ISABEL _would say, but she can only hold +tight to_ MADELINE_'s hands. At last, with a smile that speaks for love, +a little nod, she goes_. EMIL _comes in_.) + +EMIL: You better go with them, Madeline. It'd make it better for you. + +MADELINE: Oh no, it wouldn't. I'll be with you in an instant, Emil. I +want to--say good-bye to my father. + +(_But she waits before that door, a door hard to go through. Alone_, +EMIL _looks around the room. Sees the bag of corn, takes a couple of +ears and is looking at them as_ MADELINE _returns. She remains by the +door, shaken with sobs, turns, as if pulled back to the pain she has +left_.) + +EMIL: Gee. This is great corn. + +MADELINE: (_turning now to him_) It is, isn't it, Emil? + +EMIL: None like it. + +MADELINE: And you say--your corn is getting better? + +EMIL: Oh, yes--I raise better corn every year now. + +MADELINE: (_low_) That's nice. I'll be right out, Emil. + +(_He puts the corn back, goes out. From the closet_ MADELINE _takes her +hat and wrap. Putting them on, she sees the tennis racket on the table. +She goes to it, takes it up, holds it a moment, then takes it to the +closet, puts it carefully away, closes the door behind it. A moment she +stands there in the room, as if listening to something. Then she leaves +that house_.) + + +CURTAIN + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Plays, by Susan Glaspell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS *** + +***** This file should be named 10623-8.txt or 10623-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/6/2/10623/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Plays + +Author: Susan Glaspell + +Release Date: January 7, 2004 [EBook #10623] +[Last updated: March 17, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + +<h2>Plays by</h2> +<h1>Susan Glaspell</h1> +<h4><a href="#TRIFLES">TRIFLES</a></h4> +<h4><a href="#THE_OUTSIDE">THE OUTSIDE</a></h4> +<h4><a href="#THE_VERGE">THE VERGE</a></h4> +<h4><a href="#INHERITORS">INHERITORS</a></h4> +<a name="TRIFLES"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<h2>TRIFLES</h2> +<p>First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Wharf +Theatre, Provincetown, Mass., August 8, 1916.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>GEORGE HENDERSON (County Attorney)</p> +<p>HENRY PETERS (Sheriff)</p> +<p>LEWIS HALE, A neighboring farmer</p> +<p>MRS PETERS</p> +<p>MRS HALE</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="scene">SCENE: <i>The kitchen is the now abandoned +farmhouse of</i> JOHN WRIGHT, <i>a gloomy kitchen, and left without +having been put in order—unwashed pans under the sink, a loaf +of bread outside the bread-box, a dish-towel on the +table—other signs of incompleted work. At the rear the outer +door opens and the</i> SHERIFF <i>comes in followed by the</i> +COUNTY ATTORNEY <i>and</i> HALE. <i>The</i> SHERIFF <i>and</i> HALE +<i>are men in middle life, the</i> COUNTY ATTORNEY <i>is a young +man; all are much bundled up and go at once to the stove. They are +followed by the two women—the</i> SHERIFF<i>'s wife first; +she is a slight wiry woman, a thin nervous face</i>. MRS HALE <i>is +larger and would ordinarily be called more comfortable looking, but +she is disturbed now and looks fearfully about as she enters. The +women have come in slowly, and stand close together near the +door</i>.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>rubbing his hands</i>) This feels good. +Come up to the fire, ladies.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>after taking a step forward</i>) I'm +not—cold.</p> +<p>SHERIFF: (<i>unbuttoning his overcoat and stepping away from the +stove as if to mark the beginning of official business</i>) Now, Mr +Hale, before we move things about, you explain to Mr Henderson just +what you saw when you came here yesterday morning.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: By the way, has anything been moved? Are things +just as you left them yesterday?</p> +<p>SHERIFF: (<i>looking about</i>) It's just the same. When it +dropped below zero last night I thought I'd better send Frank out +this morning to make a fire for us—no use getting pneumonia +with a big case on, but I told him not to touch anything except the +stove—and you know Frank.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Somebody should have been left here +yesterday.</p> +<p>SHERIFF: Oh—yesterday. When I had to send Frank to Morris +Center for that man who went crazy—I want you to know I had +my hands full yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by +today and as long as I went over everything here myself—</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, Mr Hale, tell just what happened when you +came here yesterday morning.</p> +<p>HALE: Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes. +We came along the road from my place and as I got here I said, I'm +going to see if I can't get John Wright to go in with me on a party +telephone.' I spoke to Wright about it once before and he put me +off, saying folks talked too much anyway, and all he asked was +peace and quiet—I guess you know about how much he talked +himself; but I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked +about it before his wife, though I said to Harry that I didn't know +as what his wife wanted made much difference to John—</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Let's talk about that later, Mr Hale. I do want +to talk about that, but tell now just what happened when you got to +the house.</p> +<p>HALE: I didn't hear or see anything; I knocked at the door, and +still it was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up, it was past +eight o'clock. So I knocked again, and I thought I heard somebody +say, 'Come in.' I wasn't sure, I'm not sure yet, but I opened the +door—this door (<i>indicating the door by which the two women +are still standing</i>) and there in that rocker—(<i>pointing +to it</i>) sat Mrs Wright.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>They all look at the rocker</i>.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: What—was she doing?</p> +<p>HALE: She was rockin' back and forth. She had her apron in her +hand and was kind of—pleating it.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: And how did she—look?</p> +<p>HALE: Well, she looked queer.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: How do you mean—queer?</p> +<p>HALE: Well, as if she didn't know what she was going to do next. +And kind of done up.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: How did she seem to feel about your coming?</p> +<p>HALE: Why, I don't think she minded—one way or other. She +didn't pay much attention. I said, 'How do, Mrs Wright it's cold, +ain't it?' And she said, 'Is it?'—and went on kind of +pleating at her apron. Well, I was surprised; she didn't ask me to +come up to the stove, or to set down, but just sat there, not even +looking at me, so I said, 'I want to see John.' And then +she—laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh. I thought of +Harry and the team outside, so I said a little sharp: 'Can't I see +John?' 'No', she says, kind o' dull like. 'Ain't he home?' says I. +'Yes', says she, 'he's home'. 'Then why can't I see him?' I asked +her, out of patience. ''Cause he's dead', says she. <i>'Dead</i>?' +says I. She just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but +rockin' back and forth. 'Why—where is he?' says I, not +knowing what to say. She just pointed upstairs—like that +(<i>himself pointing to the room above</i>) I got up, with the idea +of going up there. I walked from there to here—then I says, +'Why, what did he die of?' 'He died of a rope round his neck', says +she, and just went on pleatin' at her apron. Well, I went out and +called Harry. I thought I might—need help. We went upstairs +and there he was lyin'—</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: I think I'd rather have you go into that +upstairs, where you can point it all out. Just go on now with the +rest of the story.</p> +<p>HALE: Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked +... (<i>stops, his face twitches</i>) ... but Harry, he went up to +him, and he said, 'No, he's dead all right, and we'd better not +touch anything.' So we went back down stairs. She was still sitting +that same way. 'Has anybody been notified?' I asked. 'No', says she +unconcerned. 'Who did this, Mrs Wright?' said Harry. He said it +business-like—and she stopped pleatin' of her apron. 'I don't +know', she says. 'You don't <i>know</i>?' says Harry. 'No', says +she. 'Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with him?' says Harry. 'Yes', +says she, 'but I was on the inside'. 'Somebody slipped a rope round +his neck and strangled him and you didn't wake up?' says Harry. 'I +didn't wake up', she said after him. We must 'a looked as if we +didn't see how that could be, for after a minute she said, 'I sleep +sound'. Harry was going to ask her more questions but I said maybe +we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner, or the +sheriff, so Harry went fast as he could to Rivers' place, where +there's a telephone.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: And what did Mrs Wright do when she knew that +you had gone for the coroner?</p> +<p>HALE: She moved from that chair to this one over here +(<i>pointing to a small chair in the corner</i>) and just sat there +with her hands held together and looking down. I got a feeling that +I ought to make some conversation, so I said I had come in to see +if John wanted to put in a telephone, and at that she started to +laugh, and then she stopped and looked at me—scared, +(<i>the</i> COUNTY ATTORNEY, <i>who has had his notebook out, makes +a note</i>) I dunno, maybe it wasn't scared. I wouldn't like to say +it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr Lloyd came, and you, Mr +Peters, and so I guess that's all I know that you don't.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>looking around</i>) I guess we'll go +upstairs first—and then out to the barn and around there, +(<i>to the</i> SHERIFF) You're convinced that there was nothing +important here—nothing that would point to any motive.</p> +<p>SHERIFF: Nothing here but kitchen things.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The</i> COUNTY ATTORNEY, <i>after again looking +around the kitchen, opens the door of a cupboard closet. He gets up +on a chair and looks on a shelf. Pulls his hand away, +sticky</i>.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Here's a nice mess.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The women draw nearer</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>to the other woman</i>) Oh, her fruit; it did +freeze, (<i>to the</i> LAWYER) She worried about that when it +turned so cold. She said the fire'd go out and her jars would +break.</p> +<p>SHERIFF: Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and +worryin' about her preserves.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: I guess before we're through she may have +something more serious than preserves to worry about.</p> +<p>HALE: Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The two women move a little closer +together</i>.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>with the gallantry of a young +politician</i>) And yet, for all their worries, what would we do +without the ladies? (<i>the women do not unbend. He goes to the +sink, takes a dipperful of water from the pail and pouring it into +a basin, washes his hands. Starts to wipe them on the roller-towel, +turns it for a cleaner place</i>) Dirty towels! (<i>kicks his foot +against the pans under the sink</i>) Not much of a housekeeper, +would you say, ladies?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>stiffly</i>) There's a great deal of work to be +done on a farm.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: To be sure. And yet (<i>with a little bow to +her</i>) I know there are some Dickson county farmhouses which do +not have such roller towels. (<i>He gives it a pull to expose its +length again</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't +always as clean as they might be.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Ah, loyal to your sex, I see. But you and Mrs +Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>shaking her head</i>) I've not seen much of her of +late years. I've not been in this house—it's more than a +year.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: And why was that? You didn't like her?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I liked her all well enough. Farmers' wives have their +hands full, Mr Henderson. And then—</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes—?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>looking about</i>) It never seemed a very cheerful +place.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: No—it's not cheerful. I shouldn't say she +had the homemaking instinct.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Well, I don't know as Wright had, either.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: You mean that they didn't get on very well?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: No, I don't mean anything. But I don't think a place'd +be any cheerfuller for John Wright's being in it.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'd like to talk more of that a little later. I +want to get the lay of things upstairs now. (<i>He goes to the +left, where three steps lead to a stair door</i>.)</p> +<p>SHERIFF: I suppose anything Mrs Peters does'll be all right. She +was to take in some clothes for her, you know, and a few little +things. We left in such a hurry yesterday.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes, but I would like to see what you take, Mrs +Peters, and keep an eye out for anything that might be of use to +us.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Yes, Mr Henderson.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The women listen to the men's steps on the +stairs, then look about the kitchen</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I'd hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping +around and criticising.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She arranges the pans under sink which the</i> +LAWYER <i>had shoved out of place</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Of course it's no more than their duty.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Duty's all right, but I guess that deputy sheriff that +came out to make the fire might have got a little of this on. +(<i>gives the roller towel a pull</i>) Wish I'd thought of that +sooner. Seems mean to talk about her for not having things slicked +up when she had to come away in such a hurry.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>who has gone to a small table in the left rear +corner of the room, and lifted one end of a towel that covers a +pan</i>) She had bread set. (<i>Stands still</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>eyes fixed on a loaf of bread beside the +bread-box, which is on a low shelf at the other side of the room. +Moves slowly toward it</i>) She was going to put this in there, +(<i>picks up loaf, then abruptly drops it. In a manner of returning +to familiar things</i>) It's a shame about her fruit. I wonder if +it's all gone. (<i>gets up on the chair and looks</i>) I think +there's some here that's all right, Mrs Peters. Yes—here; +(<i>holding it toward the window</i>) this is cherries, too. +(<i>looking again</i>) I declare I believe that's the only one. +(<i>gets down, bottle in her hand. Goes to the sink and wipes it +off on the outside</i>) She'll feel awful bad after all her hard +work in the hot weather. I remember the afternoon I put up my +cherries last summer.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She puts the bottle on the big kitchen table, +center of the room. With a sigh, is about to sit down in the +rocking-chair. Before she is seated realizes what chair it is; with +a slow look at it, steps back. The chair which she has touched +rocks back and forth</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Well, I must get those things from the front room +closet, (<i>she goes to the door at the right, but after looking +into the other room, steps back</i>) You coming with me, Mrs Hale? +You could help me carry them.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>They go in the other room; reappear,</i> MRS +PETERS <i>carrying a dress and skirt,</i> MRS HALE <i>following +with a pair of shoes.</i>)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: My, it's cold in there.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She puts the clothes on the big table, and +hurries to the stove.</i>)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>examining the skirt</i>) Wright was close. I think +maybe that's why she kept so much to herself. She didn't even +belong to the Ladies Aid. I suppose she felt she couldn't do her +part, and then you don't enjoy things when you feel shabby. She +used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie +Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir. But +that—oh, that was thirty years ago. This all you was to take +in?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: She said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want, +for there isn't much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But +I suppose just to make her feel more natural. She said they was in +the top drawer in this cupboard. Yes, here. And then her little +shawl that always hung behind the door. (<i>opens stair door and +looks</i>) Yes, here it is.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Quickly shuts door leading upstairs.</i>)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>abruptly moving toward her</i>) Mrs Peters?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Do you think she did it?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>in a frightened voice</i>) Oh, I don't know.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Well, I don't think she did. Asking for an apron and +her little shawl. Worrying about her fruit.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>starts to speak, glances up, where footsteps are +heard in the room above. In a low voice</i>) Mr Peters says it +looks bad for her. Mr Henderson is awful sarcastic in a speech and +he'll make fun of her sayin' she didn't wake up.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Well, I guess John Wright didn't wake when they was +slipping that rope under his neck.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: No, it's strange. It must have been done awful +crafty and still. They say it was such a—funny way to kill a +man, rigging it all up like that.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: That's just what Mr Hale said. There was a gun in the +house. He says that's what he can't understand.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Mr Henderson said coming out that what was needed +for the case was a motive; something to show anger, or—sudden +feeling.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>who is standing by the table</i>) Well, I don't +see any signs of anger around here, (<i>she puts her hand on the +dish towel which lies on the table, stands looking down at table, +one half of which is clean, the other half messy</i>) It's wiped to +here, (<i>makes a move as if to finish work, then turns and looks +at loaf of bread outside the breadbox. Drops towel. In that voice +of coming back to familiar things.</i>) Wonder how they are finding +things upstairs. I hope she had it a little more red-up up there. +You know, it seems kind of sneaking. Locking her up in town and +then coming out here and trying to get her own house to turn +against her!</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: But Mrs Hale, the law is the law.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I s'pose 'tis, (<i>unbuttoning her coat</i>) Better +loosen up your things, Mrs Peters. You won't feel them when you go +out.</p> +<p>(MRS PETERS <i>takes off her fur tippet, goes to hang it on hook +at back of room, stands looking at the under part of the small +corner table</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: She was piecing a quilt. (<i>She brings the large +sewing basket and they look at the bright pieces</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: It's log cabin pattern. Pretty, isn't it? I wonder if +she was goin' to quilt it or just knot it?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Footsteps have been heard coming down the +stairs</i>. The SHERIFF enters followed by HALE and the COUNTY +ATTORNEY.)</p> +<p>SHERIFF: They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot +it! (<i>The men laugh, the women look abashed</i>.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>rubbing his hands over the stove</i>) +Frank's fire didn't do much up there, did it? Well, let's go out to +the barn and get that cleared up. (<i>The men go outside</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>resentfully</i>) I don't know as there's anything +so strange, our takin' up our time with little things while we're +waiting for them to get the evidence. (<i>she sits down at the big +table smoothing out a block with decision</i>) I don't see as it's +anything to laugh about.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>apologetically</i>) Of course they've got awful +important things on their minds.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Pulls up a chair and joins MRS HALE at the +table</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>examining another block</i>) Mrs Peters, look at +this one. Here, this is the one she was working on, and look at the +sewing! All the rest of it has been so nice and even. And look at +this! It's all over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn't know +what she was about!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>After she has said this they look at each other, +then start to glance back at the door. After an instant</i> MRS +HALE <i>has pulled at a knot and ripped the sewing</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Oh, what are you doing, Mrs Hale?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>mildly</i>) Just pulling out a stitch or two +that's not sewed very good. (<i>threading a needle</i>) Bad sewing +always made me fidgety.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (nervously) I don't think we ought to touch +things.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I'll just finish up this end. (<i>suddenly stopping +and leaning forward</i>) Mrs Peters?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: What do you suppose she was so nervous about?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Oh—I don't know. I don't know as she was +nervous. I sometimes sew awful queer when I'm just tired. (MRS HALE +<i>starts to say something, looks at</i> MRS PETERS, <i>then goes +on sewing</i>) Well I must get these things wrapped up. They may be +through sooner than we think, (<i>putting apron and other things +together</i>) I wonder where I can find a piece of paper, and +string.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: In that cupboard, maybe.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>looking in cupboard</i>) Why, here's a +bird-cage, (<i>holds it up</i>) Did she have a bird, Mrs Hale?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Why, I don't know whether she did or not—I've +not been here for so long. There was a man around last year selling +canaries cheap, but I don't know as she took one; maybe she did. +She used to sing real pretty herself.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>glancing around</i>) Seems funny to think of a +bird here. But she must have had one, or why would she have a cage? +I wonder what happened to it.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I s'pose maybe the cat got it.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: No, she didn't have a cat. She's got that feeling +some people have about cats—being afraid of them. My cat got +in her room and she was real upset and asked me to take it out.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: My sister Bessie was like that. Queer, ain't it?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>examining the cage</i>) Why, look at this door. +It's broke. One hinge is pulled apart.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>looking too</i>) Looks as if someone must have +been rough with it.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Why, yes.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She brings the cage forward and puts it on the +table</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I wish if they're going to find any evidence they'd be +about it. I don't like this place.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs Hale. It +would be lonesome for me sitting here alone.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: It would, wouldn't it? (<i>dropping her sewing</i>) +But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs Peters. I wish I had come over +sometimes when <i>she</i> was here. I—(<i>looking around the +room</i>)—wish I had.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: But of course you were awful busy, Mrs +Hale—your house and your children.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I could've come. I stayed away because it weren't +cheerful—and that's why I ought to have come. I—I've +never liked this place. Maybe because it's down in a hollow and you +don't see the road. I dunno what it is, but it's a lonesome place +and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster +sometimes. I can see now—(<i>shakes her head</i>)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Well, you mustn't reproach yourself, Mrs Hale. +Somehow we just don't see how it is with other folks +until—something comes up.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Not having children makes less work—but it makes +a quiet house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when +he did come in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs Peters?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Not to know him; I've seen him in town. They say he +was a good man.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Yes—good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as +well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, +Mrs Peters. Just to pass the time of day with +him—(<i>shivers</i>) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone, +(<i>pauses, her eye falling on the cage</i>) I should think she +would 'a wanted a bird. But what do you suppose went with it?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: I don't know, unless it got sick and died.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She reaches over and swings the broken door, +swings it again, both women watch it</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: You weren't raised round here, were you? (<i>MRS +PETERS shakes her head</i>) You didn't know—her?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Not till they brought her yesterday.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: She—come to think of it, she was kind of like a +bird herself—real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid +and—fluttery. How—she—did—change. +(<i>silence; then as if struck by a happy thought and relieved to +get back to everyday things</i>) Tell you what, Mrs Peters, why +don't you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her +mind.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs Hale. +There couldn't possibly be any objection to it, could there? Now, +just what would I take? I wonder if her patches are in +here—and her things.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>They look in the sewing basket</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: Here's some red. I expect this has got sewing things +in it. (<i>brings out a fancy box</i>) What a pretty box. Looks +like something somebody would give you. Maybe her scissors are in +here. (<i>Opens box. Suddenly puts her hand to her nose</i>) +Why—(MRS PETERS <i>bends nearer, then turns her face +away</i>) There's something wrapped up in this piece of silk.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Why, this isn't her scissors.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>lifting the silk</i>) Oh, Mrs +Peters—it's—</p> +<p class="dir">(MRS PETERS <i>bends closer</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: It's the bird.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>jumping up</i>) But, Mrs Peters—look at it! +It's neck! Look at its neck!</p> +<p>It's all—other side <i>to</i>.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Somebody—wrung—its—neck.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Their eyes meet. A look of growing +comprehension, of horror. Steps are heard outside</i>. MRS HALE +<i>slips box under quilt pieces, and sinks into her chair. +Enter</i> SHERIFF <i>and</i> COUNTY ATTORNEY. MRS PETERS +<i>rises</i>.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>as one turning from serious things to +little pleasantries</i>) Well ladies, have you decided whether she +was going to quilt it or knot it?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: We think she was going to—knot it.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, that's interesting, I'm sure. (<i>seeing +the birdcage</i>) Has the bird flown?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>putting more quilt pieces over the box</i>) We +think the—cat got it.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>preoccupied</i>) Is there a cat?</p> +<p class="dir">(MRS HALE <i>glances in a quick covert way at</i> +MRS PETERS.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Well, not now. They're superstitious, you know. They +leave.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>to</i> SHERIFF PETERS, <i>continuing an +interrupted conversation</i>) No sign at all of anyone having come +from the outside. Their own rope. Now let's go up again and go over +it piece by piece. (<i>they start upstairs</i>) It would have to +have been someone who knew just the—</p> +<p class="dir">(MRS PETERS <i>sits down. The two women sit there +not looking at one another, but as if peering into something and at +the same time holding back. When they talk now it is in the manner +of feeling their way over strange ground, as if afraid of what they +are saying, but as if they can not help saying it</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that +pretty box.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>in a whisper</i>) When I was a girl—my +kitten—there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my +eyes—and before I could get there—(<i>covers her face +an instant</i>) If they hadn't held me back I would +have—(<i>catches herself, looks upstairs where steps are +heard, falters weakly</i>)—hurt him.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>with a slow look around her</i>) I wonder how it +would seem never to have had any children around, (<i>pause</i>) +No, Wright wouldn't like the bird—a thing that sang. She used +to sing. He killed that, too.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>moving uneasily</i>) We don't know who killed +the bird.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I knew John Wright.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: It was an awful thing was done in this house that +night, Mrs Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope +around his neck that choked the life out of him.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: His neck. Choked the life out of him.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Her hand goes out and rests on the +bird-cage</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>with rising voice</i>) We don't know who killed +him. We don't <i>know</i>.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>her own feeling not interrupted</i>) If there'd +been years and years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it +would be awful—still, after the bird was still.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>something within her speaking</i>) I know what +stillness is. When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby +died—after he was two years old, and me with no other +then—</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>moving</i>) How soon do you suppose they'll be +through, looking for the evidence?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: I know what stillness is. (<i>pulling herself +back</i>) The law has got to punish crime, Mrs Hale.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>not as if answering that</i>) I wish you'd seen +Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and +stood up there in the choir and sang. (<i>a look around the +room</i>) Oh, I <i>wish</i> I'd come over here once in a while! +That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to punish that?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>looking upstairs</i>) We mustn't—take +on.</p> +<p>MRS HALE: I might have known she needed help! I know how things +can be—for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs Peters. We live +close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same +things—it's all just a different kind of the same thing, +(<i>brushes her eyes, noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for +it</i>) If I was you, I wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone. Tell +her it <i>ain't</i>. Tell her it's all right. Take this in to prove +it to her. She—she may never know whether it was broke or +not.</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: (<i>takes the bottle, looks about for something to +wrap it in; takes petticoat from the clothes brought from the other +room, very nervously begins winding this around the bottle. In a +false voice</i>) My, it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us. +Wouldn't they just laugh! Getting all stirred up over a little +thing like a—dead canary. As if that could have anything to +do with—with—wouldn't they <i>laugh</i>!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The men are heard coming down stairs</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>under her breath</i>) Maybe they would—maybe +they wouldn't.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: No, Peters, it's all perfectly clear except a +reason for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If +there was some definite thing. Something to show—something to +make a story about—a thing that would connect up with this +strange way of doing it—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The women's eyes meet for an instant. Enter HALE +from outer door</i>.)</p> +<p>HALE: Well, I've got the team around. Pretty cold out there.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'm going to stay here a while by myself, +(<i>to the</i> SHERIFF) You can send Frank out for me, can't you? I +want to go over everything. I'm not satisfied that we can't do +better.</p> +<p>SHERIFF: Do you want to see what Mrs Peters is going to take +in?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The</i> LAWYER <i>goes to the table, picks up +the apron, laughs</i>.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: Oh, I guess they're not very dangerous things +the ladies have picked out. (<i>Moves a few things about, +disturbing the quilt pieces which cover the box. Steps back</i>) +No, Mrs Peters doesn't need supervising. For that matter, a +sheriff's wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, +Mrs Peters?</p> +<p>MRS PETERS: Not—just that way.</p> +<p>SHERIFF: (<i>chuckling</i>) Married to the law. (<i>moves toward +the other room</i>) I just want you to come in here a minute, +George. We ought to take a look at these windows.</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>scoffingly</i>) Oh, windows!</p> +<p>SHERIFF: We'll be right out, Mr Hale.</p> +<p class="dir">(HALE <i>goes outside. The</i> SHERIFF <i>follows +the</i> COUNTY ATTORNEY <i>into the other room. Then</i> MRS HALE +<i>rises, hands tight together, looking intensely at</i> MRS +PETERS, <i>whose eyes make a slow turn, finally meeting</i> MRS +HALE<i>'s. A moment</i> MRS HALE <i>holds her, then her own eyes +point the way to where the box is concealed. Suddenly</i> MRS +PETERS <i>throws back quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the +bag she is wearing. It is too big. She opens box, starts to take +bird out, cannot touch it, goes to pieces, stands there helpless. +Sound of a knob turning in the other room</i>. MRS HALE <i>snatches +the box and puts it in the pocket of her big coat. Enter</i> COUNTY +ATTORNEY <i>and</i> SHERIFF.)</p> +<p>COUNTY ATTORNEY: (<i>facetiously</i>) Well, Henry, at least we +found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going +to—what is it you call it, ladies?</p> +<p>MRS HALE: (<i>her hand against her pocket</i>) We call +it—knot it, Mr Henderson.</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<a name="THE_OUTSIDE"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<h2>THE OUTSIDE</h2> +<p>First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Playwrights' +Theatre, December 28, 1917.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>CAPTAIN (of 'The Bars' Life-Saving Station)</p> +<p>BRADFORD (a Life-Saver)</p> +<p>TONY (a Portuguese Life-Saver)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK (who lives in the abandoned Station)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO (who works for her)</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="scene">SCENE: <i>A room in a house which was once a +life-saving station. Since ceasing to be that it has taken on no +other character, except that of a place which no one cares either +to preserve or change. It is painted the life-saving grey, but has +not the life-saving freshness. This is one end of what was the big +boat room, and at the ceiling is seen a part of the frame work from +which the boat once swung. About two thirds of the back wall is +open, because of the big sliding door, of the type of barn door, +and through this open door are seen the sand dunes, and beyond them +the woods. At one point the line where woods and dunes meet stands +out clearly and there are indicated the rude things, vines, bushes, +which form the outer uneven rim of the woods—the only things +that grow in the sand. At another point a sand-hill is menacing the +woods. This old life-saving station is at a point where the sea +curves, so through the open door the sea also is seen. (The station +is located on the outside shore of Cape Cod, at the point, near the +tip of the Cape, where it makes that final curve which forms the +Provincetown Harbor.) The dunes are hills and strange forms of sand +on which, in places, grows the stiff beach grass—struggle; +dogged growing against odds. At right of the big sliding door is a +drift of sand and the top of buried beach grass is seen on this. +There is a door left, and at right of big sliding door is a +slanting wall. Door in this is ajar at rise of curtain, and through +this door</i> BRADFORD <i>and</i> TONY, <i>life-savers, are seen +bending over a man's body, attempting to restore respiration. The +captain of the life-savers comes into view outside the big open +door, at left; he appears to have been hurrying, peers in, sees the +men, goes quickly to them.</i></p> +<p>CAPTAIN: I'll take this now, boys.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: No need for anybody to take it, Capt'n. He was dead +when we picked him up.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: Dannie Sears was dead when we picked him up. But we +brought him back. I'll go on awhile.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The two men who have been bending over the body +rise, stretch to relax, and come into the room.</i>)</p> +<p>BRADFORD: (<i>pushing back his arms and putting his hands on his +chest</i>) Work,—tryin to put life in the dead.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: Where'd you find him, Joe?</p> +<p>BRADFORD: In front of this house. Not forty feet out.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: What'd you bring him up here for?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He speaks in an abstracted way, as if the +working part of his mind is on something else, and in the muffled +voice of one bending over.</i>)</p> +<p>BRADFORD: (<i>with a sheepish little laugh</i>) Force of habit, +I guess. We brought so many of 'em back up here, (<i>looks around +the room</i>) And then it was kind of unfriendly down where he +was—the wind spittin' the sea onto you till he'd have no way +of knowin' he was ashore.</p> +<p>TONY: Lucky I was not sooner or later as I walk by from my +watch.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: You have accommodating ways, Tony. No sooner or later. +I wouldn't say it of many Portagees. But the sea (<i>calling it in +to the</i> CAPTAIN) is friendly as a kitten alongside the women +that live <i>here</i>. Allie Mayo—they're <i>both</i> +crazy—had that door open (<i>moving his head toward the big +sliding door</i>) sweepin' out, and when we come along she backs +off and stands lookin' at us, <i>lookin</i>'—Lord, I just +wanted to get him somewhere else. So I kicked this door open with +my foot (<i>jerking his hand toward the room where the</i> CAPTAIN +<i>is seen bending over the man</i>) and got him <i>away. (under +his voice</i>) If he did have any notion of comin' back to life, he +wouldn't a come if he'd seen her. (<i>more genially</i>) I +wouldn't.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: You know who he is, Joe?</p> +<p>BRADFORD: I never saw him before.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: Mitchell telephoned from High Head that a dory came +ashore there.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Last night wasn't the <i>best</i> night for a dory. +(<i>to</i> TONY, <i>boastfully</i>) Not that I couldn't 'a' stayed +in one. Some men can stay in a dory and some can't. (<i>going to +the inner door</i>) That boy's dead, Capt'n.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: Then I'm not doing him any harm.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: (<i>going over and shaking the frame where the boat +once swung</i>) This the first time you ever been in this place, +ain't it, Tony?</p> +<p>TONY: I never was here before.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Well, <i>I</i> was here before. (<i>a laugh</i>) And +the old man—(<i>nodding toward the</i> CAPTAIN) he lived here +for twenty-seven years. Lord, the things that happened <i>here</i>. +There've been dead ones carried through <i>that</i> door. +(<i>pointing to the outside door</i>) Lord—the ones +<i>I've</i> carried. I carried in Bill Collins, and Lou Harvey +and—huh! 'sall over now. You ain't seen no <i>wrecks</i>. +Don't ever think you have. I was here the night the Jennie Snow was +out there. (<i>pointing to the sea</i>) There was a <i>wreck</i>. +We got the boat that stood here (<i>again shaking the frame</i>) +down that bank. (<i>goes to the door and looks out</i>) Lord, how'd +we ever do it? The sand has put his place on the blink all right. +And then when it gets too God-for-saken for a life-savin' station, +a lady takes it for a summer residence—and then spends the +winter. She's a cheerful one.</p> +<p>TONY: A woman—she makes things pretty. This not like a +place where a woman live. On the floor there is nothing—on +the wall there is nothing. Things—(<i>trying to express it +with his hands</i>) do not hang on other things.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: (<i>imitating</i> TONY<i>'s gesture</i>) +No—things do not hang on other things. In my opinion the +woman's crazy—sittin' over there on the sand—(<i>a +gesture towards the dunes</i>) what's she <i>lookin'</i> at? There +ain't nothin' to <i>see</i>. And I know the woman that works for +her's crazy—Allie Mayo. She's a Provincetown girl. She was +all right once, but—</p> +<p class="dir">(MRS PATRICK <i>comes in from the hall at the right. +She is a 'city woman', a sophisticated person who has been caught +into something as unlike the old life as the dunes are unlike a +meadow. At the moment she is excited and angry</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: You have no right here. This isn't the life-saving +station any more. Just because it used to be—I don't see why +you should think—This is my house! And—I want my house +to myself!</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: (<i>putting his head through the door. One arm of the +man he is working with is raised, and the hand reaches through the +doorway</i>) Well I must say, lady, I would think that any house +could be a life-saving station when the sea had sent a man to +it.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>who has turned away so she cannot see the +hand</i>) I don't want him here! I—(<i>defiant, yet +choking</i>) I must have my house to myself!</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: You'll get your house to yourself when I've made up my +mind there's no more life in this man. A good many lives have been +saved in this house, Mrs Patrick—I believe that's your +name—and if there's any chance of bringing one more back from +the dead, the fact that you own the house ain't goin' to make a +damn bit of difference to me!</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>in a thin wild way</i>) I must have my house to +myself.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: Hell with such a woman!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Moves the man he is working with and slams the +door shut. As the</i> CAPTAIN <i>says, 'And if there's any chance +of bringing one more back from the dead</i>', ALLIE MAYO <i>has +appeared outside the wide door which gives on to the dunes, a bleak +woman, who at first seems little more than a part of the sand +before which she stands. But as she listens to this conflict one +suspects in her that peculiar intensity of twisted things which +grow in unfavoring places</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: I—I don't want them here! I must—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>But suddenly she retreats, and is gone</i>.)</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Well, I couldn't say, Allie Mayo, that you work for +any too kind-hearted a lady. What's the matter with the woman? Does +she want folks to die? Appears to break her all up to see somebody +trying to save a life. What d'you work for such a fish for? A crazy +fish—that's what I call the woman. I've seen her—day +after day—settin' over there where the dunes meet the woods, +just sittin' there, lookin'. (<i>suddenly thinking of it</i>) I +believe she <i>likes</i> to see the sand slippin' down on the +woods. Pleases her to see somethin' gettin' buried, I guess.</p> +<p class="dir">(ALLIE MAYO, <i>who has stepped inside the door and +moved half across the room, toward the corridor at the right, is +arrested by this last—stands a moment as if seeing through +something, then slowly on, and out</i>.)</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Some coffee'd taste good. But coffee, in this house? +Oh, no. It might make somebody feel better. (<i>opening the door +that was slammed shut</i>) Want me now, Capt'n?</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: No.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Oh, that boy's dead, Capt'n.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: (<i>snarling</i>) Dannie Sears was dead, too. Shut that +door. I don't want to hear that woman's voice again, ever.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Closing the door and sitting on a bench built +into that corner between the big sliding door and the room where +the</i> CAPTAIN <i>is</i>.)</p> +<p>BRADFORD: They're a cheerful pair of women—livin' in this +cheerful place—a place that life savers had to turn over to +the sand—huh! This Patrick woman used to be all right. She +and her husband was summer folks over in town. They used to picnic +over here on the outside. It was Joe Dyer—he's always talkin' +to summer folks—told 'em the government was goin' to build +the new station and sell this one by sealed bids. I heard them +talkin' about it. They was sittin' right down there on the beach, +eatin' their supper. They was goin' to put in a fire-place and they +was goin' to paint it bright colors, and have parties over +here—summer folk notions. Their bid won it—who'd want +it?—a buried house you couldn't move.</p> +<p>TONY: I see no bright colors.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Don't you? How astonishin'! You must be color blind. +And I guess <i>we're</i> the first party. (<i>laughs</i>) I was in +Bill Joseph's grocery store, one day last November, when in she +comes—Mrs Patrick, from New York. 'I've come to take the old +life-saving station', says she. 'I'm going to sleep over there +tonight!' Huh! Bill is used to queer ways—he deals with +summer folks, but that got <i>him</i>. November—an empty +house, a buried house, you might say, off here on the outside +shore—way across the sand from man or beast. He got it out of +her, not by what she said, but by the way she looked at what he +said, that her husband had died, and she was runnin' off to hide +herself, I guess. A person'd feel sorry for her if she weren't so +stand-offish, and so doggon <i>mean</i>. But mean folks have got +minds of their own. She slept here that night. Bill had men hauling +things till after dark—bed, stove, coal. And then she wanted +somebody to work for her. 'Somebody', says she, 'that doesn't say +an unnecessary word!' Well, then Bill come to the back of the +store, I said, 'Looks to me as if Allie Mayo was the party she's +lookin' for.' Allie Mayo has got a prejudice against words. Or +maybe she likes 'em so well she's savin' of 'em. She's not spoke an +unnecessary word for twenty years. She's got her reasons. Women +whose men go to sea ain't always talkative.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The</i> CAPTAIN <i>comes out. He closes door +behind him and stands there beside it. He looks tired and +disappointed. Both look at him. Pause</i>.)</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: Wonder who he was.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Young. Guess he's not been much at sea.</p> +<p>CAPTAIN: I hate to leave even the dead in this house. But we can +get right back for him. (<i>a look around</i>) The old place used +to be more friendly. (<i>moves to outer door, hesitates, hating to +leave like this</i>) Well, Joe, we brought a good many of them back +here.</p> +<p>BRADFORD: Dannie Sears is tendin' bar in Boston now.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The three men go; as they are going around the +drift of sand</i> ALLIE MAYO <i>comes in carrying a pot of coffee; +sees them leaving, puts down the coffee pot, looks at the door +the</i> CAPTAIN <i>has closed, moves toward it, as if drawn</i>. +MRS PATRICK <i>follows her in</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: They've gone?</p> +<p class="dir">(MRS MAYO <i>nods, facing the closed door</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: And they're leaving—him? (<i>again the other +woman nods</i>) Then he's—? (MRS MAYO <i>just stands +there</i>) They have no right—just because it used to be +their place—! I want my house to myself!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Snatches her coat and scarf from a hook and +starts through the big door toward the dunes</i>.)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Wait.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>When she has said it she sinks into that corner +seat—as if overwhelmed by what she has done. The other woman +is held</i>.)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: (<i>to herself.</i>) If I could say that, I can say +more. (<i>looking at woman she has arrested, but speaking more to +herself</i>) That boy in there—his face—uncovered +something—(<i>her open hand on her chest. But she waits, as +if she cannot go on; when she speaks it is in labored +way—slow, monotonous, as if snowed in by silent years</i>) +For twenty years, I did what you are doing. And I can tell +you—it's not the way. (<i>her voice has fallen to a whisper; +she stops, looking ahead at something remote and veiled</i>) We had +been married—two years. (<i>a start, as of sudden pain. Says +it again, as if to make herself say it</i>) Married—two +years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler. Times hard. He had +to go. A year and a half—it was to be. A year and a half. Two +years we'd been married.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She sits silent, moving a little back and +forth.</i>)</p> +<p>The day he went away. (<i>not spoken, but breathed from +pain</i>) The days after he was gone.</p> +<p>I heard at first. Last letter said farther north—not +another chance to write till on the way home. (<i>a wait</i>)</p> +<p>Six months. Another, I did not hear. (<i>long wait</i>) Nobody +ever heard. (<i>after it seems she is held there, and will not go +on</i>) I used to talk as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim +used to tease me about my talking. But they'd come in to talk to +me. They'd say—'You may hear <i>yet.</i>' They'd talk about +what must have happened. And one day a woman who'd been my friend +all my life said—'Suppose he was to walk <i>in!</i>' I got up +and drove her from my kitchen—and from that time till this +I've not said a word I didn't have to say. (<i>she has become +almost wild in telling this. That passes. In a whisper</i>) The ice +that caught Jim—caught me. (<i>a moment as if held in ice. +Comes from it. To</i> MRS PATRICK <i>simply</i>) It's not the way. +(<i>a sudden change</i>) You're not the only woman in the world +whose husband is dead!</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>with a cry of the hurt</i>) Dead? My husband's +not <i>dead</i>.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: He's <i>not?</i> (<i>slowly understands</i>) Oh.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks +up her coat which has fallen to the floor and steps +outside.</i>)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: (<i>almost failing to do it</i>) Wait.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: Wait? Don't you think you've said enough? They told +me you didn't say an unnecessary word!</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: I don't.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: And you can see, I should think, that you've +bungled into things you know nothing about!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she +pushes the sand by the door down on the half buried +grass—though not as if knowing what she is doing.</i>)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: (<i>slowly</i>) When you keep still for twenty years +you know—things you didn't know you knew. I know why you're +doing that. (<i>she looks up at her, startled</i>) Don't bury the +only thing that will grow. Let it grow.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The woman outside still crying under her breath +turns abruptly and starts toward the line where dunes and woods +meet.</i>)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: I know where you're going! (MRS PATRICK <i>turns but +not as if she wants to</i>) What you'll try to do. Over there. +(<i>pointing to the line of woods</i>) Bury it. The life in you. +Bury it—watching the sand bury the woods. But I'll tell you +something! <i>They</i> fight too. The woods! They fight for life +the way that Captain fought for life in there!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Pointing to the closed door</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>with a strange exultation</i>) And lose the way +he lost in there!</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: (<i>sure, sombre</i>) They don't lose.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: Don't <i>lose</i>? (<i>triumphant</i>) I have +walked on the tops of buried trees!</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: (<i>slow, sombre, yet large</i>) And vines will grow +over the sand that covers the trees, and hold it. And other trees +will grow over the buried trees.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: I've watched the sand slip down on the vines that +reach out farthest.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Another vine will reach that spot. (<i>under her +breath, tenderly</i>) Strange little things that reach out +farthest!</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: And will be buried soonest!</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: And hold the sand for things behind them. They save +a wood that guards a town.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: I care nothing about a wood to guard a town. This +is the outside—these dunes where only beach grass grows, this +outer shore where men can't live. The Outside. You who were born +here and who die here have named it that.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Yes, we named it that, and we had reason. He died +here (<i>reaches her hand toward the closed door</i>) and many a +one before him. But many another reached the harbor! (<i>slowly +raises her arm, bends it to make the form of the Cape. Touches the +outside of her bent arm</i>) The Outside. But an arm that bends to +make a harbor—where men are safe.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: I'm outside the harbor—on the dunes, land not +life.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Dunes meet woods and woods hold dunes from a town +that's shore to a harbor.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: This is the Outside. Sand (<i>picking some of it up +in her hand and letting it fall on the beach grass</i>) Sand that +<i>covers</i>—hills of sand that move and cover.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from +Provincetown. Provincetown—where they turn when boats can't +live at sea. Did you ever see the sails come round here when the +sky is dark? A line of them—swift to the harbor—where +their children live. Go back! (<i>pointing</i>) Back to your edge +of the woods that's the <i>edge of the dunes</i>.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: The edge of life. Where life trails off to dwarfed +things not worth a name.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Suddenly sits down in the doorway</i>.)</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Not worth a name. And—meeting the Outside!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Big with the sense of the wonder of +life</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>lifting sand and letting it drift through her +hand</i>.) They're what the sand will let them be. They take +strange shapes like shapes of blown sand.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Meeting the Outside. (<i>moving nearer; speaking +more personally</i>) I know why you came here. To this house that +had been given up; on this shore where only savers of life try to +live. I know what holds you on these dunes, and draws you over +there. But other things are true beside the things you want to +see.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: How do you know they are? Where have you been for +twenty years?</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Outside. Twenty years. That's why I know how brave +<i>they</i> are (<i>indicating the edge of the woods. Suddenly +different</i>) You'll not find peace there again! Go back and watch +them <i>fight</i>!</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>swiftly rising</i>) You're a cruel +woman—a hard, insolent woman! I knew what I was doing! What +do you know about it? About me? I didn't go to the Outside. I was +left there. I'm only—trying to get along. Everything that can +hurt me I want buried—buried deep. Spring is here. This +morning I <i>knew</i> it. Spring—coming through the +storm—to take me—take me to hurt me. That's why I +couldn't bear—(<i>she looks at the closed door</i>) things +that made me know I feel. You haven't felt for so long you don't +know what it means! But I tell you, Spring is here! And now you'd +take <i>that</i> from me—(<i>looking now toward the edge of +the woods</i>) the thing that made me know they would be buried in +my heart—those things I can't <i>live</i> and know I feel. +You're more cruel than the sea! 'But other things are true beside +the things you want to see!' Outside. Springs will come when I will +not know that it is spring. (<i>as if resentful of not more deeply +believing what she says</i>) What would there be for me but the +Outside? What was there for you? What did you ever find after you +lost the thing you wanted?</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: I found—what I find now I know. The edge of +life—to hold life behind me—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>A slight gesture toward</i> MRS PATRICK.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>stepping back</i>) You call what you are life? +(<i>laughs</i>) Bleak as those ugly things that grow in the +sand!</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: (<i>under her breath, as one who speaks tenderly of +beauty</i>) Ugly!</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>passionately</i>) I have <i>known</i> life. I +have known <i>life</i>. You're like this Cape. A line of land way +out to sea—land not life.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: A harbor far at sea. (<i>raises her arm, curves it +in as if around something she loves</i>) Land that encloses and +gives shelter from storm.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>facing the sea, as if affirming what will hold +all else out</i>) Outside sea. Outer shore. Dunes—land not +life.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: Outside sea—outer shore, dark with the wood +that once was ships—dunes, strange land not life—woods, +town and harbor. The line! Stunted straggly line that meets the +Outside face to face—and fights for what itself can never be. +Lonely line. Brave growing.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: It loses.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: It wins.</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: The farthest life is buried.</p> +<p>ALLIE MAYO: And life grows over buried life! (<i>lifted into +that; then, as one who states a simple truth with feeling</i>) It +will. And Springs will come when you will want to know that it is +Spring.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The</i> CAPTAIN <i>and</i> BRADFORD <i>appear +behind the drift of sand. They have a stretcher. To get away from +them</i> MRS PATRICK <i>steps farther into the room</i>; ALLIE MAYO +<i>shrinks into her corner. The men come in, open the closed door +and go in the room where they left the dead man. A moment later +they are seen outside the big open door, bearing the man away</i>. +MRS PATRICK <i>watches them from sight</i>.)</p> +<p>MRS PATRICK: (<i>bitter, exultant</i>) Savers of life! +(<i>to</i> ALLIE MAYO) You savers of life! 'Meeting the Outside!' +Meeting—(<i>but she cannot say it mockingly again; in saying +it, something of what it means has broken through, rises. Herself +lost, feeling her way into the wonder of life</i>) Meeting the +Outside!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>It grows in her as</i> CURTAIN <i>lowers +slowly</i>.)</p> +<a name="THE_VERGE"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<h2>THE VERGE</h2> +<p>First performed at the Provincetown Playhouse on November 14, +1921.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>PERSONS OF THE PLAY</p> +<p>ANTHONY</p> +<p>HARRY ARCHER, Claire's husband</p> +<p>HATTIE, The maid</p> +<p>CLAIRE</p> +<p>DICK, Richard Demming</p> +<p>TOM EDGEWORTHY</p> +<p>ELIZABETH, Claire's daughter</p> +<p>ADELAIDE, Claire's sister</p> +<p>DR EMMONS</p> +<h3>ACT I</h3> +<p class="scene"><i>The Curtain lifts on a place that is dark, save +for a shaft of light from below which comes up through an open +trap-door in the floor. This slants up and strikes the long leaves +and the huge brilliant blossom of a strange plant whose twisted +stem projects from right front. Nothing is seen except this plant +and its shadow. A violent wind is heard. A moment later a buzzer. +It buzzes once long and three short. Silence. Again the buzzer. +Then from below—his shadow blocking the light, comes</i> +ANTHONY, <i>a rugged man past middle life;—he emerges from +the stairway into the darkness of the room. Is dimly seen taking up +a phone.</i></p> +<p>ANTHONY: Yes, Miss Claire?—I'll see. (<i>he brings a +thermometer to the stairway for light, looks sharply, then returns +to the phone</i>) It's down to forty-nine. The plants are in +danger—(<i>with great relief and approval</i>) Oh, that's +fine! (<i>hangs up the receiver</i>) Fine!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He goes back down the stairway, closing the +trap-door upon himself, and the curtain is drawn upon darkness and +wind. It opens a moment later on the greenhouse in the sunshine of +a snowy morning. The snow piled outside is at times blown through +the air. The frost has made patterns on the glass as if—as +Plato would have it—the patterns inherent in abstract nature +and behind all life had to come out, not only in the creative heat +within, but in the creative cold on the other side of the glass. +And the wind makes patterns of sound around the glass +house.</i></p> +<p>The back wall is low; the glass roof slopes sharply up. There is +an outside door, a little toward the right. From outside two steps +lead down to it. At left a glass partition and a door into the +inner room. One sees a little way into this room. At right there is +no dividing wall save large plants and vines, a narrow aisle +between shelves of plants leads off.</p> +<p>This is not a greenhouse where plants are being displayed, nor +the usual workshop for the growing of them, but a place for +experiment with plants, a laboratory.</p> +<p>At the back grows a strange vine. It is arresting rather than +beautiful. It creeps along the low wall, and one branch gets a +little way up the glass. You might see the form of a cross in it, +if you happened to think it that way. The leaves of this vine are +not the form that leaves have been. They are at once repellent and +significant.</p> +<p>ANTHONY <i>is at work preparing soil—mixing, sifting. As +the wind tries the door he goes anxiously to the thermometer, nods +as if reassured and returns to his work. The buzzer sounds. He +starts to answer the telephone, remembers something, halts and +listens sharply. It does not buzz once long and three short. Then +he returns to his work. The buzzer goes on and on in impatient +jerks which mount in anger. Several times</i> ANTHONY <i>is almost +compelled by this insistence, but the thing that holds him back is +stronger. At last, after a particularly mad splutter, to which</i> +ANTHONY <i>longs to make retort, the buzzer gives it up</i>. +ANTHONY <i>goes on preparing soil.</i></p> +<p>A moment later the glass door swings violently in, snow blowing +in, and also MR HARRY ARCHER, <i>wrapped in a rug.</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Oh, please close the door, sir.</p> +<p>HARRY: Do you think I'm not trying to? (<i>he holds it open to +say this</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: But please <i>do</i>. This stormy air is not good for +the plants.</p> +<p>HARRY: I suppose it's just the thing for me! Now, what do you +mean, Anthony, by not answering the phone when I buzz for you?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Miss Claire—Mrs Archer told me not to.</p> +<p>HARRY: Told you not to answer me?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Not you especially—nobody but her.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, I like her nerve—and yours.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: You see, she thought it took my mind from my work to be +interrupted when I'm out here. And so it does. So she buzzes once +long and—Well, she buzzes her way, and all other +buzzing—</p> +<p>HARRY: May buzz.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>nodding gravely</i>) She thought it would be better +for the flowers.</p> +<p>HARRY: I am not a flower—true, but I too need a little +attention—and a little heat. Will you please tell me why the +house is frigid?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Miss Claire ordered all the heat turned out here, +(<i>patiently explaining it to</i> MISS CLAIRE's <i>speechless +husband</i>) You see the roses need a great deal of heat.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>reading the thermometer</i>) The roses have +seventy-three I have forty-five.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Yes, the roses need seventy-three.</p> +<p>HARRY: Anthony, this is an outrage!</p> +<p>ANTHONY: I think it is myself; when you consider what we paid +for the heating plant—but as long as it is +defective—Why, Miss Claire would never have done what she has +if she hadn't looked out for her plants in just such ways as this. +Have you forgotten that Breath of Life is about to flower?</p> +<p>HARRY: And where's my breakfast about to flower?—that's +what I want to know.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Why, Miss Claire got up at five o'clock to order the +heat turned off from the house.</p> +<p>HARRY: I see you admire her vigilance.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Oh, I do. (<i>fervently</i>) I do. Harm was near, and +that woke her up.</p> +<p>HARRY: And what about the harm to—(<i>tapping his +chest</i>) Do roses get pneumonia?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Oh, yes—yes, indeed they do. Why, Mr Archer, look +at Miss Claire herself. Hasn't she given her heat to the roses?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>pulling the rug around him, preparing for the +blizzard</i>) She has the fire within.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>delighted</i>) Now isn't that true! How well you +said it. (<i>with a glare for this appreciation</i>, HARRY <i>opens +the door. It blows away from him</i>) Please do close the door!</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>furiously</i>) You think it is the aim of my life to +hold it open?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>getting hold of it</i>) Growing things need an even +temperature, (<i>while saying this he gets the man out into the +snow</i>)</p> +<p class="dir">(ANTHONY <i>consults the thermometer, not as pleased +this time as he was before. He then looks minutely at two of the +plants—one is a rose, the other a flower without a name +because it has not long enough been a flower. Peers into the hearts +of them. Then from a drawer under a shelf, takes two paper bags, +puts one over each of these flowers, closing them down at the +bottom. Again the door blows wildly in, also</i> HATTIE, <i>a maid +with a basket</i>.)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: What do you mean—blowing in here like this? Mrs +Archer has ordered—</p> +<p>HATTIE: Mr Archer has ordered breakfast served here, (<i>she +uncovers the basket and takes out an electric toaster</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: <i>Breakfast</i>—here? <i>Eat</i>—here? +Where plants grow?</p> +<p>HATTIE: The plants won't poison him, will they? (<i>at a loss to +know what to do with things, she puts the toaster under the strange +vine at the back, whose leaves lift up against the glass which has +frost leaves on the outer side</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>snatching it away</i>) You—you think you can +cook eggs under the Edge Vine?</p> +<p>HATTIE: I guess Mr Archer's eggs are as important as a vine. I +guess my work's as important as yours.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: There's a million people like you—and like Mr +Archer. In all the world there is only one Edge Vine.</p> +<p>HATTIE: Well, maybe one's enough. It don't look like nothin', +anyhow.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: And you've not got the wit to know that that's why it's +the Edge Vine.</p> +<p>HATTIE: You want to look out, Anthony. You talk nutty. Everybody +says so.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Miss Claire don't say so.</p> +<p>HATTIE: No, because she's—</p> +<p>ANTHONY: You talk too much!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Door opens, admitting</i> HARRY; <i>after +looking around for the best place to eat breakfast, moves a box of +earth from the table</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: Just give me a hand, will you, Hattie?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>They bring it to the open space and he and</i> +HATTIE <i>arrange breakfast things</i>, HATTIE <i>with triumphant +glances at the distressed</i> ANTHONY)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>deciding he must act</i>) Mr Archer, this is not +the place to eat breakfast!</p> +<p>HARRY: Dead wrong, old boy. The place that has heat is the place +to eat breakfast. (<i>to</i> HATTIE) Tell the other +gentlemen—I heard Mr Demming up, and Mr Edgeworthy, if he +appears, that as long as it is such a pleasant morning, we're +having breakfast outside. To the conservatory for coffee.</p> +<p class="dir">(HATTIE <i>giggles, is leaving</i>.)</p> +<p>And let's see, have we got everything? (<i>takes the one shaker, +shakes a little pepper on his hand. Looks in vain for the other +shaker</i>) And tell Mr Demming to bring the salt.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: But Miss Claire will be very angry.</p> +<p>HARRY: I am very angry. Did I choose to eat my breakfast at the +other end of a blizzard?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>an exclamation of horror at the thermometer</i>) +The temperature is falling. I must report. (<i>he punches the +buzzer, takes up the phone</i>) Miss Claire? It is Anthony. A +terrible thing has happened. Mr Archer—what? Yes, a terrible +thing.—Yes, it is about Mr Archer.—No—no, not +dead. But here. He is here. Yes, he is well, he seems well, but he +is eating his breakfast. Yes, he is having breakfast served out +here—for himself, and the other gentlemen are to come +too.—Well, he seemed to be annoyed because the heat had been +turned off from the house. But the door keeps opening—this +stormy wind blowing right over the plants. The temperature has +already fallen.—Yes, yes. I thought you would want to +come.</p> +<p class="dir">(ANTHONY <i>opens the trap-door and goes below</i>. +HARRY <i>looks disapprovingly down into this openness at his feet, +returns to his breakfast</i>. ANTHONY <i>comes up, bearing a +box</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>turning his face away</i>) Phew! What a smell.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Yes. Fertilizer has to smell.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, it doesn't have to smell up my breakfast!</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>with a patient sense of order</i>) The smell +belongs here. (<i>he and the smell go to the inner room</i>)</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The outer door opens just enough to admit</i> +CLAIRE—<i>is quickly closed. With</i> CLAIRE <i>in a room +another kind of aliveness is there</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: What are you doing here?</p> +<p>HARRY: Getting breakfast. (<i>all the while doing so</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'll not have you in my place!</p> +<p>HARRY: If you take all the heat then you have to take me.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'll show you how I have to take you. (<i>with her hands +begins scooping upon him the soil</i> ANTHONY <i>has +prepared</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>jumping up, laughing, pinning down her arms, putting +his arms around her</i>) Claire—be decent. What harm do I do +here?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You pull down the temperature.</p> +<p>HARRY: Not after I'm in.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And you told Tom and Dick to come and make it +uneven.</p> +<p>HARRY: Tom and Dick are our guests. We can't eat where it's warm +and leave them to eat where it's cold.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I don't see why not.</p> +<p>HARRY: You only see what you want to see.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: That's not true. I wish it were. No; no, I don't either. +(<i>she is disturbed—that troubled thing which rises from +within, from deep, and takes</i> CLAIRE. <i>She turns to the Edge +Vine, examines. Regretfully to</i> ANTHONY, <i>who has come in with +a plant</i>) It's turning back, isn't it?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Can you be sure yet, Miss Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh yes—it's had its chance. It doesn't want to +be—what hasn't been.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>who has turned at this note in her voice. Speaks +kindly</i>) Don't take it so seriously, Claire. (CLAIRE +<i>laughs</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No, I suppose not. But it <i>does</i> matter—and +why should I pretend it doesn't, just because I've failed with +it?</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, I don't want to see it get you—it's not +important enough for that.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>in her brooding way</i>) Anything is important +enough for that—if it's important at all. (<i>to the +vine</i>) I thought you were out, but you're—going back +home.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: But you're doing it this time, Miss Claire. When Breath +of Life opens—and we see its heart—</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE <i>looks toward the inner room. Because of +intervening plants they do not see what is seen from the +front—a plant like caught motion, and of a greater +transparency than plants have had. Its leaves, like waves that +curl, close around a heart that is not seen. This plant stands by +itself in what, because of the arrangement of things about it, is a +hidden place. But nothing is between it and the light</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, if the heart has (<i>a little laugh</i>) held its +own, then Breath of Life is alive in its otherness. But Edge Vine +is running back to what it broke out of.</p> +<p>HARRY: Come, have some coffee, Claire.</p> +<p class="dir">(ANTHONY <i>returns to the inner room, the outer +door opens</i>. DICK <i>is hurled in</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>going to the door, as he gasps for breath before +closing it</i>) How dare you make my temperature uneven! (<i>she +shuts the door and leans against it</i>)</p> +<p>DICK: Is that what I do?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>A laugh, a look between them, which is held into +significance</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>who is not facing them</i>) Where's the salt?</p> +<p>DICK: Oh, I fell down in the snow. I must have left the salt +where I fell. I'll go back and look for it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And change the temperature? We don't need salt.</p> +<p>HARRY: You don't need salt, Claire. But we eat eggs.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I must tell you I don't like the idea of any food being +eaten here, where things have their own way to go. Please eat as +little as possible, and as quickly.</p> +<p>HARRY: A hostess calculated to put one at one's ease.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with no ill-nature</i>) I care nothing about your +ease. Or about Dick's ease.</p> +<p>DICK: And no doubt that's what makes you so fascinating a +hostess.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Was I a fascinating hostess last night, Dick? (<i>softly +sings</i>) 'Oh, night of love—' (<i>from the Barcorole of +'Tales of Hoffman'</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: We've got to have salt.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He starts for the door.</i> CLAIRE <i>slips in +ahead of him, locks it, takes the key. He marches off, +right</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>calling after him</i>) That end's always locked.</p> +<p>DICK: Claire darling, I wish you wouldn't say those startling +things. You do get away with it, but I confess it gives me a +shock—and really, it's unwise.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Haven't you learned that the best place to hide is in +the truth? (<i>as</i> HARRY <i>returns</i>) Why won't you believe +me, Harry, when I tell you the truth—about doors being +locked?</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire, it's selfish of you to keep us from eating salt +just because you don't eat salt.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with one of her swift changes</i>) Oh, Harry! Try +your egg without salt. Please—please try it without salt! +(<i>an intensity which seems all out of proportion to the +subject</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: An egg demands salt.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: 'An egg demands salt.' Do you know, Harry, why you are +such an unseasoned person? 'An egg demands salt.'</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, it doesn't always get it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But your spirit gets no lift from the salt withheld.</p> +<p>HARRY: Not an inch of lift. (<i>going back to his +breakfast</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And pleased—so pleased with itself, for getting no +lift. Sure, it is just the right kind of spirit—because it +gets no lift. (<i>more brightly</i>) But, Dick, you must have tried +your egg without salt.</p> +<p>DICK: I'll try it now. (<i>he goes to the breakfast +table</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You must have tried and tried things. Isn't that the way +one leaves the normal and gets into the byways of perversion?</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire.</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>pushing back his egg</i>) If so, I prefer to wait for +the salt.</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire, there is a <i>limit</i>.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Precisely what I had in mind. To perversion too there is +a limit. So—the fortifications are unassailable. If one ever +does get out, I suppose it is—quite unexpectedly, and +perhaps—a bit terribly.</p> +<p>HARRY: Get out where?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with a bright smile</i>) Where you, darling, will +never go.</p> +<p>HARRY: And from which you, darling, had better beat it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I wish I could. (<i>to herself</i>) No—no I don't +either</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Again this troubled thing turns her to the +plant. She puts by themselves the two which</i> ANTHONY <i>covered +with paper bags. Is about to remove these papers</i>. HARRY +<i>strikes a match</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>turning sharply</i>) You can't smoke here. The +plants are not used to it.</p> +<p>HARRY: Then I should think smoking would be just the thing for +them.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: There is design.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>to</i> DICK) Am I supposed to be answered? I never +can be quite sure at what moment I am answered.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>They both watch</i> CLAIRE, <i>who has uncovered +the plants and is looking intently into the flowers. From a drawer +she takes some tools. Very carefully gives the rose pollen to an +unfamiliar flower—rather wistfully unfamiliar, which stands +above on a small shelf near the door of the inner room</i>.)</p> +<p>DICK: What is this you're doing, Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Pollenizing. Crossing for fragrance.</p> +<p>DICK: It's all rather mysterious, isn't it?</p> +<p>HARRY: And Claire doesn't make it any less so.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Can I make life any less mysterious?</p> +<p>HARRY: If you know what you are doing, why can't you tell +Dick?</p> +<p>DICK: Never mind. After all, why should I be told? (<i>he turns +away</i>)</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>At that she wants to tell him. Helpless, as one +who cannot get across a stream, starts uncertainly</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I want to give fragrance to Breath of Life (<i>faces the +room beyond the wall of glass</i>)—the flower I have created +that is outside what flowers have been. What has gone out should +bring fragrance from what it has left. But no definite fragrance, +no limiting enclosing thing. I call the fragrance I am trying to +create Reminiscence. (<i>her hand on the pot of the wistful little +flower she has just given pollen</i>) Reminiscent of the rose, the +violet, arbutus—but a new thing—itself. Breath of Life +may be lonely out in what hasn't been. Perhaps some day I can give +it reminiscence.</p> +<p>DICK: I see, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I wonder if you do.</p> +<p>HARRY: Now, Claire, you're going to be gay to-day, aren't you? +These are Tom's last couple of days with us.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: That doesn't make me especially gay.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, you want him to remember you as yourself, don't +you?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I would like him to. Oh—I would like him to!</p> +<p>HARRY: Then be amusing. That's really you, isn't it, Dick?</p> +<p>DICK: Not quite all of her—I should say.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>gaily</i>) Careful, Dick. Aren't you indiscreet? +Harry will be suspecting that I am your latest strumpet.</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire! What language you use! A person knowing you only +by certain moments could never be made to believe you are a refined +woman.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: True, isn't it, Dick?</p> +<p>HARRY: It would be a good deal of a lark to let them listen in +at times—then tell them that here is the flower of New +England!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Well, if this is the flower of New England, then the +half has never been told.</p> +<p>DICK: About New England?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I thought I meant that. Perhaps I meant—about +me.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>going on with his own entertainment</i>) Explain that +this is what came of the men who made the laws that made New +England, that here is the flower of those gentlemen of culture +who—</p> +<p>DICK: Moulded the American mind!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh! (<i>it is pain</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Now what's the matter?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I want to get away from them!</p> +<p>HARRY: Rest easy, little one—you do.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm not so sure—that I do. But it can be done! We +need not be held in forms moulded for us. There is +outness—and otherness.</p> +<p>HARRY: Now, Claire—I didn't mean to start anything +serious.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No; you never mean to do that. I want to break it up! I +tell you, I want to break it up! If it were all in pieces, we'd be +(<i>a little laugh</i>) shocked to aliveness (<i>to</i> +DICK)—wouldn't we? There would be strange new comings +together—mad new comings together, and we would know what it +is to be born, and then we might know—that we are. Smash it. +(<i>her hand is near an egg</i>) As you'd smash an egg. (<i>she +pushes the egg over the edge of the table and leans over and looks, +as over a precipice</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>with a sigh</i>) Well, all you've smashed is the egg, +and all that amounts to is that now Tom gets no egg. So that's +that.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with difficulty, drawing herself back from the +fascination of the precipice</i>) You think I can't smash anything? +You think life can't break up, and go outside what it was? Because +you've gone dead in the form in which you found yourself, you think +that's all there is to the whole adventure? And that is called +sanity. And made a virtue—to lock one in. You never worked +with things that grow! Things that take a sporting chance—go +mad—that sanity mayn't lock them in—from life +untouched—from life—that waits, (<i>she turns toward +the inner room</i>) Breath of Life. (<i>she goes in there</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Oh, I wish Claire wouldn't be strange like that, +(<i>helplessly</i>) What is it? What's the matter?</p> +<p>DICK: It's merely the excess of a particularly rich +temperament.</p> +<p>HARRY: But it's growing on her. I sometimes wonder if all this +(<i>indicating the place around him</i>) is a good thing. It would +be all right if she'd just do what she did in the +beginning—make the flowers as good as possible of their kind. +That's an awfully nice thing for a woman to do—raise flowers. +But there's something about this—changing things into other +things—putting things together and making queer new +things—this—</p> +<p>DICK: Creating?</p> +<p>HARRY: Give it any name you want it to have—it's +unsettling for a woman. They say Claire's a shark at it, but what's +the good of it, if it gets her? What is the good of it, anyway? +Suppose we can produce new things. Lord—look at the one ones +we've got. (<i>looks outside; turns back</i>) Heavens, what a noise +the wind does make around this place, (<i>but now it is not all the +wind, but</i> TOM EDGEWORTHY, <i>who is trying to let himself in at +the locked door, their backs are to him</i>) I want my <i>egg</i>. +You can't eat an egg without salt. I must say I don't get Claire +lately. I'd like to have Charlie Emmons see her—he's fixed up +a lot of people shot to pieces in the war. Claire needs something +to tone her nerves <i>up</i>. You think it would irritate her?</p> +<p>DICK: She'd probably get no little entertainment out of it.</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes, dog-gone her, she would. (TOM <i>now takes more +heroic measures to make himself heard at the door</i>) +Funny—how the wind can fool you. Now by not looking around I +could imagine—why, I could imagine anything. Funny, isn't it, +about imagination? And Claire says I haven't got any!</p> +<p>DICK: It would make an amusing drawing—what the wind makes +you think is there. (<i>first makes forms with his hands, then +levelling the soil prepared by</i> ANTHONY, <i>traces lines with +his finger</i>) Yes, really—quite jolly.</p> +<p class="dir">(TOM, <i>after a moment of peering in at them, +smiles, goes away.</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: You're another one of the queer ducks, aren't you? Come +now—give me the dirt. Have you queer ones really got +anything—or do you just put it over on us that you have?</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>smiles, draws on</i>) Not saying anything, eh? Well, I +guess you're wise there. If you keep mum—how are we going to +prove there's nothing there?</p> +<p>DICK: I don't keep mum. I draw.</p> +<p>HARRY: Lines that don't make anything—how can they tell +you anything? Well, all I ask is, don't make Claire queer. Claire's +a first water good sport—really, so don't encourage her to be +queer.</p> +<p>DICK: Trouble is, if you're queer enough to be amusing, it +might—open the door to queerness.</p> +<p>HARRY: Now don't say things like that to Claire.</p> +<p>DICK: I don't have to.</p> +<p>HARRY: Then <i>you</i> think she's queer, do you? Queer as you +are, you think she's queer. I would like to have Dr Emmons come +out. (<i>after a moment of silently watching</i> DICK, <i>who is +having a good time with his drawing</i>) You know, frankly, I doubt +if you're a good influence for Claire. (DICK <i>lifts his head ever +so slightly</i>) Oh, I don't worry a bit about—things a +husband might worry about. I suppose an intellectual +woman—and for all Claire's hate of her ancestors, she's got +the bug herself. Why, she has times of boring into things until she +doesn't know you're there. What do you think I caught her doing the +other day? Reading Latin. Well—a woman that reads Latin +needn't worry a husband much.</p> +<p>DICK: They said a good deal in Latin.</p> +<p>HARRY: But I was saying, I suppose a woman who lives a good deal +in her mind never does have much—well, what you might call +passion, (<i>uses the word as if it shouldn't be used. Brows +knitted, is looking ahead, does not see</i> DICK<i>'s face. Turning +to him with a laugh</i>) I suppose you know pretty much all there +is to know about women?</p> +<p>DICK: Perhaps one or two details have escaped me.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, for that matter, you might know all there is to +know about women and not know much about Claire. But now about +(<i>does not want to say passion again</i>)—oh, +feeling—Claire has a certain—well, a certain—</p> +<p>DICK: Irony?</p> +<p>HARRY: Which is really more—more—</p> +<p>DICK: More fetching, perhaps.</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes! Than the thing itself. But of course—you +wouldn't have much of a thing that you have irony about.</p> +<p>DICK: Oh—wouldn't you! I mean—a man might.</p> +<p>HARRY: I'd like to talk to Edgeworth about Claire. But it's not +easy to talk to Tom about Claire—or to Claire about Tom.</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>alert</i>) They're very old friends, aren't they?</p> +<p>HARRY: Why—yes, they are. Though they've not been together +much of late years, Edgeworthy always going to the ends of the +earth to—meditate about something. I must say I don't get it. +If you have a place—that's the place for you to be. And he +did have a place—best kind of family connections, and it was +a very good business his father left him. Publishing +business—in good shape, too, when old Edgeworthy died. I +wouldn't call Tom a great success in life—but Claire does +listen to what he says.</p> +<p>DICK: Yes, I've noticed that.</p> +<p>HARRY: So, I'd like to get him to tell her to quit this queer +business of making things grow that never grew before.</p> +<p>DICK: But are you sure that's what he would tell her? Isn't he +in the same business himself?</p> +<p>HARRY: Why, he doesn't raise anything.</p> +<p class="dir">(TOM <i>is again at the door</i>.)</p> +<p>DICK: Anyway, I think he might have some idea that we can't very +well reach each other.</p> +<p>HARRY: Damn nonsense. What have we got intelligence for?</p> +<p>DICK: To let each other alone, I suppose. Only we haven't enough +to do it.</p> +<p class="dir">(TOM <i>is now knocking on the door with a +revolver</i>. HARRY <i>half turns, decides to be too intelligent to +turn</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: Don't tell me I'm getting nerves. But the way some of you +people talk is enough to make even an aviator jumpy. Can't reach +each other! Then we're fools. If I'm here and you're there, why +can't we reach each other?</p> +<p>DICK: Because I am I and you are you.</p> +<p>HARRY: No wonder your drawing's queer. A man who can't reach +another man—(TOM <i>here reaches them by pointing the +revolver in the air and firing it</i>. DICK <i>digs his hand into +the dirt</i>. HARRY <i>jumps to one side, fearfully looks +around</i>. TOM, <i>with a pleased smile to see he at last has +their attention, moves the handle to indicate he would be glad to +come in</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: Why—it's Tom! What the—? (<i>going to the +door</i>) He's locked out. And Claire's got the key. (<i>goes to +the inner door, tries it</i>) And she's locked in! (<i>trying to +see her in there</i>) Claire! Claire! (<i>returning to the outer +door</i>) Claire's got the key—and I can't get to Claire. +(<i>makes a futile attempt at getting the door open without a key, +goes back to inner door—peers, pounds</i>) Claire! Are you +there? Didn't you hear the revolver? Has she gone down the cellar? +(<i>tries the trap-door</i>) Bolted! Well, I love the way she keeps +people locked out!</p> +<p>DICK: And in.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>getting angry, shouting at the trap-door</i>) Didn't +you hear the revolver? (<i>going to</i> TOM) Awfully sorry, old +man, but—(<i>in astonishment to</i> DICK) He can't hear me. +(TOM, <i>knocking with the revolver to get their attention, makes a +gesture of inquiry with it</i>) No—no—no! Is he asking +if he shall shoot himself? (<i>shaking his head violently</i>) Oh, +no—no! Um—<i>um</i>!</p> +<p>DICK: Hardly seems a man would shoot himself because he can't +get to his breakfast.</p> +<p>HARRY: I'm coming to believe people would do anything! (TOM +<i>is making another inquiry with the revolver</i>) No! not here. +Don't shoot yourself. (<i>trying hard to get the word through</i>) +<i>Shoot</i> yourself. I mean—don't, (<i>petulantly to</i> +DICK) It's ridiculous that you can't make a man understand you when +he looks right at you like that. (<i>turning back to</i> TOM) Read +my lips. Lips. I'm saying—Oh damn. Where is Claire? All +right—I'll explain it with motions. We wanted the salt ... +(<i>going over it to himself</i>) and Claire wouldn't let us go out +for it on account of the temperature. Salt. Temperature. (<i>takes +his egg-cup to the door, violent motion of shaking in salt</i>) +But—no (<i>shakes his head</i>) No salt. (<i>he then takes +the thermometer, a flower pot, holds them up to</i> TOM) On account +of the temperature. Tem-per-a—(TOM <i>is not getting it</i>) +Oh—well, what can you do when a man don't <i>get</i> a thing? +(TOM <i>seems to be preparing the revolver for action</i>. HARRY +<i>pounds on the inner door</i>) Claire! Do you want Tom to shoot +himself?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>As he looks in there, the trap-door lifts, and +CLAIRE comes half-way up.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Why, what is Tom doing out there, with a revolver?</p> +<p>HARRY: He is about to shoot himself because you've locked him +out from his breakfast.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: He must know more interesting ways of destroying +himself. (<i>bowing to</i> TOM) Good morning. (<i>from his side of +the glass</i> TOM <i>bows and smiles back</i>) Isn't it +strange—our being in here—and he being out there?</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire, have you no ideas of hospitality? Let him in!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: In? Perhaps that isn't hospitality.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, whatever hospitality is, what is out there is +snow—and wind—and our guest—who was asked to come +here for his breakfast. To think a man has to <i>such</i> +things.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm going to let him in. Though I like his looks out +there. (<i>she takes the key from her pocket</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Thank heaven the door's coming open. Somebody can go for +salt, and we can have our eggs.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And open the door again—to let the salt in? No. If +you insist on salt, tell Tom now to go back and get it. It's a +stormy morning and there'll be just one opening of the door.</p> +<p>HARRY: How can we tell him what we can't make him hear? And why +does he think we're holding this conversation instead of letting +him in?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It would be interesting to know. I wonder if he'll tell +us?</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire! Is this any time to wonder anything?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Give up the idea of salt for your egg and I'll let him +in. (<i>holds up the key to</i> TOM to indicate that for her part +she is quite ready to let him in)</p> +<p>HARRY: I want my egg!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Then ask him to bring the salt. It's quite simple.</p> +<p class="dir">(HARRY <i>goes through another pantomime with the +egg-cup and the missing shaker.</i> CLAIRE, <i>still standing +half-way down cellar, sneezes.</i> HARRY, <i>growing all the while +less amiable, explains with thermometer and flower-pot that there +can only be one opening of the door.</i> TOM <i>looks interested, +but unenlightened. But suddenly he smiles, nods, vanishes.</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, thank heaven (<i>exhausted</i>) that's over.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>sitting on the top step</i>) It was all so queer. He +locked out on his side of the door. You locked in on yours. Looking +right at each other and—</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>in mockery</i>) And me trying to tell him to kindly +fetch the salt!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>to</i> DICK) Well, I didn't do so bad a job, did I? +Quite an idea, explaining our situation with the thermometer and +the flower-pot. That was really an apology for keeping him out +there. Heaven knows—some explanation was in order, (<i>he is +watching, and sees</i> TOM <i>coming</i>) Now there he is, Claire. +And probably pretty well fed up with the weather.</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE <i>goes to the door, stops before it. She +and</i> TOM <i>look at each other through the glass. Then she lets +him in.</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: And now I am in. For a time it seemed I was not to be in. +But after I got the idea that you were keeping me out there to see +if I could get the idea—it would be too humiliating for a +wall of glass to keep one from understanding. (<i>taking it from +his pocket</i>) So there's the other thermometer. Where do you want +it? (CLAIRE <i>takes it</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And where's the pepper?</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>putting it on the table</i>) And here's the pepper.</p> +<p>HARRY: Pepper?</p> +<p>TOM: When Claire sneezed I knew—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, I knew if I sneezed you would bring the pepper.</p> +<p>TOM: Funny how one always remembers the salt, but the pepper +gets overlooked in preparations. And what is an egg without +pepper?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>nastily</i>) There's your egg, Edgeworth. +(<i>pointing to it on the floor</i>) Claire decided it would be a +good idea to smash everything, so she began with your egg.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>looking at his egg</i>) The idea of smashing everything +is really more intriguing than an egg.</p> +<p>HARRY: Nice that you feel that way about it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>giving</i> TOM <i>his coffee</i>) You want to hear +something amusing? I married Harry because I thought he would smash +something.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, that was an error in judgment.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm such a naive trusting person (HARRY +<i>laughs</i>—CLAIRE <i>gives him a surprised look, continues +simply</i>). Such a guileless soul that I thought flying would do +something to a man. But it didn't take us out. We just took it +in.</p> +<p>TOM: It's only our own spirit can take us out.</p> +<p>HARRY: Whatever you mean by out.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>after looking intently at</i> TOM, <i>and +considering it</i>) But our own spirit is not something on the +loose. Mine isn't. It has something to do with what I do. To fly. +To be free in air. To look from above on the world of all my days. +Be where man has never been! Yes—wouldn't you think the +spirit could get the idea? The earth grows smaller. I am leaving. +What are they—running around down there? Why do they run +around down there? Houses? Houses are funny lines and down-going +slants—houses are vanishing slants. I am alone. Can I breathe +this rarer air? Shall I go higher? Shall I go too high? I am loose. +I am out. But no; man flew, and returned to earth the man who left +it.</p> +<p>HARRY: And jolly well likely not to have returned at all if he'd +had those flighty notions while operating a machine.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh, Harry! (<i>not lightly asked</i>) Can't you see it +would be better not to have returned than to return the man who +left it?</p> +<p>HARRY: I have some regard for human life.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Why, no—I am the one who has the regard for human +life, (<i>more lightly</i>) That was why I swiftly divorced my +stick-in-the-mud artist and married—the man of flight. But I +merely passed from a stick-in-the-mud artist to a—</p> +<p>DICK: Stick-in-the-air aviator?</p> +<p>HARRY: Speaking of your stick-in-the-mud artist, as you +romantically call your first blunder, isn't his daughter—and +yours—due here to-day?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I knew something was disturbing me. Elizabeth. A +daughter is being delivered unto me this morning. I have a feeling +it will be more painful than the original delivery. She has been, +as they quaintly say, educated; prepared for her place in life.</p> +<p>HARRY: And fortunately Claire has a sister who is willing to +give her young niece that place.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: The idea of giving anyone a place in life.</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes! The very idea!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes! (<i>as often, the mocking thing gives true +expression to what lies sombrely in her</i>) The war. There was +another gorgeous chance.</p> +<p>HARRY: Chance for what? I call you, Claire. I ask you to say +what you mean.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I don't know—precisely. If I did—there'd be +no use saying it. (<i>at</i> HARRY's <i>impatient exclamation she +turns to</i> TOM)</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>nodding</i>) The only thing left worth saying is the +thing we can't say.</p> +<p>HARRY: Help!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes. But the war didn't help. Oh, it was a stunning +chance! But fast as we could—scuttled right back to the trim +little thing we'd been shocked out of.</p> +<p>HARRY: You bet we did—showing our good sense.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Showing our incapacity—for madness.</p> +<p>HARRY: Oh, come now, Claire—snap out of it. You're not +really trying to say that capacity for madness is a good thing to +have?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>in simple surprise</i>) Why yes, of course.</p> +<p>DICK: But I should say the war did leave enough madness to give +you a gleam of hope.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Not the madness that—breaks through. And it +was—a stunning chance! Mankind massed to kill. We have +failed. We are through. We will destroy. Break this up—it +can't go farther. In the air above—in the sea below—it +is to kill! All we had thought we were—we aren't. We were +shut in with what wasn't so. Is there one ounce of energy has not +gone to this killing? Is there one love not torn in two? Throw it +in! Now? Ready? Break up. Push. Harder. Break up. And +then—and then—But we didn't say—'And then—' +The spirit didn't take the tip.</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire! Come now (<i>looking to the others for +help</i>)—let's talk of something else.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Plants do it. The big leap—it's called. Explode +their species—because something in them knows they've gone as +far as they can go. Something in them knows they're shut in to just +that. So—go mad—that life may not be prisoned. Break +themselves up into crazy things—into lesser things, and from +the pieces—may come one sliver of life with vitality to find +the future. How beautiful. How brave.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>as if he would call her from too far—or would let +her know he has gone with her</i>) Claire!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>her eyes turning to him</i>) Why should we mind +lying under the earth? We who have no such initiative—no +proud madness? Why think it death to lie under life so +flexible—so ruthless and ever-renewing?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>from the door of the inner room</i>) Miss +Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>after an instant</i>) Yes? (<i>she goes with him, as +they disappear his voice heard</i>,'show me now ... want those +violets bedded')</p> +<p>HARRY: Oh, this has got to <i>stop</i>. I've got to—put a +stop to it some way. Why, Claire used to be the best sport a man +ever played around with. I can't stand it to see her getting +hysterical.</p> +<p>TOM: That was not hysterical.</p> +<p>HARRY: What was it then—I want to know?</p> +<p>TOM: It was—a look.</p> +<p>HARRY: Oh, I might have known I'd get no help from either of +you. Even you, Edgeworthy—much as she thinks of you—and +fine sort as I've no doubt you are, you're doing Claire no +good—encouraging her in these queer ways.</p> +<p>TOM: I couldn't change Claire if I would.</p> +<p>HARRY: And wouldn't if you could.</p> +<p>TOM: No. But you don't have to worry about me. I'm going away in +a day or two. And I shall not be back.</p> +<p>HARRY: Trouble with you is, it makes little difference whether +you're here or away. Just the fact of your existence does encourage +Claire in this—this way she's going.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>with a smile</i>) But you wouldn't ask me to go so far +as to stop my existence? Though I would do that for Claire—if +it were the way to help her.</p> +<p>HARRY: By Jove, you say that as if you meant it.</p> +<p>TOM: Do you think I would say anything about Claire I didn't +mean?</p> +<p>HARRY: You think a lot of her, don't you? (TOM <i>nods</i>) You +don't mean (<i>a laugh letting him say it</i>)—that +you're—in love with Claire!</p> +<p>TOM: In love? Oh, that's much too easy. Certainly I do love +Claire.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, you're a cool one!</p> +<p>TOM: Let her be herself. Can't you see she's troubled?</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, what is there to trouble Claire? Now I ask you. It +seems to me she has everything.</p> +<p>TOM: She's left so—open. Too exposed, (<i>as</i> HARRY +<i>moves impatiently</i>) Please don't be annoyed with me. I'm +doing my best at saying it. You see Claire isn't hardened into one +of those forms she talks about. She's too—aware. Always +pulled toward what could be—tormented by the lost +adventure.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, there's danger in all that. Of course there's +danger.</p> +<p>TOM: But you can't help that.</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire was the best fun a woman could be. Is yet—at +times.</p> +<p>TOM: Let her be—at times. As much as she can and will. She +does need that. Don't keep her from it by making her feel you're +holding her in it. Above all, don't try to stop what she's doing +here. If she can do it with plants, perhaps she won't have to do it +with herself.</p> +<p>HARRY: Do what?</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>low, after a pause</i>) Break up what exists. Open the +door to destruction in the hope of—a door on the far side of +destruction.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, you give me the willies, (<i>moves around in +irritation, troubled. To</i> ANTHONY, <i>who is passing through +with a sprayer</i>) Anthony, have any arrangements been made about +Miss Claire's daughter?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: I haven't heard of any arrangements.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, she'll have to have some heat in her room. We can't +all live out here.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Indeed you cannot. It is not good for the plants.</p> +<p>HARRY: I'm going where I can <i>smoke</i>, (<i>goes out</i>)</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>lightly, but fascinated by the idea</i>) You think +there is a door on the—hinter side of destruction?</p> +<p>TOM: How can one tell—where a door may be? One thing I +want to say to you—for it is about you. (<i>regards</i> DICK +<i>and not with his usual impersonal contemplation</i>) I don't +think Claire should have—any door closed to her. +(<i>pause</i>) You know, I think, what I mean. And perhaps you can +guess how it hurts to say it. Whether it's—mere escape +within,—rather shameful escape within, or the wild hope of +that door through, it's—(<i>suddenly all human</i>) Be good +to her! (<i>after a difficult moment, smiles</i>) Going away for +ever is like dying, so one can say things.</p> +<p>DICK: Why do you do it—go away for ever?</p> +<p>TOM: I haven't succeeded here.</p> +<p>DICK: But you've tried the going away before.</p> +<p>TOM: Never knowing I would not come back. So that wasn't going +away. My hope is that this will be like looking at life from +outside life.</p> +<p>DICK: But then you'll not be in it.</p> +<p>TOM: I haven't been able to look at it while in it.</p> +<p>DICK: Isn't it more important to be in it than to look at +it?</p> +<p>TOM: Not what I mean by look.</p> +<p>DICK: It's hard for me to conceive of—loving Claire and +going away from her for ever.</p> +<p>TOM: Perhaps it's harder to do than to conceive of.</p> +<p>DICK: Then why do it?</p> +<p>TOM: It's my only way of keeping her.</p> +<p>DICK: I'm afraid I'm like Harry now. I don't get you.</p> +<p>TOM: I suppose not. Your way is different, (<i>with calm, with +sadness—not with malice</i>) But I shall have her longer. And +from deeper.</p> +<p>DICK: I know that.</p> +<p>TOM: Though I miss much. Much, (<i>the buzzer</i>. TOM <i>looks +around to see if anyone is coming to answer it, then goes to the +phone</i>) Yes?... I'll see if I can get her. (<i>to</i> DICK) +Claire's daughter has arrived, (<i>looking in the inner +room—returns to phone</i>) I don't see her. (<i>catching a +glimpse of ANTHONY off right</i>) Oh, Anthony, where's Miss Claire? +Her daughter has arrived.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: She's working at something very important in her +experiments.</p> +<p>DICK: But isn't her daughter one of her experiments?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>after a baffled moment</i>) Her daughter is +finished.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>at the phone</i>) Sorry—but I can't get to +Claire. She appears to have gone below. (ANTHONY <i>closes the +trap-door</i>) I did speak to Anthony, but he says that Claire is +working at one of her experiments and that her daughter is +finished. I don't know how to make her hear—I took the +revolver back to the house. Anyway you will remember Claire doesn't +answer the revolver. I hate to reach Claire when she doesn't want +to be reached. Why, of course—a daughter is very important, +but oh, that's too bad. (<i>putting down the receiver</i>) He says +the girl's feelings are hurt. Isn't that annoying? (<i>gingerly +pounds on the trap-door. Then with the other hand. Waits</i>. +ANTHONY <i>has a gentle smile for the gentle tapping—nods +approval as,</i> TOM <i>returns to the phone</i>) She doesn't come +up. Indeed I did—with both fists—Sorry.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Please, you won't try again to disturb Miss Claire, +will you?</p> +<p>DICK: Her daughter is here, Anthony. She hasn't seen her +daughter for a year.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Well, if she got along without a mother for a +year—(<i>goes back to his work</i>)</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>smiling after</i> ANTHONY) Plants are queer. Perhaps +it's <i>safer</i> to do it with pencil (<i>regards</i> +TOM)—or with pure thought. Things that grow in the +earth—</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>nodding</i>) I suppose because we grew in the +earth.</p> +<p>DICK: I'm always shocked to find myself in agreement with Harry, +but I too am worried about Claire—and this, (<i>looking at +the plants</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: It's her best chance.</p> +<p>DICK: Don't you hate to go away to India—for +ever—leaving Claire's future uncertain?</p> +<p>TOM: You're cruel now. And you knew that you were being +cruel.</p> +<p>DICK: Yes, I like the lines of your face when you suffer.</p> +<p>TOM: The lines of yours when you're causing suffering—I +don't like them.</p> +<p>DICK: Perhaps that's your limitation.</p> +<p>TOM: I grant you it may be. (<i>They are silent</i>) I had an +odd feeling that you and I sat here once before, long ago, and that +we were plants. And you were a beautiful plant, and I—I was a +very ugly plant. I confess it surprised me—finding myself so +ugly a plant.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>A young girl is seen outside</i>. HARRY <i>gets +the door open for her and brings</i> ELIZABETH <i>in</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: There's heat here. And two of your mother's friends. Mr +Demming—Richard Demming—the artist—and I think +you and Mr Edgeworthy are old friends.</p> +<p class="dir">(ELIZABETH <i>comes forward. She is the creditable +young American—well built, poised, 'cultivated', so sound an +expression of the usual as to be able to meet the world with +assurance—assurance which training has made rather graceful. +She is about seventeen—and mature. You feel solid things +behind her</i>.)</p> +<p>TOM: I knew you when you were a baby. You used to kick a great +deal then.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>laughing, with ease</i>) And scream, I haven't a +doubt. But I've stopped that. One does, doesn't one? And it was you +who gave me the idol.</p> +<p>TOM: Proselytizing, I'm afraid.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: I beg—? Oh—<i>yes (laughing +cordially</i>) I <i>see. (she doesn't</i>) I dressed the idol up in +my doll's clothes. They fitted perfectly—the idol was just +the size of my doll Ailine. But mother didn't like the idol that +way, and tore the clothes getting them off. (<i>to</i> HARRY, +<i>after looking around</i>) Is mother here?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>crossly</i>) Yes, she's here. Of course she's here. +And she must know you're here, (<i>after looking in the inner room +he goes to the trap-door and makes a great noise</i>)</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Oh—<i>please</i>. Really—it doesn't make +the least difference.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, all I can say is, your manners are better than your +mother's.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: But you see I don't do anything interesting, so I +have to have good manners. (<i>lightly, but leaving the impression +there is a certain superiority in not doing anything interesting. +Turning cordially to</i> DICK) My father was an artist.</p> +<p>DICK: Yes, I know.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: He was a portrait painter. Do you do portraits?</p> +<p>DICK: Well, not the kind people buy.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: They bought father's.</p> +<p>DICK: Yes, I know he did that kind.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>still irritated</i>) Why, you don't do portraits.</p> +<p>DICK: I did one of you the other day. You thought it was a +milk-can.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>laughing delightedly</i>) No? Not really? Did you +think—How could you think—(<i>as</i> HARRY <i>does not +join the laugh</i>) Oh, I beg your pardon. I—Does mother grow +beautiful roses now?</p> +<p>HARRY: No, she does not.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>The trap-door begins to move</i>. CLAIRE's +<i>head appears</i>.)</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Mother! It's been so long—(<i>she tries to +overcome the difficulties and embrace her mother</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>protecting a box she has</i>) Careful, Elizabeth. We +mustn't upset the lice.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>retreating</i>) Lice? (<i>but quickly equal even +to lice</i>) Oh—yes. You take it—them—off plants, +don't you?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm putting them on certain plants.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>weakly</i>) Oh, I thought you took them off.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>calling</i>) Anthony! (<i>he comes</i>) The lice. +(<i>he takes them from her</i>) (CLAIRE, <i>who has not fully +ascended, looks at</i> ELIZABETH, <i>hesitates, then suddenly +starts back down the stairs</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>outraged</i>) Claire! (<i>slowly she +re-ascends—sits on the top step. After a long pause in which +he has waited for</i> CLAIRE <i>to open a conversation with her +daughter</i>.) Well, and what have you been doing at school all +this time?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Oh—studying.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Studying what?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why—the things one studies, mother.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh! The things one studies. (<i>looks down cellar +again</i>)</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>after another wait</i>) And what have you been doing +besides studying?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Oh—the things one does. Tennis and skating and +dancing and—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: The things one does.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Yes. All the things. The—the things one does. +Though I haven't been in school these last few months, you know. +Miss Lane took us to Europe.</p> +<p>TOM: And how did you like Europe?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>capably</i>) Oh, I thought it was awfully +amusing. All the girls were quite mad about Europe. Of course, I'm +glad I'm an American.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Why?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>laughing</i>) Why—mother! Of course one is +glad one is an American. All the girls—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>turning away</i>) O—h! (<i>a moan under the +breath</i>)</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why, mother—aren't you well?</p> +<p>HARRY: Your mother has been working pretty hard at all this.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Oh, I do so want to know all about it? Perhaps I can +help you! I think it's just awfully amusing that you're doing +something. One does nowadays, doesn't one?—if you know what I +mean. It was the war, wasn't it, made it the thing to do +something?</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>slyly</i>) And you thought, Claire, that the war was +lost.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: The <i>war? Lost!</i> (<i>her capable laugh</i>) +Fancy our losing a war! Miss Lane says we should give +<i>thanks</i>. She says we should each do some expressive +thing—you know what I mean? And that this is the +<i>keynote</i> of the age. Of course, one's own kind of thing. Like +mother—growing flowers.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You think that is one's own kind of thing?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why, of course I do, mother. And so does Miss Lane. +All the girls—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>shaking her head as if to get something out</i>) +S-hoo.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: What is it, mother?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: A fly shut up in my ear—'All the girls!'</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>laughing</i>) Mother was always so amusing. So +<i>different</i>—if you know what I mean. Vacations I've +lived mostly with Aunt Adelaide, you know.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: My sister who is fitted to rear children.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, somebody has to do it.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: And I do love Aunt Adelaide, but I think its going to +be awfully amusing to be around with mother now—and help her +with her work. Help do some useful beautiful thing.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I am not doing any useful beautiful thing.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Oh, but you are, mother. Of course you are. Miss Lane +says so. She says it is your splendid heritage gives you this +impulse to do a beautiful thing for the race. She says you are +doing in your way what the great teachers and preachers behind you +did in theirs.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>who is good for little more</i>) Well, all I can say +is, Miss Lane is stung.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Mother! What a thing to say of Miss Lane. (<i>from +this slipping into more of a little girl manner</i>) Oh, she gave +me a spiel one day about living up to the men I come from.</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE <i>turns and regards her daughter</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You'll do it, Elizabeth.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Well, I don't know. Quite a job, I'll say. Of course, +I'd have to do it in my way. I'm not going to teach or preach or be +a stuffy person. But now that—(<i>she here becomes the +product of a superior school</i>) values have shifted and such +sensitive new things have been liberated in the world—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>low</i>) Don't use those words.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why—why not?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Because you don't know what they mean.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why, of course I know what they mean!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>turning away</i>) You're—stepping on the +plants.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>hastily</i>) Your mother has been working awfully +hard at all this.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Well, now that I'm here you'll let me help you, won't +you, mother?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>trying for control</i>) You +needn't—bother.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: But I <i>want</i> to. Help add to the wealth of the +world.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Will you please get it out of your head that I am adding +to the wealth of the world!</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: But, mother—of course you are. To produce a new +and better kind of plant—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: They may be new. I don't give a damn whether they're +better.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: But—but what are they then?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>as if choked out of her</i>) They're different.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>thinks a minute, then laughs triumphantly</i>) +But what's the use of making them different if they aren't +better?</p> +<p>HARRY: A good square question, Claire. Why don't you answer +it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I don't have to answer it.</p> +<p>HARRY: Why not give the girl a fair show? You never have, you +know. Since she's interested, why not tell her what it is you're +doing?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: She is not interested.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: But I am, mother. Indeed I am. I do want awfully to +understand what you are doing, and help you.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You can't help me, Elizabeth.</p> +<p>HARRY: Why not let her try?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Why do you ask me to do that? This is my own thing. Why +do you make me feel I should—(<i>goes to</i> ELIZABETH) I +will be good to you, Elizabeth. We'll go around together. I haven't +done it, but—you'll see. We'll do gay things. I'll have a lot +of beaus around for you. Anything else. Not—this is—Not +this.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: As you like, mother, of course. I just would have +been so glad to—to share the thing that interests you. +(<i>hurt borne with good breeding and a smile</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire! (<i>which says, 'How can you?'</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>who is looking at</i> ELIZABETH) Yes, I will +try.</p> +<p>TOM: I don't think so. As Claire says—anything else.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why, of course—I don't at all want to +intrude.</p> +<p>HARRY: It'll do Claire good to take someone in. To get down to +brass tacks and actually say what she's driving at.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh—<i>Harry</i>. But yes—I will try. +(<i>does try, but no words come. Laughs</i>) When you come to say +it it's not—One would rather not nail it to a cross of +words—(<i>laughs again</i>) with brass tacks.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>affectionately</i>) But I want to see you put things +into words, Claire, and realize just where you are.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>oddly</i>) You think that's a—good idea?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>in her manner of holding the world capably in her +hands</i>) Now let's talk of something else. I hadn't the least +idea of making mother feel badly.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>desperately</i>) No, we'll go on. Though I don't +know—where we'll end. I can't answer for that. These +plants—(<i>beginning flounderingly</i>) Perhaps they are less +beautiful—less sound—than the plants from which they +diverged. But they have found—otherness, (<i>laughs a little +shrilly</i>) If you know—what I mean.</p> +<p>TOM: Claire—stop this! (<i>To</i> HARRY) This is +wrong.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>excitedly</i>) No; I'm going on. They have been +shocked out of what they were—into something they were not; +they've broken from the forms in which they found themselves. They +are alien. Outside. That's it, outside; if you—know what I +mean.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>not shocked from what she is</i>) But of course, +the object of it all is to make them better plants. Otherwise, what +would be the sense of doing it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>not reached by</i> ELIZABETH) Out +there—(<i>giving it with her hands</i>) lies all that's not +been touched—lies life that waits. Back here—the old +pattern, done again, again and again. So long done it doesn't even +know itself for a pattern—in immensity. But this—has +invaded. Crept a little way into—what wasn't. Strange lines +in life unused. And when you make a pattern new you know a +pattern's made with life. And then you know that anything may +be—if only you know how to reach it. (<i>this has taken form, +not easily, but with great struggle between feeling and +words</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>cordially</i>) Now I begin to get you, Claire. I +never knew before why you called it the Edge Vine.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I should destroy the Edge Vine. It isn't—over the +edge. It's running, back to—'all the girls'. It's a little +afraid of Miss Lane, (<i>looking sombrely at it</i>) You are out, +but you are not alive.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Why, it looks all right, mother.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Didn't carry life with it from the life it left. +Dick—you know what I mean. At least you ought to. (<i>her +ruthless way of not letting anyone's feelings stand in the way of +truth</i>) Then destroy it for me! It's hard to do it—with +the hands that made it.</p> +<p>DICK: But what's the point in destroying it, Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>impatiently</i>) I've told you. It cannot +create.</p> +<p>DICK: But you say you can go on producing it, and it's +interesting in form.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And you think I'll stop with that? Be shut in—with +different life—that can't creep on? (<i>after trying to put +destroying hands upon it</i>) It's hard to—get past what +we've done. Our own dead things—block the way.</p> +<p>TOM: But you're doing it this next time, Claire, (<i>nodding to +the inner room</i>.) In there!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>turning to that room</i>) I'm not sure.</p> +<p>TOM: But you told me Breath of Life has already produced itself. +Doesn't that show it has brought life from the life it left?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But timidly, rather—wistfully. A little homesick. +If it is less sure this time, then it is going back to—Miss +Lane. But if the pattern's clearer now, then it has made friends of +life that waits. I'll know to-morrow.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: You know, something tells me this is +<i>wrong</i>.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: The hymn-singing ancestors are tuning up.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: I don't know what you mean by that, mother +but—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But we will now sing, 'Nearer, my God, to Thee: Nearer +to—'</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>laughingly breaking in</i>) Well, I don't care. +Of course you can make fun at me, but something does tell me this +is wrong. To do what—what—</p> +<p>DICK: What God did?</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: Well—yes. Unless you do it to make them +better—to <i>do</i> it just to do it—that doesn't seem +right to me.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>roughly</i>) 'Right to you!' And that's all you know +of adventure—and of anguish. Do you know it is +you—world of which you're so true a flower—makes me +have to leave? You're there to hold the door shut! Because you're +young and of a gayer world, you think I can't <i>see</i> +them—those old men? Do you know why you're so sure of +yourself? Because you can't <i>feel</i>. Can't feel—the +limitless—out there—a sea just over the hill. I will +not stay with you! (<i>buries her hands in the earth around the +Edge Vine. But suddenly steps back from it as she had from</i> +ELIZABETH) And I will not stay with <i>you! (grasps it as we grasp +what we would kill, is trying to pull it up. They all step forward +in horror. ANTHONY is drawn in by this harm to the plant</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Miss Claire! Miss Claire! The work of years!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: May only make a prison! (<i>struggling with</i> HARRY, +<i>who is trying to stop her</i>) You think I too will die on the +edge? (<i>she has thrown him away, is now struggling with the +vine</i>) Why did I make you? To get past you! (<i>as she twists +it</i>) Oh yes, I know you have thorns! The Edge Vine should have +thorns, (<i>with a long tremendous pull for deep roots, she has it +up. As she holds the torn roots</i>) Oh, I have loved you so! You +took me where I hadn't been.</p> +<p>ELIZABETH: (<i>who has been looking on with a certain practical +horror</i>) Well, I'd say it would be better not to go there!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Now I know what you are for! (<i>flings her arm back to +strike</i> ELIZABETH with the Edge Vine)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>wresting it from her</i>) Claire! Are you mad?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No, I'm not mad. I'm—too sane! (<i>pointing to</i> +ELIZABETH—<i>and the words come from mighty roots</i>) To +think that object ever moved my belly and sucked my breast! +(ELIZABETH <i>hides her face as if struck</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>going to</i> ELIZABETH, <i>turning to</i> CLAIRE) +This is atrocious! You're cruel.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He leads</i> ELIZABETH <i>to the door and out. +After an irresolute moment in which he looks from</i> CLAIRE +<i>to</i> TOM, DICK <i>follows.</i> ANTHONY <i>cannot bear to go. +He stoops to take the Edge Vine from the floor.</i> CLAIRE's +<i>gesture stops him. He goes into the inner room.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>kicking the Edge Vine out of her way, drawing deep +breaths, smiling</i>) O-h. How good I feel! Light! (<i>a movement +as if she could fly</i>) Read me something, Tom dear. Or say +something pleasant—about God. But be very careful what you +say about him! I have a feeling—he's not far off.</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<h3>ACT II</h3> +<p class="scene"><i>Late afternoon of the following day.</i> CLAIRE +<i>is alone in the tower—a tower which is thought to be round +but does not complete the circle. The back is curved, then jagged +lines break from that, and the front is a queer bulging +window—in a curve that leans. The whole structure is as if +given a twist by some terrific force—like something wrong. It +is lighted by an old-fashioned watchman's lantern hanging from the +ceiling; the innumerable pricks and slits in the metal throw a +marvellous pattern on the curved wall—like some masonry that +hasn't been.</i></p> +<p class="scene">There are no windows at back, and there is no door +save an opening in the floor. The delicately distorted rail of a +spiral staircase winds up from below. CLAIRE <i>is seen through the +huge ominous window as if shut into the tower. She is lying on a +seat at the back looking at a book of drawings. To do this she has +left the door of her lantern a little open—and her own face +is clearly seen.</i></p> +<p class="scene">A door is heard opening below; laughing voices, +CLAIRE <i>listens, not pleased.</i></p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>voice coming up</i>) Dear—dear, why do they +make such twisting steps.</p> +<p>HARRY: Take your time, most up now. (HARRY<i>'s head appears, he +looks back.</i>) Making it all right?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: I can't tell yet. (<i>laughingly</i>) No, I don't +think so.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>reaching back a hand for her</i>) The last +lap—is the bad lap. (ADELAIDE <i>is up, and occupied with +getting her breath.</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Since you wouldn't come down, Claire, we thought we'd +come up.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>as</i> CLAIRE <i>does not greet her</i>) I'm sorry +to intrude, but I have to see you, Claire. There are things to be +arranged. (CLAIRE <i>volunteering nothing about arrangements,</i> +ADELAIDE <i>surveys the tower. An unsympathetic eye goes from the +curves to the lines which diverge. Then she looks from the +window</i>) Well, at least you have a view.</p> +<p>HARRY: This is the first time you've been up here?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Yes, in the five years you've had the house I was +never asked up here before.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>amiably enough</i>) You weren't asked up here +now.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Harry asked me.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It isn't Harry's tower. But never mind—since you +don't like it—it's all right.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>her eyes again rebuking the irregularities of the +tower</i>) No, I confess I do not care for it. A round tower should +go on being round.</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire calls this the thwarted tower. She bought the +house because of it. (<i>going over and sitting by her, his hand on +her ankle</i>) Didn't you, old girl? She says she'd like to have +known the architect.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Probably a tiresome person too incompetent to make a +perfect tower.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Well, now he's disposed of, what next?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>sitting down in a manner of capably opening a +conference</i>) Next, Elizabeth, and you, Claire. Just what is the +matter with Elizabeth?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>whose voice is cool, even, as if herself is not +really engaged by this</i>) Nothing is the matter with her. She is +a tower that is a tower.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Well, is that anything against her?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: She's just like one of her father's portraits. They +never interested me. Nor does she. (<i>looks at the drawings which +do interest her</i>)</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: A mother cannot cast off her own child simply because +she does not interest her!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>an instant raising cool eyes to</i> ADELAIDE) Why +can't she?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Because it would be monstrous!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And why can't she be monstrous—if she has to +be?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: You don't have to be. That's where I'm out of patience +with you Claire. You are really a particularly intelligent, +competent person, and it's time for you to call a halt to this +nonsense and be the woman you were meant to be!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>holding the book up to see another way</i>) What +inside dope have you on what I was meant to be?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: I know what you came from.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Well, isn't it about time somebody got loose from that? +What I came from made you, so—</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>stiffly</i>) I see.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: So—you being such a tower of strength, why need I +too be imprisoned in what I came from?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: It isn't being imprisoned. Right there is where you +make your mistake, Claire. Who's in a tower—in an +unsuccessful tower? Not I. I go about in the world—free, +busy, happy. Among people, I have no time to think of myself.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: No. My family. The things that interest them; from +morning till night it's—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, I know you have a large family, Adelaide; five and +Elizabeth makes six.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: We'll speak of Elizabeth later. But if you would just +get out of yourself and enter into other people's lives—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Then I would become just like you. And we should all be +just alike in order to assure one another that we're all just +right. But since you and Harry and Elizabeth and ten million other +people bolster each other up, why do you especially need me?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>not unkindly</i>) We don't need you as much as you +need us.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>a wry face</i>) I never liked what I needed.</p> +<p>HARRY: I am convinced I am the worst thing in the world for you, +Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with a smile for his tactics, but shaking her +head</i>) I'm afraid you're not. I don't know—perhaps you +are.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Well, what is it you want, Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>simply</i>) You wouldn't know if I told you.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: That's rather arrogant.</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes, take a chance, Claire. I have been known to get an +idea—and Adelaide quite frequently gets one.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>the first resentment she has shown</i>) You two feel +very superior, don't you?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: I don't think we are the ones who are feeling +superior.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you are. Very superior to what you think is my +feeling of superiority, comparing my—isolation with your +'heart of humanity'. Soon we will speak of the beauty of common +experiences, of the—Oh, I could say it all before we come to +it.</p> +<p>HARRY: Adelaide came up here to help you, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Adelaide came up here to lock me in. Well, she can't do +it.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>gently</i>) But can't you see that one may do that +to one's self?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>thinks of this, looks suddenly tired—then +smiles</i>) Well, at least I've changed the keys.</p> +<p>HARRY: 'Locked in.' Bunkum. Get that our of your head, Claire. +Who's locked in? Nobody that I know of, we're all free Americans. +Free as air.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: I wish you'd come and hear one of Mr Morley's sermons, +Claire. You're very old-fashioned if you think sermons are what +they used to be.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with interest</i>) And do they still sing 'Nearer, +my God, to Thee'?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: They do, and a noble old hymn it is. It would do you +no harm at all to sing it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>eagerly</i>) Sing it to me, Adelaide. I'd like to +hear you sing it.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: It would be sacrilege to sing it to you in this +mood.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>falling back</i>) Oh, I don't know. I'm not so sure +God would agree with you. That would be one on you, wouldn't +it?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: It's easy to feel one's self set apart!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No, it isn't.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>beginning anew</i>) It's a new age, Claire. +Spiritual values—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Spiritual values! (<i>in her brooding way</i>) So you +have pulled that up. (<i>with cunning</i>) Don't think I don't know +what it is you do.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Well, what do I do? I'm sure I have no idea what +you're talking about.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>affectionately, as</i> CLAIRE <i>is looking with +intentness at what he does not see</i>) What does she do, +Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It's rather clever, what she does. Snatching the +phrase—(<i>a movement as if pulling something up</i>) +standing it up between her and—the life that's there. And by +saying it enough—'We have life! We have life! We have life!' +Very good come-back at one who would really be—'Just so! +<i>We</i> are that. Right this way, please—'That, I suppose +is what we mean by needing each other. All join in the chorus, +'This is it! This is it! This is it!' And anyone who won't join is +to be—visited by relatives, (<i>regarding</i> ADELAIDE +<i>with curiosity</i>) Do you really think that anything is going +on in you?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>stiffly</i>) I am not one to hold myself up as a +perfect example of what the human race may be.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>brightly</i>) Well, that's good.</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Humility's a <i>real</i> thing—not just a fine +name for laziness.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, Lord A'mighty, you can't call Adelaide lazy.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: She stays in one place because she hasn't the energy to +go anywhere else.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>as if the last word in absurdity has been said) +I</i> haven't energy?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>mildly</i>) You haven't any energy at all, Adelaide. +That's why you keep so busy.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: <i>Well</i>—Claire's nerves are in a worse state +than I had realized.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: So perhaps we'd better look at Blake's drawings, +(<i>takes up the book</i>)</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: It would be all right for me to look at Blake's +drawings. You'd better look at the Sistine Madonna, +(<i>affectionately, after she has watched</i> CLAIRE<i>'s face a +moment</i>) What is it, Claire? Why do you shut yourself out from +us?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I told you. Because I do not want to be shut in with +you.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: All of this is not very pleasant for Harry.</p> +<p>HARRY: I want Claire to be gay.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Funny—you should want that, (<i>speaks +unwillingly, a curious, wistful unwillingness</i>) Did you ever say +a preposterous thing, then go trailing after the thing you've said +and find it wasn't so preposterous? Here is the circle we are +in.<i>describes a big circle</i>) Being gay. It shoots little darts +through the circle, and a minute later—gaiety all gone, and +you looking through that little hole the gaiety left.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>going to her, as she is still looking through that +little hole</i>) Claire, dear, I wish I could make you feel how +much I care for you. (<i>simply, with real feeling</i>) You can +call me all the names you like—dull, commonplace, +lazy—that is a new idea, I confess, but the rest of our +family's gone now, and the love that used to be there between us +all—the only place for it now is between you and me. You were +so much loved, Claire. You oughtn't to try and get away from a +world in which you are so much loved, (<i>to</i> HARRY) +Mother—father—all of us, always loved Claire best. We +always loved Claire's queer gaiety. Now you've got to hand it to us +for that, as the children say.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>moved, but eyes shining with a queer bright +loneliness</i>) But never one of you—once—looked with +me through the little pricks the gaiety made—never one of +you—once, looked with me at the queer light that came in +through the pricks.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: And can't you see, dear, that it's better for us we +didn't? And that it would be better for you now if you would just +resolutely look somewhere else? You must see yourself that you +haven't the poise of people who are held—well, within the +circle, if you choose to put it that way. There's something about +being in that main body, having one's roots in the big common +experiences, gives a calm which you have missed. That's <i>why</i> +I want you to take Elizabeth, forget yourself, and—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I do want calm. But mine would have to be a calm +I—worked my way to. A calm all prepared for me—would +stink.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>less sympathetically</i>) I know you have to be +yourself, Claire. But I don't admit you have a right to hurt other +people.</p> +<p>HARRY: I think Claire and I had better take a nice long +trip.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Now why don't you?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I am taking a trip.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Well, Harry isn't, and he'd like to go and wants you +to go with him. Go to Paris and get yourself some awfully +good-looking clothes—and have one grand fling at the gay +world. You really love that, Claire, and you've been awfully dull +lately. I think that's the whole trouble.</p> +<p>HARRY: I think so too.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: This sober business of growing plants—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Not sober—it's mad.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: All the more reason for quitting it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But madness that is the only chance for sanity.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Come, come, now—let's not juggle words.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>springing up</i>) How dare you say that to me, +Adelaide. You who are such a liar and thief and whore with +words!</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>facing her, furious</i>) How <i>dare</i> +you—</p> +<p>HARRY: Of course not, Claire. You have the most preposterous way +of using words.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I respect words.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Well, you'll please respect me enough not to dare use +certain words to me!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, I do dare. I'm tired of what you do—you and +all of you. +Life—experience—values—calm—sensitive words +which raise their heads as indications. And you <i>pull them +up</i>—to decorate your stagnant little minds—and think +that makes you—And because you have pulled that word from the +life that grew it you won't let one who's honest, and aware, and +troubled, try to reach through to—to what she doesn't know is +there, (<i>she is moved, excited, as if a cruel thing has been +done</i>) Why did you come here?</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: To try and help you. But I begin to fear I can't do +it. It's pretty egotistical to claim that what so many people are, +is wrong.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>CLAIRE, after looking intently at ADELAIDE, +slowly, smiling a little, describes a circle. With deftly used +hands makes a quick vicious break in the circle which is there in +the air.</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>going to her, taking her hands</i>) It's getting +close to dinner-time. You were thinking of something else, Claire, +when I told you Charlie Emmons was coming to dinner to-night, +(<i>answering her look</i>) Sure—he is a neurologist, and I +want him to see you. I'm perfectly honest with you—cards all +on the table, you know that. I'm hoping if you like him—and +he's the best scout in the world, that he can help you. (<i>talking +hurriedly against the stillness which follows her look from him to +ADELAIDE, where she sees between them an 'understanding' about +her</i>) Sure you need help, Claire. Your nerves are a little on +the blink—from all you've been doing. No use making a mystery +of it—or a tragedy. Emmons is a cracker-jack, and naturally I +want you to get a move on yourself and be happy again.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>who has gone over to the window</i>) And this +neurologist can make me happy?</p> +<p>HARRY: Can make you well—and then you'll be happy.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>in the voice of now fixing it all up</i>) And I +had just an idea about Elizabeth. Instead of working with mere +plants, why not think of Elizabeth as a plant and—</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE, <i>who has been looking out of the window, +now throws open one of the panes that swings out—or seems to, +and calls down in great excitement.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Tom! <i>Tom!</i> Quick! Up here! I'm in trouble!</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>going to the window</i>) That's a rotten thing to do, +Claire! You've frightened him.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, how fast he can run. He was deep in thought and I +stabbed right through.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, he'll be none too pleased when he gets up here and +finds there was no reason for the stabbing!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>They wait for his footsteps,</i> HARRY +<i>annoyed,</i> ADELAIDE <i>offended, but stealing worried looks +at</i> CLAIRE, <i>who is looking fixedly at the place in the floor +where</i> TOM <i>will appear.—Running footsteps.</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>his voice getting there before he does</i>) Yes, +Claire—yes—yes—(<i>as his head appears</i>) What +is it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>at once presenting him and answering his +question</i>) My sister.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>gasping</i>) Oh,—why—is that all? I +mean—how do you do? Pardon, I (<i>panting</i>) came +up—rather hurriedly.</p> +<p>HARRY: If you want to slap Claire, Tom, I for one have no +objection.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Adelaide has the most interesting idea, Tom. She +proposes that I take Elizabeth and roll her in the gutter. Just let +her lie there until she breaks up into—</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: <i>Claire!</i> I don't see how—even in +fun—pretty vulgar fun—you can speak in those terms of a +pure young girl. I'm beginning to think I had better take +Elizabeth.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh, I've thought that all along.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: And I'm also beginning to suspect that—oddity +may be just a way of shifting responsibility.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>cordially interested in this possibility</i>) Now +you know—that might be.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: A mother who does not love her own child! You are an +unnatural woman, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Well, at least it saves me from being a natural one.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Oh—I know, you think you have a great deal! But +let me tell you, you've missed a great deal! You've never known the +faintest stirring of a mother's love.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: That's not true.</p> +<p>HARRY: No. Claire loved our boy.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm glad he didn't live.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>low</i>) Claire!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I loved him. Why should I want him to live?</p> +<p>HARRY: Come, dear, I'm sorry I spoke of him—when you're +not feeling well.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm feeling all right. <i>Just</i> because I'm seeing +something, it doesn't mean I'm sick.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, let's go down now. About dinner-time. I shouldn't +wonder if Emmons were here. (<i>as ADELAIDE is starting down +stairs</i>) Coming, Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No.</p> +<p>HARRY: But it's time to go down for dinner.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm not hungry.</p> +<p>HARRY: But we have a guest. Two guests—Adelaide's staying +too.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Then you're not alone.</p> +<p>HARRY: But I invited Dr Emmons to meet you.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>her smile flashing</i>) Tell him I am violent +to-night.</p> +<p>HARRY: Dearest—how can you joke about such things!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: So you do think they're serious?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>irritated</i>) No, I do not! But I want you to come +down for dinner!</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Come, come, Claire; you know quite well this is not +the sort of thing one does.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Why go on saying one doesn't, when you are seeing one +does (<i>to</i> TOM) Will you stay with me a while? I want to +purify the tower.</p> +<p class="dir">(ADELAIDE <i>begins to disappear</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Fine time to choose for a +<i>tête-à-tête. (as he is leaving</i>) I'd think +more of you, Edgeworthy, if you refused to humour Claire in her +ill-breeding.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>her severe voice coming from below</i>) It is not +what she was taught.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No, it's not what I was taught, (<i>laughing rather +timidly</i>) And perhaps you'd rather have your dinner?</p> +<p>TOM: No.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: We'll get something later. I want to talk to you. +(<i>but she does not—laughs</i>) Absurd that I should feel +bashful with you. Why am I so awkward with words when I go to talk +to you?</p> +<p>TOM: The words know they're not needed.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No, they're not needed. There's something +underneath—an open way—down below the way that words +can go. (<i>rather desperately</i>) It is there, isn't it?</p> +<p>TOM: Oh, yes, it is there.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Then why do we never—go it?</p> +<p>TOM: If we went it, it would not be there.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Is that true? How terrible, if that is true.</p> +<p>TOM: Not terrible, wonderful—that it should—of +itself—be there.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with the simplicity that can say anything</i>) I +want to go it, Tom, I'm lonely up on top here. Is it that I have +more faith than you, or is it only that I'm greedier? You see, you +don't know (<i>her reckless laugh</i>) what you're missing. You +don't know how I could love you.</p> +<p>TOM: Don't, Claire; that isn't—how it is—between you +and me.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But why can't it be—every way—between you +and me?</p> +<p>TOM: Because we'd lose—the open way. (<i>the quality of +his denial shows how strong is his feeling for her</i>) With anyone +else—not with you.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But you are the only one I want. The only one—all +of me wants.</p> +<p>TOM: I know; but that's the way it is.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You're cruel.</p> +<p>TOM: Oh, Claire, I'm trying so hard to—save it for us. +Isn't it our beauty and our safeguard that underneath our separate +lives, no matter where we may be, with what other, there is this +open way between us? That's so much more than anything we could +bring to being.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Perhaps. But—it's different with me. I'm +not—all spirit.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>his hand on her</i>) Dear!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No, don't touch me—since (<i>moving</i>) you're +going away to-morrow? (<i>he nods</i>) For—always? (<i>his +head just moves assent</i>) India is just another country. But +there are undiscovered countries.</p> +<p>TOM: Yes, but we are so feeble we have to reach our country +through the actual country lying nearest. Don't you do that +yourself, Claire? Reach your country through the plants' +country?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: My country? You mean—outside?</p> +<p>TOM: No, I don't think it that way.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you do.</p> +<p>TOM: Your country is the inside, Claire. The innermost. You are +disturbed because you lie too close upon the heart of life.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>restlessly</i>) I don't know; you can think it one +way—or another. No way says it, and that's good—at +least it's not shut up in saying. (<i>she is looking at her +enclosing hand, as if something is shut up there</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: But also, you know, things may be freed by expression. Come +from the unrealized into the fabric of life.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, but why does the fabric of life have +to—freeze into its pattern? It should (<i>doing it with her +hands</i>) flow, (<i>then turning like an unsatisfied child to +him</i>) But I wanted to talk to you.</p> +<p>TOM: You are talking to me. Tell me about your flower that never +was before—your Breath of Life.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'll know to-morrow. You'll not go until I know?</p> +<p>TOM: I'll try to stay.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It seems to me, if it has—then I have, integrity +in—(<i>smiles, it is as if the smile lets her say it</i>) +otherness. I don't want to die on the edge!</p> +<p>TOM: Not you!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Many do. It's what makes them too smug in +allness—those dead things on the edge, died, +distorted—trying to get through. Oh—don't think I don't +see—The Edge Vine! (<i>a pause, then swiftly</i>) Do you know +what I mean? Or do you think I'm just a fool, or crazy?</p> +<p>TOM: I think I know what you mean, and you know I don't think +you are a fool, or crazy.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Stabbed to awareness—no matter where it takes you, +isn't that more than a safe place to stay? (<i>telling him very +simply despite the pattern of pain in her voice</i>) Anguish may be +a thread—making patterns that haven't been. A +thread—blue and burning.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>to take her from what even he fears for her</i>) But +you were telling me about the flower you breathed to life. What is +your Breath of Life?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>an instant playing</i>) It's a secret. A +secret?—it's a trick. Distilled from the most fragile flowers +there are. It's only air—pausing—playing; except, far +in, one stab of red, its quivering heart—that asks a +question. But here's the trick—I bred the air-form to +strength. The strength shut up behind us I've sent—far out. +(<i>troubled</i>) I'll know tomorrow. And I have another gift for +Breath of Life; some day—though days of work lie in +between—some day I'll give it reminiscence. Fragrance that +is—no one thing in here but—reminiscent. (<i>silence, +she raises wet eyes</i>) We need the haunting beauty from the life +we've left. I need that, (<i>he takes her hands and breathes her +name</i>) Let me reach my country with you. I'm not a plant. After +all, they don't—accept me. Who does—accept me? Will +you?</p> +<p>TOM: My dear—dear, dear, Claire—you move me so! You +stand alone in a clearness that breaks my heart, (<i>her hands move +up his arms. He takes them to hold them from where they would +go—though he can hardly do it</i>) But you've asked what you +yourself could answer best. We'd only stop in the country where +everyone stops.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: We might come through—to radiance.</p> +<p>TOM: Radiance is an enclosing place.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Perhaps radiance lighting forms undreamed, (<i>her +reckless laugh</i>) I'd be willing to—take a chance, I'd +rather lose than never know.</p> +<p>TOM: No, Claire. Knowing you from underneath, I know you +couldn't bear to lose.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Wouldn't men say you were a fool!</p> +<p>TOM: They would.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And perhaps you are. (<i>he smiles a little</i>) I feel +so desperate, because if only I could—show you what I am, you +might see I could have without losing. But I'm a stammering thing +with you.</p> +<p>TOM: You do show me what you are.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I've known a few moments that were life. Why don't they +help me now? One was in the air. I was up with +Harry—flying—high. It was about four months before +David was born—the doctor was furious—pregnant women +are supposed to keep to earth. We were going fast—I +<i>was</i> flying—I had left the earth. And then—within +me, movement, for the first time—stirred to life far in +air—movement within. The man unborn, he too, would fly. And +so—I always loved him. He was movement—and wonder. In +his short life were many flights. I never told anyone about the +last one. His little bed was by the window—he wasn't four +years old. It was night, but him not asleep. He saw the morning +star—you know—the morning star. +Brighter—stranger—reminiscent—and a promise. He +pointed—'Mother', he asked me, 'what is there—beyond +the stars?' A baby, a sick baby—the morning star. Next +night—the finger that pointed was—(<i>suddenly bites +her own finger</i>) But, yes, I am glad. He would always have tried +to move and too much would hold him. Wonder would die—and +he'd laugh at soaring, (<i>looking down, sidewise</i>) Though I +liked his voice. So I wish you'd stay near me—for I like your +voice, too.</p> +<p>TOM: Claire! That's (<i>choked</i>) almost too much.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>one of her swift glances—canny, almost +practical</i>) Well, I'm glad if it is. How can I make it more? +(<i>but what she sees brings its own change</i>) I know what it is +you're afraid of. It's because I have so much—yes, why +shouldn't I say it?—passion. You feel that in me, don't you? +You think it would swamp everything. But that isn't all there is to +me.</p> +<p>TOM: Oh, I know it! My dearest—why, it's because I know +it! You think I <i>am</i>—a fool?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It's a thing that's—sometimes more than I am. And +yet I—I am more than it is.</p> +<p>TOM: I know. I know about you.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I don't know that you do. Perhaps if you really knew +about me—you wouldn't go away.</p> +<p>TOM: You're making me suffer, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I know I am. I want to. Why shouldn't you suffer? +(<i>now seeing it more clearly than she has ever seen it</i>) You +know what I think about you? You're afraid of suffering, and so you +stop this side—in what you persuade yourself is suffering, +(<i>waits, then sends it straight</i>) You know—how it +is—with me and Dick? (<i>as she sees him suffer</i>) Oh, no, +I don't want to hurt you! Let it be you! I'll teach you—you +needn't scorn it. It's rather wonderful.</p> +<p>TOM: Stop that, Claire! That isn't you.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Why are you so afraid—of letting me be +low—if that is low? You see—(<i>cannily</i>) I believe +in beauty. I have the faith that can be bad as well as good. And +you know why I have the faith? Because sometimes—from my +lowest moments—beauty has opened as the sea. From a cave I +saw immensity.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>My love, you're going away—</p> +<p>Let me tell you how it is with me;</p> +<p>I want to touch you—somehow touch you once before I +die—</p> +<p>Let me tell you how it is with me.</p> +<p class="i2">I do not want to work,</p> +<p>I want to be;</p> +<p>Do not want to make a rose or make a poem—</p> +<p>Want to lie upon the earth and know. (<i>closes her +eyes</i>)</p> +<p>Stop doing that!—words going into patterns;</p> +<p>They do it sometimes when I let come what's there.</p> +<p>Thoughts take pattern—then the pattern is the thing.</p> +<p>But let me tell you how it is with me. (<i>it flows +again</i>)</p> +<p>All that I do or say—it is to what it comes from,</p> +<p>A drop lifted from the sea.</p> +<p>I want to lie upon the earth and know.</p> +<p>But—scratch a little dirt and make a flower;</p> +<p>Scratch a bit of brain—something like a poem. (<i>covering +her face</i>)</p> +<p>Stop <i>doing</i> that. Help me stop doing that!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>TOM: (<i>and from the place where she had carried him</i>)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Don't talk at all. Lie still and know—</p> +<p>And know that I am knowing.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>CLAIRE:</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Yes; but we are so weak we have to talk;</p> +<p>To talk—to touch.</p> +<p>Why can't I rest in knowing I would give my life to reach +you?</p> +<p>That has—all there is.</p> +<p>But I must—put my timid hands upon you,</p> +<p>Do something about infinity.</p> +<p>Oh, let what will flow into us,</p> +<p>And fill us full—and leave us still.</p> +<p>Wring me dry,</p> +<p>And let me fill again with life more pure.</p> +<p>To know—to feel,</p> +<p>And do nothing with what I feel and know—</p> +<p>That's being good. That's nearer God.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>drenched in the feeling that has flowed through +her—but surprised—helpless</i>) Why, I said your thing, +didn't I? Opened my life to bring you to me, and what came—is +what sends you away.</p> +<p>TOM: No! What came is what holds us together. What came is what +saves us from ever going apart. (<i>brokenly</i>) My beautiful one. +You—you brave flower of all our knowing.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I am not a flower. I am too torn. If you have +anything—help me. Breathe, Breathe the healing oneness, and +let me know in calm. (<i>with a sob his head rests upon +her</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>her hands on his head, but looking far</i>) +Beauty—you pure one thing. Breathe—Let me know in calm. +Then—trouble me, trouble me, for other moments—in +farther calm. (<i>slow, motionless, barely articulate</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>as she does not move he lifts his head. And even as he +looks at her, she does not move, nor look at him</i>) +Claire—(<i>his hand out to her, a little afraid</i>) You went +away from me then. You are away from me now.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, and I could go on. But I will come back, (<i>it is +hard to do. She brings much with her</i>) That, too, I will give +you—my by-myself-ness. That's the uttermost I can give. I +never thought—to try to give it. But let us do it—the +great sacrilege! Yes! (<i>excited, she rises; she has his hands, +and bring him up beside her</i>) Let us take the mad chance! +Perhaps it's the only way to save—what's there. How do we +know? How can we know? Risk. Risk everything. From all that flows +into us, let it rise! All that we never thought to use to make a +moment—let it flow into what could be! Bring all into life +between us—or send all down to death! Oh, do you know what I +am doing? Risk, risk everything, why are you so afraid to lose? +What holds you from me? Test all. Let it live or let it die. It is +our chance—our chance to bear—what's there. My dear +one—I will love you so. With all of me. I am not afraid +now—of—all of me. Be generous. Be unafraid. Life is for +<i>life</i>—though it cuts us from the farthest life. How can +I make you know that's true? All that we're open +to—(<i>hesitates, shudders</i>) But yes—I will, I will +risk the life that waits. Perhaps only he who gives his +loneliness—shall find. You never keep by holding, (<i>gesture +of giving</i>) To the uttermost. And it is gone—or it is +there. You do not know and—that makes the +moment—(<i>music has begun—a phonograph downstairs; +they do not heed it</i>) Just as I would cut my +wrists—(<i>holding them out</i>) Yes, perhaps this lesser +thing will tell it—would cut my wrists and let the blood flow +out till all is gone if my last drop would make—would +make—(<i>looking at them fascinated</i>) I want to see it +doing that! Let me give my last chance for life to—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He snatches her—they are on the brink of +their moment; now that there are no words the phonograph from +downstairs is louder. It is playing languorously the Barcarole; +they become conscious of this—they do not want to be touched +by the love song.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Don't listen. That's nothing. This isn't that, +(<i>fearing</i>) I tell you—it isn't that. Yes, I +know—that's amorous—enclosing. I know—a little +place. This isn't that, (<i>her arms going around him—all the +lure of 'that' while she pleads against it as it comes up to +them</i>) We will come out—to radiance—in far places +(<i>admitting, using</i>) Oh, then let it be that! Go with it. Give +up—the otherness. I will! And in the giving up—perhaps +a door—we'd never find by searching. And if it's no +more—than all have known, I only say it's worth the allness! +(<i>her arms wrapped round him</i>) My love—my love—let +go your pride in loneliness and let me give you joy!</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>drenched in her passion, but fighting</i>) It's +<i>you</i>. (<i>in anguish</i>) You rare thing +untouched—not—not into this—not back into +this—by me—lover of your apartness.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She steps back. She sees he cannot. She stands +there, before what she wanted more than life, and almost had, and +lost. A long moment. Then she runs down the stairs.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>her voice coming up</i>) Harry! Choke that +phonograph! If you want to be lewd—do it yourselves! You +tawdry things—you cheap little lewd cowards, (<i>a door heard +opening below</i>) Harry! If you don't stop that music, I'll kill +myself.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>far down, steps on stairs</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire, what <i>is</i> this?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Stop that phonograph or I'll—</p> +<p>HARRY: Why, of course I'll stop it. What—what is there to +get so excited about? Now—now just a minute, dear. It'll take +a minute.</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE <i>comes back upstairs, dragging steps, face +ghastly. The amorous song still comes up, and louder now that doors +are open. She and</i> TOM <i>do not look at one another. Then, on a +languorous swell the music comes to a grating stop. They do not +speak or move. Quick footsteps</i>—HARRY <i>comes +up</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: What in the world were you saying, Claire? Certainly you +could have asked me more quietly to turn off the Victrola. Though +what harm was it doing you—way up here? (<i>a sharp little +sound from</i> CLAIRE; <i>she checks it, her hand over her +mouth</i>. HARRY <i>looks from her to</i> TOM) Well, I think you +two would better have had your dinner. Won't you come down now and +have some?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>only now taking her hand from her mouth</i>) Harry, +tell him to come up here—that insanity man. I—want to +ask him something.</p> +<p>HARRY: 'Insanity man!' How absurd. He's a nerve specialist. +There's a vast difference.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Is there? Anyway, ask him to come up here. Want +to—ask him something.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>speaking with difficulty</i>) Wouldn't it be better for +us to go down there?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No. So nice up here! Everybody—up here!</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>worried</i>) You'll—be yourself, will you, +Claire? (<i>She checks a laugh, nods</i>.) I think he can help +you.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Want to ask him to—help me.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>as he is starting down</i>) He's here as a guest +to-night, you know, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I suppose a guest can—help one.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>when the silence rejects it</i>) Claire, you must know, +it's because it is so much, so—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Be still. There isn't anything to say.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>torn—tortured</i>) If it only weren't +<i>you</i>!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes,—so you said. If it weren't. I suppose I +wouldn't be so—interested! (<i>hears them starting up +below—keeps looking at the place where they will +appear</i>)</p> +<p class="dir">(HARRY <i>is heard to call</i>, 'Coming, Dick?' +<i>and</i> DICK's <i>voice replies</i>, 'In a moment or two.' +ADELAIDE <i>comes first</i>.)</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>as her head appears</i>) Well, these stairs should +keep down weight. You missed an awfully good dinner, Claire. And +kept Mr Edgeworth from a good dinner.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes. We missed our dinner. (<i>her eyes do not leave the +place where</i> DR EMMONS <i>will come up</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>as he and</i> EMMONS <i>appear</i>) Claire, this +is—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, I know who he is. I want to ask you—</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Let the poor man get his breath before you ask him +anything. (<i>he nods, smiles, looks at</i> CLAIRE <i>with +interest. Careful not to look too long at her, surveys the +tower</i>)</p> +<p>EMMONS: Curious place.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Yes; it lacks form, doesn't it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: What do you mean? How <i>dare</i> you?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>It is impossible to ignore her agitation; she is +backed against the curved wall, as far as possible from them.</i> +HARRY <i>looks at her in alarm, then in resentment at</i> TOM, +<i>who takes a step nearer</i> CLAIRE.)</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>trying to be light</i>) Don't take it so hard, +Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>to</i> EMMONS) It must be very +interesting—helping people go insane.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Claire! How preposterous.</p> +<p>EMMONS: (<i>easily</i>) I hope that's not precisely what we +do.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>with the smile of one who is going to 'cover +it'.</i>) Trust Claire to put it in the unique and—amusing +way.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Amusing? You are amused? But it doesn't matter, (<i>to +the doctor</i>) I think it is very kind of you—helping people +go insane. I suppose they have all sorts of reasons for having to +do it—reasons why they can't stay sane any longer. But tell +me, how do they do it? It's not so easy to—get out. How do so +many manage it?</p> +<p>EMMONS: I'd like immensely to have a talk with you about all +this some day.</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Certainly this is not the time, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: The time? When you—can't go any +farther—isn't that that—</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>capably taking the whole thing into +matter-of-factness</i>) What I think is, Claire has worked too long +with plants. There's something—not quite sound about making +one thing into another thing. What we need is unity. (<i>from</i> +CLAIRE <i>something like a moan</i>) Yes, dear, we do need it. +(<i>to the doctor</i>) I can't say that I believe in making life +over like this. I don't think the new species are worth it. At +least I don't believe in it for Claire. If one is an intense, +sensitive person—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Isn't there any way to <i>stop</i> her? +Always—always smothering it with the word for it?</p> +<p>EMMONS: (<i>soothingly</i>) But she can't smother it. Anything +that's really there—she can't hurt with words.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>looking at him with eyes too bright</i>) Then you +don't see it either, (<i>angry</i>) Yes, she can hurt it! Piling it +up—always piling it up—between us and—What there. +Clogging the way—always, (<i>to</i> EMMONS) I want to cease +to know! That's all I ask. Darken it. Darken it. If you came to +help me, strike me blind!</p> +<p>EMMONS: You're really all tired out, aren't you? Oh, we've got +to get you rested.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: They—deny it saying they have it; and he (<i>half +looks at</i> TOM<i>—quickly looks away</i>)—others, +deny it—afraid of losing it. We're in the way. Can't you see +the dead stuff piled in the path? (<i>Pointing.</i>)</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>voice coming up</i>) Me too?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>staring at the path, hearing his voice a moment +after it has come</i>) Yes, Dick—you too. Why not—you +too. (<i>after he has come up</i>) What is there any more than you +are?</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>embarrassed by the intensity, but laughing</i>) A +question not at all displeasing to me. Who can answer it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>more and more excited</i>) Yes! Who can answer it? +(<i>going to him, in terror</i>) Let me go with you—and be +with you—and know nothing else!</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: (<i>gasping</i>) Why—!</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire! This is going a little too—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Far? But you have to go far to—(<i>clinging to</i> +DICK) Only a place to hide your head—what else is there to +hope for? I can't stay with them—piling it up! +Always—piling it up! I can't get through to—he won't +let me through to—what I don't know is there! (DICK <i>would +help her regain herself</i>) Don't push me away! Don't—don't +stand me up, I will go back—to the worst we ever were! Go +back—and remember—what we've tried to forget!</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: It's time to stop this by force—if there's no +other way. (<i>the doctor shakes his head</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: All I ask is to die in the gutter with everyone spitting +on me. (<i>changes to a curious weary smiling quiet</i>) Still, why +should they bother to do that?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>brokenly</i>) You're sick, Claire. There's no denying +it. (<i>looks at</i> EMMONS, <i>who nods</i>)</p> +<p>ADELAIDE: Something to quiet her—to stop it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>throwing her arms around</i> DICK) You, Dick. Not +them. Not—any of them.</p> +<p>DICK: Claire, you are overwrought. You must—</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>to</i> DICK, <i>as if only now realizing that phase +of it</i>) I'll tell you one thing, you'll answer to me for this! +(<i>he starts for</i> DICK—<i>is restrained by</i> EMMONS, +<i>chiefly by his grave shake of the head. With</i> HARRY<i>'s move +to them,</i> DICK <i>has shielded</i> CLAIRE)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes—hold me. Keep me. You have mercy! You will +have mercy. Anything—everything—that will let me be +nothing!</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<h3>ACT III</h3> +<p class="scene"><i>In the greenhouse, the same as Act I.</i> +ANTHONY <i>is bedding small plants where the Edge Vine grew. In the +inner room the plant like caught motion glows as from a light +within.</i> HATTIE, <i>the Maid, rushes in from outside.</i></p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>turning angrily</i>) You are not what this +place—</p> +<p>HATTIE: Anthony, come in the house. I'm afraid. Mr Archer, I +never saw him like this. He's talking to Mr Demming—something +about Mrs Archer.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>who in spite of himself is disturbed by her +agitation</i>) And if it is, it's no business of yours.</p> +<p>HATTIE: You don't know how he <i>is</i>. I went in the room +and—</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Well, he won't hurt you, will he?</p> +<p>HATTIE: How do I know who he'll hurt—a person's +whose—(<i>seeing how to get him</i>) Maybe he'll hurt Mrs +Archer.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>startled, then smiles</i>) No; he won't hurt Miss +Claire.</p> +<p>HATTIE: What do you know about it?—out here in the plant +house?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: And I don't want to know about it. This is a very +important day for me. It's Breath of Life I'm thinking of +today—not you and Mr Archer.</p> +<p>HATTIE: Well, suppose he does something to Mr Demming?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Mr Demming will have to look out for himself, I am at +work.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>resuming work</i>)</p> +<p>HATTIE: Don't you think I ought to tell Mrs Archer +that—</p> +<p>ANTHONY: You let her alone! This is no day for her to be +bothered by you. At eleven o'clock (<i>looks at watch</i>) she +comes out here—to Breath of Life.</p> +<p>HATTIE: (<i>with greed for gossip</i>) Did you see any of them +when they came downstairs last night?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: I was attending to my own affairs.</p> +<p>HATTIE: They was all excited. Mr Edgeworth—he went away. +He was gone all night, I guess. I saw him coming back just as the +milkman woke me up. Now he's packing his things. <i>He</i> wanted +to get to Mrs Archer too—just a little while ago. But she +won't open her door for none of them. I can't even get in to do her +room.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Then do some other room—and leave me alone in +this room.</p> +<p>HATTIE: (<i>a little afraid of what she is asking</i>) Is she +sick, Anthony—or what? (<i>vindicating herself, as he gives +her a look</i>) The doctor, he stayed here late. But she'd locked +herself in. I heard Mr Archer—</p> +<p>ANTHONY: You heard too much! (<i>he starts for the door, to make +her leave, but</i> DICK <i>rushes in. Looks around wildly, goes to +the trap-door, finds it locked</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: What are you doing here?</p> +<p>DICK: Trying not to be shot—if you must know. This is the +only place I can think of—till he comes to his senses and I +can get away. Open that, will you? +Rather—ignominious—but better be absurd than be +dead.</p> +<p>HATTIE: Has he got the revolver?</p> +<p>DICK: Gone for it. Thought I wouldn't sit there till he got +back, (<i>to</i> ANTHONY) Look here—don't you get the idea? +Get me some place where he can't come.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: It is not what this place is for.</p> +<p>DICK: Any place is for saving a man's life.</p> +<p>HATTIE: Sure, Anthony. Mrs Archer wouldn't want Mr Demming +shot.</p> +<p>DICK: That's right, Anthony. Miss Claire will be angry at you if +you get me shot. (<i>he makes for the door of the inner +room</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: You can't go in there. It's locked. (HARRY <i>rushes in +from outside</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: I thought so! (<i>he has the revolver</i>. HATTIE +<i>screams</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Now, Mr Archer, if you'll just stop and think, you'll +know Miss Claire wouldn't want Mr Demming shot.</p> +<p>HARRY: You think that can stop me? You think you can stop me? +(<i>raising the revolver</i>) A dog that—</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>keeping squarely between</i> HARRY <i>and</i> DICK) +Well, you can't shoot him in here. It is not good for the plants. +(HARRY <i>is arrested by this reason</i>) And especially not today. +Why, Mr Archer, Breath of Life may flower today. It's years Miss +Claire's been working for this day.</p> +<p>HARRY: I never thought to see this day!</p> +<p>ANTHONY: No, did you? Oh, it will be a wonderful day. And how +she has worked for it. She has an eye that sees what isn't right in +what looks right. Many's the time I've thought—Here the form +is set—and then she'd say, 'We'll try this one', and it +had—what I hadn't known was there. She's like that.</p> +<p>HARRY: I've always been pleased, Anthony, at the way you've +worked with Miss Claire. This is hardly the time to stand there +eulogizing her. And she's (<i>can hardly say it</i>) things you +don't know she is.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>proudly</i>) Oh, I know that! You think I could +work with her and not know she's more than I know she is?</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, if you love her you've got to let me shoot the +dirty dog that drags her down!</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Not in here. Not today. More than like you'd break the +glass. And Breath of Life's in there.</p> +<p>HARRY: Anthony, this is pretty clever of +you—but—</p> +<p>ANTHONY: I'm not clever. But I know how easy it is to turn life +back. No, I'm not clever at all (CLAIRE <i>has appeared and is +looking in from outside</i>), but I do know—there are things +you mustn't hurt, (<i>he sees her</i>) Yes, here's Miss Claire.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She comes in. She is looking +immaculate.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: From the gutter I rise again, refreshed. One does, you +know. Nothing is fixed—not even the gutter, (<i>smilingly +to</i> HARRY <i>and refusing to notice revolver or agitation</i>) +How did you like the way I entertained the nerve specialist?</p> +<p>HARRY: Claire! You can <i>joke</i> about it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>taking the revolver from the hand she has shocked to +limpness</i>) Whom are you trying to make hear?</p> +<p>HARRY: I'm trying to make the world hear that (<i>pointing</i>) +there stands a dirty dog who—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Listen, Harry, (<i>turning to</i> HATTIE, <i>who is over +by the tall plants at right, not wanting to be shot but not wanting +to miss the conversation</i>) You can do my room now, Hattie. +(<i>HATTIE goes</i>) If you're thinking of shooting Dick, you can't +shoot him while he's backed up against that door.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Just what I told them, Miss Claire. Just what I told +them.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And for that matter, it's quite dull of you to have any +idea of shooting him.</p> +<p>HARRY: I may be dull—I know you think I am—but I'll +show you that I've enough of the man in me to—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: To make yourself ridiculous? If I ran out and hid my +head in the mud, would you think you had to shoot the mud?</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>stung out of fear</i>) That's pretty cruel!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Well, would you rather be shot?</p> +<p>HARRY: So you just said it to protect him!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I change it to grass, (<i>nodding to</i> DICK) Grass. If +I hid my face in the grass, would you have to burn the grass?</p> +<p>HARRY: Oh, Claire, how <i>can</i> you? When you know how I love +you—and how I'm suffering?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>with interest</i>) Are you suffering?</p> +<p>HARRY: Haven't you <i>eyes</i>?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I should think it would—do something to you.</p> +<p>HARRY: God! Have you no heart? (<i>the door opens.</i> TOM +<i>comes in</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>scarcely saying it</i>) Yes, I have a heart.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>after a pause</i>) I came to say good-bye.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: God! Have you no heart? Can't you at least wait till +Dick is shot?</p> +<p>TOM: Claire! (<i>now sees the revolver in her hand that is +turned from him. Going to her</i>) Claire!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And even you think this is so important? (<i>carelessly +raises the revolver, and with her left hand out flat, tells</i> TOM +<i>not to touch her</i>) Harry thinks it important he shoot Dick, +and Dick thinks it important not to be shot, and you think I +mustn't shoot anybody—even myself—and can't any of you +see that none of that is as important as—where revolvers +can't reach? (<i>putting revolver where there is no Edge Vine</i>) +I shall never shoot myself. I'm too interested in destruction to +cut it short by shooting. (<i>after looking from one to the other, +laughs. Pointing</i>) One—two—three. You-love-me. But +why do you bring it out here?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>who has resumed work</i>) It is not what this place +is for.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: No this place is for the destruction that can get +through.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Miss Claire, it is eleven. At eleven we are to go in +and see—</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Whether it has gone through. But how can we +go—with Dick against the door?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: He'll have to move.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And be shot?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>irritably</i>) Oh, he'll not be shot. Claire can +spoil anything.</p> +<p class="dir">(DICK <i>steps away from the door</i>; CLAIRE +<i>takes a step nearer it</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>halting</i>) Have I spoiled everything? I don't want +to go in there.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: We're going in together, Miss Claire. Don't you +remember? Oh (<i>looking resentfully at the others</i>) don't let +any little thing spoil it for you—the work of all those +days—the hope of so many days.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes—that's it.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: You're afraid you haven't done it?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes, but—afraid I have.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>cross, but kindly</i>) That's just nervousness, +Claire. I've had the same feeling myself about making a record in +flying.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>curiously grateful</i>) You have, Harry?</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>glad enough to be back in a more usual world</i>) +Sure. I've been afraid to know, and almost as afraid of having done +it as of not having done it.</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE <i>nods, steps nearer, then again pulls +back</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I can't go in there. (<i>she almost looks at</i> TOM) +Not today.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: But, Miss Claire, there'll be things to see today we +can't see tomorrow.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You bring it in here!</p> +<p>ANTHONY: In—out from its own place? (<i>she nods</i>) +And—where they are? (<i>again she nods. Reluctantly he goes +to the door</i>) I will not look into the heart. No one must know +before you know.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>In the inner room, his head a little turned +away, he is seen very carefully to lift the plant which glows from +within. As he brings it in, no one looks at it</i>. HARRY <i>takes +a box of seedlings from a stand and puts them on the floor, that +the newcomer may have a place</i>.)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Breath of Life is here, Miss Claire.</p> +<p class="dir">(CLAIRE <i>half turns, then stops.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Look—and see—what you see.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: No one should see what you've not seen.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I can't see—until I know.</p> +<p class="dir">(ANTHONY <i>looks into the flower.</i>)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>agitated</i>) Miss Claire!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It has come through?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: It has gone on.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Stronger?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Stronger, surer.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And more fragile?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: And more fragile.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Look deep. No—turning back?</p> +<p>ANTHONY: (<i>after a searching look</i>) The form is set. (<i>he +steps back from it</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Then it is—out. (<i>from where she stands she +turns slowly to the plant</i>) You weren't. You are.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: But come and see, Miss Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: It's so much more than—I'd see.</p> +<p>HARRY: Well, I'm going to see. (<i>looking into it</i>) I never +saw anything like that before! There seems something +alive—inside this outer shell.</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>he too looking in and he has an artist's manner of a +hand up to make the light right</i>) It's quite new in form. +It—says something about form.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>cordially to</i> CLAIRE, <i>who stands apart</i>) So +you've really put it over. Well, well,—congratulations. It's +a good deal of novelty, I should say, and I've no doubt you'll have +a considerable success with it—people always like something +new. I'm mighty glad—after all your work, and I hope it +will—set you up.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>low—and like a machine</i>) Will you +all—go away?</p> +<p class="dir">(ANTHONY <i>goes—into the other room.</i>)</p> +<p>HARRY: Why—why, yes. But—oh, Claire! Can't you take +some pleasure in your work? (<i>as she stands there very still</i>) +Emmons says you need a good long rest—and I think he's +right.</p> +<p>TOM: Can't this help you, Claire? Let this be release. +This—breath of the uncaptured.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>and though speaking, she remains just as +still</i>)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Breath of the uncaptured?</p> +<p>You are a novelty.</p> +<p>Out?</p> +<p>You have been brought in.</p> +<p>A thousand years from now, when you are but a form too long +repeated,</p> +<p>Perhaps the madness that gave you birth will burst again,</p> +<p>And from the prison that is you will leap pent queernesses</p> +<p>To make a form that hasn't been—</p> +<p>To make a person new.</p> +<p>And this we call creation, (<i>very low, her head not coming +up</i>)</p> +<p>Go away!</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(TOM <i>goes</i>; HARRY <i>hesitates, looking in +anxiety at</i> CLAIRE. <i>He starts to go, stops, looks at</i> +DICK, <i>from him to</i> CLAIRE. <i>But goes. A moment later</i> +DICK <i>moves near</i> CLAIRE; <i>stands uncertainly, then puts a +hand upon her. She starts, only then knowing he is there.</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>a slight shrinking away, but not really reached</i>) +Um, um.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He goes</i>. CLAIRE <i>steps nearer her +creation. She looks into what hasn't been. With her breath, and by +a gentle moving of her hands, she fans it to fuller openness. As +she does this</i> TOM <i>returns and from outside is looking in at +her. Softly he opens the door and comes in. She does not know that +he is there. In the way she looks at the flower he looks at +her.</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: Claire, (<i>she lifts her head</i>) As you stood there, +looking into the womb you breathed to life, you were beautiful to +me beyond any other beauty. You were life and its reach and its +anguish. I can't go away from you. I will never go away from you. +It shall all be—as you wish. I can go with you where I could +not go alone. If this is delusion, I want that delusion. It's more +than any reality I could attain, (<i>as she does not move</i>) +Speak to me, Claire. You—are glad?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>from far</i>) Speak to you? (<i>pause</i>) Do I know +who you are?</p> +<p>TOM: I think you do.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Oh, yes. I love you. That's who you are. (<i>waits +again</i>) But why are you something—very far away?</p> +<p>TOM: Come nearer.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Nearer? (<i>feeling it with her voice</i>) Nearer. But I +think I am going—the other way.</p> +<p>TOM: No, Claire—come to me. Did you understand, dear? I am +not going away.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: You're not going away?</p> +<p>TOM: Not without you, Claire. And you and I will be together. Is +that—what you wanted?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Wanted? (<i>as if wanting is something that harks far +back. But the word calls to her passion</i>) Wanted! (<i>a sob, +hands out, she goes to him. But before his arms can take her, she +steps back</i>) Are you trying to pull me down into what I wanted? +Are you here to make me stop?</p> +<p>TOM: How can you ask that? I love you because it is not in you +to stop.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And loving me for that—would stop me? Oh, help me +see it! It is so important that I see it.</p> +<p>TOM: It is important. It is our lives.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: And more than that. I cannot see it because it is so +much more than that.</p> +<p>TOM: Don't try to see all that it is. From peace you'll see a +little more.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Peace? (<i>troubled as we are when looking at what we +cannot see clearly</i>) What is peace? Peace is what the struggle +knows in moments very far apart. Peace—that is not a place to +rest. Are you resting? What are you? You who'd take me from what I +am to something else?</p> +<p>TOM: I thought you knew, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I know—what you pass for. But are you beauty? +Beauty is that only living pattern—the trying to take +pattern. Are you trying?</p> +<p>TOM: Within myself, Claire. I never thought you doubted +that.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Beauty is it. (<i>she turns to Breath of Life, as if to +learn it there, but turns away with a sob</i>) If I cannot go to +you now—I will always be alone.</p> +<p class="dir">(TOM <i>takes her in his arms. She is shaken, then +comes to rest.</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: Yes—rest. And then—come into joy. You have so +much life for joy.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>raising her head, called by promised gladness</i>) +We'll run around together. (<i>lovingly he nods</i>) Up hills. All +night on hills.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>tenderly</i>) All night on hills.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: We'll go on the sea in a little boat.</p> +<p>TOM: On the sea in a little boat.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: But—there are other boats on other seas, +(<i>drawing back from him, troubled</i>) There are other boats on +other seas.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>drawing her back to him</i>) My dearest—not now, +not now.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>her arms going round him</i>) Oh, I would love those +hours with you. I want them. I want you! (<i>they kiss—but +deep in her is sobbing</i>) Reminiscence, (<i>her hand feeling his +arm as we touch what we would remember</i>) Reminiscence. (<i>with +one of her swift changes steps back from him</i>) How dare you pass +for what you're not? We are tired, and so we think it's you. Stop +with you. Don't get through—to what you're in the way of. +Beauty is not something you say about beauty.</p> +<p>TOM: I say little about beauty, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Your life says it. By standing far off you pass for it. +Smother it with a life that passes for it. But +beauty—(<i>getting it from the flower</i>) Beauty is the +humility breathed from the shame of succeeding.</p> +<p>TOM: But it may all be within one's self, dear.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>drawn by this, but held, and desperate because she +is held</i>) When I have wanted you with all my wanting—why +must I distrust you now? When I love you—with all of me, why +do I know that only you are worth my hate?</p> +<p>TOM: It's the fear of easy satisfactions. I love you for it.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>over the flower</i>) Breath of Life—you here? +Are you lonely—Breath of Life?</p> +<p>TOM: Claire—hear me! Don't go where we can't go. As there +you made a shell for life within, make for yourself a life in which +to live. It must be so.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: As you made for yourself a shell called beauty?</p> +<p>TOM: What is there for you, if you'll have no touch with what we +have?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: What is there? There are the dreams we haven't dreamed. +There is the long and flowing pattern, (<i>she follows that, but +suddenly and as if blindly goes to him</i>) I am tired. I am +lonely. I'm afraid, (<i>he holds her, soothing. But she steps back +from him</i>) And because we are tired—lonely—and +afraid, we stop with you. Don't get through—to what you're in +the way of.</p> +<p>TOM: Then you don't love me?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I'm fighting for my chance. I don't know—which +chance.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Is drawn to the other chance, to Breath of Life. +Looks into it as if to look through to the uncaptured. And through +this life just caught comes the truth she chants.</i>)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>I've wallowed at a coarse man's feet,</p> +<p>I'm sprayed with dreams we've not yet come to.</p> +<p>I've gone so low that words can't get there,</p> +<p>I've never pulled the mantle of my fears around me</p> +<p>And called it loneliness—And called it God.</p> +<p>Only with life that waits have I kept faith.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>with effort raising her eyes to the man</i>)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>And only you have ever threatened me.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>TOM: (<i>coming to her, and with strength now</i>) And I will +threaten you. I'm here to hold you from where I know you cannot go. +You're trying what we can't do.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: What else is there worth trying?</p> +<p>TOM: I love you, and I will keep you—from +fartherness—from harm. You are mine, and you will stay with +me! (<i>roughly</i>) You hear me? You will stay with me!</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>her head on his breast, in ecstasy of rest. +Drowsily</i>) You can keep me?</p> +<p>TOM: Darling! I can keep you. I will keep you—safe.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>troubled by the word, but barely able to raise her +head</i>) Safe?</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>bringing her to rest again</i>) Trust me, Claire.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>not lifting her head, but turning it so she sees +Breath of Life</i>) Now can I trust—what is? (<i>suddenly +pushing him roughly away</i>) No! I will beat my life to pieces in +the struggle to—</p> +<p>TOM: To <i>what</i>, Claire?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Not to stop it by seeming to have it. (<i>with fury</i>) +I will keep my life low—low—that I may never stop +myself—or anyone—with the thought it's what <i>I</i> +have. I'd rather be the steam rising from the manure than be a +thing called beautiful! (<i>with sight too clear</i>) Now I know +who you are. It is you puts out the breath of life. Image of +beauty—<i>You fill the place—should be a gate.</i> +(<i>in agony</i>) Oh, that it is <i>you</i>—fill the +place—should be a gate! My darling! That it should be you +who—(<i>her hands moving on him</i>) Let me tell you +something. Never was loving strong as my loving of you! Do you know +that? Oh, know that! Know it now! (<i>her arms go around his +neck</i>) Hours with you—I'd give my life to have! That it +should be you—(<i>he would loosen her hands, for he cannot +breathe. But when she knows she is choking him, that knowledge is +fire burning its way into the last passion</i>) It <i>is</i> you. +It is you.</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>words coming from a throat not free</i>) Claire! What +are you doing? (<i>then she knows what she is doing</i>)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>to his resistance</i>) No! You are <i>too much</i>! +You are <i>not enough</i>. (<i>still wanting not to hurt her, he is +slow in getting free. He keeps stepping backward trying, in growing +earnest, to loosen her hands. But he does not loosen them before +she has found the place in his throat that cuts off breath. As he +gasps</i>)</p> +<p>Breath of Life—my gift—to you!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She has pushed him against one of the plants at +right as he sways, strength she never had before pushes him over +backward, just as they have struggled from sight. Violent crash of +glass is heard.</i>)</p> +<p>TOM: (<i>faint smothered voice</i>) <i>No</i>. +I'm—hurt.</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>in the frenzy and agony of killing</i>) Oh, gift! +Oh, gift! (<i>there is no sound.</i></p> +<p>CLAIRE <i>rises—steps back—is seen now; is looking +down</i>) Gift.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Like one who does not know where she is, she +moves into the room—looks around. Takes a step toward Breath +of Life; turns and goes quickly to the door. Stops, as if stopped. +Sees the revolver where the Edge Vine was. Slowly goes to it. Holds +it as if she cannot think what it is for. Then raises it high and +fires above through the place in the glass left open for +ventilation</i>. ANTHONY <i>comes from the inner room. His eyes go +from her to the body beyond</i>. HARRY <i>rushes in from +outside</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: Who fired that?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: I did. Lonely.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Seeing</i> ANTHONY'S <i>look</i>, HARRY <i>'s +eyes follow it</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: Oh! What? What? (DICK <i>comes running in</i>) Who? +Claire!</p> +<p class="dir">(DICK <i>sees—goes to</i> TOM)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Yes. I did it. MY—Gift.</p> +<p>HARRY: Is he—? He isn't—? He isn't—?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Tries to go in there. Cannot—there is the +sound of broken glass, of a position being changed—then</i> +DICK <i>reappears</i>.)</p> +<p>DICK: (<i>his voice in jerks</i>) It's—it's no use, but +I'll go for a doctor.</p> +<p>HARRY: No—no. Oh, I suppose—(<i>falling down +beside</i> CLAIRE—<i>his face against her</i>) My darling! +How can I save you now?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: (<i>speaking each word very carefully</i>) +Saved—myself.</p> +<p>ANTHONY: I did it. Don't you see? I didn't want so many around. +Not—what this place is for.</p> +<p>HARRY: (<i>snatching at this but lets it go</i>) She wouldn't +let—(<i>looking up at</i> CLAIRE—<i>then quickly hiding +his face</i>) And—don't you see?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Out. (<i>a little like a child's pleased surprise</i>) +Out.</p> +<p class="dir">(DICK <i>stands there, as if unable to get to the +door—his face distorted, biting his hand</i>.)</p> +<p>ANTHONY: Miss Claire! You can do anything—won't you +try?</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Reminiscence? (<i>speaking the word as if she has left +even that, but smiles a little</i>)</p> +<p class="dir">(ANTHONY <i>takes Reminiscence, the flower she was +breeding for fragrance for Breath of Life—holds it out to +her. But she has taken a step forward, past them all</i>.)</p> +<p>CLAIRE: Out. (<i>as if feeling her way</i>)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Nearer,</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Her voice now feeling the way to it</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza">Nearer—</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Voice almost upon it</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>—my God,</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Falling upon it with surprise</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>to Thee,</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Breathing it</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Nearer—to Thee,</p> +<p>E'en though it be—</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>A slight turn of the head toward the dead man +she loves—a mechanical turn just as far the other +way</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>a cross</p> +<p>That</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Her head going down</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>raises me;</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Her head slowly coming up—singing +it</i>.)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>Still all my song shall be,</p> +<p>Nearer, my—</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class="dir">(<i>Slowly the curtain begins to shut her out. The +last word heard is the final</i> Nearer—<i>a faint breath +from far</i>.)</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<a name="INHERITORS"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<h2>INHERITORS</h2> +<p><i>Inheritors</i> was first performed at the Provincetown +Playhouse on April 27, 1921.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>SMITH (a young business man)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER (SILAS MORTON'S mother)</p> +<p>SILAS MORTON (a pioneer farmer)</p> +<p>FELIX FEJEVARY, the First (an exiled Hungarian nobleman)</p> +<p>FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second (his son, a Harvard student)</p> +<p>FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second (a banker)</p> +<p>SENATOR LEWIS (a State Senator)</p> +<p>HORACE FEJEVARY (son of FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second)</p> +<p>DORIS (a student at Morton College)</p> +<p>FUSSIE (another college girl)</p> +<p>MADELINE FEJEVARY MORTON (daughter of IRA MORTON, and +granddaughter of</p> +<p>SILAS MORTON)</p> +<p>ISABEL FEJEVARY (wife of FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second, and +MADELINE'S aunt)</p> +<p>HARRY (a student clerk)</p> +<p>HOLDEN (Professor at Morton College)</p> +<p>IRA MORTON (son of SILAS MORTON, and MADELINE'S father)</p> +<p>EMIL JOHNSON (an Americanized Swede)</p> +<h3>ACT I</h3> +<p class="scene">SCENE: <i>Sitting-room of the Mortons' farmhouse +in the Middle West—on the rolling prairie just back from the +Mississippi. A room that has been long and comfortably lived in, +and showing that first-hand contact with materials which was +pioneer life. The hospitable table was made on the place—well +and strongly made; there are braided rugs, and the wooden chairs +have patchwork cushions. There is a corner closet—left rear. +A picture of Abraham Lincoln. On the floor a home-made toy boat. At +rise of curtain there are on the stage an old woman and a young +man.</i> GRANDMOTHER MORTON <i>is in her rocking-chair near the +open door, facing left. On both sides of door are windows, looking +out on a generous land. She has a sewing basket and is patching a +boy's pants. She is very old. Her hands tremble. Her spirit +remembers the days of her strength.</i></p> +<p>SMITH <i>has just come in and, hat in hand, is standing by the +table. This was lived in the year 1879, afternoon of Fourth of +July.</i></p> +<p>SMITH: But the celebration was over two hours ago.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Oh, celebration, that's just the beginning of it. +Might as well set down. When them boys that fought together all get +in one square—they have to swap stories all over again. +That's the worst of a war—you have to go on hearing about it +so long. Here it is—1879—and we haven't taken +Gettysburg yet. Well, it was the same way with the war of 1832.</p> +<p>SMITH: (<i>who is now seated at the table</i>) The war of +1832?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: News to you that we had a war with the Indians?</p> +<p>SMITH: That's right—the Blackhawk war. I've heard of +it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Heard of it!</p> +<p>SMITH: Were your men in that war?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I was in that war. I threw an Indian in the cellar +and stood on the door. I was heavier then.</p> +<p>SMITH: Those were stirring times.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: More stirring than you'll ever see. This +war—Lincoln's war—it's all a cut and dried business +now. We used to fight with anything we could lay hands +on—dish water—whatever was handy.</p> +<p>SMITH: I guess you believe the saying that the only good Indian +is a dead Indian.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. We roiled them up considerable. They was +mostly friendly when let be. Didn't want to give up their +land—but I've noticed something of the same nature in white +folks.</p> +<p>SMITH: Your son has—something of that nature, hasn't +he?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: He's not keen to sell. Why should he? It'll never +be worth less.</p> +<p>SMITH: But since he has more land than any man can use, and if +he gets his price—</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: That what you've come to talk to him about?</p> +<p>SMITH: I—yes.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, you're not the first. Many a man older than +you has come to argue it.</p> +<p>SMITH: (<i>smiling</i>) They thought they'd try a young one.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Some one that knew him thought that up. Silas'd +help a young one if he could. What is it you're set on buying?</p> +<p>SMITH: Oh, I don't know that we're set on buying anything. If we +could have the hill (<i>looking off to the right</i>) at a fair +price—</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: The hill above the town? Silas'd rather sell me and +the cat.</p> +<p>SMITH: But what's he going to do with it?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Maybe he's going to climb it once a week.</p> +<p>SMITH: But if the development of the town demands its +use—</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>smiling</i>) You the development of the +town?</p> +<p>SMITH: I represent it. This town has been growing so +fast—</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: This town began to grow the day I got here.</p> +<p>SMITH: You—you began it?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: My husband and I began it—and our baby +Silas.</p> +<p>SMITH: When was that?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: 1820, that was.</p> +<p>SMITH: And—you mean you were here all alone?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: No, we weren't alone. We had the Owens ten miles +down the river.</p> +<p>SMITH: But how did you get here?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Got here in a wagon, how do you s'pose? +(<i>gaily</i>) Think we flew?</p> +<p>SMITH: But wasn't it unsafe?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Them set on safety stayed back in Ohio.</p> +<p>SMITH: But one family! I should think the Indians would have +wiped you out.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: The way they wiped us out was to bring fish and +corn. We'd have starved to death that first winter hadn't been for +the Indians.</p> +<p>SMITH: But they were such good neighbours—why did you +throw dish water at them?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: That was after other white folks had roiled them +up—white folks that didn't know how to treat 'em. This very +land—land you want to buy—was the land they +loved—Blackhawk and his Indians. They came here for their +games. This was where their fathers—as they called +'em—were buried. I've seen my husband and Blackhawk climb +that hill together. (<i>a backward point right</i>) He used to love +that hill—Blackhawk. He talked how the red man and the white +man could live together. But poor old Blackhawk—what he +didn't know was how many white man there was. After the +war—when he was beaten but not conquered in his +heart—they took him east—Washington, Philadelphia, New +York—and when he saw the white man's cities—it was a +different Indian came back. He just let his heart break without +ever turning a hand.</p> +<p>SMITH: But we paid them for their lands. (<i>she looks at +him</i>) Paid them something.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Something. For fifteen million acres of this +Mississippi Valley land—best on this globe, we paid two +thousand two hundred and thirty-four dollars and fifty cents, and +promised to deliver annually goods to the value of one thousand +dollars. Not a fancy price—even for them days, (<i>children's +voices are heard outside. She leans forward and looks through the +door, left</i>) Ira! Let that cat be!</p> +<p>SMITH: (<i>looking from the window</i>) These, I suppose, are +your grandchildren?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: The boy's my grandson. The little girl is Madeline +Fejevary—Mr Fejevary's youngest child.</p> +<p>SMITH: The Fejevary place adjoins on this side? (<i>pointing +right, down</i>)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Yes. We've been neighbours ever since the Fejevarys +came here from Hungary after 1848. He was a count at home—and +he's a man of learning. But he was a refugee because he fought for +freedom in his country. Nothing Silas could do for him was too +good. Silas sets great store by learning—and freedom.</p> +<p>SMITH: (<i>thinking of his own project, looking off toward the +hill—the hill is not seen from the front</i>) I suppose then +Mr Fejevary has great influence with your son?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: More 'an anybody. Silas thinks 'twas a great thing +for our family to have a family like theirs next place to. +Well—so 'twas, for we've had no time for the things their +family was brought up on. Old Mrs Fejevary (<i>with her shrewd +smile</i>)—she weren't stuck up—but she did have an +awful ladylike way of feeding the chickens. Silas thinks—oh, +my son has all kinds of notions—though a harder worker never +found his bed at night.</p> +<p>SMITH: And Mr Fejevary—is he a veteran too?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>dryly</i>) You don't seem to know these parts +well—for one that's all stirred up about the development of +the town. Yes—Felix Fejevary and Silas Morton went off +together, down that road (<i>motioning with her hand, +right</i>)—when them of their age was wanted. Fejevary came +back with one arm less than he went with. Silas brought home +everything he took—and something he didn't. Rheumatiz. So now +they set more store by each other 'an ever. Seems nothing draws men +together like killing other men. (<i>a boy's voice teasingly +imitating a cat</i>) Madeline, make Ira let that cat be. (<i>a +whoop from the girl—a boy's whoop</i>) (<i>looking</i>) There +they go, off for the creek. If they set in it—(<i>seems about +to call after them, gives this up</i>) Well, they're not the +first.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>rather dreams over this</i>)</p> +<p>SMITH: You must feel as if you pretty near owned this +country.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: We worked. A country don't make itself. When the +sun was up we were up, and when the sun went down we didn't. (<i>as +if this renews the self of those days</i>) Here—let me set +out something for you to eat. (<i>gets up with difficulty</i>)</p> +<p>SMITH: Oh, no, please—never mind. I had something in town +before I came out.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Dunno as that's any reason you shouldn't have +something here.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She goes off, right; he stands at the door, +looking toward the hill until she returns with a glass of milk, a +plate of cookies.</i>)</p> +<p>SMITH: Well, this looks good.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I've fed a lot of folks—take it by and large. +I didn't care how many I had to feed in the daytime—what's +ten or fifteen more when you're up and around. But to get +up—after sixteen hours on your feet—<i>I</i> was +willin', but my bones complained some.</p> +<p>SMITH: But did you—keep a tavern?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Keep a tavern? I guess we did. Every house is a +tavern when houses are sparse. You think the way to settle a +country is to go on ahead and build hotels? That's all you folks +know. Why, I never went to bed without leaving something on the +stove for the new ones that might be coming. And we never went away +from home without seein' there was a-plenty for them that might +stop.</p> +<p>SMITH: They'd come right in and take your food?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: What else could they do? There was a woman I always +wanted to know. She made a kind of bread I never had +before—and left a-plenty for our supper when we got back with +the ducks and berries. And she left the kitchen handier than it had +ever been. I often wondered about her—where she came from, +and where she went, (<i>as she dreams over this there is laughing +and talking at the side of the house</i>) There come the boys.</p> +<p class="dir">(MR FEJEVARY <i>comes in, followed by</i> SILAS +MORTON. <i>They are men not far from sixty, wearing their army +uniforms, carrying the muskets they used in the parade</i>. +FEJEVARY <i>has a lean, distinguished face, his dark eyes are +penetrating and rather wistful. The left sleeve of his old uniform +is empty</i>. SILAS MORTON <i>is a strong man who has borne the +burden of the land, and not for himself alone—the pioneer. +Seeing the stranger, he sets his musket against the wall and holds +out his hand to him, as</i> MR FEJEVARY <i>goes up to</i> +GRANDMOTHER MORTON.)</p> +<p>SILAS: How do, stranger?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And how are you today, Mrs Morton?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I'm not abed—and don't expect to be.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>letting go of the balloons he has bought</i>) Where's +Ira? and Madeline?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Mr Fejevary's Delia brought them home with her. +They've gone down to dam the creek, I guess. This young man's been +waiting to see you, Silas.</p> +<p>SMITH: Yes, I wanted to have a little talk with you.</p> +<p>SILAS: Well, why not? (<i>he is tying the gay balloons to his +gun, then as he talks, hangs his hat in the corner closet</i>) +We've been having a little talk ourselves. Mother, Nat Rice was +there. I've not seen Nat Rice since the day we had to leave him on +the road with his torn leg—him cursing like a pirate. I +wanted to bring him home, but he had to go back to Chicago. His +wife's dead, mother.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, I guess she's not sorry.</p> +<p>SILAS: Why, mother.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: 'Why, mother.' Nat Rice is a mean, stingy, +complaining man—his leg notwithstanding. Where'd you leave +the folks?</p> +<p>SILAS: Oh—scattered around. Everybody visitin' with +anybody that'll visit with them. Wish you could have gone.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I've heard it all. (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) Your folks +well?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: All well, Mrs Morton. And my boy Felix is home. He'll +stop in here to see you by and by.</p> +<p>SILAS: Oh, he's a fine-looking boy, mother. And think of what he +knows! (<i>cordially including the young man</i>) Mr Fejevary's son +has been to Harvard College.</p> +<p>SMITH: Well, well—quite a trip. Well, Mr Morton, I hope +this is not a bad time for me to—present a little matter to +you?</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>genially</i>) That depends, of course, on what you're +going to present. (<i>attracted by a sound outside</i>) Mind if I +present a little matter to your horse? Like to uncheck him so's he +can geta a bit o'grass.</p> +<p>SMITH: Why—yes. I suppose he would like that.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>going out</i>) You bet he'd like it. Wouldn't you, +old boy?</p> +<p>SMITH: Your son is fond of animals.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Lots of people's fond of 'em—and good to 'em. +Silas—I dunno, it's as if he was that animal.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He has imagination.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>with surprise</i>) Think so?</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>returning and sitting down at the table by the young +man</i>) Now, what's in your mind, my boy?</p> +<p>SMITH: This town is growing very fast, Mr Morton.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes. (<i>slyly—with humour</i>) I know that.</p> +<p>SMITH: I presume you, as one of the early settlers—as in +fact a son of the earliest settler, feel a certain responsibility +about the welfare of—</p> +<p>SILAS: I haven't got in mind to do the town a bit of harm. +So—what's your point?</p> +<p>SMITH: More people—more homes. And homes must be in the +healthiest places—the—the most beautiful places. Isn't +it true, Mr Fejevary, that it means a great deal to people to have +a beautiful outlook from their homes? A—well, an expanse.</p> +<p>SILAS: What is it they want to buy—these fellows that are +figuring on making something out of—expanse? (<i>a gesture +for expanse, then a reassuring gesture</i>) It's all right, +but—just what is it?</p> +<p>SMITH: I am prepared to make you an offer—a gilt-edged +offer for that (<i>pointing toward it</i>) hill above the town.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>shaking his head—with the smile of the strong +man who is a dreamer</i>) The hill is not for sale.</p> +<p>SMITH: But wouldn't you consider a—particularly good +offer, Mr Morton?</p> +<p class="dir">(SILAS, <i>who has turned so he can look out at the +hill, slowly shakes his head</i>.)</p> +<p>SMITH: Do you feel you have the right—the moral right to +hold it?</p> +<p>SILAS: It's not for myself I'm holding it.</p> +<p>SMITH: Oh,—for the children?</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes, the children.</p> +<p>SMITH: But—if you'll excuse me—there are other +investments might do the children even more good.</p> +<p>SILAS: This seems to me—the best investment.</p> +<p>SMITH: But after all there are other people's children to +consider.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes, I know. That's it.</p> +<p>SMITH: I wonder if I understand you, Mr Morton?</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>kindly</i>) I don't believe you do. I don't see how +you could. And I can't explain myself just now. So—the hill +is not for sale. I'm not making anybody homeless. There's land +enough for all—all sides round. But the hill—</p> +<p>SMITH: (<i>rising</i>) Is yours.</p> +<p>SILAS: You'll see.</p> +<p>SMITH: I am prepared to offer you—</p> +<p>SILAS: You're not prepared to offer me anything I'd consider +alongside what I am considering. So—I wish you good luck in +your business undertakings.</p> +<p>SMITH: Sorry—you won't let us try to help the town.</p> +<p>SILAS: Don't sit up nights worrying about my chokin' the +town.</p> +<p>SMITH: We could make you a rich man, Mr Morton. Do you think +what you have in mind will make you so much richer?</p> +<p>SILAS: Much richer.</p> +<p>SMITH: Well, good-bye. Good day, sir. Good day, ma'am.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>following him to the door</i>) Nice horse you've +got.</p> +<p>SMITH: Yes, seems all right.</p> +<p class="dir">(SILAS <i>stands in the doorway and looks off at the +hill</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: What are you going to do with the hill, Silas?</p> +<p>SILAS: After I get a little glass of wine—to celebrate +Felix and me being here instead of farther south—I'd like to +tell you what I want for the hill. (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY <i>rather +bashfully</i>) I've been wanting to tell you.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I want to know.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>getting the wine from the closet</i>) Just a little +something to show our gratitude with.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Goes off right for glasses</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe it'd be better to sell the +hill—while they're anxious.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He seems to have another plan for it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I hope the other plan does bring him +something. Silas has worked—all the days of his life.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I know.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: You don't know the hull of it. But I know. +(<i>rather to herself</i>) Know too well to think about it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>as</i> SILAS <i>returns</i>) I'll get more +cookies.</p> +<p>SILAS: I'll get them, mother.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Get 'em myself. Pity if a woman can't get out her +own cookies.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>seeing how hard it is for her</i>) I wish mother +would let us do things for her.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: That strength is a flame frailness can't put out. It's +a great thing for us to have her,—this touch with the life +behind us.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes. And it's a great thing for us to have you—who +can see those things and say them. What a lot I'd 'a' missed if I +hadn't had what you've seen.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Oh, you only think that because you've got to be +generous.</p> +<p>SILAS: I'm not generous. <i>I'm</i> seeing something now. +Something about you. I've been thinking of it a good deal +lately—it's got something to do with—with the hill. +I've been thinkin' what it's meant all these years to have a family +like yours next place to. They did something pretty nice for the +corn belt when they drove you out of Hungary. Funny—how +things don't end the way they begin. I mean, what begins don't end. +It's another thing ends. Set out to do something for your own +country—and maybe you don't quite do the thing you set out to +do—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No.</p> +<p>SILAS: But do something for a country a long way off.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I've not done much for any country.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>brusquely</i>) Where's your left arm—may I be +so bold as to inquire? Though your left arm's nothing +alongside—what can't be measured.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: When I think of what I dreamed as a young man—it +seems to me my life has failed.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>raising his glass</i>) Well, if your life's +failed—I like failure.</p> +<p class="dir">(GRANDMOTHER MORTON <i>returns with her +cookies</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: There's two kinds—Mr Fejevary. These have +seeds in 'em.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Thank you. I'll try a seed cookie first.</p> +<p>SILAS: Mother, you'll have a glass of wine?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I don't need wine.</p> +<p>SILAS: Well, I don't know as we need it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: No, I don't know as you do. But I didn't go to +war.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Then have a little wine to celebrate that.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, just a mite to warm me up. Not that it's +cold. (FEJEVARY <i>brings it to her, and the cookies</i>) The +Indians used to like cookies. I was talking to that young +whippersnapper about the Indians. One time I saw an Indian watching +me from a bush, (<i>points</i>) Right out there. I was never afraid +of Indians when you could see the whole of 'em—but when you +could see nothin' but their bright eyes—movin' through +leaves—I declare they made me nervous. After he'd been there +an hour I couldn't seem to put my mind on my work. So I thought, +Red or White, a man's a man—I'll take him some cookies.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It succeeded?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: So well that those leaves had eyes next day. But he +brought me a fish to trade. He was a nice boy.</p> +<p>SILAS: Probably we killed him.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe he killed us. Will Owens' family was +massacred just after this. Like as not my cookie Indian helped out +there. Something kind of uncertain about the Indians.</p> +<p>SILAS: I guess they found something kind of uncertain about +us.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Six o' one and half a dozen of another. Usually +is.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) I wonder if I'm wrong. You see, I +never went to school—</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I don't know why you say that, Silas. There was two +winters you went to school.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes, mother, and I'm glad I did, for I learned to read +there, and liked the geography globe. It made the earth so nice to +think about. And one day the teacher told us all about the stars, +and I had that to think of when I was driving at night. The other +boys didn't believe it was so. But I knew it was so! But I mean +school—the way Mr Fejevary went to school. He went to +universities. In his own countries—in other countries. All +the things men have found out, the wisest and finest things men +have thought since first they began to think—all that was put +before them.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>with a gentle smile</i>) I fear I left a good deal +of it untouched.</p> +<p>SILAS: You took a plenty. Tell in your eyes you've thought lots +about what's been thought. And that's what I was setting out to +say. It makes something of men—learning. A house that's full +of books makes a different kind of people. Oh, of course, if the +books aren't there just to show off.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Like in Mary Baldwin's new house.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>trying hard to see it</i>) It's not the learning +itself—it's the life that grows up from learning. Learning's +like soil. Like—like fertilizer. Get richer. See more. Feel +more. You believe that?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Culture should do it.</p> +<p>SILAS: Does in your house. You somehow know how it is for the +other fellow more'n we do.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, Silas Morton, when you've your wood to chop +an' your water to carry, when you kill your own cattle and hogs, +tend your own horses and hens, make your butter, soap, and cook for +whoever the Lord sends—there's none too many hours of the day +left to be polite in.</p> +<p>SILAS: You're right, mother. It had to be that way. But now that +we buy our soap—we don't want to say what soap-making made +us.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: We're honest.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes. In a way. But there's another kind o' honesty, seems +to me, goes with that more seein' kind of kindness. Our honesty +with the Indians was little to brag on.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: You fret more about the Indians than anybody else +does.</p> +<p>SILAS: To look out at that hill sometimes makes me ashamed.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Land sakes, you didn't do it. It was the +government. And what a government does is nothing for a person to +be ashamed of.</p> +<p>SILAS: I don't know about that. Why is <i>he</i> here? Why is +Felix Fejevary not rich and grand in Hungary to-day? 'Cause he was +ashamed of what his government was.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, that was a foreign government.</p> +<p>SILAS: A seeing how 'tis for the other person—<i>a +bein'</i> that other person, kind of honesty. Joke of it, 'twould +do something for <i>you</i>. 'Twould 'a' done something for us to +have <i>been</i> Indians a little more. My father used to talk +about Blackhawk—they was friends. I saw Blackhawk +once—when I was a boy. (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) Guess I told you. +You know what he looked like? He looked like the great of the +earth. Noble. Noble like the forests—and the +Mississippi—and the stars. His face was long and thin and you +could see the bones, and the bones were beautiful. Looked like +something that's never been caught. He was something many nights in +his canoe had made him. Sometimes I feel that the land itself has +got a mind that the land would rather have had the Indians.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, don't let folks hear you say it. They'd think +you was plum crazy.</p> +<p>SILAS: I s'pose they would, (<i>turning to</i> FEJEVARY) But +after you've walked a long time over the earth—and you all +alone, didn't you ever feel something coming up from it that's like +thought?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I never did. But—I wish I had.</p> +<p>SILAS: I love land—this land. I suppose that's why I never +have the feeling that I own it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: If you don't own it—I want to know! What do +you think we come here for—your father and me? What do you +think we left our folks for—left the world of white +folks—schools and stores and doctors, and set out in a +covered wagon for we didn't know what? We lost a horse. Lost our +way—weeks longer than we thought 'twould be. You were born in +that covered wagon. You know that. But what you don't know is what +<i>that's</i> like—without your own roof—or +fire—without—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She turns her face away.</i>)</p> +<p>SILAS: No. No, mother, of course not. Now—now isn't this +too bad? I don't say things right. It's because I never went to +school.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>her face shielded</i>) You went to school two +winters.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes. Yes, mother. So I did. And I'm glad I did.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>with the determination of one who will not have +her own pain looked at</i>) Mrs Fejevary's pansy bed doing well +this summer?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It's beautiful this summer. She was so pleased with +the new purple kind you gave her. I do wish you could get over to +see them.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I've seen lots of pansies. Suppose it +was pretty fine-sounding speeches they had in town?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Too fine-sounding to seem much like the war.</p> +<p>SILAS: I'd like to go to a war celebration where they never +mentioned war. There'd be a way to celebrate victory, (<i>hearing a +step, looking out</i>) Mother, here's Felix.</p> +<p class="dir">(FELIX, <i>a well-dressed young man, comes +in</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: How do, Felix?</p> +<p>FELIX: And how do you do, Grandmother Morton?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, I'm still here.</p> +<p>FELIX: Of course you are. It wouldn't be coming home if you +weren't.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I've got some cookies for you, Felix. I set 'em +out, so you wouldn't have to steal them. John and Felix was hard on +the cookie jar.</p> +<p>FELIX: Where is John?</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>who is pouring a glass of wine for</i> FELIX) You've +not seen John yet? He was in town for the exercises. I bet those +young devils ran off to the race-track. I heard whisperin' goin' +round. But everybody'll be home some time. Mary and the +girls—don't ask me where they are. They'll drive old Bess all +over the country before they drive her to the bam. Your father and +I come on home 'cause I wanted to have a talk with him.</p> +<p>FELIX: Getting into the old uniforms makes you want to talk it +all over again?</p> +<p>SILAS: The war? Well, we did do that. But all that makes me want +to talk about what's to come, about—what 'twas all for. Great +things are to come, Felix. And before you are through.</p> +<p>FELIX: I've been thinking about them myself—walking around +the town to-day. It's grown so much this year, and in a way that +means more growing—that big glucose plant going up down the +river, the new lumber mill—all that means many more +people.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And they've even bought ground for a steel works.</p> +<p>SILAS: Yes, a city will rise from these cornfields—a big +rich place—that's bound to be. It's written in the lay o' the +land and the way the river flows. But first tell us about Harvard +College, Felix. Ain't it a fine thing for us all to have Felix +coming home from that wonderful place!</p> +<p>FELIX: You make it seem wonderful.</p> +<p>SILAS: Ah, you know it's wonderful—know it so well you +don't have to say it. It's something you've got. But to me it's +wonderful the way the stars are wonderful—this place where +all that the world has learned is to be drawn from me—like a +spring.</p> +<p>FELIX: You almost say what Matthew Arnold says—a +distinguished new English writer who speaks of: 'The best that has +been thought and said in the world'.</p> +<p>SILAS: 'The best that has been thought and said in the world!' +(<i>slowly rising, and as if the dream of years is bringing him to +his feet</i>) That's what that hill is for! (<i>pointing</i>) Don't +you see it? End of our trail, we climb a hill and plant a college. +Plant a college, so's after we are gone that college says for us, +says in people learning has made more: 'That is why we took this +land.'</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>incredulous</i>) You mean, Silas, you're going +to <i>give the hill away</i>?</p> +<p>SILAS: The hill at the end of our trail—how could we keep +that?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well, I want to know why not! Hill or +level—land's land and not a thing you give away.</p> +<p>SILAS: Well, don't scold <i>me</i>. I'm not giving it away. It's +giving itself away, get down to it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Don't talk to me as if I was feeble-minded.</p> +<p>SILAS: I'm talking with all the mind I've got. If there's not +mind in what I say, it's because I've got no mind. But I have got a +mind, (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY, <i>humorously</i>) Haven't I? You ought +to know. Seeing as you gave it to me.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Ah, no—I didn't give it to you.</p> +<p>SILAS: Well, you made me know 'twas there. You said things that +woke things in me and I thought about them as I ploughed. And that +made me know there had to be a college there—wake things in +minds—so ploughing's more than ploughing. What do you say, +Felix?</p> +<p>FELIX: It—it's a big idea, Uncle Silas. I love the way you +put it. It's only that I'm wondering—</p> +<p>SILAS: Wondering how it can ever be a Harvard College? Well, it +can't. And it needn't be (<i>stubbornly</i>) It's a college in the +cornfields—where the Indian maize once grew. And it's for the +boys of the cornfields—and the girls. There's few can go to +Harvard College—but more can climb that hill, (<i>turn of the +head from the hill to</i> FELIX) Harvard on a hill? (<i>As</i> +FELIX <i>smiles no</i>, SILAS <i>turns back to the hill</i>) A +college should be on a hill. They can see it then from far around. +See it as they go out to the barn in the morning; see it when +they're shutting up at night. 'Twill make a difference—even +to them that never go.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Now, Silas—don't be hasty.</p> +<p>SILAS: Hasty? It's been company to me for years. Came to me one +night—must 'a' been ten years ago—middle of a starry +night as I was comin' home from your place (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) I'd +gone over to lend a hand with a sick horse an'—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>with a grateful smile</i>) That was nothing +new.</p> +<p>SILAS: Well, say, I'd sit up with a sick horse that belonged to +the meanest man unhung. But—there were stars that night had +never been there before. Leastways I'd not seen 'em. And the +hill—Felix, in all your travels east, did you ever see +anything more beautiful than that hill?</p> +<p>FELIX: It's like sculpture.</p> +<p>SILAS: Hm. (<i>the wistfulness with which he speaks of that +outside his knowledge</i>) I s'pose 'tis. It's the way it +rises—somehow—as if it knew it rose from wide and +fertile lands. I climbed the hill that night, (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) +You'd been talkin'. As we waited between medicines you told me +about your life as a young man. All you'd lived through seemed +to—open up to you that night—way things do at times. +Guess it was 'cause you thought you was goin' to lose your horse. +See, that was Colonel, the sorrel, wasn't it?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes. Good old Colonel.</p> +<p>SILAS: You'd had a long run o' off luck. Hadn't got things back +in shape since the war. But say, you didn't lose him, did you?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Thanks to you.</p> +<p>SILAS: Thanks to the medicine I keep in the back kitchen.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You encouraged him.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Silas has a way with all the beasts.</p> +<p>SILAS: We've got the same kind of minds—the beasts and +me.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Silas, I wish you wouldn't talk like that—and +with Felix just home from Harvard College.</p> +<p>SILAS: Same kind of minds—except that mine goes on a +little farther.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Well I'm glad to hear you say that.</p> +<p>SILAS: Well, there we sat—you an' me—middle of a +starry night, out beside your barn. And I guess it came over you +kind of funny you should be there with me—way off the +Mississippi, tryin' to save a sick horse. Seemed to—bring +your life to life again. You told me what you studied in that fine +old university you loved—the Vienna,—and why you became +a revolutionist. The old dreams took hold o' you and you +talked—way you used to, I suppose. The years, o' course, had +rubbed some of it off. Your face as you went on about the +vision—you called it, vision of what life could be. I knew +that night there was things I never got wind of. When I went +away—knew I ought to go home to bed—hayin' at daybreak. +'Go to bed?' I said to myself. 'Strike this dead when you've never +had it before, may never have it again?' I climbed the hill. +Blackhawk was there.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Why, he was <i>dead</i>.</p> +<p>SILAS: He was there—on his own old hill, with me and the +stars. And I said to him—</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Silas!</p> +<p>SILAS: Says I to him, 'Yes—that's true; it's more yours +than mine, you had it first and loved it best. But it's neither +yours nor mine,—though both yours and mine. Not my hill, not +your hill, but—hill of vision', said I to him. 'Here shall +come visions of a better world than was ever seen by you or me, old +Indian chief.' Oh, I was drunk, plum drunk.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I should think you was. And what about the next +day's hay?</p> +<p>SILAS: A day in the hayfield is a day's hayin'—but a night +on the hill—</p> +<p>FELIX: We don't have them often, do we, Uncle Silas?</p> +<p>SILAS: I wouldn't 'a' had that one but for your father, Felix. +Thank God they drove you out o' Hungary! And it's all so dog-gone +<i>queer</i>. Ain't it queer how things blow from mind to +mind—like seeds. Lord A'mighty—you don't know where +they'll take hold.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Children's voices off</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: There come those children up from the +creek—soppin' wet, I warrant. Well, I don't know how children +ever get raised. But we raise more of 'em than we used to. I buried +three—first ten years I was here. Needn't 'a' +happened—if we'd known what we know now, and if we hadn't +been alone. (<i>With all her strength</i>.) I don't know what you +mean—the hill's not yours!</p> +<p>SILAS: It's the future's, mother—so's we can know more +than we know now.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: We know it now. 'Twas then we didn't know it. I +worked for that hill! And I tell you to leave it to your own +children.</p> +<p>SILAS: There's other land for my own children. This is for all +the children.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: What's all the children to you?</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>derisively</i>) Oh, mother—what a thing for you +to say! You who were never too tired to give up your own bed so the +stranger could have a better bed.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: That was different. They was folks on their +way.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: So are we.</p> +<p class="dir">(SILAS <i>turns to him with quick +appreciation</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: That's just talk. We're settled now. Children of +other old settlers are getting rich. I should think you'd want +yours to.</p> +<p>SILAS: I want other things more. I want to pay my debts 'fore +I'm too old to know they're debts.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>momentarily startled</i>) Debts? Huh! More +talk. You don't owe any man.</p> +<p>SILAS: I owe him (<i>nodding to</i> FEJEVARY). And the red boys +here before me.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Fiddlesticks.</p> +<p>FELIX: You haven't read Darwin, have you, Uncle Silas?</p> +<p>SILAS: Who?</p> +<p>FELIX: Darwin, the great new man—and his theory of the +survival of the fittest?</p> +<p>SILAS: No. No, I don't know things like that, Felix.</p> +<p>FELIX: I think he might make you feel better about the Indians. +In the struggle for existence many must go down. The fittest +survive. This—had to be.</p> +<p>SILAS: Us and the Indians? Guess I don't know what you +mean—fittest.</p> +<p>FELIX: He calls it that. Best fitted to the place in which one +finds one's self, having the qualities that can best cope with +conditions—do things. From the beginning of life it's been +like that. He shows the growth of life from forms that were hardly +alive, the lowest animal forms—jellyfish—up to man.</p> +<p>SILAS: Oh, yes, that's the thing the churches are so upset +about—that we come from monkeys.</p> +<p>FELIX: Yes. One family of ape is the direct ancestor of man.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: You'd better read your Bible, Felix.</p> +<p>SILAS: Do people believe this?</p> +<p>FELIX: The whole intellectual world is at war about it. The best +scientists accept it. Teachers are losing their positions for +believing it. Of course, ministers can't believe it.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I should think not. Anyway, what's the use +believing a thing that's so discouraging?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>gently</i>) But is it that? It almost seems to me +we have to accept it because it is so encouraging. (<i>holding out +his hand</i>) Why have we hands?</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Cause God gave them to us, I s'pose.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: But that's rather general, and there isn't much in it +to give us self-confidence. But when you think we have hands +because ages back—before life had taken form as man, there +was an impulse to do what had never been done—when you think +that we have hands today because from the first of life there have +been adventurers—those of best brain and courage who wanted +to be more than life had been, and that from aspiration has come +doing, and doing has shaped the thing with which to do—it +gives our hand a history which should make us want to use it +well.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>breathed from deep</i>) Well, by God! And you've +known this all this while! Dog-gone you—why didn't you tell +me?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I've been thinking about it. I haven't known what to +believe. This hurts—beliefs of earlier years.</p> +<p>FELIX: The things it hurts will have to go.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I don't know about that, Felix. Perhaps in time we'll +find truth in them.</p> +<p>FELIX: Oh, if you feel that way, father.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Don't be kind to me, my boy, I'm not that old.</p> +<p>SILAS: But think what it is you've said! If it's true that we +made ourselves—made ourselves out of the wanting to be +more—created ourselves you might say, by our own +courage—our—what is it?—aspiration. Why, I can't +take it in. I haven't got the mind to take it in. And what mind I +have got says no. It's too—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It fights with what's there.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>nodding</i>) But it's like I got this (<i>very +slowly</i>) other way around. From underneath. As if I'd known it +all along—but have just found out I know it! Yes. The earth +told me. The beasts told me.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Fine place to learn things from.</p> +<p>SILAS: Anyhow, haven't I seen it? (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) In your +face haven't I seen thinking make a finer face? How long has this +taken, Felix, to—well, you might say, bring us where we are +now?</p> +<p>FELIX: Oh, we don't know how many millions of years since earth +first stirred.</p> +<p>SILAS: Then we are what we are because through all that time +there've been them that wanted to be more than life had been.</p> +<p>FELIX: That's it, Uncle Silas.</p> +<p>SILAS: But—why, then we aren't <i>finished</i> yet!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No. We take it on from here.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>slowly</i>) Then if we don't be—the most we can +be, if we don't be more than life has been, we go back on all that +life behind us; go back on—the—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Unable to formulate it, he looks to</i> +FEJEVARY.)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Go back on the dreaming and the daring of a million +years.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>After a moment's pause</i> SILAS <i>gets up, +opens the closet door</i>.)</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Silas, what you doing?</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>who has taken out a box</i>) I'm lookin' for the deed +to the hill.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: What you going to do with it?</p> +<p>SILAS: I'm going to get it out of my hands.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Get it out of your hands? (<i>he has it now</i>) +Deed your father got from the government the very year the +government got it from the Indians?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>rising</i>) Give me that! (<i>she turns to</i> +FEJEVARY) Tell him he's crazy. We got the best land 'cause we was +first here. We got a right to keep it.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>going soothingly to her</i>) It's true, Silas, it +is a serious thing to give away one's land.</p> +<p>SILAS: You ought to know. You did it. Are you sorry you did +it?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No. But wasn't that different?</p> +<p>SILAS: How was it different? Yours was a fight to make life +more, wasn't it? Well, let this be our way.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: What's all that got to do with giving up the land +that should provide for our own children?</p> +<p>SILAS: Isn't it providing for them to give them a better world +to live in? Felix—you're young, I ask you, ain't it providing +for them to give them a chance to be more than we are?</p> +<p>FELIX: I think you're entirely right, Uncle Silas. But it's the +practical question that—</p> +<p>SILAS: If you're right, the practical question is just a thing +to fix up.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I fear you don't realize the immense amount of money +required to finance a college. The land would be a start. You would +have to interest rich men; you'd have to have a community in +sympathy with the thing you wanted to do.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Can't you see, Silas, that we're all against +you?</p> +<p>SILAS: All against me? (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) But how can you be? +Look at the land we walked in and took! Was there ever such a +chance to make life more? Why, the buffalo here before us was more +than we if we do nothing but prosper! God damn us if we sit here +rich and fat and forget man's in the makin'. (<i>affirming against +this</i>) There will one day be a college in these cornfields by +the Mississippi because long ago a great dream was fought for in +Hungary. And I say to that old dream, Wake up, old dream! Wake up +and fight! You say rich men. (<i>holding it out, but it is not +taken</i>) I give you this deed to take to rich men to show them +one man believes enough in this to give the best land he's got. +That ought to make rich men stop and think.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Stop and think he's a fool.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY) It's you can make them know he's not +a fool. When you tell this way you can tell it, they'll feel in you +what's more than them. They'll listen.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: I tell you, Silas, folks are too busy.</p> +<p>SILAS: Too busy!' Too busy bein' nothin'? If it's true that we +created ourselves out of the thoughts that came, then thought is +not something <i>outside</i> the business of life. +Thought—(<i>with his gift for wonder</i>) why, thought's our +chance. I know now. Why I can't forget the Indians. We killed their +joy before we killed them. We made them less, (<i>to</i> FEJEVARY, +<i>and as if sure he is now making it clear</i>) I got to give it +back—their hill. I give it back to joy—a better +joy—joy o'aspiration.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>moved but unconvinced</i>) But, my friend, there +are men who have no aspiration. That's why, to me, this is as a +light shining from too far.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: (<i>old things waked in her</i>) Light shining from +far. We used to do that. We never pulled the curtain. I used to +want to—you like to be to yourself when night +conies—but we always left a lighted window for the traveller +who'd lost his way.</p> +<p>FELIX: I should think that would have exposed you to the +Indians.</p> +<p>GRANDMOTHER: Yes. (<i>impatiently</i>) Well, you can't put out a +light just because it may light the wrong person.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No. (<i>and this is as a light to him. He turns to the +hill</i>) No.</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>with gentleness, and profoundly</i>) That's it. Look +again. Maybe your eyes are stronger now. Don't you see it? I see +that college rising as from the soil itself, as if it was what come +at the last of that thinking that breathes from the earth. I see +it—but I want to know it's real before I stop knowing. Then +maybe I can lie under the same sod with the red boys and not be +ashamed. We're not old! Let's fight! Wake in other men what you +woke in me!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And so could I pay my debt to America. (<i>His hand +goes out</i>.)</p> +<p>SILAS: (<i>giving him the deed</i>) And to the dreams of a +million years! (<i>Standing near the open door, their hands are +gripped in compact</i>.)</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<h3>ACT II</h3> +<p class="scene">SCENE: <i>A corridor in the library of Morton +College, October of the year 1920, upon the occasion of the +fortieth anniversary of its founding. This is an open place in the +stacks of books, which are seen at both sides. There is a +reading-table before the big rear window. This window opens out, +but does not extend to the floor; only a part of its height is +seen, indicating a very high window. Outside is seen the top of a +tree. This outer wall of the building is on a slant, so that the +entrance right is near, and the left is front. Right front is a +section of a huge square column. On the rear of this, facing the +window, is hung a picture of SILAS MORTON. Two men are standing +before this portrait</i>.</p> +<p class="scene">SENATOR LEWIS <i>is the Midwestern state senator. +He is not of the city from which Morton College rises, but of a +more country community farther in-state</i>. FELIX FEJEVARY, <i>now +nearing the age of his father in the first act, is an American of +the more sophisticated type—prosperous, having the poise of +success in affairs and place in society</i>.</p> +<p>SENATOR: And this was the boy who founded the place, eh? It was +his idea?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes, and his hill. I was there the afternoon he told +my father there must be a college here. I wasn't any older then +than my boy is now.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>As if himself surprised by this</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: Well, he enlisted a good man when he let you in on it. +I've been told the college wouldn't be what it is today but for +you, Mr Fejevary.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I have a sentiment about it, and where our sentiment +is, there our work goes also.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Yes. Well, it was those mainsprings of sentiment that +won the war.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He is pleased with this</i>.)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>nodding</i>) Morton College did her part in +winning the war.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I know. A fine showing.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And we're holding up our end right along. You'll see +the boys drill this afternoon. It's a great place for them, here on +the hill—shows up from so far around. They're a fine lot of +fellows. You know, I presume, that they went in as strike-breakers +during the trouble down here at the steel works. The plant would +have had to close but for Morton College. That's one reason I +venture to propose this thing of a state appropriation for +enlargement. Why don't we sit down a moment? There's no conflict +with the state university—they have their territory, we have +ours. Ours is an important one—industrially speaking. The +state will lose nothing in having a good strong college +here—a one-hundred-per-cent-American college.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I admit I am very favourably impressed.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I hope you'll tell your committee so—and let me +have a chance to talk to them.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Let's see, haven't you a pretty radical man here?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I wonder if you mean Holden?</p> +<p>SENATOR: Holden's the man. I've read things that make me +question his Americanism.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Oh—(<i>gesture of depreciation</i>) I don't +think he is so much a radical as a particularly human +human-being.</p> +<p>SENATOR: But we don't want radical human beings.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He has a genuine sympathy with youth. That's +invaluable in a teacher, you know. And then—he's a +scholar.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He betrays here his feeling of superiority to +his companion, but too subtly for his companion to get it</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: Oh—scholar. We can get scholars enough. What we +want is Americans.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Americans who are scholars.</p> +<p>SENATOR: You can pick 'em off every bush—pay them a little +more than they're paid in some other cheap John College. Excuse +me—I don't mean this is a cheap John College.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Of course not. One couldn't think that of Morton +College. But that—pay them a little more, interests me. +That's another reason I want to talk to your committee on +appropriations. We claim to value education and then we let highly +trained, gifted men fall behind the plumber.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Well, that's the plumber's fault. Let the teachers talk +to the plumber.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>with a smile</i>) No. Better not let them talk to +the plumber. He might tell them what to do about it. In fact, is +telling them.</p> +<p>SENATOR: That's ridiculous. They can't serve both God and +mammon.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Then let God give them mammon. I mean, let the state +appropriate.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Of course this state, Mr Fejevary, appropriates no +money for radicals. Excuse me, but why do you keep this man +Holden?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: In the scholar's world we're known because of him. And +really, Holden's not a radical—in the worst sense. What he +doesn't see is—expediency. Not enough the man of affairs to +realize that we can't always have literally what we have +theoretically. He's an idealist. Something of the—man of +vision.</p> +<p>SENATOR: If he had the right vision he'd see that we don't every +minute have literally what we have theoretically because we're +fighting to keep the thing we have. Oh, I sometimes think the man +of affairs has the only vision. Take you, Mr Fejevary—a +banker. These teachers—books—books! (<i>pushing all +books back</i>) Why, if they had to take for one day the +responsibility that falls on your shoulders—big decisions to +make—man among men—and all the time worries, +irritations, particularly now with labour riding the high horse +like a fool! I know something about these things. I went to the +State House because my community persuaded me it was my duty. But +I'm the man of affairs myself.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Oh yes, I know. Your company did much to develop that +whole northern part of the state.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I think I may say we did. Well, that's why, after three +sessions, I'm chairman of the appropriations committee. I know how +to use money to promote the state. So—teacher? That would be +a perpetual vacation to me. Now, if you want my advice, Mr +Fejevary,—I think your case before the state would be +stronger if you let this fellow Holden go.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I'm going to have a talk with Professor Holden.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Tell him it's for his own good. The idea of a college +professor standing up for conscientious objectors!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: That doesn't quite state the case. Fred Jordan was one +of Holden's students—a student he valued. He felt Jordan was +perfectly sincere in his objection.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Sincere in his objections! The nerve of him thinking it +was his business to be sincere!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He was expelled from college—you may remember; +that was how we felt about it.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I should hope so.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Holden fought that, but within the college. What +brought him into the papers was his protest against the way the boy +has been treated in prison.</p> +<p>SENATOR: What's the difference how he's treated? You know how +I'd treat him? (<i>a movement as though pulling a trigger</i>) If I +didn't know you for the American you are, I wouldn't understand +your speaking so calmly.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I'm simply trying to see it all sides around.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Makes me see red.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>with a smile</i>) But we mustn't meet red with +red.</p> +<p>SENATOR: What's Holden fussing about—that they don't give +him caviare on toast?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: That they didn't give him books. Holden felt it was +his business to fuss about that.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Well, when your own boy 'stead of whining around about +his conscience, stood up and offered his life!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes. And my nephew gave his life.</p> +<p>SENATOR: That so?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Silas Morton's grandson died in France. My sister +Madeline married Ira Morton, son of Silas Morton.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I knew there was a family connection between you and +the Mortons.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>speaking with reserve</i>) They played together as +children and married as soon as they were grown up.</p> +<p>SENATOR: So this was your sister's boy? (FEJEVARY <i>nods</i>) +One of the mothers to give her son!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>speaking of her with effort</i>) My sister +died—long ago. (<i>pulled to an old feeling; with an effort +releasing himself</i>) But Ira is still out at the old +place—place the Mortons took up when they reached the end of +their trail—as Uncle Silas used to put it. Why, it's a +hundred years ago that Grandmother Morton began—making +cookies here. She was the first white woman in this country.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Proud woman! To have begun the life of this state! Oh, +our pioneers! If they could only see us now, and know what they +did! (FEJEVARY <i>is silent; he does not look quite happy</i>) I +suppose Silas Morton's son is active in the college management.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No, Ira is not a social being. Fred's death about +finished him. He had been—strange for years, ever since my +sister died—when the children were little. It +was—(<i>again pulled back to that old feeling</i>) under +pretty terrible circumstances.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I can see that you thought a great deal of your sister, +Mr Fejevary.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Oh, she was beautiful and—(<i>bitterly</i>) it +shouldn't have gone like that.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Seems to me I've heard something about Silas Morton's +son—though perhaps it wasn't this one.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Ira is the only one living here now; the others have +gone farther west.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Isn't there something about corn?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes. His corn has several years taken the +prize—best in the state. He's experimented with +it—created a new kind. They've given it his name—Morton +corn. It seems corn is rather fascinating to work with—very +mutable stuff. It's a good thing Ira has it, for it's about the +only thing he does care for now. Oh, Madeline, of course. He has a +daughter here in the college—Madeline Morton, senior this +year—one of our best students. I'd like to have you meet +Madeline—she's a great girl, though—peculiar.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Well, that makes a girl interesting, if she isn't +peculiar the wrong way. Sounds as if her home life might make her a +little peculiar.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Madeline stays here in town with us a good part of the +time. Mrs Fejevary is devoted to her—we all are. (<i>a boy +starts to come through from right</i>) Hello, see who's here. This +is my boy. Horace, this is Senator Lewis, who is interested in the +college.</p> +<p>HORACE: (<i>shaking hands</i>) How do you do, Senator Lewis?</p> +<p>SENATOR: Pleased to see you, my boy.</p> +<p>HORACE: Am I butting in?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Not seriously; but what are you doing in the library? +I thought this was a day off.</p> +<p>HORACE: I'm looking for a book.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>affectionately bantering</i>) You are, Horace? Now +how does that happen?</p> +<p>HORACE: I want the speeches of Abraham Lincoln.</p> +<p>SENATOR: You couldn't do better.</p> +<p>HORACE: I'll show those dirty dagoes where they get off!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You couldn't show them a little more elegantly?</p> +<p>HORACE: I'm going to sick the Legion on 'em.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Are you talking about the Hindus?</p> +<p>HORACE: Yes, the dirty dagoes.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Hindus aren't dagoes you know, Horace.</p> +<p>HORACE: Well, what's the difference? This foreign element gets +my goat.</p> +<p>SENATOR: My boy, you talk like an American. But what do you +mean—Hindus?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: There are two young Hindus here as students. And +they're good students.</p> +<p>HORACE: Sissies.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: But they must preach the gospel of free +India—non-British India.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Oh, that won't do.</p> +<p>HORACE: They're nothing but Reds, I'll say. Well, one of 'em's +going back to get his. (<i>grins</i>)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: There were three of them last year. One of them is +wanted back home.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I remember now. He's to be deported.</p> +<p>HORACE: And when they get him—(<i>movement as of pulling a +rope</i>) They hang there.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: The other two protest against our not fighting the +deportation of their comrade. They insist it means death to him. +(<i>brushing off a thing that is inclined to worry him</i>) But we +can't handle India's affairs.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I should think not!</p> +<p>HORACE: Why, England's our ally! That's what I told them. But +you can't argue with people like that. Just wait till I find the +speeches of Abraham Lincoln!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Passes through to left</i>)</p> +<p>SENATOR: Fine boy you have, Mr Fejevary.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He's a live one. You should see him in a football +game. Wouldn't hurt my feelings in the least to have him a little +more of a student, but—</p> +<p>SENATOR: Oh, well, you want him to be a regular fellow, don't +you, and grow into a man among men?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He'll do that, I think. It was he who organized our +boys for the steel strike—went right in himself and took a +striker's job. He came home with a black eye one night, presented +to him by a picket who started something by calling him a scab. But +Horace wasn't thinking about his eye. According to him, it was not +in the class with the striker's upper lip. 'Father,' he said, 'I +gave him more red than he could swallow. The blood just—' +Well, I'll spare you—but Horace's muscle is one hundred per +cent American. (<i>going to the window</i>) Let me show you +something. You can see the old Morton place off on that first +little hill. (<i>pointing left</i>) The first rise beyond the +valley.</p> +<p>SENATOR: The long low house?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: That's it. You see, the town for the most part swung +around the other side of the hill, so the Morton place is still a +farm.</p> +<p>SENATOR: But you're growing all the while. The town'll take the +cornfield yet.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes, our steel works is making us a city.</p> +<p>SENATOR: And this old boy (<i>turning to the portrait of</i> +SILAS MORTON) can look out on his old home—and watch the +valley grow.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes—that was my idea. His picture really should +be in Memorial Hall, but I thought Uncle Silas would like to be up +here among the books, and facing the old place. (<i>with a +laugh</i>) I confess to being a little sentimental.</p> +<p>SENATOR: We Americans have lots of sentiment, Mr Fejevary. It's +what makes us—what we are. (FEJEVARY <i>does not speak; there +are times when the senator seems to trouble him</i>) Well, this is +a great site for a college. You can see it from the whole country +round.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes, that was Uncle Silas' idea. He had a reverence +for education. It grew, in part, out of his feeling for my father. +He was a poet—really, Uncle Silas. (<i>looking at the +picture</i>) He gave this hill for a college that we might become a +deeper, more sensitive people—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Two girls, convulsed with the giggles, come +tumbling in</i>.)</p> +<p>DORIS: (<i>confused</i>) Oh—oh, excuse us.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>foolishly</i>) We didn't know anybody was here.</p> +<p class="dir">(MR FEJEVARY <i>looks at them sternly. The girls +retreat</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: (<i>laughing</i>) Oh, well girls will be girls. I've +got three of my own.</p> +<p class="dir">(HORACE <i>comes back, carrying an open +book</i>.)</p> +<p>HORACE: Say, this must be a misprint.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>glancing at the back of the book</i>) Oh, I think +not.</p> +<p>HORACE: From his first inaugural address to Congress, March 4, +1861. (<i>reads</i>) 'This country with its institutions belong to +the people who inhabit it.' Well, that's all right. 'Whenever they +shall grow weary of the existing government they can exercise their +constitutional right of amending it'—(<i>after a brief +consideration</i>) I suppose that that's all right—but +listen! 'or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow +it.'</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He was speaking in another age. An age of different +values.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Terms change their significance from generation to +generation.</p> +<p>HORACE: I suppose they do—but that puts me in bad with +these lice. They quoted this and I said they were liars.</p> +<p>SENATOR: And what's the idea? They're weary of our existing +government and are about to dismember or overthrow it?</p> +<p>HORACE: I guess that's the dope.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Look here, Horace—speak accurately. Was it in +relation to America they quoted this?</p> +<p>HORACE: Well, maybe they were talking about India then. But they +were standing up for being revolutionists. We were giving them an +earful about it, and then they spring Lincoln on us. Got their +nerve—I'll say—quoting Lincoln to us.</p> +<p>SENATOR: The fact that they are quoting it shows it's being +misapplied.</p> +<p>HORACE: (<i>approvingly</i>) I'll tell them that. But +gee—Lincoln oughta been more careful what he said. Ignorant +people don't know how to take such things.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Goes back with book</i>.)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Want to take a look through the rest of the library? +We haven't been up this way yet—(<i>motioning left</i>) We +need a better scientific library. (<i>they are leaving now</i>) Oh, +we simply must have more money. The whole thing is fairly bursting +its shell.</p> +<p>DORIS: (<i>venturing in cautiously from the other side, looking +back, beckoning</i>) They've gone.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Sure?</p> +<p>DORIS: Well, are they here? And I saw them, I tell +you—they went up to science.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>moving the</i> SENATOR'S <i>hat on the table</i>) +But they'll come back.</p> +<p>DORIS: What if they do? We're only looking at a book. +(<i>running her hand along the books</i>) Matthew Arnold.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Takes a paper from</i> FUSSIE, <i>puts it in the +book. They are bent with giggling as</i> HORACE +<i>returns</i>.)</p> +<p>HORACE: For the love o' Pete, what's the joke? (<i>taking the +book from the helpless girl</i>) Matthew Arnold. My idea of nowhere +to go for a laugh. When I wrote my theme on him last week he was so +dry I had to go out and get a Morton Sundee (<i>the girls are +freshly attacked, though all of this in a subdued way, mindful of +others in the library</i>) Say, how'd you get that way?</p> +<p>DORIS: Now, Horace, don't you <i>tell</i>.</p> +<p>HORACE: What'd I tell, except—(<i>seeing the paper</i>) Um +hum—what's this?</p> +<p>DORIS: (<i>trying to get it from him</i>) Horace, now +<i>don't</i> you (<i>a tussle</i>) You great strong mean thing! +Fussie! Make him <i>stop</i>.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She gets the paper by tearing it</i>.)</p> +<p>HORACE: My dad's around here—showing the college off to a +politician. If you don't come across with that sheet of mystery, +I'll back you both out there (<i>starts to do it</i>) +and—</p> +<p>DORIS: Horace! You're just <i>horrid</i>.</p> +<p>HORACE: Sure I'm horrid. That's the way I want to be. (<i>takes +the paper, reads</i>)</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'To Eben</p> +<p>You are the idol of my dreams</p> +<p>I worship from afar.'</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>What is this?</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Now, listen, Horace, and don't you <i>tell</i>. You know +Eben Weeks. He's the homeliest man in school. Wouldn't you say +so?</p> +<p>HORACE: Awful jay. Like to get some of the jays out of here.</p> +<p>DORIS: But listen. Of course, no girl would <i>look</i> at him. +So we've thought up the most <i>killing</i> joke, (<i>stopped by +giggles from herself and</i> FUSSIE) Now, he hasn't handed in his +Matthew Arnold dope. I heard old Mac hold him up for it—and +what'd you think he said? That he'd been <i>ploughing</i>. Said he +was trying to run a farm and go to college at the same time! Isn't +it a <i>scream</i>?</p> +<p>HORACE: We oughta—make it more unpleasant for some of +those jays. Gives the school a bad name.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: But, listen, Horace, honest—you'll just +<i>die</i>. He said he was going to get the book this afternoon. +Now you know what he <i>looks</i> like, but he turns +to—(<i>both girls are convulsed</i>)</p> +<p>DORIS: It'll get him all fussed up! And for nothing at all!</p> +<p>HORACE: Too bad that class of people come here. I think I'll go +to Harvard next year. Haven't broken it to my parents—but +I've about made up my mind.</p> +<p>DORIS: Don't you think Morton's a good school, Horace?</p> +<p>HORACE: Morton's all right. Fine for the—(<i>kindly</i>) +people who would naturally come here. But one gets an acquaintance +at Harvard. Wher'd'y' want these passionate lines?</p> +<p class="dir">(FUSSIE <i>and</i> DORIS <i>are off again +convulsed</i>.)</p> +<p>HORACE: (<i>eye falling on the page where he opens the book</i>) +Say, old Bones could spill the English—what? Listen to this +flyer. 'For when we say that culture is to know the best that has +been thought and said in the world, we simply imply that for +culture a system directly tending to that end is necessary in our +reading.' (<i>he reads it with mock solemnity, delighting</i> +FUSSIE <i>and</i> DORIS) The best that has been thought and said in +the world!'</p> +<p class="dir">(MADELINE MORTON <i>comes in from right; she carries +a tennis racket</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>both critical and good-humoured</i>) You haven't +made a large contribution to that, have you, Horace?</p> +<p>HORACE: Madeline, you don't want to let this sarcastic habit +grow on you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Thanks for the tip.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh—<i>Madeline, (holds out her hand to take the +book from</i> HORACE <i>and shows it to</i> MADELINE) You +know—</p> +<p>DORIS: S-h Don't be silly, (<i>to cover this</i>) Who you +playing with?</p> +<p>HORACE: Want me to play with you, Madeline?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>genially</i>) I'd rather play with you than talk +to you.</p> +<p>HORACE: Same here.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Aren't cousins affectionate?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>moving through to the other part of the +library</i>) But first I'm looking for a book.</p> +<p>HORACE: Well, I can tell you without your looking it up, he did +say it. But that was an age of different values. Anyway, the fact +that they're quoting it shows it's being misapplied.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>smiling</i>) Father said so.</p> +<p>HORACE: (<i>on his dignity</i>) Oh, of course—if you don't +want to be serious.</p> +<p class="dir">(MADELINE <i>laughs and passes on through</i>.)</p> +<p>DORIS: What are you two talking about?</p> +<p>HORACE: Madeline happened to overhear a little discussion down +on the campus.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Listen. You know something? Sometimes I think Madeline +Morton is a highbrow in disguise.</p> +<p>HORACE: Say, you don't want to start anything like that. +Madeline's all right. She and I treat each other rough—but +that's being in the family.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Well, I'll <i>tell</i> you something. I heard Professor +Holden say Madeline Morton has a great deal more mind than she'd +let herself know.</p> +<p>HORACE: Oh, well—Holden, he's erratic. Look at how popular +Madeline is.</p> +<p>DORIS: I should say. What's the matter with you, Fussie?</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh, I didn't mean it really <i>hurt</i> her.</p> +<p>HORACE: Guess it don't hurt her much at a dance. Say, what's +this new jazz they were springing last night?</p> +<p>DORIS: I know! Now look here, Horace—L'me show you. +(<i>she shows him a step</i>)</p> +<p>HORACE: I get you. (<i>He begins to dance with her; the book he +holds slips to the floor. He kicks it under the table</i>.)</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Be careful. They'll be coming back here, (<i>glances off +left</i>)</p> +<p>DORIS: Keep an eye out, Fussie.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>from her post</i>) They're coming! I tell you, +they're <i>coming!</i></p> +<p>DORIS: Horace, come on.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He teasingly keeps hold of her, continuing the +dance. At sound of voices, they run off, right</i>. FUSSIE +<i>considers rescuing the book, decides she has not time</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: (<i>at first speaking off</i>) Yes, it could be done. +There is that surplus, and as long as Morton College is socially +valuable—right here above the steel works, and making this +feature of military training—(<i>he has picked up his +hat</i>) But your Americanism must be unimpeachable, Mr Fejevary. +This man Holden stands in the way.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I'm going to have a talk with Professor Holden this +afternoon. If he remains he will—(<i>it is not easy for him +to say</i>) give no trouble. (MADELINE <i>returns</i>) Oh, here's +Madeline—Silas Morton's granddaughter, Madeline Fejevary +Morton. This is Senator Lewis, Madeline.</p> +<p>SENATOR: (<i>holding out his hand</i>) How do you do, Miss +Morton. I suppose this is a great day for you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Why—I don't know.</p> +<p>SENATOR: The fortieth anniversary of the founding of your +grandfather's college? You must be very proud of your illustrious +ancestor.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I get a bit bored with him.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Bored with him? My dear young lady!</p> +<p>MADELINE: I suppose because I've heard so many speeches about +him—'The sainted pioneer'—'the grand old man of the +prairies'—I'm sure I haven't any idea what he really was +like.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I've tried to tell you, Madeline.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Yes.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I should think you would be proud to be the +granddaughter of this man of vision.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>her smile flashing</i>) Wouldn't you hate to be +the granddaughter of a phrase?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>trying to laugh it off</i>) Madeline! How +absurd.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Well, I'm off for tennis.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Nods good-bye and passes on</i>.)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>calling to her</i>) Oh, Madeline, if your Aunt +Isabel is out there—will you tell her where we are?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>calling back</i>) All right.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>after a look at his companion</i>) Queer girl, +Madeline. Rather—moody.</p> +<p>SENATOR: (<i>disapprovingly</i>) Well—yes.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>again trying to laugh it off</i>) She's been +hearing a great many speeches about her grandfather.</p> +<p>SENATOR: She should be proud to hear them.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Of course she should. (<i>looking in the direction</i> +MADELINE <i>has gone</i>) I want you to meet my wife, Senator +Lewis.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I should be pleased to meet Mrs Fejevary. I have heard +what she means to the college—socially.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I think she has given it something it wouldn't have +had without her. Certainly a place in the town that is—good +for it. And you haven't met our president yet.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Guess, I've met the real president.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Oh—no. I'm merely president of the board of +trustees.</p> +<p>SENATOR: 'Merely!'</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I want you to know President Welling. He's very much +the cultivated gentleman.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Cultivated gentlemen are all right. I'd hate to see a +world they ran.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>with a laugh</i>) I'll just take a look up here, +then we can go down the shorter way.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He goes out right</i>. SENATOR LEWIS <i>turns +and examines the books</i>. FUSSIE <i>slips in, looks at him, +hesitates, and then stoops under the table for the Matthew Arnold +(and her poem) which</i> HORACE <i>has kicked there. He +turns</i>.)</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>not out from under the table</i>) Oh, I was just +looking for a book.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Quite a place to look for a book.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>crawling out</i>) Yes, it got there. I thought I'd +put it back. Somebody—might want it.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I see, young lady, that you have a regard for +books.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh, yes, I do have a regard for them.</p> +<p>SENATOR: (<i>holding out his hand</i>) And what is your +book?</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh—it's—it's nothing.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>As he continues to hold out his hand, she +reluctantly gives the book</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: (<i>solemnly</i>) Matthew Arnold? Nothing?</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh, I didn't mean <i>him</i>.</p> +<p>SENATOR: A master of English! I am glad, young woman, that you +value this book.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh yes, I'm—awfully fond of it.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Growing more and more nervous as in turning the +pages he nears the poem</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: I am interested in you young people of Morton +College.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: That's so good of you.</p> +<p>SENATOR: What is your favourite study?</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Well—(<i>an inspiration</i>) I like all of +them.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Morton College is coming on very fast, I +understand.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: Oh yes, it's getting more and more of the right people. +It used to be a little jay, you know. Of course, the Fejevarys give +it class. Mrs Fejevary—isn't she wonderful?</p> +<p>SENATOR: I haven't seen her yet. Waiting here now to meet +her.</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>worried by this</i>) Oh, I must—must be going. +Shall I put the book back? (<i>holding out her hand</i>)</p> +<p>SENATOR: No, I'll just look it over a bit. (<i>sits +down</i>)</p> +<p>FUSSIE: (<i>unable to think of any way of getting it</i>) This +is where it belongs.</p> +<p>SENATOR: Thank you.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Reluctantly she goes out</i>. SENATOR LEWIS +<i>pursues Matthew Arnold with the conscious air of a half literate +man reading a 'great book'. The</i> FEJEVARYS <i>come in</i>)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I found my wife, Senator Lewis.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>she is a woman of social distinction and +charm</i>) How do you do, Senator Lewis? (<i>They shake +hands</i>.)</p> +<p>SENATOR: It's a great pleasure to meet you, Mrs Fejevary.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Why don't we carry Senator Lewis home for +lunch?</p> +<p>SENATOR: Why, you're very kind.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: I'm sure there's a great deal to talk about, so why +not talk comfortably, and really get acquainted? And we want to +tell you the whole story of Morton College—the good old +American spirit behind it.</p> +<p>SENATOR: I am glad to find you an American, Mrs Fejevary.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Oh, we are that. Morton College is one hundred per +cent American. Our boys—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Her boy</i> HORACE <i>rushes in</i>.)</p> +<p>HORACE: (<i>wildly</i>) Father! Will you go after Madeline? The +police have got her!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: <i>What!</i></p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>as he is getting his breath</i>) What absurd +thing are you saying, Horace?</p> +<p>HORACE: Awful row down on the campus. The Hindus. I told them to +keep their mouths shut about Abraham Lincoln. I told them the fact +they were quoting him—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Never mind what you told them! What happened?</p> +<p>HORACE: We started—to rustle them along a bit. Why, they +had <i>handbills</i> (<i>holding one up as if presenting +incriminating evidence—the</i> SENATOR <i>takes it from +him</i>) telling America what to do about deportation! Not on this +campus—I say. So we were—we were putting a stop to it. +They resisted—particularly the fat one. The cop at the corner +saw the row—came up. He took hold of Bakhshish, and when the +dirty anarchist didn't move along fast enough, he took hold of +him—well, a bit rough, you might say, when up rushes Madeline +and calls to the cop, 'Let that boy alone!' Gee—I don't know +just what did happen—awful mix-up. Next thing I knew Madeline +hauled off and pasted the policeman a fierce one with her tennis +racket!</p> +<p>SENATOR: She <i>struck</i> the officer?</p> +<p>HORACE: I should say she did. Twice. The second time—</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: <i>Horace</i>. (<i>looking at her husband</i>) +I—I can't believe it.</p> +<p>HORACE: I could have squared it, even then, but for Madeline +herself. I told the policeman that she didn't understand—that +I was her cousin, and apologized for her. And she called over at +me, 'Better apologize for yourself!' As if there was any sense to +that—that she—she looked like a <i>tiger</i>. Honest, +everybody was afraid of her. I kept right on trying to square it, +told the cop she was the granddaughter of the man that founded the +college—that you were her uncle—he would have gone off +with just the Hindu, fixed this up later, but Madeline balled it up +again—didn't care who was her uncle—Gee! (<i>he throws +open the window</i>) There! You can see them, at the foot of the +hill. A nice thing—member of our family led off to the police +station!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>to the</i> SENATOR) Will you excuse me?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>trying to return to the manner of pleasant +social things</i>) Senator Lewis will go on home with me, and +you—(<i>he is hurrying out</i>) come when you can. (<i>to +the</i> SENATOR) Madeline is such a high-spirited girl.</p> +<p>SENATOR: If she had no regard for the living, she might—on +this day of all others—have considered her grandfather's +memory.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Raises his eyes to the picture of</i> SILAS +MORTON.)</p> +<p>HORACE: Gee! Wouldn't you <i>say</i> so?</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<h3>ACT III</h3> +<p class="scene">SCENE: <i>The same as Act II three hours +later</i>. PROFESSOR HOLDEN <i>is seated at the table, books before +him. He is a man in the fifties. At the moment his care-worn face +is lighted by that lift of the spirit which sometimes rewards the +scholar who has imaginative feeling</i>. HARRY, <i>a student clerk, +comes hurrying in. Looks back</i>.</p> +<p>HARRY: Here's Professor Holden, Mr Fejevary.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Mr Fejevary is looking for me?</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He goes back, a moment later</i> MR FEJEVARY +<i>enters. He has his hat, gloves, stick; seems tired and +disturbed</i>.)</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Was I mistaken? I thought our appointment was for +five.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Quite right. But things have changed, so I wondered if +I might have a little talk with you now.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: To be sure. (<i>rising</i>) Shall we go downstairs?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I don't know. Nice and quiet up here. (<i>to</i> +HARRY, <i>who is now passing through</i>) Harry, the library is +closed now, is it?</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes, it's locked.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And there's no one in here?</p> +<p>HARRY: No, I've been all through.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: There's a committee downstairs. Oh, this is a terrible +day. (<i>putting his things on the table</i>) We'd better stay up +here. Harry, when my niece—when Miss Morton arrives—I +want you to come and let me know. Ask her not to leave the building +without seeing me.</p> +<p>HARRY: Yes, sir. (<i>he goes out</i>)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, (<i>wearily</i>) it's been a day. Not the day I +was looking for.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: No.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You're very serene up here.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Yes, I wanted to be—serene for a little while.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>looking at the books</i>) Emerson. Whitman. +(<i>with a smile</i>) Have they anything new to say on +economics?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Perhaps not; but I wanted to forget economics for a +time. I came up here by myself to try and celebrate the fortieth +anniversary of the founding of Morton College. (<i>answering the +other man's look</i>) Yes, I confess I've been disappointed in the +anniversary. As I left Memorial Hall after the exercises this +morning, Emerson's words came into my mind—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>'Give me truth,</p> +<p>For I am tired of surfaces</p> +<p>And die of inanition.'</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>Well, then I went home—(<i>stops, troubled</i>)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: How is Mrs Holden?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Better, thank you, but—not strong.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: She needs the very best of care for a time, doesn't +she?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Yes. (<i>silent a moment</i>) Then, this is something +more than the fortieth anniversary, you know. It's the first of the +month.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And illness hasn't reduced the bills?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>shaking his head</i>) I didn't want this day to go +like that; so I came up here to try and touch what used to be +here.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: But you speak despondently of us. And there's been +such a fine note of optimism in the exercises. (<i>speaks with the +heartiness of one who would keep himself assured</i>)</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I didn't seem to want a fine note of optimism. (<i>with +roughness</i>) I wanted—a gleam from reality.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: To me this is reality—the robust spirit created +by all these young people.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Do you think it is robust? (<i>hand affectionately on +the book before him</i>) I've been reading Whitman.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: This day has to be itself. Certain things +go—others come; life is change.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Perhaps it's myself I'm discouraged with. Do you +remember the tenth anniversary of the founding of Morton +College.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: The tenth? Oh yes, that was when this library was +opened.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I shall never forget your father, Mr Fejevary, as he +stood out there and said the few words which gave these books to +the students. Not many books, but he seemed to baptize them in the +very spirit from which books are born.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He died the following year.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: One felt death near. But that didn't seem the important +thing. A student who had fought for liberty for mind. Of course his +face would be sensitive. You must be very proud of your +heritage.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes. (<i>a little testily</i>) Well, I have certainly +worked for the college. I'm doing my best now to keep it a part of +these times.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>as if this has not reached him</i>) It was later +that same afternoon I talked with Silas Morton. We stood at this +window and looked out over the valley to the lower hill that was +his home. He told me how from that hill he had for years looked up +to this one, and why there had to be a college here. I never felt +America as that old farmer made me feel it.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>drawn by this, then shifting in irritation because +he is drawn</i>) I'm sorry to break in with practical things, but +alas, I am a practical man—forced to be. I too have made a +fight—though the fight to finance never appears an idealistic +one. But I'm deep in that now, and I must have a little help; at +least, I must not have—stumbling-blocks.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Am I a stumbling-block?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Candidly (<i>with a smile</i>) you are a little hard +to finance. Here's the situation. The time for being a little +college has passed. We must take our place as one of the important +colleges—I make bold to say one of the important +universities—of the Middle West. But we have to enlarge +before we can grow. (<i>answering</i> HOLDEN's <i>smile</i>) Yes, +it is ironic, but that's the way of it. It was a nice thing to open +the anniversary with fifty thousand from the steel works—but +fifty thousand dollars—nowadays—to an institution? +(<i>waves the fifty thousand aside</i>) They'll do more later, I +think, when they see us coming into our own. Meanwhile, as you +know, there's this chance for an appropriation from the state. I +find that the legislature, the members who count, are very friendly +to Morton College. They like the spirit we have here. Well, now I +come to you, and you are one of the big reasons for my wanting to +put this over. Your salary makes me blush. It's all wrong that a +man like you should have these petty worries, particularly with Mrs +Holden so in need of the things a little money can do. Now this man +Lewis is a reactionary. So, naturally, he doesn't approve of +you.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: So naturally I am to go.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Go? Not at all. What have I just been saying?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Be silent, then.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Not that either—not—not really. +But—be a little more discreet. (<i>seeing him harden</i>) +This is what I want to put up to you. Why not give things a chance +to mature in your own mind? Candidly, I don't feel you know just +what you do think; is it so awfully important to +express—confusion?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: The only man who knows just what he thinks at the +present moment is the man who hasn't done any new thinking in the +past ten years.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>with a soothing gesture</i>) You and I needn't +quarrel about it. I understand you, but I find it a little hard to +interpret you to a man like Lewis.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Then why not let a man like Lewis go to thunder?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And let the college go to thunder? I'm not willing to +do that. I've made a good many sacrifices for this college. Given +more money than I could afford to give; given time and thought that +I could have used for personal gain.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: That's true, I know.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I don't know just why I've done it. Sentiment, I +suppose. I had a very strong feeling about my father, Professor +Holden. And this friend Silas Morton. This college is the child of +that friendship. Those are noble words in our manifesto: 'Morton +College was born because there came to this valley a man who held +his vision for mankind above his own advantage; and because that +man found in this valley a man who wanted beauty for his fellow-men +as he wanted no other thing.'</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>taking it up</i>) 'Born of the fight for freedom and +the aspiration to richer living, we believe that Morton +College—rising as from the soil itself—may strengthen +all those here and everywhere who fight for the life there is in +freedom, and may, to the measure it can, loosen for America the +beauty that breathes from knowledge.' (<i>moved by the words he has +spoken</i>) Do you know, I would rather do that—really do +that—than—grow big.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes. But you see, or rather, what you don't see is, +you have to look at the world in which you find yourself. The only +way to stay alive is to grow big. It's been hard, but I have tried +to—carry on.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: And so have I tried to carry on. But it is very +hard—carrying on a dream.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, I'm trying to make it easier.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Make it easier by destroying the dream?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Not at all. What I want is scope for dreams.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Are you sure we'd have the dreams after we've paid this +price for the scope?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Now let's not get rhetorical with one another.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Mr Fejevary, you have got to let me be as honest with +you as you say you are being with me. You have got to let me say +what I feel.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Certainly. That's why I wanted this talk with you.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: You say you have made sacrifices for Morton College. So +have I.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: How well I know that.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: You don't know all of it. I'm not sure you understand +any of it.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>charmingly</i>) Oh, I think you're hard on me.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I spoke of the tenth anniversary. I was a young man +then, just home from Athens, (<i>pulled back into an old +feeling</i>) I don't know why I felt I had to go to Greece. I knew +then that I was going to teach something within sociology, and I +didn't want anything I felt about beauty to be left out of what I +formulated about society. The Greeks—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>as</i> HOLDEN <i>has paused before what he +sees</i>) I remember you told me the Greeks were the passion of +your student days.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Not so much because they created beauty, but because +they were able to let beauty flow into their lives—to create +themselves in beauty. So as a romantic young man (<i>smiles</i>), +it seemed if I could go where they had been—what I had felt +might take form. Anyway, I had a wonderful time there. Oh, what +wouldn't I give to have again that feeling of life's infinite +possibilities!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>nodding</i>) A youthful feeling.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>softly</i>) I like youth. Well, I was just back, +visiting my sister here, at the time of the tenth anniversary. I +had a chance then to go to Harvard as instructor. A good chance, +for I would have been under a man who liked me. But that afternoon +I heard your father speak about books. I talked with Silas Morton. +I found myself telling him about Greece. No one had ever felt it as +he felt it. It seemed to become of the very bone of him.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>affectionately</i>) I know how he used to do.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: He put his hands on my shoulders. He said, 'Young man, +don't go away. We need you here. Give us this great thing you've +got!' And so I stayed, for I felt that here was soil in which I +could grow, and that one's whole life was not too much to give to a +place with roots like that. (<i>a little bitterly</i>) Forgive me +if this seems rhetoric.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>a gesture of protest. Silent a moment</i>) You +make it—hard for me. (<i>with exasperation</i>) Don't you +think I'd like to indulge myself in an exalted mood? And why don't +I? I can't afford it—not now. Won't you have a little +patience? And faith—faith that the thing we want will be +there for us after we've worked our way through the woods. We are +in the woods now. It's going to take our combined brains to get us +out. I don't mean just Morton College.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: No—America. As to getting out, I think you are all +wrong.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: That's one of your sweeping statements, Holden. +Nobody's all wrong. Even you aren't.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: And in what ways am I wrong—from the standpoint of +your Senator Lewis?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He's not my Senator Lewis, he's the state's, and we +have to take him as he is. Why, he objects, of course, to your +radical activities. He spoke of your defence of conscientious +objectors.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>slowly</i>) I think a man who is willing to go to +prison for what he believes has stuff in him no college needs turn +its back on.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, he doesn't agree with you—nor do I.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>still quietly</i>) And I think a society which +permits things to go on which I can prove go on in our federal +prisons had better stop and take a fresh look at itself. To stand +for that and then talk of democracy and idealism—oh, it shows +no mentality, for one thing.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>easily</i>) I presume the prisons do need a +cleaning up. As to Fred Jordan, you can't expect me to share your +admiration. Our own Fred—my nephew Fred Morton, went to +France and gave his life. There's some little courage, Holden, in +doing that.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I'm not trying to belittle it. But he had the whole +spirit of his age with him—fortunate boy. The man who stands +outside the idealism of this time—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Takes a good deal upon himself, I should say.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: There isn't any other such loneliness. You know in your +heart it's a noble courage.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It lacks—humility. (HOLDEN <i>laughs +scoffingly</i>) And I think you lack it. I'm asking you to +co-operate with me for the good of Morton College.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Why not do it the other way? You say enlarge that we may +grow. That's false. It isn't of the nature of growth. Why not do it +the way of Silas Morton and Walt Whitman—each man being his +purest and intensest self. I was full of this fervour when you came +in. I'm more and more disappointed in our students. They're +empty—flippant. No sensitive moment opens them to beauty. No +exaltation makes them—what they hadn't known they were. I +concluded some of the fault must be mine. The only students I reach +are the Hindus. Perhaps Madeline Morton—I don't quite make +her out. I too must have gone into a dead stratum. But I can get +back. Here alone this afternoon—(<i>softly</i>) I was +back.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I think we'll have to let the Hindus go.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>astonished</i>) Go? Our best students?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: This college is for Americans. I'm not going to have +foreign revolutionists come here and block the things I've spent my +life working for.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I don't seem to know what you mean at all.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Why, that disgraceful performance this morning. I can +settle Madeline all right, (<i>looking at his watch</i>) She should +be here by now. But I'm convinced our case before the legislature +will be stronger with the Hindus out of here.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Well, I seem to have missed something—disgraceful +performance—the Hindus, Madeline—(<i>stops, +bewildered</i>)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You mean to say you don't know about the disturbance +out here?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I went right home after the address. Then came up here +alone.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Upon my word, you do lead a serene life. While you've +been sitting here in contemplation I've been to the police +court—trying to get my niece out of jail. That's what comes +of having radicals around.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: What happened?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: One of our beloved Hindus made himself obnoxious on +the campus. Giving out handbills about freedom for +India—howling over deportation. Our American boys wouldn't +stand for it. A policeman saw the fuss—came up and started to +put the Hindu in his place. Then Madeline rushes in, and it ended +in her pounding the policeman with her tennis racket.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Madeline Morton did that!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>sharply</i>) You seem pleased.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I am—interested.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, I'm not interested. I'm disgusted. My niece +mixing up in a free-for-all fight and getting taken to the police +station! It's the first disgrace we've ever had in our family.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>as one who has been given courage</i>) Wasn't there +another disgrace?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: What do you mean?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: When your father fought his government and was banished +from his country.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: That was not a disgrace!</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>as if in surprise</i>) Wasn't it?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: See here, Holden, you can't talk to me like that.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I don't admit you can talk to me as you please and that +I can't talk to you. I'm a professor—not a servant.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Yes, and you're a damned difficult professor. I +certainly have tried to—</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>smiling</i>) Handle me?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I ask you this. Do you know any other institution +where you could sit and talk with the executive head as you have +here with me?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I don't know. Perhaps not.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Then be reasonable. No one is entirely free. That's +naïve. It's rather egotistical to want to be. We're held by +our relations to others—by our obligations to the +(<i>vaguely</i>)—the ultimate thing. Come now—you admit +certain dissatisfactions with yourself, so—why not go with +intensity into just the things you teach—and not touch quite +so many other things?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I couldn't teach anything if I didn't feel free to go +wherever that thing took me. Thirty years ago I was asked to come +to this college precisely because my science was not in isolation, +because of my vivid feeling of us as a moment in a long sweep, +because of my faith in the greater beauty our further living may +unfold.</p> +<p class="dir">(HARRY <i>enters</i>.)</p> +<p>HARRY: Excuse me. Miss Morton is here now, Mr Fejevary.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>frowns, hesitates</i>) Ask her to come up here in +five minutes (<i>After</i> HARRY <i>has gone</i>) I think we've +thrown a scare into Madeline. I thought as long as she'd been taken +to jail it would be no worse for us to have her stay there awhile. +She's been held since one o'clock. That ought to teach her +reason.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Is there a case against her?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No, I got it fixed up. Explained that it was just +college girl foolishness—wouldn't happen again. One reason I +wanted this talk with you first, if I do have any trouble with +Madeline I want you to help me.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Oh, I can't do that.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You aren't running out and clubbing the police. Tell +her she'll have to think things over and express herself with a +little more dignity.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I ask to be excused from being present while you talk +with her.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: But why not stay in the library—in case I should +need you. Just take your books over to the east alcove and go on +with what you were doing when I came in.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>with a faint smile</i>) I fear I can hardly do that. +As to Madeline—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You don't want to see the girl destroy herself, do +you? I confess I've always worried about Madeline. If my sister had +lived—But Madeline's mother died, you know, when she was a +baby. Her father—well, you and I talked that over just the +other day—there's no getting to him. Fred never worried me a +bit—just the fine normal boy. But Madeline—(<i>with an +effort throwing it off</i>) Oh, it'll be all right, I haven't a +doubt. And it'll be all right between you and me, won't it? Caution +over a hard strip of the road, then—bigger things ahead.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>slowly, knowing what it may mean</i>) I shall +continue to do all I can toward getting Fred Jordan out of prison. +It's a disgrace to America that two years after the war closes he +should be kept there—much of the time in solitary +confinement—because he couldn't believe in war. It's +small—vengeful—it's the Russia of the Czars. I shall do +what is in my power to fight the deportation of Gurkul Singh. And +certainly I shall leave no stone unturned if you persist in your +amazing idea of dismissing the other Hindus from college. For +what—I ask you? Dismissed—for <i>what</i>? Because they +love liberty enough to give their lives to it! The day you dismiss +them, burn our high-sounding manifesto, Mr Fejevary, and admit that +Morton College now sells her soul to the—committee on +appropriations!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, you force me to be as specific as you are. If +you do these things, I can no longer fight for you.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Very well then, I go.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Go where?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I don't know—at the moment.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I fear you'll find it harder than you know. Meanwhile, +what of your family?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: We will have to manage some way.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It is not easy for a woman whose health—in fact, +whose life—is a matter of the best of care to 'manage some +way'. (<i>with real feeling</i>) What is an intellectual position +alongside that reality? You'd like, of course, to be just what you +want to be—but isn't there something selfish in that +satisfaction? I'm talking as a friend now—you must know that. +You and I have a good many ties, Holden. I don't believe you know +how much Mrs Fejevary thinks of Mrs Holden.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: She has been very, very good to her.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And will be. She cares for her. And our children have +been growing up together—I love to watch it. Isn't that the +reality? Doing for them as best we can, making sacrifices +of—of <i>every</i> kind. Don't let some tenuous, remote thing +destroy this flesh and blood thing.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>as one fighting to keep his head above water</i>) +Honesty is not a tenuous, remote thing.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: There's a kind of honesty in selfishness. We can't +always have it. Oh, I used to—go through things. But I've +struck a pace—one does—and goes ahead.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Forgive me, but I don't think you've had certain +temptations to—selfishness.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: How do you know what I've had? You have no way of +knowing what's in me—what other thing I might have been? You +know my heritage; you think that's left nothing? But I find myself +here in America. I love those dependent on me. My wife—who's +used to a certain manner of living; my children—who are to +become part of the America of their time. I've never said this to +another human being—I've never looked at myself—but +it's pretty arrogant to think you're the only man who has made a +sacrifice to fit himself into the age in which he lives. I hear +Madeline. This hasn't left me in very good form for talking with +her. Please don't go away. Just—</p> +<p class="dir">(MADELINE <i>comes in, right. She has her tennis +racket. Nods to the two men</i>. HOLDEN <i>goes out, left</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>looking after</i> HOLDEN—<i>feeling +something going on. Then turning to her uncle, who is still looking +after</i> HOLDEN) You wanted to speak to me, Uncle Felix?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Of course I want to speak to you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I feel just awfully sorry about—banging up my +racket like this. The second time it came down on this club. Why do +they carry those things? Perfectly fantastic, I'll say, going +around with a club. But as long as you were asking me what I wanted +for my birthday—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Madeline, I am not here to discuss your birthday.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'm sorry—(<i>smiles</i>) to hear that.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You don't seem much chastened.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Chastened? Was that the idea? Well, if you think that +keeping a person where she doesn't want to be chastens her! I never +felt less 'chastened' than when I walked out of that slimy spot and +looked across the street at your nice bank. I should think you'd +hate to—(<i>with friendly concern</i>) Why, Uncle Felix, you +look tired out.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I am tired out, Madeline. I've had a nerve-racking +day.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Isn't that too bad? Those speeches were so boresome, +and that old senator person—wasn't he a stuff? But can't you +go home now and let auntie give you tea and—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>sharply</i>) Madeline, have you no intelligence? +Hasn't it occurred to you that your performance would worry me a +little?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I suppose it was a nuisance. And on such a busy day. +(<i>changing</i>) But if you're going to worry, Horace is the one +you should worry about. (<i>answering his look</i>) Why, he got it +all up. He made me ashamed!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And you're not at all ashamed of what you have +done?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Ashamed? Why—no.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Then you'd better be! A girl who rushes in and +assaults an officer!</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>earnestly explaining it</i>) But, Uncle Felix, I +had to stop him. No one else did.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Madeline, I don't know whether you're trying to be +naïve—</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>angrily</i>) Well, I'm <i>not</i>. I like that! I +think I'll go home.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I think you will not! It's stupid of you not to know +this is serious. You could be dismissed from school for what you +did.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Well, I'm good and ready to be dismissed from any +school that would dismiss for that!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>in a new manner—quietly, from feeling</i>) +Madeline, have you no love for this place?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>doggedly, after thinking</i>) Yes, I have. (<i>she +sits down</i>) And I don't know why I have.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Certainly it's not strange. If ever a girl had a +background, Morton College is Madeline Fejevary Morton's +background. (<i>he too now seated by the table</i>) Do you remember +your Grandfather Morton?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Not very well. (<i>a quality which seems +sullenness</i>) I couldn't bear to look at him. He shook so.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>turning away, real pain</i>) Oh—how +cruel!</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>surprised, gently</i>) Cruel? Me—cruel?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Not just you. The way it passes—(<i>to +himself</i>) so <i>fast</i> it passes.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'm sorry. (<i>troubled</i>) You see, he was too old +then—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>his hand up to stop her</i>) I wish I could bring +him back for a moment, so you could see what he was before he +(<i>bitterly</i>) shook so. He was a powerful man, who was as real +as the earth. He was strangely of the earth, as if something went +from it to him. (<i>looking at her intently</i>) Queer you should +be the one to have no sentiment about him, for you and +he—sometimes when I'm with you it's as if—he were near. +He had no personal ambition, Madeline. He was ambitious for the +earth and its people. I wonder if you can realize what it meant to +my father—in a strange land, where he might so easily have +been misunderstood, pushed down, to find a friend like that? It +wasn't so much the material things—though Uncle Silas was +always making them right—and as if—oh, hardly conscious +what he was doing—so little it mattered. It was the way he +<i>got</i> father, and by that very valuing kept alive what was +there to value. Why, he literally laid this country at my father's +feet—as if that was what this country was for, as if it made +up for the hard early things—for the wrong things.</p> +<p>MADELINE: He must really have been a pretty nice old party. No +doubt I would have hit it off with him all right. I don't seem to +hit it off with the—speeches about him. Somehow I want to +say, 'Oh, give us a rest.'</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>offended</i>) And that, I presume, is what you +want to say to me.</p> +<p>MADELINE: No, no, I didn't mean you, Uncle. Though +(<i>hesitatingly</i>) I was wondering how you could think you were +talking on your side.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: What do you mean—my side?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, I don't—exactly. That's nice about him +being—of the earth. Sometimes when I'm out for a +tramp—way off by myself—yes, I know. And I wonder if +that doesn't explain his feeling about the Indians. Father told me +how grandfather took it to heart about the Indians.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: He felt it as you'd feel it if it were your brother. +So he must give his choicest land to the thing we might become. +'Then maybe I can lie under the same sod with the red boys and not +be ashamed.'</p> +<p class="dir">(MADELINE <i>nods, appreciatively</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Yes, that's really—all right.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>irritated by what seems charily stated +approval</i>) 'All right!' Well, I am not willing to let this man's +name pass from our time. And it seems rather bitter that Silas +Morton's granddaughter should be the one to stand in my way.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Why, Uncle Felix, I'm not standing in your way. Of +course I wouldn't do that. I—(<i>rather bashfully</i>) I love +the Hill. I was thinking about it in jail. I got fuddled on +direction in there, so I asked the woman who hung around which way +was College Hill. 'Right through there', she said. A blank wall. I +sat and looked through that wall—long time. (<i>she looks +front, again looking through that blank wall</i>) It was +all—kind of funny. Then later she came and told me you were +out there, and I thought it was corking of you to come and tell +them they couldn't put that over on College Hill. And I know +Bakhshish will appreciate it too. I wonder where he went?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Went? I fancy he won't go much of anywhere +to-night.</p> +<p>MADELINE: What do you mean?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Why, he's held for this hearing, of course.</p> +<p>MADELINE: You mean—you came and got just me—and left +him there?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Certainly.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>rising</i>) Then I'll have to go and get him!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Madeline, don't be so absurd. You don't get people out +of jail by stopping in and calling for them.</p> +<p>MADELINE: But you got me.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Because of years of influence. At that, it wasn't +simple. Things of this nature are pretty serious nowadays. It was +only your ignorance got you out.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I do seem ignorant. While you were fixing it up for +me, why didn't you arrange for him too?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Because I am not in the business of getting foreign +revolutionists out of jail.</p> +<p>MADELINE: But he didn't do as much as I did.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It isn't what he did. It's what he is. We don't want +him here.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Well, I guess I'm not for that!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: May I ask why you have appointed yourself guardian of +these strangers?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Perhaps because they are strangers.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, they're the wrong kind of strangers.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Is it true that the Hindu who was here last year is to +be deported? Is America going to turn him over to the government he +fought?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I have an idea they will all be deported. I'm not so +sorry this thing happened. It will get them into the +courts—and I don't think they have money to fight.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>giving it clean and straight</i>) Gee, I think +that's rotten!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Quite likely your inelegance will not affect it one +way or the other.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>she has taken her seat again, is thinking it +out</i>) I'm twenty-one next Tuesday. Isn't it on my twenty-first +birthday I get that money Grandfather Morton left me?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: What are you driving at?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>simply</i>) They can have my money.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Are you crazy? What <i>are</i> these people to +you?</p> +<p>MADELINE: They're people from the other side of the world who +came here believing in us, drawn from the far side of the world by +things we say about ourselves. Well, I'm going to +pretend—just for fun—that the things we say about +ourselves are true. So if you'll—arrange so I can get it, +Uncle Felix, as soon as it's mine.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And this is what you say to me at the close of my +years of trusteeship! If you could know how I've nursed that little +legacy along—until now it is—(<i>breaking off in +anger</i>) I shall not permit you to destroy yourself!</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>quietly</i>) I don't see how you can keep me from +'destroying myself'.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>looking at her, seeing that this may be true. In +genuine amazement, and hurt</i>) Why—but it's incredible. +Have I—has my house—been nothing to you all these +years?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I've had my best times at your house. Things wouldn't +have been—very gay for me—without you all—though +Horace gets my goat!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: And does your Aunt Isabel—'get your goat'?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I love auntie. (<i>rather resentfully</i>) You know +that. What has that got to do with it?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: So you are going to use Silas Morton's money to knife +his college.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, Uncle Felix, that's silly.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: It's a long way from silly. You know a little about +what I'm trying to do—this appropriation that would assure +our future. If Silas Morton's granddaughter casts in her lot with +revolutionists, Morton College will get no help from the state. Do +you know enough about what you are doing to assume this +responsibility?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I am not casting 'in my lot with revolutionists'. If +it's true, as you say, that you have to have money in order to get +justice—</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I didn't say it!</p> +<p>MADELINE: Why, you did, Uncle Felix. You said so. And if it's +true that these strangers in our country are going to be abused +because they're poor,—what else could I do with my money and +not feel like a skunk?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>trying a different tack, laughing</i>) Oh, you're +a romantic girl, Madeline—skunk and all. Rather nice, at +that. But the thing is perfectly fantastic, from every standpoint. +You speak as if you had millions. And if you did, it wouldn't +matter, not really. You are going against the spirit of this +country; with or without money, that can't be done. Take a man like +Professor Holden. He's radical in his sympathies—but does he +run out and club the police?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>in a smouldering way</i>) I thought America was a +democracy.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: We have just fought a great war for democracy.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Well, is that any reason for not having it?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I should think you would have a little emotion about +the war—about America—when you consider where your +brother is.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Fred had—all kinds of reasons for going to +France. He wanted a trip. (<i>answering his exclamation</i>) Why, +he <i>said</i> so. Heavens, Fred didn't make speeches about +himself. Wanted to see Paris—poor kid, he never did see +Paris. Wanted to be with a lot of fellows—knock the Kaiser's +block off—end war, get a French girl. It was all mixed +up—the way things are. But Fred was a pretty decent sort. +I'll say so. He had such kind, honest eyes. (<i>this has somehow +said itself; her own eyes close and what her shut eyes see makes +feeling hot</i>) One thing I do know! Fred never went over the top +and out to back up the argument you're making now!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>stiffly</i>) Very well, I will discontinue the +argument I'm making now. I've been trying to save you +from—pretty serious things. The regret of having stood in the +way of Morton College—(<i>his voice falling</i>) the horror +of having driven your father insane.</p> +<p>MADELINE: <i>What?</i></p> +<p>FEJEVARY: One more thing would do it. Just the other day I was +talking with Professor Holden about your father. His idea of him +relates back to the pioneer life—another price paid for this +country. The lives back of him were too hard. Your +great-grandmother Morton—the first white woman in this +region—she dared too much, was too lonely, feared and bore +too much. They did it, for the task gave them a courage for the +task. But it—left a scar.</p> +<p>MADELINE: And father is that—(<i>can hardly say +it</i>)—scar. (<i>fighting the idea</i>) But Grandfather +Morton was not like that.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No; he had the vision of the future; he was robust +with feeling for others. (<i>gently</i>) But Holden feels your +father is the—dwarfed pioneer child. The way he concentrates +on corn—excludes all else—as if unable to free himself +from their old battle with the earth.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>almost crying</i>) I think it's pretty terrible +to—wish all that on poor father.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Well, my dear child, it's life has 'wished it on him'. +It's just one other way of paying the price for his country. We +needn't get it for nothing. I feel that all our chivalry should go +to your father in his—heritage of loneliness.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Father couldn't always have been—dwarfed. Mother +wouldn't have cared for him if he had always been—like +that.</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: No, if he could have had love to live in. But no +endurance for losing it. Too much had been endured just before life +got to him.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Do you know, Uncle Felix—I'm afraid that's true? +(<i>he nods</i>) Sometimes when I'm with father I feel those things +near—the—the too much—the too hard,—feel +them as you'd feel the cold. And now that it's +different—easier—he can't come into the world that's +been earned. Oh, I wish I could help him!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>As they sit there together, now for the first +time really together, there is a shrill shout of derision from +outside</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: What's that? (<i>a whistled call</i>) Horace! That's +Horace's call. That's for his gang. Are they going to start +something now that will get Atma in jail?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: More likely he's trying to start something. (<i>they +are both listening intently</i>) I don't think our boys will stand +much more.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>A scoffing whoop</i>. MADELINE <i>springs to the +window; he reaches it ahead and holds it</i>.)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: This window stays closed.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She starts to go away, he takes hold of +her</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here?</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Listen, Madeline—plain, straight truth. If you +go out there and get in trouble a second time, I can't make it +right for you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: You needn't!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: You don't know what it means. These things are not +child's play—not today. You could get twenty years in prison +for things you'll say if you rush out there now. (<i>she +laughs</i>) You laugh because you're ignorant. Do you know that in +America today there are women in our prisons for saying no more +than you've said here to me!</p> +<p>MADELINE: Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: I? Ashamed of myself?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Yes! Aren't you an American? (<i>a whistle</i>) Isn't +that a policeman's whistle? Are they coming back? Are they hanging +around here to—(<i>pulling away from her uncle as he turns to +look, she jumps up in the deep sill and throws open the window. +Calling down</i>) Here—Officer—<i>You</i>—Let +that boy alone!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>going left, calling sharply</i>) Holden. Professor +Holden—here—quick!</p> +<p>VOICE: (<i>coming up from below, outside</i>) Who says so?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I say so!</p> +<p>VOICE: And who are you talking for?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I am talking for Morton College!</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: (<i>returning—followed, reluctantly, by</i> +HOLDEN) Indeed you are not. Close that window or you'll be expelled +from Morton College.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Sounds of a growing crowd outside</i>.)</p> +<p>VOICE: Didn't I see you at the station?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Sure you saw me at the station. And you'll see me +there again, if you come bullying around here. You're not what this +place is for! (<i>her uncle comes up behind, right, and tries to +close the window—she holds it out</i>) My grandfather gave +this hill to Morton College—a place where anybody—from +any land—can come and say what he believes to be true! Why, +you poor simp—this is America! Beat it from here! Atna! Don't +let him take hold of you like that! He has no right to—Oh, +let me <i>down</i> there!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Springs down, would go off right, her uncle +spreads out his arms to block that passage. She turns to go the +other way</i>.)</p> +<p>FEJEVARY: Holden! Bring her to her senses. Stand there. (HOLDEN +<i>has not moved from the place he entered, left, and so blocks the +doorway</i>) Don't let her pass.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Shouts of derision outside</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here—with that +going on out there? (<i>Moves nearer</i> HOLDEN, <i>stands there +before him, taut, looking him straight in the eye. After a moment, +slowly, as one compelled, he steps aside for her to pass. Sound of +her running footsteps. The two men's eyes meet. A door +slams</i>.)</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> +<h3>ACT IV</h3> +<p class="scene">SCENE: <i>At the</i> MORTON <i>place, the same +room in which</i> SILAS MORTON <i>told his friend</i> FELIX +FEJEVARY <i>of his plan for the hill. The room has not altogether +changed since that day in 1879. The table around which they dreamed +for the race is in its old place. One of the old chairs is there, +the other two are modern chairs. In a corner is the rocker in +which</i> GRANDMOTHER MORTON <i>sat. This is early afternoon, a +week after the events of Act II</i>.</p> +<p class="scene">MADELINE <i>is sitting at the table, in her hand a +torn, wrinkled piece of brown paper-peering at writing almost too +fine to read. After a moment her hand goes out to a beautiful dish +on the table—an old dish of coloured Hungarian glass. She is +about to take something from this, but instead lets her hand rest +an instant on the dish itself Then turns and through the open door +looks out at the hill, sitting where her</i> GRANDFATHER MORTON +<i>sat when he looked out at the hill.</i></p> +<p class="scene"><i>Her father</i>, IRA MORTON, <i>appears outside, +walking past the window, left. He enters, carrying a grain sack, +partly filled. He seems hardly aware of</i> MADELINE, <i>but taking +a chair near the door, turned from her, opens the sack and takes +out a couple of ears of corn. As he is bent over them, examining in +a shrewd, greedy way</i>, MADELINE <i>looks at that lean, +tormented, rather desperate profile, the look of one confirming a +thing she fears. Then takes up her piece of paper</i>.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Do you remember Fred Jordan, father? Friend of our +Fred—and of mine?</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>not wanting to take his mind from the corn</i>) No. I +don't remember him. (<i>his voice has that timbre of one not +related to others</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: He's in prison now.</p> +<p>IRA: Well I can't help that. (<i>after taking out another +ear</i>) This is the best corn I ever had. (<i>he says it +gloatingly to himself</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: He got this letter out to me—written on this +scrap of paper. They don't give him paper. (<i>peering</i>) Written +so fine I can hardly read it. He's in what they call 'the hold', +father—a punishment cell. (<i>with difficulty reading it</i>) +It's two and a half feet at one end, three feet at the other, and +six feet long. He'd been there ten days when he wrote this. He gets +two slices of bread a day; he gets water; that's all he gets. This +because he balled the deputy warden out for chaining another +prisoner up by the wrists.</p> +<p>IRA: Well, he'd better a-minded his own business. And you better +mind yours. I've got no money to spend in the courts. (<i>with +excitement</i>) I'll not mortgage this farm! It's been clear since +the day my father's father got it from the government—and it +stays clear—till I'm gone. It grows the best corn in the +state—best corn in the Mississippi Valley. Not for +<i>anything</i>—you hear me?—would I mortgage this farm +my father handed down to me.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>hurt</i>) Well, father, I'm not asking you to.</p> +<p>IRA: Then go and see your Uncle Felix. Make it up with him. +He'll help you—if you say you're sorry.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'll not go to Uncle Felix.</p> +<p>IRA: Who will you go to then? (<i>pause</i>) Who will help you +then? (<i>again he waits</i>) You come before this United States +Commissioner with no one behind you, he'll hold you for the grand +jury. Judge Watkins told Felix there's not a doubt of it. You know +what that means? It means you're on your way to a cell. Nice thing +for a Morton, people who've had their own land since we got it from +the Indians. What's the matter with your uncle? Ain't he always +been good to you? I'd like to know what things would 'a' been for +you without Felix and Isabel and all their friends. You want to +think a little. You like good times too well to throw all that +away.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I do like good times. So does Fred Jordan like good +times. (<i>smooths the wrinkled paper</i>) I don't know +anybody—unless it is myself—loves to be out, as he +does. (<i>she tries to look out, but cannot; sits very still, +seeing what it is pain to see. Rises, goes to that corner closet, +the same one from which</i> SILAS MORTON <i>took the deed to the +hill. She gets a yard stick, looks in a box and finds a piece of +chalk. On the floor she marks off</i> FRED JORDAN'S <i>cell. +Slowly, at the end left unchalked, as for a door, she goes in. Her +hand goes up as against a wall; looks at her other hand, sees it is +out too far, brings it in, giving herself the width of the cell. +Walks its length, halts, looks up</i>.) And one window—too +high up to see out.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>In the moment she stands there, she is in that +cell; she is all the people who are in those cells</i>. EMIL +JOHNSON <i>appears from outside; he is the young man brought up on +a farm, a crudely Americanized Swede</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>stepping out of the cell door, and around it</i>) +Hello, Emil.</p> +<p>EMIL: How are you, Madeline? How do, Mr Morton. (IRA <i>barely +nods and does not turn. In an excited manner he begins gathering up +the corn he has taken from the sack</i>. EMIL <i>turns back to</i> +MADELINE) Well, I'm just from the courthouse. Looks like you and I +might take a ride together, Madeline. You come before the +Commissioner at four.</p> +<p>IRA: What have you got to do with it?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, Emil has a courthouse job now, father. He's part +of the law.</p> +<p>IRA: Well, he's not going to take you to the law! Anybody +else—not Emil Johnson!</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>astonished—and gently, to make up for his +rudeness</i>) Why—father, why not Emil? Since I'm going, I +think it's nice to go in with someone I know—with a neighbour +like Emil.</p> +<p>IRA: If <i>this</i> is what he lived for! If this is +why—</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He twists the ear of corn until some of the +kernels drip off</i>. MADELINE <i>and</i> EMIL <i>look at one +another in bewilderment</i>.)</p> +<p>EMIL: It's too bad anybody has to take Madeline in. I should +think your uncle could fix it up. (<i>low</i>) And with your father +taking it like this—(<i>to help</i> IRA) That's fine corn, Mr +Morton. My corn's getting better all the time, but I'd like to get +some of this for seed.</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>rising and turning on him</i>) You get my corn? I raise +this corn for you? (<i>not to them—his mind now going where +it is shut off from any other mind</i>) If I could make the +<i>wind</i> stand still! I want to <i>turn the wind around</i>.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>going to him</i>) Why—father. I don't +understand at all.</p> +<p>IRA: Don't understand. Nobody understands. (<i>a curse with a +sob in it</i>) God damn the wind!</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Sits down, his back to them</i>.)</p> +<p>EMIL: (<i>after a silence</i>) Well, I'll go. (<i>but he +continues to look at</i> IRA, <i>who is holding the sack of com +shut, as if someone may take it</i>) Too bad—(<i>stopped by a +sign from</i> MADELINE, <i>not to speak of it</i>) Well, I was +saying, I have go on to Beard's Crossing. I'll stop for you on my +way back. (<i>confidentially</i>) Couldn't you telephone your +uncle? He could do something. You don't know what you're going up +against. You heard what the Hindus got, I suppose.</p> +<p>MADELINE: No. I haven't seen anyone to-day.</p> +<p>EMIL: They're held for the grand jury. They're locked up now. No +bail for them. I've got the inside dope about them. They're going +to get what this country can hand 'em; then after we've given them +a nice little taste of prison life in America, they're going to be +sent back home—to see what India can treat them to.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Why are you so pleased about this, Emil?</p> +<p>EMIL: Pleased? It's nothin' to me—I'm just telling you. +Guess you don't know much about the Espionage Act or you'd go and +make a little friendly call on your uncle. When your case comes to +trial—and Judge Lenon may be on the +bench—(<i>whistles</i>) He's one fiend for Americanism. But +if your uncle was to tell the right parties that you're just a +girl, and didn't realize what you were saying—</p> +<p>MADELINE: I did realize what I was saying, and every word you've +just said makes me know I meant what I said. I said if this was +what our country has come to, then I'm not for our country. I said +that—and a-plenty more—and I'll say it again!</p> +<p>EMIL: Well—gee, you don't know what it means.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I do know what it means, but it means not being a +coward.</p> +<p>EMIL: Oh, well—Lord, you can't say everything you think. +If everybody did that, things'd be worse off than they are now.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Once in a while you have to say what you +think—or hate yourself.</p> +<p>EMIL: (<i>with a grin</i>) Then hate yourself.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>smiling too</i>) No thank you; it spoils my +fun.</p> +<p>EMIL: Well, look-a-here, Madeline, aren't you spoiling your fun +now? You're a girl who liked to be out. Ain't I seen you from our +place, with this one and that one, sometimes all by yourself, +strikin' out over the country as if you was crazy about it? How'd +you like to be where you couldn't even see out?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>a step nearer the cell</i>) There oughtn't to be +such places.</p> +<p>EMIL: Oh, well—Jesus, if you're going to talk about +that—! You can't change the way things are.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>quietly</i>) Why can't I?</p> +<p>EMIL: Well, say, who do you think you are?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I think I'm an American. And for that reason I think I +have something to say about America.</p> +<p>EMIL: Huh! America'll lock you up for your pains.</p> +<p>MADELINE: All right. If it's come to that, maybe I'd rather be a +locked-up American than a free American.</p> +<p>EMIL: I don't think you'd like the place, Madeline. There's not +much tennis played there. Jesus—what's Hindus?</p> +<p>MADELINE: You aren't really asking Jesus, are you, Emil? +(<i>smiles</i>) You mightn't like his answer.</p> +<p>EMIL: (<i>from the door</i>) Take a tip. Telephone your +uncle.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He goes</i>.)</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>not looking at her</i>) There might be a fine, and +they'd come down on me and take my land.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, no, father, I think not. Anyway, I have a little +money of my own. Grandfather Morton left me something. Have you +forgotten that?</p> +<p>IRA: No. No, I know he left you something. (<i>the words seem to +bother him</i>) I know he left you something.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I get it to-day. (<i>wistfully</i>) This is my +birthday, father. I'm twenty-one.</p> +<p>IRA: Your birthday? Twenty-one? (<i>in pain</i>) Was that +twenty-one years ago? (<i>it is not to his daughter this has turned +him</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: It's the first birthday I can remember that I haven't +had a party.</p> +<p>IRA: It was your Aunt Isabel gave you your parties.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Yes.</p> +<p>IRA: Well, you see now.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>stoutly</i>) Oh, well, I don't need a party. I'm +grown up now.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>She reaches out for the old Hungarian dish on +the table; holding it, she looks to her father, whose back is still +turned. Her face tender, she is about to speak when he +speaks</i>.)</p> +<p>IRA: Grown up now—and going off and leaving me alone. You +too—the last one. And—<i>what for? (turning, looking +around the room as for those long gone</i>) There used to be so +many in this house. My grandmother. She sat there. (<i>pointing to +the place near the open door</i>) Fine days like this—in that +chair (<i>points to the rocker</i>) she'd sit there—tell me +stories of the Indians. Father. It wasn't ever lonely where father +was. Then Madeline Fejevary—my Madeline came to this house. +Lived with me in this house. Then one day she—walked out of +this house. Through that door—through the field—out of +this house. (<i>bitter silence</i>) Then Fred—out of this +house. Now you. With Emil Johnson! (<i>insanely, and almost with +relief at leaving things more sane</i>) Don't let him touch my +corn. If he touches one kernel of this corn! (<i>with the suspicion +of the tormented mind</i>) I wonder where he went? How do I know he +went where he <i>said</i> he was going? (<i>getting up</i>) I dunno +as that south bin's locked.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh—father!</p> +<p>IRA: I'll find out. How do I know what he's doing?</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He goes out, turning left</i>. MADELINE <i>goes +to the window and looks after him. A moment later, hearing someone +at the door, she turns and finds her</i> AUNT ISABEL, <i>who has +appeared from right. Goes swiftly to her, hands out</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, <i>auntie</i>—I'm glad you came! It's my +birthday, and I'm—lonely.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: You dear little girl! (<i>again giving her a hug, +which</i> MADELINE <i>returns, lovingly</i>) Don't I know it's your +birthday? Don't think that day will ever get by while your Aunt +Isabel's around. Just see what's here for your birthday. (<i>hands +her the package she is carrying</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>with a gasp—suspecting from its shape</i>) +Oh! (<i>her face aglow</i>) Why—<i>is</i> it?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>laughing affectionately</i>) Foolish child, +open it and see.</p> +<p class="dir">(MADELINE <i>loosens the paper and pulls out a +tennis racket</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>excited, and moved</i>) Oh, aunt Isabel! that was +dear of you. I shouldn't have thought you'd—quite do +that.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: I couldn't imagine Madeline without a racket. +(<i>gathering up the paper, lightly reproachful</i>) But be a +little careful of it, Madeline. It's meant for tennis balls. +(<i>they laugh together</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>making a return with it</i>) It's a <i>peach</i>. +(<i>changing</i>) Wonder where I'll play now.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Why, you'll play on the courts at Morton College. +Who has a better right?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, I don't know. It's pretty much balled up, isn't +it?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Yes; we'll have to get it straightened out. +(<i>gently</i>) It was really dreadful of you, Madeline, to rush +out a second time. It isn't as if they were people who were +anything to you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: But, auntie, they are something to me.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Oh, dear, that's what Horace said.</p> +<p>MADELINE: What's what Horace said?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: That you must have a case on one of them.</p> +<p>MADELINE: That's what Horace would say. That makes me sore!</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: I'm sorry I spoke of it. Horace is absurd in some +ways.</p> +<p>MADELINE: He's a—</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>stopping it with her hand</i>) No, he isn't. +He's a headstrong boy, but a very loving one. He's dear with me, +Madeline.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Yes. You are good to each other. (<i>her eyes are +drawn to the cell</i>)</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Of course we are. We'd be a pretty poor sort if we +weren't. And these are days when we have to stand +together—all of us who are the same kind of people must stand +together because the thing that makes us the same kind of people is +threatened.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Don't you think we're rather threatening it ourselves, +auntie?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Why, no, we're fighting for it.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Fighting for what?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: For Americanism; for—democracy.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Horace is fighting for it?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Well, Horace does go at it as if it were a football +game, but his heart's in the right place.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Somehow, I don't seem to see my heart in that +place.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: In what place?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Where Horace's heart is.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: It's too bad you and Horace quarrel. But you and I +don't quarrel, Madeline.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>again drawn to the cell</i>) No. You and I don't +quarrel. (<i>she is troubled</i>)</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Funny child! Do you want us to?</p> +<p class="dir">(MADELINE <i>turns, laughing a little, takes the +dish from the table, holds it out to her aunt</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Have some fudge, auntie.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>taking the dish</i>) Do you <i>use</i> +them?—the old Hungarian dishes? (<i>laughingly</i>) I'm not +allowed to—your uncle is so choice of the few pieces we have. +And here are you with fudge in one of them.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I made the fudge because—oh, I don't know, I had +to do something to celebrate my birthday.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>under her breath</i>) Dearie!</p> +<p>MADELINE: And then that didn't seem to—make a birthday, so +I happened to see this, way up on a top shelf, and I remembered +that it was my mother's. It was nice to get it down and use +it—almost as if mother was giving me a birthday present.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: And how she would love to give you a birthday +present.</p> +<p>MADELINE: It was her mother's, I suppose, and they brought it +from Hungary.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Yes. They brought only a very few things with them, +and left—oh, so many beautiful ones behind.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>quietly</i>) Rather nice of them, wasn't it? +(<i>her aunt waits inquiringly</i>) To leave their own beautiful +things—their own beautiful life behind—simply because +they believed life should be more beautiful for more people.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>with constraint</i>) Yes. (<i>gayly turning +it</i>) Well, now, as to the birthday. What do you suppose Sarah is +doing this instant? Putting red frosting on white frosting, +(<i>writing it with her finger</i>) Madeline. And what do you +suppose Horace is doing? (<i>this a little reproachfully</i>) +Running around buying twenty-one red candles. Twenty-two—one +to grow on. Big birthday cake. Party to-night.</p> +<p>MADELINE: But, auntie, I don't see how I can be there.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Listen, dear. Now, we've got to use our wits and +all pull together. Of course we'd do anything in the world rather +than see you—left to outsiders. I've never seen your uncle as +worried, and—truly, Madeline, as sad. Oh, my dear, it's these +human things that count! What would life be without the love we +have for each other?</p> +<p>MADELINE: The love we have for each other?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Why, yes, dearest. Don't turn away from me +Madeline. Don't—don't be strange. I wonder if you realize how +your uncle has worked to have life a happy thing for all of us? Be +a little generous to him. He's had this great burden of bringing +something from another day on into this day. It is not as simple as +it may seem. He's done it as best he could. It will hurt him as +nothing has ever hurt him if you now undo that work of his life. +Truly, dear, do you feel you know enough about it to do that? +Another thing: people are a little absurd out of their own places. +We need to be held in our relationships—against our +background—or we are—I don't know—grotesque. Come +now, Madeline, where's your sense of humour? Isn't it a little +absurd for you to leave home over India's form of government?</p> +<p>MADELINE: It's not India. It's America. A sense of humour is +nothing to hide behind!</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>with a laugh</i>) I knew I wouldn't be a +success at world affairs—better leave that to Professor +Holden. (<i>a quick keen look from</i> MADELINE) They've driven on +to the river—they'll be back for me, and then he wants to +stop in for a visit with you while I take Mrs Holden for a further +ride. I'm worried about her. She doesn't gain strength at all since +her operation. I'm going to try keeping her out in the air all I +can.</p> +<p>MADELINE: It's dreadful about families!</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Dreadful? Professor Holden's devotion to his wife +is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.</p> +<p>MADELINE: And is that all you see it in?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: You mean the—responsibility it brings? Oh, +well—that's what life is. Doing for one another. Sacrificing +for one another.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I hope I never have a family.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Well, I hope you do. You'll miss the best of life +if you don't. Anyway, you have a family. Where is your father?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I don't know.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: I'd like to see him.</p> +<p>MADELINE: There's no use seeing him today.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: He's—?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Strange—shut in—afraid something's going +to be taken from him.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Poor Ira. So much has been taken from him. And now +you. Don't hurt him again, Madeline. He can't bear it. You see what +it does to him.</p> +<p>MADELINE: He has—the wrong idea about things.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: 'The wrong idea!' Oh, my child—that's awfully +young and hard. It's so much deeper than that. Life has made him +into something—something he can't escape.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>with what seems sullenness</i>) Well, I don't want +to be made into that thing.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Of course not. But you want to help him, don't you? +Now, dear—about your birthday party—</p> +<p>MADELINE: The United States Commissioner is giving me my +birthday party.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Well, he'll have to put his party off. Your uncle +has been thinking it all out. We're to go to his office and you'll +have a talk with him and with Judge Watkins. He's off the state +supreme bench now—practising again, and as a favour to your +uncle he will be your lawyer. You don't know how relieved we are at +this, for Judge Watkins can do—anything he wants to do, +practically. Then you and I will go on home and call up some of the +crowd to come in and dance to-night. We have some beautiful new +records. There's a Hungarian waltz—</p> +<p>MADELINE: And what's the price of all this, auntie?</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: The—Oh, you mean—Why, simply say you +felt sorry for the Hindu students because they seemed rather alone; +that you hadn't realized—what they were, hadn't thought out +what you were saying—</p> +<p>MADELINE: And that I'm sorry and will never do it again.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: I don't know that you need say that. It would be +gracious, I think, to indicate it.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'm sorry you—had the cake made. I suppose you +can eat it, anyway. I (<i>turning away</i>)—can't eat it.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Why—Madeline.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Seeing how she has hurt her</i>, MADELINE +<i>goes out to her aunt</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Auntie, dear! I'm sorry—if I hurt your +feelings.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>quick to hold out a loving hand, laughing a +little</i>) They've been good birthday cakes, haven't they, +Madeline?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>she now trying not to cry</i>) I don't +know—what I'd have done without them. Don't know—what I +will do without them. I don't—see it.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Don't try to. Please don't see it! Just let me go +on helping you. That's all I ask. (<i>she draws</i> MADELINE <i>to +her</i>) Ah, dearie, I held you when you were a little baby without +your mother. All those years count for something, Madeline. There's +just nothing to life if years of love don't count for something. +(<i>listening</i>) I think I hear them. And here are we, weeping +like two idiots. (MADELINE <i>brushes away tears</i>, AUNT ISABEL +<i>arranges her veil, regaining her usual poise</i>) Professor +Holden was hoping you'd take a tramp with him. Wouldn't that do you +good? Anyway, a talk with him will be nice. I know he admires you +immensely, and really—perhaps I shouldn't let you know +this—sympathizes with your feeling. So I think his maturer +way of looking at things will show you just the adjustment you need +to become a really big and useful person. There's so much to be +done in the world, Madeline. Of course we ought to make it a better +world. (<i>in a manner of agreement with</i> MADELINE) I feel very +strongly about all that. Perhaps we can do some things together. +I'd love that. Don't think I'm hopeless! Way down deep we have the +same feeling. Yes, here's Professor Holden.</p> +<p class="dir">(HOLDEN <i>comes in. He seems older</i>.)</p> +<p>HOLDEN: And how are you, Madeline? (<i>holding out his +hand</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'm—all right.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Many happy returns of the day. (<i>embarrassed by her +half laugh</i>) The birthday.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: And did you have a nice look up the river?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I never saw this country as lovely as it is to-day. Mary +is just drinking it in.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: You don't think the further ride will be too +much?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Oh, no—not in that car.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Then we'll go on—perhaps as far as Laughing +Creek. If you two decide on a tramp—take that road and we'll +pick you up. (<i>smiling warmly, she goes out</i>)</p> +<p>HOLDEN: How good she is.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Yes. That's just the trouble.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>with difficulty getting past this</i>) How about a +little tramp? There'll never be another such day.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I used to tramp with Fred Jordan. This is where he is +now. (<i>stepping inside the cell</i>) He doesn't even see out.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: It's all wrong that he should be where he is. But for +you to stay indoors won't help him, Madeline.</p> +<p>MADELINE: It won't help him, but—today—I can't go +out.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I'm sorry, my child. When this sense of wrongs done +first comes down upon one, it does crush.</p> +<p>MADELINE: And later you get used to it and don't care.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: You care. You try not to destroy yourself needlessly. +(<i>he turns from her look</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Play safe.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: If it's playing safe it's that one you love more than +yourself be safe. It would be a luxury to—destroy one's +self.</p> +<p>MADELINE: That sounds like Uncle Felix. (<i>seeing she has hurt +him, she goes over and sits across from him at the table</i>) I'm +sorry. I say the wrong things today.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I don't know that you do.</p> +<p>MADELINE: But isn't uncle funny? His left mind doesn't know what +his right mind is doing. He has to think of himself as a person of +sentiment—idealism, and—quite a job, at times. +Clever—how he gets away with it. The war must have been a +godsend to people who were in danger of getting on to themselves. +But I should think you could fool all of yourself all the time.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: You don't. (<i>he is rubbing his hand on the +table</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Grandfather Morton made this table. I suppose he and +Grandfather Fejevary used to sit here and talk—they were +great old pals. (<i>slowly</i> HOLDEN <i>turns and looks out at the +hill</i>) Yes. How beautiful the hill must have been—before +there was a college there. (<i>he looks away from the hill</i>) Did +you know Grandfather Morton?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Yes, I knew him. (<i>speaking of it against his +will</i>) I had a wonderful talk with him once; about +Greece—and the cornfields, and life.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'd like to have been a pioneer! Some ways they had it +fierce, but think of the fun they had! A whole big land to open up! +A big new life to begin! (<i>her hands closing in from wideness to +a smaller thing</i>) Why did so much get shut out? Just a little +way back—anything might have been. What happened?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>speaking with difficulty</i>) It got—set too +soon.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>all of her mind open, trying to know</i>) And why +did it? Prosperous, I suppose. That seems to set things—set +them in fear. Silas Morton wasn't afraid of Felix Fejevary, the +Hungarian revolutionist. He laid this country at that refugee's +feet! That's what Uncle Felix says himself—with the left half +of his mind. Now—the Hindu revolutionists—! +(<i>pause</i>) I took a walk late yesterday afternoon. Night came, +and for some reason I thought of how many nights have +come—nights the earth has known long before we knew the +earth. The moon came up and I thought of how moonlight made this +country beautiful before any man knew that moonlight was beautiful. +It gave me a feeling of coming from something a long way back. +Moving toward—what will be here when I'm not here. Moving. We +seem here, now, in America, to have forgotten we're moving. Think +it's just <i>us</i>—just now. Of course, that would make us +afraid, and—ridiculous.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Her father comes in</i>.)</p> +<p>IRA: Your Aunt Isabel—did she go away—and leave +you?</p> +<p>MADELINE: She's coming back.</p> +<p>IRA: For you?</p> +<p>MADELINE: She—wants me to go with her. This is Professor +Holden, father.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: How do you do, Mr Morton?</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>nods, not noticing</i> HOLDEN<i>'s offered hand</i>) +How'do. When is she coming back?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Soon.</p> +<p>IRA: And then you're going with her?</p> +<p>MADELINE: I—don't know.</p> +<p>IRA: I say you go with her. You want them all to come down on +us? (<i>to</i> HOLDEN) What are you here for?</p> +<p>MADELINE: Aunt Isabel brought Professor Holden, father.</p> +<p>IRA: Oh. Then you—you tell her what to do. You make her do +it. (<i>he goes into the room at left</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>sadly, after a silence</i>) Father's like +something touched by an early frost.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Yes. (<i>seeing his opening and forcing himself to take +it</i>) But do you know, Madeline, there are other ways of that +happening—'touched by an early frost'. I've seen it happen to +people I know—people of fine and daring mind. They do a thing +that puts them apart—it may be the big, brave thing—but +the apartness does something to them. I've seen it many +times—so many times—so many times, I fear for you. You +do this thing and you'll find yourself with people who in many ways +you don't care for at all; find yourself apart from people who in +most ways are your own people. You're many-sided, Madeline. +(<i>moves her tennis racket</i>) I don't know about it's all going +to one side. I hate to see you, so young, close a door on so much +life. I'm being just as honest with you as I know how. I myself am +making compromises to stay within. I don't like it, but there +are—reasons for doing it. I can't see you leave that main +body without telling you all it is you are leaving. It's not a +clean-cut case—the side of the world or the side of the +angels. I hate to see you lose the—fullness of life.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>a slight start, as she realizes the pause. As one +recalled from far</i>) I'm sorry. I was listening to what you were +saying—but all the time—something else was happening. +Grandfather Morton, big and—oh, terrible. He was here. And we +went to that walled-up hole in the ground—(<i>rising and +pointing down at the chalked cell</i>)—where they keep Fred +Jordan on bread and water because he couldn't be a part of nations +of men killing each other—and Silas Morton—only he was +all that is back of us, tore open that cell—it was his voice +tore it open—his voice as he cried, 'God damn you, this is +America!' (<i>sitting down, as if rallying from a tremendous +experience</i>) I'm sorry—it should have happened, while you +were speaking. Won't you—go on?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: That's a pretty hard thing to go on against. (<i>after a +moment</i>) I can't go on.</p> +<p>MADELINE: You were thinking of leaving the college, and +then—decided to stay? (<i>he nods</i>) And you feel there's +more—fullness of life for you inside the college than +outside?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: No—not exactly. (<i>again a pause</i>) It's very +hard for me to talk to you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>gently</i>) Perhaps we needn't do it.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>something in him forcing him to say it</i>) I'm +staying for financial reasons.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>kind, but not going to let the truth get away</i>) +You don't think that—having to stay within—or deciding +to, rather, makes you think these things of the—blight of +being without?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I think there is danger to you in—so young, +becoming alien to society.</p> +<p>MADELINE: As great as the danger of staying within—and +becoming like the thing I'm within?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: You wouldn't become like it.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Why wouldn't I? That's what it does to the rest of +you. I don't see it—this fullness of life business. I don't +see that Uncle Felix has got it—or even Aunt Isabel, and +you—I think that in buying it you're losing it.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I don't think you know what a cruel thing you are +saying.</p> +<p>MADELINE: There must be something pretty rotten about Morton +College if you have to sell your soul to stay in it!</p> +<p>HOLDEN: You don't 'sell your soul'. You persuade yourself to +wait.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>unable to look at him, as if feeling shame</i>) +You have had a talk with Uncle Felix since that day in the library +you stepped aside for me to pass.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: Yes; and with my wife's physician. If you sell your +soul—it's to love you sell it.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>low</i>) That's strange. It's love +that—brings life along, and then it's love—holds life +back.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>and all the time with this effort against +hopelessness</i>) Leaving me out of it, I'd like to see you give +yourself a little more chance for detachment. You need a better +intellectual equipment if you're going to fight the world you find +yourself in. I think you will count for more if you wait, and when +you strike, strike more maturely.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Detachment. (<i>pause</i>) This is one thing they do +at this place. (<i>she moves to the open door</i>) Chain them up to +the bars—just like this. (<i>in the doorway where her two +grandfathers once pledged faith with the dreams of a million years, +she raises clasped hands as high as they will go</i>) Eight hours a +day—day after day. Just hold your arms up like this one hour +then sit down and think about—(<i>as if tortured by all who +have been so tortured, her body begins to give with sobs, arms +drop, the last word is a sob</i>) detachment.</p> +<p>HOLDEN <i>is standing helplessly by when her father comes +in</i>.</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>wildly</i>) Don't cry. No! Not in this house! I +can't—Your aunt and uncle will fix it up. The law won't take +you this time—and you won't do it again.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, what does <i>that</i> matter—what they do to +<i>me</i>?</p> +<p>IRA: What are you crying about then?</p> +<p>MADELINE: It's—the <i>world</i>. It's—</p> +<p>IRA: The <i>world</i>? If that's all you've got to cry about! +(<i>to</i> HOLDEN) Tell her that's nothing to cry about. What's the +matter with you. Mad'line? That's crazy—cryin' about the +world! What good has ever come to this house through carin' about +the world? What good's that college? Better we had that hill. Why +is there no one in this house to-day but me and you? Where's your +mother? Where's your brother? The <i>world</i>.</p> +<p>HOLDEN: I think your father would like to talk to you. I'll go +outside—walk a little, and come back for you with your aunt. +You must let us see you through this, Madeline. You couldn't bear +the things it would bring you to. I see that now. (<i>as he passes +her in the doorway his hand rests an instant on her bent head</i>) +You're worth too much to break.</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>turning away</i>) I don't want to talk to you. What +good comes of talking? (<i>In moving, he has stepped near the sack +of corn. Takes hold of it</i>.) But not with Emil Johnson! That's +not—what your mother died for.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Father, you must talk to me. What did my mother die +for? No one has ever told me about her—except that she was +beautiful—not like other people here. I got a feeling +of—something from far away. Something from long ago. Rare. +Why can't Uncle Felix talk about her? Why can't you? Wouldn't she +want me to know her? Tell me about her. It's my birthday and I need +my mother.</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>as if afraid he is going to do it</i>) How can you +touch—what you've not touched in nineteen years? Just +once—in nineteen years—and that did no good.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Try. Even though it hurts. Didn't you use to talk to +her? Well, I'm her daughter. Talk to me. What has she to do with +Emil Johnson?</p> +<p>IRA: (<i>the pent-up thing loosed</i>) What has she to do with +him? She died so he could live. He lives because she's dead, (<i>in +anguish</i>) And what is <i>he</i> alongside her? Yes. Something +from far away. Something from long ago. Rare. How'd you know that? +Finding in me—what I didn't know was there. Then <i>she</i> +came—that ignorant Swede—Emil Johnson's +mother—running through the cornfield like a crazy +woman—'Miss Morton! Miss Morton! Come help me! My children +are choking!' Diphtheria they had—the whole of 'em—but +out of this house she ran—my Madeline, leaving you—her +own baby—running as fast as she could through the cornfield +after that immigrant woman. She stumbled in the rough +field—fell to her knees. That was the last I saw of her. She +choked to death in that Swede's house. They lived.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>going to him</i>) Oh—father, (<i>voice +rich</i>) But how lovely of her.</p> +<p>IRA: Lovely? Lovely to leave you without a mother—leave me +without her after I'd had her? Wasn't she worth more than them.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>proudly</i>) Yes. She was worth so much that she +never stopped to think how much she was worth.</p> +<p>IRA: Ah, if you'd known her you couldn't take it like that. And +now you cry about the world! That's what the world is—all +coming to nothing. My father used to sit there at the table and +talk about the world—my father and her father. They thought +'twas all for something—that what you were went on into +something more than you. That's the talk I always heard in this +house. But it's just talk. The rare thing that came here was killed +by the common thing that came here. Just happens—and happens +cruel. Look at your brother! Gone—(<i>snaps his fingers</i>) +like that. I told him not to go to war. He didn't have to +go—they'd been glad enough to have him stay here on the farm. +But no,—he must—make the world safe for democracy! +Well, you see how safe he made it, don't you? Now I'm alone on the +farm and he—buried on some Frenchman's farm. That is, I hope +they buried him—I hope they didn't +just—(<i>tormented</i>)</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh, father—of course not. I know they did.</p> +<p>IRA: How do you know? What do you care—once they got him? +<i>He</i> talked about the world—better world—end war. +Now he's in his grave—I hope he is—and look at the +front page of the paper! No such thing—war to end war!</p> +<p>MADELINE: But he thought there was, father. Fred believed +that—so what else could he do?</p> +<p>IRA: He could 'a' minded his own business.</p> +<p>MADELINE: No—oh, no. It was fine of him to give his life +to what he believed should be.</p> +<p>IRA: The light in his eyes as he talked of it, now—eyes +gone—and the world he died for all hate and war. Waste. +Waste. Nothin' but waste—the life of this house. Why, folks +to-day'd laugh to hear my father talk. He gave his best land for +ideas to live. Thought was going to make us a better people. What +was his word? (<i>waits</i>) Aspiration. (<i>says it as if it is a +far-off thing</i>) Well, look at your friend, young Jordan. Kicked +from the college to prison for ideas of a better world. +(<i>laughs</i>) His 'aspiration' puts him in a hole on bread and +water! So—mind your own business, that's all that's so in +this country. (<i>constantly tormented anew</i>) Oh, I told your +brother all that—the night I tried to keep him. Told him +about his mother—to show what come of running to other folks. +And he said—standing right there—(<i>pointing</i>) eyes +all bright, he said, 'Golly, I think that's great!' And then +<i>he</i>—walked out of this house. (<i>fear takes him</i>) +Madeline! (<i>she stoops over him, her arm around him</i>) Don't +you leave me—all alone in this house—where so many was +once. What's Hindus—alongside your own father—and him +needing you? It won't be long. After a little I'll be dead—or +crazy—or something. But not here alone where so many was +once.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh—father. I don't know what to do.</p> +<p>IRA: Nothing stays at home. Not even the corn stays at home. If +only the wind wouldn't blow! Why can't I have my field to myself? +Why can't I keep what's mine? All these years I've worked to make +it better. I wanted it to be—the most that it could be. My +father used to talk about the Indians—how our land was their +land, and how we must be more than them. He had his own ideas of +bein' more—well, what's that come to? The Indians lived +happier than we—wars, strikes, prisons. But I've made the +corn more! This land that was once Indian maize now grows +corn—I'd like to have the Indians see my corn! I'd like to +see them side by side!—their Indian maize, my corn. And how'd +I get it? Ah, by thinkin'—always tryin', changin', carin'. +Plant this corn by that corn, and the pollen blows from corn to +corn—the golden dust it blows, in the sunshine and of +nights—blows from corn to corn like a—(<i>the word +hurts</i>) gift. No, you don't understand it, but (<i>proudly</i>) +corn don't stay what it is! You can make it +anything—according to what you do, 'cording to the corn it's +alongside. (<i>changing</i>) But that's it. I want it to stay in my +field. It goes away. The prevailin' wind takes it on to the +Johnsons—them Swedes that took my Madeline! I hear it! Oh, +nights when I can't help myself—and in the sunshine I can see +it—pollen—soft golden dust to make new life—goin' +on to <i>them</i>,—and them too ignorant to know what's +makin' their corn better! I want my field to myself. What'd I work +all my life for? Work that's had to take the place o' what I +lost—is that to go to Emil Johnson? No! The wind shall stand +still! I'll make it. I'll find a way. Let me alone and I—I'll +think it out. Let me alone, I say.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>A mind burned to one idea, with greedy haste he +shuts himself in the room at left</i>. MADELINE <i>has been +standing there as if mist is parting and letting her see. And as +the vision grows power grows in her. She is thus flooded with +richer life when her</i> AUNT <i>and Professor</i> HOLDEN <i>come +back. Feeling something new, for a moment they do not +speak</i>.)</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Ready, dear? It's time for us to go now.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>with the quiet of plentitude</i>) I'm going in +with Emil Johnson.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Why—Madeline. (<i>falteringly</i>) We thought +you'd go with us.</p> +<p>MADELINE: No. I have to be—the most I can be. I want the +wind to have something to carry.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>after a look at Professor</i> HOLDEN, <i>who is +looking intensely at</i> MADELINE) I don't understand.</p> +<p>MADELINE: The world is all a—moving field. (<i>her hands +move, voice too is of a moving field</i>) Nothing is to itself. If +America thinks so—America is like father. I don't feel alone +any more. The wind has come through—wind rich from lives now +gone. Grandfather Fejevary, gift from a field far off. Silas +Morton. No, not alone any more. And afraid? I'm not even afraid of +being absurd!</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: But Madeline—you're leaving your father?</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>after thinking it out</i>) I'm not +leaving—what's greater in him than he knows.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: You're leaving Morton College?</p> +<p>MADELINE: That runt on a high hill? Yes, I'm leaving +grandfather's college—then maybe I can one day lie under the +same sod with him, and not be ashamed. Though I must tell you (<i>a +little laugh</i>) under the sod is my idea of no place to be. I +want to be a long time—where the wind blows.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: (<i>who is trying not to cry</i>) I'm afraid it +won't blow in prison, dear.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I don't know. Might be the only place it would blow. +(EMIL <i>passes the window, hesitates at the door</i>) I'll be +ready in just a moment, Emil.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He waits outside</i>.)</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: Madeline, I didn't tell you—I hoped it +wouldn't be necessary, but your uncle said—if you refused to +do it his way, he could do absolutely nothing for you, not +even—bail.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Of course not. I wouldn't expect him to.</p> +<p>AUNT ISABEL: He feels so deeply about these +things—America—loyalty, he said if you didn't come with +us it would be final, Madeline. Even—(<i>breaks</i>) between +you and me.</p> +<p>MADELINE: I'm sorry, auntie. You know how I love you. (<i>and +her voice tells it</i>) But father has been telling me about the +corn. It gives itself away all the time—the best corn a gift +to other corn. What you are—that doesn't stay with you. +Then—(<i>not with assurance, but feeling her way</i>) be the +most you can be, so life will be more because you were. (<i>freed +by the truth she has found</i>) Oh—do that! Why do we three +go apart? Professor Holden, his beautiful trained mind; Aunt +Isabel—her beautiful love, love that could save the world if +only you'd—throw it to the winds. (<i>moving nearer</i> +HOLDEN, <i>hands out to him</i>) Why do—(<i>seeing it is not +to be, she turns away. Low, with sorrow for that great beauty +lost</i>) Oh, have we brought mind, have we brought heart, up to +this place—only to turn them against mind and heart?</p> +<p>HOLDEN: (<i>unable to bear more</i>) I think we—must go. +(<i>going to</i> MADELINE, <i>holding out his hand and speaking +from his sterile life to her fullness of life</i>) Good-bye, +Madeline. Good luck.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Good-bye, Professor Holden. (<i>hesitates</i>) Luck to +you.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>Shaking his head, stooped, he hurries +out</i>.)</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>after a moment when neither can speak</i>) +Good-bye—auntie dearest. Thank you—for the birthday +present—the cake—everything. Everything—all the +years.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>There is something</i> AUNT ISABEL <i>would say, +but she can only hold tight to</i> MADELINE<i>'s hands. At last, +with a smile that speaks for love, a little nod, she goes</i>. EMIL +<i>comes in</i>.)</p> +<p>EMIL: You better go with them, Madeline. It'd make it better for +you.</p> +<p>MADELINE: Oh no, it wouldn't. I'll be with you in an instant, +Emil. I want to—say good-bye to my father.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>But she waits before that door, a door hard to +go through. Alone</i>, EMIL <i>looks around the room. Sees the bag +of corn, takes a couple of ears and is looking at them as</i> +MADELINE <i>returns. She remains by the door, shaken with sobs, +turns, as if pulled back to the pain she has left</i>.)</p> +<p>EMIL: Gee. This is great corn.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>turning now to him</i>) It is, isn't it, Emil?</p> +<p>EMIL: None like it.</p> +<p>MADELINE: And you say—your corn is getting better?</p> +<p>EMIL: Oh, yes—I raise better corn every year now.</p> +<p>MADELINE: (<i>low</i>) That's nice. I'll be right out, Emil.</p> +<p class="dir">(<i>He puts the corn back, goes out. From the +closet</i> MADELINE <i>takes her hat and wrap. Putting them on, she +sees the tennis racket on the table. She goes to it, takes it up, +holds it a moment, then takes it to the closet, puts it carefully +away, closes the door behind it. A moment she stands there in the +room, as if listening to something. Then she leaves that +house</i>.)</p> +<p class="center">(CURTAIN)</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Plays, by Susan Glaspell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS *** + +***** This file should be named 10623-h.htm or 10623-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/6/2/10623/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Plays + +Author: Susan Glaspell + +Release Date: January 7, 2004 [EBook #10623] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +Plays by + +Susan Glaspell + + +TRIFLES + +THE OUTSIDE + +THE VERGE + +INHERITORS + + + + +TRIFLES + + +First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Wharf Theatre, +Provincetown, Mass., August 8, 1916. + + +GEORGE HENDERSON (County Attorney) + +HENRY PETERS (Sheriff) + +LEWIS HALE, A neighboring farmer + +MRS PETERS + +MRS HALE + + +SCENE: _The kitchen is the now abandoned farmhouse of_ JOHN WRIGHT, _a +gloomy kitchen, and left without having been put in order--unwashed pans +under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the bread-box, a dish-towel on +the table--other signs of incompleted work. At the rear the outer door +opens and the_ SHERIFF _comes in followed by the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _and_ +HALE. _The_ SHERIFF _and_ HALE _are men in middle life, the_ COUNTY +ATTORNEY _is a young man; all are much bundled up and go at once to the +stove. They are followed by the two women--the_ SHERIFF_'s wife first; +she is a slight wiry woman, a thin nervous face_. MRS HALE _is larger +and would ordinarily be called more comfortable looking, but she is +disturbed now and looks fearfully about as she enters. The women have +come in slowly, and stand close together near the door_. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_rubbing his hands_) This feels good. Come up to the +fire, ladies. + +MRS PETERS: (_after taking a step forward_) I'm not--cold. + +SHERIFF: (_unbuttoning his overcoat and stepping away from the stove as +if to mark the beginning of official business_) Now, Mr Hale, before we +move things about, you explain to Mr Henderson just what you saw when +you came here yesterday morning. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: By the way, has anything been moved? Are things just as +you left them yesterday? + +SHERIFF: (_looking about_) It's just the same. When it dropped below +zero last night I thought I'd better send Frank out this morning to make +a fire for us--no use getting pneumonia with a big case on, but I told +him not to touch anything except the stove--and you know Frank. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Somebody should have been left here yesterday. + +SHERIFF: Oh--yesterday. When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for +that man who went crazy--I want you to know I had my hands full +yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by today and as long as +I went over everything here myself-- + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, Mr Hale, tell just what happened when you came +here yesterday morning. + +HALE: Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes. We came +along the road from my place and as I got here I said, I'm going to see +if I can't get John Wright to go in with me on a party telephone.' I +spoke to Wright about it once before and he put me off, saying folks +talked too much anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet--I guess +you know about how much he talked himself; but I thought maybe if I went +to the house and talked about it before his wife, though I said to Harry +that I didn't know as what his wife wanted made much difference to +John-- + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Let's talk about that later, Mr Hale. I do want to talk +about that, but tell now just what happened when you got to the house. + +HALE: I didn't hear or see anything; I knocked at the door, and still it +was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up, it was past eight o'clock. +So I knocked again, and I thought I heard somebody say, 'Come in.' I +wasn't sure, I'm not sure yet, but I opened the door--this door +(_indicating the door by which the two women are still standing_) and +there in that rocker--(_pointing to it_) sat Mrs Wright. + +(_They all look at the rocker_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: What--was she doing? + +HALE: She was rockin' back and forth. She had her apron in her hand and +was kind of--pleating it. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: And how did she--look? + +HALE: Well, she looked queer. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: How do you mean--queer? + +HALE: Well, as if she didn't know what she was going to do next. And +kind of done up. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: How did she seem to feel about your coming? + +HALE: Why, I don't think she minded--one way or other. She didn't pay +much attention. I said, 'How do, Mrs Wright it's cold, ain't it?' And +she said, 'Is it?'--and went on kind of pleating at her apron. Well, I +was surprised; she didn't ask me to come up to the stove, or to set +down, but just sat there, not even looking at me, so I said, 'I want to +see John.' And then she--laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh. I +thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said a little sharp: 'Can't +I see John?' 'No', she says, kind o' dull like. 'Ain't he home?' says I. +'Yes', says she, 'he's home'. 'Then why can't I see him?' I asked her, +out of patience. ''Cause he's dead', says she. _'Dead_?' says I. She +just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but rockin' back and +forth. 'Why--where is he?' says I, not knowing what to say. She just +pointed upstairs--like that (_himself pointing to the room above_) I got +up, with the idea of going up there. I walked from there to here--then I +says, 'Why, what did he die of?' 'He died of a rope round his neck', +says she, and just went on pleatin' at her apron. Well, I went out and +called Harry. I thought I might--need help. We went upstairs and there +he was lyin'-- + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: I think I'd rather have you go into that upstairs, +where you can point it all out. Just go on now with the rest of the +story. + +HALE: Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked ... +(_stops, his face twitches_) ... but Harry, he went up to him, and he +said, 'No, he's dead all right, and we'd better not touch anything.' So +we went back down stairs. She was still sitting that same way. 'Has +anybody been notified?' I asked. 'No', says she unconcerned. 'Who did +this, Mrs Wright?' said Harry. He said it business-like--and she stopped +pleatin' of her apron. 'I don't know', she says. 'You don't _know_?' +says Harry. 'No', says she. 'Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with him?' +says Harry. 'Yes', says she, 'but I was on the inside'. 'Somebody +slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him and you didn't wake up?' +says Harry. 'I didn't wake up', she said after him. We must 'a looked as +if we didn't see how that could be, for after a minute she said, 'I +sleep sound'. Harry was going to ask her more questions but I said maybe +we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner, or the sheriff, +so Harry went fast as he could to Rivers' place, where there's a +telephone. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: And what did Mrs Wright do when she knew that you had +gone for the coroner? + +HALE: She moved from that chair to this one over here (_pointing to a +small chair in the corner_) and just sat there with her hands held +together and looking down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some +conversation, so I said I had come in to see if John wanted to put in a +telephone, and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and +looked at me--scared, (_the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY, _who has had his notebook +out, makes a note_) I dunno, maybe it wasn't scared. I wouldn't like to +say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr Lloyd came, and you, Mr +Peters, and so I guess that's all I know that you don't. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_looking around_) I guess we'll go upstairs first--and +then out to the barn and around there, (_to the_ SHERIFF) You're +convinced that there was nothing important here--nothing that would +point to any motive. + +SHERIFF: Nothing here but kitchen things. + +(_The_ COUNTY ATTORNEY, _after again looking around the kitchen, opens +the door of a cupboard closet. He gets up on a chair and looks on a +shelf. Pulls his hand away, sticky_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Here's a nice mess. + +(_The women draw nearer_.) + +MRS PETERS: (_to the other woman_) Oh, her fruit; it did freeze, (_to +the_ LAWYER) She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the +fire'd go out and her jars would break. + +SHERIFF: Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin' +about her preserves. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: I guess before we're through she may have something +more serious than preserves to worry about. + +HALE: Well, women are used to worrying over trifles. + +(_The two women move a little closer together_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_with the gallantry of a young politician_) And yet, +for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies? (_the women +do not unbend. He goes to the sink, takes a dipperful of water from the +pail and pouring it into a basin, washes his hands. Starts to wipe them +on the roller-towel, turns it for a cleaner place_) Dirty towels! +(_kicks his foot against the pans under the sink_) Not much of a +housekeeper, would you say, ladies? + +MRS HALE: (_stiffly_) There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: To be sure. And yet (_with a little bow to her_) I know +there are some Dickson county farmhouses which do not have such roller +towels. (_He gives it a pull to expose its length again_.) + +MRS HALE: Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always +as clean as they might be. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Ah, loyal to your sex, I see. But you and Mrs Wright +were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too. + +MRS HALE: (_shaking her head_) I've not seen much of her of late years. +I've not been in this house--it's more than a year. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: And why was that? You didn't like her? + +MRS HALE: I liked her all well enough. Farmers' wives have their hands +full, Mr Henderson. And then-- + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes--? + +MRS HALE: (_looking about_) It never seemed a very cheerful place. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: No--it's not cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the +homemaking instinct. + +MRS HALE: Well, I don't know as Wright had, either. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: You mean that they didn't get on very well? + +MRS HALE: No, I don't mean anything. But I don't think a place'd be any +cheerfuller for John Wright's being in it. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'd like to talk more of that a little later. I want to +get the lay of things upstairs now. (_He goes to the left, where three +steps lead to a stair door_.) + +SHERIFF: I suppose anything Mrs Peters does'll be all right. She was to +take in some clothes for her, you know, and a few little things. We left +in such a hurry yesterday. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes, but I would like to see what you take, Mrs Peters, +and keep an eye out for anything that might be of use to us. + +MRS PETERS: Yes, Mr Henderson. + +(_The women listen to the men's steps on the stairs, then look about the +kitchen_.) + +MRS HALE: I'd hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around +and criticising. + +(_She arranges the pans under sink which the_ LAWYER _had shoved out of +place_.) + +MRS PETERS: Of course it's no more than their duty. + +MRS HALE: Duty's all right, but I guess that deputy sheriff that came +out to make the fire might have got a little of this on. (_gives the +roller towel a pull_) Wish I'd thought of that sooner. Seems mean to +talk about her for not having things slicked up when she had to come +away in such a hurry. + +MRS PETERS: (_who has gone to a small table in the left rear corner of +the room, and lifted one end of a towel that covers a pan_) She had +bread set. (_Stands still_.) + +MRS HALE: (_eyes fixed on a loaf of bread beside the bread-box, which is +on a low shelf at the other side of the room. Moves slowly toward it_) +She was going to put this in there, (_picks up loaf, then abruptly drops +it. In a manner of returning to familiar things_) It's a shame about her +fruit. I wonder if it's all gone. (_gets up on the chair and looks_) I +think there's some here that's all right, Mrs Peters. Yes--here; +(_holding it toward the window_) this is cherries, too. (_looking +again_) I declare I believe that's the only one. (_gets down, bottle in +her hand. Goes to the sink and wipes it off on the outside_) She'll feel +awful bad after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the +afternoon I put up my cherries last summer. + +(_She puts the bottle on the big kitchen table, center of the room. With +a sigh, is about to sit down in the rocking-chair. Before she is seated +realizes what chair it is; with a slow look at it, steps back. The chair +which she has touched rocks back and forth_.) + +MRS PETERS: Well, I must get those things from the front room closet, +(_she goes to the door at the right, but after looking into the other +room, steps back_) You coming with me, Mrs Hale? You could help me carry +them. + +(_They go in the other room; reappear,_ MRS PETERS _carrying a dress and +skirt,_ MRS HALE _following with a pair of shoes._) + +MRS PETERS: My, it's cold in there. + +(_She puts the clothes on the big table, and hurries to the stove._) + +MRS HALE: (_examining the skirt_) Wright was close. I think maybe that's +why she kept so much to herself. She didn't even belong to the Ladies +Aid. I suppose she felt she couldn't do her part, and then you don't +enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and +be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in +the choir. But that--oh, that was thirty years ago. This all you was to +take in? + +MRS PETERS: She said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want, for there +isn't much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just +to make her feel more natural. She said they was in the top drawer in +this cupboard. Yes, here. And then her little shawl that always hung +behind the door. (_opens stair door and looks_) Yes, here it is. + +(_Quickly shuts door leading upstairs._) + +MRS HALE: (_abruptly moving toward her_) Mrs Peters? + +MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale? + +MRS HALE: Do you think she did it? + +MRS PETERS: (_in a frightened voice_) Oh, I don't know. + +MRS HALE: Well, I don't think she did. Asking for an apron and her +little shawl. Worrying about her fruit. + +MRS PETERS: (_starts to speak, glances up, where footsteps are heard in +the room above. In a low voice_) Mr Peters says it looks bad for her. Mr +Henderson is awful sarcastic in a speech and he'll make fun of her +sayin' she didn't wake up. + +MRS HALE: Well, I guess John Wright didn't wake when they was slipping +that rope under his neck. + +MRS PETERS: No, it's strange. It must have been done awful crafty and +still. They say it was such a--funny way to kill a man, rigging it all +up like that. + +MRS HALE: That's just what Mr Hale said. There was a gun in the house. +He says that's what he can't understand. + +MRS PETERS: Mr Henderson said coming out that what was needed for the +case was a motive; something to show anger, or--sudden feeling. + +MRS HALE: (_who is standing by the table_) Well, I don't see any signs +of anger around here, (_she puts her hand on the dish towel which lies +on the table, stands looking down at table, one half of which is clean, +the other half messy_) It's wiped to here, (_makes a move as if to +finish work, then turns and looks at loaf of bread outside the breadbox. +Drops towel. In that voice of coming back to familiar things._) Wonder +how they are finding things upstairs. I hope she had it a little more +red-up up there. You know, it seems kind of sneaking. Locking her up in +town and then coming out here and trying to get her own house to turn +against her! + +MRS PETERS: But Mrs Hale, the law is the law. + +MRS HALE: I s'pose 'tis, (_unbuttoning her coat_) Better loosen up your +things, Mrs Peters. You won't feel them when you go out. + +(MRS PETERS _takes off her fur tippet, goes to hang it on hook at back +of room, stands looking at the under part of the small corner table_.) + +MRS PETERS: She was piecing a quilt. (_She brings the large sewing +basket and they look at the bright pieces_.) + +MRS HALE: It's log cabin pattern. Pretty, isn't it? I wonder if she was +goin' to quilt it or just knot it? + +(_Footsteps have been heard coming down the stairs_. The SHERIFF enters +followed by HALE and the COUNTY ATTORNEY.) + +SHERIFF: They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it! (_The +men laugh, the women look abashed_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_rubbing his hands over the stove_) Frank's fire +didn't do much up there, did it? Well, let's go out to the barn and get +that cleared up. (_The men go outside_.) + +MRS HALE: (_resentfully_) I don't know as there's anything so strange, +our takin' up our time with little things while we're waiting for them +to get the evidence. (_she sits down at the big table smoothing out a +block with decision_) I don't see as it's anything to laugh about. + +MRS PETERS: (_apologetically_) Of course they've got awful important +things on their minds. + +(_Pulls up a chair and joins MRS HALE at the table_.) + +MRS HALE: (_examining another block_) Mrs Peters, look at this one. +Here, this is the one she was working on, and look at the sewing! All +the rest of it has been so nice and even. And look at this! It's all +over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn't know what she was about! + +(_After she has said this they look at each other, then start to glance +back at the door. After an instant_ MRS HALE _has pulled at a knot and +ripped the sewing_.) + +MRS PETERS: Oh, what are you doing, Mrs Hale? + +MRS HALE: (_mildly_) Just pulling out a stitch or two that's not sewed +very good. (_threading a needle_) Bad sewing always made me fidgety. + +MRS PETERS: (nervously) I don't think we ought to touch things. + +MRS HALE: I'll just finish up this end. (_suddenly stopping and leaning +forward_) Mrs Peters? + +MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale? + +MRS HALE: What do you suppose she was so nervous about? + +MRS PETERS: Oh--I don't know. I don't know as she was nervous. I +sometimes sew awful queer when I'm just tired. (MRS HALE _starts to say +something, looks at_ MRS PETERS, _then goes on sewing_) Well I must get +these things wrapped up. They may be through sooner than we think, +(_putting apron and other things together_) I wonder where I can find a +piece of paper, and string. + +MRS HALE: In that cupboard, maybe. + +MRS PETERS: (_looking in cupboard_) Why, here's a bird-cage, (_holds it +up_) Did she have a bird, Mrs Hale? + +MRS HALE: Why, I don't know whether she did or not--I've not been here +for so long. There was a man around last year selling canaries cheap, +but I don't know as she took one; maybe she did. She used to sing real +pretty herself. + +MRS PETERS: (_glancing around_) Seems funny to think of a bird here. But +she must have had one, or why would she have a cage? I wonder what +happened to it. + +MRS HALE: I s'pose maybe the cat got it. + +MRS PETERS: No, she didn't have a cat. She's got that feeling some +people have about cats--being afraid of them. My cat got in her room and +she was real upset and asked me to take it out. + +MRS HALE: My sister Bessie was like that. Queer, ain't it? + +MRS PETERS: (_examining the cage_) Why, look at this door. It's broke. +One hinge is pulled apart. + +MRS HALE: (_looking too_) Looks as if someone must have been rough with +it. + +MRS PETERS: Why, yes. + +(_She brings the cage forward and puts it on the table_.) + +MRS HALE: I wish if they're going to find any evidence they'd be about +it. I don't like this place. + +MRS PETERS: But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs Hale. It would be +lonesome for me sitting here alone. + +MRS HALE: It would, wouldn't it? (_dropping her sewing_) But I tell you +what I do wish, Mrs Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when _she_ +was here. I--(_looking around the room_)--wish I had. + +MRS PETERS: But of course you were awful busy, Mrs Hale--your house and +your children. + +MRS HALE: I could've come. I stayed away because it weren't +cheerful--and that's why I ought to have come. I--I've never liked this +place. Maybe because it's down in a hollow and you don't see the road. I +dunno what it is, but it's a lonesome place and always was. I wish I had +come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now--(_shakes her +head_) + +MRS PETERS: Well, you mustn't reproach yourself, Mrs Hale. Somehow we +just don't see how it is with other folks until--something comes up. + +MRS HALE: Not having children makes less work--but it makes a quiet +house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come +in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs Peters? + +MRS PETERS: Not to know him; I've seen him in town. They say he was a +good man. + +MRS HALE: Yes--good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, +I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs Peters. Just to +pass the time of day with him--(_shivers_) Like a raw wind that gets to +the bone, (_pauses, her eye falling on the cage_) I should think she +would 'a wanted a bird. But what do you suppose went with it? + +MRS PETERS: I don't know, unless it got sick and died. + +(_She reaches over and swings the broken door, swings it again, both +women watch it_.) + +MRS HALE: You weren't raised round here, were you? (_MRS PETERS shakes +her head_) You didn't know--her? + +MRS PETERS: Not till they brought her yesterday. + +MRS HALE: She--come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird +herself--real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and--fluttery. +How--she--did--change. (_silence; then as if struck by a happy thought +and relieved to get back to everyday things_) Tell you what, Mrs Peters, +why don't you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her mind. + +MRS PETERS: Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs Hale. There +couldn't possibly be any objection to it, could there? Now, just what +would I take? I wonder if her patches are in here--and her things. + +(_They look in the sewing basket_.) + +MRS HALE: Here's some red. I expect this has got sewing things in it. +(_brings out a fancy box_) What a pretty box. Looks like something +somebody would give you. Maybe her scissors are in here. (_Opens box. +Suddenly puts her hand to her nose_) Why--(MRS PETERS _bends nearer, +then turns her face away_) There's something wrapped up in this piece of +silk. + +MRS PETERS: Why, this isn't her scissors. + +MRS HALE: (_lifting the silk_) Oh, Mrs Peters--it's-- + +(MRS PETERS _bends closer_.) + +MRS PETERS: It's the bird. + +MRS HALE: (_jumping up_) But, Mrs Peters--look at it! It's neck! Look at +its neck! + +It's all--other side _to_. + +MRS PETERS: Somebody--wrung--its--neck. + +(_Their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension, of horror. Steps are +heard outside_. MRS HALE _slips box under quilt pieces, and sinks into +her chair. Enter_ SHERIFF _and_ COUNTY ATTORNEY. MRS PETERS _rises_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_as one turning from serious things to little +pleasantries_) Well ladies, have you decided whether she was going to +quilt it or knot it? + +MRS PETERS: We think she was going to--knot it. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, that's interesting, I'm sure. (_seeing the +birdcage_) Has the bird flown? + +MRS HALE: (_putting more quilt pieces over the box_) We think the--cat +got it. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_preoccupied_) Is there a cat? + +(MRS HALE _glances in a quick covert way at_ MRS PETERS.) + +MRS PETERS: Well, not now. They're superstitious, you know. They leave. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_to_ SHERIFF PETERS, _continuing an interrupted +conversation_) No sign at all of anyone having come from the outside. +Their own rope. Now let's go up again and go over it piece by piece. +(_they start upstairs_) It would have to have been someone who knew just +the-- + +(MRS PETERS _sits down. The two women sit there not looking at one +another, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding +back. When they talk now it is in the manner of feeling their way over +strange ground, as if afraid of what they are saying, but as if they can +not help saying it_.) + +MRS HALE: She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty +box. + +MRS PETERS: (_in a whisper_) When I was a girl--my kitten--there was a +boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes--and before I could get +there--(_covers her face an instant_) If they hadn't held me back I +would have--(_catches herself, looks upstairs where steps are heard, +falters weakly_)--hurt him. + +MRS HALE: (_with a slow look around her_) I wonder how it would seem +never to have had any children around, (_pause_) No, Wright wouldn't +like the bird--a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too. + +MRS PETERS: (_moving uneasily_) We don't know who killed the bird. + +MRS HALE: I knew John Wright. + +MRS PETERS: It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs +Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope around his neck that +choked the life out of him. + +MRS HALE: His neck. Choked the life out of him. + +(_Her hand goes out and rests on the bird-cage_.) + +MRS PETERS: (_with rising voice_) We don't know who killed him. We don't +_know_. + +MRS HALE: (_her own feeling not interrupted_) If there'd been years and +years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful--still, +after the bird was still. + +MRS PETERS: (_something within her speaking_) I know what stillness is. +When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died--after he was two +years old, and me with no other then-- + +MRS HALE: (_moving_) How soon do you suppose they'll be through, looking +for the evidence? + +MRS PETERS: I know what stillness is. (_pulling herself back_) The law +has got to punish crime, Mrs Hale. + +MRS HALE: (_not as if answering that_) I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster +when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the +choir and sang. (_a look around the room_) Oh, I _wish_ I'd come over +here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to +punish that? + +MRS PETERS: (_looking upstairs_) We mustn't--take on. + +MRS HALE: I might have known she needed help! I know how things can +be--for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs Peters. We live close +together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things--it's +all just a different kind of the same thing, (_brushes her eyes, +noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for it_) If I was you, I +wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her it _ain't_. Tell her it's +all right. Take this in to prove it to her. She--she may never know +whether it was broke or not. + +MRS PETERS: (_takes the bottle, looks about for something to wrap it in; +takes petticoat from the clothes brought from the other room, very +nervously begins winding this around the bottle. In a false voice_) My, +it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us. Wouldn't they just laugh! +Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a--dead canary. As if +that could have anything to do with--with--wouldn't they _laugh_! + +(_The men are heard coming down stairs_.) + +MRS HALE: (_under her breath_) Maybe they would--maybe they wouldn't. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: No, Peters, it's all perfectly clear except a reason +for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was +some definite thing. Something to show--something to make a story +about--a thing that would connect up with this strange way of doing it-- + +(_The women's eyes meet for an instant. Enter HALE from outer door_.) + +HALE: Well, I've got the team around. Pretty cold out there. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'm going to stay here a while by myself, (_to the_ +SHERIFF) You can send Frank out for me, can't you? I want to go over +everything. I'm not satisfied that we can't do better. + +SHERIFF: Do you want to see what Mrs Peters is going to take in? + +(_The_ LAWYER _goes to the table, picks up the apron, laughs_.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: Oh, I guess they're not very dangerous things the +ladies have picked out. (_Moves a few things about, disturbing the quilt +pieces which cover the box. Steps back_) No, Mrs Peters doesn't need +supervising. For that matter, a sheriff's wife is married to the law. +Ever think of it that way, Mrs Peters? + +MRS PETERS: Not--just that way. + +SHERIFF: (_chuckling_) Married to the law. (_moves toward the other +room_) I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to +take a look at these windows. + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_scoffingly_) Oh, windows! + +SHERIFF: We'll be right out, Mr Hale. + +(HALE _goes outside. The_ SHERIFF _follows the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _into +the other room. Then_ MRS HALE _rises, hands tight together, looking +intensely at_ MRS PETERS, _whose eyes make a slow turn, finally meeting_ +MRS HALE_'s. A moment_ MRS HALE _holds her, then her own eyes point the +way to where the box is concealed. Suddenly_ MRS PETERS _throws back +quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing. It is +too big. She opens box, starts to take bird out, cannot touch it, goes +to pieces, stands there helpless. Sound of a knob turning in the other +room_. MRS HALE _snatches the box and puts it in the pocket of her big +coat. Enter_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _and_ SHERIFF.) + +COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_facetiously_) Well, Henry, at least we found out that +she was not going to quilt it. She was going to--what is it you call it, +ladies? + +MRS HALE: (_her hand against her pocket_) We call it--knot it, Mr +Henderson. + + +(CURTAIN) + + + + +THE OUTSIDE + + +First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Playwrights' Theatre, +December 28, 1917. + + +CAPTAIN (of 'The Bars' Life-Saving Station) + +BRADFORD (a Life-Saver) + +TONY (a Portuguese Life-Saver) + +MRS PATRICK (who lives in the abandoned Station) + +ALLIE MAYO (who works for her) + + +SCENE: _A room in a house which was once a life-saving station. Since +ceasing to be that it has taken on no other character, except that of a +place which no one cares either to preserve or change. It is painted the +life-saving grey, but has not the life-saving freshness. This is one end +of what was the big boat room, and at the ceiling is seen a part of the +frame work from which the boat once swung. About two thirds of the back +wall is open, because of the big sliding door, of the type of barn door, +and through this open door are seen the sand dunes, and beyond them the +woods. At one point the line where woods and dunes meet stands out +clearly and there are indicated the rude things, vines, bushes, which +form the outer uneven rim of the woods--the only things that grow in the +sand. At another point a sand-hill is menacing the woods. This old +life-saving station is at a point where the sea curves, so through the +open door the sea also is seen. (The station is located on the outside +shore of Cape Cod, at the point, near the tip of the Cape, where it +makes that final curve which forms the Provincetown Harbor.) The dunes +are hills and strange forms of sand on which, in places, grows the stiff +beach grass--struggle; dogged growing against odds. At right of the big +sliding door is a drift of sand and the top of buried beach grass is +seen on this. There is a door left, and at right of big sliding door is +a slanting wall. Door in this is ajar at rise of curtain, and through +this door_ BRADFORD _and_ TONY, _life-savers, are seen bending over a +man's body, attempting to restore respiration. The captain of the +life-savers comes into view outside the big open door, at left; he +appears to have been hurrying, peers in, sees the men, goes quickly to +them._ + +CAPTAIN: I'll take this now, boys. + +BRADFORD: No need for anybody to take it, Capt'n. He was dead when we +picked him up. + +CAPTAIN: Dannie Sears was dead when we picked him up. But we brought him +back. I'll go on awhile. + +(_The two men who have been bending over the body rise, stretch to +relax, and come into the room._) + +BRADFORD: (_pushing back his arms and putting his hands on his chest_) +Work,--tryin to put life in the dead. + +CAPTAIN: Where'd you find him, Joe? + +BRADFORD: In front of this house. Not forty feet out. + +CAPTAIN: What'd you bring him up here for? + +(_He speaks in an abstracted way, as if the working part of his mind is +on something else, and in the muffled voice of one bending over._) + +BRADFORD: (_with a sheepish little laugh_) Force of habit, I guess. We +brought so many of 'em back up here, (_looks around the room_) And then +it was kind of unfriendly down where he was--the wind spittin' the sea +onto you till he'd have no way of knowin' he was ashore. + +TONY: Lucky I was not sooner or later as I walk by from my watch. + +BRADFORD: You have accommodating ways, Tony. No sooner or later. I +wouldn't say it of many Portagees. But the sea (_calling it in to the_ +CAPTAIN) is friendly as a kitten alongside the women that live _here_. +Allie Mayo--they're _both_ crazy--had that door open (_moving his head +toward the big sliding door_) sweepin' out, and when we come along she +backs off and stands lookin' at us, _lookin_'--Lord, I just wanted to +get him somewhere else. So I kicked this door open with my foot +(_jerking his hand toward the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is seen bending +over the man_) and got him _away. (under his voice_) If he did have any +notion of comin' back to life, he wouldn't a come if he'd seen her. +(_more genially_) I wouldn't. + +CAPTAIN: You know who he is, Joe? + +BRADFORD: I never saw him before. + +CAPTAIN: Mitchell telephoned from High Head that a dory came ashore +there. + +BRADFORD: Last night wasn't the _best_ night for a dory. (_to_ TONY, +_boastfully_) Not that I couldn't 'a' stayed in one. Some men can stay +in a dory and some can't. (_going to the inner door_) That boy's dead, +Capt'n. + +CAPTAIN: Then I'm not doing him any harm. + +BRADFORD: (_going over and shaking the frame where the boat once swung_) +This the first time you ever been in this place, ain't it, Tony? + +TONY: I never was here before. + +BRADFORD: Well, _I_ was here before. (_a laugh_) And the old +man--(_nodding toward the_ CAPTAIN) he lived here for twenty-seven +years. Lord, the things that happened _here_. There've been dead ones +carried through _that_ door. (_pointing to the outside door_) Lord--the +ones _I've_ carried. I carried in Bill Collins, and Lou Harvey and--huh! +'sall over now. You ain't seen no _wrecks_. Don't ever think you have. I +was here the night the Jennie Snow was out there. (_pointing to the +sea_) There was a _wreck_. We got the boat that stood here (_again +shaking the frame_) down that bank. (_goes to the door and looks out_) +Lord, how'd we ever do it? The sand has put his place on the blink all +right. And then when it gets too God-for-saken for a life-savin' +station, a lady takes it for a summer residence--and then spends the +winter. She's a cheerful one. + +TONY: A woman--she makes things pretty. This not like a place where a +woman live. On the floor there is nothing--on the wall there is nothing. +Things--(_trying to express it with his hands_) do not hang on other +things. + +BRADFORD: (_imitating_ TONY_'s gesture_) No--things do not hang on other +things. In my opinion the woman's crazy--sittin' over there on the +sand--(_a gesture towards the dunes_) what's she _lookin'_ at? There +ain't nothin' to _see_. And I know the woman that works for her's +crazy--Allie Mayo. She's a Provincetown girl. She was all right once, +but-- + +(MRS PATRICK _comes in from the hall at the right. She is a 'city +woman', a sophisticated person who has been caught into something as +unlike the old life as the dunes are unlike a meadow. At the moment she +is excited and angry_.) + +MRS PATRICK: You have no right here. This isn't the life-saving station +any more. Just because it used to be--I don't see why you should +think--This is my house! And--I want my house to myself! + +CAPTAIN: (_putting his head through the door. One arm of the man he is +working with is raised, and the hand reaches through the doorway_) Well +I must say, lady, I would think that any house could be a life-saving +station when the sea had sent a man to it. + +MRS PATRICK: (_who has turned away so she cannot see the hand_) I don't +want him here! I--(_defiant, yet choking_) I must have my house to +myself! + +CAPTAIN: You'll get your house to yourself when I've made up my mind +there's no more life in this man. A good many lives have been saved in +this house, Mrs Patrick--I believe that's your name--and if there's any +chance of bringing one more back from the dead, the fact that you own +the house ain't goin' to make a damn bit of difference to me! + +MRS PATRICK: (_in a thin wild way_) I must have my house to myself. + +CAPTAIN: Hell with such a woman! + +(_Moves the man he is working with and slams the door shut. As the_ +CAPTAIN _says, 'And if there's any chance of bringing one more back from +the dead_', ALLIE MAYO _has appeared outside the wide door which gives +on to the dunes, a bleak woman, who at first seems little more than a +part of the sand before which she stands. But as she listens to this +conflict one suspects in her that peculiar intensity of twisted things +which grow in unfavoring places_.) + +MRS PATRICK: I--I don't want them here! I must-- + +(_But suddenly she retreats, and is gone_.) + +BRADFORD: Well, I couldn't say, Allie Mayo, that you work for any too +kind-hearted a lady. What's the matter with the woman? Does she want +folks to die? Appears to break her all up to see somebody trying to save +a life. What d'you work for such a fish for? A crazy fish--that's what I +call the woman. I've seen her--day after day--settin' over there where +the dunes meet the woods, just sittin' there, lookin'. (_suddenly +thinking of it_) I believe she _likes_ to see the sand slippin' down on +the woods. Pleases her to see somethin' gettin' buried, I guess. + +(ALLIE MAYO, _who has stepped inside the door and moved half across the +room, toward the corridor at the right, is arrested by this last--stands +a moment as if seeing through something, then slowly on, and out_.) + +BRADFORD: Some coffee'd taste good. But coffee, in this house? Oh, no. +It might make somebody feel better. (_opening the door that was slammed +shut_) Want me now, Capt'n? + +CAPTAIN: No. + +BRADFORD: Oh, that boy's dead, Capt'n. + +CAPTAIN: (_snarling_) Dannie Sears was dead, too. Shut that door. I +don't want to hear that woman's voice again, ever. + +(_Closing the door and sitting on a bench built into that corner between +the big sliding door and the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is_.) + +BRADFORD: They're a cheerful pair of women--livin' in this cheerful +place--a place that life savers had to turn over to the sand--huh! This +Patrick woman used to be all right. She and her husband was summer folks +over in town. They used to picnic over here on the outside. It was Joe +Dyer--he's always talkin' to summer folks--told 'em the government was +goin' to build the new station and sell this one by sealed bids. I heard +them talkin' about it. They was sittin' right down there on the beach, +eatin' their supper. They was goin' to put in a fire-place and they was +goin' to paint it bright colors, and have parties over here--summer folk +notions. Their bid won it--who'd want it?--a buried house you couldn't +move. + +TONY: I see no bright colors. + +BRADFORD: Don't you? How astonishin'! You must be color blind. And I +guess _we're_ the first party. (_laughs_) I was in Bill Joseph's grocery +store, one day last November, when in she comes--Mrs Patrick, from New +York. 'I've come to take the old life-saving station', says she. 'I'm +going to sleep over there tonight!' Huh! Bill is used to queer ways--he +deals with summer folks, but that got _him_. November--an empty house, a +buried house, you might say, off here on the outside shore--way across +the sand from man or beast. He got it out of her, not by what she said, +but by the way she looked at what he said, that her husband had died, +and she was runnin' off to hide herself, I guess. A person'd feel sorry +for her if she weren't so stand-offish, and so doggon _mean_. But mean +folks have got minds of their own. She slept here that night. Bill had +men hauling things till after dark--bed, stove, coal. And then she +wanted somebody to work for her. 'Somebody', says she, 'that doesn't say +an unnecessary word!' Well, then Bill come to the back of the store, I +said, 'Looks to me as if Allie Mayo was the party she's lookin' for.' +Allie Mayo has got a prejudice against words. Or maybe she likes 'em so +well she's savin' of 'em. She's not spoke an unnecessary word for twenty +years. She's got her reasons. Women whose men go to sea ain't always +talkative. + +(_The_ CAPTAIN _comes out. He closes door behind him and stands there +beside it. He looks tired and disappointed. Both look at him. Pause_.) + +CAPTAIN: Wonder who he was. + +BRADFORD: Young. Guess he's not been much at sea. + +CAPTAIN: I hate to leave even the dead in this house. But we can get +right back for him. (_a look around_) The old place used to be more +friendly. (_moves to outer door, hesitates, hating to leave like this_) +Well, Joe, we brought a good many of them back here. + +BRADFORD: Dannie Sears is tendin' bar in Boston now. + +(_The three men go; as they are going around the drift of sand_ ALLIE +MAYO _comes in carrying a pot of coffee; sees them leaving, puts down +the coffee pot, looks at the door the_ CAPTAIN _has closed, moves toward +it, as if drawn_. MRS PATRICK _follows her in_.) + +MRS PATRICK: They've gone? + +(MRS MAYO _nods, facing the closed door_.) + +MRS PATRICK: And they're leaving--him? (_again the other woman nods_) +Then he's--? (MRS MAYO _just stands there_) They have no right--just +because it used to be their place--! I want my house to myself! + +(_Snatches her coat and scarf from a hook and starts through the big +door toward the dunes_.) + +ALLIE MAYO: Wait. + +(_When she has said it she sinks into that corner seat--as if +overwhelmed by what she has done. The other woman is held_.) + +ALLIE MAYO: (_to herself._) If I could say that, I can say more. +(_looking at woman she has arrested, but speaking more to herself_) That +boy in there--his face--uncovered something--(_her open hand on her +chest. But she waits, as if she cannot go on; when she speaks it is in +labored way--slow, monotonous, as if snowed in by silent years_) For +twenty years, I did what you are doing. And I can tell you--it's not the +way. (_her voice has fallen to a whisper; she stops, looking ahead at +something remote and veiled_) We had been married--two years. (_a start, +as of sudden pain. Says it again, as if to make herself say it_) +Married--two years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler. Times hard. +He had to go. A year and a half--it was to be. A year and a half. Two +years we'd been married. + +(_She sits silent, moving a little back and forth._) + +The day he went away. (_not spoken, but breathed from pain_) The days +after he was gone. + +I heard at first. Last letter said farther north--not another chance to +write till on the way home. (_a wait_) + +Six months. Another, I did not hear. (_long wait_) Nobody ever heard. +(_after it seems she is held there, and will not go on_) I used to talk +as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim used to tease me about my +talking. But they'd come in to talk to me. They'd say--'You may hear +_yet._' They'd talk about what must have happened. And one day a woman +who'd been my friend all my life said--'Suppose he was to walk _in!_' I +got up and drove her from my kitchen--and from that time till this I've +not said a word I didn't have to say. (_she has become almost wild in +telling this. That passes. In a whisper_) The ice that caught +Jim--caught me. (_a moment as if held in ice. Comes from it. To_ MRS +PATRICK _simply_) It's not the way. (_a sudden change_) You're not the +only woman in the world whose husband is dead! + +MRS PATRICK: (_with a cry of the hurt_) Dead? My husband's not _dead_. + +ALLIE MAYO: He's _not?_ (_slowly understands_) Oh. + +(_The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks up her coat which has +fallen to the floor and steps outside._) + +ALLIE MAYO: (_almost failing to do it_) Wait. + +MRS PATRICK: Wait? Don't you think you've said enough? They told me you +didn't say an unnecessary word! + +ALLIE MAYO: I don't. + +MRS PATRICK: And you can see, I should think, that you've bungled into +things you know nothing about! + +(_As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she pushes the sand by the +door down on the half buried grass--though not as if knowing what she is +doing._) + +ALLIE MAYO: (_slowly_) When you keep still for twenty years you +know--things you didn't know you knew. I know why you're doing that. +(_she looks up at her, startled_) Don't bury the only thing that will +grow. Let it grow. + +(_The woman outside still crying under her breath turns abruptly and +starts toward the line where dunes and woods meet._) + +ALLIE MAYO: I know where you're going! (MRS PATRICK _turns but not as if +she wants to_) What you'll try to do. Over there. (_pointing to the line +of woods_) Bury it. The life in you. Bury it--watching the sand bury the +woods. But I'll tell you something! _They_ fight too. The woods! They +fight for life the way that Captain fought for life in there! + +(_Pointing to the closed door_.) + +MRS PATRICK: (_with a strange exultation_) And lose the way he lost in +there! + +ALLIE MAYO: (_sure, sombre_) They don't lose. + +MRS PATRICK: Don't _lose_? (_triumphant_) I have walked on the tops of +buried trees! + +ALLIE MAYO: (_slow, sombre, yet large_) And vines will grow over the +sand that covers the trees, and hold it. And other trees will grow over +the buried trees. + +MRS PATRICK: I've watched the sand slip down on the vines that reach out +farthest. + +ALLIE MAYO: Another vine will reach that spot. (_under her breath, +tenderly_) Strange little things that reach out farthest! + +MRS PATRICK: And will be buried soonest! + +ALLIE MAYO: And hold the sand for things behind them. They save a wood +that guards a town. + +MRS PATRICK: I care nothing about a wood to guard a town. This is the +outside--these dunes where only beach grass grows, this outer shore +where men can't live. The Outside. You who were born here and who die +here have named it that. + +ALLIE MAYO: Yes, we named it that, and we had reason. He died here +(_reaches her hand toward the closed door_) and many a one before him. +But many another reached the harbor! (_slowly raises her arm, bends it +to make the form of the Cape. Touches the outside of her bent arm_) The +Outside. But an arm that bends to make a harbor--where men are safe. + +MRS PATRICK: I'm outside the harbor--on the dunes, land not life. + +ALLIE MAYO: Dunes meet woods and woods hold dunes from a town that's +shore to a harbor. + +MRS PATRICK: This is the Outside. Sand (_picking some of it up in her +hand and letting it fall on the beach grass_) Sand that _covers_--hills +of sand that move and cover. + +ALLIE MAYO: Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from Provincetown. +Provincetown--where they turn when boats can't live at sea. Did you ever +see the sails come round here when the sky is dark? A line of +them--swift to the harbor--where their children live. Go back! +(_pointing_) Back to your edge of the woods that's the _edge of the +dunes_. + +MRS PATRICK: The edge of life. Where life trails off to dwarfed things +not worth a name. + +(_Suddenly sits down in the doorway_.) + +ALLIE MAYO: Not worth a name. And--meeting the Outside! + +(_Big with the sense of the wonder of life_.) + +MRS PATRICK: (_lifting sand and letting it drift through her hand_.) +They're what the sand will let them be. They take strange shapes like +shapes of blown sand. + +ALLIE MAYO: Meeting the Outside. (_moving nearer; speaking more +personally_) I know why you came here. To this house that had been given +up; on this shore where only savers of life try to live. I know what +holds you on these dunes, and draws you over there. But other things are +true beside the things you want to see. + +MRS PATRICK: How do you know they are? Where have you been for twenty +years? + +ALLIE MAYO: Outside. Twenty years. That's why I know how brave _they_ +are (_indicating the edge of the woods. Suddenly different_) You'll not +find peace there again! Go back and watch them _fight_! + +MRS PATRICK: (_swiftly rising_) You're a cruel woman--a hard, insolent +woman! I knew what I was doing! What do you know about it? About me? I +didn't go to the Outside. I was left there. I'm only--trying to get +along. Everything that can hurt me I want buried--buried deep. Spring is +here. This morning I _knew_ it. Spring--coming through the storm--to +take me--take me to hurt me. That's why I couldn't bear--(_she looks at +the closed door_) things that made me know I feel. You haven't felt for +so long you don't know what it means! But I tell you, Spring is here! +And now you'd take _that_ from me--(_looking now toward the edge of the +woods_) the thing that made me know they would be buried in my +heart--those things I can't _live_ and know I feel. You're more cruel +than the sea! 'But other things are true beside the things you want to +see!' Outside. Springs will come when I will not know that it is spring. +(_as if resentful of not more deeply believing what she says_) What +would there be for me but the Outside? What was there for you? What did +you ever find after you lost the thing you wanted? + +ALLIE MAYO: I found--what I find now I know. The edge of life--to hold +life behind me-- + +(_A slight gesture toward_ MRS PATRICK.) + +MRS PATRICK: (_stepping back_) You call what you are life? (_laughs_) +Bleak as those ugly things that grow in the sand! + +ALLIE MAYO: (_under her breath, as one who speaks tenderly of beauty_) +Ugly! + +MRS PATRICK: (_passionately_) I have _known_ life. I have known _life_. +You're like this Cape. A line of land way out to sea--land not life. + +ALLIE MAYO: A harbor far at sea. (_raises her arm, curves it in as if +around something she loves_) Land that encloses and gives shelter from +storm. + +MRS PATRICK: (_facing the sea, as if affirming what will hold all else +out_) Outside sea. Outer shore. Dunes--land not life. + +ALLIE MAYO: Outside sea--outer shore, dark with the wood that once was +ships--dunes, strange land not life--woods, town and harbor. The line! +Stunted straggly line that meets the Outside face to face--and fights +for what itself can never be. Lonely line. Brave growing. + +MRS PATRICK: It loses. + +ALLIE MAYO: It wins. + +MRS PATRICK: The farthest life is buried. + +ALLIE MAYO: And life grows over buried life! (_lifted into that; then, +as one who states a simple truth with feeling_) It will. And Springs +will come when you will want to know that it is Spring. + +(_The_ CAPTAIN _and_ BRADFORD _appear behind the drift of sand. They +have a stretcher. To get away from them_ MRS PATRICK _steps farther into +the room_; ALLIE MAYO _shrinks into her corner. The men come in, open +the closed door and go in the room where they left the dead man. A +moment later they are seen outside the big open door, bearing the man +away_. MRS PATRICK _watches them from sight_.) + +MRS PATRICK: (_bitter, exultant_) Savers of life! (_to_ ALLIE MAYO) You +savers of life! 'Meeting the Outside!' Meeting--(_but she cannot say it +mockingly again; in saying it, something of what it means has broken +through, rises. Herself lost, feeling her way into the wonder of life_) +Meeting the Outside! + +(_It grows in her as_ CURTAIN _lowers slowly_.) + + + + +THE VERGE + + +First performed at the Provincetown Playhouse on November 14, 1921. + + +PERSONS OF THE PLAY + +ANTHONY + +HARRY ARCHER, Claire's husband + +HATTIE, The maid + +CLAIRE + +DICK, Richard Demming + +TOM EDGEWORTHY + +ELIZABETH, Claire's daughter + +ADELAIDE, Claire's sister + +DR EMMONS + + +ACT I + +_The Curtain lifts on a place that is dark, save for a shaft of light +from below which comes up through an open trap-door in the floor. This +slants up and strikes the long leaves and the huge brilliant blossom of +a strange plant whose twisted stem projects from right front. Nothing is +seen except this plant and its shadow. A violent wind is heard. A moment +later a buzzer. It buzzes once long and three short. Silence. Again the +buzzer. Then from below--his shadow blocking the light, comes_ ANTHONY, +_a rugged man past middle life;--he emerges from the stairway into the +darkness of the room. Is dimly seen taking up a phone._ + +ANTHONY: Yes, Miss Claire?--I'll see. (_he brings a thermometer to the +stairway for light, looks sharply, then returns to the phone_) It's down +to forty-nine. The plants are in danger--(_with great relief and +approval_) Oh, that's fine! (_hangs up the receiver_) Fine! + +(_He goes back down the stairway, closing the trap-door upon himself, +and the curtain is drawn upon darkness and wind. It opens a moment later +on the greenhouse in the sunshine of a snowy morning. The snow piled +outside is at times blown through the air. The frost has made patterns +on the glass as if--as Plato would have it--the patterns inherent in +abstract nature and behind all life had to come out, not only in the +creative heat within, but in the creative cold on the other side of the +glass. And the wind makes patterns of sound around the glass house. + +The back wall is low; the glass roof slopes sharply up. There is an +outside door, a little toward the right. From outside two steps lead +down to it. At left a glass partition and a door into the inner room. +One sees a little way into this room. At right there is no dividing wall +save large plants and vines, a narrow aisle between shelves of plants +leads off. + +This is not a greenhouse where plants are being displayed, nor the usual +workshop for the growing of them, but a place for experiment with +plants, a laboratory. + +At the back grows a strange vine. It is arresting rather than beautiful. +It creeps along the low wall, and one branch gets a little way up the +glass. You might see the form of a cross in it, if you happened to think +it that way. The leaves of this vine are not the form that leaves have +been. They are at once repellent and significant_. + +ANTHONY _is at work preparing soil--mixing, sifting. As the wind tries +the door he goes anxiously to the thermometer, nods as if reassured and +returns to his work. The buzzer sounds. He starts to answer the +telephone, remembers something, halts and listens sharply. It does not +buzz once long and three short. Then he returns to his work. The buzzer +goes on and on in impatient jerks which mount in anger. Several times_ +ANTHONY _is almost compelled by this insistence, but the thing that +holds him back is stronger. At last, after a particularly mad splutter, +to which_ ANTHONY _longs to make retort, the buzzer gives it up_. +ANTHONY _goes on preparing soil. + +A moment later the glass door swings violently in, snow blowing in, and +also_ MR HARRY ARCHER, _wrapped in a rug._) + +ANTHONY: Oh, please close the door, sir. + +HARRY: Do you think I'm not trying to? (_he holds it open to say this_) + +ANTHONY: But please _do_. This stormy air is not good for the plants. + +HARRY: I suppose it's just the thing for me! Now, what do you mean, +Anthony, by not answering the phone when I buzz for you? + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire--Mrs Archer told me not to. + +HARRY: Told you not to answer me? + +ANTHONY: Not you especially--nobody but her. + +HARRY: Well, I like her nerve--and yours. + +ANTHONY: You see, she thought it took my mind from my work to be +interrupted when I'm out here. And so it does. So she buzzes once long +and--Well, she buzzes her way, and all other buzzing-- + +HARRY: May buzz. + +ANTHONY: (_nodding gravely_) She thought it would be better for the +flowers. + +HARRY: I am not a flower--true, but I too need a little attention--and a +little heat. Will you please tell me why the house is frigid? + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire ordered all the heat turned out here, (_patiently +explaining it to_ MISS CLAIRE's _speechless husband_) You see the roses +need a great deal of heat. + +HARRY: (_reading the thermometer_) The roses have seventy-three I have +forty-five. + +ANTHONY: Yes, the roses need seventy-three. + +HARRY: Anthony, this is an outrage! + +ANTHONY: I think it is myself; when you consider what we paid for the +heating plant--but as long as it is defective--Why, Miss Claire would +never have done what she has if she hadn't looked out for her plants in +just such ways as this. Have you forgotten that Breath of Life is about +to flower? + +HARRY: And where's my breakfast about to flower?--that's what I want to +know. + +ANTHONY: Why, Miss Claire got up at five o'clock to order the heat +turned off from the house. + +HARRY: I see you admire her vigilance. + +ANTHONY: Oh, I do. (_fervently_) I do. Harm was near, and that woke her +up. + +HARRY: And what about the harm to--(_tapping his chest_) Do roses get +pneumonia? + +ANTHONY: Oh, yes--yes, indeed they do. Why, Mr Archer, look at Miss +Claire herself. Hasn't she given her heat to the roses? + +HARRY: (_pulling the rug around him, preparing for the blizzard_) She +has the fire within. + +ANTHONY: (_delighted_) Now isn't that true! How well you said it. (_with +a glare for this appreciation_, HARRY _opens the door. It blows away +from him_) Please do close the door! + +HARRY: (_furiously_) You think it is the aim of my life to hold it open? + +ANTHONY: (_getting hold of it_) Growing things need an even temperature, +(_while saying this he gets the man out into the snow_) + +(ANTHONY _consults the thermometer, not as pleased this time as he was +before. He then looks minutely at two of the plants--one is a rose, the +other a flower without a name because it has not long enough been a +flower. Peers into the hearts of them. Then from a drawer under a shelf, +takes two paper bags, puts one over each of these flowers, closing them +down at the bottom. Again the door blows wildly in, also_ HATTIE, _a +maid with a basket_.) + +ANTHONY: What do you mean--blowing in here like this? Mrs Archer has +ordered-- + +HATTIE: Mr Archer has ordered breakfast served here, (_she uncovers the +basket and takes out an electric toaster_) + +ANTHONY: _Breakfast_--here? _Eat_--here? Where plants grow? + +HATTIE: The plants won't poison him, will they? (_at a loss to know what +to do with things, she puts the toaster under the strange vine at the +back, whose leaves lift up against the glass which has frost leaves on +the outer side_) + +ANTHONY: (_snatching it away_) You--you think you can cook eggs under +the Edge Vine? + +HATTIE: I guess Mr Archer's eggs are as important as a vine. I guess my +work's as important as yours. + +ANTHONY: There's a million people like you--and like Mr Archer. In all +the world there is only one Edge Vine. + +HATTIE: Well, maybe one's enough. It don't look like nothin', anyhow. + +ANTHONY: And you've not got the wit to know that that's why it's the +Edge Vine. + +HATTIE: You want to look out, Anthony. You talk nutty. Everybody says +so. + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire don't say so. + +HATTIE: No, because she's-- + +ANTHONY: You talk too much! + +(_Door opens, admitting_ HARRY; _after looking around for the best place +to eat breakfast, moves a box of earth from the table_.) + +HARRY: Just give me a hand, will you, Hattie? + +(_They bring it to the open space and he and_ HATTIE _arrange breakfast +things_, HATTIE _with triumphant glances at the distressed_ ANTHONY) + +ANTHONY: (_deciding he must act_) Mr Archer, this is not the place to +eat breakfast! + +HARRY: Dead wrong, old boy. The place that has heat is the place to eat +breakfast. (_to_ HATTIE) Tell the other gentlemen--I heard Mr Demming +up, and Mr Edgeworthy, if he appears, that as long as it is such a +pleasant morning, we're having breakfast outside. To the conservatory +for coffee. + +(HATTIE _giggles, is leaving_.) + +And let's see, have we got everything? (_takes the one shaker, shakes a +little pepper on his hand. Looks in vain for the other shaker_) And tell +Mr Demming to bring the salt. + +ANTHONY: But Miss Claire will be very angry. + +HARRY: I am very angry. Did I choose to eat my breakfast at the other +end of a blizzard? + +ANTHONY: (_an exclamation of horror at the thermometer_) The temperature +is falling. I must report. (_he punches the buzzer, takes up the phone_) +Miss Claire? It is Anthony. A terrible thing has happened. Mr +Archer--what? Yes, a terrible thing.--Yes, it is about Mr +Archer.--No--no, not dead. But here. He is here. Yes, he is well, he +seems well, but he is eating his breakfast. Yes, he is having breakfast +served out here--for himself, and the other gentlemen are to come +too.--Well, he seemed to be annoyed because the heat had been turned off +from the house. But the door keeps opening--this stormy wind blowing +right over the plants. The temperature has already fallen.--Yes, yes. I +thought you would want to come. + +(ANTHONY _opens the trap-door and goes below_. HARRY _looks +disapprovingly down into this openness at his feet, returns to his +breakfast_. ANTHONY _comes up, bearing a box_.) + +HARRY: (_turning his face away_) Phew! What a smell. + +ANTHONY: Yes. Fertilizer has to smell. + +HARRY: Well, it doesn't have to smell up my breakfast! + +ANTHONY: (_with a patient sense of order_) The smell belongs here. (_he +and the smell go to the inner room_) + +(_The outer door opens just enough to admit_ CLAIRE--_is quickly closed. +With_ CLAIRE _in a room another kind of aliveness is there_.) + +CLAIRE: What are you doing here? + +HARRY: Getting breakfast. (_all the while doing so_) + +CLAIRE: I'll not have you in my place! + +HARRY: If you take all the heat then you have to take me. + +CLAIRE: I'll show you how I have to take you. (_with her hands begins +scooping upon him the soil_ ANTHONY _has prepared_) + +HARRY: (_jumping up, laughing, pinning down her arms, putting his arms +around her_) Claire--be decent. What harm do I do here? + +CLAIRE: You pull down the temperature. + +HARRY: Not after I'm in. + +CLAIRE: And you told Tom and Dick to come and make it uneven. + +HARRY: Tom and Dick are our guests. We can't eat where it's warm and +leave them to eat where it's cold. + +CLAIRE: I don't see why not. + +HARRY: You only see what you want to see. + +CLAIRE: That's not true. I wish it were. No; no, I don't either. (_she +is disturbed--that troubled thing which rises from within, from deep, +and takes_ CLAIRE. _She turns to the Edge Vine, examines. Regretfully +to_ ANTHONY, _who has come in with a plant_) It's turning back, isn't +it? + +ANTHONY: Can you be sure yet, Miss Claire? + +CLAIRE: Oh yes--it's had its chance. It doesn't want to be--what hasn't +been. + +HARRY: (_who has turned at this note in her voice. Speaks kindly_) Don't +take it so seriously, Claire. (CLAIRE _laughs_) + +CLAIRE: No, I suppose not. But it _does_ matter--and why should I +pretend it doesn't, just because I've failed with it? + +HARRY: Well, I don't want to see it get you--it's not important enough +for that. + +CLAIRE: (_in her brooding way_) Anything is important enough for +that--if it's important at all. (_to the vine_) I thought you were out, +but you're--going back home. + +ANTHONY: But you're doing it this time, Miss Claire. When Breath of Life +opens--and we see its heart-- + +(CLAIRE _looks toward the inner room. Because of intervening plants they +do not see what is seen from the front--a plant like caught motion, and +of a greater transparency than plants have had. Its leaves, like waves +that curl, close around a heart that is not seen. This plant stands by +itself in what, because of the arrangement of things about it, is a +hidden place. But nothing is between it and the light_.) + +CLAIRE: Yes, if the heart has (_a little laugh_) held its own, then +Breath of Life is alive in its otherness. But Edge Vine is running back +to what it broke out of. + +HARRY: Come, have some coffee, Claire. + +(ANTHONY _returns to the inner room, the outer door opens_. DICK _is +hurled in_.) + +CLAIRE: (_going to the door, as he gasps for breath before closing it_) +How dare you make my temperature uneven! (_she shuts the door and leans +against it_) + +DICK: Is that what I do? + +(_A laugh, a look between them, which is held into significance_.) + +HARRY: (_who is not facing them_) Where's the salt? + +DICK: Oh, I fell down in the snow. I must have left the salt where I +fell. I'll go back and look for it. + +CLAIRE: And change the temperature? We don't need salt. + +HARRY: You don't need salt, Claire. But we eat eggs. + +CLAIRE: I must tell you I don't like the idea of any food being eaten +here, where things have their own way to go. Please eat as little as +possible, and as quickly. + +HARRY: A hostess calculated to put one at one's ease. + +CLAIRE: (_with no ill-nature_) I care nothing about your ease. Or about +Dick's ease. + +DICK: And no doubt that's what makes you so fascinating a hostess. + +CLAIRE: Was I a fascinating hostess last night, Dick? (_softly sings_) +'Oh, night of love--' (_from the Barcorole of 'Tales of Hoffman'_) + +HARRY: We've got to have salt. + +(_He starts for the door._ CLAIRE _slips in ahead of him, locks it, +takes the key. He marches off, right_.) + +CLAIRE: (_calling after him_) That end's always locked. + +DICK: Claire darling, I wish you wouldn't say those startling things. +You do get away with it, but I confess it gives me a shock--and really, +it's unwise. + +CLAIRE: Haven't you learned that the best place to hide is in the truth? +(_as_ HARRY _returns_) Why won't you believe me, Harry, when I tell you +the truth--about doors being locked? + +HARRY: Claire, it's selfish of you to keep us from eating salt just +because you don't eat salt. + +CLAIRE: (_with one of her swift changes_) Oh, Harry! Try your egg +without salt. Please--please try it without salt! (_an intensity which +seems all out of proportion to the subject_) + +HARRY: An egg demands salt. + +CLAIRE: 'An egg demands salt.' Do you know, Harry, why you are such an +unseasoned person? 'An egg demands salt.' + +HARRY: Well, it doesn't always get it. + +CLAIRE: But your spirit gets no lift from the salt withheld. + +HARRY: Not an inch of lift. (_going back to his breakfast_) + +CLAIRE: And pleased--so pleased with itself, for getting no lift. Sure, +it is just the right kind of spirit--because it gets no lift. (_more +brightly_) But, Dick, you must have tried your egg without salt. + +DICK: I'll try it now. (_he goes to the breakfast table_) + +CLAIRE: You must have tried and tried things. Isn't that the way one +leaves the normal and gets into the byways of perversion? + +HARRY: Claire. + +DICK: (_pushing back his egg_) If so, I prefer to wait for the salt. + +HARRY: Claire, there is a _limit_. + +CLAIRE: Precisely what I had in mind. To perversion too there is a +limit. So--the fortifications are unassailable. If one ever does get +out, I suppose it is--quite unexpectedly, and perhaps--a bit terribly. + +HARRY: Get out where? + +CLAIRE: (_with a bright smile_) Where you, darling, will never go. + +HARRY: And from which you, darling, had better beat it. + +CLAIRE: I wish I could. (_to herself_) No--no I don't either + +(_Again this troubled thing turns her to the plant. She puts by +themselves the two which_ ANTHONY _covered with paper bags. Is about to +remove these papers_. HARRY _strikes a match_.) + +CLAIRE: (_turning sharply_) You can't smoke here. The plants are not +used to it. + +HARRY: Then I should think smoking would be just the thing for them. + +CLAIRE: There is design. + +HARRY: (_to_ DICK) Am I supposed to be answered? I never can be quite +sure at what moment I am answered. + +(_They both watch_ CLAIRE, _who has uncovered the plants and is looking +intently into the flowers. From a drawer she takes some tools. Very +carefully gives the rose pollen to an unfamiliar flower--rather +wistfully unfamiliar, which stands above on a small shelf near the door +of the inner room_.) + +DICK: What is this you're doing, Claire? + +CLAIRE: Pollenizing. Crossing for fragrance. + +DICK: It's all rather mysterious, isn't it? + +HARRY: And Claire doesn't make it any less so. + +CLAIRE: Can I make life any less mysterious? + +HARRY: If you know what you are doing, why can't you tell Dick? + +DICK: Never mind. After all, why should I be told? (_he turns away_) + +(_At that she wants to tell him. Helpless, as one who cannot get across +a stream, starts uncertainly_.) + +CLAIRE: I want to give fragrance to Breath of Life (_faces the room +beyond the wall of glass_)--the flower I have created that is outside +what flowers have been. What has gone out should bring fragrance from +what it has left. But no definite fragrance, no limiting enclosing +thing. I call the fragrance I am trying to create Reminiscence. (_her +hand on the pot of the wistful little flower she has just given pollen_) +Reminiscent of the rose, the violet, arbutus--but a new thing--itself. +Breath of Life may be lonely out in what hasn't been. Perhaps some day I +can give it reminiscence. + +DICK: I see, Claire. + +CLAIRE: I wonder if you do. + +HARRY: Now, Claire, you're going to be gay to-day, aren't you? These are +Tom's last couple of days with us. + +CLAIRE: That doesn't make me especially gay. + +HARRY: Well, you want him to remember you as yourself, don't you? + +CLAIRE: I would like him to. Oh--I would like him to! + +HARRY: Then be amusing. That's really you, isn't it, Dick? + +DICK: Not quite all of her--I should say. + +CLAIRE: (_gaily_) Careful, Dick. Aren't you indiscreet? Harry will be +suspecting that I am your latest strumpet. + +HARRY: Claire! What language you use! A person knowing you only by +certain moments could never be made to believe you are a refined woman. + +CLAIRE: True, isn't it, Dick? + +HARRY: It would be a good deal of a lark to let them listen in at +times--then tell them that here is the flower of New England! + +CLAIRE: Well, if this is the flower of New England, then the half has +never been told. + +DICK: About New England? + +CLAIRE: I thought I meant that. Perhaps I meant--about me. + +HARRY: (_going on with his own entertainment_) Explain that this is what +came of the men who made the laws that made New England, that here is +the flower of those gentlemen of culture who-- + +DICK: Moulded the American mind! + +CLAIRE: Oh! (_it is pain_) + +HARRY: Now what's the matter? + +CLAIRE: I want to get away from them! + +HARRY: Rest easy, little one--you do. + +CLAIRE: I'm not so sure--that I do. But it can be done! We need not be +held in forms moulded for us. There is outness--and otherness. + +HARRY: Now, Claire--I didn't mean to start anything serious. + +CLAIRE: No; you never mean to do that. I want to break it up! I tell +you, I want to break it up! If it were all in pieces, we'd be (_a little +laugh_) shocked to aliveness (_to_ DICK)--wouldn't we? There would be +strange new comings together--mad new comings together, and we would +know what it is to be born, and then we might know--that we are. Smash +it. (_her hand is near an egg_) As you'd smash an egg. (_she pushes the +egg over the edge of the table and leans over and looks, as over a +precipice_) + +HARRY: (_with a sigh_) Well, all you've smashed is the egg, and all that +amounts to is that now Tom gets no egg. So that's that. + +CLAIRE: (_with difficulty, drawing herself back from the fascination of +the precipice_) You think I can't smash anything? You think life can't +break up, and go outside what it was? Because you've gone dead in the +form in which you found yourself, you think that's all there is to the +whole adventure? And that is called sanity. And made a virtue--to lock +one in. You never worked with things that grow! Things that take a +sporting chance--go mad--that sanity mayn't lock them in--from life +untouched--from life--that waits, (_she turns toward the inner room_) +Breath of Life. (_she goes in there_) + +HARRY: Oh, I wish Claire wouldn't be strange like that, (_helplessly_) +What is it? What's the matter? + +DICK: It's merely the excess of a particularly rich temperament. + +HARRY: But it's growing on her. I sometimes wonder if all this +(_indicating the place around him_) is a good thing. It would be all +right if she'd just do what she did in the beginning--make the flowers +as good as possible of their kind. That's an awfully nice thing for a +woman to do--raise flowers. But there's something about this--changing +things into other things--putting things together and making queer new +things--this-- + +DICK: Creating? + +HARRY: Give it any name you want it to have--it's unsettling for a +woman. They say Claire's a shark at it, but what's the good of it, if it +gets her? What is the good of it, anyway? Suppose we can produce new +things. Lord--look at the one ones we've got. (_looks outside; turns +back_) Heavens, what a noise the wind does make around this place, (_but +now it is not all the wind, but_ TOM EDGEWORTHY, _who is trying to let +himself in at the locked door, their backs are to him_) I want my _egg_. +You can't eat an egg without salt. I must say I don't get Claire lately. +I'd like to have Charlie Emmons see her--he's fixed up a lot of people +shot to pieces in the war. Claire needs something to tone her nerves +_up_. You think it would irritate her? + +DICK: She'd probably get no little entertainment out of it. + +HARRY: Yes, dog-gone her, she would. (TOM _now takes more heroic +measures to make himself heard at the door_) Funny--how the wind can +fool you. Now by not looking around I could imagine--why, I could +imagine anything. Funny, isn't it, about imagination? And Claire says I +haven't got any! + +DICK: It would make an amusing drawing--what the wind makes you think is +there. (_first makes forms with his hands, then levelling the soil +prepared by_ ANTHONY, _traces lines with his finger_) Yes, really--quite +jolly. + +(TOM, _after a moment of peering in at them, smiles, goes away._) + +HARRY: You're another one of the queer ducks, aren't you? Come now--give +me the dirt. Have you queer ones really got anything--or do you just put +it over on us that you have? + +DICK: (_smiles, draws on_) Not saying anything, eh? Well, I guess you're +wise there. If you keep mum--how are we going to prove there's nothing +there? + +DICK: I don't keep mum. I draw. + +HARRY: Lines that don't make anything--how can they tell you anything? +Well, all I ask is, don't make Claire queer. Claire's a first water good +sport--really, so don't encourage her to be queer. + +DICK: Trouble is, if you're queer enough to be amusing, it might--open +the door to queerness. + +HARRY: Now don't say things like that to Claire. + +DICK: I don't have to. + +HARRY: Then _you_ think she's queer, do you? Queer as you are, you think +she's queer. I would like to have Dr Emmons come out. (_after a moment +of silently watching_ DICK, _who is having a good time with his +drawing_) You know, frankly, I doubt if you're a good influence for +Claire. (DICK _lifts his head ever so slightly_) Oh, I don't worry a bit +about--things a husband might worry about. I suppose an intellectual +woman--and for all Claire's hate of her ancestors, she's got the bug +herself. Why, she has times of boring into things until she doesn't know +you're there. What do you think I caught her doing the other day? +Reading Latin. Well--a woman that reads Latin needn't worry a husband +much. + +DICK: They said a good deal in Latin. + +HARRY: But I was saying, I suppose a woman who lives a good deal in her +mind never does have much--well, what you might call passion, (_uses the +word as if it shouldn't be used. Brows knitted, is looking ahead, does +not see_ DICK_'s face. Turning to him with a laugh_) I suppose you know +pretty much all there is to know about women? + +DICK: Perhaps one or two details have escaped me. + +HARRY: Well, for that matter, you might know all there is to know about +women and not know much about Claire. But now about (_does not want to +say passion again_)--oh, feeling--Claire has a certain--well, a +certain-- + +DICK: Irony? + +HARRY: Which is really more--more-- + +DICK: More fetching, perhaps. + +HARRY: Yes! Than the thing itself. But of course--you wouldn't have much +of a thing that you have irony about. + +DICK: Oh--wouldn't you! I mean--a man might. + +HARRY: I'd like to talk to Edgeworth about Claire. But it's not easy to +talk to Tom about Claire--or to Claire about Tom. + +DICK: (_alert_) They're very old friends, aren't they? + +HARRY: Why--yes, they are. Though they've not been together much of late +years, Edgeworthy always going to the ends of the earth to--meditate +about something. I must say I don't get it. If you have a place--that's +the place for you to be. And he did have a place--best kind of family +connections, and it was a very good business his father left him. +Publishing business--in good shape, too, when old Edgeworthy died. I +wouldn't call Tom a great success in life--but Claire does listen to +what he says. + +DICK: Yes, I've noticed that. + +HARRY: So, I'd like to get him to tell her to quit this queer business +of making things grow that never grew before. + +DICK: But are you sure that's what he would tell her? Isn't he in the +same business himself? + +HARRY: Why, he doesn't raise anything. + +(TOM _is again at the door_.) + +DICK: Anyway, I think he might have some idea that we can't very well +reach each other. + +HARRY: Damn nonsense. What have we got intelligence for? + +DICK: To let each other alone, I suppose. Only we haven't enough to do +it. + +(TOM _is now knocking on the door with a revolver_. HARRY _half turns, +decides to be too intelligent to turn_.) + +HARRY: Don't tell me I'm getting nerves. But the way some of you people +talk is enough to make even an aviator jumpy. Can't reach each other! +Then we're fools. If I'm here and you're there, why can't we reach each +other? + +DICK: Because I am I and you are you. + +HARRY: No wonder your drawing's queer. A man who can't reach another +man--(TOM _here reaches them by pointing the revolver in the air and +firing it_. DICK _digs his hand into the dirt_. HARRY _jumps to one +side, fearfully looks around_. TOM, _with a pleased smile to see he at +last has their attention, moves the handle to indicate he would be glad +to come in_.) + +HARRY: Why--it's Tom! What the--? (_going to the door_) He's locked out. +And Claire's got the key. (_goes to the inner door, tries it_) And she's +locked in! (_trying to see her in there_) Claire! Claire! (_returning to +the outer door_) Claire's got the key--and I can't get to Claire. +(_makes a futile attempt at getting the door open without a key, goes +back to inner door--peers, pounds_) Claire! Are you there? Didn't you +hear the revolver? Has she gone down the cellar? (_tries the trap-door_) +Bolted! Well, I love the way she keeps people locked out! + +DICK: And in. + +HARRY: (_getting angry, shouting at the trap-door_) Didn't you hear the +revolver? (_going to_ TOM) Awfully sorry, old man, but--(_in +astonishment to_ DICK) He can't hear me. (TOM, _knocking with the +revolver to get their attention, makes a gesture of inquiry with it_) +No--no--no! Is he asking if he shall shoot himself? (_shaking his head +violently_) Oh, no--no! Um--_um_! + +DICK: Hardly seems a man would shoot himself because he can't get to his +breakfast. + +HARRY: I'm coming to believe people would do anything! (TOM _is making +another inquiry with the revolver_) No! not here. Don't shoot yourself. +(_trying hard to get the word through_) _Shoot_ yourself. I mean--don't, +(_petulantly to_ DICK) It's ridiculous that you can't make a man +understand you when he looks right at you like that. (_turning back to_ +TOM) Read my lips. Lips. I'm saying--Oh damn. Where is Claire? All +right--I'll explain it with motions. We wanted the salt ... (_going over +it to himself_) and Claire wouldn't let us go out for it on account of +the temperature. Salt. Temperature. (_takes his egg-cup to the door, +violent motion of shaking in salt_) But--no (_shakes his head_) No salt. +(_he then takes the thermometer, a flower pot, holds them up to_ TOM) On +account of the temperature. Tem-per-a--(TOM _is not getting it_) +Oh--well, what can you do when a man don't _get_ a thing? (TOM _seems to +be preparing the revolver for action_. HARRY _pounds on the inner door_) +Claire! Do you want Tom to shoot himself? + +(_As he looks in there, the trap-door lifts, and CLAIRE comes half-way +up._) + +CLAIRE: Why, what is Tom doing out there, with a revolver? + +HARRY: He is about to shoot himself because you've locked him out from +his breakfast. + +CLAIRE: He must know more interesting ways of destroying himself. +(_bowing to_ TOM) Good morning. (_from his side of the glass_ TOM _bows +and smiles back_) Isn't it strange--our being in here--and he being out +there? + +HARRY: Claire, have you no ideas of hospitality? Let him in! + +CLAIRE: In? Perhaps that isn't hospitality. + +HARRY: Well, whatever hospitality is, what is out there is snow--and +wind--and our guest--who was asked to come here for his breakfast. To +think a man has to _such_ things. + +CLAIRE: I'm going to let him in. Though I like his looks out there. +(_she takes the key from her pocket_) + +HARRY: Thank heaven the door's coming open. Somebody can go for salt, +and we can have our eggs. + +CLAIRE: And open the door again--to let the salt in? No. If you insist +on salt, tell Tom now to go back and get it. It's a stormy morning and +there'll be just one opening of the door. + +HARRY: How can we tell him what we can't make him hear? And why does he +think we're holding this conversation instead of letting him in? + +CLAIRE: It would be interesting to know. I wonder if he'll tell us? + +HARRY: Claire! Is this any time to wonder anything? + +CLAIRE: Give up the idea of salt for your egg and I'll let him in. +(_holds up the key to _TOM_ to indicate that for her part she is quite +ready to let him in_) + +HARRY: I want my egg! + +CLAIRE: Then ask him to bring the salt. It's quite simple. + +(HARRY _goes through another pantomime with the egg-cup and the missing +shaker._ CLAIRE, _still standing half-way down cellar, sneezes._ HARRY, +_growing all the while less amiable, explains with thermometer and +flower-pot that there can only be one opening of the door._ TOM _looks +interested, but unenlightened. But suddenly he smiles, nods, vanishes._) + +HARRY: Well, thank heaven (_exhausted_) that's over. + +CLAIRE: (_sitting on the top step_) It was all so queer. He locked out +on his side of the door. You locked in on yours. Looking right at each +other and-- + +HARRY: (_in mockery_) And me trying to tell him to kindly fetch the +salt! + +CLAIRE: Yes. + +HARRY: (_to_ DICK) Well, I didn't do so bad a job, did I? Quite an idea, +explaining our situation with the thermometer and the flower-pot. That +was really an apology for keeping him out there. Heaven knows--some +explanation was in order, (_he is watching, and sees_ TOM _coming_) Now +there he is, Claire. And probably pretty well fed up with the weather. + +(CLAIRE _goes to the door, stops before it. She and_ TOM _look at each +other through the glass. Then she lets him in._) + +TOM: And now I am in. For a time it seemed I was not to be in. But after +I got the idea that you were keeping me out there to see if I could get +the idea--it would be too humiliating for a wall of glass to keep one +from understanding. (_taking it from his pocket_) So there's the other +thermometer. Where do you want it? (CLAIRE _takes it_) + +CLAIRE: And where's the pepper? + +TOM: (_putting it on the table_) And here's the pepper. + +HARRY: Pepper? + +TOM: When Claire sneezed I knew-- + +CLAIRE: Yes, I knew if I sneezed you would bring the pepper. + +TOM: Funny how one always remembers the salt, but the pepper gets +overlooked in preparations. And what is an egg without pepper? + +HARRY: (_nastily_) There's your egg, Edgeworth. (_pointing to it on the +floor_) Claire decided it would be a good idea to smash everything, so +she began with your egg. + +TOM: (_looking at his egg_) The idea of smashing everything is really +more intriguing than an egg. + +HARRY: Nice that you feel that way about it. + +CLAIRE: (_giving_ TOM _his coffee_) You want to hear something amusing? +I married Harry because I thought he would smash something. + +HARRY: Well, that was an error in judgment. + +CLAIRE: I'm such a naive trusting person (HARRY _laughs_--CLAIRE _gives +him a surprised look, continues simply_). Such a guileless soul that I +thought flying would do something to a man. But it didn't take us out. +We just took it in. + +TOM: It's only our own spirit can take us out. + +HARRY: Whatever you mean by out. + +CLAIRE: (_after looking intently at_ TOM, _and considering it_) But our +own spirit is not something on the loose. Mine isn't. It has something +to do with what I do. To fly. To be free in air. To look from above on +the world of all my days. Be where man has never been! Yes--wouldn't you +think the spirit could get the idea? The earth grows smaller. I am +leaving. What are they--running around down there? Why do they run +around down there? Houses? Houses are funny lines and down-going +slants--houses are vanishing slants. I am alone. Can I breathe this +rarer air? Shall I go higher? Shall I go too high? I am loose. I am out. +But no; man flew, and returned to earth the man who left it. + +HARRY: And jolly well likely not to have returned at all if he'd had +those flighty notions while operating a machine. + +CLAIRE: Oh, Harry! (_not lightly asked_) Can't you see it would be +better not to have returned than to return the man who left it? + +HARRY: I have some regard for human life. + +CLAIRE: Why, no--I am the one who has the regard for human life, (_more +lightly_) That was why I swiftly divorced my stick-in-the-mud artist and +married--the man of flight. But I merely passed from a stick-in-the-mud +artist to a-- + +DICK: Stick-in-the-air aviator? + +HARRY: Speaking of your stick-in-the-mud artist, as you romantically +call your first blunder, isn't his daughter--and yours--due here to-day? + +CLAIRE: I knew something was disturbing me. Elizabeth. A daughter is +being delivered unto me this morning. I have a feeling it will be more +painful than the original delivery. She has been, as they quaintly say, +educated; prepared for her place in life. + +HARRY: And fortunately Claire has a sister who is willing to give her +young niece that place. + +CLAIRE: The idea of giving anyone a place in life. + +HARRY: Yes! The very idea! + +CLAIRE: Yes! (_as often, the mocking thing gives true expression to what +lies sombrely in her_) The war. There was another gorgeous chance. + +HARRY: Chance for what? I call you, Claire. I ask you to say what you +mean. + +CLAIRE: I don't know--precisely. If I did--there'd be no use saying it. +(_at_ HARRY's _impatient exclamation she turns to_ TOM) + +TOM: (_nodding_) The only thing left worth saying is the thing we can't +say. + +HARRY: Help! + +CLAIRE: Yes. But the war didn't help. Oh, it was a stunning chance! But +fast as we could--scuttled right back to the trim little thing we'd been +shocked out of. + +HARRY: You bet we did--showing our good sense. + +CLAIRE: Showing our incapacity--for madness. + +HARRY: Oh, come now, Claire--snap out of it. You're not really trying to +say that capacity for madness is a good thing to have? + +CLAIRE: (_in simple surprise_) Why yes, of course. + +DICK: But I should say the war did leave enough madness to give you a +gleam of hope. + +CLAIRE: Not the madness that--breaks through. And it was--a stunning +chance! Mankind massed to kill. We have failed. We are through. We will +destroy. Break this up--it can't go farther. In the air above--in the +sea below--it is to kill! All we had thought we were--we aren't. We were +shut in with what wasn't so. Is there one ounce of energy has not gone +to this killing? Is there one love not torn in two? Throw it in! Now? +Ready? Break up. Push. Harder. Break up. And then--and then--But we +didn't say--'And then--' The spirit didn't take the tip. + +HARRY: Claire! Come now (_looking to the others for help_)--let's talk +of something else. + +CLAIRE: Plants do it. The big leap--it's called. Explode their +species--because something in them knows they've gone as far as they can +go. Something in them knows they're shut in to just that. So--go +mad--that life may not be prisoned. Break themselves up into crazy +things--into lesser things, and from the pieces--may come one sliver of +life with vitality to find the future. How beautiful. How brave. + +TOM: (_as if he would call her from too far--or would let her know he +has gone with her_) Claire! + +CLAIRE: (_her eyes turning to him_) Why should we mind lying under the +earth? We who have no such initiative--no proud madness? Why think it +death to lie under life so flexible--so ruthless and ever-renewing? + +ANTHONY: (_from the door of the inner room_) Miss Claire? + +CLAIRE: (_after an instant_) Yes? (_she goes with him, as they disappear +his voice heard_,'show me now ... want those violets bedded') + +HARRY: Oh, this has got to _stop_. I've got to--put a stop to it some +way. Why, Claire used to be the best sport a man ever played around +with. I can't stand it to see her getting hysterical. + +TOM: That was not hysterical. + +HARRY: What was it then--I want to know? + +TOM: It was--a look. + +HARRY: Oh, I might have known I'd get no help from either of you. Even +you, Edgeworthy--much as she thinks of you--and fine sort as I've no +doubt you are, you're doing Claire no good--encouraging her in these +queer ways. + +TOM: I couldn't change Claire if I would. + +HARRY: And wouldn't if you could. + +TOM: No. But you don't have to worry about me. I'm going away in a day +or two. And I shall not be back. + +HARRY: Trouble with you is, it makes little difference whether you're +here or away. Just the fact of your existence does encourage Claire in +this--this way she's going. + +TOM: (_with a smile_) But you wouldn't ask me to go so far as to stop my +existence? Though I would do that for Claire--if it were the way to help +her. + +HARRY: By Jove, you say that as if you meant it. + +TOM: Do you think I would say anything about Claire I didn't mean? + +HARRY: You think a lot of her, don't you? (TOM _nods_) You don't mean +(_a laugh letting him say it_)--that you're--in love with Claire! + +TOM: In love? Oh, that's much too easy. Certainly I do love Claire. + +HARRY: Well, you're a cool one! + +TOM: Let her be herself. Can't you see she's troubled? + +HARRY: Well, what is there to trouble Claire? Now I ask you. It seems to +me she has everything. + +TOM: She's left so--open. Too exposed, (_as_ HARRY _moves impatiently_) +Please don't be annoyed with me. I'm doing my best at saying it. You see +Claire isn't hardened into one of those forms she talks about. She's +too--aware. Always pulled toward what could be--tormented by the lost +adventure. + +HARRY: Well, there's danger in all that. Of course there's danger. + +TOM: But you can't help that. + +HARRY: Claire was the best fun a woman could be. Is yet--at times. + +TOM: Let her be--at times. As much as she can and will. She does need +that. Don't keep her from it by making her feel you're holding her in +it. Above all, don't try to stop what she's doing here. If she can do it +with plants, perhaps she won't have to do it with herself. + +HARRY: Do what? + +TOM: (_low, after a pause_) Break up what exists. Open the door to +destruction in the hope of--a door on the far side of destruction. + +HARRY: Well, you give me the willies, (_moves around in irritation, +troubled. To_ ANTHONY, _who is passing through with a sprayer_) Anthony, +have any arrangements been made about Miss Claire's daughter? + +ANTHONY: I haven't heard of any arrangements. + +HARRY: Well, she'll have to have some heat in her room. We can't all +live out here. + +ANTHONY: Indeed you cannot. It is not good for the plants. + +HARRY: I'm going where I can _smoke_, (_goes out_) + +DICK: (_lightly, but fascinated by the idea_) You think there is a door +on the--hinter side of destruction? + +TOM: How can one tell--where a door may be? One thing I want to say to +you--for it is about you. (_regards_ DICK _and not with his usual +impersonal contemplation_) I don't think Claire should have--any door +closed to her. (_pause_) You know, I think, what I mean. And perhaps you +can guess how it hurts to say it. Whether it's--mere escape +within,--rather shameful escape within, or the wild hope of that door +through, it's--(_suddenly all human_) Be good to her! (_after a +difficult moment, smiles_) Going away for ever is like dying, so one can +say things. + +DICK: Why do you do it--go away for ever? + +TOM: I haven't succeeded here. + +DICK: But you've tried the going away before. + +TOM: Never knowing I would not come back. So that wasn't going away. My +hope is that this will be like looking at life from outside life. + +DICK: But then you'll not be in it. + +TOM: I haven't been able to look at it while in it. + +DICK: Isn't it more important to be in it than to look at it? + +TOM: Not what I mean by look. + +DICK: It's hard for me to conceive of--loving Claire and going away from +her for ever. + +TOM: Perhaps it's harder to do than to conceive of. + +DICK: Then why do it? + +TOM: It's my only way of keeping her. + +DICK: I'm afraid I'm like Harry now. I don't get you. + +TOM: I suppose not. Your way is different, (_with calm, with +sadness--not with malice_) But I shall have her longer. And from deeper. + +DICK: I know that. + +TOM: Though I miss much. Much, (_the buzzer_. TOM _looks around to see +if anyone is coming to answer it, then goes to the phone_) Yes?... I'll +see if I can get her. (_to_ DICK) Claire's daughter has arrived, +(_looking in the inner room--returns to phone_) I don't see her. +(_catching a glimpse of ANTHONY off right_) Oh, Anthony, where's Miss +Claire? Her daughter has arrived. + +ANTHONY: She's working at something very important in her experiments. + +DICK: But isn't her daughter one of her experiments? + +ANTHONY: (_after a baffled moment_) Her daughter is finished. + +TOM: (_at the phone_) Sorry--but I can't get to Claire. She appears to +have gone below. (ANTHONY _closes the trap-door_) I did speak to +Anthony, but he says that Claire is working at one of her experiments +and that her daughter is finished. I don't know how to make her hear--I +took the revolver back to the house. Anyway you will remember Claire +doesn't answer the revolver. I hate to reach Claire when she doesn't +want to be reached. Why, of course--a daughter is very important, but +oh, that's too bad. (_putting down the receiver_) He says the girl's +feelings are hurt. Isn't that annoying? (_gingerly pounds on the +trap-door. Then with the other hand. Waits_. ANTHONY _has a gentle smile +for the gentle tapping--nods approval as,_ TOM _returns to the phone_) +She doesn't come up. Indeed I did--with both fists--Sorry. + +ANTHONY: Please, you won't try again to disturb Miss Claire, will you? + +DICK: Her daughter is here, Anthony. She hasn't seen her daughter for a +year. + +ANTHONY: Well, if she got along without a mother for a year--(_goes back +to his work_) + +DICK: (_smiling after_ ANTHONY) Plants are queer. Perhaps it's _safer_ +to do it with pencil (_regards_ TOM)--or with pure thought. Things that +grow in the earth-- + +TOM: (_nodding_) I suppose because we grew in the earth. + +DICK: I'm always shocked to find myself in agreement with Harry, but I +too am worried about Claire--and this, (_looking at the plants_) + +TOM: It's her best chance. + +DICK: Don't you hate to go away to India--for ever--leaving Claire's +future uncertain? + +TOM: You're cruel now. And you knew that you were being cruel. + +DICK: Yes, I like the lines of your face when you suffer. + +TOM: The lines of yours when you're causing suffering--I don't like +them. + +DICK: Perhaps that's your limitation. + +TOM: I grant you it may be. (_They are silent_) I had an odd feeling +that you and I sat here once before, long ago, and that we were plants. +And you were a beautiful plant, and I--I was a very ugly plant. I +confess it surprised me--finding myself so ugly a plant. + +(_A young girl is seen outside_. HARRY _gets the door open for her and +brings_ ELIZABETH _in_.) + +HARRY: There's heat here. And two of your mother's friends. Mr +Demming--Richard Demming--the artist--and I think you and Mr Edgeworthy +are old friends. + +(ELIZABETH _comes forward. She is the creditable young American--well +built, poised, 'cultivated', so sound an expression of the usual as to +be able to meet the world with assurance--assurance which training has +made rather graceful. She is about seventeen--and mature. You feel solid +things behind her_.) + +TOM: I knew you when you were a baby. You used to kick a great deal +then. + +ELIZABETH: (_laughing, with ease_) And scream, I haven't a doubt. But +I've stopped that. One does, doesn't one? And it was you who gave me the +idol. + +TOM: Proselytizing, I'm afraid. + +ELIZABETH: I beg--? Oh--_yes (laughing cordially_) I _see. (she +doesn't_) I dressed the idol up in my doll's clothes. They fitted +perfectly--the idol was just the size of my doll Ailine. But mother +didn't like the idol that way, and tore the clothes getting them off. +(_to_ HARRY, _after looking around_) Is mother here? + +HARRY: (_crossly_) Yes, she's here. Of course she's here. And she must +know you're here, (_after looking in the inner room he goes to the +trap-door and makes a great noise_) + +ELIZABETH: Oh--_please_. Really--it doesn't make the least difference. + +HARRY: Well, all I can say is, your manners are better than your +mother's. + +ELIZABETH: But you see I don't do anything interesting, so I have to +have good manners. (_lightly, but leaving the impression there is a +certain superiority in not doing anything interesting. Turning cordially +to_ DICK) My father was an artist. + +DICK: Yes, I know. + +ELIZABETH: He was a portrait painter. Do you do portraits? + +DICK: Well, not the kind people buy. + +ELIZABETH: They bought father's. + +DICK: Yes, I know he did that kind. + +HARRY: (_still irritated_) Why, you don't do portraits. + +DICK: I did one of you the other day. You thought it was a milk-can. + +ELIZABETH: (_laughing delightedly_) No? Not really? Did you think--How +could you think--(_as_ HARRY _does not join the laugh_) Oh, I beg your +pardon. I--Does mother grow beautiful roses now? + +HARRY: No, she does not. + +(_The trap-door begins to move_. CLAIRE's _head appears_.) + +ELIZABETH: Mother! It's been so long--(_she tries to overcome the +difficulties and embrace her mother_) + +CLAIRE: (_protecting a box she has_) Careful, Elizabeth. We mustn't +upset the lice. + +ELIZABETH: (_retreating_) Lice? (_but quickly equal even to lice_) +Oh--yes. You take it--them--off plants, don't you? + +CLAIRE: I'm putting them on certain plants. + +ELIZABETH: (_weakly_) Oh, I thought you took them off. + +CLAIRE: (_calling_) Anthony! (_he comes_) The lice. (_he takes them from +her_) (CLAIRE, _who has not fully ascended, looks at_ ELIZABETH, +_hesitates, then suddenly starts back down the stairs_.) + +HARRY: (_outraged_) Claire! (_slowly she re-ascends--sits on the top +step. After a long pause in which he has waited for_ CLAIRE _to open a +conversation with her daughter_.) Well, and what have you been doing at +school all this time? + +ELIZABETH: Oh--studying. + +CLAIRE: Studying what? + +ELIZABETH: Why--the things one studies, mother. + +CLAIRE: Oh! The things one studies. (_looks down cellar again_) + +DICK: (_after another wait_) And what have you been doing besides +studying? + +ELIZABETH: Oh--the things one does. Tennis and skating and dancing and-- + +CLAIRE: The things one does. + +ELIZABETH: Yes. All the things. The--the things one does. Though I +haven't been in school these last few months, you know. Miss Lane took +us to Europe. + +TOM: And how did you like Europe? + +ELIZABETH: (_capably_) Oh, I thought it was awfully amusing. All the +girls were quite mad about Europe. Of course, I'm glad I'm an American. + +CLAIRE: Why? + +ELIZABETH: (_laughing_) Why--mother! Of course one is glad one is an +American. All the girls-- + +CLAIRE: (_turning away_) O--h! (_a moan under the breath_) + +ELIZABETH: Why, mother--aren't you well? + +HARRY: Your mother has been working pretty hard at all this. + +ELIZABETH: Oh, I do so want to know all about it? Perhaps I can help +you! I think it's just awfully amusing that you're doing something. One +does nowadays, doesn't one?--if you know what I mean. It was the war, +wasn't it, made it the thing to do something? + +DICK: (_slyly_) And you thought, Claire, that the war was lost. + +ELIZABETH: The _war? Lost!_ (_her capable laugh_) Fancy our losing a +war! Miss Lane says we should give _thanks_. She says we should each do +some expressive thing--you know what I mean? And that this is the +_keynote_ of the age. Of course, one's own kind of thing. Like +mother--growing flowers. + +CLAIRE: You think that is one's own kind of thing? + +ELIZABETH: Why, of course I do, mother. And so does Miss Lane. All the +girls-- + +CLAIRE: (_shaking her head as if to get something out_) S-hoo. + +ELIZABETH: What is it, mother? + +CLAIRE: A fly shut up in my ear--'All the girls!' + +ELIZABETH: (_laughing_) Mother was always so amusing. So _different_--if +you know what I mean. Vacations I've lived mostly with Aunt Adelaide, +you know. + +CLAIRE: My sister who is fitted to rear children. + +HARRY: Well, somebody has to do it. + +ELIZABETH: And I do love Aunt Adelaide, but I think its going to be +awfully amusing to be around with mother now--and help her with her +work. Help do some useful beautiful thing. + +CLAIRE: I am not doing any useful beautiful thing. + +ELIZABETH: Oh, but you are, mother. Of course you are. Miss Lane says +so. She says it is your splendid heritage gives you this impulse to do a +beautiful thing for the race. She says you are doing in your way what +the great teachers and preachers behind you did in theirs. + +CLAIRE: (_who is good for little more_) Well, all I can say is, Miss +Lane is stung. + +ELIZABETH: Mother! What a thing to say of Miss Lane. (_from this +slipping into more of a little girl manner_) Oh, she gave me a spiel one +day about living up to the men I come from. + +(CLAIRE _turns and regards her daughter_.) + +CLAIRE: You'll do it, Elizabeth. + +ELIZABETH: Well, I don't know. Quite a job, I'll say. Of course, I'd +have to do it in my way. I'm not going to teach or preach or be a stuffy +person. But now that--(_she here becomes the product of a superior +school_) values have shifted and such sensitive new things have been +liberated in the world-- + +CLAIRE: (_low_) Don't use those words. + +ELIZABETH: Why--why not? + +CLAIRE: Because you don't know what they mean. + +ELIZABETH: Why, of course I know what they mean! + +CLAIRE: (_turning away_) You're--stepping on the plants. + +HARRY: (_hastily_) Your mother has been working awfully hard at all +this. + +ELIZABETH: Well, now that I'm here you'll let me help you, won't you, +mother? + +CLAIRE: (_trying for control_) You needn't--bother. + +ELIZABETH: But I _want_ to. Help add to the wealth of the world. + +CLAIRE: Will you please get it out of your head that I am adding to the +wealth of the world! + +ELIZABETH: But, mother--of course you are. To produce a new and better +kind of plant-- + +CLAIRE: They may be new. I don't give a damn whether they're better. + +ELIZABETH: But--but what are they then? + +CLAIRE: (_as if choked out of her_) They're different. + +ELIZABETH: (_thinks a minute, then laughs triumphantly_) But what's the +use of making them different if they aren't better? + +HARRY: A good square question, Claire. Why don't you answer it? + +CLAIRE: I don't have to answer it. + +HARRY: Why not give the girl a fair show? You never have, you know. +Since she's interested, why not tell her what it is you're doing? + +CLAIRE: She is not interested. + +ELIZABETH: But I am, mother. Indeed I am. I do want awfully to +understand what you are doing, and help you. + +CLAIRE: You can't help me, Elizabeth. + +HARRY: Why not let her try? + +CLAIRE: Why do you ask me to do that? This is my own thing. Why do you +make me feel I should--(_goes to_ ELIZABETH) I will be good to you, +Elizabeth. We'll go around together. I haven't done it, but--you'll see. +We'll do gay things. I'll have a lot of beaus around for you. Anything +else. Not--this is--Not this. + +ELIZABETH: As you like, mother, of course. I just would have been so +glad to--to share the thing that interests you. (_hurt borne with good +breeding and a smile_) + +HARRY: Claire! (_which says, 'How can you?'_) + +CLAIRE: (_who is looking at_ ELIZABETH) Yes, I will try. + +TOM: I don't think so. As Claire says--anything else. + +ELIZABETH: Why, of course--I don't at all want to intrude. + +HARRY: It'll do Claire good to take someone in. To get down to brass +tacks and actually say what she's driving at. + +CLAIRE: Oh--_Harry_. But yes--I will try. (_does try, but no words come. +Laughs_) When you come to say it it's not--One would rather not nail it +to a cross of words--(_laughs again_) with brass tacks. + +HARRY: (_affectionately_) But I want to see you put things into words, +Claire, and realize just where you are. + +CLAIRE: (_oddly_) You think that's a--good idea? + +ELIZABETH: (_in her manner of holding the world capably in her hands_) +Now let's talk of something else. I hadn't the least idea of making +mother feel badly. + +CLAIRE: (_desperately_) No, we'll go on. Though I don't know--where +we'll end. I can't answer for that. These plants--(_beginning +flounderingly_) Perhaps they are less beautiful--less sound--than the +plants from which they diverged. But they have found--otherness, +(_laughs a little shrilly_) If you know--what I mean. + +TOM: Claire--stop this! (_To_ HARRY) This is wrong. + +CLAIRE: (_excitedly_) No; I'm going on. They have been shocked out of +what they were--into something they were not; they've broken from the +forms in which they found themselves. They are alien. Outside. That's +it, outside; if you--know what I mean. + +ELIZABETH: (_not shocked from what she is_) But of course, the object of +it all is to make them better plants. Otherwise, what would be the sense +of doing it? + +CLAIRE: (_not reached by_ ELIZABETH) Out there--(_giving it with her +hands_) lies all that's not been touched--lies life that waits. Back +here--the old pattern, done again, again and again. So long done it +doesn't even know itself for a pattern--in immensity. But this--has +invaded. Crept a little way into--what wasn't. Strange lines in life +unused. And when you make a pattern new you know a pattern's made with +life. And then you know that anything may be--if only you know how to +reach it. (_this has taken form, not easily, but with great struggle +between feeling and words_) + +HARRY: (_cordially_) Now I begin to get you, Claire. I never knew before +why you called it the Edge Vine. + +CLAIRE: I should destroy the Edge Vine. It isn't--over the edge. It's +running, back to--'all the girls'. It's a little afraid of Miss Lane, +(_looking sombrely at it_) You are out, but you are not alive. + +ELIZABETH: Why, it looks all right, mother. + +CLAIRE: Didn't carry life with it from the life it left. Dick--you know +what I mean. At least you ought to. (_her ruthless way of not letting +anyone's feelings stand in the way of truth_) Then destroy it for me! +It's hard to do it--with the hands that made it. + +DICK: But what's the point in destroying it, Claire? + +CLAIRE: (_impatiently_) I've told you. It cannot create. + +DICK: But you say you can go on producing it, and it's interesting in +form. + +CLAIRE: And you think I'll stop with that? Be shut in--with different +life--that can't creep on? (_after trying to put destroying hands upon +it_) It's hard to--get past what we've done. Our own dead things--block +the way. + +TOM: But you're doing it this next time, Claire, (_nodding to the inner +room_.) In there! + +CLAIRE: (_turning to that room_) I'm not sure. + +TOM: But you told me Breath of Life has already produced itself. Doesn't +that show it has brought life from the life it left? + +CLAIRE: But timidly, rather--wistfully. A little homesick. If it is less +sure this time, then it is going back to--Miss Lane. But if the +pattern's clearer now, then it has made friends of life that waits. I'll +know to-morrow. + +ELIZABETH: You know, something tells me this is _wrong_. + +CLAIRE: The hymn-singing ancestors are tuning up. + +ELIZABETH: I don't know what you mean by that, mother but-- + +CLAIRE: But we will now sing, 'Nearer, my God, to Thee: Nearer to--' + +ELIZABETH: (_laughingly breaking in_) Well, I don't care. Of course you +can make fun at me, but something does tell me this is wrong. To do +what--what-- + +DICK: What God did? + +ELIZABETH: Well--yes. Unless you do it to make them better--to _do_ it +just to do it--that doesn't seem right to me. + +CLAIRE: (_roughly_) 'Right to you!' And that's all you know of +adventure--and of anguish. Do you know it is you--world of which you're +so true a flower--makes me have to leave? You're there to hold the door +shut! Because you're young and of a gayer world, you think I can't _see_ +them--those old men? Do you know why you're so sure of yourself? Because +you can't _feel_. Can't feel--the limitless--out there--a sea just over +the hill. I will not stay with you! (_buries her hands in the earth +around the Edge Vine. But suddenly steps back from it as she had from_ +ELIZABETH) And I will not stay with _you! (grasps it as we grasp what we +would kill, is trying to pull it up. They all step forward in horror. +ANTHONY is drawn in by this harm to the plant_) + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire! Miss Claire! The work of years! + +CLAIRE: May only make a prison! (_struggling with_ HARRY, _who is trying +to stop her_) You think I too will die on the edge? (_she has thrown him +away, is now struggling with the vine_) Why did I make you? To get past +you! (_as she twists it_) Oh yes, I know you have thorns! The Edge Vine +should have thorns, (_with a long tremendous pull for deep roots, she +has it up. As she holds the torn roots_) Oh, I have loved you so! You +took me where I hadn't been. + +ELIZABETH: (_who has been looking on with a certain practical horror_) +Well, I'd say it would be better not to go there! + +CLAIRE: Now I know what you are for! (_flings her arm back to strike_ +ELIZABETH _with the Edge Vine_) + +HARRY: (_wresting it from her_) Claire! Are you mad? + +CLAIRE: No, I'm not mad. I'm--too sane! (_pointing to_ ELIZABETH--_and +the words come from mighty roots_) To think that object ever moved my +belly and sucked my breast! (ELIZABETH _hides her face as if struck_) + +HARRY: (_going to_ ELIZABETH, _turning to_ CLAIRE) This is atrocious! +You're cruel. + +(_He leads_ ELIZABETH _to the door and out. After an irresolute moment +in which he looks from_ CLAIRE _to_ TOM, DICK _follows._ ANTHONY _cannot +bear to go. He stoops to take the Edge Vine from the floor._ CLAIRE's +_gesture stops him. He goes into the inner room._) + +CLAIRE: (_kicking the Edge Vine out of her way, drawing deep breaths, +smiling_) O-h. How good I feel! Light! (_a movement as if she could +fly_) Read me something, Tom dear. Or say something pleasant--about God. +But be very careful what you say about him! I have a feeling--he's not +far off. + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT II + + +_Late afternoon of the following day._ CLAIRE _is alone in the tower--a +tower which is thought to be round but does not complete the circle. The +back is curved, then jagged lines break from that, and the front is a +queer bulging window--in a curve that leans. The whole structure is as +if given a twist by some terrific force--like something wrong. It is +lighted by an old-fashioned watchman's lantern hanging from the ceiling; +the innumerable pricks and slits in the metal throw a marvellous pattern +on the curved wall--like some masonry that hasn't been. + +There are no windows at back, and there is no door save an opening in +the floor. The delicately distorted rail of a spiral staircase winds up +from below._ CLAIRE _is seen through the huge ominous window as if shut +into the tower. She is lying on a seat at the back looking at a book of +drawings. To do this she has left the door of her lantern a little +open--and her own face is clearly seen. + +A door is heard opening below; laughing voices,_ CLAIRE _listens, not +pleased._ + +ADELAIDE: (_voice coming up_) Dear--dear, why do they make such +twisting steps. + +HARRY: Take your time, most up now. (HARRY_'s head appears, he looks +back._) Making it all right? + +ADELAIDE: I can't tell yet. (_laughingly_) No, I don't think so. + +HARRY: (_reaching back a hand for her_) The last lap--is the bad lap. +(ADELAIDE _is up, and occupied with getting her breath._) + +HARRY: Since you wouldn't come down, Claire, we thought we'd come up. + +ADELAIDE: (_as_ CLAIRE _does not greet her_) I'm sorry to intrude, but I +have to see you, Claire. There are things to be arranged. (CLAIRE +_volunteering nothing about arrangements,_ ADELAIDE _surveys the tower. +An unsympathetic eye goes from the curves to the lines which diverge. +Then she looks from the window_) Well, at least you have a view. + +HARRY: This is the first time you've been up here? + +ADELAIDE: Yes, in the five years you've had the house I was never asked +up here before. + +CLAIRE: (_amiably enough_) You weren't asked up here now. + +ADELAIDE: Harry asked me. + +CLAIRE: It isn't Harry's tower. But never mind--since you don't like +it--it's all right. + +ADELAIDE: (_her eyes again rebuking the irregularities of the tower_) +No, I confess I do not care for it. A round tower should go on being +round. + +HARRY: Claire calls this the thwarted tower. She bought the house +because of it. (_going over and sitting by her, his hand on her ankle_) +Didn't you, old girl? She says she'd like to have known the architect. + +ADELAIDE: Probably a tiresome person too incompetent to make a perfect +tower. + +CLAIRE: Well, now he's disposed of, what next? + +ADELAIDE: (_sitting down in a manner of capably opening a conference_) +Next, Elizabeth, and you, Claire. Just what is the matter with +Elizabeth? + +CLAIRE: (_whose voice is cool, even, as if herself is not really engaged +by this_) Nothing is the matter with her. She is a tower that is a +tower. + +ADELAIDE: Well, is that anything against her? + +CLAIRE: She's just like one of her father's portraits. They never +interested me. Nor does she. (_looks at the drawings which do interest +her_) + +ADELAIDE: A mother cannot cast off her own child simply because she does +not interest her! + +CLAIRE: (_an instant raising cool eyes to_ ADELAIDE) Why can't she? + +ADELAIDE: Because it would be monstrous! + +CLAIRE: And why can't she be monstrous--if she has to be? + +ADELAIDE: You don't have to be. That's where I'm out of patience with +you Claire. You are really a particularly intelligent, competent person, +and it's time for you to call a halt to this nonsense and be the woman +you were meant to be! + +CLAIRE: (_holding the book up to see another way_) What inside dope have +you on what I was meant to be? + +ADELAIDE: I know what you came from. + +CLAIRE: Well, isn't it about time somebody got loose from that? What I +came from made you, so-- + +ADELAIDE: (_stiffly_) I see. + +CLAIRE: So--you being such a tower of strength, why need I too be +imprisoned in what I came from? + +ADELAIDE: It isn't being imprisoned. Right there is where you make your +mistake, Claire. Who's in a tower--in an unsuccessful tower? Not I. I go +about in the world--free, busy, happy. Among people, I have no time to +think of myself. + +CLAIRE: No. + +ADELAIDE: No. My family. The things that interest them; from morning +till night it's-- + +CLAIRE: Yes, I know you have a large family, Adelaide; five and +Elizabeth makes six. + +ADELAIDE: We'll speak of Elizabeth later. But if you would just get out +of yourself and enter into other people's lives-- + +CLAIRE: Then I would become just like you. And we should all be just +alike in order to assure one another that we're all just right. But +since you and Harry and Elizabeth and ten million other people bolster +each other up, why do you especially need me? + +ADELAIDE: (_not unkindly_) We don't need you as much as you need us. + +CLAIRE: (_a wry face_) I never liked what I needed. + +HARRY: I am convinced I am the worst thing in the world for you, Claire. + +CLAIRE: (_with a smile for his tactics, but shaking her head_) I'm +afraid you're not. I don't know--perhaps you are. + +ADELAIDE: Well, what is it you want, Claire? + +CLAIRE: (_simply_) You wouldn't know if I told you. + +ADELAIDE: That's rather arrogant. + +HARRY: Yes, take a chance, Claire. I have been known to get an idea--and +Adelaide quite frequently gets one. + +CLAIRE: (_the first resentment she has shown_) You two feel very +superior, don't you? + +ADELAIDE: I don't think we are the ones who are feeling superior. + +CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you are. Very superior to what you think is my feeling +of superiority, comparing my--isolation with your 'heart of humanity'. +Soon we will speak of the beauty of common experiences, of the--Oh, I +could say it all before we come to it. + +HARRY: Adelaide came up here to help you, Claire. + +CLAIRE: Adelaide came up here to lock me in. Well, she can't do it. + +ADELAIDE: (_gently_) But can't you see that one may do that to one's +self? + +CLAIRE: (_thinks of this, looks suddenly tired--then smiles_) Well, at +least I've changed the keys. + +HARRY: 'Locked in.' Bunkum. Get that our of your head, Claire. Who's +locked in? Nobody that I know of, we're all free Americans. Free as air. + +ADELAIDE: I wish you'd come and hear one of Mr Morley's sermons, Claire. +You're very old-fashioned if you think sermons are what they used to be. + +CLAIRE: (_with interest_) And do they still sing 'Nearer, my God, to +Thee'? + +ADELAIDE: They do, and a noble old hymn it is. It would do you no harm +at all to sing it. + +CLAIRE: (_eagerly_) Sing it to me, Adelaide. I'd like to hear you sing +it. + +ADELAIDE: It would be sacrilege to sing it to you in this mood. + +CLAIRE: (_falling back_) Oh, I don't know. I'm not so sure God would +agree with you. That would be one on you, wouldn't it? + +ADELAIDE: It's easy to feel one's self set apart! + +CLAIRE: No, it isn't. + +ADELAIDE: (_beginning anew_) It's a new age, Claire. Spiritual values-- + +CLAIRE: Spiritual values! (_in her brooding way_) So you have pulled +that up. (_with cunning_) Don't think I don't know what it is you do. + +ADELAIDE: Well, what do I do? I'm sure I have no idea what you're +talking about. + +HARRY: (_affectionately, as_ CLAIRE _is looking with intentness at what +he does not see_) What does she do, Claire? + +CLAIRE: It's rather clever, what she does. Snatching the phrase--(_a +movement as if pulling something up_) standing it up between her +and--the life that's there. And by saying it enough--'We have life! We +have life! We have life!' Very good come-back at one who would really +be--'Just so! _We_ are that. Right this way, please--'That, I suppose is +what we mean by needing each other. All join in the chorus, 'This is it! +This is it! This is it!' And anyone who won't join is to be--visited by +relatives, (_regarding_ ADELAIDE _with curiosity_) Do you really think +that anything is going on in you? + +ADELAIDE: (_stiffly_) I am not one to hold myself up as a perfect +example of what the human race may be. + +CLAIRE: (_brightly_) Well, that's good. + +HARRY: Claire! + +CLAIRE: Humility's a _real_ thing--not just a fine name for laziness. + +HARRY: Well, Lord A'mighty, you can't call Adelaide lazy. + +CLAIRE: She stays in one place because she hasn't the energy to go +anywhere else. + +ADELAIDE: (_as if the last word in absurdity has been said) I_ haven't +energy? + +CLAIRE: (_mildly_) You haven't any energy at all, Adelaide. That's why +you keep so busy. + +ADELAIDE: _Well_--Claire's nerves are in a worse state than I had +realized. + +CLAIRE: So perhaps we'd better look at Blake's drawings, (_takes up the +book_) + +ADELAIDE: It would be all right for me to look at Blake's drawings. +You'd better look at the Sistine Madonna, (_affectionately, after she +has watched_ CLAIRE_'s face a moment_) What is it, Claire? Why do you +shut yourself out from us? + +CLAIRE: I told you. Because I do not want to be shut in with you. + +ADELAIDE: All of this is not very pleasant for Harry. + +HARRY: I want Claire to be gay. + +CLAIRE: Funny--you should want that, (_speaks unwillingly, a curious, +wistful unwillingness_) Did you ever say a preposterous thing, then go +trailing after the thing you've said and find it wasn't so preposterous? +Here is the circle we are in._describes a big circle_) Being gay. It +shoots little darts through the circle, and a minute later--gaiety all +gone, and you looking through that little hole the gaiety left. + +ADELAIDE: (_going to her, as she is still looking through that little +hole_) Claire, dear, I wish I could make you feel how much I care for +you. (_simply, with real feeling_) You can call me all the names you +like--dull, commonplace, lazy--that is a new idea, I confess, but the +rest of our family's gone now, and the love that used to be there +between us all--the only place for it now is between you and me. You +were so much loved, Claire. You oughtn't to try and get away from a +world in which you are so much loved, (_to_ HARRY) Mother--father--all +of us, always loved Claire best. We always loved Claire's queer gaiety. +Now you've got to hand it to us for that, as the children say. + +CLAIRE: (_moved, but eyes shining with a queer bright loneliness_) But +never one of you--once--looked with me through the little pricks the +gaiety made--never one of you--once, looked with me at the queer light +that came in through the pricks. + +ADELAIDE: And can't you see, dear, that it's better for us we didn't? +And that it would be better for you now if you would just resolutely +look somewhere else? You must see yourself that you haven't the poise of +people who are held--well, within the circle, if you choose to put it +that way. There's something about being in that main body, having one's +roots in the big common experiences, gives a calm which you have missed. +That's _why_ I want you to take Elizabeth, forget yourself, and-- + +CLAIRE: I do want calm. But mine would have to be a calm I--worked my +way to. A calm all prepared for me--would stink. + +ADELAIDE: (_less sympathetically_) I know you have to be yourself, +Claire. But I don't admit you have a right to hurt other people. + +HARRY: I think Claire and I had better take a nice long trip. + +ADELAIDE: Now why don't you? + +CLAIRE: I am taking a trip. + +ADELAIDE: Well, Harry isn't, and he'd like to go and wants you to go +with him. Go to Paris and get yourself some awfully good-looking +clothes--and have one grand fling at the gay world. You really love +that, Claire, and you've been awfully dull lately. I think that's the +whole trouble. + +HARRY: I think so too. + +ADELAIDE: This sober business of growing plants-- + +CLAIRE: Not sober--it's mad. + +ADELAIDE: All the more reason for quitting it. + +CLAIRE: But madness that is the only chance for sanity. + +ADELAIDE: Come, come, now--let's not juggle words. + +CLAIRE: (_springing up_) How dare you say that to me, Adelaide. You who +are such a liar and thief and whore with words! + +ADELAIDE: (_facing her, furious_) How _dare_ you-- + +HARRY: Of course not, Claire. You have the most preposterous way of +using words. + +CLAIRE: I respect words. + +ADELAIDE: Well, you'll please respect me enough not to dare use certain +words to me! + +CLAIRE: Yes, I do dare. I'm tired of what you do--you and all of you. +Life--experience--values--calm--sensitive words which raise their heads +as indications. And you _pull them up_--to decorate your stagnant little +minds--and think that makes you--And because you have pulled that word +from the life that grew it you won't let one who's honest, and aware, +and troubled, try to reach through to--to what she doesn't know is +there, (_she is moved, excited, as if a cruel thing has been done_) Why +did you come here? + +ADELAIDE: To try and help you. But I begin to fear I can't do it. It's +pretty egotistical to claim that what so many people are, is wrong. + +(_CLAIRE, after looking intently at ADELAIDE, slowly, smiling a little, +describes a circle. With deftly used hands makes a quick vicious break +in the circle which is there in the air._) + +HARRY: (_going to her, taking her hands_) It's getting close to +dinner-time. You were thinking of something else, Claire, when I told +you Charlie Emmons was coming to dinner to-night, (_answering her look_) +Sure--he is a neurologist, and I want him to see you. I'm perfectly +honest with you--cards all on the table, you know that. I'm hoping if +you like him--and he's the best scout in the world, that he can help +you. (_talking hurriedly against the stillness which follows her look +from him to ADELAIDE, where she sees between them an 'understanding' +about her_) Sure you need help, Claire. Your nerves are a little on the +blink--from all you've been doing. No use making a mystery of it--or a +tragedy. Emmons is a cracker-jack, and naturally I want you to get a +move on yourself and be happy again. + +CLAIRE: (_who has gone over to the window_) And this neurologist can +make me happy? + +HARRY: Can make you well--and then you'll be happy. + +ADELAIDE: (_in the voice of now fixing it all up_) And I had just an +idea about Elizabeth. Instead of working with mere plants, why not think +of Elizabeth as a plant and-- + +(CLAIRE, _who has been looking out of the window, now throws open one of +the panes that swings out--or seems to, and calls down in great +excitement._) + +CLAIRE: Tom! _Tom!_ Quick! Up here! I'm in trouble! + +HARRY: (_going to the window_) That's a rotten thing to do, Claire! +You've frightened him. + +CLAIRE: Yes, how fast he can run. He was deep in thought and I stabbed +right through. + +HARRY: Well, he'll be none too pleased when he gets up here and finds +there was no reason for the stabbing! + +(_They wait for his footsteps,_ HARRY _annoyed,_ ADELAIDE _offended, but +stealing worried looks at_ CLAIRE, _who is looking fixedly at the place +in the floor where_ TOM _will appear.--Running footsteps._) + +TOM: (_his voice getting there before he does_) Yes, +Claire--yes--yes--(_as his head appears_) What is it? + +CLAIRE: (_at once presenting him and answering his question_) My sister. + +TOM: (_gasping_) Oh,--why--is that all? I mean--how do you do? Pardon, I +(_panting_) came up--rather hurriedly. + +HARRY: If you want to slap Claire, Tom, I for one have no objection. + +CLAIRE: Adelaide has the most interesting idea, Tom. She proposes that I +take Elizabeth and roll her in the gutter. Just let her lie there until +she breaks up into-- + +ADELAIDE: _Claire!_ I don't see how--even in fun--pretty vulgar fun--you +can speak in those terms of a pure young girl. I'm beginning to think I +had better take Elizabeth. + +CLAIRE: Oh, I've thought that all along. + +ADELAIDE: And I'm also beginning to suspect that--oddity may be just a +way of shifting responsibility. + +CLAIRE: (_cordially interested in this possibility_) Now you know--that +might be. + +ADELAIDE: A mother who does not love her own child! You are an unnatural +woman, Claire. + +CLAIRE: Well, at least it saves me from being a natural one. + +ADELAIDE: Oh--I know, you think you have a great deal! But let me tell +you, you've missed a great deal! You've never known the faintest +stirring of a mother's love. + +CLAIRE: That's not true. + +HARRY: No. Claire loved our boy. + +CLAIRE: I'm glad he didn't live. + +HARRY: (_low_) Claire! + +CLAIRE: I loved him. Why should I want him to live? + +HARRY: Come, dear, I'm sorry I spoke of him--when you're not feeling +well. + +CLAIRE: I'm feeling all right. _Just_ because I'm seeing something, it +doesn't mean I'm sick. + +HARRY: Well, let's go down now. About dinner-time. I shouldn't wonder if +Emmons were here. (_as ADELAIDE is starting down stairs_) Coming, +Claire? + +CLAIRE: No. + +HARRY: But it's time to go down for dinner. + +CLAIRE: I'm not hungry. + +HARRY: But we have a guest. Two guests--Adelaide's staying too. + +CLAIRE: Then you're not alone. + +HARRY: But I invited Dr Emmons to meet you. + +CLAIRE: (_her smile flashing_) Tell him I am violent to-night. + +HARRY: Dearest--how can you joke about such things! + +CLAIRE: So you do think they're serious? + +HARRY: (_irritated_) No, I do not! But I want you to come down for +dinner! + +ADELAIDE: Come, come, Claire; you know quite well this is not the sort +of thing one does. + +CLAIRE: Why go on saying one doesn't, when you are seeing one does (_to_ +TOM) Will you stay with me a while? I want to purify the tower. + +(ADELAIDE _begins to disappear_) + +HARRY: Fine time to choose for a _tete-a-tete. (as he is leaving_) I'd +think more of you, Edgeworthy, if you refused to humour Claire in her +ill-breeding. + +ADELAIDE: (_her severe voice coming from below_) It is not what she was +taught. + +CLAIRE: No, it's not what I was taught, (_laughing rather timidly_) And +perhaps you'd rather have your dinner? + +TOM: No. + +CLAIRE: We'll get something later. I want to talk to you. (_but she does +not--laughs_) Absurd that I should feel bashful with you. Why am I so +awkward with words when I go to talk to you? + +TOM: The words know they're not needed. + +CLAIRE: No, they're not needed. There's something underneath--an open +way--down below the way that words can go. (_rather desperately_) It is +there, isn't it? + +TOM: Oh, yes, it is there. + +CLAIRE: Then why do we never--go it? + +TOM: If we went it, it would not be there. + +CLAIRE: Is that true? How terrible, if that is true. + +TOM: Not terrible, wonderful--that it should--of itself--be there. + +CLAIRE: (_with the simplicity that can say anything_) I want to go it, +Tom, I'm lonely up on top here. Is it that I have more faith than you, +or is it only that I'm greedier? You see, you don't know (_her reckless +laugh_) what you're missing. You don't know how I could love you. + +TOM: Don't, Claire; that isn't--how it is--between you and me. + +CLAIRE: But why can't it be--every way--between you and me? + +TOM: Because we'd lose--the open way. (_the quality of his denial shows +how strong is his feeling for her_) With anyone else--not with you. + +CLAIRE: But you are the only one I want. The only one--all of me wants. + +TOM: I know; but that's the way it is. + +CLAIRE: You're cruel. + +TOM: Oh, Claire, I'm trying so hard to--save it for us. Isn't it our +beauty and our safeguard that underneath our separate lives, no matter +where we may be, with what other, there is this open way between us? +That's so much more than anything we could bring to being. + +CLAIRE: Perhaps. But--it's different with me. I'm not--all spirit. + +TOM: (_his hand on her_) Dear! + +CLAIRE: No, don't touch me--since (_moving_) you're going away +to-morrow? (_he nods_) For--always? (_his head just moves assent_) India +is just another country. But there are undiscovered countries. + +TOM: Yes, but we are so feeble we have to reach our country through the +actual country lying nearest. Don't you do that yourself, Claire? Reach +your country through the plants' country? + +CLAIRE: My country? You mean--outside? + +TOM: No, I don't think it that way. + +CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you do. + +TOM: Your country is the inside, Claire. The innermost. You are +disturbed because you lie too close upon the heart of life. + +CLAIRE: (_restlessly_) I don't know; you can think it one way--or +another. No way says it, and that's good--at least it's not shut up in +saying. (_she is looking at her enclosing hand, as if something is shut +up there_) + +TOM: But also, you know, things may be freed by expression. Come from +the unrealized into the fabric of life. + +CLAIRE: Yes, but why does the fabric of life have to--freeze into its +pattern? It should (_doing it with her hands_) flow, (_then turning like +an unsatisfied child to him_) But I wanted to talk to you. + +TOM: You are talking to me. Tell me about your flower that never was +before--your Breath of Life. + +CLAIRE: I'll know to-morrow. You'll not go until I know? + +TOM: I'll try to stay. + +CLAIRE: It seems to me, if it has--then I have, integrity in--(_smiles, +it is as if the smile lets her say it_) otherness. I don't want to die +on the edge! + +TOM: Not you! + +CLAIRE: Many do. It's what makes them too smug in allness--those dead +things on the edge, died, distorted--trying to get through. Oh--don't +think I don't see--The Edge Vine! (_a pause, then swiftly_) Do you know +what I mean? Or do you think I'm just a fool, or crazy? + +TOM: I think I know what you mean, and you know I don't think you are a +fool, or crazy. + +CLAIRE: Stabbed to awareness--no matter where it takes you, isn't that +more than a safe place to stay? (_telling him very simply despite the +pattern of pain in her voice_) Anguish may be a thread--making patterns +that haven't been. A thread--blue and burning. + +TOM: (_to take her from what even he fears for her_) But you were +telling me about the flower you breathed to life. What is your Breath of +Life? + +CLAIRE: (_an instant playing_) It's a secret. A secret?--it's a trick. +Distilled from the most fragile flowers there are. It's only +air--pausing--playing; except, far in, one stab of red, its quivering +heart--that asks a question. But here's the trick--I bred the air-form +to strength. The strength shut up behind us I've sent--far out. +(_troubled_) I'll know tomorrow. And I have another gift for Breath of +Life; some day--though days of work lie in between--some day I'll give +it reminiscence. Fragrance that is--no one thing in here +but--reminiscent. (_silence, she raises wet eyes_) We need the haunting +beauty from the life we've left. I need that, (_he takes her hands and +breathes her name_) Let me reach my country with you. I'm not a plant. +After all, they don't--accept me. Who does--accept me? Will you? + +TOM: My dear--dear, dear, Claire--you move me so! You stand alone in a +clearness that breaks my heart, (_her hands move up his arms. He takes +them to hold them from where they would go--though he can hardly do it_) +But you've asked what you yourself could answer best. We'd only stop in +the country where everyone stops. + +CLAIRE: We might come through--to radiance. + +TOM: Radiance is an enclosing place. + +CLAIRE: Perhaps radiance lighting forms undreamed, (_her reckless +laugh_) I'd be willing to--take a chance, I'd rather lose than never +know. + +TOM: No, Claire. Knowing you from underneath, I know you couldn't bear +to lose. + +CLAIRE: Wouldn't men say you were a fool! + +TOM: They would. + +CLAIRE: And perhaps you are. (_he smiles a little_) I feel so desperate, +because if only I could--show you what I am, you might see I could have +without losing. But I'm a stammering thing with you. + +TOM: You do show me what you are. + +CLAIRE: I've known a few moments that were life. Why don't they help me +now? One was in the air. I was up with Harry--flying--high. It was about +four months before David was born--the doctor was furious--pregnant +women are supposed to keep to earth. We were going fast--I _was_ +flying--I had left the earth. And then--within me, movement, for the +first time--stirred to life far in air--movement within. The man unborn, +he too, would fly. And so--I always loved him. He was movement--and +wonder. In his short life were many flights. I never told anyone about +the last one. His little bed was by the window--he wasn't four years +old. It was night, but him not asleep. He saw the morning star--you +know--the morning star. Brighter--stranger--reminiscent--and a promise. +He pointed--'Mother', he asked me, 'what is there--beyond the stars?' A +baby, a sick baby--the morning star. Next night--the finger that pointed +was--(_suddenly bites her own finger_) But, yes, I am glad. He would +always have tried to move and too much would hold him. Wonder would +die--and he'd laugh at soaring, (_looking down, sidewise_) Though I +liked his voice. So I wish you'd stay near me--for I like your voice, +too. + +TOM: Claire! That's (_choked_) almost too much. + +CLAIRE: (_one of her swift glances--canny, almost practical_) Well, I'm +glad if it is. How can I make it more? (_but what she sees brings its +own change_) I know what it is you're afraid of. It's because I have so +much--yes, why shouldn't I say it?--passion. You feel that in me, don't +you? You think it would swamp everything. But that isn't all there is to +me. + +TOM: Oh, I know it! My dearest--why, it's because I know it! You think I +_am_--a fool? + +CLAIRE: It's a thing that's--sometimes more than I am. And yet I--I am +more than it is. + +TOM: I know. I know about you. + +CLAIRE: I don't know that you do. Perhaps if you really knew about +me--you wouldn't go away. + +TOM: You're making me suffer, Claire. + +CLAIRE: I know I am. I want to. Why shouldn't you suffer? (_now seeing +it more clearly than she has ever seen it_) You know what I think about +you? You're afraid of suffering, and so you stop this side--in what you +persuade yourself is suffering, (_waits, then sends it straight_) You +know--how it is--with me and Dick? (_as she sees him suffer_) Oh, no, I +don't want to hurt you! Let it be you! I'll teach you--you needn't scorn +it. It's rather wonderful. + +TOM: Stop that, Claire! That isn't you. + +CLAIRE: Why are you so afraid--of letting me be low--if that is low? You +see--(_cannily_) I believe in beauty. I have the faith that can be bad +as well as good. And you know why I have the faith? Because +sometimes--from my lowest moments--beauty has opened as the sea. From a +cave I saw immensity. + + My love, you're going away-- + Let me tell you how it is with me; + I want to touch you--somehow touch you once before I die-- + Let me tell you how it is with me. + I do not want to work, + I want to be; + Do not want to make a rose or make a poem-- + Want to lie upon the earth and know. (_closes her eyes_) + Stop doing that!--words going into patterns; + They do it sometimes when I let come what's there. + Thoughts take pattern--then the pattern is the thing. + But let me tell you how it is with me. (_it flows again_) + All that I do or say--it is to what it comes from, + A drop lifted from the sea. + I want to lie upon the earth and know. + But--scratch a little dirt and make a flower; + Scratch a bit of brain--something like a poem. (_covering her face_) + Stop _doing_ that. Help me stop doing that! + +TOM: (_and from the place where she had carried him_) + Don't talk at all. Lie still and know-- + And know that I am knowing. + +CLAIRE: + Yes; but we are so weak we have to talk; + To talk--to touch. + Why can't I rest in knowing I would give my life to reach you? + That has--all there is. + But I must--put my timid hands upon you, + Do something about infinity. + Oh, let what will flow into us, + And fill us full--and leave us still. + Wring me dry, + And let me fill again with life more pure. + To know--to feel, + And do nothing with what I feel and know-- + That's being good. That's nearer God. + +(_drenched in the feeling that has flowed through her--but +surprised--helpless_) Why, I said your thing, didn't I? Opened my life +to bring you to me, and what came--is what sends you away. + +TOM: No! What came is what holds us together. What came is what saves us +from ever going apart. (_brokenly_) My beautiful one. You--you brave +flower of all our knowing. + +CLAIRE: I am not a flower. I am too torn. If you have anything--help me. +Breathe, Breathe the healing oneness, and let me know in calm. (_with a +sob his head rests upon her_) + +CLAIRE: (_her hands on his head, but looking far_) Beauty--you pure one +thing. Breathe--Let me know in calm. Then--trouble me, trouble me, for +other moments--in farther calm. (_slow, motionless, barely articulate_) + +TOM: (_as she does not move he lifts his head. And even as he looks at +her, she does not move, nor look at him_) Claire--(_his hand out to her, +a little afraid_) You went away from me then. You are away from me now. + +CLAIRE: Yes, and I could go on. But I will come back, (_it is hard to +do. She brings much with her_) That, too, I will give you--my +by-myself-ness. That's the uttermost I can give. I never thought--to try +to give it. But let us do it--the great sacrilege! Yes! (_excited, she +rises; she has his hands, and bring him up beside her_) Let us take the +mad chance! Perhaps it's the only way to save--what's there. How do we +know? How can we know? Risk. Risk everything. From all that flows into +us, let it rise! All that we never thought to use to make a moment--let +it flow into what could be! Bring all into life between us--or send all +down to death! Oh, do you know what I am doing? Risk, risk everything, +why are you so afraid to lose? What holds you from me? Test all. Let it +live or let it die. It is our chance--our chance to bear--what's there. +My dear one--I will love you so. With all of me. I am not afraid +now--of--all of me. Be generous. Be unafraid. Life is for _life_--though +it cuts us from the farthest life. How can I make you know that's true? +All that we're open to--(_hesitates, shudders_) But yes--I will, I will +risk the life that waits. Perhaps only he who gives his +loneliness--shall find. You never keep by holding, (_gesture of giving_) +To the uttermost. And it is gone--or it is there. You do not know +and--that makes the moment--(_music has begun--a phonograph downstairs; +they do not heed it_) Just as I would cut my wrists--(_holding them +out_) Yes, perhaps this lesser thing will tell it--would cut my wrists +and let the blood flow out till all is gone if my last drop would +make--would make--(_looking at them fascinated_) I want to see it doing +that! Let me give my last chance for life to-- + +(_He snatches her--they are on the brink of their moment; now that there +are no words the phonograph from downstairs is louder. It is playing +languorously the Barcarole; they become conscious of this--they do not +want to be touched by the love song._) + +CLAIRE: Don't listen. That's nothing. This isn't that, (_fearing_) I +tell you--it isn't that. Yes, I know--that's amorous--enclosing. I +know--a little place. This isn't that, (_her arms going around him--all +the lure of 'that' while she pleads against it as it comes up to them_) +We will come out--to radiance--in far places (_admitting, using_) Oh, +then let it be that! Go with it. Give up--the otherness. I will! And in +the giving up--perhaps a door--we'd never find by searching. And if it's +no more--than all have known, I only say it's worth the allness! (_her +arms wrapped round him_) My love--my love--let go your pride in +loneliness and let me give you joy! + +TOM: (_drenched in her passion, but fighting_) It's _you_. (_in +anguish_) You rare thing untouched--not--not into this--not back into +this--by me--lover of your apartness. + +(_She steps back. She sees he cannot. She stands there, before what she +wanted more than life, and almost had, and lost. A long moment. Then she +runs down the stairs._) + +CLAIRE: (_her voice coming up_) Harry! Choke that phonograph! If you +want to be lewd--do it yourselves! You tawdry things--you cheap little +lewd cowards, (_a door heard opening below_) Harry! If you don't stop +that music, I'll kill myself. + +(_far down, steps on stairs_) + +HARRY: Claire, what _is_ this? + +CLAIRE: Stop that phonograph or I'll-- + +HARRY: Why, of course I'll stop it. What--what is there to get so +excited about? Now--now just a minute, dear. It'll take a minute. + +(CLAIRE _comes back upstairs, dragging steps, face ghastly. The amorous +song still comes up, and louder now that doors are open. She and_ TOM +_do not look at one another. Then, on a languorous swell the music comes +to a grating stop. They do not speak or move. Quick footsteps_--HARRY +_comes up_.) + +HARRY: What in the world were you saying, Claire? Certainly you could +have asked me more quietly to turn off the Victrola. Though what harm +was it doing you--way up here? (_a sharp little sound from_ CLAIRE; _she +checks it, her hand over her mouth_. HARRY _looks from her to_ TOM) +Well, I think you two would better have had your dinner. Won't you come +down now and have some? + +CLAIRE: (_only now taking her hand from her mouth_) Harry, tell him to +come up here--that insanity man. I--want to ask him something. + +HARRY: 'Insanity man!' How absurd. He's a nerve specialist. There's a +vast difference. + +CLAIRE: Is there? Anyway, ask him to come up here. Want to--ask him +something. + +TOM: (_speaking with difficulty_) Wouldn't it be better for us to go +down there? + +CLAIRE: No. So nice up here! Everybody--up here! + +HARRY: (_worried_) You'll--be yourself, will you, Claire? (_She checks a +laugh, nods_.) I think he can help you. + +CLAIRE: Want to ask him to--help me. + +HARRY: (_as he is starting down_) He's here as a guest to-night, you +know, Claire. + +CLAIRE: I suppose a guest can--help one. + +TOM: (_when the silence rejects it_) Claire, you must know, it's because +it is so much, so-- + +CLAIRE: Be still. There isn't anything to say. + +TOM: (_torn--tortured_) If it only weren't _you_! + +CLAIRE: Yes,--so you said. If it weren't. I suppose I wouldn't be +so--interested! (_hears them starting up below--keeps looking at the +place where they will appear_) + +(HARRY _is heard to call_, 'Coming, Dick?' _and_ DICK's _voice replies_, +'In a moment or two.' ADELAIDE _comes first_.) + +ADELAIDE: (_as her head appears_) Well, these stairs should keep down +weight. You missed an awfully good dinner, Claire. And kept Mr Edgeworth +from a good dinner. + +CLAIRE: Yes. We missed our dinner. (_her eyes do not leave the place +where_ DR EMMONS _will come up_) + +HARRY: (_as he and_ EMMONS _appear_) Claire, this is-- + +CLAIRE: Yes, I know who he is. I want to ask you-- + +ADELAIDE: Let the poor man get his breath before you ask him anything. +(_he nods, smiles, looks at_ CLAIRE _with interest. Careful not to look +too long at her, surveys the tower_) + +EMMONS: Curious place. + +ADELAIDE: Yes; it lacks form, doesn't it? + +CLAIRE: What do you mean? How _dare_ you? + +(_It is impossible to ignore her agitation; she is backed against the +curved wall, as far as possible from them._ HARRY _looks at her in +alarm, then in resentment at_ TOM, _who takes a step nearer_ CLAIRE.) + +HARRY: (_trying to be light_) Don't take it so hard, Claire. + +CLAIRE: (_to_ EMMONS) It must be very interesting--helping people go +insane. + +ADELAIDE: Claire! How preposterous. + +EMMONS: (_easily_) I hope that's not precisely what we do. + +ADELAIDE: (_with the smile of one who is going to 'cover it'._) Trust +Claire to put it in the unique and--amusing way. + +CLAIRE: Amusing? You are amused? But it doesn't matter, (_to the +doctor_) I think it is very kind of you--helping people go insane. I +suppose they have all sorts of reasons for having to do it--reasons why +they can't stay sane any longer. But tell me, how do they do it? It's +not so easy to--get out. How do so many manage it? + +EMMONS: I'd like immensely to have a talk with you about all this some +day. + +ADELAIDE: Certainly this is not the time, Claire. + +CLAIRE: The time? When you--can't go any farther--isn't that that-- + +ADELAIDE: (_capably taking the whole thing into matter-of-factness_) +What I think is, Claire has worked too long with plants. There's +something--not quite sound about making one thing into another thing. +What we need is unity. (_from_ CLAIRE _something like a moan_) Yes, +dear, we do need it. (_to the doctor_) I can't say that I believe in +making life over like this. I don't think the new species are worth it. +At least I don't believe in it for Claire. If one is an intense, +sensitive person-- + +CLAIRE: Isn't there any way to _stop_ her? Always--always smothering it +with the word for it? + +EMMONS: (_soothingly_) But she can't smother it. Anything that's really +there--she can't hurt with words. + +CLAIRE: (_looking at him with eyes too bright_) Then you don't see it +either, (_angry_) Yes, she can hurt it! Piling it up--always piling it +up--between us and--What there. Clogging the way--always, (_to_ EMMONS) +I want to cease to know! That's all I ask. Darken it. Darken it. If you +came to help me, strike me blind! + +EMMONS: You're really all tired out, aren't you? Oh, we've got to get +you rested. + +CLAIRE: They--deny it saying they have it; and he (_half looks at_ +TOM_--quickly looks away_)--others, deny it--afraid of losing it. We're +in the way. Can't you see the dead stuff piled in the path? +(_Pointing._) + +DICK: (_voice coming up_) Me too? + +CLAIRE: (_staring at the path, hearing his voice a moment after it has +come_) Yes, Dick--you too. Why not--you too. (_after he has come up_) +What is there any more than you are? + +DICK: (_embarrassed by the intensity, but laughing_) A question not at +all displeasing to me. Who can answer it? + +CLAIRE: (_more and more excited_) Yes! Who can answer it? (_going to +him, in terror_) Let me go with you--and be with you--and know nothing +else! + +ADELAIDE: (_gasping_) Why--! + +HARRY: Claire! This is going a little too-- + +CLAIRE: Far? But you have to go far to--(_clinging to_ DICK) Only a +place to hide your head--what else is there to hope for? I can't stay +with them--piling it up! Always--piling it up! I can't get through +to--he won't let me through to--what I don't know is there! (DICK _would +help her regain herself_) Don't push me away! Don't--don't stand me up, +I will go back--to the worst we ever were! Go back--and remember--what +we've tried to forget! + +ADELAIDE: It's time to stop this by force--if there's no other way. +(_the doctor shakes his head_) + +CLAIRE: All I ask is to die in the gutter with everyone spitting on me. +(_changes to a curious weary smiling quiet_) Still, why should they +bother to do that? + +HARRY: (_brokenly_) You're sick, Claire. There's no denying it. (_looks +at_ EMMONS, _who nods_) + +ADELAIDE: Something to quiet her--to stop it. + +CLAIRE: (_throwing her arms around_ DICK) You, Dick. Not them. Not--any +of them. + +DICK: Claire, you are overwrought. You must-- + +HARRY: (_to_ DICK, _as if only now realizing that phase of it_) I'll +tell you one thing, you'll answer to me for this! (_he starts for_ +DICK--_is restrained by_ EMMONS, _chiefly by his grave shake of the +head. With_ HARRY_'s move to them,_ DICK _has shielded_ CLAIRE) + +CLAIRE: Yes--hold me. Keep me. You have mercy! You will have mercy. +Anything--everything--that will let me be nothing! + + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT III + + +_In the greenhouse, the same as Act I._ ANTHONY _is bedding small plants +where the Edge Vine grew. In the inner room the plant like caught motion +glows as from a light within._ HATTIE, _the Maid, rushes in from +outside._ + +ANTHONY: (_turning angrily_) You are not what this place-- + +HATTIE: Anthony, come in the house. I'm afraid. Mr Archer, I never saw +him like this. He's talking to Mr Demming--something about Mrs Archer. + +ANTHONY: (_who in spite of himself is disturbed by her agitation_) And +if it is, it's no business of yours. + +HATTIE: You don't know how he _is_. I went in the room and-- + +ANTHONY: Well, he won't hurt you, will he? + +HATTIE: How do I know who he'll hurt--a person's whose--(_seeing how to +get him_) Maybe he'll hurt Mrs Archer. + +ANTHONY: (_startled, then smiles_) No; he won't hurt Miss Claire. + +HATTIE: What do you know about it?--out here in the plant house? + +ANTHONY: And I don't want to know about it. This is a very important day +for me. It's Breath of Life I'm thinking of today--not you and Mr +Archer. + +HATTIE: Well, suppose he does something to Mr Demming? + +ANTHONY: Mr Demming will have to look out for himself, I am at work. + +(_resuming work_) + +HATTIE: Don't you think I ought to tell Mrs Archer that-- + +ANTHONY: You let her alone! This is no day for her to be bothered by +you. At eleven o'clock (_looks at watch_) she comes out here--to Breath +of Life. + +HATTIE: (_with greed for gossip_) Did you see any of them when they came +downstairs last night? + +ANTHONY: I was attending to my own affairs. + +HATTIE: They was all excited. Mr Edgeworth--he went away. He was gone +all night, I guess. I saw him coming back just as the milkman woke me +up. Now he's packing his things. _He_ wanted to get to Mrs Archer +too--just a little while ago. But she won't open her door for none of +them. I can't even get in to do her room. + +ANTHONY: Then do some other room--and leave me alone in this room. + +HATTIE: (_a little afraid of what she is asking_) Is she sick, +Anthony--or what? (_vindicating herself, as he gives her a look_) The +doctor, he stayed here late. But she'd locked herself in. I heard Mr +Archer-- + +ANTHONY: You heard too much! (_he starts for the door, to make her +leave, but_ DICK _rushes in. Looks around wildly, goes to the trap-door, +finds it locked_) + +ANTHONY: What are you doing here? + +DICK: Trying not to be shot--if you must know. This is the only place I +can think of--till he comes to his senses and I can get away. Open that, +will you? Rather--ignominious--but better be absurd than be dead. + +HATTIE: Has he got the revolver? + +DICK: Gone for it. Thought I wouldn't sit there till he got back, (_to_ +ANTHONY) Look here--don't you get the idea? Get me some place where he +can't come. + +ANTHONY: It is not what this place is for. + +DICK: Any place is for saving a man's life. + +HATTIE: Sure, Anthony. Mrs Archer wouldn't want Mr Demming shot. + +DICK: That's right, Anthony. Miss Claire will be angry at you if you get +me shot. (_he makes for the door of the inner room_) + +ANTHONY: You can't go in there. It's locked. (HARRY _rushes in from +outside_.) + +HARRY: I thought so! (_he has the revolver_. HATTIE _screams_) + +ANTHONY: Now, Mr Archer, if you'll just stop and think, you'll know Miss +Claire wouldn't want Mr Demming shot. + +HARRY: You think that can stop me? You think you can stop me? (_raising +the revolver_) A dog that-- + +ANTHONY: (_keeping squarely between_ HARRY _and_ DICK) Well, you can't +shoot him in here. It is not good for the plants. (HARRY _is arrested by +this reason_) And especially not today. Why, Mr Archer, Breath of Life +may flower today. It's years Miss Claire's been working for this day. + +HARRY: I never thought to see this day! + +ANTHONY: No, did you? Oh, it will be a wonderful day. And how she has +worked for it. She has an eye that sees what isn't right in what looks +right. Many's the time I've thought--Here the form is set--and then +she'd say, 'We'll try this one', and it had--what I hadn't known was +there. She's like that. + +HARRY: I've always been pleased, Anthony, at the way you've worked with +Miss Claire. This is hardly the time to stand there eulogizing her. And +she's (_can hardly say it_) things you don't know she is. + +ANTHONY: (_proudly_) Oh, I know that! You think I could work with her +and not know she's more than I know she is? + +HARRY: Well, if you love her you've got to let me shoot the dirty dog +that drags her down! + +ANTHONY: Not in here. Not today. More than like you'd break the glass. +And Breath of Life's in there. + +HARRY: Anthony, this is pretty clever of you--but-- + +ANTHONY: I'm not clever. But I know how easy it is to turn life back. +No, I'm not clever at all (CLAIRE _has appeared and is looking in from +outside_), but I do know--there are things you mustn't hurt, (_he sees +her_) Yes, here's Miss Claire. + +(_She comes in. She is looking immaculate._) + +CLAIRE: From the gutter I rise again, refreshed. One does, you know. +Nothing is fixed--not even the gutter, (_smilingly to_ HARRY _and +refusing to notice revolver or agitation_) How did you like the way I +entertained the nerve specialist? + +HARRY: Claire! You can _joke_ about it? + +CLAIRE: (_taking the revolver from the hand she has shocked to +limpness_) Whom are you trying to make hear? + +HARRY: I'm trying to make the world hear that (_pointing_) there stands +a dirty dog who-- + +CLAIRE: Listen, Harry, (_turning to_ HATTIE, _who is over by the tall +plants at right, not wanting to be shot but not wanting to miss the +conversation_) You can do my room now, Hattie. (_HATTIE goes_) If you're +thinking of shooting Dick, you can't shoot him while he's backed up +against that door. + +ANTHONY: Just what I told them, Miss Claire. Just what I told them. + +CLAIRE: And for that matter, it's quite dull of you to have any idea of +shooting him. + +HARRY: I may be dull--I know you think I am--but I'll show you that I've +enough of the man in me to-- + +CLAIRE: To make yourself ridiculous? If I ran out and hid my head in the +mud, would you think you had to shoot the mud? + +DICK: (_stung out of fear_) That's pretty cruel! + +CLAIRE: Well, would you rather be shot? + +HARRY: So you just said it to protect him! + +CLAIRE: I change it to grass, (_nodding to_ DICK) Grass. If I hid my +face in the grass, would you have to burn the grass? + +HARRY: Oh, Claire, how _can_ you? When you know how I love you--and how +I'm suffering? + +CLAIRE: (_with interest_) Are you suffering? + +HARRY: Haven't you _eyes_? + +CLAIRE: I should think it would--do something to you. + +HARRY: God! Have you no heart? (_the door opens._ TOM _comes in_) + +CLAIRE: (_scarcely saying it_) Yes, I have a heart. + +TOM: (_after a pause_) I came to say good-bye. + +CLAIRE: God! Have you no heart? Can't you at least wait till Dick is +shot? + +TOM: Claire! (_now sees the revolver in her hand that is turned from +him. Going to her_) Claire! + +CLAIRE: And even you think this is so important? (_carelessly raises the +revolver, and with her left hand out flat, tells_ TOM _not to touch +her_) Harry thinks it important he shoot Dick, and Dick thinks it +important not to be shot, and you think I mustn't shoot anybody--even +myself--and can't any of you see that none of that is as important +as--where revolvers can't reach? (_putting revolver where there is no +Edge Vine_) I shall never shoot myself. I'm too interested in +destruction to cut it short by shooting. (_after looking from one to the +other, laughs. Pointing_) One--two--three. You-love-me. But why do you +bring it out here? + +ANTHONY: (_who has resumed work_) It is not what this place is for. + +CLAIRE: No this place is for the destruction that can get through. + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire, it is eleven. At eleven we are to go in and see-- + +CLAIRE: Whether it has gone through. But how can we go--with Dick +against the door? + +ANTHONY: He'll have to move. + +CLAIRE: And be shot? + +HARRY: (_irritably_) Oh, he'll not be shot. Claire can spoil anything. + +(DICK _steps away from the door_; CLAIRE _takes a step nearer it_.) + +CLAIRE: (_halting_) Have I spoiled everything? I don't want to go in +there. + +ANTHONY: We're going in together, Miss Claire. Don't you remember? Oh +(_looking resentfully at the others_) don't let any little thing spoil +it for you--the work of all those days--the hope of so many days. + +CLAIRE: Yes--that's it. + +ANTHONY: You're afraid you haven't done it? + +CLAIRE: Yes, but--afraid I have. + +HARRY: (_cross, but kindly_) That's just nervousness, Claire. I've had +the same feeling myself about making a record in flying. + +CLAIRE: (_curiously grateful_) You have, Harry? + +HARRY: (_glad enough to be back in a more usual world_) Sure. I've been +afraid to know, and almost as afraid of having done it as of not having +done it. + +(CLAIRE _nods, steps nearer, then again pulls back_.) + +CLAIRE: I can't go in there. (_she almost looks at_ TOM) Not today. + +ANTHONY: But, Miss Claire, there'll be things to see today we can't see +tomorrow. + +CLAIRE: You bring it in here! + +ANTHONY: In--out from its own place? (_she nods_) And--where they are? +(_again she nods. Reluctantly he goes to the door_) I will not look into +the heart. No one must know before you know. + +(_In the inner room, his head a little turned away, he is seen very +carefully to lift the plant which glows from within. As he brings it in, +no one looks at it_. HARRY _takes a box of seedlings from a stand and +puts them on the floor, that the newcomer may have a place_.) + +ANTHONY: Breath of Life is here, Miss Claire. + +(CLAIRE _half turns, then stops._) + +CLAIRE: Look--and see--what you see. + +ANTHONY: No one should see what you've not seen. + +CLAIRE: I can't see--until I know. + +(ANTHONY _looks into the flower._) + +ANTHONY: (_agitated_) Miss Claire! + +CLAIRE: It has come through? + +ANTHONY: It has gone on. + +CLAIRE: Stronger? + +ANTHONY: Stronger, surer. + +CLAIRE: And more fragile? + +ANTHONY: And more fragile. + +CLAIRE: Look deep. No--turning back? + +ANTHONY: (_after a searching look_) The form is set. (_he steps back +from it_) + +CLAIRE: Then it is--out. (_from where she stands she turns slowly to the +plant_) You weren't. You are. + +ANTHONY: But come and see, Miss Claire. + +CLAIRE: It's so much more than--I'd see. + +HARRY: Well, I'm going to see. (_looking into it_) I never saw anything +like that before! There seems something alive--inside this outer shell. + +DICK: (_he too looking in and he has an artist's manner of a hand up to +make the light right_) It's quite new in form. It--says something about +form. + +HARRY: (_cordially to_ CLAIRE, _who stands apart_) So you've really put +it over. Well, well,--congratulations. It's a good deal of novelty, I +should say, and I've no doubt you'll have a considerable success with +it--people always like something new. I'm mighty glad--after all your +work, and I hope it will--set you up. + +CLAIRE: (_low--and like a machine_) Will you all--go away? + +(ANTHONY _goes--into the other room._) + +HARRY: Why--why, yes. But--oh, Claire! Can't you take some pleasure in +your work? (_as she stands there very still_) Emmons says you need a +good long rest--and I think he's right. + +TOM: Can't this help you, Claire? Let this be release. This--breath of +the uncaptured. + +CLAIRE: (_and though speaking, she remains just as still_) + Breath of the uncaptured? + You are a novelty. + Out? + You have been brought in. + A thousand years from now, when you are but a form too long repeated, + Perhaps the madness that gave you birth will burst again, + And from the prison that is you will leap pent queernesses + To make a form that hasn't been-- + To make a person new. + And this we call creation, (_very low, her head not coming up_) + Go away! + +(TOM _goes_; HARRY _hesitates, looking in anxiety at_ CLAIRE. _He starts +to go, stops, looks at_ DICK, _from him to_ CLAIRE. _But goes. A moment +later_ DICK _moves near_ CLAIRE; _stands uncertainly, then puts a hand +upon her. She starts, only then knowing he is there._) + +CLAIRE: (_a slight shrinking away, but not really reached_) Um, um. + +(_He goes_. CLAIRE _steps nearer her creation. She looks into what +hasn't been. With her breath, and by a gentle moving of her hands, she +fans it to fuller openness. As she does this_ TOM _returns and from +outside is looking in at her. Softly he opens the door and comes in. She +does not know that he is there. In the way she looks at the flower he +looks at her._) + +TOM: Claire, (_she lifts her head_) As you stood there, looking into the +womb you breathed to life, you were beautiful to me beyond any other +beauty. You were life and its reach and its anguish. I can't go away +from you. I will never go away from you. It shall all be--as you wish. I +can go with you where I could not go alone. If this is delusion, I want +that delusion. It's more than any reality I could attain, (_as she does +not move_) Speak to me, Claire. You--are glad? + +CLAIRE: (_from far_) Speak to you? (_pause_) Do I know who you are? + +TOM: I think you do. + +CLAIRE: Oh, yes. I love you. That's who you are. (_waits again_) But why +are you something--very far away? + +TOM: Come nearer. + +CLAIRE: Nearer? (_feeling it with her voice_) Nearer. But I think I am +going--the other way. + +TOM: No, Claire--come to me. Did you understand, dear? I am not going +away. + +CLAIRE: You're not going away? + +TOM: Not without you, Claire. And you and I will be together. Is +that--what you wanted? + +CLAIRE: Wanted? (_as if wanting is something that harks far back. But +the word calls to her passion_) Wanted! (_a sob, hands out, she goes to +him. But before his arms can take her, she steps back_) Are you trying +to pull me down into what I wanted? Are you here to make me stop? + +TOM: How can you ask that? I love you because it is not in you to stop. + +CLAIRE: And loving me for that--would stop me? Oh, help me see it! It is +so important that I see it. + +TOM: It is important. It is our lives. + +CLAIRE: And more than that. I cannot see it because it is so much more +than that. + +TOM: Don't try to see all that it is. From peace you'll see a little +more. + +CLAIRE: Peace? (_troubled as we are when looking at what we cannot see +clearly_) What is peace? Peace is what the struggle knows in moments +very far apart. Peace--that is not a place to rest. Are you resting? +What are you? You who'd take me from what I am to something else? + +TOM: I thought you knew, Claire. + +CLAIRE: I know--what you pass for. But are you beauty? Beauty is that +only living pattern--the trying to take pattern. Are you trying? + +TOM: Within myself, Claire. I never thought you doubted that. + +CLAIRE: Beauty is it. (_she turns to Breath of Life, as if to learn it +there, but turns away with a sob_) If I cannot go to you now--I will +always be alone. + +(TOM _takes her in his arms. She is shaken, then comes to rest._) + +TOM: Yes--rest. And then--come into joy. You have so much life for joy. + +CLAIRE: (_raising her head, called by promised gladness_) We'll run +around together. (_lovingly he nods_) Up hills. All night on hills. + +TOM: (_tenderly_) All night on hills. + +CLAIRE: We'll go on the sea in a little boat. + +TOM: On the sea in a little boat. + +CLAIRE: But--there are other boats on other seas, (_drawing back from +him, troubled_) There are other boats on other seas. + +TOM: (_drawing her back to him_) My dearest--not now, not now. + +CLAIRE: (_her arms going round him_) Oh, I would love those hours with +you. I want them. I want you! (_they kiss--but deep in her is sobbing_) +Reminiscence, (_her hand feeling his arm as we touch what we would +remember_) Reminiscence. (_with one of her swift changes steps back from +him_) How dare you pass for what you're not? We are tired, and so we +think it's you. Stop with you. Don't get through--to what you're in the +way of. Beauty is not something you say about beauty. + +TOM: I say little about beauty, Claire. + +CLAIRE: Your life says it. By standing far off you pass for it. Smother +it with a life that passes for it. But beauty--(_getting it from the +flower_) Beauty is the humility breathed from the shame of succeeding. + +TOM: But it may all be within one's self, dear. + +CLAIRE: (_drawn by this, but held, and desperate because she is held_) +When I have wanted you with all my wanting--why must I distrust you now? +When I love you--with all of me, why do I know that only you are worth +my hate? + +TOM: It's the fear of easy satisfactions. I love you for it. + +CLAIRE: (_over the flower_) Breath of Life--you here? Are you +lonely--Breath of Life? + +TOM: Claire--hear me! Don't go where we can't go. As there you made a +shell for life within, make for yourself a life in which to live. It +must be so. + +CLAIRE: As you made for yourself a shell called beauty? + +TOM: What is there for you, if you'll have no touch with what we have? + +CLAIRE: What is there? There are the dreams we haven't dreamed. There is +the long and flowing pattern, (_she follows that, but suddenly and as if +blindly goes to him_) I am tired. I am lonely. I'm afraid, (_he holds +her, soothing. But she steps back from him_) And because we are +tired--lonely--and afraid, we stop with you. Don't get through--to what +you're in the way of. + +TOM: Then you don't love me? + +CLAIRE: I'm fighting for my chance. I don't know--which chance. + +(_Is drawn to the other chance, to Breath of Life. Looks into it as if +to look through to the uncaptured. And through this life just caught +comes the truth she chants._) + + I've wallowed at a coarse man's feet, + I'm sprayed with dreams we've not yet come to. + I've gone so low that words can't get there, + I've never pulled the mantle of my fears around me + And called it loneliness--And called it God. + Only with life that waits have I kept faith. + +(_with effort raising her eyes to the man_) + + And only you have ever threatened me. + +TOM: (_coming to her, and with strength now_) And I will threaten you. +I'm here to hold you from where I know you cannot go. You're trying what +we can't do. + +CLAIRE: What else is there worth trying? + +TOM: I love you, and I will keep you--from fartherness--from harm. You +are mine, and you will stay with me! (_roughly_) You hear me? You will +stay with me! + +CLAIRE: (_her head on his breast, in ecstasy of rest. Drowsily_) You can +keep me? + +TOM: Darling! I can keep you. I will keep you--safe. + +CLAIRE: (_troubled by the word, but barely able to raise her head_) +Safe? + +TOM: (_bringing her to rest again_) Trust me, Claire. + +CLAIRE: (_not lifting her head, but turning it so she sees Breath of +Life_) Now can I trust--what is? (_suddenly pushing him roughly away_) +No! I will beat my life to pieces in the struggle to-- + +TOM: To _what_, Claire? + +CLAIRE: Not to stop it by seeming to have it. (_with fury_) I will keep +my life low--low--that I may never stop myself--or anyone--with the +thought it's what _I_ have. I'd rather be the steam rising from the +manure than be a thing called beautiful! (_with sight too clear_) Now I +know who you are. It is you puts out the breath of life. Image of +beauty--_You fill the place--should be a gate._ (_in agony_) Oh, that it +is _you_--fill the place--should be a gate! My darling! That it should +be you who--(_her hands moving on him_) Let me tell you something. Never +was loving strong as my loving of you! Do you know that? Oh, know that! +Know it now! (_her arms go around his neck_) Hours with you--I'd give my +life to have! That it should be you--(_he would loosen her hands, for he +cannot breathe. But when she knows she is choking him, that knowledge is +fire burning its way into the last passion_) It _is_ you. It is you. + +TOM: (_words coming from a throat not free_) Claire! What are you doing? +(_then she knows what she is doing_) + +CLAIRE: (_to his resistance_) No! You are _too much_! You are _not +enough_. (_still wanting not to hurt her, he is slow in getting free. He +keeps stepping backward trying, in growing earnest, to loosen her hands. +But he does not loosen them before she has found the place in his throat +that cuts off breath. As he gasps_) + +Breath of Life--my gift--to you! + +(_She has pushed him against one of the plants at right as he sways, +strength she never had before pushes him over backward, just as they +have struggled from sight. Violent crash of glass is heard._) + +TOM: (_faint smothered voice_) _No_. I'm--hurt. + +CLAIRE: (_in the frenzy and agony of killing_) Oh, gift! Oh, gift! +(_there is no sound._ + +CLAIRE _rises--steps back--is seen now; is looking down_) Gift. + +(_Like one who does not know where she is, she moves into the +room--looks around. Takes a step toward Breath of Life; turns and goes +quickly to the door. Stops, as if stopped. Sees the revolver where the +Edge Vine was. Slowly goes to it. Holds it as if she cannot think what +it is for. Then raises it high and fires above through the place in the +glass left open for ventilation_. ANTHONY _comes from the inner room. +His eyes go from her to the body beyond_. HARRY _rushes in from +outside_.) + +HARRY: Who fired that? + +CLAIRE: I did. Lonely. + +(_Seeing_ ANTHONY'S _look_, HARRY _'s eyes follow it_.) + +HARRY: Oh! What? What? (DICK _comes running in_) Who? Claire! + +(DICK _sees--goes to_ TOM) + +CLAIRE: Yes. I did it. MY--Gift. + +HARRY: Is he--? He isn't--? He isn't--? + +(_Tries to go in there. Cannot--there is the sound of broken glass, of a +position being changed--then_ DICK _reappears_.) + +DICK: (_his voice in jerks_) It's--it's no use, but I'll go for a +doctor. + +HARRY: No--no. Oh, I suppose--(_falling down beside_ CLAIRE--_his face +against her_) My darling! How can I save you now? + +CLAIRE: (_speaking each word very carefully_) Saved--myself. + +ANTHONY: I did it. Don't you see? I didn't want so many around. +Not--what this place is for. + +HARRY: (_snatching at this but lets it go_) She wouldn't let--(_looking +up at_ CLAIRE--_then quickly hiding his face_) And--don't you see? + +CLAIRE: Out. (_a little like a child's pleased surprise_) Out. + +(DICK _stands there, as if unable to get to the door--his face +distorted, biting his hand_.) + +ANTHONY: Miss Claire! You can do anything--won't you try? + +CLAIRE: Reminiscence? (_speaking the word as if she has left even that, +but smiles a little_) + +(ANTHONY _takes Reminiscence, the flower she was breeding for fragrance +for Breath of Life--holds it out to her. But she has taken a step +forward, past them all_.) + +CLAIRE: Out. (_as if feeling her way_) + Nearer, + (_Her voice now feeling the way to it_.) + Nearer-- + (_Voice almost upon it_.) + --my God, + (_Falling upon it with surprise_.) + to Thee, + (_Breathing it_.) + Nearer--to Thee, + E'en though it be-- + (_A slight turn of the head toward the dead man she loves--a + mechanical turn just as far the other way_.) + a cross + That + (_Her head going down_.) + raises me; + (_Her head slowly coming up--singing it_.) + Still all my song shall be, + Nearer, my-- + +(_Slowly the curtain begins to shut her out. The last word heard is the +final_ Nearer--_a faint breath from far_.) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +INHERITORS + +_Inheritors_ was first performed at the Provincetown Playhouse on April 27, 1921. + +SMITH (a young business man) + +GRANDMOTHER (SILAS MORTON'S mother) + +SILAS MORTON (a pioneer farmer) + +FELIX FEJEVARY, the First (an exiled Hungarian nobleman) + +FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second (his son, a Harvard student) + +FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second (a banker) + +SENATOR LEWIS (a State Senator) + +HORACE FEJEVARY (son of FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second) + +DORIS (a student at Morton College) + +FUSSIE (another college girl) + +MADELINE FEJEVARY MORTON (daughter of IRA MORTON, and granddaughter of +SILAS MORTON) + +ISABEL FEJEVARY (wife of FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second, and MADELINE'S +aunt) + +HARRY (a student clerk) + +HOLDEN (Professor at Morton College) + +IRA MORTON (son of SILAS MORTON, and MADELINE'S father) + +EMIL JOHNSON (an Americanized Swede) + + +ACT I + + +SCENE: _Sitting-room of the Mortons' farmhouse in the Middle West--on +the rolling prairie just back from the Mississippi. A room that has been +long and comfortably lived in, and showing that first-hand contact with +materials which was pioneer life. The hospitable table was made on the +place--well and strongly made; there are braided rugs, and the wooden +chairs have patchwork cushions. There is a corner closet--left rear. A +picture of Abraham Lincoln. On the floor a home-made toy boat. At rise +of curtain there are on the stage an old woman and a young man._ +GRANDMOTHER MORTON _is in her rocking-chair near the open door, facing +left. On both sides of door are windows, looking out on a generous land. +She has a sewing basket and is patching a boy's pants. She is very old. +Her hands tremble. Her spirit remembers the days of her strength._ + +SMITH _has just come in and, hat in hand, is standing by the table. This +was lived in the year 1879, afternoon of Fourth of July._ + +SMITH: But the celebration was over two hours ago. + +GRANDMOTHER: Oh, celebration, that's just the beginning of it. Might as +well set down. When them boys that fought together all get in one +square--they have to swap stories all over again. That's the worst of a +war--you have to go on hearing about it so long. Here it is--1879--and +we haven't taken Gettysburg yet. Well, it was the same way with the war +of 1832. + +SMITH: (_who is now seated at the table_) The war of 1832? + +GRANDMOTHER: News to you that we had a war with the Indians? + +SMITH: That's right--the Blackhawk war. I've heard of it. + +GRANDMOTHER: Heard of it! + +SMITH: Were your men in that war? + +GRANDMOTHER: I was in that war. I threw an Indian in the cellar and +stood on the door. I was heavier then. + +SMITH: Those were stirring times. + +GRANDMOTHER: More stirring than you'll ever see. This war--Lincoln's +war--it's all a cut and dried business now. We used to fight with +anything we could lay hands on--dish water--whatever was handy. + +SMITH: I guess you believe the saying that the only good Indian is a +dead Indian. + +GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. We roiled them up considerable. They was mostly +friendly when let be. Didn't want to give up their land--but I've +noticed something of the same nature in white folks. + +SMITH: Your son has--something of that nature, hasn't he? + +GRANDMOTHER: He's not keen to sell. Why should he? It'll never be worth +less. + +SMITH: But since he has more land than any man can use, and if he gets +his price-- + +GRANDMOTHER: That what you've come to talk to him about? + +SMITH: I--yes. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, you're not the first. Many a man older than you has +come to argue it. + +SMITH: (_smiling_) They thought they'd try a young one. + +GRANDMOTHER: Some one that knew him thought that up. Silas'd help a +young one if he could. What is it you're set on buying? + +SMITH: Oh, I don't know that we're set on buying anything. If we could +have the hill (_looking off to the right_) at a fair price-- + +GRANDMOTHER: The hill above the town? Silas'd rather sell me and the +cat. + +SMITH: But what's he going to do with it? + +GRANDMOTHER: Maybe he's going to climb it once a week. + +SMITH: But if the development of the town demands its use-- + +GRANDMOTHER: (_smiling_) You the development of the town? + +SMITH: I represent it. This town has been growing so fast-- + +GRANDMOTHER: This town began to grow the day I got here. + +SMITH: You--you began it? + +GRANDMOTHER: My husband and I began it--and our baby Silas. + +SMITH: When was that? + +GRANDMOTHER: 1820, that was. + +SMITH: And--you mean you were here all alone? + +GRANDMOTHER: No, we weren't alone. We had the Owens ten miles down the +river. + +SMITH: But how did you get here? + +GRANDMOTHER: Got here in a wagon, how do you s'pose? (_gaily_) Think we +flew? + +SMITH: But wasn't it unsafe? + +GRANDMOTHER: Them set on safety stayed back in Ohio. + +SMITH: But one family! I should think the Indians would have wiped you +out. + +GRANDMOTHER: The way they wiped us out was to bring fish and corn. We'd +have starved to death that first winter hadn't been for the Indians. + +SMITH: But they were such good neighbours--why did you throw dish water +at them? + +GRANDMOTHER: That was after other white folks had roiled them up--white +folks that didn't know how to treat 'em. This very land--land you want +to buy--was the land they loved--Blackhawk and his Indians. They came +here for their games. This was where their fathers--as they called +'em--were buried. I've seen my husband and Blackhawk climb that hill +together. (_a backward point right_) He used to love that +hill--Blackhawk. He talked how the red man and the white man could live +together. But poor old Blackhawk--what he didn't know was how many white +man there was. After the war--when he was beaten but not conquered in +his heart--they took him east--Washington, Philadelphia, New York--and +when he saw the white man's cities--it was a different Indian came back. +He just let his heart break without ever turning a hand. + +SMITH: But we paid them for their lands. (_she looks at him_) Paid them +something. + +GRANDMOTHER: Something. For fifteen million acres of this Mississippi +Valley land--best on this globe, we paid two thousand two hundred and +thirty-four dollars and fifty cents, and promised to deliver annually +goods to the value of one thousand dollars. Not a fancy price--even for +them days, (_children's voices are heard outside. She leans forward and +looks through the door, left_) Ira! Let that cat be! + +SMITH: (_looking from the window_) These, I suppose, are your +grandchildren? + +GRANDMOTHER: The boy's my grandson. The little girl is Madeline +Fejevary--Mr Fejevary's youngest child. + +SMITH: The Fejevary place adjoins on this side? (_pointing right, down_) + +GRANDMOTHER: Yes. We've been neighbours ever since the Fejevarys came +here from Hungary after 1848. He was a count at home--and he's a man of +learning. But he was a refugee because he fought for freedom in his +country. Nothing Silas could do for him was too good. Silas sets great +store by learning--and freedom. + +SMITH: (_thinking of his own project, looking off toward the hill--the +hill is not seen from the front_) I suppose then Mr Fejevary has great +influence with your son? + +GRANDMOTHER: More 'an anybody. Silas thinks 'twas a great thing for our +family to have a family like theirs next place to. Well--so 'twas, for +we've had no time for the things their family was brought up on. Old Mrs +Fejevary (_with her shrewd smile_)--she weren't stuck up--but she did +have an awful ladylike way of feeding the chickens. Silas thinks--oh, my +son has all kinds of notions--though a harder worker never found his bed +at night. + +SMITH: And Mr Fejevary--is he a veteran too? + +GRANDMOTHER: (_dryly_) You don't seem to know these parts well--for one +that's all stirred up about the development of the town. Yes--Felix +Fejevary and Silas Morton went off together, down that road (_motioning +with her hand, right_)--when them of their age was wanted. Fejevary came +back with one arm less than he went with. Silas brought home everything +he took--and something he didn't. Rheumatiz. So now they set more store +by each other 'an ever. Seems nothing draws men together like killing +other men. (_a boy's voice teasingly imitating a cat_) Madeline, make +Ira let that cat be. (_a whoop from the girl--a boy's whoop_) +(_looking_) There they go, off for the creek. If they set in it--(_seems +about to call after them, gives this up_) Well, they're not the first. + +(_rather dreams over this_) + +SMITH: You must feel as if you pretty near owned this country. + +GRANDMOTHER: We worked. A country don't make itself. When the sun was up +we were up, and when the sun went down we didn't. (_as if this renews +the self of those days_) Here--let me set out something for you to eat. +(_gets up with difficulty_) + +SMITH: Oh, no, please--never mind. I had something in town before I came +out. + +GRANDMOTHER: Dunno as that's any reason you shouldn't have something +here. + +(_She goes off, right; he stands at the door, looking toward the hill +until she returns with a glass of milk, a plate of cookies._) + +SMITH: Well, this looks good. + +GRANDMOTHER: I've fed a lot of folks--take it by and large. I didn't +care how many I had to feed in the daytime--what's ten or fifteen more +when you're up and around. But to get up--after sixteen hours on your +feet--_I_ was willin', but my bones complained some. + +SMITH: But did you--keep a tavern? + +GRANDMOTHER: Keep a tavern? I guess we did. Every house is a tavern when +houses are sparse. You think the way to settle a country is to go on +ahead and build hotels? That's all you folks know. Why, I never went to +bed without leaving something on the stove for the new ones that might +be coming. And we never went away from home without seein' there was +a-plenty for them that might stop. + +SMITH: They'd come right in and take your food? + +GRANDMOTHER: What else could they do? There was a woman I always wanted +to know. She made a kind of bread I never had before--and left a-plenty +for our supper when we got back with the ducks and berries. And she left +the kitchen handier than it had ever been. I often wondered about +her--where she came from, and where she went, (_as she dreams over this +there is laughing and talking at the side of the house_) There come the +boys. + +(MR FEJEVARY _comes in, followed by_ SILAS MORTON. _They are men not far +from sixty, wearing their army uniforms, carrying the muskets they used +in the parade_. FEJEVARY _has a lean, distinguished face, his dark eyes +are penetrating and rather wistful. The left sleeve of his old uniform +is empty_. SILAS MORTON _is a strong man who has borne the burden of the +land, and not for himself alone--the pioneer. Seeing the stranger, he +sets his musket against the wall and holds out his hand to him, as_ MR +FEJEVARY _goes up to_ GRANDMOTHER MORTON.) + +SILAS: How do, stranger? + +FEJEVARY: And how are you today, Mrs Morton? + +GRANDMOTHER: I'm not abed--and don't expect to be. + +SILAS: (_letting go of the balloons he has bought_) Where's Ira? and +Madeline? + +GRANDMOTHER: Mr Fejevary's Delia brought them home with her. They've +gone down to dam the creek, I guess. This young man's been waiting to +see you, Silas. + +SMITH: Yes, I wanted to have a little talk with you. + +SILAS: Well, why not? (_he is tying the gay balloons to his gun, then as +he talks, hangs his hat in the corner closet_) We've been having a +little talk ourselves. Mother, Nat Rice was there. I've not seen Nat +Rice since the day we had to leave him on the road with his torn +leg--him cursing like a pirate. I wanted to bring him home, but he had +to go back to Chicago. His wife's dead, mother. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, I guess she's not sorry. + +SILAS: Why, mother. + +GRANDMOTHER: 'Why, mother.' Nat Rice is a mean, stingy, complaining +man--his leg notwithstanding. Where'd you leave the folks? + +SILAS: Oh--scattered around. Everybody visitin' with anybody that'll +visit with them. Wish you could have gone. + +GRANDMOTHER: I've heard it all. (_to_ FEJEVARY) Your folks well? + +FEJEVARY: All well, Mrs Morton. And my boy Felix is home. He'll stop in +here to see you by and by. + +SILAS: Oh, he's a fine-looking boy, mother. And think of what he knows! +(_cordially including the young man_) Mr Fejevary's son has been to +Harvard College. + +SMITH: Well, well--quite a trip. Well, Mr Morton, I hope this is not a +bad time for me to--present a little matter to you? + +SILAS: (_genially_) That depends, of course, on what you're going to +present. (_attracted by a sound outside_) Mind if I present a little +matter to your horse? Like to uncheck him so's he can geta a bit +o'grass. + +SMITH: Why--yes. I suppose he would like that. + +SILAS: (_going out_) You bet he'd like it. Wouldn't you, old boy? + +SMITH: Your son is fond of animals. + +GRANDMOTHER: Lots of people's fond of 'em--and good to 'em. Silas--I +dunno, it's as if he was that animal. + +FEJEVARY: He has imagination. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_with surprise_) Think so? + +SILAS: (_returning and sitting down at the table by the young man_) Now, +what's in your mind, my boy? + +SMITH: This town is growing very fast, Mr Morton. + +SILAS: Yes. (_slyly--with humour_) I know that. + +SMITH: I presume you, as one of the early settlers--as in fact a son of +the earliest settler, feel a certain responsibility about the welfare +of-- + +SILAS: I haven't got in mind to do the town a bit of harm. So--what's +your point? + +SMITH: More people--more homes. And homes must be in the healthiest +places--the--the most beautiful places. Isn't it true, Mr Fejevary, that +it means a great deal to people to have a beautiful outlook from their +homes? A--well, an expanse. + +SILAS: What is it they want to buy--these fellows that are figuring on +making something out of--expanse? (_a gesture for expanse, then a +reassuring gesture_) It's all right, but--just what is it? + +SMITH: I am prepared to make you an offer--a gilt-edged offer for that +(_pointing toward it_) hill above the town. + +SILAS: (_shaking his head--with the smile of the strong man who is a +dreamer_) The hill is not for sale. + +SMITH: But wouldn't you consider a--particularly good offer, Mr Morton? + +(SILAS, _who has turned so he can look out at the hill, slowly shakes +his head_.) + +SMITH: Do you feel you have the right--the moral right to hold it? + +SILAS: It's not for myself I'm holding it. + +SMITH: Oh,--for the children? + +SILAS: Yes, the children. + +SMITH: But--if you'll excuse me--there are other investments might do +the children even more good. + +SILAS: This seems to me--the best investment. + +SMITH: But after all there are other people's children to consider. + +SILAS: Yes, I know. That's it. + +SMITH: I wonder if I understand you, Mr Morton? + +SILAS: (_kindly_) I don't believe you do. I don't see how you could. And +I can't explain myself just now. So--the hill is not for sale. I'm not +making anybody homeless. There's land enough for all--all sides round. +But the hill-- + +SMITH: (_rising_) Is yours. + +SILAS: You'll see. + +SMITH: I am prepared to offer you-- + +SILAS: You're not prepared to offer me anything I'd consider alongside +what I am considering. So--I wish you good luck in your business +undertakings. + +SMITH: Sorry--you won't let us try to help the town. + +SILAS: Don't sit up nights worrying about my chokin' the town. + +SMITH: We could make you a rich man, Mr Morton. Do you think what you +have in mind will make you so much richer? + +SILAS: Much richer. + +SMITH: Well, good-bye. Good day, sir. Good day, ma'am. + +SILAS: (_following him to the door_) Nice horse you've got. + +SMITH: Yes, seems all right. + +(SILAS _stands in the doorway and looks off at the hill_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: What are you going to do with the hill, Silas? + +SILAS: After I get a little glass of wine--to celebrate Felix and me +being here instead of farther south--I'd like to tell you what I want +for the hill. (_to_ FEJEVARY _rather bashfully_) I've been wanting to +tell you. + +FEJEVARY: I want to know. + +SILAS: (_getting the wine from the closet_) Just a little something to +show our gratitude with. + +(_Goes off right for glasses_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe it'd be better to sell the hill--while +they're anxious. + +FEJEVARY: He seems to have another plan for it. + +GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I hope the other plan does bring him something. +Silas has worked--all the days of his life. + +FEJEVARY: I know. + +GRANDMOTHER: You don't know the hull of it. But I know. (_rather to +herself_) Know too well to think about it. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_as_ SILAS _returns_) I'll get more cookies. + +SILAS: I'll get them, mother. + +GRANDMOTHER: Get 'em myself. Pity if a woman can't get out her own +cookies. + +SILAS: (_seeing how hard it is for her_) I wish mother would let us do +things for her. + +FEJEVARY: That strength is a flame frailness can't put out. It's a great +thing for us to have her,--this touch with the life behind us. + +SILAS: Yes. And it's a great thing for us to have you--who can see those +things and say them. What a lot I'd 'a' missed if I hadn't had what +you've seen. + +FEJEVARY: Oh, you only think that because you've got to be generous. + +SILAS: I'm not generous. _I'm_ seeing something now. Something about +you. I've been thinking of it a good deal lately--it's got something to +do with--with the hill. I've been thinkin' what it's meant all these +years to have a family like yours next place to. They did something +pretty nice for the corn belt when they drove you out of Hungary. +Funny--how things don't end the way they begin. I mean, what begins +don't end. It's another thing ends. Set out to do something for your own +country--and maybe you don't quite do the thing you set out to do-- + +FEJEVARY: No. + +SILAS: But do something for a country a long way off. + +FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I've not done much for any country. + +SILAS: (_brusquely_) Where's your left arm--may I be so bold as to +inquire? Though your left arm's nothing alongside--what can't be +measured. + +FEJEVARY: When I think of what I dreamed as a young man--it seems to me +my life has failed. + +SILAS: (_raising his glass_) Well, if your life's failed--I like +failure. + +(GRANDMOTHER MORTON _returns with her cookies_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: There's two kinds--Mr Fejevary. These have seeds in 'em. + +FEJEVARY: Thank you. I'll try a seed cookie first. + +SILAS: Mother, you'll have a glass of wine? + +GRANDMOTHER: I don't need wine. + +SILAS: Well, I don't know as we need it. + +GRANDMOTHER: No, I don't know as you do. But I didn't go to war. + +FEJEVARY: Then have a little wine to celebrate that. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, just a mite to warm me up. Not that it's cold. +(FEJEVARY _brings it to her, and the cookies_) The Indians used to like +cookies. I was talking to that young whippersnapper about the Indians. +One time I saw an Indian watching me from a bush, (_points_) Right out +there. I was never afraid of Indians when you could see the whole of +'em--but when you could see nothin' but their bright eyes--movin' +through leaves--I declare they made me nervous. After he'd been there an +hour I couldn't seem to put my mind on my work. So I thought, Red or +White, a man's a man--I'll take him some cookies. + +FEJEVARY: It succeeded? + +GRANDMOTHER: So well that those leaves had eyes next day. But he brought +me a fish to trade. He was a nice boy. + +SILAS: Probably we killed him. + +GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe he killed us. Will Owens' family was +massacred just after this. Like as not my cookie Indian helped out +there. Something kind of uncertain about the Indians. + +SILAS: I guess they found something kind of uncertain about us. + +GRANDMOTHER: Six o' one and half a dozen of another. Usually is. + +SILAS: (_to_ FEJEVARY) I wonder if I'm wrong. You see, I never went to +school-- + +GRANDMOTHER: I don't know why you say that, Silas. There was two winters +you went to school. + +SILAS: Yes, mother, and I'm glad I did, for I learned to read there, and +liked the geography globe. It made the earth so nice to think about. And +one day the teacher told us all about the stars, and I had that to think +of when I was driving at night. The other boys didn't believe it was so. +But I knew it was so! But I mean school--the way Mr Fejevary went to +school. He went to universities. In his own countries--in other +countries. All the things men have found out, the wisest and finest +things men have thought since first they began to think--all that was +put before them. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a gentle smile_) I fear I left a good deal of it +untouched. + +SILAS: You took a plenty. Tell in your eyes you've thought lots about +what's been thought. And that's what I was setting out to say. It makes +something of men--learning. A house that's full of books makes a +different kind of people. Oh, of course, if the books aren't there just +to show off. + +GRANDMOTHER: Like in Mary Baldwin's new house. + +SILAS: (_trying hard to see it_) It's not the learning itself--it's the +life that grows up from learning. Learning's like soil. Like--like +fertilizer. Get richer. See more. Feel more. You believe that? + +FEJEVARY: Culture should do it. + +SILAS: Does in your house. You somehow know how it is for the other +fellow more'n we do. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, Silas Morton, when you've your wood to chop an' your +water to carry, when you kill your own cattle and hogs, tend your own +horses and hens, make your butter, soap, and cook for whoever the Lord +sends--there's none too many hours of the day left to be polite in. + +SILAS: You're right, mother. It had to be that way. But now that we buy +our soap--we don't want to say what soap-making made us. + +GRANDMOTHER: We're honest. + +SILAS: Yes. In a way. But there's another kind o' honesty, seems to me, +goes with that more seein' kind of kindness. Our honesty with the +Indians was little to brag on. + +GRANDMOTHER: You fret more about the Indians than anybody else does. + +SILAS: To look out at that hill sometimes makes me ashamed. + +GRANDMOTHER: Land sakes, you didn't do it. It was the government. And +what a government does is nothing for a person to be ashamed of. + +SILAS: I don't know about that. Why is _he_ here? Why is Felix Fejevary +not rich and grand in Hungary to-day? 'Cause he was ashamed of what his +government was. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, that was a foreign government. + +SILAS: A seeing how 'tis for the other person--_a bein'_ that other +person, kind of honesty. Joke of it, 'twould do something for _you_. +'Twould 'a' done something for us to have _been_ Indians a little more. +My father used to talk about Blackhawk--they was friends. I saw +Blackhawk once--when I was a boy. (_to_ FEJEVARY) Guess I told you. You +know what he looked like? He looked like the great of the earth. Noble. +Noble like the forests--and the Mississippi--and the stars. His face was +long and thin and you could see the bones, and the bones were beautiful. +Looked like something that's never been caught. He was something many +nights in his canoe had made him. Sometimes I feel that the land itself +has got a mind that the land would rather have had the Indians. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, don't let folks hear you say it. They'd think you was +plum crazy. + +SILAS: I s'pose they would, (_turning to_ FEJEVARY) But after you've +walked a long time over the earth--and you all alone, didn't you ever +feel something coming up from it that's like thought? + +FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I never did. But--I wish I had. + +SILAS: I love land--this land. I suppose that's why I never have the +feeling that I own it. + +GRANDMOTHER: If you don't own it--I want to know! What do you think we +come here for--your father and me? What do you think we left our folks +for--left the world of white folks--schools and stores and doctors, and +set out in a covered wagon for we didn't know what? We lost a horse. +Lost our way--weeks longer than we thought 'twould be. You were born in +that covered wagon. You know that. But what you don't know is what +_that's_ like--without your own roof--or fire--without-- + +(_She turns her face away._) + +SILAS: No. No, mother, of course not. Now--now isn't this too bad? I +don't say things right. It's because I never went to school. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_her face shielded_) You went to school two winters. + +SILAS: Yes. Yes, mother. So I did. And I'm glad I did. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_with the determination of one who will not have her own +pain looked at_) Mrs Fejevary's pansy bed doing well this summer? + +FEJEVARY: It's beautiful this summer. She was so pleased with the new +purple kind you gave her. I do wish you could get over to see them. + +GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I've seen lots of pansies. Suppose it was pretty +fine-sounding speeches they had in town? + +FEJEVARY: Too fine-sounding to seem much like the war. + +SILAS: I'd like to go to a war celebration where they never mentioned +war. There'd be a way to celebrate victory, (_hearing a step, looking +out_) Mother, here's Felix. + +(FELIX, _a well-dressed young man, comes in_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: How do, Felix? + +FELIX: And how do you do, Grandmother Morton? + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, I'm still here. + +FELIX: Of course you are. It wouldn't be coming home if you weren't. + +GRANDMOTHER: I've got some cookies for you, Felix. I set 'em out, so you +wouldn't have to steal them. John and Felix was hard on the cookie jar. + +FELIX: Where is John? + +SILAS: (_who is pouring a glass of wine for_ FELIX) You've not seen John +yet? He was in town for the exercises. I bet those young devils ran off +to the race-track. I heard whisperin' goin' round. But everybody'll be +home some time. Mary and the girls--don't ask me where they are. They'll +drive old Bess all over the country before they drive her to the bam. +Your father and I come on home 'cause I wanted to have a talk with him. + +FELIX: Getting into the old uniforms makes you want to talk it all over +again? + +SILAS: The war? Well, we did do that. But all that makes me want to talk +about what's to come, about--what 'twas all for. Great things are to +come, Felix. And before you are through. + +FELIX: I've been thinking about them myself--walking around the town +to-day. It's grown so much this year, and in a way that means more +growing--that big glucose plant going up down the river, the new lumber +mill--all that means many more people. + +FEJEVARY: And they've even bought ground for a steel works. + +SILAS: Yes, a city will rise from these cornfields--a big rich +place--that's bound to be. It's written in the lay o' the land and the +way the river flows. But first tell us about Harvard College, Felix. +Ain't it a fine thing for us all to have Felix coming home from that +wonderful place! + +FELIX: You make it seem wonderful. + +SILAS: Ah, you know it's wonderful--know it so well you don't have to +say it. It's something you've got. But to me it's wonderful the way the +stars are wonderful--this place where all that the world has learned is +to be drawn from me--like a spring. + +FELIX: You almost say what Matthew Arnold says--a distinguished new +English writer who speaks of: 'The best that has been thought and said +in the world'. + +SILAS: 'The best that has been thought and said in the world!' (_slowly +rising, and as if the dream of years is bringing him to his feet_) +That's what that hill is for! (_pointing_) Don't you see it? End of our +trail, we climb a hill and plant a college. Plant a college, so's after +we are gone that college says for us, says in people learning has made +more: 'That is why we took this land.' + +GRANDMOTHER: (_incredulous_) You mean, Silas, you're going to _give the +hill away_? + +SILAS: The hill at the end of our trail--how could we keep that? + +GRANDMOTHER: Well, I want to know why not! Hill or level--land's land +and not a thing you give away. + +SILAS: Well, don't scold _me_. I'm not giving it away. It's giving +itself away, get down to it. + +GRANDMOTHER: Don't talk to me as if I was feeble-minded. + +SILAS: I'm talking with all the mind I've got. If there's not mind in +what I say, it's because I've got no mind. But I have got a mind, (_to_ +FEJEVARY, _humorously_) Haven't I? You ought to know. Seeing as you gave +it to me. + +FEJEVARY: Ah, no--I didn't give it to you. + +SILAS: Well, you made me know 'twas there. You said things that woke +things in me and I thought about them as I ploughed. And that made me +know there had to be a college there--wake things in minds--so +ploughing's more than ploughing. What do you say, Felix? + +FELIX: It--it's a big idea, Uncle Silas. I love the way you put it. It's +only that I'm wondering-- + +SILAS: Wondering how it can ever be a Harvard College? Well, it can't. +And it needn't be (_stubbornly_) It's a college in the cornfields--where +the Indian maize once grew. And it's for the boys of the cornfields--and +the girls. There's few can go to Harvard College--but more can climb +that hill, (_turn of the head from the hill to_ FELIX) Harvard on a +hill? (_As_ FELIX _smiles no_, SILAS _turns back to the hill_) A college +should be on a hill. They can see it then from far around. See it as +they go out to the barn in the morning; see it when they're shutting up +at night. 'Twill make a difference--even to them that never go. + +GRANDMOTHER: Now, Silas--don't be hasty. + +SILAS: Hasty? It's been company to me for years. Came to me one +night--must 'a' been ten years ago--middle of a starry night as I was +comin' home from your place (_to_ FEJEVARY) I'd gone over to lend a hand +with a sick horse an'-- + +FEJEVARY: (_with a grateful smile_) That was nothing new. + +SILAS: Well, say, I'd sit up with a sick horse that belonged to the +meanest man unhung. But--there were stars that night had never been +there before. Leastways I'd not seen 'em. And the hill--Felix, in all +your travels east, did you ever see anything more beautiful than that +hill? + +FELIX: It's like sculpture. + +SILAS: Hm. (_the wistfulness with which he speaks of that outside his +knowledge_) I s'pose 'tis. It's the way it rises--somehow--as if it knew +it rose from wide and fertile lands. I climbed the hill that night, +(_to_ FEJEVARY) You'd been talkin'. As we waited between medicines you +told me about your life as a young man. All you'd lived through seemed +to--open up to you that night--way things do at times. Guess it was +'cause you thought you was goin' to lose your horse. See, that was +Colonel, the sorrel, wasn't it? + +FEJEVARY: Yes. Good old Colonel. + +SILAS: You'd had a long run o' off luck. Hadn't got things back in shape +since the war. But say, you didn't lose him, did you? + +FEJEVARY: Thanks to you. + +SILAS: Thanks to the medicine I keep in the back kitchen. + +FEJEVARY: You encouraged him. + +GRANDMOTHER: Silas has a way with all the beasts. + +SILAS: We've got the same kind of minds--the beasts and me. + +GRANDMOTHER: Silas, I wish you wouldn't talk like that--and with Felix +just home from Harvard College. + +SILAS: Same kind of minds--except that mine goes on a little farther. + +GRANDMOTHER: Well I'm glad to hear you say that. + +SILAS: Well, there we sat--you an' me--middle of a starry night, out +beside your barn. And I guess it came over you kind of funny you should +be there with me--way off the Mississippi, tryin' to save a sick horse. +Seemed to--bring your life to life again. You told me what you studied +in that fine old university you loved--the Vienna,--and why you became a +revolutionist. The old dreams took hold o' you and you talked--way you +used to, I suppose. The years, o' course, had rubbed some of it off. +Your face as you went on about the vision--you called it, vision of what +life could be. I knew that night there was things I never got wind of. +When I went away--knew I ought to go home to bed--hayin' at daybreak. +'Go to bed?' I said to myself. 'Strike this dead when you've never had +it before, may never have it again?' I climbed the hill. Blackhawk was +there. + +GRANDMOTHER: Why, he was _dead_. + +SILAS: He was there--on his own old hill, with me and the stars. And I +said to him-- + +GRANDMOTHER: Silas! + +SILAS: Says I to him, 'Yes--that's true; it's more yours than mine, you +had it first and loved it best. But it's neither yours nor mine,--though +both yours and mine. Not my hill, not your hill, but--hill of vision', +said I to him. 'Here shall come visions of a better world than was ever +seen by you or me, old Indian chief.' Oh, I was drunk, plum drunk. + +GRANDMOTHER: I should think you was. And what about the next day's hay? + +SILAS: A day in the hayfield is a day's hayin'--but a night on the +hill-- + +FELIX: We don't have them often, do we, Uncle Silas? + +SILAS: I wouldn't 'a' had that one but for your father, Felix. Thank God +they drove you out o' Hungary! And it's all so dog-gone _queer_. Ain't +it queer how things blow from mind to mind--like seeds. Lord +A'mighty--you don't know where they'll take hold. + +(_Children's voices off_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: There come those children up from the creek--soppin' wet, I +warrant. Well, I don't know how children ever get raised. But we raise +more of 'em than we used to. I buried three--first ten years I was here. +Needn't 'a' happened--if we'd known what we know now, and if we hadn't +been alone. (_With all her strength_.) I don't know what you mean--the +hill's not yours! + +SILAS: It's the future's, mother--so's we can know more than we know +now. + +GRANDMOTHER: We know it now. 'Twas then we didn't know it. I worked for +that hill! And I tell you to leave it to your own children. + +SILAS: There's other land for my own children. This is for all the +children. + +GRANDMOTHER: What's all the children to you? + +SILAS: (_derisively_) Oh, mother--what a thing for you to say! You who +were never too tired to give up your own bed so the stranger could have +a better bed. + +GRANDMOTHER: That was different. They was folks on their way. + +FEJEVARY: So are we. + +(SILAS _turns to him with quick appreciation_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: That's just talk. We're settled now. Children of other old +settlers are getting rich. I should think you'd want yours to. + +SILAS: I want other things more. I want to pay my debts 'fore I'm too +old to know they're debts. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_momentarily startled_) Debts? Huh! More talk. You don't +owe any man. + +SILAS: I owe him (_nodding to_ FEJEVARY). And the red boys here before +me. + +GRANDMOTHER: Fiddlesticks. + +FELIX: You haven't read Darwin, have you, Uncle Silas? + +SILAS: Who? + +FELIX: Darwin, the great new man--and his theory of the survival of the +fittest? + +SILAS: No. No, I don't know things like that, Felix. + +FELIX: I think he might make you feel better about the Indians. In the +struggle for existence many must go down. The fittest survive. This--had +to be. + +SILAS: Us and the Indians? Guess I don't know what you mean--fittest. + +FELIX: He calls it that. Best fitted to the place in which one finds +one's self, having the qualities that can best cope with conditions--do +things. From the beginning of life it's been like that. He shows the +growth of life from forms that were hardly alive, the lowest animal +forms--jellyfish--up to man. + +SILAS: Oh, yes, that's the thing the churches are so upset about--that +we come from monkeys. + +FELIX: Yes. One family of ape is the direct ancestor of man. + +GRANDMOTHER: You'd better read your Bible, Felix. + +SILAS: Do people believe this? + +FELIX: The whole intellectual world is at war about it. The best +scientists accept it. Teachers are losing their positions for believing +it. Of course, ministers can't believe it. + +GRANDMOTHER: I should think not. Anyway, what's the use believing a +thing that's so discouraging? + +FEJEVARY: (_gently_) But is it that? It almost seems to me we have to +accept it because it is so encouraging. (_holding out his hand_) Why +have we hands? + +GRANDMOTHER: Cause God gave them to us, I s'pose. + +FEJEVARY: But that's rather general, and there isn't much in it to give +us self-confidence. But when you think we have hands because ages +back--before life had taken form as man, there was an impulse to do what +had never been done--when you think that we have hands today because +from the first of life there have been adventurers--those of best brain +and courage who wanted to be more than life had been, and that from +aspiration has come doing, and doing has shaped the thing with which to +do--it gives our hand a history which should make us want to use it +well. + +SILAS: (_breathed from deep_) Well, by God! And you've known this all +this while! Dog-gone you--why didn't you tell me? + +FEJEVARY: I've been thinking about it. I haven't known what to believe. +This hurts--beliefs of earlier years. + +FELIX: The things it hurts will have to go. + +FEJEVARY: I don't know about that, Felix. Perhaps in time we'll find +truth in them. + +FELIX: Oh, if you feel that way, father. + +FEJEVARY: Don't be kind to me, my boy, I'm not that old. + +SILAS: But think what it is you've said! If it's true that we made +ourselves--made ourselves out of the wanting to be more--created +ourselves you might say, by our own courage--our--what is +it?--aspiration. Why, I can't take it in. I haven't got the mind to take +it in. And what mind I have got says no. It's too-- + +FEJEVARY: It fights with what's there. + +SILAS: (_nodding_) But it's like I got this (_very slowly_) other way +around. From underneath. As if I'd known it all along--but have just +found out I know it! Yes. The earth told me. The beasts told me. + +GRANDMOTHER: Fine place to learn things from. + +SILAS: Anyhow, haven't I seen it? (_to_ FEJEVARY) In your face haven't I +seen thinking make a finer face? How long has this taken, Felix, +to--well, you might say, bring us where we are now? + +FELIX: Oh, we don't know how many millions of years since earth first +stirred. + +SILAS: Then we are what we are because through all that time there've +been them that wanted to be more than life had been. + +FELIX: That's it, Uncle Silas. + +SILAS: But--why, then we aren't _finished_ yet! + +FEJEVARY: No. We take it on from here. + +SILAS: (_slowly_) Then if we don't be--the most we can be, if we don't +be more than life has been, we go back on all that life behind us; go +back on--the-- + +(_Unable to formulate it, he looks to_ FEJEVARY.) + +FEJEVARY: Go back on the dreaming and the daring of a million years. + +(_After a moment's pause_ SILAS _gets up, opens the closet door_.) + +GRANDMOTHER: Silas, what you doing? + +SILAS: (_who has taken out a box_) I'm lookin' for the deed to the hill. + +GRANDMOTHER: What you going to do with it? + +SILAS: I'm going to get it out of my hands. + +GRANDMOTHER: Get it out of your hands? (_he has it now_) Deed your +father got from the government the very year the government got it from +the Indians? + +(_rising_) Give me that! (_she turns to_ FEJEVARY) Tell him he's crazy. +We got the best land 'cause we was first here. We got a right to keep +it. + +FEJEVARY: (_going soothingly to her_) It's true, Silas, it is a serious +thing to give away one's land. + +SILAS: You ought to know. You did it. Are you sorry you did it? + +FEJEVARY: No. But wasn't that different? + +SILAS: How was it different? Yours was a fight to make life more, wasn't +it? Well, let this be our way. + +GRANDMOTHER: What's all that got to do with giving up the land that +should provide for our own children? + +SILAS: Isn't it providing for them to give them a better world to live +in? Felix--you're young, I ask you, ain't it providing for them to give +them a chance to be more than we are? + +FELIX: I think you're entirely right, Uncle Silas. But it's the +practical question that-- + +SILAS: If you're right, the practical question is just a thing to fix +up. + +FEJEVARY: I fear you don't realize the immense amount of money required +to finance a college. The land would be a start. You would have to +interest rich men; you'd have to have a community in sympathy with the +thing you wanted to do. + +GRANDMOTHER: Can't you see, Silas, that we're all against you? + +SILAS: All against me? (_to_ FEJEVARY) But how can you be? Look at the +land we walked in and took! Was there ever such a chance to make life +more? Why, the buffalo here before us was more than we if we do nothing +but prosper! God damn us if we sit here rich and fat and forget man's in +the makin'. (_affirming against this_) There will one day be a college +in these cornfields by the Mississippi because long ago a great dream +was fought for in Hungary. And I say to that old dream, Wake up, old +dream! Wake up and fight! You say rich men. (_holding it out, but it is +not taken_) I give you this deed to take to rich men to show them one +man believes enough in this to give the best land he's got. That ought +to make rich men stop and think. + +GRANDMOTHER: Stop and think he's a fool. + +SILAS: (_to_ FEJEVARY) It's you can make them know he's not a fool. When +you tell this way you can tell it, they'll feel in you what's more than +them. They'll listen. + +GRANDMOTHER: I tell you, Silas, folks are too busy. + +SILAS: Too busy!' Too busy bein' nothin'? If it's true that we created +ourselves out of the thoughts that came, then thought is not something +_outside_ the business of life. Thought--(_with his gift for wonder_) +why, thought's our chance. I know now. Why I can't forget the Indians. +We killed their joy before we killed them. We made them less, (_to_ +FEJEVARY, _and as if sure he is now making it clear_) I got to give it +back--their hill. I give it back to joy--a better joy--joy o'aspiration. + +FEJEVARY: (_moved but unconvinced_) But, my friend, there are men who +have no aspiration. That's why, to me, this is as a light shining from +too far. + +GRANDMOTHER: (_old things waked in her_) Light shining from far. We used +to do that. We never pulled the curtain. I used to want to--you like to +be to yourself when night conies--but we always left a lighted window +for the traveller who'd lost his way. + +FELIX: I should think that would have exposed you to the Indians. + +GRANDMOTHER: Yes. (_impatiently_) Well, you can't put out a light just +because it may light the wrong person. + +FEJEVARY: No. (_and this is as a light to him. He turns to the hill_) +No. + +SILAS: (_with gentleness, and profoundly_) That's it. Look again. Maybe +your eyes are stronger now. Don't you see it? I see that college rising +as from the soil itself, as if it was what come at the last of that +thinking that breathes from the earth. I see it--but I want to know it's +real before I stop knowing. Then maybe I can lie under the same sod with +the red boys and not be ashamed. We're not old! Let's fight! Wake in +other men what you woke in me! + +FEJEVARY: And so could I pay my debt to America. (_His hand goes out_.) + +SILAS: (_giving him the deed_) And to the dreams of a million years! +(_Standing near the open door, their hands are gripped in compact_.) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT II + + +SCENE: _A corridor in the library of Morton College, October of the year +1920, upon the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of its founding. +This is an open place in the stacks of books, which are seen at both +sides. There is a reading-table before the big rear window. This window +opens out, but does not extend to the floor; only a part of its height +is seen, indicating a very high window. Outside is seen the top of a +tree. This outer wall of the building is on a slant, so that the +entrance right is near, and the left is front. Right front is a section +of a huge square column. On the rear of this, facing the window, is hung +a picture of SILAS MORTON. Two men are standing before this portrait_. + +SENATOR LEWIS _is the Midwestern state senator. He is not of the city +from which Morton College rises, but of a more country community farther +in-state_. FELIX FEJEVARY, _now nearing the age of his father in the +first act, is an American of the more sophisticated type--prosperous, +having the poise of success in affairs and place in society_. + +SENATOR: And this was the boy who founded the place, eh? It was his +idea? + +FEJEVARY: Yes, and his hill. I was there the afternoon he told my father +there must be a college here. I wasn't any older then than my boy is +now. + +(_As if himself surprised by this_.) + +SENATOR: Well, he enlisted a good man when he let you in on it. I've +been told the college wouldn't be what it is today but for you, Mr +Fejevary. + +FEJEVARY: I have a sentiment about it, and where our sentiment is, there +our work goes also. + +SENATOR: Yes. Well, it was those mainsprings of sentiment that won the +war. + +(_He is pleased with this_.) + +FEJEVARY: (_nodding_) Morton College did her part in winning the war. + +SENATOR: I know. A fine showing. + +FEJEVARY: And we're holding up our end right along. You'll see the boys +drill this afternoon. It's a great place for them, here on the +hill--shows up from so far around. They're a fine lot of fellows. You +know, I presume, that they went in as strike-breakers during the trouble +down here at the steel works. The plant would have had to close but for +Morton College. That's one reason I venture to propose this thing of a +state appropriation for enlargement. Why don't we sit down a moment? +There's no conflict with the state university--they have their +territory, we have ours. Ours is an important one--industrially +speaking. The state will lose nothing in having a good strong college +here--a one-hundred-per-cent-American college. + +SENATOR: I admit I am very favourably impressed. + +FEJEVARY: I hope you'll tell your committee so--and let me have a chance +to talk to them. + +SENATOR: Let's see, haven't you a pretty radical man here? + +FEJEVARY: I wonder if you mean Holden? + +SENATOR: Holden's the man. I've read things that make me question his +Americanism. + +FEJEVARY: Oh--(_gesture of depreciation_) I don't think he is so much a +radical as a particularly human human-being. + +SENATOR: But we don't want radical human beings. + +FEJEVARY: He has a genuine sympathy with youth. That's invaluable in a +teacher, you know. And then--he's a scholar. + +(_He betrays here his feeling of superiority to his companion, but too +subtly for his companion to get it_.) + +SENATOR: Oh--scholar. We can get scholars enough. What we want is +Americans. + +FEJEVARY: Americans who are scholars. + +SENATOR: You can pick 'em off every bush--pay them a little more than +they're paid in some other cheap John College. Excuse me--I don't mean +this is a cheap John College. + +FEJEVARY: Of course not. One couldn't think that of Morton College. But +that--pay them a little more, interests me. That's another reason I want +to talk to your committee on appropriations. We claim to value education +and then we let highly trained, gifted men fall behind the plumber. + +SENATOR: Well, that's the plumber's fault. Let the teachers talk to the +plumber. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a smile_) No. Better not let them talk to the plumber. +He might tell them what to do about it. In fact, is telling them. + +SENATOR: That's ridiculous. They can't serve both God and mammon. + +FEJEVARY: Then let God give them mammon. I mean, let the state +appropriate. + +SENATOR: Of course this state, Mr Fejevary, appropriates no money for +radicals. Excuse me, but why do you keep this man Holden? + +FEJEVARY: In the scholar's world we're known because of him. And really, +Holden's not a radical--in the worst sense. What he doesn't see +is--expediency. Not enough the man of affairs to realize that we can't +always have literally what we have theoretically. He's an idealist. +Something of the--man of vision. + +SENATOR: If he had the right vision he'd see that we don't every minute +have literally what we have theoretically because we're fighting to keep +the thing we have. Oh, I sometimes think the man of affairs has the only +vision. Take you, Mr Fejevary--a banker. These teachers--books--books! +(_pushing all books back_) Why, if they had to take for one day the +responsibility that falls on your shoulders--big decisions to make--man +among men--and all the time worries, irritations, particularly now with +labour riding the high horse like a fool! I know something about these +things. I went to the State House because my community persuaded me it +was my duty. But I'm the man of affairs myself. + +FEJEVARY: Oh yes, I know. Your company did much to develop that whole +northern part of the state. + +SENATOR: I think I may say we did. Well, that's why, after three +sessions, I'm chairman of the appropriations committee. I know how to +use money to promote the state. So--teacher? That would be a perpetual +vacation to me. Now, if you want my advice, Mr Fejevary,--I think your +case before the state would be stronger if you let this fellow Holden +go. + +FEJEVARY: I'm going to have a talk with Professor Holden. + +SENATOR: Tell him it's for his own good. The idea of a college professor +standing up for conscientious objectors! + +FEJEVARY: That doesn't quite state the case. Fred Jordan was one of +Holden's students--a student he valued. He felt Jordan was perfectly +sincere in his objection. + +SENATOR: Sincere in his objections! The nerve of him thinking it was his +business to be sincere! + +FEJEVARY: He was expelled from college--you may remember; that was how +we felt about it. + +SENATOR: I should hope so. + +FEJEVARY: Holden fought that, but within the college. What brought him +into the papers was his protest against the way the boy has been treated +in prison. + +SENATOR: What's the difference how he's treated? You know how I'd treat +him? (_a movement as though pulling a trigger_) If I didn't know you for +the American you are, I wouldn't understand your speaking so calmly. + +FEJEVARY: I'm simply trying to see it all sides around. + +SENATOR: Makes me see red. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a smile_) But we mustn't meet red with red. + +SENATOR: What's Holden fussing about--that they don't give him caviare +on toast? + +FEJEVARY: That they didn't give him books. Holden felt it was his +business to fuss about that. + +SENATOR: Well, when your own boy 'stead of whining around about his +conscience, stood up and offered his life! + +FEJEVARY: Yes. And my nephew gave his life. + +SENATOR: That so? + +FEJEVARY: Silas Morton's grandson died in France. My sister Madeline +married Ira Morton, son of Silas Morton. + +SENATOR: I knew there was a family connection between you and the +Mortons. + +FEJEVARY: (_speaking with reserve_) They played together as children and +married as soon as they were grown up. + +SENATOR: So this was your sister's boy? (FEJEVARY _nods_) One of the +mothers to give her son! + +FEJEVARY: (_speaking of her with effort_) My sister died--long ago. +(_pulled to an old feeling; with an effort releasing himself_) But Ira +is still out at the old place--place the Mortons took up when they +reached the end of their trail--as Uncle Silas used to put it. Why, it's +a hundred years ago that Grandmother Morton began--making cookies here. +She was the first white woman in this country. + +SENATOR: Proud woman! To have begun the life of this state! Oh, our +pioneers! If they could only see us now, and know what they did! +(FEJEVARY _is silent; he does not look quite happy_) I suppose Silas +Morton's son is active in the college management. + +FEJEVARY: No, Ira is not a social being. Fred's death about finished +him. He had been--strange for years, ever since my sister died--when the +children were little. It was--(_again pulled back to that old feeling_) +under pretty terrible circumstances. + +SENATOR: I can see that you thought a great deal of your sister, Mr +Fejevary. + +FEJEVARY: Oh, she was beautiful and--(_bitterly_) it shouldn't have gone +like that. + +SENATOR: Seems to me I've heard something about Silas Morton's +son--though perhaps it wasn't this one. + +FEJEVARY: Ira is the only one living here now; the others have gone +farther west. + +SENATOR: Isn't there something about corn? + +FEJEVARY: Yes. His corn has several years taken the prize--best in the +state. He's experimented with it--created a new kind. They've given it +his name--Morton corn. It seems corn is rather fascinating to work +with--very mutable stuff. It's a good thing Ira has it, for it's about +the only thing he does care for now. Oh, Madeline, of course. He has a +daughter here in the college--Madeline Morton, senior this year--one of +our best students. I'd like to have you meet Madeline--she's a great +girl, though--peculiar. + +SENATOR: Well, that makes a girl interesting, if she isn't peculiar the +wrong way. Sounds as if her home life might make her a little peculiar. + +FEJEVARY: Madeline stays here in town with us a good part of the time. +Mrs Fejevary is devoted to her--we all are. (_a boy starts to come +through from right_) Hello, see who's here. This is my boy. Horace, this +is Senator Lewis, who is interested in the college. + +HORACE: (_shaking hands_) How do you do, Senator Lewis? + +SENATOR: Pleased to see you, my boy. + +HORACE: Am I butting in? + +FEJEVARY: Not seriously; but what are you doing in the library? I +thought this was a day off. + +HORACE: I'm looking for a book. + +FEJEVARY: (_affectionately bantering_) You are, Horace? Now how does +that happen? + +HORACE: I want the speeches of Abraham Lincoln. + +SENATOR: You couldn't do better. + +HORACE: I'll show those dirty dagoes where they get off! + +FEJEVARY: You couldn't show them a little more elegantly? + +HORACE: I'm going to sick the Legion on 'em. + +FEJEVARY: Are you talking about the Hindus? + +HORACE: Yes, the dirty dagoes. + +FEJEVARY: Hindus aren't dagoes you know, Horace. + +HORACE: Well, what's the difference? This foreign element gets my goat. + +SENATOR: My boy, you talk like an American. But what do you +mean--Hindus? + +FEJEVARY: There are two young Hindus here as students. And they're good +students. + +HORACE: Sissies. + +FEJEVARY: But they must preach the gospel of free India--non-British +India. + +SENATOR: Oh, that won't do. + +HORACE: They're nothing but Reds, I'll say. Well, one of 'em's going +back to get his. (_grins_) + +FEJEVARY: There were three of them last year. One of them is wanted back +home. + +SENATOR: I remember now. He's to be deported. + +HORACE: And when they get him--(_movement as of pulling a rope_) They +hang there. + +FEJEVARY: The other two protest against our not fighting the deportation +of their comrade. They insist it means death to him. (_brushing off a +thing that is inclined to worry him_) But we can't handle India's +affairs. + +SENATOR: I should think not! + +HORACE: Why, England's our ally! That's what I told them. But you can't +argue with people like that. Just wait till I find the speeches of +Abraham Lincoln! + +(_Passes through to left_) + +SENATOR: Fine boy you have, Mr Fejevary. + +FEJEVARY: He's a live one. You should see him in a football game. +Wouldn't hurt my feelings in the least to have him a little more of a +student, but-- + +SENATOR: Oh, well, you want him to be a regular fellow, don't you, and +grow into a man among men? + +FEJEVARY: He'll do that, I think. It was he who organized our boys for +the steel strike--went right in himself and took a striker's job. He +came home with a black eye one night, presented to him by a picket who +started something by calling him a scab. But Horace wasn't thinking +about his eye. According to him, it was not in the class with the +striker's upper lip. 'Father,' he said, 'I gave him more red than he +could swallow. The blood just--' Well, I'll spare you--but Horace's +muscle is one hundred per cent American. (_going to the window_) Let me +show you something. You can see the old Morton place off on that first +little hill. (_pointing left_) The first rise beyond the valley. + +SENATOR: The long low house? + +FEJEVARY: That's it. You see, the town for the most part swung around +the other side of the hill, so the Morton place is still a farm. + +SENATOR: But you're growing all the while. The town'll take the +cornfield yet. + +FEJEVARY: Yes, our steel works is making us a city. + +SENATOR: And this old boy (_turning to the portrait of_ SILAS MORTON) +can look out on his old home--and watch the valley grow. + +FEJEVARY: Yes--that was my idea. His picture really should be in +Memorial Hall, but I thought Uncle Silas would like to be up here among +the books, and facing the old place. (_with a laugh_) I confess to being +a little sentimental. + +SENATOR: We Americans have lots of sentiment, Mr Fejevary. It's what +makes us--what we are. (FEJEVARY _does not speak; there are times when +the senator seems to trouble him_) Well, this is a great site for a +college. You can see it from the whole country round. + +FEJEVARY: Yes, that was Uncle Silas' idea. He had a reverence for +education. It grew, in part, out of his feeling for my father. He was a +poet--really, Uncle Silas. (_looking at the picture_) He gave this hill +for a college that we might become a deeper, more sensitive people-- + +(_Two girls, convulsed with the giggles, come tumbling in_.) + +DORIS: (_confused_) Oh--oh, excuse us. + +FUSSIE: (_foolishly_) We didn't know anybody was here. + +(MR FEJEVARY _looks at them sternly. The girls retreat_.) + +SENATOR: (_laughing_) Oh, well girls will be girls. I've got three of my +own. + +(HORACE _comes back, carrying an open book_.) + +HORACE: Say, this must be a misprint. + +FEJEVARY: (_glancing at the back of the book_) Oh, I think not. + +HORACE: From his first inaugural address to Congress, March 4, 1861. +(_reads_) 'This country with its institutions belong to the people who +inhabit it.' Well, that's all right. 'Whenever they shall grow weary of +the existing government they can exercise their constitutional right of +amending it'--(_after a brief consideration_) I suppose that that's all +right--but listen! 'or their revolutionary right to dismember or +overthrow it.' + +FEJEVARY: He was speaking in another age. An age of different values. + +SENATOR: Terms change their significance from generation to generation. + +HORACE: I suppose they do--but that puts me in bad with these lice. They +quoted this and I said they were liars. + +SENATOR: And what's the idea? They're weary of our existing government +and are about to dismember or overthrow it? + +HORACE: I guess that's the dope. + +FEJEVARY: Look here, Horace--speak accurately. Was it in relation to +America they quoted this? + +HORACE: Well, maybe they were talking about India then. But they were +standing up for being revolutionists. We were giving them an earful +about it, and then they spring Lincoln on us. Got their nerve--I'll +say--quoting Lincoln to us. + +SENATOR: The fact that they are quoting it shows it's being misapplied. + +HORACE: (_approvingly_) I'll tell them that. But gee--Lincoln oughta +been more careful what he said. Ignorant people don't know how to take +such things. + +(_Goes back with book_.) + +FEJEVARY: Want to take a look through the rest of the library? We +haven't been up this way yet--(_motioning left_) We need a better +scientific library. (_they are leaving now_) Oh, we simply must have +more money. The whole thing is fairly bursting its shell. + +DORIS: (_venturing in cautiously from the other side, looking back, +beckoning_) They've gone. + +FUSSIE: Sure? + +DORIS: Well, are they here? And I saw them, I tell you--they went up to +science. + +FUSSIE: (_moving the_ SENATOR'S _hat on the table_) But they'll come +back. + +DORIS: What if they do? We're only looking at a book. (_running her hand +along the books_) Matthew Arnold. + +(_Takes a paper from_ FUSSIE, _puts it in the book. They are bent with +giggling as_ HORACE _returns_.) + +HORACE: For the love o' Pete, what's the joke? (_taking the book from +the helpless girl_) Matthew Arnold. My idea of nowhere to go for a +laugh. When I wrote my theme on him last week he was so dry I had to go +out and get a Morton Sundee (_the girls are freshly attacked, though all +of this in a subdued way, mindful of others in the library_) Say, how'd +you get that way? + +DORIS: Now, Horace, don't you _tell_. + +HORACE: What'd I tell, except--(_seeing the paper_) Um hum--what's this? + +DORIS: (_trying to get it from him_) Horace, now _don't_ you (_a +tussle_) You great strong mean thing! Fussie! Make him _stop_. + +(_She gets the paper by tearing it_.) + +HORACE: My dad's around here--showing the college off to a politician. +If you don't come across with that sheet of mystery, I'll back you both +out there (_starts to do it_) and-- + +DORIS: Horace! You're just _horrid_. + +HORACE: Sure I'm horrid. That's the way I want to be. (_takes the paper, +reads_) + + 'To Eben + You are the idol of my dreams + I worship from afar.' +What is this? + +FUSSIE: Now, listen, Horace, and don't you _tell_. You know Eben Weeks. +He's the homeliest man in school. Wouldn't you say so? + +HORACE: Awful jay. Like to get some of the jays out of here. + +DORIS: But listen. Of course, no girl would _look_ at him. So we've +thought up the most _killing_ joke, (_stopped by giggles from herself +and_ FUSSIE) Now, he hasn't handed in his Matthew Arnold dope. I heard +old Mac hold him up for it--and what'd you think he said? That he'd been +_ploughing_. Said he was trying to run a farm and go to college at the +same time! Isn't it a _scream_? + +HORACE: We oughta--make it more unpleasant for some of those jays. Gives +the school a bad name. + +FUSSIE: But, listen, Horace, honest--you'll just _die_. He said he was +going to get the book this afternoon. Now you know what he _looks_ like, +but he turns to--(_both girls are convulsed_) + +DORIS: It'll get him all fussed up! And for nothing at all! + +HORACE: Too bad that class of people come here. I think I'll go to +Harvard next year. Haven't broken it to my parents--but I've about made +up my mind. + +DORIS: Don't you think Morton's a good school, Horace? + +HORACE: Morton's all right. Fine for the--(_kindly_) people who would +naturally come here. But one gets an acquaintance at Harvard. Wher'd'y' +want these passionate lines? + +(FUSSIE _and_ DORIS _are off again convulsed_.) + +HORACE: (_eye falling on the page where he opens the book_) Say, old +Bones could spill the English--what? Listen to this flyer. 'For when we +say that culture is to know the best that has been thought and said in +the world, we simply imply that for culture a system directly tending to +that end is necessary in our reading.' (_he reads it with mock +solemnity, delighting_ FUSSIE _and_ DORIS) The best that has been +thought and said in the world!' + +(MADELINE MORTON _comes in from right; she carries a tennis racket_.) + +MADELINE: (_both critical and good-humoured_) You haven't made a large +contribution to that, have you, Horace? + +HORACE: Madeline, you don't want to let this sarcastic habit grow on +you. + +MADELINE: Thanks for the tip. + +FUSSIE: Oh--_Madeline, (holds out her hand to take the book from_ HORACE +_and shows it to_ MADELINE) You know-- + +DORIS: S-h Don't be silly, (_to cover this_) Who you playing with? + +HORACE: Want me to play with you, Madeline? + +MADELINE: (_genially_) I'd rather play with you than talk to you. + +HORACE: Same here. + +FUSSIE: Aren't cousins affectionate? + +MADELINE: (_moving through to the other part of the library_) But first +I'm looking for a book. + +HORACE: Well, I can tell you without your looking it up, he did say it. +But that was an age of different values. Anyway, the fact that they're +quoting it shows it's being misapplied. + +MADELINE: (_smiling_) Father said so. + +HORACE: (_on his dignity_) Oh, of course--if you don't want to be +serious. + +(MADELINE _laughs and passes on through_.) + +DORIS: What are you two talking about? + +HORACE: Madeline happened to overhear a little discussion down on the +campus. + +FUSSIE: Listen. You know something? Sometimes I think Madeline Morton is +a highbrow in disguise. + +HORACE: Say, you don't want to start anything like that. Madeline's all +right. She and I treat each other rough--but that's being in the family. + +FUSSIE: Well, I'll _tell_ you something. I heard Professor Holden say +Madeline Morton has a great deal more mind than she'd let herself know. + +HORACE: Oh, well--Holden, he's erratic. Look at how popular Madeline is. + +DORIS: I should say. What's the matter with you, Fussie? + +FUSSIE: Oh, I didn't mean it really _hurt_ her. + +HORACE: Guess it don't hurt her much at a dance. Say, what's this new +jazz they were springing last night? + +DORIS: I know! Now look here, Horace--L'me show you. (_she shows him a +step_) + +HORACE: I get you. (_He begins to dance with her; the book he holds +slips to the floor. He kicks it under the table_.) + +FUSSIE: Be careful. They'll be coming back here, (_glances off left_) + +DORIS: Keep an eye out, Fussie. + +FUSSIE: (_from her post_) They're coming! I tell you, they're _coming!_ + +DORIS: Horace, come on. + +(_He teasingly keeps hold of her, continuing the dance. At sound of +voices, they run off, right_. FUSSIE _considers rescuing the book, +decides she has not time_.) + +SENATOR: (_at first speaking off_) Yes, it could be done. There is that +surplus, and as long as Morton College is socially valuable--right here +above the steel works, and making this feature of military +training--(_he has picked up his hat_) But your Americanism must be +unimpeachable, Mr Fejevary. This man Holden stands in the way. + +FEJEVARY: I'm going to have a talk with Professor Holden this afternoon. +If he remains he will--(_it is not easy for him to say_) give no +trouble. (MADELINE _returns_) Oh, here's Madeline--Silas Morton's +granddaughter, Madeline Fejevary Morton. This is Senator Lewis, +Madeline. + +SENATOR: (_holding out his hand_) How do you do, Miss Morton. I suppose +this is a great day for you. + +MADELINE: Why--I don't know. + +SENATOR: The fortieth anniversary of the founding of your grandfather's +college? You must be very proud of your illustrious ancestor. + +MADELINE: I get a bit bored with him. + +SENATOR: Bored with him? My dear young lady! + +MADELINE: I suppose because I've heard so many speeches about him--'The +sainted pioneer'--'the grand old man of the prairies'--I'm sure I +haven't any idea what he really was like. + +FEJEVARY: I've tried to tell you, Madeline. + +MADELINE: Yes. + +SENATOR: I should think you would be proud to be the granddaughter of +this man of vision. + +MADELINE: (_her smile flashing_) Wouldn't you hate to be the +granddaughter of a phrase? + +FEJEVARY: (_trying to laugh it off_) Madeline! How absurd. + +MADELINE: Well, I'm off for tennis. + +(_Nods good-bye and passes on_.) + +FEJEVARY: (_calling to her_) Oh, Madeline, if your Aunt Isabel is out +there--will you tell her where we are? + +MADELINE: (_calling back_) All right. + +FEJEVARY: (_after a look at his companion_) Queer girl, Madeline. +Rather--moody. + +SENATOR: (_disapprovingly_) Well--yes. + +FEJEVARY: (_again trying to laugh it off_) She's been hearing a great +many speeches about her grandfather. + +SENATOR: She should be proud to hear them. + +FEJEVARY: Of course she should. (_looking in the direction_ MADELINE +_has gone_) I want you to meet my wife, Senator Lewis. + +SENATOR: I should be pleased to meet Mrs Fejevary. I have heard what she +means to the college--socially. + +FEJEVARY: I think she has given it something it wouldn't have had +without her. Certainly a place in the town that is--good for it. And you +haven't met our president yet. + +SENATOR: Guess, I've met the real president. + +FEJEVARY: Oh--no. I'm merely president of the board of trustees. + +SENATOR: 'Merely!' + +FEJEVARY: I want you to know President Welling. He's very much the +cultivated gentleman. + +SENATOR: Cultivated gentlemen are all right. I'd hate to see a world +they ran. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a laugh_) I'll just take a look up here, then we can go +down the shorter way. + +(_He goes out right_. SENATOR LEWIS _turns and examines the books_. +FUSSIE _slips in, looks at him, hesitates, and then stoops under the +table for the Matthew Arnold (and her poem) which_ HORACE _has kicked +there. He turns_.) + +FUSSIE: (_not out from under the table_) Oh, I was just looking for a +book. + +SENATOR: Quite a place to look for a book. + +FUSSIE: (_crawling out_) Yes, it got there. I thought I'd put it back. +Somebody--might want it. + +SENATOR: I see, young lady, that you have a regard for books. + +FUSSIE: Oh, yes, I do have a regard for them. + +SENATOR: (_holding out his hand_) And what is your book? + +FUSSIE: Oh--it's--it's nothing. + +(_As he continues to hold out his hand, she reluctantly gives the +book_.) + +SENATOR: (_solemnly_) Matthew Arnold? Nothing? + +FUSSIE: Oh, I didn't mean _him_. + +SENATOR: A master of English! I am glad, young woman, that you value +this book. + +FUSSIE: Oh yes, I'm--awfully fond of it. + +(_Growing more and more nervous as in turning the pages he nears the +poem_.) + +SENATOR: I am interested in you young people of Morton College. + +FUSSIE: That's so good of you. + +SENATOR: What is your favourite study? + +FUSSIE: Well--(_an inspiration_) I like all of them. + +SENATOR: Morton College is coming on very fast, I understand. + +FUSSIE: Oh yes, it's getting more and more of the right people. It used +to be a little jay, you know. Of course, the Fejevarys give it class. +Mrs Fejevary--isn't she wonderful? + +SENATOR: I haven't seen her yet. Waiting here now to meet her. + +FUSSIE: (_worried by this_) Oh, I must--must be going. Shall I put the +book back? (_holding out her hand_) + +SENATOR: No, I'll just look it over a bit. (_sits down_) + +FUSSIE: (_unable to think of any way of getting it_) This is where it +belongs. + +SENATOR: Thank you. + +(_Reluctantly she goes out_. SENATOR LEWIS _pursues Matthew Arnold with +the conscious air of a half literate man reading a 'great book'. The_ +FEJEVARYS _come in_) + +FEJEVARY: I found my wife, Senator Lewis. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_she is a woman of social distinction and charm_) How do +you do, Senator Lewis? (_They shake hands_.) + +SENATOR: It's a great pleasure to meet you, Mrs Fejevary. + +AUNT ISABEL: Why don't we carry Senator Lewis home for lunch? + +SENATOR: Why, you're very kind. + +AUNT ISABEL: I'm sure there's a great deal to talk about, so why not +talk comfortably, and really get acquainted? And we want to tell you the +whole story of Morton College--the good old American spirit behind it. + +SENATOR: I am glad to find you an American, Mrs Fejevary. + +AUNT ISABEL: Oh, we are that. Morton College is one hundred per cent +American. Our boys-- + +(_Her boy_ HORACE _rushes in_.) + +HORACE: (_wildly_) Father! Will you go after Madeline? The police have +got her! + +FEJEVARY: _What!_ + +AUNT ISABEL: (_as he is getting his breath_) What absurd thing are you +saying, Horace? + +HORACE: Awful row down on the campus. The Hindus. I told them to keep +their mouths shut about Abraham Lincoln. I told them the fact they were +quoting him-- + +FEJEVARY: Never mind what you told them! What happened? + +HORACE: We started--to rustle them along a bit. Why, they had +_handbills_ (_holding one up as if presenting incriminating +evidence--the_ SENATOR _takes it from him_) telling America what to do +about deportation! Not on this campus--I say. So we were--we were +putting a stop to it. They resisted--particularly the fat one. The cop +at the corner saw the row--came up. He took hold of Bakhshish, and when +the dirty anarchist didn't move along fast enough, he took hold of +him--well, a bit rough, you might say, when up rushes Madeline and calls +to the cop, 'Let that boy alone!' Gee--I don't know just what did +happen--awful mix-up. Next thing I knew Madeline hauled off and pasted +the policeman a fierce one with her tennis racket! + +SENATOR: She _struck_ the officer? + +HORACE: I should say she did. Twice. The second time-- + +AUNT ISABEL: _Horace_. (_looking at her husband_) I--I can't believe it. + +HORACE: I could have squared it, even then, but for Madeline herself. I +told the policeman that she didn't understand--that I was her cousin, +and apologized for her. And she called over at me, 'Better apologize for +yourself!' As if there was any sense to that--that she--she looked like +a _tiger_. Honest, everybody was afraid of her. I kept right on trying +to square it, told the cop she was the granddaughter of the man that +founded the college--that you were her uncle--he would have gone off +with just the Hindu, fixed this up later, but Madeline balled it up +again--didn't care who was her uncle--Gee! (_he throws open the window_) +There! You can see them, at the foot of the hill. A nice thing--member +of our family led off to the police station! + +FEJEVARY: (_to the_ SENATOR) Will you excuse me? + +AUNT ISABEL: (_trying to return to the manner of pleasant social +things_) Senator Lewis will go on home with me, and you--(_he is +hurrying out_) come when you can. (_to the_ SENATOR) Madeline is such a +high-spirited girl. + +SENATOR: If she had no regard for the living, she might--on this day of +all others--have considered her grandfather's memory. + +(_Raises his eyes to the picture of_ SILAS MORTON.) + +HORACE: Gee! Wouldn't you _say_ so? + + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT III + +SCENE: _The same as Act II three hours later_. PROFESSOR HOLDEN _is +seated at the table, books before him. He is a man in the fifties. At +the moment his care-worn face is lighted by that lift of the spirit +which sometimes rewards the scholar who has imaginative feeling_. HARRY, +_a student clerk, comes hurrying in. Looks back_. + +HARRY: Here's Professor Holden, Mr Fejevary. + +HOLDEN: Mr Fejevary is looking for me? + +HARRY: Yes. + +(_He goes back, a moment later_ MR FEJEVARY _enters. He has his hat, +gloves, stick; seems tired and disturbed_.) + +HOLDEN: Was I mistaken? I thought our appointment was for five. + +FEJEVARY: Quite right. But things have changed, so I wondered if I might +have a little talk with you now. + +HOLDEN: To be sure. (_rising_) Shall we go downstairs? + +FEJEVARY: I don't know. Nice and quiet up here. (_to_ HARRY, _who is now +passing through_) Harry, the library is closed now, is it? + +HARRY: Yes, it's locked. + +FEJEVARY: And there's no one in here? + +HARRY: No, I've been all through. + +FEJEVARY: There's a committee downstairs. Oh, this is a terrible day. +(_putting his things on the table_) We'd better stay up here. Harry, +when my niece--when Miss Morton arrives--I want you to come and let me +know. Ask her not to leave the building without seeing me. + +HARRY: Yes, sir. (_he goes out_) + +FEJEVARY: Well, (_wearily_) it's been a day. Not the day I was looking +for. + +HOLDEN: No. + +FEJEVARY: You're very serene up here. + +HOLDEN: Yes, I wanted to be--serene for a little while. + +FEJEVARY: (_looking at the books_) Emerson. Whitman. (_with a smile_) +Have they anything new to say on economics? + +HOLDEN: Perhaps not; but I wanted to forget economics for a time. I came +up here by myself to try and celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the +founding of Morton College. (_answering the other man's look_) Yes, I +confess I've been disappointed in the anniversary. As I left Memorial +Hall after the exercises this morning, Emerson's words came into my +mind-- + 'Give me truth, + For I am tired of surfaces + And die of inanition.' +Well, then I went home--(_stops, troubled_) + +FEJEVARY: How is Mrs Holden? + +HOLDEN: Better, thank you, but--not strong. + +FEJEVARY: She needs the very best of care for a time, doesn't she? + +HOLDEN: Yes. (_silent a moment_) Then, this is something more than the +fortieth anniversary, you know. It's the first of the month. + +FEJEVARY: And illness hasn't reduced the bills? + +HOLDEN: (_shaking his head_) I didn't want this day to go like that; so +I came up here to try and touch what used to be here. + +FEJEVARY: But you speak despondently of us. And there's been such a fine +note of optimism in the exercises. (_speaks with the heartiness of one +who would keep himself assured_) + +HOLDEN: I didn't seem to want a fine note of optimism. (_with +roughness_) I wanted--a gleam from reality. + +FEJEVARY: To me this is reality--the robust spirit created by all these +young people. + +HOLDEN: Do you think it is robust? (_hand affectionately on the book +before him_) I've been reading Whitman. + +FEJEVARY: This day has to be itself. Certain things go--others come; +life is change. + +HOLDEN: Perhaps it's myself I'm discouraged with. Do you remember the +tenth anniversary of the founding of Morton College. + +FEJEVARY: The tenth? Oh yes, that was when this library was opened. + +HOLDEN: I shall never forget your father, Mr Fejevary, as he stood out +there and said the few words which gave these books to the students. Not +many books, but he seemed to baptize them in the very spirit from which +books are born. + +FEJEVARY: He died the following year. + +HOLDEN: One felt death near. But that didn't seem the important thing. A +student who had fought for liberty for mind. Of course his face would be +sensitive. You must be very proud of your heritage. + +FEJEVARY: Yes. (_a little testily_) Well, I have certainly worked for +the college. I'm doing my best now to keep it a part of these times. + +HOLDEN: (_as if this has not reached him_) It was later that same +afternoon I talked with Silas Morton. We stood at this window and looked +out over the valley to the lower hill that was his home. He told me how +from that hill he had for years looked up to this one, and why there had +to be a college here. I never felt America as that old farmer made me +feel it. + +FEJEVARY: (_drawn by this, then shifting in irritation because he is +drawn_) I'm sorry to break in with practical things, but alas, I am a +practical man--forced to be. I too have made a fight--though the fight +to finance never appears an idealistic one. But I'm deep in that now, +and I must have a little help; at least, I must not have--stumbling-blocks. + +HOLDEN: Am I a stumbling-block? + +FEJEVARY: Candidly (_with a smile_) you are a little hard to finance. +Here's the situation. The time for being a little college has passed. We +must take our place as one of the important colleges--I make bold to say +one of the important universities--of the Middle West. But we have to +enlarge before we can grow. (_answering_ HOLDEN's _smile_) Yes, it is +ironic, but that's the way of it. It was a nice thing to open the +anniversary with fifty thousand from the steel works--but fifty thousand +dollars--nowadays--to an institution? (_waves the fifty thousand aside_) +They'll do more later, I think, when they see us coming into our own. +Meanwhile, as you know, there's this chance for an appropriation from +the state. I find that the legislature, the members who count, are very +friendly to Morton College. They like the spirit we have here. Well, now +I come to you, and you are one of the big reasons for my wanting to put +this over. Your salary makes me blush. It's all wrong that a man like +you should have these petty worries, particularly with Mrs Holden so in +need of the things a little money can do. Now this man Lewis is a +reactionary. So, naturally, he doesn't approve of you. + +HOLDEN: So naturally I am to go. + +FEJEVARY: Go? Not at all. What have I just been saying? + +HOLDEN: Be silent, then. + +FEJEVARY: Not that either--not--not really. But--be a little more +discreet. (_seeing him harden_) This is what I want to put up to you. +Why not give things a chance to mature in your own mind? Candidly, I +don't feel you know just what you do think; is it so awfully important +to express--confusion? + +HOLDEN: The only man who knows just what he thinks at the present moment +is the man who hasn't done any new thinking in the past ten years. + +FEJEVARY: (_with a soothing gesture_) You and I needn't quarrel about +it. I understand you, but I find it a little hard to interpret you to a +man like Lewis. + +HOLDEN: Then why not let a man like Lewis go to thunder? + +FEJEVARY: And let the college go to thunder? I'm not willing to do that. +I've made a good many sacrifices for this college. Given more money than +I could afford to give; given time and thought that I could have used +for personal gain. + +HOLDEN: That's true, I know. + +FEJEVARY: I don't know just why I've done it. Sentiment, I suppose. I +had a very strong feeling about my father, Professor Holden. And this +friend Silas Morton. This college is the child of that friendship. Those +are noble words in our manifesto: 'Morton College was born because there +came to this valley a man who held his vision for mankind above his own +advantage; and because that man found in this valley a man who wanted +beauty for his fellow-men as he wanted no other thing.' + +HOLDEN: (_taking it up_) 'Born of the fight for freedom and the +aspiration to richer living, we believe that Morton College--rising as +from the soil itself--may strengthen all those here and everywhere who +fight for the life there is in freedom, and may, to the measure it can, +loosen for America the beauty that breathes from knowledge.' (_moved by +the words he has spoken_) Do you know, I would rather do that--really do +that--than--grow big. + +FEJEVARY: Yes. But you see, or rather, what you don't see is, you have +to look at the world in which you find yourself. The only way to stay +alive is to grow big. It's been hard, but I have tried to--carry on. + +HOLDEN: And so have I tried to carry on. But it is very hard--carrying +on a dream. + +FEJEVARY: Well, I'm trying to make it easier. + +HOLDEN: Make it easier by destroying the dream? + +FEJEVARY: Not at all. What I want is scope for dreams. + +HOLDEN: Are you sure we'd have the dreams after we've paid this price +for the scope? + +FEJEVARY: Now let's not get rhetorical with one another. + +HOLDEN: Mr Fejevary, you have got to let me be as honest with you as you +say you are being with me. You have got to let me say what I feel. + +FEJEVARY: Certainly. That's why I wanted this talk with you. + +HOLDEN: You say you have made sacrifices for Morton College. So have I. + +FEJEVARY: How well I know that. + +HOLDEN: You don't know all of it. I'm not sure you understand any of it. + +FEJEVARY: (_charmingly_) Oh, I think you're hard on me. + +HOLDEN: I spoke of the tenth anniversary. I was a young man then, just +home from Athens, (_pulled back into an old feeling_) I don't know why I +felt I had to go to Greece. I knew then that I was going to teach +something within sociology, and I didn't want anything I felt about +beauty to be left out of what I formulated about society. The Greeks-- + +FEJEVARY: (_as_ HOLDEN _has paused before what he sees_) I remember you +told me the Greeks were the passion of your student days. + +HOLDEN: Not so much because they created beauty, but because they were +able to let beauty flow into their lives--to create themselves in +beauty. So as a romantic young man (_smiles_), it seemed if I could go +where they had been--what I had felt might take form. Anyway, I had a +wonderful time there. Oh, what wouldn't I give to have again that +feeling of life's infinite possibilities! + +FEJEVARY: (_nodding_) A youthful feeling. + +HOLDEN: (_softly_) I like youth. Well, I was just back, visiting my +sister here, at the time of the tenth anniversary. I had a chance then +to go to Harvard as instructor. A good chance, for I would have been +under a man who liked me. But that afternoon I heard your father speak +about books. I talked with Silas Morton. I found myself telling him +about Greece. No one had ever felt it as he felt it. It seemed to become +of the very bone of him. + +FEJEVARY: (_affectionately_) I know how he used to do. + +HOLDEN: He put his hands on my shoulders. He said, 'Young man, don't go +away. We need you here. Give us this great thing you've got!' And so I +stayed, for I felt that here was soil in which I could grow, and that +one's whole life was not too much to give to a place with roots like +that. (_a little bitterly_) Forgive me if this seems rhetoric. + +FEJEVARY: (_a gesture of protest. Silent a moment_) You make it--hard +for me. (_with exasperation_) Don't you think I'd like to indulge myself +in an exalted mood? And why don't I? I can't afford it--not now. Won't +you have a little patience? And faith--faith that the thing we want will +be there for us after we've worked our way through the woods. We are in +the woods now. It's going to take our combined brains to get us out. I +don't mean just Morton College. + +HOLDEN: No--America. As to getting out, I think you are all wrong. + +FEJEVARY: That's one of your sweeping statements, Holden. Nobody's all +wrong. Even you aren't. + +HOLDEN: And in what ways am I wrong--from the standpoint of your Senator +Lewis? + +FEJEVARY: He's not my Senator Lewis, he's the state's, and we have to +take him as he is. Why, he objects, of course, to your radical +activities. He spoke of your defence of conscientious objectors. + +HOLDEN: (_slowly_) I think a man who is willing to go to prison for what +he believes has stuff in him no college needs turn its back on. + +FEJEVARY: Well, he doesn't agree with you--nor do I. + +HOLDEN: (_still quietly_) And I think a society which permits things to +go on which I can prove go on in our federal prisons had better stop and +take a fresh look at itself. To stand for that and then talk of +democracy and idealism--oh, it shows no mentality, for one thing. + +FEJEVARY: (_easily_) I presume the prisons do need a cleaning up. As to +Fred Jordan, you can't expect me to share your admiration. Our own +Fred--my nephew Fred Morton, went to France and gave his life. There's +some little courage, Holden, in doing that. + +HOLDEN: I'm not trying to belittle it. But he had the whole spirit of +his age with him--fortunate boy. The man who stands outside the idealism +of this time-- + +FEJEVARY: Takes a good deal upon himself, I should say. + +HOLDEN: There isn't any other such loneliness. You know in your heart +it's a noble courage. + +FEJEVARY: It lacks--humility. (HOLDEN _laughs scoffingly_) And I think +you lack it. I'm asking you to co-operate with me for the good of Morton +College. + +HOLDEN: Why not do it the other way? You say enlarge that we may grow. +That's false. It isn't of the nature of growth. Why not do it the way of +Silas Morton and Walt Whitman--each man being his purest and intensest +self. I was full of this fervour when you came in. I'm more and more +disappointed in our students. They're empty--flippant. No sensitive +moment opens them to beauty. No exaltation makes them--what they hadn't +known they were. I concluded some of the fault must be mine. The only +students I reach are the Hindus. Perhaps Madeline Morton--I don't quite +make her out. I too must have gone into a dead stratum. But I can get +back. Here alone this afternoon--(_softly_) I was back. + +FEJEVARY: I think we'll have to let the Hindus go. + +HOLDEN: (_astonished_) Go? Our best students? + +FEJEVARY: This college is for Americans. I'm not going to have foreign +revolutionists come here and block the things I've spent my life working +for. + +HOLDEN: I don't seem to know what you mean at all. + +FEJEVARY: Why, that disgraceful performance this morning. I can settle +Madeline all right, (_looking at his watch_) She should be here by now. +But I'm convinced our case before the legislature will be stronger with +the Hindus out of here. + +HOLDEN: Well, I seem to have missed something--disgraceful +performance--the Hindus, Madeline--(_stops, bewildered_) + +FEJEVARY: You mean to say you don't know about the disturbance out here? + +HOLDEN: I went right home after the address. Then came up here alone. + +FEJEVARY: Upon my word, you do lead a serene life. While you've been +sitting here in contemplation I've been to the police court--trying to +get my niece out of jail. That's what comes of having radicals around. + +HOLDEN: What happened? + +FEJEVARY: One of our beloved Hindus made himself obnoxious on the +campus. Giving out handbills about freedom for India--howling over +deportation. Our American boys wouldn't stand for it. A policeman saw +the fuss--came up and started to put the Hindu in his place. Then +Madeline rushes in, and it ended in her pounding the policeman with her +tennis racket. + +HOLDEN: Madeline Morton did that! + +FEJEVARY: (_sharply_) You seem pleased. + +HOLDEN: I am--interested. + +FEJEVARY: Well, I'm not interested. I'm disgusted. My niece mixing up in +a free-for-all fight and getting taken to the police station! It's the +first disgrace we've ever had in our family. + +HOLDEN: (_as one who has been given courage_) Wasn't there another +disgrace? + +FEJEVARY: What do you mean? + +HOLDEN: When your father fought his government and was banished from his +country. + +FEJEVARY: That was not a disgrace! + +HOLDEN: (_as if in surprise_) Wasn't it? + +FEJEVARY: See here, Holden, you can't talk to me like that. + +HOLDEN: I don't admit you can talk to me as you please and that I can't +talk to you. I'm a professor--not a servant. + +FEJEVARY: Yes, and you're a damned difficult professor. I certainly have +tried to-- + +HOLDEN: (_smiling_) Handle me? + +FEJEVARY: I ask you this. Do you know any other institution where you +could sit and talk with the executive head as you have here with me? + +HOLDEN: I don't know. Perhaps not. + +FEJEVARY: Then be reasonable. No one is entirely free. That's naive. +It's rather egotistical to want to be. We're held by our relations to +others--by our obligations to the (_vaguely_)--the ultimate thing. Come +now--you admit certain dissatisfactions with yourself, so--why not go +with intensity into just the things you teach--and not touch quite so +many other things? + +HOLDEN: I couldn't teach anything if I didn't feel free to go wherever +that thing took me. Thirty years ago I was asked to come to this college +precisely because my science was not in isolation, because of my vivid +feeling of us as a moment in a long sweep, because of my faith in the +greater beauty our further living may unfold. + +(HARRY _enters_.) + +HARRY: Excuse me. Miss Morton is here now, Mr Fejevary. + +FEJEVARY: (_frowns, hesitates_) Ask her to come up here in five minutes +(_After_ HARRY _has gone_) I think we've thrown a scare into Madeline. I +thought as long as she'd been taken to jail it would be no worse for us +to have her stay there awhile. She's been held since one o'clock. That +ought to teach her reason. + +HOLDEN: Is there a case against her? + +FEJEVARY: No, I got it fixed up. Explained that it was just college girl +foolishness--wouldn't happen again. One reason I wanted this talk with +you first, if I do have any trouble with Madeline I want you to help me. + +HOLDEN: Oh, I can't do that. + +FEJEVARY: You aren't running out and clubbing the police. Tell her +she'll have to think things over and express herself with a little more +dignity. + +HOLDEN: I ask to be excused from being present while you talk with her. + +FEJEVARY: But why not stay in the library--in case I should need you. +Just take your books over to the east alcove and go on with what you +were doing when I came in. + +HOLDEN: (_with a faint smile_) I fear I can hardly do that. As to +Madeline-- + +FEJEVARY: You don't want to see the girl destroy herself, do you? I +confess I've always worried about Madeline. If my sister had lived--But +Madeline's mother died, you know, when she was a baby. Her father--well, +you and I talked that over just the other day--there's no getting to +him. Fred never worried me a bit--just the fine normal boy. But +Madeline--(_with an effort throwing it off_) Oh, it'll be all right, I +haven't a doubt. And it'll be all right between you and me, won't it? +Caution over a hard strip of the road, then--bigger things ahead. + +HOLDEN: (_slowly, knowing what it may mean_) I shall continue to do all +I can toward getting Fred Jordan out of prison. It's a disgrace to +America that two years after the war closes he should be kept +there--much of the time in solitary confinement--because he couldn't +believe in war. It's small--vengeful--it's the Russia of the Czars. I +shall do what is in my power to fight the deportation of Gurkul Singh. +And certainly I shall leave no stone unturned if you persist in your +amazing idea of dismissing the other Hindus from college. For what--I +ask you? Dismissed--for _what_? Because they love liberty enough to give +their lives to it! The day you dismiss them, burn our high-sounding +manifesto, Mr Fejevary, and admit that Morton College now sells her soul +to the--committee on appropriations! + +FEJEVARY: Well, you force me to be as specific as you are. If you do +these things, I can no longer fight for you. + +HOLDEN: Very well then, I go. + +FEJEVARY: Go where? + +HOLDEN: I don't know--at the moment. + +FEJEVARY: I fear you'll find it harder than you know. Meanwhile, what of +your family? + +HOLDEN: We will have to manage some way. + +FEJEVARY: It is not easy for a woman whose health--in fact, whose +life--is a matter of the best of care to 'manage some way'. (_with real +feeling_) What is an intellectual position alongside that reality? You'd +like, of course, to be just what you want to be--but isn't there +something selfish in that satisfaction? I'm talking as a friend now--you +must know that. You and I have a good many ties, Holden. I don't believe +you know how much Mrs Fejevary thinks of Mrs Holden. + +HOLDEN: She has been very, very good to her. + +FEJEVARY: And will be. She cares for her. And our children have been +growing up together--I love to watch it. Isn't that the reality? Doing +for them as best we can, making sacrifices of--of _every_ kind. Don't +let some tenuous, remote thing destroy this flesh and blood thing. + +HOLDEN: (_as one fighting to keep his head above water_) Honesty is not +a tenuous, remote thing. + +FEJEVARY: There's a kind of honesty in selfishness. We can't always have +it. Oh, I used to--go through things. But I've struck a pace--one +does--and goes ahead. + +HOLDEN: Forgive me, but I don't think you've had certain temptations +to--selfishness. + +FEJEVARY: How do you know what I've had? You have no way of knowing +what's in me--what other thing I might have been? You know my heritage; +you think that's left nothing? But I find myself here in America. I love +those dependent on me. My wife--who's used to a certain manner of +living; my children--who are to become part of the America of their +time. I've never said this to another human being--I've never looked at +myself--but it's pretty arrogant to think you're the only man who has +made a sacrifice to fit himself into the age in which he lives. I hear +Madeline. This hasn't left me in very good form for talking with her. +Please don't go away. Just-- + +(MADELINE _comes in, right. She has her tennis racket. Nods to the two +men_. HOLDEN _goes out, left_.) + +MADELINE: (_looking after_ HOLDEN--_feeling something going on. Then +turning to her uncle, who is still looking after_ HOLDEN) You wanted to +speak to me, Uncle Felix? + +FEJEVARY: Of course I want to speak to you. + +MADELINE: I feel just awfully sorry about--banging up my racket like +this. The second time it came down on this club. Why do they carry those +things? Perfectly fantastic, I'll say, going around with a club. But as +long as you were asking me what I wanted for my birthday-- + +FEJEVARY: Madeline, I am not here to discuss your birthday. + +MADELINE: I'm sorry--(_smiles_) to hear that. + +FEJEVARY: You don't seem much chastened. + +MADELINE: Chastened? Was that the idea? Well, if you think that keeping +a person where she doesn't want to be chastens her! I never felt less +'chastened' than when I walked out of that slimy spot and looked across +the street at your nice bank. I should think you'd hate to--(_with +friendly concern_) Why, Uncle Felix, you look tired out. + +FEJEVARY: I am tired out, Madeline. I've had a nerve-racking day. + +MADELINE: Isn't that too bad? Those speeches were so boresome, and that +old senator person--wasn't he a stuff? But can't you go home now and let +auntie give you tea and-- + +FEJEVARY: (_sharply_) Madeline, have you no intelligence? Hasn't it +occurred to you that your performance would worry me a little? + +MADELINE: I suppose it was a nuisance. And on such a busy day. +(_changing_) But if you're going to worry, Horace is the one you should +worry about. (_answering his look_) Why, he got it all up. He made me +ashamed! + +FEJEVARY: And you're not at all ashamed of what you have done? + +MADELINE: Ashamed? Why--no. + +FEJEVARY: Then you'd better be! A girl who rushes in and assaults an +officer! + +MADELINE: (_earnestly explaining it_) But, Uncle Felix, I had to stop +him. No one else did. + +FEJEVARY: Madeline, I don't know whether you're trying to be naive-- + +MADELINE: (_angrily_) Well, I'm _not_. I like that! I think I'll go +home. + +FEJEVARY: I think you will not! It's stupid of you not to know this is +serious. You could be dismissed from school for what you did. + +MADELINE: Well, I'm good and ready to be dismissed from any school that +would dismiss for that! + +FEJEVARY: (_in a new manner--quietly, from feeling_) Madeline, have you +no love for this place? + +MADELINE: (_doggedly, after thinking_) Yes, I have. (_she sits down_) +And I don't know why I have. + +FEJEVARY: Certainly it's not strange. If ever a girl had a background, +Morton College is Madeline Fejevary Morton's background. (_he too now +seated by the table_) Do you remember your Grandfather Morton? + +MADELINE: Not very well. (_a quality which seems sullenness_) I couldn't +bear to look at him. He shook so. + +FEJEVARY: (_turning away, real pain_) Oh--how cruel! + +MADELINE: (_surprised, gently_) Cruel? Me--cruel? + +FEJEVARY: Not just you. The way it passes--(_to himself_) so _fast_ it +passes. + +MADELINE: I'm sorry. (_troubled_) You see, he was too old then-- + +FEJEVARY: (_his hand up to stop her_) I wish I could bring him back for +a moment, so you could see what he was before he (_bitterly_) shook so. +He was a powerful man, who was as real as the earth. He was strangely of +the earth, as if something went from it to him. (_looking at her +intently_) Queer you should be the one to have no sentiment about him, +for you and he--sometimes when I'm with you it's as if--he were near. He +had no personal ambition, Madeline. He was ambitious for the earth and +its people. I wonder if you can realize what it meant to my father--in a +strange land, where he might so easily have been misunderstood, pushed +down, to find a friend like that? It wasn't so much the material +things--though Uncle Silas was always making them right--and as if--oh, +hardly conscious what he was doing--so little it mattered. It was the +way he _got_ father, and by that very valuing kept alive what was there +to value. Why, he literally laid this country at my father's feet--as if +that was what this country was for, as if it made up for the hard early +things--for the wrong things. + +MADELINE: He must really have been a pretty nice old party. No doubt I +would have hit it off with him all right. I don't seem to hit it off +with the--speeches about him. Somehow I want to say, 'Oh, give us a +rest.' + +FEJEVARY: (_offended_) And that, I presume, is what you want to say to +me. + +MADELINE: No, no, I didn't mean you, Uncle. Though (_hesitatingly_) I +was wondering how you could think you were talking on your side. + +FEJEVARY: What do you mean--my side? + +MADELINE: Oh, I don't--exactly. That's nice about him being--of the +earth. Sometimes when I'm out for a tramp--way off by myself--yes, I +know. And I wonder if that doesn't explain his feeling about the +Indians. Father told me how grandfather took it to heart about the +Indians. + +FEJEVARY: He felt it as you'd feel it if it were your brother. So he +must give his choicest land to the thing we might become. 'Then maybe I +can lie under the same sod with the red boys and not be ashamed.' + +(MADELINE _nods, appreciatively_.) + +MADELINE: Yes, that's really--all right. + +FEJEVARY: (_irritated by what seems charily stated approval_) 'All +right!' Well, I am not willing to let this man's name pass from our +time. And it seems rather bitter that Silas Morton's granddaughter +should be the one to stand in my way. + +MADELINE: Why, Uncle Felix, I'm not standing in your way. Of course I +wouldn't do that. I--(_rather bashfully_) I love the Hill. I was +thinking about it in jail. I got fuddled on direction in there, so I +asked the woman who hung around which way was College Hill. 'Right +through there', she said. A blank wall. I sat and looked through that +wall--long time. (_she looks front, again looking through that blank +wall_) It was all--kind of funny. Then later she came and told me you +were out there, and I thought it was corking of you to come and tell +them they couldn't put that over on College Hill. And I know Bakhshish +will appreciate it too. I wonder where he went? + +FEJEVARY: Went? I fancy he won't go much of anywhere to-night. + +MADELINE: What do you mean? + +FEJEVARY: Why, he's held for this hearing, of course. + +MADELINE: You mean--you came and got just me--and left him there? + +FEJEVARY: Certainly. + +MADELINE: (_rising_) Then I'll have to go and get him! + +FEJEVARY: Madeline, don't be so absurd. You don't get people out of jail +by stopping in and calling for them. + +MADELINE: But you got me. + +FEJEVARY: Because of years of influence. At that, it wasn't simple. +Things of this nature are pretty serious nowadays. It was only your +ignorance got you out. + +MADELINE: I do seem ignorant. While you were fixing it up for me, why +didn't you arrange for him too? + +FEJEVARY: Because I am not in the business of getting foreign +revolutionists out of jail. + +MADELINE: But he didn't do as much as I did. + +FEJEVARY: It isn't what he did. It's what he is. We don't want him here. + +MADELINE: Well, I guess I'm not for that! + +FEJEVARY: May I ask why you have appointed yourself guardian of these +strangers? + +MADELINE: Perhaps because they are strangers. + +FEJEVARY: Well, they're the wrong kind of strangers. + +MADELINE: Is it true that the Hindu who was here last year is to be +deported? Is America going to turn him over to the government he fought? + +FEJEVARY: I have an idea they will all be deported. I'm not so sorry +this thing happened. It will get them into the courts--and I don't think +they have money to fight. + +MADELINE: (_giving it clean and straight_) Gee, I think that's rotten! + +FEJEVARY: Quite likely your inelegance will not affect it one way or the +other. + +MADELINE: (_she has taken her seat again, is thinking it out_) I'm +twenty-one next Tuesday. Isn't it on my twenty-first birthday I get that +money Grandfather Morton left me? + +FEJEVARY: What are you driving at? + +MADELINE: (_simply_) They can have my money. + +FEJEVARY: Are you crazy? What _are_ these people to you? + +MADELINE: They're people from the other side of the world who came here +believing in us, drawn from the far side of the world by things we say +about ourselves. Well, I'm going to pretend--just for fun--that the +things we say about ourselves are true. So if you'll--arrange so I can +get it, Uncle Felix, as soon as it's mine. + +FEJEVARY: And this is what you say to me at the close of my years of +trusteeship! If you could know how I've nursed that little legacy +along--until now it is--(_breaking off in anger_) I shall not permit you +to destroy yourself! + +MADELINE: (_quietly_) I don't see how you can keep me from 'destroying +myself'. + +FEJEVARY: (_looking at her, seeing that this may be true. In genuine +amazement, and hurt_) Why--but it's incredible. Have I--has my +house--been nothing to you all these years? + +MADELINE: I've had my best times at your house. Things wouldn't have +been--very gay for me--without you all--though Horace gets my goat! + +FEJEVARY: And does your Aunt Isabel--'get your goat'? + +MADELINE: I love auntie. (_rather resentfully_) You know that. What has +that got to do with it? + +FEJEVARY: So you are going to use Silas Morton's money to knife his +college. + +MADELINE: Oh, Uncle Felix, that's silly. + +FEJEVARY: It's a long way from silly. You know a little about what I'm +trying to do--this appropriation that would assure our future. If Silas +Morton's granddaughter casts in her lot with revolutionists, Morton +College will get no help from the state. Do you know enough about what +you are doing to assume this responsibility? + +MADELINE: I am not casting 'in my lot with revolutionists'. If it's +true, as you say, that you have to have money in order to get justice-- + +FEJEVARY: I didn't say it! + +MADELINE: Why, you did, Uncle Felix. You said so. And if it's true that +these strangers in our country are going to be abused because they're +poor,--what else could I do with my money and not feel like a skunk? + +FEJEVARY: (_trying a different tack, laughing_) Oh, you're a romantic +girl, Madeline--skunk and all. Rather nice, at that. But the thing is +perfectly fantastic, from every standpoint. You speak as if you had +millions. And if you did, it wouldn't matter, not really. You are going +against the spirit of this country; with or without money, that can't be +done. Take a man like Professor Holden. He's radical in his +sympathies--but does he run out and club the police? + +MADELINE: (_in a smouldering way_) I thought America was a democracy. + +FEJEVARY: We have just fought a great war for democracy. + +MADELINE: Well, is that any reason for not having it? + +FEJEVARY: I should think you would have a little emotion about the +war--about America--when you consider where your brother is. + +MADELINE: Fred had--all kinds of reasons for going to France. He wanted +a trip. (_answering his exclamation_) Why, he _said_ so. Heavens, Fred +didn't make speeches about himself. Wanted to see Paris--poor kid, he +never did see Paris. Wanted to be with a lot of fellows--knock the +Kaiser's block off--end war, get a French girl. It was all mixed up--the +way things are. But Fred was a pretty decent sort. I'll say so. He had +such kind, honest eyes. (_this has somehow said itself; her own eyes +close and what her shut eyes see makes feeling hot_) One thing I do +know! Fred never went over the top and out to back up the argument +you're making now! + +FEJEVARY: (_stiffly_) Very well, I will discontinue the argument I'm +making now. I've been trying to save you from--pretty serious things. +The regret of having stood in the way of Morton College--(_his voice +falling_) the horror of having driven your father insane. + +MADELINE: _What?_ + +FEJEVARY: One more thing would do it. Just the other day I was talking +with Professor Holden about your father. His idea of him relates back to +the pioneer life--another price paid for this country. The lives back of +him were too hard. Your great-grandmother Morton--the first white woman +in this region--she dared too much, was too lonely, feared and bore too +much. They did it, for the task gave them a courage for the task. But +it--left a scar. + +MADELINE: And father is that--(_can hardly say it_)--scar. (_fighting +the idea_) But Grandfather Morton was not like that. + +FEJEVARY: No; he had the vision of the future; he was robust with +feeling for others. (_gently_) But Holden feels your father is +the--dwarfed pioneer child. The way he concentrates on corn--excludes +all else--as if unable to free himself from their old battle with the +earth. + +MADELINE: (_almost crying_) I think it's pretty terrible to--wish all +that on poor father. + +FEJEVARY: Well, my dear child, it's life has 'wished it on him'. It's +just one other way of paying the price for his country. We needn't get +it for nothing. I feel that all our chivalry should go to your father in +his--heritage of loneliness. + +MADELINE: Father couldn't always have been--dwarfed. Mother wouldn't +have cared for him if he had always been--like that. + +FEJEVARY: No, if he could have had love to live in. But no endurance for +losing it. Too much had been endured just before life got to him. + +MADELINE: Do you know, Uncle Felix--I'm afraid that's true? (_he nods_) +Sometimes when I'm with father I feel those things near--the--the too +much--the too hard,--feel them as you'd feel the cold. And now that it's +different--easier--he can't come into the world that's been earned. Oh, +I wish I could help him! + +(_As they sit there together, now for the first time really together, +there is a shrill shout of derision from outside_.) + +MADELINE: What's that? (_a whistled call_) Horace! That's Horace's call. +That's for his gang. Are they going to start something now that will get +Atma in jail? + +FEJEVARY: More likely he's trying to start something. (_they are both +listening intently_) I don't think our boys will stand much more. + +(_A scoffing whoop_. MADELINE _springs to the window; he reaches it +ahead and holds it_.) + +FEJEVARY: This window stays closed. + +(_She starts to go away, he takes hold of her_.) + +MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here? + +FEJEVARY: Listen, Madeline--plain, straight truth. If you go out there +and get in trouble a second time, I can't make it right for you. + +MADELINE: You needn't! + +FEJEVARY: You don't know what it means. These things are not child's +play--not today. You could get twenty years in prison for things you'll +say if you rush out there now. (_she laughs_) You laugh because you're +ignorant. Do you know that in America today there are women in our +prisons for saying no more than you've said here to me! + +MADELINE: Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself! + +FEJEVARY: I? Ashamed of myself? + +MADELINE: Yes! Aren't you an American? (_a whistle_) Isn't that a +policeman's whistle? Are they coming back? Are they hanging around here +to--(_pulling away from her uncle as he turns to look, she jumps up in +the deep sill and throws open the window. Calling down_) +Here--Officer--_You_--Let that boy alone! + +FEJEVARY: (_going left, calling sharply_) Holden. Professor +Holden--here--quick! + +VOICE: (_coming up from below, outside_) Who says so? + +MADELINE: I say so! + +VOICE: And who are you talking for? + +MADELINE: I am talking for Morton College! + +FEJEVARY: (_returning--followed, reluctantly, by_ HOLDEN) Indeed you are +not. Close that window or you'll be expelled from Morton College. + +(_Sounds of a growing crowd outside_.) + +VOICE: Didn't I see you at the station? + +MADELINE: Sure you saw me at the station. And you'll see me there again, +if you come bullying around here. You're not what this place is for! +(_her uncle comes up behind, right, and tries to close the window--she +holds it out_) My grandfather gave this hill to Morton College--a place +where anybody--from any land--can come and say what he believes to be +true! Why, you poor simp--this is America! Beat it from here! Atna! +Don't let him take hold of you like that! He has no right to--Oh, let me +_down_ there! + +(_Springs down, would go off right, her uncle spreads out his arms to +block that passage. She turns to go the other way_.) + +FEJEVARY: Holden! Bring her to her senses. Stand there. (HOLDEN _has not +moved from the place he entered, left, and so blocks the doorway_) Don't +let her pass. + +(_Shouts of derision outside_.) + +MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here--with that going on out +there? (_Moves nearer_ HOLDEN, _stands there before him, taut, looking +him straight in the eye. After a moment, slowly, as one compelled, he +steps aside for her to pass. Sound of her running footsteps. The two +men's eyes meet. A door slams_.) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +ACT IV + + +SCENE: _At the_ MORTON _place, the same room in which_ SILAS MORTON +_told his friend_ FELIX FEJEVARY _of his plan for the hill. The room has +not altogether changed since that day in 1879. The table around which +they dreamed for the race is in its old place. One of the old chairs is +there, the other two are modern chairs. In a corner is the rocker in +which_ GRANDMOTHER MORTON _sat. This is early afternoon, a week after +the events of Act II_. + +MADELINE _is sitting at the table, in her hand a torn, wrinkled piece of +brown paper-peering at writing almost too fine to read. After a moment +her hand goes out to a beautiful dish on the table--an old dish of +coloured Hungarian glass. She is about to take something from this, but +instead lets her hand rest an instant on the dish itself Then turns and +through the open door looks out at the hill, sitting where her_ +GRANDFATHER MORTON _sat when he looked out at the hill._ + +_Her father_, IRA MORTON, _appears outside, walking past the window, +left. He enters, carrying a grain sack, partly filled. He seems hardly +aware of_ MADELINE, _but taking a chair near the door, turned from her, +opens the sack and takes out a couple of ears of corn. As he is bent +over them, examining in a shrewd, greedy way_, MADELINE _looks at that +lean, tormented, rather desperate profile, the look of one confirming a +thing she fears. Then takes up her piece of paper_. + +MADELINE: Do you remember Fred Jordan, father? Friend of our Fred--and +of mine? + +IRA: (_not wanting to take his mind from the corn_) No. I don't remember +him. (_his voice has that timbre of one not related to others_) + +MADELINE: He's in prison now. + +IRA: Well I can't help that. (_after taking out another ear_) This is +the best corn I ever had. (_he says it gloatingly to himself_) + +MADELINE: He got this letter out to me--written on this scrap of paper. +They don't give him paper. (_peering_) Written so fine I can hardly read +it. He's in what they call 'the hold', father--a punishment cell. (_with +difficulty reading it_) It's two and a half feet at one end, three feet +at the other, and six feet long. He'd been there ten days when he wrote +this. He gets two slices of bread a day; he gets water; that's all he +gets. This because he balled the deputy warden out for chaining another +prisoner up by the wrists. + +IRA: Well, he'd better a-minded his own business. And you better mind +yours. I've got no money to spend in the courts. (_with excitement_) +I'll not mortgage this farm! It's been clear since the day my father's +father got it from the government--and it stays clear--till I'm gone. It +grows the best corn in the state--best corn in the Mississippi Valley. +Not for _anything_--you hear me?--would I mortgage this farm my father +handed down to me. + +MADELINE: (_hurt_) Well, father, I'm not asking you to. + +IRA: Then go and see your Uncle Felix. Make it up with him. He'll help +you--if you say you're sorry. + +MADELINE: I'll not go to Uncle Felix. + +IRA: Who will you go to then? (_pause_) Who will help you then? (_again +he waits_) You come before this United States Commissioner with no one +behind you, he'll hold you for the grand jury. Judge Watkins told Felix +there's not a doubt of it. You know what that means? It means you're on +your way to a cell. Nice thing for a Morton, people who've had their own +land since we got it from the Indians. What's the matter with your +uncle? Ain't he always been good to you? I'd like to know what things +would 'a' been for you without Felix and Isabel and all their friends. +You want to think a little. You like good times too well to throw all +that away. + +MADELINE: I do like good times. So does Fred Jordan like good times. +(_smooths the wrinkled paper_) I don't know anybody--unless it is +myself--loves to be out, as he does. (_she tries to look out, but +cannot; sits very still, seeing what it is pain to see. Rises, goes to +that corner closet, the same one from which_ SILAS MORTON _took the deed +to the hill. She gets a yard stick, looks in a box and finds a piece of +chalk. On the floor she marks off_ FRED JORDAN'S _cell. Slowly, at the +end left unchalked, as for a door, she goes in. Her hand goes up as +against a wall; looks at her other hand, sees it is out too far, brings +it in, giving herself the width of the cell. Walks its length, halts, +looks up_.) And one window--too high up to see out. + +(_In the moment she stands there, she is in that cell; she is all the +people who are in those cells_. EMIL JOHNSON _appears from outside; he +is the young man brought up on a farm, a crudely Americanized Swede_.) + +MADELINE: (_stepping out of the cell door, and around it_) Hello, Emil. + +EMIL: How are you, Madeline? How do, Mr Morton. (IRA _barely nods and +does not turn. In an excited manner he begins gathering up the corn he +has taken from the sack_. EMIL _turns back to_ MADELINE) Well, I'm just +from the courthouse. Looks like you and I might take a ride together, +Madeline. You come before the Commissioner at four. + +IRA: What have you got to do with it? + +MADELINE: Oh, Emil has a courthouse job now, father. He's part of the +law. + +IRA: Well, he's not going to take you to the law! Anybody else--not Emil +Johnson! + +MADELINE: (_astonished--and gently, to make up for his rudeness_) +Why--father, why not Emil? Since I'm going, I think it's nice to go in +with someone I know--with a neighbour like Emil. + +IRA: If _this_ is what he lived for! If this is why-- + +(_He twists the ear of corn until some of the kernels drip off_. +MADELINE _and_ EMIL _look at one another in bewilderment_.) + +EMIL: It's too bad anybody has to take Madeline in. I should think your +uncle could fix it up. (_low_) And with your father taking it like +this--(_to help_ IRA) That's fine corn, Mr Morton. My corn's getting +better all the time, but I'd like to get some of this for seed. + +IRA: (_rising and turning on him_) You get my corn? I raise this corn +for you? (_not to them--his mind now going where it is shut off from any +other mind_) If I could make the _wind_ stand still! I want to _turn the +wind around_. + +MADELINE: (_going to him_) Why--father. I don't understand at all. + +IRA: Don't understand. Nobody understands. (_a curse with a sob in it_) +God damn the wind! + +(_Sits down, his back to them_.) + +EMIL: (_after a silence_) Well, I'll go. (_but he continues to look at_ +IRA, _who is holding the sack of com shut, as if someone may take it_) +Too bad--(_stopped by a sign from_ MADELINE, _not to speak of it_) Well, +I was saying, I have go on to Beard's Crossing. I'll stop for you on my +way back. (_confidentially_) Couldn't you telephone your uncle? He could +do something. You don't know what you're going up against. You heard +what the Hindus got, I suppose. + +MADELINE: No. I haven't seen anyone to-day. + +EMIL: They're held for the grand jury. They're locked up now. No bail +for them. I've got the inside dope about them. They're going to get what +this country can hand 'em; then after we've given them a nice little +taste of prison life in America, they're going to be sent back home--to +see what India can treat them to. + +MADELINE: Why are you so pleased about this, Emil? + +EMIL: Pleased? It's nothin' to me--I'm just telling you. Guess you don't +know much about the Espionage Act or you'd go and make a little friendly +call on your uncle. When your case comes to trial--and Judge Lenon may +be on the bench--(_whistles_) He's one fiend for Americanism. But if +your uncle was to tell the right parties that you're just a girl, and +didn't realize what you were saying-- + +MADELINE: I did realize what I was saying, and every word you've just +said makes me know I meant what I said. I said if this was what our +country has come to, then I'm not for our country. I said that--and +a-plenty more--and I'll say it again! + +EMIL: Well--gee, you don't know what it means. + +MADELINE: I do know what it means, but it means not being a coward. + +EMIL: Oh, well--Lord, you can't say everything you think. If everybody +did that, things'd be worse off than they are now. + +MADELINE: Once in a while you have to say what you think--or hate +yourself. + +EMIL: (_with a grin_) Then hate yourself. + +MADELINE: (_smiling too_) No thank you; it spoils my fun. + +EMIL: Well, look-a-here, Madeline, aren't you spoiling your fun now? +You're a girl who liked to be out. Ain't I seen you from our place, with +this one and that one, sometimes all by yourself, strikin' out over the +country as if you was crazy about it? How'd you like to be where you +couldn't even see out? + +MADELINE: (_a step nearer the cell_) There oughtn't to be such places. + +EMIL: Oh, well--Jesus, if you're going to talk about that--! You can't +change the way things are. + +MADELINE: (_quietly_) Why can't I? + +EMIL: Well, say, who do you think you are? + +MADELINE: I think I'm an American. And for that reason I think I have +something to say about America. + +EMIL: Huh! America'll lock you up for your pains. + +MADELINE: All right. If it's come to that, maybe I'd rather be a +locked-up American than a free American. + +EMIL: I don't think you'd like the place, Madeline. There's not much +tennis played there. Jesus--what's Hindus? + +MADELINE: You aren't really asking Jesus, are you, Emil? (_smiles_) You +mightn't like his answer. + +EMIL: (_from the door_) Take a tip. Telephone your uncle. + +(_He goes_.) + +IRA: (_not looking at her_) There might be a fine, and they'd come down +on me and take my land. + +MADELINE: Oh, no, father, I think not. Anyway, I have a little money of +my own. Grandfather Morton left me something. Have you forgotten that? + +IRA: No. No, I know he left you something. (_the words seem to bother +him_) I know he left you something. + +MADELINE: I get it to-day. (_wistfully_) This is my birthday, father. +I'm twenty-one. + +IRA: Your birthday? Twenty-one? (_in pain_) Was that twenty-one years +ago? (_it is not to his daughter this has turned him_) + +MADELINE: It's the first birthday I can remember that I haven't had a +party. + +IRA: It was your Aunt Isabel gave you your parties. + +MADELINE: Yes. + +IRA: Well, you see now. + +MADELINE: (_stoutly_) Oh, well, I don't need a party. I'm grown up now. + +(_She reaches out for the old Hungarian dish on the table; holding it, +she looks to her father, whose back is still turned. Her face tender, +she is about to speak when he speaks_.) + +IRA: Grown up now--and going off and leaving me alone. You too--the last +one. And--_what for? (turning, looking around the room as for those long +gone_) There used to be so many in this house. My grandmother. She sat +there. (_pointing to the place near the open door_) Fine days like +this--in that chair (_points to the rocker_) she'd sit there--tell me +stories of the Indians. Father. It wasn't ever lonely where father was. +Then Madeline Fejevary--my Madeline came to this house. Lived with me in +this house. Then one day she--walked out of this house. Through that +door--through the field--out of this house. (_bitter silence_) Then +Fred--out of this house. Now you. With Emil Johnson! (_insanely, and +almost with relief at leaving things more sane_) Don't let him touch my +corn. If he touches one kernel of this corn! (_with the suspicion of the +tormented mind_) I wonder where he went? How do I know he went where he +_said_ he was going? (_getting up_) I dunno as that south bin's locked. + +MADELINE: Oh--father! + +IRA: I'll find out. How do I know what he's doing? + +(_He goes out, turning left_. MADELINE _goes to the window and looks +after him. A moment later, hearing someone at the door, she turns and +finds her_ AUNT ISABEL, _who has appeared from right. Goes swiftly to +her, hands out_.) + +MADELINE: Oh, _auntie_--I'm glad you came! It's my birthday, and +I'm--lonely. + +AUNT ISABEL: You dear little girl! (_again giving her a hug, which_ +MADELINE _returns, lovingly_) Don't I know it's your birthday? Don't +think that day will ever get by while your Aunt Isabel's around. Just +see what's here for your birthday. (_hands her the package she is +carrying_) + +MADELINE: (_with a gasp--suspecting from its shape_) Oh! (_her face +aglow_) Why--_is_ it? + +AUNT ISABEL: (_laughing affectionately_) Foolish child, open it and see. + +(MADELINE _loosens the paper and pulls out a tennis racket_.) + +MADELINE: (_excited, and moved_) Oh, aunt Isabel! that was dear of you. +I shouldn't have thought you'd--quite do that. + +AUNT ISABEL: I couldn't imagine Madeline without a racket. (_gathering +up the paper, lightly reproachful_) But be a little careful of it, +Madeline. It's meant for tennis balls. (_they laugh together_) + +MADELINE: (_making a return with it_) It's a _peach_. (_changing_) +Wonder where I'll play now. + +AUNT ISABEL: Why, you'll play on the courts at Morton College. Who has a +better right? + +MADELINE: Oh, I don't know. It's pretty much balled up, isn't it? + +AUNT ISABEL: Yes; we'll have to get it straightened out. (_gently_) It +was really dreadful of you, Madeline, to rush out a second time. It +isn't as if they were people who were anything to you. + +MADELINE: But, auntie, they are something to me. + +AUNT ISABEL: Oh, dear, that's what Horace said. + +MADELINE: What's what Horace said? + +AUNT ISABEL: That you must have a case on one of them. + +MADELINE: That's what Horace would say. That makes me sore! + +AUNT ISABEL: I'm sorry I spoke of it. Horace is absurd in some ways. + +MADELINE: He's a-- + +AUNT ISABEL: (_stopping it with her hand_) No, he isn't. He's a +headstrong boy, but a very loving one. He's dear with me, Madeline. + +MADELINE: Yes. You are good to each other. (_her eyes are drawn to the +cell_) + +AUNT ISABEL: Of course we are. We'd be a pretty poor sort if we weren't. +And these are days when we have to stand together--all of us who are the +same kind of people must stand together because the thing that makes us +the same kind of people is threatened. + +MADELINE: Don't you think we're rather threatening it ourselves, auntie? + +AUNT ISABEL: Why, no, we're fighting for it. + +MADELINE: Fighting for what? + +AUNT ISABEL: For Americanism; for--democracy. + +MADELINE: Horace is fighting for it? + +AUNT ISABEL: Well, Horace does go at it as if it were a football game, +but his heart's in the right place. + +MADELINE: Somehow, I don't seem to see my heart in that place. + +AUNT ISABEL: In what place? + +MADELINE: Where Horace's heart is. + +AUNT ISABEL: It's too bad you and Horace quarrel. But you and I don't +quarrel, Madeline. + +MADELINE: (_again drawn to the cell_) No. You and I don't quarrel. (_she +is troubled_) + +AUNT ISABEL: Funny child! Do you want us to? + +(MADELINE _turns, laughing a little, takes the dish from the table, +holds it out to her aunt_.) + +MADELINE: Have some fudge, auntie. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_taking the dish_) Do you _use_ them?--the old Hungarian +dishes? (_laughingly_) I'm not allowed to--your uncle is so choice of +the few pieces we have. And here are you with fudge in one of them. + +MADELINE: I made the fudge because--oh, I don't know, I had to do +something to celebrate my birthday. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_under her breath_) Dearie! + +MADELINE: And then that didn't seem to--make a birthday, so I happened +to see this, way up on a top shelf, and I remembered that it was my +mother's. It was nice to get it down and use it--almost as if mother was +giving me a birthday present. + +AUNT ISABEL: And how she would love to give you a birthday present. + +MADELINE: It was her mother's, I suppose, and they brought it from +Hungary. + +AUNT ISABEL: Yes. They brought only a very few things with them, and +left--oh, so many beautiful ones behind. + +MADELINE: (_quietly_) Rather nice of them, wasn't it? (_her aunt waits +inquiringly_) To leave their own beautiful things--their own beautiful +life behind--simply because they believed life should be more beautiful +for more people. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_with constraint_) Yes. (_gayly turning it_) Well, now, as +to the birthday. What do you suppose Sarah is doing this instant? +Putting red frosting on white frosting, (_writing it with her finger_) +Madeline. And what do you suppose Horace is doing? (_this a little +reproachfully_) Running around buying twenty-one red candles. +Twenty-two--one to grow on. Big birthday cake. Party to-night. + +MADELINE: But, auntie, I don't see how I can be there. + +AUNT ISABEL: Listen, dear. Now, we've got to use our wits and all pull +together. Of course we'd do anything in the world rather than see +you--left to outsiders. I've never seen your uncle as worried, +and--truly, Madeline, as sad. Oh, my dear, it's these human things that +count! What would life be without the love we have for each other? + +MADELINE: The love we have for each other? + +AUNT ISABEL: Why, yes, dearest. Don't turn away from me Madeline. +Don't--don't be strange. I wonder if you realize how your uncle has +worked to have life a happy thing for all of us? Be a little generous to +him. He's had this great burden of bringing something from another day +on into this day. It is not as simple as it may seem. He's done it as +best he could. It will hurt him as nothing has ever hurt him if you now +undo that work of his life. Truly, dear, do you feel you know enough +about it to do that? Another thing: people are a little absurd out of +their own places. We need to be held in our relationships--against our +background--or we are--I don't know--grotesque. Come now, Madeline, +where's your sense of humour? Isn't it a little absurd for you to leave +home over India's form of government? + +MADELINE: It's not India. It's America. A sense of humour is nothing to +hide behind! + +AUNT ISABEL: (_with a laugh_) I knew I wouldn't be a success at world +affairs--better leave that to Professor Holden. (_a quick keen look +from_ MADELINE) They've driven on to the river--they'll be back for me, +and then he wants to stop in for a visit with you while I take Mrs +Holden for a further ride. I'm worried about her. She doesn't gain +strength at all since her operation. I'm going to try keeping her out in +the air all I can. + +MADELINE: It's dreadful about families! + +AUNT ISABEL: Dreadful? Professor Holden's devotion to his wife is one of +the most beautiful things I've ever seen. + +MADELINE: And is that all you see it in? + +AUNT ISABEL: You mean the--responsibility it brings? Oh, well--that's +what life is. Doing for one another. Sacrificing for one another. + +MADELINE: I hope I never have a family. + +AUNT ISABEL: Well, I hope you do. You'll miss the best of life if you +don't. Anyway, you have a family. Where is your father? + +MADELINE: I don't know. + +AUNT ISABEL: I'd like to see him. + +MADELINE: There's no use seeing him today. + +AUNT ISABEL: He's--? + +MADELINE: Strange--shut in--afraid something's going to be taken from +him. + +AUNT ISABEL: Poor Ira. So much has been taken from him. And now you. +Don't hurt him again, Madeline. He can't bear it. You see what it does +to him. + +MADELINE: He has--the wrong idea about things. + +AUNT ISABEL: 'The wrong idea!' Oh, my child--that's awfully young and +hard. It's so much deeper than that. Life has made him into +something--something he can't escape. + +MADELINE: (_with what seems sullenness_) Well, I don't want to be made +into that thing. + +AUNT ISABEL: Of course not. But you want to help him, don't you? Now, +dear--about your birthday party-- + +MADELINE: The United States Commissioner is giving me my birthday party. + +AUNT ISABEL: Well, he'll have to put his party off. Your uncle has been +thinking it all out. We're to go to his office and you'll have a talk +with him and with Judge Watkins. He's off the state supreme bench +now--practising again, and as a favour to your uncle he will be your +lawyer. You don't know how relieved we are at this, for Judge Watkins +can do--anything he wants to do, practically. Then you and I will go on +home and call up some of the crowd to come in and dance to-night. We +have some beautiful new records. There's a Hungarian waltz-- + +MADELINE: And what's the price of all this, auntie? + +AUNT ISABEL: The--Oh, you mean--Why, simply say you felt sorry for the +Hindu students because they seemed rather alone; that you hadn't +realized--what they were, hadn't thought out what you were saying-- + +MADELINE: And that I'm sorry and will never do it again. + +AUNT ISABEL: I don't know that you need say that. It would be gracious, +I think, to indicate it. + +MADELINE: I'm sorry you--had the cake made. I suppose you can eat it, +anyway. I (_turning away_)--can't eat it. + +AUNT ISABEL: Why--Madeline. + +(_Seeing how she has hurt her_, MADELINE _goes out to her aunt_.) + +MADELINE: Auntie, dear! I'm sorry--if I hurt your feelings. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_quick to hold out a loving hand, laughing a little_) +They've been good birthday cakes, haven't they, Madeline? + +MADELINE: (_she now trying not to cry_) I don't know--what I'd have done +without them. Don't know--what I will do without them. I don't--see it. + +AUNT ISABEL: Don't try to. Please don't see it! Just let me go on +helping you. That's all I ask. (_she draws_ MADELINE _to her_) Ah, +dearie, I held you when you were a little baby without your mother. All +those years count for something, Madeline. There's just nothing to life +if years of love don't count for something. (_listening_) I think I hear +them. And here are we, weeping like two idiots. (MADELINE _brushes away +tears_, AUNT ISABEL _arranges her veil, regaining her usual poise_) +Professor Holden was hoping you'd take a tramp with him. Wouldn't that +do you good? Anyway, a talk with him will be nice. I know he admires you +immensely, and really--perhaps I shouldn't let you know +this--sympathizes with your feeling. So I think his maturer way of +looking at things will show you just the adjustment you need to become a +really big and useful person. There's so much to be done in the world, +Madeline. Of course we ought to make it a better world. (_in a manner of +agreement with_ MADELINE) I feel very strongly about all that. Perhaps +we can do some things together. I'd love that. Don't think I'm hopeless! +Way down deep we have the same feeling. Yes, here's Professor Holden. + +(HOLDEN _comes in. He seems older_.) + +HOLDEN: And how are you, Madeline? (_holding out his hand_) + +MADELINE: I'm--all right. + +HOLDEN: Many happy returns of the day. (_embarrassed by her half laugh_) +The birthday. + +AUNT ISABEL: And did you have a nice look up the river? + +HOLDEN: I never saw this country as lovely as it is to-day. Mary is just +drinking it in. + +AUNT ISABEL: You don't think the further ride will be too much? + +HOLDEN: Oh, no--not in that car. + +AUNT ISABEL: Then we'll go on--perhaps as far as Laughing Creek. If you +two decide on a tramp--take that road and we'll pick you up. (_smiling +warmly, she goes out_) + +HOLDEN: How good she is. + +MADELINE: Yes. That's just the trouble. + +HOLDEN: (_with difficulty getting past this_) How about a little tramp? +There'll never be another such day. + +MADELINE: I used to tramp with Fred Jordan. This is where he is now. +(_stepping inside the cell_) He doesn't even see out. + +HOLDEN: It's all wrong that he should be where he is. But for you to +stay indoors won't help him, Madeline. + +MADELINE: It won't help him, but--today--I can't go out. + +HOLDEN: I'm sorry, my child. When this sense of wrongs done first comes +down upon one, it does crush. + +MADELINE: And later you get used to it and don't care. + +HOLDEN: You care. You try not to destroy yourself needlessly. (_he turns +from her look_) + +MADELINE: Play safe. + +HOLDEN: If it's playing safe it's that one you love more than yourself +be safe. It would be a luxury to--destroy one's self. + +MADELINE: That sounds like Uncle Felix. (_seeing she has hurt him, she +goes over and sits across from him at the table_) I'm sorry. I say the +wrong things today. + +HOLDEN: I don't know that you do. + +MADELINE: But isn't uncle funny? His left mind doesn't know what his +right mind is doing. He has to think of himself as a person of +sentiment--idealism, and--quite a job, at times. Clever--how he gets +away with it. The war must have been a godsend to people who were in +danger of getting on to themselves. But I should think you could fool +all of yourself all the time. + +HOLDEN: You don't. (_he is rubbing his hand on the table_) + +MADELINE: Grandfather Morton made this table. I suppose he and +Grandfather Fejevary used to sit here and talk--they were great old +pals. (_slowly_ HOLDEN _turns and looks out at the hill_) Yes. How +beautiful the hill must have been--before there was a college there. +(_he looks away from the hill_) Did you know Grandfather Morton? + +HOLDEN: Yes, I knew him. (_speaking of it against his will_) I had a +wonderful talk with him once; about Greece--and the cornfields, and +life. + +MADELINE: I'd like to have been a pioneer! Some ways they had it fierce, +but think of the fun they had! A whole big land to open up! A big new +life to begin! (_her hands closing in from wideness to a smaller thing_) +Why did so much get shut out? Just a little way back--anything might +have been. What happened? + +HOLDEN: (_speaking with difficulty_) It got--set too soon. + +MADELINE: (_all of her mind open, trying to know_) And why did it? +Prosperous, I suppose. That seems to set things--set them in fear. Silas +Morton wasn't afraid of Felix Fejevary, the Hungarian revolutionist. He +laid this country at that refugee's feet! That's what Uncle Felix says +himself--with the left half of his mind. Now--the Hindu +revolutionists--! (_pause_) I took a walk late yesterday afternoon. +Night came, and for some reason I thought of how many nights have +come--nights the earth has known long before we knew the earth. The moon +came up and I thought of how moonlight made this country beautiful +before any man knew that moonlight was beautiful. It gave me a feeling +of coming from something a long way back. Moving toward--what will be +here when I'm not here. Moving. We seem here, now, in America, to have +forgotten we're moving. Think it's just _us_--just now. Of course, that +would make us afraid, and--ridiculous. + +(_Her father comes in_.) + +IRA: Your Aunt Isabel--did she go away--and leave you? + +MADELINE: She's coming back. + +IRA: For you? + +MADELINE: She--wants me to go with her. This is Professor Holden, +father. + +HOLDEN: How do you do, Mr Morton? + +IRA: (_nods, not noticing_ HOLDEN_'s offered hand_) How'do. When is she +coming back? + +MADELINE: Soon. + +IRA: And then you're going with her? + +MADELINE: I--don't know. + +IRA: I say you go with her. You want them all to come down on us? (_to_ +HOLDEN) What are you here for? + +MADELINE: Aunt Isabel brought Professor Holden, father. + +IRA: Oh. Then you--you tell her what to do. You make her do it. (_he +goes into the room at left_) + +MADELINE: (_sadly, after a silence_) Father's like something touched by +an early frost. + +HOLDEN: Yes. (_seeing his opening and forcing himself to take it_) But +do you know, Madeline, there are other ways of that happening--'touched +by an early frost'. I've seen it happen to people I know--people of fine +and daring mind. They do a thing that puts them apart--it may be the +big, brave thing--but the apartness does something to them. I've seen it +many times--so many times--so many times, I fear for you. You do this +thing and you'll find yourself with people who in many ways you don't +care for at all; find yourself apart from people who in most ways are +your own people. You're many-sided, Madeline. (_moves her tennis +racket_) I don't know about it's all going to one side. I hate to see +you, so young, close a door on so much life. I'm being just as honest +with you as I know how. I myself am making compromises to stay within. I +don't like it, but there are--reasons for doing it. I can't see you +leave that main body without telling you all it is you are leaving. It's +not a clean-cut case--the side of the world or the side of the angels. I +hate to see you lose the--fullness of life. + +MADELINE: (_a slight start, as she realizes the pause. As one recalled +from far_) I'm sorry. I was listening to what you were saying--but all +the time--something else was happening. Grandfather Morton, big and--oh, +terrible. He was here. And we went to that walled-up hole in the +ground--(_rising and pointing down at the chalked cell_)--where they +keep Fred Jordan on bread and water because he couldn't be a part of +nations of men killing each other--and Silas Morton--only he was all +that is back of us, tore open that cell--it was his voice tore it +open--his voice as he cried, 'God damn you, this is America!' (_sitting +down, as if rallying from a tremendous experience_) I'm sorry--it should +have happened, while you were speaking. Won't you--go on? + +HOLDEN: That's a pretty hard thing to go on against. (_after a moment_) +I can't go on. + +MADELINE: You were thinking of leaving the college, and then--decided to +stay? (_he nods_) And you feel there's more--fullness of life for you +inside the college than outside? + +HOLDEN: No--not exactly. (_again a pause_) It's very hard for me to talk +to you. + +MADELINE: (_gently_) Perhaps we needn't do it. + +HOLDEN: (_something in him forcing him to say it_) I'm staying for +financial reasons. + +MADELINE: (_kind, but not going to let the truth get away_) You don't +think that--having to stay within--or deciding to, rather, makes you +think these things of the--blight of being without? + +HOLDEN: I think there is danger to you in--so young, becoming alien to +society. + +MADELINE: As great as the danger of staying within--and becoming like +the thing I'm within? + +HOLDEN: You wouldn't become like it. + +MADELINE: Why wouldn't I? That's what it does to the rest of you. I +don't see it--this fullness of life business. I don't see that Uncle +Felix has got it--or even Aunt Isabel, and you--I think that in buying +it you're losing it. + +HOLDEN: I don't think you know what a cruel thing you are saying. + +MADELINE: There must be something pretty rotten about Morton College if +you have to sell your soul to stay in it! + +HOLDEN: You don't 'sell your soul'. You persuade yourself to wait. + +MADELINE: (_unable to look at him, as if feeling shame_) You have had a +talk with Uncle Felix since that day in the library you stepped aside +for me to pass. + +HOLDEN: Yes; and with my wife's physician. If you sell your soul--it's +to love you sell it. + +MADELINE: (_low_) That's strange. It's love that--brings life along, and +then it's love--holds life back. + +HOLDEN: (_and all the time with this effort against hopelessness_) +Leaving me out of it, I'd like to see you give yourself a little more +chance for detachment. You need a better intellectual equipment if +you're going to fight the world you find yourself in. I think you will +count for more if you wait, and when you strike, strike more maturely. + +MADELINE: Detachment. (_pause_) This is one thing they do at this place. +(_she moves to the open door_) Chain them up to the bars--just like +this. (_in the doorway where her two grandfathers once pledged faith +with the dreams of a million years, she raises clasped hands as high as +they will go_) Eight hours a day--day after day. Just hold your arms up +like this one hour then sit down and think about--(_as if tortured by +all who have been so tortured, her body begins to give with sobs, arms +drop, the last word is a sob_) detachment. + +HOLDEN _is standing helplessly by when her father comes in_. + +IRA: (_wildly_) Don't cry. No! Not in this house! I can't--Your aunt and +uncle will fix it up. The law won't take you this time--and you won't do +it again. + +MADELINE: Oh, what does _that_ matter--what they do to _me_? + +IRA: What are you crying about then? + +MADELINE: It's--the _world_. It's-- + +IRA: The _world_? If that's all you've got to cry about! (_to_ HOLDEN) +Tell her that's nothing to cry about. What's the matter with you. +Mad'line? That's crazy--cryin' about the world! What good has ever come +to this house through carin' about the world? What good's that college? +Better we had that hill. Why is there no one in this house to-day but me +and you? Where's your mother? Where's your brother? The _world_. + +HOLDEN: I think your father would like to talk to you. I'll go +outside--walk a little, and come back for you with your aunt. You must +let us see you through this, Madeline. You couldn't bear the things it +would bring you to. I see that now. (_as he passes her in the doorway +his hand rests an instant on her bent head_) You're worth too much to +break. + +IRA: (_turning away_) I don't want to talk to you. What good comes of +talking? (_In moving, he has stepped near the sack of corn. Takes hold +of it_.) But not with Emil Johnson! That's not--what your mother died +for. + +MADELINE: Father, you must talk to me. What did my mother die for? No +one has ever told me about her--except that she was beautiful--not like +other people here. I got a feeling of--something from far away. +Something from long ago. Rare. Why can't Uncle Felix talk about her? Why +can't you? Wouldn't she want me to know her? Tell me about her. It's my +birthday and I need my mother. + +IRA: (_as if afraid he is going to do it_) How can you touch--what +you've not touched in nineteen years? Just once--in nineteen years--and +that did no good. + +MADELINE: Try. Even though it hurts. Didn't you use to talk to her? +Well, I'm her daughter. Talk to me. What has she to do with Emil +Johnson? + +IRA: (_the pent-up thing loosed_) What has she to do with him? She died +so he could live. He lives because she's dead, (_in anguish_) And what +is _he_ alongside her? Yes. Something from far away. Something from long +ago. Rare. How'd you know that? Finding in me--what I didn't know was +there. Then _she_ came--that ignorant Swede--Emil Johnson's +mother--running through the cornfield like a crazy woman--'Miss Morton! +Miss Morton! Come help me! My children are choking!' Diphtheria they +had--the whole of 'em--but out of this house she ran--my Madeline, +leaving you--her own baby--running as fast as she could through the +cornfield after that immigrant woman. She stumbled in the rough +field--fell to her knees. That was the last I saw of her. She choked to +death in that Swede's house. They lived. + +MADELINE: (_going to him_) Oh--father, (_voice rich_) But how lovely of +her. + +IRA: Lovely? Lovely to leave you without a mother--leave me without her +after I'd had her? Wasn't she worth more than them. + +MADELINE: (_proudly_) Yes. She was worth so much that she never stopped +to think how much she was worth. + +IRA: Ah, if you'd known her you couldn't take it like that. And now you +cry about the world! That's what the world is--all coming to nothing. My +father used to sit there at the table and talk about the world--my +father and her father. They thought 'twas all for something--that what +you were went on into something more than you. That's the talk I always +heard in this house. But it's just talk. The rare thing that came here +was killed by the common thing that came here. Just happens--and happens +cruel. Look at your brother! Gone--(_snaps his fingers_) like that. I +told him not to go to war. He didn't have to go--they'd been glad enough +to have him stay here on the farm. But no,--he must--make the world safe +for democracy! Well, you see how safe he made it, don't you? Now I'm +alone on the farm and he--buried on some Frenchman's farm. That is, I +hope they buried him--I hope they didn't just--(_tormented_) + +MADELINE: Oh, father--of course not. I know they did. + +IRA: How do you know? What do you care--once they got him? _He_ talked +about the world--better world--end war. Now he's in his grave--I hope he +is--and look at the front page of the paper! No such thing--war to end +war! + +MADELINE: But he thought there was, father. Fred believed that--so what +else could he do? + +IRA: He could 'a' minded his own business. + +MADELINE: No--oh, no. It was fine of him to give his life to what he +believed should be. + +IRA: The light in his eyes as he talked of it, now--eyes gone--and the +world he died for all hate and war. Waste. Waste. Nothin' but waste--the +life of this house. Why, folks to-day'd laugh to hear my father talk. He +gave his best land for ideas to live. Thought was going to make us a +better people. What was his word? (_waits_) Aspiration. (_says it as if +it is a far-off thing_) Well, look at your friend, young Jordan. Kicked +from the college to prison for ideas of a better world. (_laughs_) His +'aspiration' puts him in a hole on bread and water! So--mind your own +business, that's all that's so in this country. (_constantly tormented +anew_) Oh, I told your brother all that--the night I tried to keep him. +Told him about his mother--to show what come of running to other folks. +And he said--standing right there--(_pointing_) eyes all bright, he +said, 'Golly, I think that's great!' And then _he_--walked out of this +house. (_fear takes him_) Madeline! (_she stoops over him, her arm +around him_) Don't you leave me--all alone in this house--where so many +was once. What's Hindus--alongside your own father--and him needing you? +It won't be long. After a little I'll be dead--or crazy--or something. +But not here alone where so many was once. + +MADELINE: Oh--father. I don't know what to do. + +IRA: Nothing stays at home. Not even the corn stays at home. If only the +wind wouldn't blow! Why can't I have my field to myself? Why can't I +keep what's mine? All these years I've worked to make it better. I +wanted it to be--the most that it could be. My father used to talk about +the Indians--how our land was their land, and how we must be more than +them. He had his own ideas of bein' more--well, what's that come to? The +Indians lived happier than we--wars, strikes, prisons. But I've made the +corn more! This land that was once Indian maize now grows corn--I'd like +to have the Indians see my corn! I'd like to see them side by +side!--their Indian maize, my corn. And how'd I get it? Ah, by +thinkin'--always tryin', changin', carin'. Plant this corn by that corn, +and the pollen blows from corn to corn--the golden dust it blows, in the +sunshine and of nights--blows from corn to corn like a--(_the word +hurts_) gift. No, you don't understand it, but (_proudly_) corn don't +stay what it is! You can make it anything--according to what you do, +'cording to the corn it's alongside. (_changing_) But that's it. I want +it to stay in my field. It goes away. The prevailin' wind takes it on to +the Johnsons--them Swedes that took my Madeline! I hear it! Oh, nights +when I can't help myself--and in the sunshine I can see it--pollen--soft +golden dust to make new life--goin' on to _them_,--and them too ignorant +to know what's makin' their corn better! I want my field to myself. +What'd I work all my life for? Work that's had to take the place o' what +I lost--is that to go to Emil Johnson? No! The wind shall stand still! +I'll make it. I'll find a way. Let me alone and I--I'll think it out. +Let me alone, I say. + +(_A mind burned to one idea, with greedy haste he shuts himself in the +room at left_. MADELINE _has been standing there as if mist is parting +and letting her see. And as the vision grows power grows in her. She is +thus flooded with richer life when her_ AUNT _and Professor_ HOLDEN +_come back. Feeling something new, for a moment they do not speak_.) + +AUNT ISABEL: Ready, dear? It's time for us to go now. + +MADELINE: (_with the quiet of plentitude_) I'm going in with Emil +Johnson. + +AUNT ISABEL: Why--Madeline. (_falteringly_) We thought you'd go with us. + +MADELINE: No. I have to be--the most I can be. I want the wind to have +something to carry. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_after a look at Professor_ HOLDEN, _who is looking +intensely at_ MADELINE) I don't understand. + +MADELINE: The world is all a--moving field. (_her hands move, voice too +is of a moving field_) Nothing is to itself. If America thinks +so--America is like father. I don't feel alone any more. The wind has +come through--wind rich from lives now gone. Grandfather Fejevary, gift +from a field far off. Silas Morton. No, not alone any more. And afraid? +I'm not even afraid of being absurd! + +AUNT ISABEL: But Madeline--you're leaving your father? + +MADELINE: (_after thinking it out_) I'm not leaving--what's greater in +him than he knows. + +AUNT ISABEL: You're leaving Morton College? + +MADELINE: That runt on a high hill? Yes, I'm leaving grandfather's +college--then maybe I can one day lie under the same sod with him, and +not be ashamed. Though I must tell you (_a little laugh_) under the sod +is my idea of no place to be. I want to be a long time--where the wind +blows. + +AUNT ISABEL: (_who is trying not to cry_) I'm afraid it won't blow in +prison, dear. + +MADELINE: I don't know. Might be the only place it would blow. (EMIL +_passes the window, hesitates at the door_) I'll be ready in just a +moment, Emil. + +(_He waits outside_.) + +AUNT ISABEL: Madeline, I didn't tell you--I hoped it wouldn't be +necessary, but your uncle said--if you refused to do it his way, he +could do absolutely nothing for you, not even--bail. + +MADELINE: Of course not. I wouldn't expect him to. + +AUNT ISABEL: He feels so deeply about these things--America--loyalty, he +said if you didn't come with us it would be final, Madeline. +Even--(_breaks_) between you and me. + +MADELINE: I'm sorry, auntie. You know how I love you. (_and her voice +tells it_) But father has been telling me about the corn. It gives +itself away all the time--the best corn a gift to other corn. What you +are--that doesn't stay with you. Then--(_not with assurance, but feeling +her way_) be the most you can be, so life will be more because you were. +(_freed by the truth she has found_) Oh--do that! Why do we three go +apart? Professor Holden, his beautiful trained mind; Aunt Isabel--her +beautiful love, love that could save the world if only you'd--throw it +to the winds. (_moving nearer_ HOLDEN, _hands out to him_) Why +do--(_seeing it is not to be, she turns away. Low, with sorrow for that +great beauty lost_) Oh, have we brought mind, have we brought heart, up +to this place--only to turn them against mind and heart? + +HOLDEN: (_unable to bear more_) I think we--must go. (_going to_ +MADELINE, _holding out his hand and speaking from his sterile life to +her fullness of life_) Good-bye, Madeline. Good luck. + +MADELINE: Good-bye, Professor Holden. (_hesitates_) Luck to you. + +(_Shaking his head, stooped, he hurries out_.) + +MADELINE: (_after a moment when neither can speak_) Good-bye--auntie +dearest. Thank you--for the birthday present--the cake--everything. +Everything--all the years. + +(_There is something_ AUNT ISABEL _would say, but she can only hold +tight to_ MADELINE_'s hands. At last, with a smile that speaks for love, +a little nod, she goes_. EMIL _comes in_.) + +EMIL: You better go with them, Madeline. It'd make it better for you. + +MADELINE: Oh no, it wouldn't. I'll be with you in an instant, Emil. I +want to--say good-bye to my father. + +(_But she waits before that door, a door hard to go through. Alone_, +EMIL _looks around the room. Sees the bag of corn, takes a couple of +ears and is looking at them as_ MADELINE _returns. She remains by the +door, shaken with sobs, turns, as if pulled back to the pain she has +left_.) + +EMIL: Gee. This is great corn. + +MADELINE: (_turning now to him_) It is, isn't it, Emil? + +EMIL: None like it. + +MADELINE: And you say--your corn is getting better? + +EMIL: Oh, yes--I raise better corn every year now. + +MADELINE: (_low_) That's nice. I'll be right out, Emil. + +(_He puts the corn back, goes out. From the closet_ MADELINE _takes her +hat and wrap. Putting them on, she sees the tennis racket on the table. +She goes to it, takes it up, holds it a moment, then takes it to the +closet, puts it carefully away, closes the door behind it. A moment she +stands there in the room, as if listening to something. Then she leaves +that house_.) + + +CURTAIN + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Plays, by Susan Glaspell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS *** + +***** This file should be named 10623.txt or 10623.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/6/2/10623/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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