Long D^ys
Journey intq
night
Eugene O'neill
Digitized by the Internet Archive in
2010
http://www.archive.org/details/longdaysjourneyiOOonei
Long Day s Journey
into
Night
Long D^ys
Journey into
Night
Eugene O'neill
Yale University Press
New Haven
& London
© as an unpublished work
Copyright 1955
by Carlotta Monterey O'Neill.
Copyright
©
by Carlotta Monterey O'Neill.
1955
All rights reserved
under International and
Pan-American Copyright Conventions. First
published February 1956.
Copyright
© renewed
1984 by Yale University.
Corrected edition copyright
©
1989 by Yale University.
Offset printed in the United States of America
by the Vail-Ballou from the original
Binghamton,
Press, Inc.,
New York,
letterpress printing.
Library of Congress catalog card number: 89-50523
isbn: 82
0-300-04600-6
81
80
caution:
79
(cloth),
77
78
Professionals
0-300-04601-4 (paper)
76
75
and amateurs
into Night, being fully protected
are hereby
warned
that
Long Day's Journey
under the copyright laws of the United States of
America, the British Empire, including the Dominion of Canada, and countries of the copyright union, professional, amateur,
radio broadcasting,
motion
and the
Cadwalader, Wickersham
New York, N.Y
of translation into foreign languages, are
& Taft, Trustees of C.
M.
manuscripts of plays,
from the
benefit of the
O'Neill,
One Wall
Street,
10005.
by Carlotta Monterey O'Neill.
royalties
other
regarding this play should be addressed to
the eugene o'neill collection was founded 1931
all
subject to a royalty. All rights, including
picture, television, recitation, public reading,
rights
strictly reserved. All inquiries
is
sale
It
at the Yale University Library in
includes notes, photographs, and the
among them long day's journey into night.
All
of the Yale editions of this book go to Yale University for the
Eugene O'Neill Collection,
for the
purchase of books in the
field
drama, and for the establishment of Eugene O'Neill Scholarships in the Yale School of Drama. Frontispiece:
Wood
engraving by Michael
McCurdy
of
Publisher's Note, 1989
Since
publication in February 1956, Long Day's Journey into
its first
Night has gone through numerous reprintings. With ing, the sixty-first,
we have
errors recently reported
this print-
taken the opportunity to correct several
by scholars
who
nations of final typescripts of the play.
have
It
made
careful exami-
has been discovered that
Carlotta O'Neill, retyping from a previous version heavily edited by O'Neill, accidentally dropped lines in several places.
We wish
to take note first
of
a correction that
the fifth printing after
Donald Gallup
ing lines on page 170.
The
was
silently
made
in
called our attention to miss-
dialogue and stage directions restored
were those beginning with "Kid" in
and ending with "old"
line 22
in line 24.
made
For the corrections
Michael Hinden
(for
in this printing,
errors
on page
and Stephen Black
on page
158),
Judith E. Barlow (for missing lines (for
to
Edmund's dialogue
are printed for the first time.
158
you
page
been
On
page 97
106 a sentence at line
1.
The
lines
("It's
("No one hopes more than in line 20.
I
do
you'll
On
29-33
a special
errors corrected
were minor, although puzzling, misprints
"fron" for "front," "sibject" for "subject").
been restored
will
at lines 18-19.
On page
kind of medicine.") has been restored
on pages in and
On
care?") has
an error on page in).
97 a sentence ("Anyway, by tonight, wnat
added
the following:
pointing out missing lines on pages 97, 106,
and 167 and 97),
we thank
(e.g.,
page 167 a sentence
knock 'em
all
dead.") has
For Carlotta, on our 12th Wedding Anniversary
Dearest: I give you the original script of this play written in tears
and blood.
A
sadly inappropriate gift,
seem, for a day celebrating happiness.
I mean
it
as
a tribute
to your love
the faith in love that enabled
of old sorrow,
me
But you
with deep pity
ness for all the four
haunted
would
will understand.
and tenderness which gave me
to face
this play— write it
it
my dead at
last
and
and understanding and forgive-
Tyrones.
These twelve years, Beloved One, have been a Journey into into love. You
Gene Tao House July 22, 1P41.
write
know my gratitude. And my
love!
Light—
Characters
JAMES TYRONE
MARY CAVAN TYRONE, JAMES TYRONE,
JR.,
his wife
their elder son
EDMUND TYRONE, their younger son c at H L E E N second girl ,
Scenes
ACT
I
Living room of the Tyrones 'summer home 8:30 a.m. ofa day in August, 1912
ACT
2,
SCENE
I
The same, around 12 145
ACT
2,
SCENE
2
The same, about a half hour
act
later
3
The same, around 6: so that evening
act
4
The same, around midnight
Act
One
SCENE summer home on a morning
Living room ofJames Tyrone's
in August,
19 12.
At
rear are two double doorways with portieres.
The one at
right
leads into a front parlor with the formally arranged, set appearance
of a room
The other opens on a dark, windowless
rarely occupied.
back parlor, never used except as a passage
from
ing room. Against the wall between the doorways
with a picture of Shakespeare above
Nietzsche,
Marx,
is
Max
Engels, Kropotkin,
to
din-
a small bookcase,
containing novels by Balzac,
it,
and sociological works
Zola, Stendhal, philosophical
room
living
Shaw, Strindberg, poetry by Swinburne,
by Schopenhauer,
Stirner, plays by Ibsen,
Rossetti,
Wilde, Ernest
Dow-
son, Kipling, etc.
In the right wall, rear, extends halfway
windows
is
around
a screen door leading out on the porch which the house. Farther forward, a series
lawn
looks over the front
runs along the waterfront.
A
to
of three
the harbor and the avenue that
small wicker table
and an
ordinary oak
desk are against the wall, flanking the windows.
In the
left wall,
in back its
a similar
head toward
rear.
Farther back
is
a
large, glassed-in
Victor Hugo, Charles Lever, three sets
of Dumas, The World's Best Literature
sets
of windows looks out on the grounds them is a wicker couch with cushions,
series
of the house. Beneath
in fifty large volumes,
England, Thiers History of the Consulate
bookcase with
of Shakespeare,
Humes
and Empire,
History of
Smollett's His-
volumes of ofEngland, Gibbon's Roman Empire and miscellaneous thing astonishing old plays, poetry, and several histories of Ireland. The
tory
about
these sets
is
that all the volumes have the look of having been read
and reread. The hardwood floor
nearly covered by a rug, inoffensive in design
is
and color. At center is a round table with a green shaded reading lamp, the cord plugged in one
Around
of the four
sockets in the chandelier above.
the table within reading-light range are
them wicker armchairs, the fourth
(at right front
four
chairs, three
of
a varnished
of table)
oak rocker with leather bottom.
It
around 8.30. Sunshine comes through
is
As
the curtain
the
windows at
mary
the family have just finished breakfast,
rises,
Tyrone and her husband enter togetherfrom from
right.
the back parlor,
coming
the dining room.
Mary
is
fifty -four,
figure, a
about medium height. She
trifle plump, but showing
and hips, although she in type. It
does not
with full, sensitive
strikes
nose
She
lips.
framed by
and white
usually large
What
is
Her
hair,
is
uses
is
long
has a young, graceful
Her face
been extremely pretty,
match her healthy figure but
high forehead
still
evidence of middle-aged waist
not tightly corseted.
must once have
structure prominent.
pallor
is
little
distinctly Irish
and is still striking.
and pale with
thin
and
is
straight,
It
the bone
her mouth wide
no rouge or any sort of make-up. Her
thick,
pure white
hair.
Accentuated by her
her dark brown eyes appear black. They are un-
and beautiful, with one immediately
is
black brows
and long curling lashes.
her extreme nervousness.
Her hands
are never still. They were once beautiful hands, with long, taperingfingers,
but rheumatism has knotted the joints
that
now
they have
an
more
so because
one
the
ance
ugly crippled look. is
conscious she
and humiliated by her
draws attention
to
them.
is
and warped the fingers,
One
so
avoids looking at them,
sensitive
about their appear-
inability to control the nervousness
which
She
is
hair
When
of what becomes
dressed simply but with a sure sense
arranged with fastidious
is
she
is
merry, there
Her most appealing
is
care.
Her
voice
a touch of Irish
quality
is
is
in
lilt
soft
and
her.
Her
attractive.
it.
charm of a shy
the simple, unaffected
convent-girlyouthfulness she has never lost— an innate unworldly inno-
james Tyrone
is
sixty-five
but looks ten years younger. About five
feet eight, broad-shouldered and deep-chested, he seems taller
and slen-
derer because of his bearing, which has a soldierly quality of head up, chest out,
stomach
down but he
shoulders squared. His face has begun to break
in,
remarkably good looking— a
is still
head, a handsome profile, deep-set light-brown
big, finely
eyes.
shaped
His grey hair
is
thin with a bald spot like a monk's tonsure.
The stamp of his profession dulges in any star.
is
unmistakably on him. Not that he in-
of the deliberate temperamental posturings
He is by nature andpreference a simple,
inclinations are forebears.
But
still close to his
technique. His voice takes great pride in
is
the quality
clothes, assuredly,
his throat.
remarkably fine, resonant
There
is
he
a
tal
a studied
do not costume any romantic part. suit
and
nothing picturesquely
dressed
He
believes in
He
wears
shineless black shoes,
careless
about
wearing his
loosely
a
around
this get-up. It
clothes to the limit
is
of
now for gardening, and doesn't give a damn how
looks.
He is
is
of speech,
and flexible, and he
with a thick white handkerchief knotted
commonplace shabby. usefulness,
of belonging
to
it.
a threadbare, ready-made, grey sack collar-less shirt
stage
humble beginnings and his Irish farmer
the actor shows in all his unconscious habits
movement and gesture. These have
His
of the
unpretentious man, whose
has never been really sick a day in his lot
life.
He
has no nerves. There
ofstolid, earthy peasant in him, mixed with
melancholy
streaks
ofsentimen-
and rare flashes of intuitive sensibility.
13
Tyrone's
arm
is
around
his wife's waist as they
parlor. Entering the living
appear from the back
room he gives her a playful hug.
TYRONE You're a fine armful now, Mary, with those twenty pounds you've gained.
MARY Smiles affectionately. I've
gotten too
fat,
you mean,
dear.
I
really
ought to reduce.
TYRONE None of that, my lady! ducing. Is that why you
You're just right. We'll have no talk of reate so little breakfast?
MARY So
little? I
thought
I
ate a lot.
TYRONE You
didn't.
Not
as
much
as I'd like to see,
anyway.
MARY Teasingly.
Oh you! You expect everyone to eat the enormous breakfast you do. No one else in the world could without dying of indigestion. She comes forward to stand by the right of table.
TYRONE Following her. I
hope I'm not
With hearty
as
big a glutton as that sounds.
satisfaction.
But thank God,
I've
my
kept
young man of twenty,
if
I
am
appetite
and
I've the digestion
of a
sixty-five.
MARY You
surely have, James.
She laughs and
sits
No
one could deny
in the wicker
that.
armchair at right rear of table.
He
comes around in back of her and selects a cigar from a box on the table and cuts off the end with a little clipper. From the dining room Jamie's and Edmund's voices are heard. Mary turns her head that way.
14
Why
did the boys stay in the dining room,
wonder? Cathleen
I
must be waiting to clear the table.
TYRONE Jokingly but with an undercurrent of resentment.
they're
She
is
to hear,
I
suppose.
bet
I'll
cooking up some new scheme to touch the Old Man.
silent
on
this,
keeping her head turned toward their
hands appear on the table sits
want me
a secret confab they don't
It's
down
moving
top,
in the rocker at right
restlessly.
which
of table,
He is
voices.
lights his cigar
Her
and
and puffs
his chair,
contentedly.
There's nothing like the
and
this
new
gain, too.
I
first after- breakfast cigar, if it's
have the right mellow
lot
them dead cheap.
got
It
flavor.
a
good one,
They're a great bar-
was McGuire put
me on
to
them.
MARY
A I
trifle acidly.
hope he
didn't put
same time. His
you on
real estate
to
any new piece of property
bargains don't
work out
at the
so well.
TYRONE Defensively. I
wouldn't say that, Mary. After
buy
to
on
it
that place
on Chestnut
all,
he was the one
Street
and
I
made
who a
advised
me
quick turnover
for a fine profit.
MARY Smiles I
now with
teasing affection.
know. The famous one stroke of good luck. I'm sure McGuire
never dreamed
Then she pats
—
his
hand.
Never mind, James.
you you're not
a
I
know
cunning
it's
a waste of breath trying to convince
real estate speculator.
TYRONE Huffily. I've
no such
idea.
bonds of Wall
But land
is
land,
and
it's
safer
than the stocks and
Street swindlers.
15
Then placatingly. But
not argue about business this early in the morning.
let's
A pause.
The
of coughing.
boys' voices are
Mary
again heard
listens worriedly.
and one of them
Her fingers play
has a jit
nervously on the
table top.
MARY James,
it's
Edmund you
ought to scold
hardly touched anything except coffee.
not eating enough.
keep
telling
him
there's
nothing takes away your appetite
bad summer
I
He
needs to eat to keep up
Of course,
his strength.
appetite.
for
He
that but he says he simply has
no
like a
cold.
TYRONE Yes,
it's
only natural. So don't
yourself get
let
worried—
MARY Quickly.
Oh, I'm
not.
I
know
he'll
be
all
right in a
few days
if
he takes care
of himself.
As ifshe wanted to dismiss the subject but cant. But it does seem a shame he should have to be
sick right now.
TYRONE Yes,
it is
He gives
bad
luck.
her a quick, worried look.
But you musn't
let it
upset you, Mary.
Remember, you've got
to
take care of yourself, too.
MARY Quickly.
I'm not upset. There's nothing to be upset about.
What makes you
think I'm upset?
TYRONE Why,
nothing, except you've seemed a bit high-strung the past few
days.
MARY Forcing a smile. I
have? Nonsense, dear.
16
It's
your imagination.
With sudden
You
me
really
tenseness.
must not watch
me
the time, James.
all
I
mean,
it
makes
self-conscious.
TYRONE hand over one of her
Putting a
Now, was
to
admire
His voice can't
I
nervously playing ones.
now, Mary. That's your imagination. If I've watched you
is
tell
how
fat
and beautiful
it
you looked.
suddenly moved by deep feeling.
you the deep happiness
it
gives
me, darling,
to see
you
as
you've been since you came back to us, your dear old self again. turning back adds
He leans over and kisses her cheek impulsively— then with a constrained
air.
So keep up the good work, Mary.
MARY Has turned her head away. I
will, dear.
She gets up
Thank
restlessly
and goes
heavens, the fog
is
to the
windows at
right.
gone.
She turns back. I
do
out of sorts this morning.
feel
with that awful foghorn going
all
I
wasn't able to get
much
sleep
night long.
TYRONE Yes,
it's
like
having a sick whale in the back yard.
It
kept
me
awake,
MARY Affectionately amused.
Did
it?
You had
a strange
were snoring so hard She comes
to
I
way of showing your
couldn't
him, laughing,
tell
and pats
restlessness.
You
which was the foghorn! his cheek playfully.
Ten foghorns couldn't disturb you. You haven't
a nerve in you.
You've never had.
TYRONE His vanity piqued— testily.
Nonsense. You always exaggerate about
my snoring. i-
MARY I
couldn't. If you could only hear yourself once
A
—
of Laughter comes from the dining room. She turns her head,
burst
smiling.
What's the joke,
wonder?
I
TYRONE Grumpily. It's
on me.
much.
bet that
I'll
It's
always on the
Old Man.
MARY Teasingly.
Yes,
it's
terrible the
way we
all
pick on you,
isn't it?
You're so abused!
She laughs— then with a pleased, relieved air. Well, no matter what the joke laugh. He's been so
down
is
in the
about,
mouth
it's
a relief to hear
Edmund
lately.
TYRONE Ignoring this— resentfully.
Some
joke of Jamie's,
I'll
wager. He's forever
making sneering fun
of somebody, that one.
MARY
Now don't start in
on poor Jamie,
dear.
Without conviction. He'll turn out
all
right in the end,
you wait and
see.
TYRONE He'd better
start soon, then.
He's nearly thirty-four.
MARY Ignoring
Good
heavens, are they going to stay in the dining
She goes Jamie!
this.
to the
back parlor doorway
Edmund! Come
chance to clear the
Edmund calls
18
room
all
day?
and calls.
in the living
room and
give Cathleen a
table.
back, "Were coming,
Mama. " She goes
back
to the table.
TYRONE Grumbling.
You'd find excuses for him no matter what he did.
MARY down
Sitting
beside him, pats his hand.
Shush. Their sons
james,
their laughter,
their grins
famie, the
and as
grow
they
shorter
and stouter
He
He
resembles
their color
an inch
is
taller
it
him
His face
like Tyrone's.
is
is still
it
thinning
His nose
when he
The
is
and already
there
collar
thin
and
and graceful
car-
of premature dismarks
looking, despite
is
He
has fine brown
and his
eyes,
mother's darker
indication ofa bald spot
his
habitual expression ofcyni-
a Mephistophelian
cast.
But on
the rare
smiles without sneering, his personality possesses the
an old sack
and tie. His fair skin
Edmund is
but appears
irresponsible Irish
charm
— that of
of the sentimentally
poetic,
women and popular with men.
dressed in
is
less,
unlike that ofany other member of the family,
the beguiling ne'er-do-well, with a strain
He
signs
good
his father's lighter
remnant of a humorous, romantic,
attractive to
weighs
rather than his mother.
gives his countenance
occasions
and
has never been handsome like Tyrone's, although
pronouncedly aquiline. Combined with cism
and
because he lacks Tyrone's bearing
midway between
His hair
had caused
their father
has his father's broad-shouldered,
also lacks his father's vitality.
of dissipation, but
ones.
enter together from the back
chuckling over what
still
come forward they glance at
elder, is thirty-three.
integration are on him.
Jamie
edmund
broader.
deep-chested physique,
riage.
and
jr.,
They are both grinning,
parlor.
suit, is
not as shabby as Tyrone's,
sunburned
ten years younger than his brother, a couple
wiry.
Where Jamie
blance to his mother, mother.
narrow
Irish face.
of inches
takes after his father, with
Edmund looks
Her big, dark
like his
and wears a
a reddish, freckled tan.
little
like both his parents,
eyes are the
dominant feature
but
taller,
resemis
more
in his long,
His mouth has the same quality of hypersensitiveness is hers accentuated, with dark brown
hers possesses. His high forehead
19
hair, sunbleached to red at the ends,
his nose
is
his father's
hands are noticeably fingers.
He
profle
to
But
with the same exceptionally long
a minor degree the same nervousness.
It is in
most marked.
is
plainly in
bad health. Much thinner than he should
appear feverish and his cheeks are sunken. His skin, in
sunburned a deep brown, has a parched sallowness. collar
it.
Edmunds
recalls Tyrone's.
of extreme nervous sensibility that the likeness of Edmund
mother
is
brushed straight back from
in
like his mother's,
They even have
the quality to his
and his face
and tie, no
coat,
He
be, his eyes
spite
of being
wears a
shirt,
oldflannel trousers, brown sneakers.
MARY Turns smilingly I've
to
them, in a merry tone that
is
a
bit forced.
been teasing your father about his snoring.
To Tyrone. I'll
leave
it
to the boys, James.
you, Jamie.
could hear you
I
father. You're like
They must have heard you. No, not down the hall almost as bad as your
him. As soon
as
you're off and ten foghorns couldn't
She
your head touches the pillow
wake you.
stops abruptly, catching Jamie's eyes regarding her
probing
easy,
look.
Her
smile vanishes
and
with an un-
her manner becomes
self-
conscious.
Why are you staring, Jamie? Her hands flutter up Is
to
her hair.
my hair coming down?
My eyes are getting so
It's
hard for
bad and
I
me
to
do
never can find
it
up properly now.
my glasses.
JAMIE Looks away guiltily.
Your
hair's all right,
Mama.
I
was only thinking how well you look.
TYRONE Heartily.
Just
what
I've
been
soon be no holding
telling her, Jamie. She's so fat her.
EDMUND Yes,
you
certainly look grand,
Mama.
and
sassy, there'll
She
is
reassured
and smiles
at
him
He
lovingly.
winks with a kidding
grin.
back you up about Papa's snoring. Gosh, what a racket!
I'll
JAMIE I
heard him, too.
He
quotes, putting
"The Moor,
I
on a ham-actor manner.
know
his trumpet."
His mother and brother laugh.
TYRONE Scathingly. If
it
takes
my
snoring to
make you remember Shakespeare
of the dope sheet on the ponies,
I
hope
I'll
keep on with
instead
it.
MARY Now, James! You mustn't be so touchy. Jamie shrugs his shoulders and sits down in
the chair on her right.
EDMUND Irritably.
Yes, for Pete's sake, Papa! rest, can't
He
slumps
The
first
thing after breakfast! Give
it
of table next
His
a
you?
down
in the chair at
left
to his brother.
father ignores him.
MARY Reprovingly.
Your father wasn't finding
fault
take Jamie's part. You'd think
with you. You don't have to always
you were the one ten
years older.
JAMIE Boredly.
What's
all
the fuss about? Let's forget
it.
TYRONE Contemptuously. Yes, forget! Forget everything
philosophy
if you've
and
no ambition
face nothing!
in life
It's
except to —
a convenient
MARY James, do be quiet.
She puts an arm around his shoulder— coaxingly. You must have gotten out of the wrong side of the bed changing the
To the boys,
this
morning.
subject.
What were you two grinning about came in? What was the joke?
like
Cheshire cats
when you
TYRONE With a painful effort Yes, let us in
on
to
good sport.
be a
lads.
it,
mother
told your
I
I
knew damned
would be one on me, but never mind that, I'm used to
well
it
it.
JAMIE Dryly.
Don't look
at
me. This
the Kid's story.
is
EDMUND Grins. I
meant
went
to
for a
tell
you
walk
I
last night,
dropped
Papa, and forgot
in at the
Inn
it.
Yesterday
when
I
—
MARY Worriedly.
You shouldn't drink now, Edmund.
EDMUND Ignoring
this.
And who do you
think
I
met
there,
with a beautiful bun on, but
Shaughnessy, the tenant on that farm of yours.
MARY Smiling.
That dreadful man! But he
is
funny.
TYRONE Scowling.
He's not so funny
Mick, that one.
He
plaining about now,
22
when
you're his landlord. He's a wily Shanty
could hide behind a corkscrew. What's he com-
Edmund — for I'm damned sure he's complain-
ing.
suppose he wants his rent lowered.
I
for almost nothing, just to
that
I
let
keep someone on
him have
it,
the place
and he never pays
threaten to evict him.
till I
EDMUND No, he didn't beef about anything. even bought a drink, and lighted because he'd
had
dard Oil millionaire,
He
was so pleased with
that's practically
a fight
and won
unheard
of.
life
He was
he
de-
with your friend, Harker, the Stan-
a glorious victory.
MARY With amused dismay.
Oh, Lord! James,
you'll really
have to do something—
TYRONE Bad luck
to Shaughnessy,
anyway!
JAMIE Maliciously. I'll
bet the next time
you
see
Harker
at the
Club and
give
him
the
old respectful bow, he won't see you.
EDMUND Yes.
who
Harker isn't
think you're no gentleman for harboring a tenant
will
humble
in the presence
of a king of America.
TYRONE Never mind the
I
don't care to listen
ice
pond on Harker's
Socialist gabble.
—
MARY Tactfully.
Go on
with your
story,
Edmund.
EDMUND Grins at his father provocatively. Well,
you remember, Papa, the
next to the farm, and you remember it
seems
there's a
estate
is
right
Shaughnessy keeps pigs. Well,
break in the fence and the pigs have been bathing
in the millionaire's ice
sure Shaughnessy
pond, and Harker's foreman told him he was
had broken the fence on purpose
to give his pigs
a free wallow.
13
MARY Shocked and amused.
Good
heavens!
TYRONE Sourly, but with
a trace ofadmiration.
I'm sure he did, too, the dirty scallywag.
It's
like
him.
EDMUND So Harker came in person to rebuke Shaughnessy.
He chuckles.
A very bonehead play!
If
I
needed any further proof that our ruling
plutocrats, especially the ones
who
mental giants, that would clinch
inherited their boodle, are not
it.
TYRONE With appreciation,
before he thinks.
no match
Yes, he'd be
for Shaughnessy.
Then he growls.
Keep your damned anarchist remarks in
to yourself.
I
won't have them
my house.
But he
is full
of eager anticipation.
What happened?
EDMUND Harker had
as
much chance
as
I
would with Jack Johnson. Shaugh-
nessy got a few drinks under his belt and was waiting at the gate to told me he never gave Harker a chance to open He began by shouting that he was no slave Standard Oil could trample on. He was a King of Ireland, if he had his rights, and scum was scum to him, no matter how much money it had
welcome him. He his
mouth.
stolen
from the poor.
MARY Oh, Lord! But she cant
help laughing.
EDMUND Then he accused Harker of making his foreman break down the fence to entice the pigs into the ice pond in order to destroy them. 24
The poor
Many
pigs,
Shaughnessy
yelled,
had caught
their death
of cold.
of them were dying of pneumonia, and several others had
been taken down with cholera from drinking the poisoned water.
He told Harker he was hiring a lawyer to sue him for damages. And wound up by saying that he had to put up with poison ivy, ticks,
he
potato bugs, snakes and skunks on his farm, but he was an honest
man who drew
the line somewhere,
and he'd be damned
if
he'd
stand for a Standard Oil thief trespassing. So would Harker kindly
remove him.
his dirty feet
from the premises before he sicked the dog on
And Harker did!
He and Jamie
laugh.
MARY Shocked but giggling.
Heavens, what a terrible tongue that
man
has!
TYRONE Admiringly before he
The damned
He laughs— then The you
thinks.
old scoundrel!
By God, you
stops abruptly
dirty blackguard! He'll get
him
told
I'd
be
mad
as
can't beat
him!
and scowls.
me
in serious trouble yet.
I
hope
hell—
EDMUND I
told
so
him you'd be
you
are.
tickled to death over the great Irish victory,
and
Stop faking, Papa.
TYRONE Well, I'm not tickled to death.
MARY Teasingly.
You
are, too,
James. You're simply delighted!
TYRONE No, Mary,
a joke
is
a joke,
but—
EDMUND I
told Shaughnessy he should have
reminded Harker that
a Stan-
dard Oil millionaire ought to welcome the flavor of hog in his ice
water
as
an appropriate touch. 25
TYRONE The
you
devil
did!
Frowning.
Keep your damned
Socialist anarchist sentiments
out of my
affairs!
EDMUND Shaughnessy almost wept because he hadn't thought of that one, but he said he'd include
it
in a letter he's writing to Harker, along
with a few other insults he'd overlooked.
He and Jamie
laugh.
TYRONE What
you laughing
are
at? There's
are to help that blackguard get
me
nothing
funny— A
fine
son you
into a lawsuit!
MARY Now, James,
don't lose your temper.
TYRONE Turns on Jamie.
And
you're worse than he
regretting
you weren't
tier insults.
is,
there to
encouraging him.
I
suppose you're
prompt Shaughnessy with
You've a fine talent for that,
if for
nothing
a few nas-
else.
MARY James! There's no reason to scold Jamie.
Jamie
is
about
to
make some sneering remark
to his father,
but he shrugs
his shoulders.
EDMUND With sudden nervous exasperation.
Oh,
for
beat
it.
God's sake, Papa!
He jumps I
left
up.
my book
He goes
If you're starting that stuff again,
upstairs,
anyway.
to the front parlor,
God, Papa,
I
saying disgustedly,
should think you'd get sick of hearing yourself—
He disappears.
Tyrone looks after
him
angrily.
MARY You mustn't mind Edmund, James. Remember he 26
isn't well.
I'll
Edmund can
be heard coughing as he goes upstairs. She adds nervously.
A summer cold
makes anyone
irritable.
JAMIE Genuinely concerned. It's
not just a cold he's got.
His father gives
The Kid
him a sharp warning
damned
is
sick.
look but he doesn't see
it.
MARY Turns on him
Why
resentfully.
do you say that?
It is
just a cold!
Anyone can
tell
You
that!
always imagine things!
TYRONE With another warning glance at Jamie All
which makes
else, too,
JAMIE Sure, Mama.
That's
—
Edmund might
Jamie meant was
easily.
have a touch of something
his cold worse.
all I
meant.
TYRONE Doctor Hardy thinks
when he was
it
might be a
in the tropics. If
it is,
of malarial fever he caught
bit
quinine will soon cure
it.
MARY
A
look of contemptuous hostility flashes across her face. Doctor Hardy! I wouldn't believe a thing he said,
a stack of Bibles!
I
know what
if
doctors are. They're
thing, they don't care what, to keep
you coming
he swore on
all alike.
Any-
to them.
She stops short, overcome by a fit ofacute self consciousness as she catches their eyes fixed
a
on
her.
Her hands jerk
nervously to her hair. She forces
smile.
What
is it?
What
are
you looking
my hair—
at? Is
?
TYRONE Puts his
arm around her— with guilty
heartiness, giving her
a playful
hug.
There's nothing
wrong with your
hair.
The
healthier
and
fatter
you
27
you become.
get, the vainer
You'll
soon spend half the day primp-
ing before the mirror.
MARY Half reassured. I
really
should have
new
glasses.
My eyes are so
bad now.
TYRONE With
Irish blarney.
Your eyes
are beautiful,
He gives her a
ment. Suddenly
and well you know
Her face
kiss.
and startlingly one sees
been, not a ghost
it.
up with a charming, shy embarrass-
lights
had once
in her face the girl she
of the dead, but still a living part of her.
MARY You musn't be
so
silly,
James. Right in front of Jamie!
TYRONE Oh,
on
he's
to you, too.
He knows
this fuss
about eyes and hair
is
only fishing for compliments. Eh, Jamie?
JAMIE His face has
cleared, too,
and there
is
an old boyish charm
in his loving
smile at his mother. Yes.
You
can't kid us,
Mama.
MARY Laughs and an
Go
Irish lilt
comes into her
voice.
along with both of you!
Then she speaks with a girlish gravity.
But
I
did truly have beautiful hair once, didn't
I,
James?
TYRONE The most
beautiful in the world!
MARY It
was
below
a rare
my
until after
began
shade of reddish brown and so long
knees.
You ought
Edmund
to
remember
was born that
to turn white.
The girlishness fades from her face. 28
I
had
it,
it
came down
too, Jamie.
It
a single grey hair.
wasn't
Then
it
TYRONE Quickly.
And
that
made
prettier
it
than
ever.
MARY Again embarrassed and pleased. Will you
listen to
He
riage!
your
father,
Jamie— after
great actor for nothing,
isn't a
you, James? Are you pouring coals of
you about snoring? Well then, only the foghorn
I
I
take
fire
it all
of mar-
thirty-five years
is
he? What's
on
my
back.
come
over
head for teasing
It
must have been
heard.
She laughs, and they laugh with
Then she changes
her.
to
a brisk busi-
nesslike air.
But
I
must
can't stay
see the
with you any longer, even to hear compliments.
cook about dinner and the
I
day's marketing.
She gets up and sighs with humorous exaggeration. Bridget
is
tives so
I
so lazy.
as well get
She goes
And
can't get a it
so
word
sly.
in
She begins
telling
me
edgeways and scold
about her
her. Well,
I
rela-
might
over.
to the
back-parlor doorway, then turns, herface worried again.
You musn't make Edmund work on the grounds with you, James, remember. Again with the strange obstinate
Not
set to
her face.
that he isn't strong enough, but he'd perspire
catch
more
and he might
cold.
She disappears through the back parlor. Tyrone turns on Jamie condemningly.
TYRONE You're a fine lunkhead! Haven't
you any sense? The one thing
to avoid
would
is
saying anything that
get her
more upset over
Edmund.
JAMIE Shrugging his shoulders. All right.
Have
go on kidding
it
your way.
I
herself. It will
think only
it's
the
make
wrong
idea to
the shock worse
let
Mama
when
she
29
has to face
Anyway, you can
it.
summer
with that
cold
talk.
see she's deliberately fooling herself
She knows
better.
TYRONE Knows? Nobody knows
yet.
JAMIE Well,
I
do.
Monday. ing.
was with
heard
I
That
I
isn't
You talked
to
him
Edmund when
pull that
he went to
touch of malaria
stuff.
what he thinks any more. You know
him when you went uptown
TYRONE He couldn't say anything for fore Edmund goes to him.
Doc Hardy on
it
He was
as well as
stallI
do.
yesterday, didn't you?
sure yet. He's to
phone me today be-
JAMIE Slowly.
He
thinks
it's
consumption, doesn't he, Papa?
TYRONE Reluctantly.
He
said
it
might
be.
JAMIE Moved,
his love for his brother
Poor kid!
He It
God damn
coming
out.
it!
turns on his father accusingly.
might never have happened
when he
first
if
you'd sent
him
to a real doctor
got sick.
TYRONE What's the matter with Hardy? He's always been our doctor up here.
JAMIE Everything's the matter with him! Even in this hick burg he's rated third class! He's a cheap old quack!
30
TYRONE That's right!
Run him down! Run down
everybody! Everyone
is
a
fake to you!
JAMIE Contemptuously.
Hardy only charges
a dollar. That's
what makes you think
he's a fine
doctor!
TYRONE Stung.
That's enough! You're not drunk now! There's no excuse—
He controls
himself— a
bit defensively.
mean I can't afford one of the on the rich summer people— If you
fine society doctors
who
prey
JAMIE Can't afford? You're one of the biggest property owners around here.
TYRONE That doesn't mean I'm
rich. It's all
mortgaged—
JAMIE Because you always buy more instead of paying off mortgages. If Edmund was a lousy acre of land you wanted, the sky would be the limit!
TYRONE That's a
lie!
doesn't put
And your on
frills,
sneers against
Doctor Hardy
are
lies!
He
or have an office in a fashionable location,
or drive around in an expensive automobile. That's what you pay for
with those other five-dollars-to-look-at-your-tongue
their
fellows,
not
skill.
JAMIE With a scornful shrug of his
Oh,
all
spots.
right.
shoulders.
I'm a fool to argue. You can't change the leopard's
TYRONE With
rising anger.
No, you
can't.
hope you
all
You've taught
will ever
afford? You've never
me
that lesson only too well. I've lost
change yours. You dare
known
tell
the value of a dollar
You've never saved a dollar in your
I
At the end of each
life!
son you're penniless! You've thrown your
me what and never
salary
can will!
sea-
away every week on
whores and whiskey!
JAMIE
My salary!
Christ!
TYRONE more than you're worth, and you couldn't get that if it wasn't If you weren't my son, there isn't a manager in the business
It's
me.
for
who would to
humble
new
give
my
you
although
leaf,
a part,
your reputation stinks
so.
As
it is, I
have
pride and beg for you, saying you've turned over a I
know
it's
a
lie!
JAMIE I
never wanted to be an actor. You forced
me on
the stage.
TYRONE That's a
lie!
You made no
to
me
to get
left it
theater.
you
effort to find
a job
and
I
anything
else to do.
You
have no influence except in the
Forced you! You never wanted to do anything except loaf
in barrooms! You'd
and sponge on
me
have been content to for the rest of
wasted on your education, and
from every college you went
all
your
sit
life!
back
After
you did was
like a lazy
all
the
lunk
money
I'd
get fired in disgrace
to!
JAMIE Oh,
for
God's sake, don't drag up that ancient history!
TYRONE It's
not ancient history that you have to
to live
32
on me.
come home
every
summer
!
!
JAMIE
my
earn
I
board and lodging working on the grounds.
It
saves
you
hiring a man.
TYRONE Bah! You have to be driven to do even that much!
His anger ebbs into a weary complaint.
wouldn't give a
I
gratitude.
miser, sneer at
world
damn
if
you ever displayed the
The only thanks
my
is
to
have you sneer
profession, sneer at every
of
slightest sign
at
me
damned
for a dirty
thing in the
— except yourself.
JAMIE Wryly.
That's not true, Papa.
You
can't hear
me
talking to myself, that's
all.
TYRONE Stares at
him puzzledly, then
"Ingratitude, the vilest
quotes mechanically.
weed
that grows"!
JAMIE I
could see that line coming! God,
He stops,
bored with their quarrel,
All right, Papa. I'm a
how many thousand times—
and shrugs
bum. Anything you
his shoulders.
like, so
long
as
it
stops
the argument.
TYRONE With indignant appeal now. If
you'd get ambition in your head instead of
yet.
You could
a fine actor!
still
make your mark. You had
You have
it still.
You're
folly!
You're
the talent to
young
become
my son —
JAMIE Boredly. Let's forget
me. I'm not interested
in the subject.
Neither are you.
Tyrone gives up. Jamie goes on casually.
What
started us
on
this?
Oh, Doc Hardy.
When
is
he going to
call
you up about Edmund?
33
TYRONE Around lunch
time.
He pauses— then
defensively.
Edmund to a better doctor.
couldn't have sent
I
whenever he was
sick
his constitution as
being miserly,
as
up
here, since he
no other doctor could.
you'd like to
make
Hardy's treated
It's
him
He knows
was knee high.
not a question of my
out.
Bitterly.
And what
could the
finest specialist in
America do
after he's deliberately ruined his health by the
was
since he
fired
mad
Edmund,
for
life he's
led ever
from college? Even before that when he was
in
prep school, he began dissipating and playing the Broadway sport to imitate you,
when
never had your constitution to stand
he's
me — or you
You're a healthy hulk like
were
at his age
— but
always been a bundle of nerves like his mother. I've warned years his it's
too
body couldn't stand
it,
him
but he wouldn't heed me, and
it.
he's
for
now
late.
JAMIE Sharply.
What do you mean,
too late?
You
talk as if you
thought
—
TYRONE Guiltily explosive.
Don't be a damned
fool!
I
meant nothing but what's
plain to any-
down and he may be an
invalid for a
one! His health has broken
long time.
JAMIE Stares at his father, ignoring his explanation. I
is
know it's an Irish when you live in
treatment
peasant idea consumption a hovel
on
a bog,
is fatal.
It
probably
but over here, with modern
—
TYRONE Don't
I
know
that!
What
are
you gabbing about, anyway? And keep
your dirty tongue off Ireland, with your sneers about peasants and bogs and hovels! Accusingly.
34
The
you say about Edmund's
less
science! You're
more
sickness, the better for
your con-
responsible than anyone!
JAMIE Stung.
That's a
won't stand for that, Papa!
lie! I
TYRONE It's
the truth! You've been the worst influence for him.
admiring you
as a hero!
A
fine
grew up
him! If you ever
set
advice except in the ways of rottenness, I've never heard
gave
him
of
You made him old before
it!
example you
He
his time,
pumping him
full
of what
when he was too young to see that poisoned by your own failure in life, you wanted
you consider worldly wisdom, your mind was so to believe every
man was
a knave with his soul for sale,
woman who wasn't a whore was
and every
a fool!
JAMIE With a defensive air of weary All right.
I
did put
indifference again.
Edmund wise to
started to raise hell,
and knew he'd laugh
advice, older brother stuff. All
I
did was
absolutely frank so he'd learn from
He shrugs Well, that
his
things, but not until at
me
make
if
I
a pal of
my mistakes
that
me, and
brothers! I'd
good
him and be
shoulders— cynically.
if you can't
be good you can
That's a rotten accusation, Papa. to
saw he'd
—
at least
be
careful.
Hisfather snorts contemptuously. Suddenly Jamie becomes
means
I
tried the
how
really
You know how much
close we've always
been
moved.
the Kid
— not like the usual
do anything for him.
TYRONE Impressed— mollifyingly. I
know you may have thought
say
you did
it
deliberately to
it
was
for the best, Jamie.
I
didn't
harm him.
JAMIE Besides
it's
damned
rot! I'd like to see
anyone influence
Edmund
more than he wants to be. His quietness fools people into thinking they can do what they like with him. But he's stubborn as hell
35
inside
and what he does
What had
what he wants
is
do with
anyone
else!
the
few years— working
last
that stuff.
I
so.
You
imagine
I'll
bars that serve
way all
over the
me
map
idea,
getting fun out of being
as a sailor
and
I
told
stick to
and
him
on the beach
living in filthy dives, drinking rotgut, can
South America, or
No, thanks!
his
to hell with
all the crazy stunts he's pulled in
thought that was a damned fool
all
can't
to
I
and
to do,
in
you?
Broadway, and a room with a bath, and
bonded Bourbon.
TYRONE You and Broadway!
It's
made you what you
With a touch ofpride. Whatever Edmund's done,
he's
are!
had the guts
where he couldn't come whining to
me
to
go off on his own,
the minute he was broke.
JAMIE Stung into sneering jealousy. He's always
come home broke finally, hasn't at him now!
he?
And what
did his
going away get him? Look
He
is
suddenly shamefaced.
Christ! That's a lousy thing to say.
I
don't
mean
that.
TYRONE Decides
to ignore this.
He's been doing well on the paper.
work he wants
to
do
I
was hoping he'd found the
at last.
JAMIE Sneering jealously again.
A hick town pretty
bum
rag!
Whatever
bull they
reporter. If he weren't
hand you, they
your son
tell
me
he's a
—
Ashamed again. No,
that's
not true! They're glad to have him, but
him damned good.
stuff that gets
are
by.
Some
it's
of the poems and parodies
Grudgingly again.
Not
that they'd ever get
him anywhere on
the big time.
Hastily.
But 36
he's certainly
made
a
damned good
start.
the special he's written
TYRONE made
Yes. He's
a start.
man
newspaper
You used
to talk
about wanting to become a
but you were never willing to
start at the
bottom.
You expected —
JAMIE Oh,
for Christ's sake, Papa! Can't
you
lay off
me!
TYRONE Stares at It's
him — then
looks
away — after a pause.
damnable luck Edmund should be
have
come
at a
sick right now.
He adds, unable to conceal an almost furtive uneasiness. Or for your mother. It's damnable she should have this just
when
to upset her,
two months since she came home.
His voice grows husky and trembles a
been heaven
needn't
couldn't
she needs peace and freedom from worry. She's been so
well in the
It's
It
worse time for him.
tell
to
me. This
little.
home
has been a
home
again.
But
I
you, Jamie.
His son looks at him, for the first time with an understanding sympathy. It is
as if suddenly a deep
them in which
their
bond of common feeling
existed between
antagonisms could be forgotten.
JAMIE Almost gently. I've felt the
same way, Papa.
TYRONE Yes, this
time you can see
a different
woman
her nerves
— or she had
how strong and
entirely
sure of herself she
is.
She's
from the other times. She has control of
until
Edmund
Now you
got sick.
her growing tense and frightened underneath.
I
wish to
can
feel
God we
could keep the truth from her, but
we
sanatorium. What makes
her father died of consumption.
She worshiped him and her.
But she can do
her, Jamie, in every
it!
it
worse
she's
is
never forgotten. Yes,
She has the
way we
can't if he has to be sent to a
will
it
will
power now!
We
be hard for
must help
can!
37
JAMIE Moved.
Of course,
Papa.
Hesitantly.
Outside of nerves, she seems perfectly
all
morning.
right this
TYRONE With hearty confidence now.
Never
better. She's full
of run and mischief.
Suddenly he frowns at Jamie
Why do you hell
suspiciously.
Why
seems?
say,
shouldn't she be
all
right?
What
the
do you mean?
JAMIE Don't
start
jumping down
one thing we can
my
throat!
talk over frankly
God, Papa,
without a
this
ought to be
battle.
TYRONE I'm sorry, Jamie. Tensely.
But go on and
tell
me —
JAMIE There's nothing to
Well, you
tell.
was
I
all
wrong.
know how it is, I can't forget Any more than you can.
It's
just that last night
the past.
I
—
can't help being
suspicious. Bitterly.
That's the hell of
watching her
it.
And
it
makes
it
hell for
Mama! She watches
us
—
TYRONE Sadly. I
know.
Tensely.
Well, what was
it?
Can't you speak out?
JAMIE Nothing,
I
tell
the spare room.
38
my damned foolishness. Around three woke up and heard her moving around in
you. Just
o'clock this morning,
Then
I
she went to the bathroom.
I
pretended to be
asleep.
sure
I
She stopped
in the hall to listen, as if she
wanted
to
make
was.
TYRONE With forced scorn. For God's sake, her awake
all
is
that
all?
me
She told
night, and every night since
been up and down, going to
his
room
herself the foghorn kept
Edmund's been
to see
how
sick she's
he was.
JAMIE Eagerly.
Yes, that's right, she did stop to listen outside his
room.
Hesitantly again. It
was her being
remembering
in the spare
that
always been a sign
when
room
that scared me.
I
couldn't help it
has
could she go
last
she starts sleeping alone in there,
—
TYRONE It isn't this
time!
It's
easily explained.
night to get away from
Where
else
my snoring?
He gives way to a burst of resentful anger. By God, how you can live with a mind worst motives behind everything
is
that sees nothing but the
beyond me!
JAMIE Stung.
Don't pull that! I'm
as glad
I've just said
of that
as
you
I
was
all
wrong. Don't you suppose
are!
TYRONE Mollifyingly.
I'm sure you
A pause.
are,
Jamie.
His expression becomes somber.
He speaks slowly
with a super-
stitious dread. It
would be
like a curse she can't escape if
was
in her long sickness after bringing
first
—
worry over
him
Edmund — It
into the world that she
JAMIE She didn't have anything to do with
it!
39
TYRONE I'm not blaming her.
JAMIE Bitingly.
Then who
are
you blaming? Edmund,
for being born?
TYRONE You damned
fool!
No
one was
JAMIE The bastard of a doctor
was!
to blame.
From what Mama's
said,
other cheap quack like Hardy! You wouldn't pay for a
he was an-
first-rate
—
TYRONE That's a
lie!
Furiously.
You
evil-
out the windows at
right.
So I'm to blame! That's what you're driving
minded
at,
is
it?
loafer!
JAMIE Warningly as he hears his mother in the dining room. Ssh!
Tyrone gets hastily
to his feet
and goes
to look
Jamie speaks with a complete change of tone. Well, if we're going to cut the front hedge today, we'd better go to work.
Mary comes in from from one
the back parlor. She gives a quick, suspicious glance
to the other,
her
manner
nervously self-conscious.
TYRONE Turns from the Yes,
window — with an
actors heartiness.
too fine a morning to waste indoors arguing. Take a look
it's
out the window, Mary. There's no fog in the harbor. I'm sure the spell
of
it
we've had
is
over now.
MARY Going I
hope
to
him.
so, dear.
To Jamie, forcing a smile.
40
Did
I
you suggesting work on the front hedge, Jamie? never cease! You must want pocket money badly.
actually hear
Wonders
will
JAMIE Kiddingly.
When
don't
I?
He winks at her,
with a derisive glance at his father.
man
expect a salary of at least one large iron
I
week— to
at the
end of the
carouse on!
MARY Does not respond her
humor— her
to his
hands fluttering over the front of
dress.
What were you two
arguing about?
JAMIE Shrugs his shoulders.
The same
old
stuff.
MARY I
heard you say something about a doctor, and your father accusing
you of being evil-minded.
JAMIE Quickly.
Oh,
that.
was saying again Doc Hardy
I
isn't
my idea of the world's
greatest physician.
MARY Knows he Oh. No,
is I
Changing
lying— vaguely.
wouldn't say he was, the subject—forcing
That Bridget!
I
thought
a
either.
smile.
never get away. She told
I'd
her second cousin on the police force in
Then with nervous Well,
if you're
St.
me
all
about
Louis.
irritation.
going to work on the hedge
why don't you
go?
Hastily. I
mean, take advantage of the sunshine before the fog comes back.
Strangely, as if talking
Because
I
know
it
aloud
to herself.
will.
41
Suddenly she
is
aware that
self-consciously
they are both staring fixedly
at her—flurriedly, raising her hands.
Or
should
I
the rheumatism in
say,
weather prophet than you She
How
hands knows.
a better
It's
her hands with fascinated repulsion.
stares at
Ugh!
my
James.
are,
Who'd
ugly they are!
ever believe they were once beau-
tiful?
They
with a growing dread.
stare at her
TYRONE and gently pushes them down.
Takes her hands
Now, now, Mary. None of hands She
that foolishness. They're the sweetest
in the world.
her face lighting up,
smiles,
and kisses him
He
turns to
The way
to start
gratefully.
his son.
Come on work
is
Jamie. Your mother's right to scold us.
to start
work. The hot sun
will
sweat some of that booze
fat
off your middle.
He
and
opens the screen door
down a flight of steps
goes out on the porch
leading to the ground. Jamie
and, taking off his coat, goes
to the door.
and she
avoids looking at her,
At
and
rises
disappears
from
his chair
the door he turns back but
does not look at him.
JAMIE With an awkward, uneasy We're She
stiffens
tenderness.
proud of you, Mama, so darned happy.
so
all
and
stares at
him with a frightened
defiance.
He floun-
ders on.
But you've
Edmund.
still
got to be careful. You mustn't worry so
He'll be
all
much about
right.
MARY With a stubborn,
Of
bitterly resentful look.
course, he'll be
warning
me
to
be
all
right.
And
I
don't
careful.
JAMIE Rebuffed and hurt, shrugs his shoulders. All right,
42
Mama.
I'm sorry
I
spoke.
know what you mean,
He goes
out on the porch. She waits rigidly until he disappears
Then she
the steps.
sinks
down
had
in the chair he
down
occupied, her face
betraying a frightened, furtive desperation, her hands roving over the table top, aimlessly
ing the
moving objects around. She hears
stairs in the
hall.
front
As he
coughing. She springs to her feet, as ifshe
and goes quickly
sound,
to the
Edmund descend-
nears the bottom he has a fit of
wanted
windows at
to
She
right.
run away from the is
looking out, ap-
parently calm, as he enters from the front parlor, a book in one hand.
She turns
to
him, her
lips set in
a welcoming, motherly
smile.
MARY Here you
are.
I
was
just
going upstairs to look for you.
EDMUND I
waited until they went out.
ments.
I
feel
I
want
don't
to
mix up
in
any argu-
too rotten.
MARY Almost
resentfully.
Oh, I'm
sure
you don't
feel
half as badly as
you make
such a baby. You like to get us worried so we'll
make
out. You're
a fuss over you.
Hastily.
I'm only teasing, dear.
must
be.
But you
I
know how
feel better
miserably uncomfortable you
today, don't you?
Worriedly, taking his arm. All the same, you've
grown much too
thin.
You need
to rest
all
you
down and I'll make you comfortable. He sits down in the rocking chair and she puts a pillow behind his back. can. Sit
There. How's that?
EDMUND Grand. Thanks,
Mama.
MARY Kisses
All
him — tenderly.
you need
is
your mother to nurse you. Big
the baby of the family to me,
as
you
are, you're still
you know.
43
EDMUND Takes her
hand— with
deep seriousness.
Never mind me. You take care of yourself. That's
all
that counts.
MARY Evading his
But
I
am,
eyes.
dear.
Forcing a Laugh.
Heavens, don't you see
how
fat I've
grown!
I'll
have to have
all
my
dresses let out.
She turns away and goes
to the
windows at
right.
She attempts a
light,
amused tone. They've started clipping the hedge. Poor Jamie!
How he hates work-
ing in front where everyone passing can see him. There go the Chatfields in their
new Mercedes.
It's
a beautiful car, isn't
our secondhand Packard. Poor Jamie!
like
the hedge so they wouldn't notice him.
and he bowed back old suit I've tried to
Her
as if
He
it?
Not
bent almost under
They bowed
he were taking a curtain
call.
to
your father
In that filthy
make him throw away.
voice has grown bitter.
Really,
he ought to have more pride than to make such a show of
himself.
EDMUND He's right not to give a
damn what anyone
care about the Chatfields. For Pete's sake,
thinks. Jamie's a fool to
who
ever heard of
them
outside this hick burg?
MARY With
No is
satisfaction.
one. You're quite right,
Edmund. Big
frogs in a small puddle.
It
stupid of Jamie.
She pauses, looking out the
window— then
with an undercurrent of
lonely yearning.
the Chatfields and people like them stand for something. I mean they have decent, presentable homes they don't have to be ashamed of. They have friends who entertain them and whom they Still,
entertain. They're not cut off
44
from everyone.
She turns back from the window.
Not
that
want anything
I
town and everyone in the first place, this
in
it.
to
do with them.
You know
that.
but your father liked
house, and I've had to
come
I've
always hated this
never wanted to
I
and
it
insisted
live
here
on building
here every summer.
EDMUND Well,
better than spending the
it's
isn't it?
And
because
it's
not so bad.
this town's
home we've
the only
summer I
like
in a
New
York hotel,
well enough.
it
suppose
I
had.
MARY I've
never
felt it
my
was
home.
It
was wrong from the
start.
Every-
thing was done in the cheapest way. Your father would never spend the
money
here. I'd
to
make
it
right. It's just as well
we
haven't any friends
be ashamed to have them step in the door. But
wanted family them. All he
friends.
likes
is
to
He
hobnob with men
room. Jamie and you are the same
at the
with nice as
girls
you have,
ters
never
Club or
in a bar-
way, but you're not to blame.
You've never had a chance to meet decent people here.
both would have been so different
he's
on people, or receiving
hates calling
if
I
know you
you'd been able to associate
of— You'd never have disgraced yourselves now no respectable parents will let their daugh-
instead
so that
be seen with you.
EDMUND Irritably.
Oh, Mama, forget it! Who cares? Jamie and I would be bored stiff. And about the Old Man, what's the use of talking? You can't change him.
MARY Mechanically rebuking.
your father the Old Man. You should have more
Don't
call
Then
dully.
I
know
Her
lips
it's
useless to talk.
quiver
and she
But sometimes
keeps her
I
respect.
feel so lonely.
head turned away.
45
—
EDMUND Anyway, you've got
to,
we
to
be
Mama. know that
fair,
but you
in the beginning,
couldn't have had people here
It
may have been
later on,
even
if
all
he'd
his fault
wanted
—
He flounders guiltily. I
mean, you wouldn't have wanted them.
MARY Wincing
— her
Don't.
can't bear
I
quivering pitifully.
lips
having you remind me.
EDMUND Don't take it's
bad
for
Mama! I'm trying to help. Because The right way is to remember. So you'll You know what's happened before.
that way! Please,
it
you
to forget.
always be on your guard. Miserably.
God, Mama, you know it's it
I
hate to remind you. I'm doing
home
been so wonderful having you
would be
the
way you've
it
because
been, and
terrible
MARY Strickenly.
Please, dear.
I
know you mean
yl defensive uneasiness I
don't understand
put
it
in
for the best,
but-
comes into her voice again.
why you
your mind
it
this
should suddenly say such things. What
morning?
EDMUND Evasively.
Nothing. Just because
MARY me
Tell
the truth.
I
feel
rotten
Why are you so
and blue,
suspicious
I
suppose.
all
of a sudden?
EDMUND I'm not!
MARY Oh,
yes
you
larly Jamie.
46
are.
I
can
feel
it.
Your father and Jamie, too
— particu-
EDMUND Now don't start
Mama.
imagining things,
MARY Her hands fluttering. It
makes
it
suspicion,
so
me, or
lieve in
much
harder, living in this atmosphere of constant
knowing everyone trust
is
spying on me, and none of you be-
me.
EDMUND That's crazy,
Mama. We do
trust you.
MARY If there
was only some place
even an afternoon, some
I
could go to get away for a day, or
woman
friend
I
could talk to
— not about
anything serious, simply laugh and gossip and forget for a while—
someone
besides the servants
— that stupid Cathleen!
EDMUND Gets up worriedly
Stop
it,
Mama.
and puts
his
arm around her.
You're getting yourself worked
up over nothing.
MARY Your father goes out.
He
meets his friends in barrooms or
at the
Club. You and Jamie have the boys you know. You go out. But alone. I've always
I
am
been alone.
EDMUND Soothingly.
Come
now! You know
that's a fib.
One
of us always
stays
keep you company, or goes with you in the automobile
around
to
when you
take a drive.
MARY Bitterly.
Because you're afraid to trust
She turns on him I
insist
you
felt
you
tell
me
alone!
— sharply.
me why you act so to remind me —
differently this
morning— why
you had
47
!
EDMUND Hesitates It's
— then blurts out guiltily.
stupid.
It's
just that
You room
last night.
the spare
I
wasn't asleep
didn't go back to your for the rest
when you came
and
Papa's
in
my room
room. You went in
of the night.
MARY Because your sake, haven't
father's I
snoring was driving
often used the spare
room
as
me crazy! For my bedroom?
heaven's
Bitterly.
But
see
I
what you thought. That was when —
EDMUND Too vehemently. I
didn't think anything!
MARY So you pretended to be asleep
in order to spy
on me!
EDMUND No!
I
did
it
because
couldn't sleep,
I
knew
if
you found out
I
was
feverish
and
would upset you.
it
MARY Jamie was pretending to be asleep, too, I'm sure, and
I
suppose your
father—
EDMUND Stop
it,
Mama!
MARY Oh,
I
can't bear
it,
Edmund, when even you—
Her hands flutter up
to
pat her hair
in their aimless, distracted way.
Suddenly a strange undercurrent of revengefulness comes into her It
would
serve
all
of you right
if it
was
true!
EDMUND Mama! Don't
48
say that! That's the
way you
talk
when —
voice.
MARY Stop suspecting me! Please, dear! You hurt me! cause
was thinking about you. That's the
I
worried ever since you've been
I
couldn't sleep be-
real reason! I've
been so
sick.
She puts her arms around him and hugs him with a frightened, protective tenderness.
EDMUND Soothingly.
That's foolishness.
You know
it's
only a bad cold.
MARY Yes,
of course,
know
I
that!
EDMUND But
listen,
Mama.
I
want you
to
again, anyway,
me that even if it should know I'll soon be all right
promise
turn out to be something worse, you'll
and you won't worry yourself sick, and
you'll
keep
on taking care of yourself—
MARY Frightenedly. I
won't
listen
talk as if
you.
I
when
give
you
I
There's absolutely no reason to
silly!
Of course,
I
promise
promised before on
my word
dreadful!
my sacred word of honor!
Then with a sad But
you're so
you expected something
bitterness.
suppose you're remembering
I've
of honor.
EDMUND No!
MARY Her
bitterness receding into
I'm not blaming you, dear.
a resigned helplessness.
How can you help
it?
How can
any one
of us forget? Strangely.
That's what makes
it
so hard
— for
all
of us.
We can't
forget.
49
EDMUND Grabs her shoulder.
Mama!
Stop
it!
MARY Forcing a smile. All right, dear.
me
Here. Let
didn't
I
feel
mean
be so gloomy. Don't mind me.
to
your head. Why,
it's
nice
and
cool.
You
certainly
haven't any fever now.
EDMUND Forget!
It's
you—
MARY But I'm quite
all
With a quick,
strange, calculating, almost sly glance at him.
Except a
right, dear.
and nervous
naturally feel tired
I
bad night.
I
really
ought
morning,
this
go upstairs and
to
lie
down
after
such
until lunch
time and take a nap.
He gives self,
What for
her an instinctive look of suspicion
— then,
ashamed of him-
looks quickly away. She hurries on nervously.
you going
are
you
Read here?
to do?
go out in the fresh
to
air
It
would be much
better
and sunshine. But don't get over-
heated, remember. Be sure and wear a hat.
She
looking straight at
stops,
tense pause.
Or
are
you
him now. He avoids her
eyes.
There
is
a
Then she speaks jeeringly. afraid to trust
me
alone?
EDMUND Tormentedly.
No! Can't you stop talking
like that!
I
think you ought to take a nap.
He goes to the screen door—forcing a joking tone. I'll go down and help Jamie bear up. I love to lie
in the shade
and
watch him work.
He forces
a laugh in which she makes herselfjoin. Then he goes out on
the porch
and disappears down
lief.
She appears
at rear of table
to relax.
and leans
Her first
reaction
her head back, closing her
she grows terribly tense again.
so
the steps.
is
one of re-
She sinks down in one ofthe wicker armchairs
Her
eyes
open
eyes.
and she
But suddenly
strains forward,
seized by a fit self.
of nervous panic. She begins a desperate
battle
with her-
Her longfingers, warped and knotted by rheumatism, drum on
arms of the
chair, driven
by an insistent
life
the
of their own, without her
consent.
CURTAIN
Jl
Act Two, Scene
One
SCENE The same.
now
It
is
around quarter
through the windows at
creasingly sultry, with
to one.
right.
No sunlight comes
Outside the day
a faint haziness
in the air
into the
is still fine
which
room
but in-
softens the glare
of the sun.
Edmund sits in he
is
the
armchair at
trying to concentrate on
some sound from
left
of table, reading a book. Or rather
His manner
upstairs.
he looks more sickly than in the previous
The second girl, a tray on which
cathleen, is
a bottle
and a pitcher of ice twenties, with
is
to
be listeningfor
nervously apprehensive
and
act.
She
carries
of bonded Bourbon, several whiskey
glasses,
enters from the back parlor.
water. She
is
a buxom
Irish peasant, in
her early
a red-cheeked comely face, black hair and blue eyes—
and possessed by a
amiable, ignorant, clumsy, pidity.
He seems
but cannot.
it
She puts the tray on the
table.
dense, well-meaning stu-
Edmund pretends
sorbed in his book he does not notice her, but she ignores
to
be so ab-
this.
CATHLEEN With garrulous familiarity. Here's the whiskey.
It'll
and Mister Jamie, or
be lunch time soon. Will
will
I
call
your father
you?
EDMUND Without looking up from
You do
his book.
it.
53
CATHLEEN It's
wonder your
a
He's a divil for if
I
father wouldn't look at his
making the meals
was to blame. But
watch once
and then Bridget
late,
grand handsome man,
he's a
if
he
in a while.
curses is
me as
old. You'll
never see the day you're as good looking— nor Mister Jamie, either.
She chuckles. I'll
wager Mister Jamie wouldn't miss the time
have his drop of whiskey
if
work and
to stop
he had a watch to his name!
EDMUND Gives up trying to ignore her and grins.
You win
that one.
CATHLEEN And here's another
I'd
win, that you're making
me
call
them
so
you
can sneak a drink before they come.
EDMUND Well,
I
hadn't thought of that
—
CATHLEEN
Oh
no, not you! Butter wouldn't melt in your mouth,
I
suppose.
EDMUND But
now you
suggest
it
—
CATHLEEN Suddenly primly virtuous. I'd
never suggest a
Sure, didn't
it kill
man
or a
woman
an uncle of mine
touch drink, Mister Edmund.
in the old country.
Relenting. Still,
a
now and
drop
then
is
no harm when you're
have a bad cold.
EDMUND Thanks
for
handing
me
a
good
excuse.
Then with forced casualness. You'd better
54
call
my mother,
too.
in
low
spirits,
or
CATHLEEN What for? She's
some consideration
she has
God
always on time without any calling.
bless her,
for the help.
EDMUND She's
been taking a nap.
CATHLEEN She wasn't asleep when She was lying
down
I
finished
in the spare
my work upstairs a while back. room with her eyes wide open.
She'd a terrible headache, she said.
EDMUND His casualness more forced.
Oh well
then, just call
my
father.
CATHLEEN Goes
to the screen door,
grumbling good-naturedly.
No wonder my feet kill me each and
get sunstroke.
I'll
call
She goes out on the side porch,
and
disappears on her
night.
I
won't walk out in
this heat
from the porch.
way
door slam behind
letting the screen
to the front porch.
A moment
her,
later she
is
heard shouting. Mister Tyrone! Mister Jamie!
Edmund, who
It's
time!
has been staring frightenedly before him, forgetting his
book, springs to his feet nervously.
EDMUND God, what
He grabs he does hastily
in
so,
wench!
and pours a
drink, adds ice water
he hears someone coming in the front door.
on the tray and sits down again, opening
from
lar
a
the bottle
and
the front parlor, his coat over his arm. tie
and carries them
in his hand.
forehead with a handkerchief. interrupted.
Jamie
He
Edmund looks
is
and drinks. As
He puts
his book.
He
the glass
Jamie comes
has taken off col-
wiping sweat from
his
up as if his reading was
takes one look at the bottle
and glasses and
smiles
cynically.
55
JAMIE Sneaking one, eh? Cut out the than
bluff, Kid. You're a rottener actor
am.
I
EDMUND Grins. Yes,
I
grabbed one while the going was good.
JAMIE Puts a hand affectionately on That's better.
his shoulder.
Why kid me? We're pals,
aren't
we?
EDMUND I
wasn't sure
it
was you coming.
JAMIE I made the Old Man look at his watch. I was halfway up the walk when Cathleen burst into song. Our wild Irish lark! She ought to be a train announcer.
EDMUND me
That's what drove
Why
to drink.
don't
you sneak one while
you've got a chance?
JAMIE I
was thinking of that
He goes quickly
to the
little
thing.
window at
right.
The Old Man was talking to old Captain He comes back and takes a drink.
And now
to cover
up from
his eagle eye.
Turner. Yes, he's
He memorizes
still
at
it.
the level in
the bottle after every drink.
He
measures two drinks of water
and shakes
it
There. That
and pours them
fixes
it.
He pours water in the glass and sets it on the table And here's the water you've been drinking.
EDMUND Fine!
56
in the whiskey bottle
up.
You don't think
it
will fool
him, do you?
by
Edmund.
JAMIE Maybe
not, but he can't prove
Putting on his collar and I
hope he doesn't
He sits across That's what
forget lunch listening to himself talk. I'm hungry.
the table from I
Edmund — irritably.
hate about working
damned
for every
it.
tie.
fool that
down
He puts on
in front.
an act
comes along.
EDMUND Gloomily.
You're in luck to be hungry.
The way
I
feel
I
don't care if
I
ever eat
again.
JAMIE Gives
him a glance of concern. You know me.
Listen, Kid.
Hardy was
right
when he
I've
told
never lectured you, but Doctor
you
to cut out the redeye.
EDMUND Oh, I'm going
to after he
hands
me
the bad news this afternoon.
A
few before then won't make any difference.
JAMIE Hesitates
— then slowly.
I'm glad you've got your
such a
He I
mind prepared
for
bad news.
It
won't be
jolt.
catches
mean,
Edmund staring at him.
it's
a cinch you're really sick,
and
it
would be wrong dope
to kid yourself.
EDMUND Disturbed.
I'm not.
I
know how
night are no joke.
I
rotten
I
feel,
and the
think Doctor Hardy's
fever last
and
chills
I
get at
guess was right.
It
must be the damned malaria come back on me.
JAMIE Maybe, but don't be too
sure.
57
EDMUND Why? What do you
think
it is?
JAMIE Hell,
how would I know?
I'm no Doc.
Abruptly.
Mama?
Where's
EDMUND Upstairs.
JAMIE Looks at him sharply.
When
did she go up?
EDMUND Oh, about the time was going
I
came down
to the hedge,
I
guess.
She said she
to take a nap.
JAMIE You
didn't
tell
me—
EDMUND Defensively.
Why much
should
I?
What
about
it?
She was
tired out.
She didn't get
sleep last night.
JAMIE I know
she didn't.
A pause.
The brothers avoid looking at each
other.
EDMUND That damned foghorn kept
me
awake, too.
Another pause.
JAMIE She's
been upstairs alone
all
morning, eh? You haven't seen her?
EDMUND No.
58
I've
been reading
here.
I
wanted
to give her a
chance
to sleep.
JAMIE Is
coming down
she
to lunch?
EDMUND Of course. JAMIE Dryly.
No of course about it. start
She might not want any lunch.
Or she might
having most of her meals alone upstairs. That's happened,
hasn't
it?
EDMUND With frightened resentment.
Cut
it
out, Jamie! Can't
you think anything but— ?
Persuasively.
You're ago.
to suspect anything. Cathleen
wrong
all
Mama didn't
JAMIE Then she wasn't
tell
her she wouldn't be
down
saw her not long to lunch.
taking a nap?
EDMUND Not
right then, but she
was lying down, Cathleen
said.
JAMIE In the spare
room?
EDMUND Yes.
For
Pete's sake,
what of it?
JAMIE Bursts out.
You damned you
stick
fool!
Why did you leave her alone so long? Why didn't
around?
EDMUND me — and you and Papa— of spying on her all made me feel ashamed. I know the time and promised on her sacred word she And how rotten it must be for her. Because she accused
not trusting her. She
of honor
— 59
JAMIE With a
bitter weariness.
You ought
to
know
that doesn't
mean
anything.
EDMUND It
does this time!
JAMIE That's what
He
we thought
Listen, Kid,
know you
I
I've seen a lot
what was kept
it
this
wrong
until
from you. But I
know
morning of the asleep.
me
arm an
game than you you were
have.
she got
You never knew
in prep school.
Papa and
I
was wise ten years or more before we had
I
game backwards and I've been thinking all way she acted last night when she thought we were the
haven't been able to think of anything
I
affectionate grasp.
think I'm a cynical bastard, but remember
more of
really
to tell you.
tell
the other times.
leans over the table to give his brothers
you
to leave her alone upstairs
else.
all
And now you
morning.
EDMUND She didn't! You're crazy!
JAMIE Placatingly.
All right, Kid.
do I'm
Don't
crazy. I've
start a battle
been
believe that this time
as
happy
with me.
as hell
I
hope
because
as
much
I'd really
as
you
begun
to
—
He stops— looking through
the front parlor
toward the hall— lowering
his voice, hurriedly.
She's
coming downstairs. You win on
that.
I
guess I'm a
damned
suspicious louse.
They grow tense with a hopeful, fearful expectancy. Jamie mutters.
Damn!
I
wish
I'd
grabbed another drink.
EDMUND Me,
He
too.
coughs nervously
glances at first
60
and
this brings
on a real fit of coughing. Jamie
him with worried pity. Mary enters from
one notices no change except that she appears
the front parlor.
to
be
less
At
nervous, to
be more as she was
when we first saw her after
becomes aware that her eyes are brighter,
ment
in her voice
her words
and manner,
breakfast, but then one
and there
as if she were
a
is
a peculiar detach-
little
withdrawn from
and actions.
MARY Goes worriedly
Edmund and puts her arm around him.
to
bad
You mustn't cough
like that.
to get a sore throat
on top of your
She
kisses
him.
He
stops
It's
coughing
for
your throat. You don't want
cold.
and gives
her a quick apprehensive
glance, but if his suspicions are aroused her tenderness
nounce them and he
On
the other hand,
believes
what he wants
Jamie knows
suspicions are justified.
His
makes him
to believe for the
re-
moment.
after one probing look at her that his
eyes fall to stare at the floor, his face sets in
of embittered, defensive cynicism. Mary goes on, halfsitting on the arm of Edmunds chair, her arm around him, so her face is
an
expression
above and behind his and he cannot look into her
But
I
seem
to
and don't do
eyes.
be always picking on you, telling you don't do
that. Forgive
me,
dear.
It's
just that
I
want
this
to take care
of you.
EDMUND I
know, Mama.
How about you? Do you feel
rested?
MARY much
Yes, ever so
out.
It's
what
I
better. I've
needed
after
been lying down ever since you went such a
I
don't feel ner-
him a
strange, almost
restless night.
vous now.
EDMUND That's
fine.
He pats
her
hand on
his shoulder.
Jamie
gives
contemptuous glance, wondering if his brother can
Edmund does
really
mean
this.
not notice but his mother does.
MARY In a forced teasing tone.
Good
heavens,
the matter
how down
in the
mouth 'you
look, Jamie. What's
now?
61
JAMIE Without looking at
her.
Nothing.
MARY Oh,
I'd
forgotten you've been working on the front hedge. That ac-
counts for your sinking into the dumps, doesn't
it?
JAMIE If you
want
Mama.
to think so,
MARY Keeping her
tone.
Well, that's the effect
it
always has,
isn't it?
What
baby you
a big
Edmund?
are! Isn't he,
EDMUND He's certainly a fool to care what anyone thinks.
MARY Strangely.
Yes, the only
way
is
to
make yourself not
care.
She catches Jamie giving her a bitter glance and changes the
Where
your father?
is
I
heard Cathleen
call
subject.
him.
EDMUND Gabbing with old Captain Turner, Jamie Jamie
up and
gets
goes to the
says. He'll
windows at
right,
be
late, as usual.
glad of an excuse
to
turn his back.
MARY I've told
him.
Cathleen time and again she must go wherever he
The
is
and
tell
idea of screaming as if this were a cheap boardinghouse!
JAMIE Looking out the window. She's
down
there now.
Sneeringly.
Interrupting the famous Beautiful Voice! She should have spect.
6z
more
re-
MARY Sharply— letting her resentment toward him come It's I
you who
won't have
his faults.
out.
should have more respect! Stop sneering
You
it!
Who
at
ought to be proud you're his son!
hasn't?
But
he's
worked hard
his
all
your
father!
He may have life. He made
way up from ignorance and poverty to the top of his profession! — else admires him and you should be the last one to sneer you, who, thanks to him, have never had to work hard in your life! Stung, Jamie has turned to stare at her with accusing antagonism. Her his
Everyone
eyes
waver guiltily and she adds
Remember your father show more
is
a tone which begins
in
getting old, Jamie.
You
to placate.
really
ought
to
consideration.
JAMIE /ought
to?
EDMUND Uneasily.
Oh, dry up, Jamie! Jamie looks out the window again. And,
for Pete's sake,
Mama, why jump on Jamie
all
of a sudden?
MARY Bitterly.
Because
he's
always sneering at someone
else,
always looking for the
worst weakness in everyone.
Then with a
But
I
strange,
suppose
life
abrupt change
has
made him
of us can help the things
you
realize
it,
and once
until at last everything
be,
and you've
lost
Edmund is made
a detached, impersonal
like that,
and he
can't help
tone.
it.
None
has done to us. They're done before
done they make you do other things comes between you and what you'd like to
they're
your true
self forever.
apprehensive by her strangeness.
in her eyes but she keeps
quickly out of the
life
to
them averted. Jamie turns
He to
tries to
look up
her— then
looks
window again.
JAMIE Dully.
I'm hungry.
I
wish the Old
Man would
get a
move
on.
It's
a rotten
63
trick the
way he keeps meals waiting, and then
beefs because they're
spoiled.
MARY With a resentment that has a quality of being automatic and on the surface while inwardly she
indifferent.
is
know how trying. You don't who don't care because they know it isn't a permanent position. The really good servants are all with people who have homes and not merely summer places. And your father won't even pay the wages the best summer help Yes,
it's
have to keep house with
ask.
So every year
you've heard in
You
very trying, Jamie.
me
I
don't
summer
servants
have stupid, lazy greenhorns to deal with. But
say this a thousand times. So has he, but
one ear and out the
other.
He
thinks
money
spent on a
it
goes
home
is
much in hotels. Never the best hotels, of course. Second-rate hotels. He doesn't understand a home. He doesn't feel at home in it. And yet, he wants a home. He's even proud of having this shabby place. He loves it here. money wasted.
She laughs It's
He's lived too
— a hopeless and yet amused laugh.
really funny,
when you come
to think
of it. He's a peculiar man.
EDMUND Again attempting uneasily
up in her
to look
What makes you ramble on
like that,
eyes.
Mama?
MARY Quickly casual— patting his cheek.
Why, nothing As she
in particular, dear.
It is
foolish.
speaks, Cathleen enters from the back parlor.
CATHLEEN Volubly.
Lunch
is
ready,
Ma'am,
ordered, and he said he'd to that
64
man,
telling
I
went down
come
to Mister Tyrone, like
right away, but he kept
him of the time when —
you
on talking
MARY Indifferently.
All right, Cathleen. Tell Bridget I'm sorry
few minutes until Mister Tyrone
but
she'll
have to wait a
here.
and goes
Cathleen mutters, "Yes, Ma'am,"
grumbling
is
off through the back parlor,
to herself.
JAMIE
Damn
it!
Why don't you go
ahead without him? He's told us
to.
MARY With a remote, amused smile.
He
doesn't
mean
it.
Don't you
know your
father yet?
He'd be so
terribly hurt.
EDMUND Jumps I'll
up— as if he was glad ofan
make him
He goes
get a
move
out on the side porch.
the porch
A
moment
later he
is
heard calling from
exasperatedly.
Hey! Papa!
Mary has
excuse to leave.
on.
Come
on!
We
risen from the
can't wait
arm of the
all
chair.
day!
Her hands play
restlessly
over
the table top. She does not look at Jamie but she feels the cynically ap-
praising glance he gives her face
and hands.
MARY Tensely.
Why do you stare like
that?
JAMIE You know.
He
turns back to the window.
MARY I
don't know.
JAMIE Oh,
for
God's sake, do you think you can fool me,
Mama?
I'm not
blind.
6,-
MARY Looks directly at him now, her face
set
again in an expression of blank,
stubborn denial. I
don't
know what
JAMIE No? Take
you're talking about.
a look at
your eyes in the mirror!
EDMUND Coming in from I
the porch.
got Papa moving. He'll be here in a minute.
With a glance from one to the other, which his mother avoids What's happened? What's the matter, Mama?
— uneasily.
MARY Disturbed by his coming, gives way
to
a flurry ofguilty, nervous
excite-
ment.
Your brother ought ing
I
know
don't
to
be ashamed of himself. He's been insinuat-
what.
EDMUND Turns on Jamie.
God damn you! He takes a threatening step shrug
and
looks out the
toward him. Jamie turns
his
back with a
window.
MARY More
upset,
Stop this
at
Edmunds arm — excitedly.
grabs
once, do you hear
me?
How dare you use such language
before me!
Abruptly her tone
and manner change
to the strange
detachment she
has shown before. It's
has
wrong
to
blame your brother.
He
made him. Any more than your
can't help being
father can.
Or you. Or
EDMUND Frightenedly
He's a
66
— with a desperate hoping against hope.
liar! It's
a
lie, isn't it,
Mama?
what the I.
past
MARY Keeping her
What
is
eyes averted.
a lie?
Now you're
She stammers.
his stricken, accusing look.
Then her eyes meet
Edmund!
talking in riddles like Jamie.
Don't!
She looks away and her manner instantly regains the quality ofstrange
detachment— calmly.
coming up
There's your father
the steps now.
She goes through the back parlor.
He
looks sick
Edmund
I
must
tell
moves slowly
Bridget.
to his chair.
and hopeless.
JAMIE From the window, without looking around. Well?
EDMUND Refusing
to
admit anything
Well, what? You're a
Jamie again shrugs heard
brother yet— weakly defiant.
his shoulders.
The
screen door on the front porch
is
Edmund says dully.
closing.
Here's Papa.
to his
liar.
I
hope he loosens up with the old
Tyrone comes in through the front parlor.
He
is
bottle.
putting on his
coat.
TYRONE Sorry I'm
late.
Captain Turner stopped to talk and once he
starts
away from him.
gabbing you can't get
JAMIE Without turning— dryly.
You mean once he starts listening. His father regards him with dislike. He comes measuring look at the
bottle
to the table
with a quick
of whiskey. Without turning, Jamie
senses
this. It's all
right.
The
level in the bottle hasn't
changed.
TYRONE I
wasn't noticing that.
He adds As
if it
caustically.
proved anything with you around. I'm on to your
tricks.
67
EDMUND Dully.
Did
I
hear you say,
let's all
have a drink?
TYRONE Frowns at him. Jamie
welcome
is
you. Doctor
after his
hard morning's work, but
I
won't invite
Hardy—
EDMUND To
hell
in,
Papa.
with Doctor Hardy!
One
isn't
going to
kill
me.
I
feel— all
TYRONE With a worried look at
Come
along, then.
him—putting on a fake heartiness.
It's
before a meal and I've always found that
good whiskey, taken in moderation as an appetizer,
is
the best of
tonics.
Edmund gets
up as
his father passes the bottle to
him.
He pours
a big
drink. Tyrone frowns admonishingly. I
moderation.
said, in
He pours his own It'd
drink
and passes
the bottle to Jamie, grumbling.
be a waste of breath mentioning moderation to you.
Ignoring the hint, Jamie pours a big drink. His father scowls— then, giving
it
up, resumes his hearty air, raising his glass.
Well, here's health and happiness!
Edmund gives a
bitter laugh.
EDMUND That's a joke!
TYRONE What
is?
EDMUND Nothing. Here's how. They drink.
TYRONE Becoming aware of the atmosphere.
68
What's the matter here? There's gloom
in the air
you could cut with
a knife.
Turns on Jamie
that
resentfully.
the drink
You got
you were
after,
didn't you?
Why are you wearing
gloomy look on your mug?
JAMIE his shoulders.
Shrugging
You won't be singing
a song yourself soon.
EDMUND Shut up, Jamie.
TYRONE Uneasy now— changing the subject. I
thought lunch was ready. I'm hungry
as a hunter.
Where
is
your
mother?
MARY Returning through the back parlor,
Here
I
She comes
She
in.
is
everywhere except at I've
had
to
late again,
excited
and self-conscious. As
calm down Bridget. She's
and
I
it
for
all
she talks, she glances
any of their faces.
don't blame
waiting in the oven, she said leave
calls.
am.
it
her. If
tantrum over your being
in a
your lunch
served you
right,
is
dried up from
you could
like
it
or
she cared.
With increasing excitement.
Oh, I'm
so sick
and
tired
of pretending
this
is
a
home! You won't
You won't put yourself out the least bit! You don't know how to act in a home! You don't really want one! You never have wanted one— never since the day we were married! You should have remained a bachelor and lived in second-rate hotels and entertained help me!
your friends She adds than
in
barrooms!
strangely, as if she
were
now
talking aloud to herself rather
to Tyrone.
Then nothing would
ever have happened.
They stare at her. Tyrone knows now.
He suddenly looks a
tired, bitterly
69
Edmund glances at his father and sees
sad old man. he
cannot help trying
still
to
warn
that he knows, but
his mother.
EDMUND Mama!
Stop talking.
Why don't we go
in to lunch.
MARY and at
Starts
once the quality of unnatural detachment
an
face again. She even smiles with Yes,
it is
which I
to dig
amusement
up the
past,
settles
on her
to herself.
when
I
know your
and Jamie must be hungry.
father
Putting her
arm around Edmunds shoulder— with a fond
solicitude
at the same time remote.
is
do hope you have an
Her
me
inconsiderate of
ironical
eyes
appetite, dear.
become fixed on the whiskey
You
glass
really
must
eat
more.
on the table beside him
—
sharply.
Why
that glass there?
is
such a fool? Don't you
Did you
know
take a drink?
Oh, how can you be
the worst thing?
it's
She turns on Tyrone. You're to blame, James. kill
could you
him? Don't you remember
he was stricken.
He
that whiskey
good
A
How
is
a
my
said doctors
father?
were
Do you want
He wouldn't stop He thought, like
after
you,
and she stammers.
for scolding you, James.
all. I
One
don't
know why
He jerks
instinctively
his
I
—
small drink won't hurt
Edmund. It might be good for him, if it gives him an appetite. She pats Edmunds cheek playfully, the strange detachment again in manner.
to
tonic!
look of terror comes into her eyes
me
him?
fools!
But, of course, there's no comparison at
Forgive
let
head away. She seems not
to notice,
her
but she moves
away.
JAMIE Roughly, to hide his tense nerves.
damned
dirt
comes around in back of his father, not looking at his mother,
and
For God's sake,
under the hedge
He
grabs
eat.
I've
morning.
been working
I've
earned
Edmunds shoulder.
Come 70
let's all
on, Kid. Let's put
on the feed bag.
in the
my grub.
Edmund gets her.
up, keeping his eyes averted from his mother.
They pass
heading for the back parlor.
TYRONE Dully.
with your mother,
you
in a second.
Yes,
you go
But
they keep on without waiting for her. She looks at their backs with
in
lads.
I'll
join
a helpless hurt and, as they enter the back parlor, Tyrone's eyes are
on
her,
starts to follow
them.
sad and condemning. She feels them and turns
sharply without meeting his stare.
MARY
Why do you look at me like that? Her hands flutter up to pat her hair. Is it my hair coming down? I was thought
I'd better lie
a nice refreshing nap.
woke
down
this
so
worn out from
morning.
But I'm sure
I
fixed
last night.
I
drowsed off and had
I
my
hair again
when
I
up.
Forcing a laugh.
Although,
as usual,
I
couldn't find
my glasses.
Sharply.
Please stop staring!
One would
think you were accusing
me —
Then pleadingly. James! You don't understand!
TYRONE With dull anger. I
understand that
He
I've
been
walks away from her
to
a
God-damned
fool to believe in you!
pour himselfa big drink.
MARY Her face again I
don't
distrust
Then
sets
in stubborn defiance.
know what you mean by
"believing in me." All I've
felt
was
and spying and suspicion.
accusingly.
Why are you
having another drink? You never have more than one
before lunch. Bitterly.
7i
know what
I
to expect.
the first time, will
Again she
it
You
will
be drunk tonight. Well,
it
won't be
— or the thousandth?
bursts out pleadingly.
Oh, James,
You don't understand! I'm
please!
so worried about
Edmund! I'm so afraid he —
TYRONE don't want to listen to your excuses, Mary.
I
MARY Strickenly.
mean—
You
Excuses?
?
Oh, you
of me! You
can't believe that
mustn't believe that, James!
Then slipping away Shall
we not go
into her strange
into lunch, dear?
I
detachment— quite don't
casually.
want anything but
I
know
you're hungry.
He
walks slowly
to
where she stands in the doorway.
old man.
As he
James!
tried so hard!
I
He
walks like an
reaches her she bursts out piteously. I
tried so hard! Please
believe—!
TYRONE Moved in I
spite
of himself— helplessly.
suppose you did, Mary.
Then griefstrickenly. For the love of God,
why couldn't you
have the strength to keep on?
MARY Her face setting into I
don't
know what
that stubborn denial again.
you're talking about.
Have
the strength to keep
on what?
TYRONE Hopelessly.
Never mind.
He
It's
no use now.
moves on and she keeps beside him as they disappear in the back
parlor.
CURTAIN 72
Act Two, Scene
Two
SCENE The same, about a half hour
later.
The
tray with the bottle
of whis-
key has been removed from the table. The family are returning from
lunch as the curtain lor.
rises.
Mary
Her husband follows. He
is
is
the first to enter from the back par-
not with her as he was in the similar
entrance after breakfast at the opening ofAct One.
her or looking at her. There
condemnation in
is
He avoids
his face,
touching
mingled now
with the beginning of an old weary, helpless resignation. Jamie
and
Edmund follow their father. Jamie's face is hard with defensive cynicism. Edmund tries to copy this defense but without success. He plainly shows he
Mary
is
is
to
had been
too
much for her.
is
ofsitting through lunch
Yet at the
same
time, in contrast
her expression shows more of that strange aloofness which seems
and the anxieties which harry
stand apart from her nerves
She
ill.
terribly nervous again, as if the strain
with them to this,
heartsick as well as physically
them.
talking as she enters— a stream of words that issues casually, in a
routine offamily conversation, from her mouth. She appears indifferent
thoughts are not on
to the fact that their
than her
own
are.
As
what
she
she talks, she comes to the
stands, facing front, one
hand fumbling with
the
the other playing over the table top. Tyrone lights the screen door, staring out.
bookcase at rear.
Edmund sits so
in
He
lights it as
to
watch
saying any more
of the table and bosom of her dress, a cigar and goes
to
Jamie fills a pipe from a jar on top of the
a chair by the
he does not have
is
left
he goes
table,
to look
out the
window at
turned halfaway from
his
right.
mother
her.
MARY It's
no use finding
fault
with Bridget. She doesn't
listen.
I
can't
73
threaten her, or she'd threaten she'd leave. at times.
It's
And
James. Well, there's this consolation:
late,
she does
do her best
too bad they seem to be just the times you're sure to be it's
difficult to tell
from
her cooking whether she's doing her best or her worst.
She gives a
little
laugh ofdetached amusement
Never mind. The summer
will
season will open again and
we can go back
trains.
a
soon be
hate them, too, but at least
I
home, and
there's
over,
thank goodness. Your
to second-rate hotels
don't expect
I
no housekeeping
— indifferently.
to
worry about.
able to expect Bridget or Cathleen to act as if this
know
isn't as
it
well as
we know
it.
It
them
was
It's
a
and
to be like
unreason-
home. They
never has been and
it
never
will be.
TYRONE without turning around.
Bitterly
No,
never can be now. But
it
it
was once, before you
—
MARY Her face
instantly set in blank denial.
Before
what?
There
No,
I
a dead silence. She goes on with a return of her detached air.
is
no.
Whatever you mean,
it isn't
true, dear. It
was never a home.
You've always preferred the Club or a barroom.
And
for
me
it's
room in a one-night stand hotel. In never lonely. You forget I know from experience
always been as lonely as a dirty a real
what
At
home one is home is like.
a
once, through
manner becomes detachment in
I
an
gave up one to marry you association
tenderly solicitous, but there
lunch. That's no
way
to have an appetite.
Edmund. You
me you
EDMUND Yes,
74
Mama.
to
Edmund. Her
the strange quality
of
hardly touched a thing at
to take care of yourself.
I've
been growing too
Coaxingly maternal.
Dully.
is
it.
I'm worried about you,
Promise
— my father's home.
of ideas she turns
will, dear, for
my sake.
It's all
fat.
right for
me not
But you must
eat.
MARY Pats his cheek as he tries not to shrink away.
That's a good boy.
There
is
another pause of dead silence. Then the telephone in the front
hall rings
and all of them
stiffen startledly.
TYRONE Hastily. I'll
McGuire
answer.
He goes
said he'd call me.
out through the font parlor.
MARY Indifferently.
have another piece of property on his
He must
McGuire.
list
that
matter
no one would think of buying except your it's always seemed to me your father could afford father. It doesn't
any more, but
keep on buying property but never to give She
stops to listen as Tyrone's voice
is
me
a
to
home.
heardfom the
hall.
TYRONE Hello.
With forced heartiness.
Oh, how
are you,
Doctor?
Jamie turns fom the window. Mary's fingers play more rapidly on the table top. Tyrone's voice, trying to conceal, reveals that he is hearing bad news. I
see
—
Hurriedly.
Well, you'll explain Yes, he'll
all
about
be in without
fail.
it
when you
Four
have a talk with you before that.
I
o'clock.
see I'll
him drop
this afternoon.
in
myself and
have to go uptown on business,
anyway. Goodbye, Doctor.
EDMUND Dully.
That didn't sound Jamie
gives
Mary's face in.
The
like glad tidings.
him a pitying glance— then is
strain
terrified is
looks out the
window
and her hands flutter distractedly.
obvious in his casualness as he addresses
again.
Tyrone comes
Edmund. 75
TYRONE was Doctor Hardy.
It
He wants you
to
be sure and see him
at four.
EDMUND Dully.
What
did he say?
Not
that
I
give a
damn
now.
MARY Bursts out excitedly. I
wouldn't believe him
pay attention
to a
if
he swore on a stack of Bibles. You mustn't
word he
Edmund.
says,
TYRONE Sharply.
Mary!
MARY More excitedly. Oh, we all realize why you please don't try to
knows
ought
I
tell
me!
to after
all
should be a law to keep the slightest
idea—
Her face
drawn
is
in
For the moment, she
He
I
an
know all
men
you
like
delivers
expression
loses all
like a criminal!
exactly the
But
about Doctor Hardy. Heaven
him from
practicing.
He
hasn't
you're in agony and half insane, he
sermons on
sits
power!
will
of intense suffering by the memory. With bitter hatred.
caution.
deliberately humiliates you!
treats
he's cheap!
these years. He's an ignorant fool! There
When
and holds your hand and
him, James! Because
like
He
He makes you
beg and plead!
understands nothing!
same type of cheap quack who
cine — and you never knew what
it
was
first
And
yet
it
He was
gave you the medi-
until too late!
Passionately. I
hate doctors! They'll do
to
them. They'll
you never know
sell
anything— anything
their souls!
it till
What's worse,
76
keep you coming
one day you find yourself in
EDMUND Mama!
to
they'll sell yours,
For God's sake, stop talking.
hell!
and
TYRONE Shakenly.
Mary,
Yes,
it's
no time—
MARY Suddenly I
—
overcome by guilty confusion— stammers.
is
Forgive me, dear. You're right.
There
is
It's
again a pause of dead silence.
has cleared
and
calm,
is
and
useless to
When
the quality
be angry now.
she speaks again, her face
of uncanny detachment
is
in
her voice and manner.
I'm going upstairs for a
moment,
if you'll
excuse me.
I
have to
fix
my hair. She adds smilingly.
That
is if I
can find
my glasses.
I'll
be right down.
TYRONE As
she starts through the
doorway— pleading and rebuking.
Mary!
MARY Turns
to stare
Yes, dear?
at
What
him
calmly.
is it?
TYRONE Helplessly.
Nothing.
MARY With a strange You're
derisive smile.
welcome
to
come up and watch me
if you're
so suspicious.
TYRONE As
if
your
that could jailor.
do any good! You'd only postpone
This
isn't
it.
And
I'm not
a prison.
MARY No.
I
know you
can't help thinking
She adds quickly with a detached I'm sorry, dear.
She turns and
I
don't
mean
to
it's
a
home.
contrition.
be
bitter. It's
not your
fault.
disappears through the back parlor. The three in the
77
—
!
room remain
silent. It is as
if they were waiting until she got upstairs
before speaking.
JAMIE Cynically brutal.
Another shot
in the arm!
EDMUND Angrily.
Cut out
that kind of talk!
TYRONE Yes!
Hold your
Have you no
foul tongue
and your rotten Broadway loafer's
lingo!
pity or decency?
Losing his temper.
You ought
damned
to
well
complain
you know
be kicked out in the gutter! But
if
who'd weep and plead
and excuse you and
till I
let
for you,
I
did
it,
you come back.
JAMIE
A spasm ofpain Christ, don't for her.
which
feeling. live
crosses his face.
know
that?
No
pity?
I
have
all
the pity in the world
understand what a hard game to beat
I
is
I
more than you
I
My lingo
ever have!
was merely putting bluntly what we
she's
didn't all
up
against
mean
I
had no
know, and have
to
with now, again.
Bitterly.
The is
cures are
no damned good except
no cure and we've been saps
to
for a while.
The
truth
is
there
hope —
Cynically.
They never come
back!
EDMUND Scornfully parodying his brothers cynicism.
They never come We're
all fall
back! Everything
guys and suckers and
Disdainfully.
Christ, if
78
I
felt
the
way you do —
is
we
in the bag!
It's all
can't beat the
a frame-up!
game!
JAMIE
moment— then
Stung for a
shrugging his shoulders,
thought you did. Your poetry
I
very cheery.
dryly.
Nor
the stuff you
you admire.
read and claim
He
isn't
indicates the small bookcase at rear.
Your pet with the unpronounceable name,
for example.
EDMUND Nietzsche.
You don't know what
you're talking about.
You
haven't
read him.
JAMIE Enough
know
to
it's
a lot of bunk!
TYRONE Shut up, both of you! There's
you learned from Broadway his books.
faith
little
loafers,
choice between the philosophy
and the one
Edmund
got from
They're both rotten to the core. You've both flouted the
you were born and brought up
Catholic Church
— and your denial
in
— the
one true
faith
of the
has brought nothing but
self-
destruction!
His two sons stare at him contemptuously. They forget their quarrel and are as one against
him on
this issue.
EDMUND That's the bunk, Papa!
JAMIE
We
don't pretend, at any rate.
Caustically. I
don't notice you've
worn any
holes in the knees of your pants
going to Mass.
TYRONE It's I
true I'm a
bad Catholic
in the observance,
God
forgive me.
But
believe!
Angrily.
And you're ing of
a
liar!
my life
I
I
get
may not go on
to
my knees
church but every night and morn-
and pray!
-9
—
EDMUND Bitingly.
Did you pray
Mama?
for
TYRONE I
God
did. I've prayed to
these
many years
for her.
EDMUND Then Nietzsche must be
right.
He quotes from Thus Spake Zarathustra. "God is dead: of His pity for man hath God
died."
TYRONE Ignores If
this.
too— She
your mother had prayed,
she's forgotten
it,
until
now
there's
hasn't denied her faith, but
no strength of the
spirit left in
her to fight against her curse.
Then dully
resigned.
But what's the good of talk? We've lived with
we must
again. There's
no help
for
this before
and now
it.
Bitterly.
Only
I
wish she hadn't led
me
to
hope
this time.
By God,
I
never
will again!
EDMUND That's a rotten thing to say, Papa! Defiantly.
Well,
hope! She's just started.
I'll
She can
still
stop. I'm
It
can't have got a hold
going to talk to
on her yet.
her.
JAMIE Shrugs his shoulders.
You
can't talk to her
now.
She'll listen
here but she won't be here.
You know
but she won't the
way
listen. She'll
be
she gets.
TYRONE Yes, that's the
now on,
there'll
of each night
80
way
the poison acts
on her always. Every day from
be the same drifting away from us until by the end
EDMUND Miserably.
Cut
out, Papa!
it
He jumps
up from
his chair.
I'm going to get dressed. Bitterly, as I'll
He
make
he goes.
much
so
come
noise she can't suspect I've
disappears through the front parlor
and can
to spy
on
her.
be heard stamping
noisily upstairs.
JAMIE After a pause.
What
did
Doc Hardy
say about the Kid?
TYRONE Dully. It's
what you thought. He's got consumption.
JAMIE
God damn
it!
TYRONE There
no possible doubt, he
is
said.
JAMIE He'll have to go to a sanatorium.
TYRONE Yes,
and the sooner the
around him. be cured,
if
He
better,
Hardy
claims that in six
said, for
months
him and everyone
to a year
Edmund
will
he obeys orders.
He sighs— gloomily and resentfully. I
never thought a child of mine
—
It
doesn't
come from my
the family. There wasn't one of us that didn't have lungs as
side of
as strong
an ox.
JAMIE
Who
gives a
to send
damn
about that part of
it!
Where does Hardy want
him?
8i
TYRONE That's what I'm to see
him about.
JAMIE good place and not some cheap
Well, for God's sake, pick out a
dump!
TYRONE Stung. I'll
send him wherever Hardy thinks best!
JAMIE Hardy your old over-the-hills-to-the-poorhouse
Well, don't give
song about taxes
and mortgages.
TYRONE I'm no millionaire tell
Hardy the
who
money away!
can throw
Why
shouldn't
I
truth?
JAMIE Because cause
he'll
he'll
think you want
know
you've seen
it
isn't
him
the truth
McGuire and
let
to pick a
cheap dump, and be-
— especially if he hears afterwards
that flannel-mouth, gold-brick mer-
chant sting you with another piece of bum property!
TYRONE Furiously.
Keep your nose out of my
business!
JAMIE This
is
Edmund's
business.
a waste of
money
to
What
consumption
bog-trotter idea that
I'm afraid of is fatal,
is,
with your
you'll figure
it
Irish
would be
spend any more than you can help.
TYRONE You
liar!
JAMIE All right. Prove I'm a it
82
up.
liar.
That's what
I
want. That's
why I brought
TYRONE His rage I
still
smouldering.
Edmund
have every hope
tongue off Ireland! You're a
your
be cured.
will
fine
one
to sneer,
And
keep your dirty
with the
map
of
it
on
face!
JAMIE Not after I wash my
face.
Then
before his father can react to this insult to the
dryly,
shrugging his shoulders.
Well, I've said
all I
have to
up
say. It's
Old
Sod, he adds
to you.
Abruptly.
What do you want me town?
I've
done
all I
You don't want me
to
do
this afternoon,
now
you're going up-
can do on the hedge until you cut more of
to
go ahead with your clipping,
I
know
it.
that.
TYRONE No. You'd get
JAMIE Then I'd
it
crooked, as you get everything
better go
else.
uptown with Edmund. The bad news coming
on top of what's happened
to
Mama may hit him
hard.
TYRONE Forgetting his quarrel.
go with him, Jamie. Keep up
Yes,
He adds If you
his spirits, if you can.
caustically.
can without making
it
an excuse to get drunk!
JAMIE
What would
I
use for
booze, not giving
it
money? The
last
I
heard they were
still
selling
away.
He starts for the front-parlor doorway. I'll
get dressed.
He
stops in the
doorway
as he sees his
mother approaching from the
and moves aside to let her come in. Her eyes look brighter, and her manner is more detached. This change becomes more marked as the hall,
scene goes on.
83
MARY Vaguely.
You haven't seen
my glasses He
She doesn't look at him. she doesn't seem to expect
anywhere, have you, Jamie? glances away, ignoring her question but
an answer. She comes forward, addressing her
husband without looking at him.
You haven't seen them, have you, James? Behind her Jamie disappears through the front parlor.
TYRONE Turns
to look
out the screen door.
No, Mary.
MARY What's the matter with Jamie? Have you been nagging
You shouldn't
treat
to blame. If he'd
him with such contempt
been brought up in a
real
all
at
him again?
the time. He's not
home, I'm
sure he
would
have been different.
She comes
to the
You're not ting.
windows at right— lightly.
much
of a weather prophet, dear. See
how
hazy
it's
get-
can hardly see the other shore.
I
TYRONE Trying Yes,
I
to
speak naturally.
spoke too soon. We're in for another night of fog, I'm
afraid.
MARY Oh,
well,
I
won't mind
it
tonight.
TYRONE No,
I
don't imagine you will, Mary.
MARY Flashes a glance at I
him
— after a pause.
don't see Jamie going
down
to the hedge.
Where
did he go?
TYRONE He's going with
Edmund
to the Doctor's.
his clothes.
Then, glad ofan excuse
84
to leave her.
He went up
to
change
do the same or
I'd better
be
I'll
late for
my appointment at the Club.
He makes
a move toward the front-parlor doorway, but with a swift
impulsive
movement she
reaches out
and clasps
his
arm.
MARY
A
note ofpleading in her voice.
Don't go
yet, dear.
don't
I
want
to be alone.
Hastily.
mean, you have plenty of time. You know you boast you can dress
I
one-tenth the time
in
takes the boys.
it
Vaguely.
There
is
something
glad Jamie
is
I
wanted
What
to say.
is it?
I've forgotten.
going uptown. You didn't give him any money,
I
I'm
hope.
TYRONE did not.
I
MARY He'd only spend
on drink and you know what
it
tongue he has when
he's
drunk. Not that
said tonight, but he always
manages
cially if you're drunk, too, as
you
I
a vile, poisonous
would mind anything he
to drive
you into
a rage, espe-
will be.
TYRONE Resentfully. I
won't.
never get drunk.
I
MARY Teasing indifferently.
sure you'll hold
Oh, I'm
stranger to
tell,
but
it
well.
You always
after thirty-five years
have.
of marriage
It's
hard for a
—
TYRONE never missed a performance in
I've
Then If
I
did get drunk
ever
my life. That's
the proof!
bitterly.
had
it is
not you
who
should blame me.
No man
has
a better reason.
MARY Reason?
What
reason?
You always drink too much when you go
to
8s
—
when you meet McGuire. He sees fault, dear. You must do as you
the Club, don't you? Particularly to that.
Don't think I'm finding
please.
won't mind.
I
TYRONE I know you won't. He turns toward the front parlor,
I've
anxious
to escape.
got to get dressed.
MARY Again she reaches out and grasps
his
arm—pleadingly.
while, dear.
At
least, until
be leaving
me
so soon.
No, please wait a
little
comes down. You
will all
one of the boys
TYRONE With It's
bitter sadness.
you who
are leaving us,
Mary.
MARY That's a
I?
where
I
silly
thing to
could go.
say,
James.
Who would
I
How could
go to see?
I
I
leave?
There
is
no-
have no friends.
TYRONE It's
your
own
fault
He stops and sighs helplessly— persuasively. There's surely one thing for you,
you can do
this
afternoon that will be good
Mary. Take a drive in the automobile. Get away from the
house. Get a
little
sun and fresh
air.
Injuredly. I
bought the automobile
things. I'd rather
for you.
You know
walk any day, or take a
I
don't like the
damned
trolley.
With growing resentment. I
had
it
torium.
here waiting for you I
You used I
hoped
it
to ride in
paid a lot of
would it
give
when you came back from you pleasure and
distract
every day, but you've hardly used
money
I
couldn't afford, and
it
the sana-
your mind. at all lately.
there's the chauffeur
I
have to board and lodge and pay high wages whether he drives you or not. Bitterly.
86
Waste! The same old waste that
my old the
age!
What good
money out
did
it
will
land
do you?
I
me
might
in the as well
poorhouse
in
have thrown
the window.
MARY With detached calm. Yes,
it
was
a waste
of money, James. You shouldn't have bought a
secondhand automobile. You were swindled again because you
insist
on secondhand bargains
as
you always
are,
in everything.
TYRONE It's
one of the best makes! Everyone
new
says
it's
any of the
better than
ones!
MARY Ignoring It
this.
was another waste
to hire
Smythe,
who was
garage and had never been a chauffeur. less
than a
sure, is
real chauffeur's,
by the
graft
Oh,
I
only a helper in a
realize his
wages are
but he more than makes up for that, I'm
he gets from the garage on repair
bills.
Something
always wrong. Smythe sees to that, I'm afraid.
TYRONE I
don't believe
it!
He may
he's honest! You're as
bad
not be a fancy millionaire's flunky but
as
Jamie, suspecting everyone!
MARY You mustn't be offended,
me
the automobile.
knew
that
touched. it
proved
I
I
dear.
I
knew you
was the way you had
to
wasn't offended didn't
mean
when you
to humiliate
do everything.
I
gave
me.
I
was grateful and
knew buying the car was a hard thing for you to do, and how much you loved me, in your way, especially when
you couldn't
really believe
it
would do me any good.
TYRONE Mary!
He suddenly
hugs her to
him — brokenly.
Dear Mary! For the love of God,
for
my sake and the boys'
sake and
your own, won't you stop now?
87
MARY Stammers
I— James!
Please!
Her strange, stubborn Stop what?
He
a second.
in guilty confusion for
lets his
What
are
arm fall
defense comes back instantly.
you
talking about?
to his side brokenly.
She impulsively puts her arm
around him. James! We've loved each other! that,
and not
We always will! Let's remember only
understand what we cannot understand, or help
try to
things that cannot be helped
— the
things
life
we
has done to us
cannot excuse or explain.
TYRONE As if he hadn't heard You won't even try?
—
bitterly.
MARY Her arms drop
hopelessly
Try to go for a drive wish
me
There
is
where
to
to,
although
no one tell
and she
it
makes
me
away— with detachment. you mean? Why,
feel lonelier
than
if
can invite to drive with me, and
I
Smythe
to go. If there
could drop in and laugh and isn't.
turns
this afternoon,
was
I
I
yes, if
you
stayed here.
never
a friend's house
know
where
I
gossip awhile. But, of course, there
There never has been.
Her manner becoming more and more At the Convent in lovely father's
I
homes.
had so many I
home. But,
used to
visit
remote.
friends. Girls
them and
naturally, after
I
whose
families lived
they'd visit
me
married an actor— you
in
my
know
— a lot of them gave me And then, right after we were married, there was the scandal of that woman who had been your mistress, suing you. From then on, all my old friends either pitied me or cut me dead. I hated the ones who cut me much less than the pitiers.
how
actors were considered in those days
the cold shoulder.
TYRONE With guilty resentment. For God's sake, don't dig up what's long forgotten. If you're that
88
far
—
gone
when
in the past already,
noon, what
will
it's
only the beginning of the after-
you be tonight?
MARY Stares at
Come I
him
defiantly now.
to think of
must
it, I
do have
to drive
uptown. There's something
get at the drugstore.
TYRONE Bitterly scornful.
Leave for
it
to
more!
you
I
hope you'll
another night
some of the
to have
like the
lay in a
stuff hidden,
good stock ahead
one when you screamed
and prescriptions
so we'll never have for
it,
and ran out
of the house in your nightdress half crazy, to try and throw yourself off the dock!
MARY Tries to ignore this. I
have to get tooth powder and
toilet
soap and cold cream
She breaks down pitiably. James!
You mustn't remember! You mustn't humiliate me
so!
TYRONE Ashamed. I'm sorry. Forgive me, Mary!
MARY Defensively detached again. It
doesn't matter.
Nothing
dreamed
it.
He stares
at her hopelessly.
like that ever
Her
happened. You must have
voice seems to drift farther
and farther
away. I
was so healthy before
There wasn't a nerve after season,
in
with week
Edmund was
my
born.
body. Even
after
You remember, James.
traveling with
week of one-night
you season
stands, in trains
without Pullmans, in dirty rooms of filthy hotels, eating bad food, bearing children in hotel rooms,
Edmund
was the
last straw.
I
I
was so
still
kept healthy. But bearing
sick afterwards,
and that igno-
89
quack of a cheap hotel doctor
rant It
was easy
him
for
— All he knew was
was
I
in pain.
to stop the pain.
TYRONE Mary! For God's
sake, forget the past!
MARY With strange
objective calm.
Why? How
can
too.
We all
I?
try to
The
past
is
the present,
out of that but
lie
the future,
isn't it? It's
won't
life
let us.
Going on. I
blame only myself.
another baby.
my
mother
was
I
to join
I
to
swore after Eugene died
blame
you on the
you missed me and were allowed,
when he
Her face
hardening.
I've
for his death. If
still
had measles,
always believed Jamie did
He
baby.
go
left
you wrote
him with
telling
me
would never have been room.
in the baby's
on purpose. He was
jealous of the
starts to protest.
know Jamie was
I
it
to
would never have
hated him.
As Tyrone
Oh,
road, because
so lonely, Jamie
I
hadn't
I
been warned to forgive
it
him
might
only seven, but he was never stupid. He'd the baby.
kill
He
knew.
I've
never been able
for that.
TYRONE With
bitter sadness.
Are you back with Eugene now? Can't you
let
our dead baby
rest in
peace?
MARY As ifshe hadnt heard him. It was my fault. I should have not have
Above
let
all, I
you persuade me shouldn't have
let
insisted
on
staying with
to join you, just because
you
insist
I
knew from
I
homes
to
be born
make me
in, if
time
Edmund.
90
they are to be good children, and
they are to be good mothers.
if
carried
forget his
experience by then that children should have
need homes, I
loved you.
have another baby to take
Eugene's place, because you thought that would death.
Eugene and I
I
knew something
I
was
terrible
afraid
women all
the
would happen.
I
—
knew
I'd
proved by the way
I'd left
Eugene that
God would
have another baby, and that
wasn't worthy to
I
me
punish
if
did.
I
never
I
should have borne Edmund.
TYRONE With an uneasy glance through the front parlor. careful with
Mary! Be
your
he heard you he might think
talk. If
you never wanted him. He's feeling bad enough already without
—
MARY Violently.
a He!
It's
did want him!
I
don't understand!
He
never will be.
tive,
and
Nor
my
that's
More than anything
healthy.
fault.
And
in the world!
You
He
has never been happy.
He was born
nervous and too sensi-
meant, for his sake.
I
now, ever since
kept remembering Eugene and
my
father
he's
and
been so sick
I've
been so
I've
fright-
ened and guilty Then, catching
Oh,
I
know
reason for
it.
herself,
it's
with an instant change
After
all,
stubborn denial.
when
there's
no
everyone has colds and gets over them.
Tyrone stares at her and sighs parlor and sees
to
foolish to imagine dreadful things
helplessly.
Edmund coming down
He turns away toward the front the stairs in the hall.
TYRONE Sharply, in a low voice.
Edmund. For God's sake try and be yourself— at he goes! You can do that much for him! Here's
He
waits, forcing his face into
least until
a pleasantly paternal expression. She
waits frightenedly, seized again by a nervous panic, her hands fluttering over the
bosom of her
dress,
distracted aimlessness. Then, as
up
cannot face him. She goes swiftly away out with her back to
to the front parlor.
a ready-made blue serge
With an actors Well!
You look
He starts
to
suit,
to
her throat
Edmund approaches to the
and
hair,
windows at
left
and stares
Edmund enters. He has
high stiff collar
with a
the doorway, she
and tie,
changed
black shoes.
heartiness.
spic
and span. I'm on
my way
up
to change, too.
pass him.
91
"
EDMUND Dryly.
Wait
a minute, Papa.
hate to bring up disagreeable topics, but
I
matter of carfare. I'm broke.
there's the
TYRONE Starts automatically
You'll always
on a customary
lecture.
be broke until you learn the value
—
Checks himselfguiltily, looking at his sons sick face with worried pity.
But you've been learning,
lad.
You worked hard before you took
ill.
You've done splendidly. I'm proud of you.
He pulls
out a small
roll
Edmund takes
selects one.
it.
He glances
and carefully and his face expresses as-
pants pocket
his
of bills from
at
it
tonishment. His father again reacts customarily
Thank you. He quotes.
"How
sharper than a serpent's tooth
— sarcastically.
— it is
EDMUND "To have
knocked
a thankless child."
I
me
know. Give
speechless. This isn't a dollar.
It's
a chance, Papa. I'm
a ten spot.
TYRONE Embarrassed by Put
it
in
town and you in
your
his generosity.
your pocket. You'll probably meet some of your friends upcan't hold
your end up and be sociable with nothing
jeans.
EDMUND You meant
He
is
it?
his fathers face
But
Gosh, thank you, Papa.
genuinely pleased
why all
and grateful for a moment— then he
stares at
with uneasy suspicion.
of a sudden
—
?
Cynically.
Did Doc Hardy Then he sees
No! That's
tell
you
his father
is
I
was going
a rotten crack.
I
was only kidding, Papa.
He puts an arm around his father tionate hug.
92
to die?
bitterly hurt.
impulsively
and gives him an
affec-
I'm very grateful. Honest, Papa.
TYRONE Touched, returns his hug.
You're welcome, lad.
MARY Suddenly turns I
won't have
to
them in a confused panic offrightened anger.
it!
She stamps her foot.
Do you to die!
Edmund! Such morbid
hear,
It's
the books
you
father shouldn't allow
read!
you
nonsense! Saying you're going
Nothing but sadness and death! Your
to have them.
And some
of the poems
you've written yourself are even worse! You'd think you didn't want to live!
you
A boy of your age with everything before him! It's just a pose
get out of books! You're not really sick at
all!
TYRONE Mary! Hold your tongue!
MARY Instantly changing to a detached tone.
But, James,
it's
Edmund
absurd of
to
be so gloomy and make such
a great to-do about nothing.
Turning
to
Edmund but avoiding his eyes — teasingly affectionate.
Never mind, She comes
You want it?
You're
to
dear. I'm
on
to you.
him.
to be petted
and spoiled and made
She puts her arm around him and hugs him. yielding.
Her
got
it's
it
foolish to take
me — so
too
far,
them
dear.
rigid and un-
Don't say horrible things.
seriously but
I
can't help
it.
I
You've
frightened.
She breaks and hides her face on
moved in
He remains
voice begins to tremble.
But please don't carry
know
a fuss over, isn't that
such a baby.
still
spite
of himself.
He pats
his shoulder, sobbing.
her shoulder with an
Edmund
awkward
is
ten-
derness.
93
—
EDMUND Don't, mother.
His
meet
eyes
his father's.
TYRONE Huskily— clutching at
Maybe
hopeless hope.
you asked your mother now what you
if
you were
said
going to —
He fumbles
with his watch.
By God, look
He
hurries
manner
is
at the time!
away through
I'll
have to shake a
leg.
Mary
the front parlor.
lifts
her head.
again one ofdetached motherly solicitude. She seems
forgotten the tears which are
still
to
Her have
in her eyes.
MARY
How do you She feels
dear?
feel,
his forehead.
Your head
You look
a little hot,
is
ever so
much
but
from going out
that's just
better than
you did
this
in the sun.
morning.
Taking his hand.
Come and must
She gets him
around
down. You musn't stand on your
sit
learn to
husband your
to sit
feet so
much. You
strength.
and she sits sideways on
his shoulder, so he cannot
the
meet her
arm of his
chair,
an arm
eyes.
EDMUND Starts to blurt out the appeal
Listen,
he
now feels
is
quite hopeless.
Mama
MARY Interrupting quickly.
Now, now! Don't
talk.
Lean back and
rest.
Persuasively.
You know,
home trip
this
uptown
you'd be
94
I
think
it
would be much
afternoon and
let
me
in the dirty old trolley
much
better for
you
take care of you.
on
better off here with me.
a hot
day
It's
if
you stayed
such a tiring
like this.
I'm sure
EDMUND Dully.
You
forget
have an appointment with Hardy.
I
Trying again to get his appeal started.
Mama—
Listen,
MARY Quickly.
You can telephone and
say
you don't
feel well
enough.
Excitedly. It's
simply a waste of time and
you some ter
He'll pretend he's
lie.
money
seeing him. He'll only
tell
found something serious the mat-
because that's his bread and butter.
She gives a hard sneering
The
laugh.
little
old idiot! All he knows about medicine
preach will
is
to look
solemn and
power!
EDMUND Trying to catch her
Mama!
only just started. all
eyes.
Please listen!
help you.
I'll
I
want
You can
to ask
still
You—
you something!
You're
stop. You've got the will power! We'll
do anything! Won't you, Mama?
MARY Stammers pleadingly. Please
don't— talk about things you don't understand!
EDMUND Dully. All right,
I
give up.
I
knew
it
was no
use.
MARY In blank denial now.
Anyway,
I
don't
should be the
know what
last
one—
rium, you began to be
have peace
at
home
ill.
you're referring
to.
But
I
do know you
returned from the sanato-
Right after
I
The doctor
there
had warned
with nothing to upset me, and
all
me
I've
I
must
done
is
worry about you. Then
distractedly.
95
But
that's
no
excuse! I'm only trying to explain.
She hugs him
her
to
not an excuse!
It's
—pleadingly.
Promise me, dear, you won't believe
made you an
I
excuse.
EDMUND Bitterly.
What
else
can
believe?
I
MARY away— her manner remote and objective again.
Slowly takes her arm Yes,
suppose you can't help suspecting
I
that.
EDMUND Ashamed but still bitter.
What do you
expect?
MARY Nothing,
thing once upon a time.
how
How
don't blame you.
I
Now
can you understand,
stood anything about
could no longer
could you believe
become such
can't believe myself? I've
it,
a
have to
I
when
I
liar. I
lie,
me— when
I
never lied about any-
especially to myself.
But
don't myself. I've never under-
except that one day long ago
found
I
I
my soul my own.
call
She pauses— then lowering her voice
to
a strange tone of whispered con-
fidence.
But some day, well,
and
have to
Mary I
dear,
see
I
feel guilty
used to have in sees
my
it
will
be so I
it
again
— some day when you're
easy.
will
I
gives
— some
me
in the
faith in I
rises from
the
will hear
I
all
don't
Her
love
and pity
can pray to Her again
world can believe
in
me
even
myself scream with agony, and
laugh because
I
will
—
for a
at the
be so sure of myself.
arm of his chair and goes him — casually.
right with her back to
96
and
then She will believe in me, and with Her help
Then as Edmund remains hopelessly silent, Of course, you can't believe that, either. She
successful,
day when the Blessed Virgin
back the
convent days, and
no one
moment any more, same time
any more
me and
forgives
when She
will find
I
you healthy and happy and
she adds sadly.
to stare
out the windows at
Now
think of it, you might
I
a drive.
I
as well
go uptown.
I
forgot I'm taking
have to go to the drugstore. You would hardly want to go
there with me. You'd be so ashamed.
EDMUND Brokenly.
Mama!
Don't!
MARY I
suppose you'll divide that ten dollars your father gave you with
Jamie.
You always
sports. Well,
I
divide with each other, don't you? Like
know what
he'll
do with
his share.
good
Get drunk some-
place where he can be with the only kind of woman he understands or likes.
She turns
to
him, pleading frightenedly.
Edmund! Promise me you won't Doctor Hardy told you—
drink!
It's
so dangerous!
You know
EDMUND Bitterly. I
thought he was an old
idiot.
Anyway, by tonight, what
will
you
care?
MARY Pitifully.
Edmund! is heardfrom the front hall, "Come on, Kid, manner at once becomes detached again.
Jamie's voice
Mary's
Go
on,
She goes
Edmund.
let's
beat
it."
Jamie's waiting.
to the front-parlor
doorway.
There comes your father downstairs, Tyrone's voice calls,
"Come
on,
too.
Edmund."
EDMUND Jumping up from
his chair.
I'm coming.
He stops
beside
her— without looking at her.
Goodbye, Mama.
97
MARY Kisses
him with detached affection.
Goodbye,
coming home for dinner, You know what Bridget is.
dear. If you're
And tell He turns and your
father.
hurries away. Tyrone calls
from
try not to
the hall,
be
late.
"Goodbye,
Mary," and then Jamie, "Goodbye, Mama." She
calls back.
Goodbye. The front screen door by the table, one
is
heard closing after them. She comes and stands
hand drumming on
it,
the other fluttering up to
her hair. She stares about the room with frightened, forsaken eyes
pat
and
whispers to herself. It's
so lonely here.
Then her face hardens
into bitter self contempt.
You're lying to yourself again.
contempt and disgust
You wanted
aren't pleasant
to get rid
company. You're glad
gone.
She gives a
little
despairing laugh.
Then Mother of God, why do
I
feel so lonely?
CURTAIN
98
of them. Their they're
Act Three
SCENE The same.
It
is
around halfpast
in the living room,
the
from
an
Sound and
early like
is
six in the evening.
dusk due
to the
Dusk
is
gathering
fog which has rolled in
a white curtain drawn down outside the
windows. From a lighthouse beyond the harbors mouth, a foghorn
heard at regular
and from of bells
The
intervals,
the harbor
itself,
table, as it
is
a mournful whale in labor,
intermittently, comes the
warning ringing
of whiskey,
left
glasses,
and pitcher of ice water
was in the pre-luncheon scene of the previous
Mary and the second girl, ing at
like
on yachts at anchor.
tray with the bottle
on the
moaning
Cathleen, are discovered. The latter
of table. She holds an empty whiskey
if shed forgotten she
had
it.
She shows the
effects
glass in her
of drink.
is
stand-
hand
Her
is
act.
as
stupid,
good-humored face wears a pleased andflattered simper.
Mary
is paler
than before
The strange detachment
and her eyes shine with unnatural brilliance.
in her
manner has
deeper within herself and found refuge present reality feelingly
times
is
but an appearance
to
intensified.
and
release in
be accepted
She has hidden a dream where
and
dismissed un-
— even with a hard cynicism — or entirely ignored.
an uncanny gay, free youthfulness
were released
to
of her convent
which she had changed for her drive
fairly expensive affair,
not for the
There
manner, as if in
is
at
spirit she
become again, simply and without self consciousness,
the naive, happy, chattering schoolgirl the dress into
in her
careless,
to
days.
She wears
town, a simple,
which would be extremely becoming if it were
almost slovenly way she wears
it.
Her
hair
is
no
longer fastidiously in place. It has a slightly disheveled, lopsided look.
99
She
talks to
were an
Cathleen with a confiding familiarity, as if the second girl
old,
intimate fiend. As the curtain
screen door looking out.
A moan
she
rises,
of the foghorn
is
is
standing by the
heard.
MARY Amused— girlishly. That foghorn!
Isn't
it
awful, Cathleen?
CATHLEEN Talks
more familiarly than usual but never with intentional imperti-
nence because she sincerely It is
indeed, Ma'am.
It's
likes
her mistress.
like a banshee.
MARY Goes on as ifshe hadn't heard. In nearly
all the following dialogue there
the feeling that she has Cathleen with her merely as
is
an excuse
keep
to
talking.
don't
I
mind
it
worrying until
tonight. Last night
drove
it
me
crazy.
I
lay
awake
any more.
I
couldn't stand
I
was scared out of my wits riding back from town.
it
CATHLEEN Bad I
cess to
it.
thought that ugly monkey, Smythe, would drive us in a ditch or
against a tree.
you had me that
You couldn't
monkey— He
half a chance
and
see
your hand in front of you. I'm glad
back with you, Ma'am.
sit in
can't keep his dirty
he's
pinching
me on
asking your pardon, Ma'am, but
it's
been
If I'd
hands
to
the leg or
in front
with
himself. Give him
you-know-where
—
true.
MARY Dreamily. It
wasn't the fog
I
minded, Cathleen.
I
really love fog.
CATHLEEN They
say
it's
good
for the
complexion.
MARY It
hides
you from the world and the world from you. You
everything has changed, and nothing
one can find or touch you any more. ioo
is
what
it
seemed
feel
to be.
that
No
CATHLEEN I
much
wouldn't care so
some chauffeurs decent
But
girl.
if
Smythe was
seen —
I've
I
mean,
warned him, one day
And
so
I'll
was
if it
for a shriveled runt like
you must think I'm hard up that week.
a fine,
give a clout that'll
like
in fun, for I'm a
all
Smythe —
notice a
I'd
handsome man
!
I've told
monkey
like
knock him
him,
you. I've into next
will!
I
MARY It's
the foghorn
hate. It won't let
I
you
alone.
It
keeps reminding
you, and warning you, and calling you back.
She smiles
But
strangely.
can't tonight.
it
It's
just
an ugly sound.
It
doesn't remind
me
of
anything.
She gives a
teasing, girlish laugh.
Except, perhaps, Mr. Tyrone's snores. I've always had such fun teasing
him about
cially
when
hates to admit
He
it.
he's
I
suppose
I
to drink,
I
sits
can remember, espehe's like a child,
he
to the table.
snore at times, too, and
have no right to make fun of him, have
She
I
and yet
it.
She laughs, coming Well,
has snored ever since
had too much
in the rocker at right
I
don't like to admit
it.
So
I?
of table.
CATHLEEN Ah,
sure,
everybody healthy snores.
It's
a sign of sanity, they say.
Then, worriedly.
What damp bite
time is
is
it,
Ma'am?
in Bridget's
I
ought
to
rheumatism and
go back in the kitchen. The she's like a
raging
divil. She'll
my head off.
She puts her glass on the table and makes a movement toward the back parlor.
MARY With a flash ofapprehension.
No, don't
go, Cathleen.
I
don't
want
to be alone, yet.
CATHLEEN You won't be
for long.
The Master and
the boys will be
home
soon.
MARY doubt
I
if they'll
come back
for dinner.
They have
too good an ex-
cuse to remain in the barrooms where they feel at home.
Mary goes on
Cathleen stares at her, stupidly puzzled.
Don't worry about Bridget.
I'll tell
her
can take a big drink of whiskey to her
I
smilingly.
kept you with me, and you
when you
go.
She won't mind
then.
CATHLEEN Grins— at her ease
again.
No, Ma'am. That's the one thing can make her
cheerful.
She loves
her drop.
MARY Have another drink
yourself, if you wish, Cathleen.
CATHLEEN I
don't
know
if I'd better,
Reaching for the Well,
Ma'am.
I
can
feel
what
I've
had
already.
bottle.
maybe one more won't harm.
She pours a drink. Here's your
good
health,
Ma'am.
She drinks without bothering about a
chaser.
MARY Dreamily. I
really
did have good health once, Cathleen. But that was long ago.
CATHLEEN Worried again.
The
Master's sure to notice what's gone from the bottle.
eye of a
hawk
He
has the
for that.
MARY Amusedly.
Oh,
we'll play Jamie's trick
water and pour them
in.
on him.
Just measure a few drinks of
CATHLEEN Does this— with a
silly giggle.
God
be half water. He'll
save
me,
it'll
know by
the taste.
MARY Indifferently.
No, by the time he comes home
He
ence.
has such a
he'll
good excuse, he
be too drunk to believes, to
the differ-
tell
drown
his sorrows.
CATHLEEN Philosophically.
Well,
it's
a
good man's
failing.
They've no high
totaler.
wouldn't give a trauneen for a tee-
I
spirits.
Then, stupidly puzzled.
Good
excuse?
Master
is
You mean Master Edmund, Ma'am?
I
can
tell
the
worried about him.
MARY defensively— but in a strange
Stiffens
cal quality, as if it
Don't be nothing.
silly,
did not penetrate
Cathleen.
Why
And Mr. Tyrone
money and
way
the reaction has a mechani-
to real
emotion.
should he be?
never
is
property and the fear
he'll
end
mean, deeply worried. Because he cannot thing
A
touch of grippe
is
worried about anything, except his days in poverty. really
I
understand any-
else.
She gives a
little
My husband
is
laugh of detached, affectionate amusement. a very peculiar
man, Cathleen.
CATHLEEN Vaguely resentful.
Well, he's a fine, handsome, kind gentleman just the same, Ma'am.
Never mind
his weakness.
MARY Oh,
I
don't mind. I've loved
proves doesn't
I
know
him
he's lovable at heart
dearly for thirty-six years.
and
can't help being
That
what he
is,
it?
103
CATHLEEN Hazily reassured. That's right, Ma'am. Love ships the
him
dearly, for
any
fool can see he
wor-
ground you walk on.
Fighting the
effect
of her
drink
last
and
trying to be soberly conversa-
tional.
Speaking of acting, Ma'am,
how
is it
you never went on the
stage?
MARY Resentfully. I?
What
put that absurd notion in your head?
a respectable
home and educated
West. Before as a theater.
nun.
I've
I I
met Mr. Tyrone
I
was a very pious
in the best
hardly
I
was brought up
in
convent in the Middle
knew
there was such a thing
even dreamed of becoming a
girl. I
never had the slightest desire to be an actress.
CATHLEEN Bluntly.
Well,
I
can't
imagine you a holy nun, Ma'am. Sure, you never darken
God
the door of a church,
forgive you.
MARY Ignores
this.
never
I've
felt at
home
in the theater.
made me go with him on
all
Even though Mr. Tyrone has
his tours, I've
had
little
to
the people in his company, or with anyone on the stage. I
do with
Not
that
have anything against them. They have always been kind to me,
and not
I
to
them. But
my life.
She gets up
But
let's
She goes
It
felt at
home with them. Their
life is
me and —
— abruptly. door and stares
to the porch
could pass by and It's
never
not talk of old things that couldn't be helped.
How thick the fog way.
I've
has always stood between
is. I I
out.
can't see the road. All the people in the
would never know.
getting dark already.
It
will
I
wish
it
world
was always that
soon be night, thank goodness.
She turns back— vaguely. It
was kind of you
to
keep
me company
would have been lonely driving uptown
104
this afternoon,
alone.
Cathleen.
I
CATHLEEN Sure, wouldn't
rather ride in a fine automobile than stay here
I
listen to Bridget's lies about her relations?
It
was
and
like a vacation,
Ma'am. She pauses— then
stupidly.
There was only one thing
I
didn't like.
MARY Vaguely.
What was
that,
Cathleen?
CATHLEEN The way
man
the
in the drugstore acted
when
I
took in the pre-
scription for you. Indignantly.
The impidence of him!
MARY With stubborn blankness.
What Then
are
you
talking about?
hastily, as
Oh, of
Then with that
drugstore?
What
prescription?
Cathleen stares in stupid amazement.
course, I'd forgotten.
my hands. What Not
What
did the
man
The medicine
for the
rheumatism
in
say?
indifference.
it
matters, as long as he filled the prescription.
CATHLEEN It
mattered to me, then! I'm not used to being treated
He
gave
me
hold of this?" and if you must know,
sitting
like a thief.
look and says insultingly, "Where did you get
a long I
says, "It's
it's
none of your damned
for the lady
I
work
for,
business, but
Mrs. Tyrone, who's
out in the automobile." That shut him up quick.
look out
at
you and
said,
"Oh," and went
He
gave a
to get the medicine.
MARY Vaguely. Yes,
She
he knows me. sits
tached
in the
armchair at right rear of table. She adds in a calm, de-
voice.
105
—
It's
a special kind of medicine.
other that can stop the pain
She is
her hands
raises
have to take
I
pain
all the
—
I
it
because there
mean,
in
no
is
my hands.
and regards them with melancholy sympathy. There
no tremor in them now.
Poor hands! You'd never believe
good
my
points, along with
but they were once one of
it,
hair
and
and
eyes,
had
I
my
a fine figure,
too.
Her
and more far-offand dreamy.
tone has become more
They were hard
a musician's hands.
my music in
at
do something you both said
I
the
talent than
He would
asked.
I
in love
Or
with Mr. Tyrone.
dreams.
To be
a nun, that
I
I
I
worked
music teacher
He would do
me
Europe
to
might have gone
so
work when you
my
spoiled me.
have sent
graduated from the Convent.
it
any student they remembered.
He
father paid for special lessons.
thing
— if you can call
Mother Elizabeth and
love.
had more
used to love the piano.
I
Convent
My
any-
to study after
— if
I
I
hadn't fallen
might have become a nun.
had two
I
was the more beautiful one. To become
a
concert pianist, that was the other.
She pauses, regarding her hands fixedly. Cathleen blinks her eyes offdrowsiness I
and a
haven't touched a piano in so
crippled fingers, even tried to
keep up
my
cheap hotels, dirty She
stares at
to fight
tipsy feeling.
if
I
many years.
wanted
music. But
to.
it
I
couldn't play with such
For a time
after
my marriage
I
was hopeless. One-night stands,
trains, leaving children,
never having a
home —
her hands with fascinated disgust.
See, Cathleen,
how
ugly they are! So
would think they'd been through some She gives a strange
little
maimed and
crippled!
You
horrible accident!
laugh.
So they have, come to think of it. She suddenly thrusts her hands behind her back. I
won't look
ing
at
them. They're worse than the foghorn for remind-
me —
Then with defiant self-assurance.
But even they can't touch
me
now.
She brings her hands from behind her back and deliberately
them
— calmly.
They're
106
far
away.
I
see
them, but the pain has gone.
stares at
CATHLEEN Stupidly puzzled.
You've taken some of the medicine? If
I
didn't
know
better, I'd
It
made you
act funny,
Ma'am.
think you'd a drop taken.
MARY Dreamily.
Only
You go back until at last you when you were happy is real.
the pain.
It kills
the past
are
beyond
its
reach.
She pauses— then as if her words had been an evocation which called back happiness she changes in her whole manner and facial expression. She looks younger. There her,
If
and she smiles
a quality ofan innocent convent girl about
is
shyly.
you think Mr. Tyrone
have seen him
is
handsome now, Cathleen, you should
met him. He had the reputation of being looking men in the country. The girls in the Convent
when
one of the best
I first
who had seen him act, or seen his photographs, used to rave about him. He was a great matinee idol then, you know. Women used to wait at the stage door just to see him come out. You can imagine how excited I was when my father wrote me he and James Tyrone had become friends, and that I was to meet him when I came home for Easter vacation. I showed the letter to all the girls, and how envious they were!
My father
took
me
to see
him
act
first. It
was a
play about the French Revolution and the leading part was a noble-
man.
I
couldn't take
in prison
and nose would be
eyes
to his dressing
She gives a I
room
fool.
wept when he was thrown
I
little
red.
My father had
right after the play,
all I
I
was
afraid
my
said we'd go backstage
and so we
did.
could do was stammer and blush
But he didn't seem
first
off him.
excited, shy laugh.
was so bashful
the
my eyes
— and then was so mad at myself because
to think
moment we were
I
was
a fool.
I
know
like a little
he liked
me
introduced.
Coquettishly. I
guess
really
my
eyes
and nose couldn't have been red, after all. I was And he was handsomer than my
very pretty then, Cathleen.
wildest dream, in his so
becoming
to him.
make-up and
He was
his
nobleman's costume that was
different
from
all
ordinary men, like
107
someone from another world. At the same time he was simple, and and unassuming, not
kind,
then. So did he, he told a
nun
a bit stuck-up or vain.
me
afterwards.
or a concert pianist. All
I
I
forgot
wanted was
to
She pauses, staring before her with unnaturally
and a
I fell
all
in love right
about becoming
be his wife.
dreamy
bright,
eyes,
rapt, tender, girlish smile.
Thirty-six years ago, but
I
can see
We've loved each other ever
it
as clearly as if
And
since.
in
all
it
were tonight!
those thirty-six years,
there has never been a breath of scandal about him.
mean, with
I
any other woman. Never since he met me. That has made happy, Cathleen.
It
has
made me
forgive so
many other
me very
things.
CATHLEEN Fighting tipsy drowsiness
— sentimentally.
He's a fine gentleman and you're a lucky
woman.
Then, fidgeting.
Can
Ma'am?
take the drink to Bridget,
I
time and
I
something
ought
It
must be near dinner-
to be in the kitchen helping
to quiet her temper, she'll
be
after
her. If she don't get
me with
the cleaver.
MARY With a vague exasperation at being brought back from her dream. Yes, yes, go.
I
don't need
you now.
CATHLEEN With
relief
Thank you, Ma'am. She pours out a big drink and starts for the back parlor with
You won't be alone
long.
The Master and
the boys
it.
—
MARY Impatiently.
No, no, they won't come. dinner promptly table
and
Tell Bridget
at half past six.
we'll get
it
I
won't wait. You can serve
I'm not hungry but
I'll sit
at the
over with.
CATHLEEN You ought
to eat something,
away your
appetite.
108
Ma'am.
It's
a queer medicine if
it
takes
MARY Has begun
What
to drift into
medicine?
dreams again
don't
I
— reacts mechanically.
know what you mean.
In dismissal.
You
better take the drink to Bridget.
CATHLEEN Ma'am.
Yes,
She disappears through the back parlor.
Mary
waits until she hears the
Then she
settles
back in relaxed dreami-
pantry door
close
behind
her.
Her arms
staring fixedly at nothing.
ness,
rest
limply along the arms of
the chair, her hands with long, warped, swollen-knuckled, sensitive fingers drooping in complete calm. It is
a pause
choly fog,
is
oftdead quiet. Then from
growing dark in the room. There
the world outside comes the melan-
moan of the foghorn, followed by a
from
chorus of bells, muffled by the
Mary s face gives no
the anchored craft in the harbor.
and
has heard, but her hands jerk
moment on
the air.
if a fly
had walked
quality
and is an
sign she
the fingers automatically play for a
She frowns and shakes her head mechanically as across her
mind. She suddenly
aging, cynically sad, embittered
loses all the girlish
woman.
MARY Bitterly.
You're a sentimental fool.
meeting between a
were
much
silly
What
happier before you
when you used
to
is
so wonderful
about that
first
romantic schoolgirl and a matinee idol? You
knew he
existed, in the
Convent
pray to the Blessed Virgin.
Longingly. If
I
could only find the faith
She pauses
I
lost, so
I
could pray again!
— then begins to recite the Hail Mary in aflat, empty tone.
"Hail, Mary, full of grace!
The Lord
is
with Thee; blessed
art
Thou
among women." Sneeringly.
You expect
the Blessed Virgin to be fooled by a lying
citing words!
You
She springs
her feet.
I
must go
to
can't hide
upstairs.
you never know
I
from
Her hands fly up
to
re-
pat her hair distractedly.
haven't taken enough.
exactly
dope fiend
her!
how much you
When
you
start again
need.
109
She goes toward the front parlor— then the
stops in the
sound of voices from the front path. She
That must be them She hurries back
doorway as she hears
starts guiltily.
—
to sit
down. Her face
sets
in stubborn defensiveness—
resentfully.
Why
coming back? They don't want
are they
And
to.
I'd
much
rather be alone.
Suddenly her whole manner changes. She becomes pathetically relieved
and eager. Oh, I'm
come!
so glad they've
The front door
is
been so horribly lonely!
I've
heard closing and Tyrone
calls
uneasily from the hall.
TYRONE Are you The
there,
Mary?
light in the hall
fall on
is
turned on
and shines
through the front parlor
to
Mary.
MARY Rises from her chair, her face lighting
up lovingly
— with excited eager-
ness.
I'm here, dear. In the living room.
I've
been waiting for you.
Tyrone comes in through the front parlor.
had a
Tyrone has
lot to
drink but beyond a
Edmund slightly
is
behind him.
glazed look in his
of blur in his speech, he does not show it. Edmund has had more than a few drinks without much apparent effect, except
and a
eyes
also
trace
that his sunken cheeks are flushed and his eyes look bright
They stop in the doorway
to stare
their worst expectations.
fills
of their
condemning
Her manner
is
eyes.
But for
She
unnaturally
andfeverish.
What they see fulmoment Mary is unconscious husband and then Edmund.
appraisingly at her.
kisses
effusive.
the
her
They submit shrinkingly. She
talks
excitedly.
I'm so happy you've come.
wouldn't come home.
be
much more
It's
I
had given up hope.
I
for sit
feel. I
don't blame
coming home. down.
It
must
cheerful in the barrooms uptown, where there are
people you can talk and joke with. No, don't deny
you
was afraid you
such a dismal, foggy evening.
I
you
was
a bit. I'm
all
the
sitting here so lonely
more and
it.
I
know how
grateful to
you
Come
and
blue.
— She
at
sits
left
rear
of table,
Edmund at left of table, and
Tyrone in the
rocker at right
of it. Dinner won't be ready
for a minute. You're actually a little early.
Will wonders never cease. Here's the whiskey, dear. Shall
I
pour a
drink for you?
Without waiting for a
reply she does
And
don't
you,
Edmund?
I
want
so.
encourage you, but one before
to
do any harm.
dinner, as an appetizer, can't
She pours a drink for him. They make no move talks
on as if unaware of their
Where's Jamie? But, of course, has the price of a drink
to take the drinks.
She
silence.
never
he'll
come home
so long as he
left.
She reaches out and clasps her husbands
hand— sadly.
I'm afraid Jamie has been lost to us for a long time, dear.
Her face
hardens.
But we mustn't allow him
to drag
he'd like to do. He's jealous because
Edmund down with him, as Edmund has always been the
baby— just as he used to be of Eugene. He'll never he makes Edmund as hopeless a failure as he is.
be content until
EDMUND Miserably.
Stop talking,
Mama.
TYRONE Dully. Yes,
Mary, the
Then
to
All the
less
you say now
Edmund, a
same
bit tipsily.
there's truth in
brother of yours, or
he'll
your mother's warning. Beware of that
poison
life
for
you with
he
is
his
damned
sneer-
ing serpent's tongue!
EDMUND As
before.
Oh, cut
it
out, Papa.
MARY Goes on as if nothing had been It's
said.
hard to believe, seeing Jamie
as
now, that he was ever
my in
baby. Do you remember what a healthy, happy baby he was, James? The one-night stands and filthy trains and cheap hotels and bad food never made him cross or sick. He was always smiling or laugh-
He
ing.
hardly ever cried. Eugene was the same, too, happy and
healthy, during the
two years he
lived before
I
let
him
die through
my neglect. TYRONE Oh,
for the love
of God! I'm a fool for coming home!
EDMUND Papa! Shut up!
MARY Smiles with detached tenderness at Edmund. It
was
Edmund who
getting upset
She pats
was the crosspatch when he was
and frightened about nothing
at
little,
always
all.
hand — teasingly.
his
Everyone used to
say, dear,
you'd cry at the drop of a hat.
EDMUND Cannot
control his bitterness.
Maybe
I
guessed there was a good reason not to laugh.
TYRONE Reproving and pitying.
Now, now,
lad.
You know
better than to pay attention
—
MARY As
ifshe hadn't
heard— sadly again.
Who would have thought Jamie would grow up to remember, James,
for years after
You
disgrace us.
he went to boarding school,
we
re-
ceived such glowing reports. Everyone liked him. All his teachers told us sons.
what
Even
wrote us
a fine brain he had,
after
how
She pauses It's
such a
easily
he learned his
sorry they were, because he was so likable
a brilliant student.
would only
and how
les-
he began to drink and they had to expel him, they
They
learn to take
predicted a wonderful future for life
seriously.
— then adds with a strange, sad detachment. hard to understand — pity. Poor Jamie! It's
and such
him
if
he
Abruptly a change comes over her husband with accusing
No,
isn't at all.
it
opened
her.
You brought him up
his eyes, he's
And
or a stomach-ache, your
little,
stares at
to
be a boozer. Since he
first
seen you drinking. Always a bottle on the bu-
reau in the cheap hotel rooms!
was
Her face hardens and she
hostility.
if
when he him a tea-
he had a nightmare
remedy was
to give
spoonful of whiskey to quiet him.
TYRONE Stung.
So I'm
blame because that
to
himself?
what
that
Is
When you have
I
lazy hulk has
came home
the poison in you,
made
to listen to?
you want
to
a
drunken
loafer of
might have known!
I
blame everyone but
yourself!
EDMUND Papa!
You
Then,
told
me
not to pay attention.
resentfully.
Anyway
it's
true.
You did
the
same thing with me.
that teaspoonful of booze every time
I
I
woke up with
can remember a nightmare.
MARY In a detached reminiscent tone. Yes,
you were continually having nightmares as afraid. Because I was so afraid to bring you
born
a child.
You were
into the world.
She pauses— then goes on with the same detachment. Please don't think
any
better.
He
I
blame your
father,
Edmund. He
never went to school after
were the most ignorant kind of poverty-stricken honestly believed whiskey is
is
didn't
know
he was ten. His people Irish.
I'm sure they
the healthiest medicine for a child
who
sick or frightened.
Tyrone
is
about
to burst
out in angry defense of his family but
Edmund
intervenes.
EDMUND Sharply.
Papa!
Changing
the subject.
Are we going
to have this drink, or aren't
we?
113
TYRONE
— dully.
Controlling himself
You're right. I'm a fool to take notice.
He picks Drink
up
his glass
listlessly.
hearty, lad.
Edmund drinks but Tyrone remains staring at the glass in his hand. Edmund at once realizes how much the whiskey has been watered. He frowns, glancing from the bottle
to his
mother— starts
to say
something
but stops.
MARY In a changed tone—repentently.
I'm sorry I
did
if I
sounded
was so relieved
bitter,
James. I'm not.
It's all
But
so far away.
when you wished you hadn't come home. I and happy when you came, and grateful to you. It's
feel a little
hurt
very dreary and sad to be here alone in the fog with night
falling.
TYRONE Moved. I'm glad
I
came, Mary, when you act
like
your
real self.
MARY I
was so lonesome
I
kept Cathleen with
me just to
have someone to
talk to.
Her manner and quality
drift
back
to the
Do you know what I was telling her, father took me to your dressing room you. Do you remember?
shy convent girl again.
dear?
About the night
and
first fell
I
in love
TYRONE Deeply moved
— his voice husky.
Can you think
I'd ever forget,
Edmund looks away from
Mary?
them, sad and embarrassed.
MARY Tenderly.
No.
114
I
know you
still
love
me, James,
in spite
of everything.
my
with
TYRONE His face works and he blinks back
God
As
Yes!
is
my judge! Always
tears
— with quiet intensity.
and
forever,
Mary!
MARY And
I
There
love you, dear, in spite of everything.
a pause in which
is
Edmund moves
embarrassedly. The strange
detachment comes over her manner again as if she were speaking impersonally ofpeople seen from a distance.
But
I
must
confess, James, although
wouid never have married you
remember
the
first
if I'd
couldn't help loving you,
I
known you drank
so
much.
I I
night your barroom friends had to help you up
to the
door of our hotel room, and knocked and then ran away be-
fore
came
I
to the door.
We were
still
on our honeymoon, do you
remember?
TYRONE With guilty vehemence. I
don't remember!
life
had
It
wasn't on our
to be helped to bed, or
honeymoon! And
never in
I
my
missed a performance!
MARY As though he hadn't spoken. I
had waited
in that ugly hotel
excuses for you.
with the theater. terrified.
I
told myself
I I
knew
imagined
so
little
sorts
all
room hour after it
hour.
I
kept making
must be some business connected about the
theater.
Then
of horrible accidents.
I
knees and prayed that nothing had happened to you they brought you up and
She gives a
little,
left
I
became
got on
— and
my
then
you outside the door.
sad sigh.
know how often that was to happen in the years to come, how many times I was to wait in ugly hotel rooms. I became quite I
didn't
used to
it.
EDMUND Bursts out with a look
Christ!
He
No wonder —
controls
When
is
ofaccusing hate at
his father.
!
himself— gruffly.
dinner,
Mama?
It
must be
time.
"5
TYRONE Overwhelmed by shame which he Yes. It
must
tries to hide,
fumbles with
his watch.
be. Let's see.
He stares at his
watch without seeing
Mary! Can't you forget—
it.
Pleadingly.
?
MARY With detached pity.
No,
But
dear.
I'm sorry
you
sad.
I
I
forgive.
want
to
I
remember only
Her manner drifts back
Do
always forgive you. So don't look so guilty.
I
remembered out loud.
I
to the shy,
want
don't the
to be sad, or to
happy part of the
gay convent girl.
you remember our wedding, dear? I'm sure you've completely
forgotten
my
what
wedding gown looked
like.
Men
such things. They don't think they're important. But tant to
me,
can
I
tell
you!
How
and happy!
My father told me
mind what
it
he spoiled
me
and
make
past.
strict. I
cost.
The
best
dreadfully.
I
is
mother
marrying— especially an
actor.
a nun. She used to scold
my
me, never mind what that girl so,
I
pity her
to give her the
She laughs
moon.
it
if she
never
I
so excited
wanted and never said.
I'm afraid
She was very pious
She didn't approve of my
think she hoped
when
husband She'll
I
didn't.
jealous.
I
would become
grumble, "You never
father. She'd
costs,
I
none too good, he
little
was impor-
and worried! I was
to buy anything
My
think she was a
fussed
don't notice it
tell
buy anything! You've spoiled
ever marries. She'll expect
make
a
good
him
wife."
affectionately.
Poor mother! She smiles at Tyrone with a strange, incongruous coquetry.
But she was mistaken, wasn't wife, have I?
TYRONE Huskily, trying to force a smile.
I'm not complaining, Mary.
116
she,
James?
I
haven't been such a bad
MARY
A shadow of vague guilt crosses her face. At
loved you dearly, and done the best
least, I've
I
could
— under
the circumstances.
The shadow vanishes and her shy,
girlish expression returns.
That wedding gown was nearly the death of me and the dressmaker, too!
She laughs. I
was so
was never quite good enough. At
particular. It
she refused to touch
her leave so so pleased
I
any more or she might
vain.
thought to myself, "Even
I
ears are a trifle too large,
and your hands, make up he's ever
for
it.
she said
and
made
I
if
I
was
your nose and
your eyes and hair and
figure,
any
actress
met, and you don't have to use paint."
my wedding gown now, in tissue paper in my trunk. I used is
and when a lovelier
last
it,
You're just as pretty as
She pauses, wrinkling her brow in an
Where
spoil
could be alone to examine myself in the mirror.
and
mouth and
it
it
came time
gown, and
I
for her to
of memory. wonder? I kept
effort
I
to
hope
I
wrapped up
it
would have
marry— She
a
daughter
couldn't have bought
knew, James, you'd never
tell her,
never
the cost. You'd want her to pick up something at a bargain.
mind It
was
made of soft, shimmering satin, trimmed with wonderful old duchcsst lace, in tiny ruffles around the neck and sleeves, and worked in with the folds that were draped round in a bustle
effect at the back.
The basque was boned and very tight. I remember I held my breath when it was fitted, so my waist would be as small as possible. My father even let
and
lace
gown! it
It
was so
Where is it now, I wonder? I used to take when I was lonely, but it always made me time
beautiful!
out from time to
cry, so finally a
my white satin slippers, my veil. Oh, how I loved that
have duchesse lace on
me
with the orange blossoms in
long while ago
—
She wrinkles her forehead again. I
wonder where
attic.
She
Some day
hid
I'll
it?
Probably in one of the old trunks in the
have to look.
stops, staring before her.
and attempts is
I
Tyrone
to catch his sons eye,
sighs,
shaking his head
hopelessly,
looking for sympathy, but
Edmund
staring at the floor.
117
TYRONE Forces a casual tone. Isn't
it
dinner time, dear?
With a feeble attempt at
teasing.
You're forever scolding
me
once,
She
dinner
it's
doesn't
Well,
appear
hear him.
to
can't eat yet,
if I
He drinks
for being late, but
I
With angry I
hope
to
I'm on time for
still pleasantly.
forgotten
had
I
this.
Tyrone scowls
and looks at
— roughly. my whiskey? The damned
away and he wouldn't overdo
water! Jamie's been
Any
I'd
Edmund watches him.
his drink.
Who's been tampering with anyway.
He adds,
can drink.
with sharp suspicion
his wife
now
that's late.
fool could tell—
stuff
is
half
his trick like this,
Mary, answer me!
disgust.
God you
haven't taken to drink on top
of—
EDMUND Shut up, Papa! To his mother, without looking at her.
You
treated Cathleen
and Bridget,
isn't
that
it,
Mama?
MARY With Yes,
indifferent casualness.
of course. They work hard for poor wages.
keeper,
I
have to keep them from leaving. Besides,
Cathleen because get
And I
I'm the house-
wanted
to treat
had her drive uptown with me, and sent her
I
my prescription
to
filled.
EDMUND For God's sake,
on earth
to
Mama! You
can't trust her!
Do you want
everyone
my hands
and have
know?
MARY Her face hardening stubbornly.
Know what? That to take
Turns on
Edmund
vengeful enmity.
118
I
medicine to
suffer kill
from rheumatism
the pain?
in
Why should
I
be ashamed of that?
with a hard, accusing antagonism— almost a
re-
knew what rheumatism was
never
I
before
you were born! Ask your
father!
Edmund looks away,
shrinking into himself.
TYRONE Don't mind
her, lad. It doesn't
mean
anything.
When
she gets to
the stage where she gives the old crazy excuse about her hands
gone
away from
far
she's
us.
MARY Turns on him
— with a strangely triumphant,
I'm glad you realize that, James! to
Now
taunting smile.
perhaps you'll give up trying
remind me, you and Edmund!
Abruptly, in a detached, matter-of-fact tone.
Why don't you hate
James?
light the light,
Edmund
but
to,
It's
getting dark.
know you
I
has proved to you that one bulb burning
doesn't cost
much. There's no sense
house make
you too stingy.
letting
your
fear
of the poor-
TYRONE Reacts mechanically. I
never claimed one bulb cost much!
and one
there,
that makes the
having them on, one here
It's
Electric Light
Company
rich.
He gets up and turns on the reading lamp — roughly. But I'm a fool To
to talk reason to you.
Edmund.
I'll
get a fresh bottle of whiskey, lad,
He goes
and
we'll have a real drink.
through the back parlor.
MARY With detached amusement. He'll sneak
around
see him. He's really
the
cellar.
before
him,
I
is
a strange
his
whiskey padlocked
man, Edmund.
It
took
in
many years
understood him. You must try to understand and forgive
too,
to
door so the servants won't
ashamed of keeping
Your father
and not
deserted his
came
to the outside cellar
feel
contempt because
mother and
America.
He
told
he's close-fisted.
His father
their six children a year or so after they
them he had
soon, and he was homesick for Ireland,
a premonition he
and wanted
to
would
die
go back there 119
So he went and he did
to die.
man,
too.
Your father had
was only ten years
die.
He must
have been a peculiar
go to work in a machine shop when he
to
old.
EDMUND Protests dully.
Oh,
for Pete's sake,
Mama.
I've
heard Papa
tell
that
machine shop
story ten thousand times.
MARY Yes, dear, you've
had
to listen, but
I
don't think you've ever tried to
understand.
EDMUND Ignoring this— miserably. Listen,
thing.
you
Mama!
You're not so far gone yet you've forgotten every-
You haven't asked me what
care a
I
found out
this afternoon.
Don't
damn?
MARY Shakenly.
Don't say
that!
You hurt me,
dear!
EDMUND What
I've
got
is
serious,
Mama. Doc Hardy knows
for sure
now.
MARY Stiffens into scornful, defensive stubbornness.
That lying old quack!
I
warned you he'd invent—
!
EDMUND Miserably dogged.
He
called in a specialist to
examine me, so he'd be absolutely
sure.
MARY Ignoring
Don't
torium,
me!
this.
tell
He
me about Hardy! If you heard what the doctor at the sana-
who
really
said he
knows something,
said about
ought to be locked up!
hadn't gone mad!
I
told
him I had
He
said
once, that time
nightdress to throw myself off the dock.
how it I
he'd treated
was ran
a
wonder
down
You remember
in
I
my
that, don't
you?
And
yet
says.
Oh,
no!
me
you want
to
pay attention to what Doctor Hardy
EDMUND Bitterly.
remember,
I
all
right. It
they couldn't hide a
liar! I
tried to
it
it
in the nose.
his eyes begin to fill
made everything
Papa and Jamie decided
after that
me any more. Jamie
punch him
His voice trembles,
God,
was right
from
in
life
seem
But
with
I
told me.
I
called
knew he wasn't
him
lying.
tears.
rotten!
MARY Pitiably.
Oh,
My baby! You hurt me so
don't.
dreadfully!
EDMUND Dully.
Mama.
I'm sorry,
Then with a Listen,
It
bitter,
Mama.
was you who brought
I'm going to
not. I've got to go
it
up.
stubborn persistence. tell
you whether you want
to hear or
to a sanatorium.
MARY Dazedly, as if this was something that
Go
had never occurred to
her.
away?
Violently.
No!
I
won't have
it!
without consulting right has he?
You
More and more I
are
How dare Doctor Hardy advise such a thing me! How dare your father allow him! What my baby!
excited
know why he wants you
me! He's always
my
babies!
He
Let
him attend
to Jamie!
and bitter.
tried to
sent to a sanatorium.
do
that. He's
kept finding ways to
To
take
you from
been jealous of every one of
make me
leave them. That's
what caused Eugene's death. He's been jealous of you most of
He knew
I
loved you most because
all.
—
EDMUND Miserably.
Oh, stop
talking crazy, can't you,
Mama!
Stop trying to blame him.
And why lot,
and
you
are
I've
my
so against
never noticed
it
going away now?
I've
been away a
broke your heart!
MARY Bitterly.
I'm afraid you're not very sensitive, after
all.
Sadly.
You might have
me — I had to
guessed, dear, that after
I
knew you knew— about
be glad whenever you were where you couldn't see me.
EDMUND Brokenly.
Mama! Don't! He reaches out ately,
blindly
and
takes her
hand — but he
drops
it
immedi-
overcome by bitterness again.
All this talk to tell
about loving
me — and you won't even listen when
I
try
you how sick—
MARY With an abrupt transformation
Now, now.
That's enough!
I
nothing but Hardy's ignorant
He shrinks
into
a detached bullying motherliness.
don't care to hear because
I
know
it's
lies.
back into himself. She keeps on in a forced, teasing tone but
with an increasing undercurrent of resentment. You're so like your father, dear.
You
nothing so you can be dramatic and
With a If
I
love to
make
a scene out of
tragic.
belittling laugh.
gave you the slightest encouragement, you'd
were going
to die
tell
me
next you
—
EDMUND People do die of
it.
Your own father—
MARY Sharply.
Why do you He had Angrily.
mention him? There's no comparison
consumption.
at all
with you.
I
when you become gloomy and morbid!
hate you
remind
me
of my
father's death,
forbid
I
you
to
do you hear me?
EDMUND His face hard Yes,
He
— grimly.
hear you,
I
gets
Mama.
up from
I
wish to
his chair
and
God
I
didn't!
stands staring condemning!)/ at
her—
bitterly. It's
pretty hard to take at times, having a
She winces
— all
life
seeming
appearance of a plaster back what he has Forgive me,
There
is
said.
Mama.
I
Instantly
cast.
dope fiend
for a mother!
drain from her face, leaving
to
He stammers
Edmund
it
with the
wishes he could take
miserably.
was angry. You hurt me.
a pause in which the foghorn and the
ships' bells are heard.
MARY Goes slowly
to the
windows at
right like
an automaton
— looking out, a
blank, far-off quality in her voice. Just listen to that awful foghorn.
everything sound so sad and
lost,
And I
the bells.
Why
is it
fog makes
wonder?
EDMUND Brokenly. I
—
He
I
can't stay here.
hurries
window back
I
don't
away through
want any
dinner.
the front parlor. She keeps staring out the
until she hears the front door close behind him.
and sits
in her chair, the
Then she comes
same blank look on her face.
MARY Vaguely. I
must go
upstairs.
I
haven't taken enough.
She pauses— then longingly. I
hope, sometime, without meaning
never could do give
it
deliberately.
The
it,
I
will take
Blessed Virgin
an overdose.
would never
I
for-
me, then.
She hears Tyrone returning and turns as he comes parlor, with a bottle
in,
of whiskey he has just uncorked.
through the back
He
is
fuming.
123
TYRONE Wrathfully
The padlock
is all
That drunken
scratched.
the lock with a piece of wire, the
With
way
he's
loafer has tried to pick
done
before.
was a perpetual battle of wits with
satisfaction, as if this
his elder
son.
But
fooled
I've
him
padlock a professional
this time. It's a special
burglar couldn't pick.
He puts
and suddenly
the bottle on the tray
aware of Edmunds ab-
is
sence.
Where's
Edmund?
MARY With a vague far-away air.
He went still
has
pocket.
out. Perhaps he's going
some money
He
left, I
said he didn't
uptown again
suppose, and
it's
He
to find Jamie.
burning a hole in
want any dinner. He doesn't seem
his
to have
any appetite these days.
Then stubbornly.
summer cold. Tyrone stares at her and shakes his head helplessly and pours himself a big drink and drinks it. Suddenly it is too much for her and she breaks out and sobs.
But
it's
just a
Oh, James, I'm
so frightened!
She gets up and throws her arms around him and hides her face on
his
shoulder— sobbingly. I
know
going to
he's
die!
TYRONE Don't say that!
It's
not true! They promised
me
in six
months
he'd
be cured.
MARY You
don't believe that!
my fault.
I
124
his
can
tell
when
you're acting!
should never have borne him.
for his sake.
know
I
I
could never hurt him then.
mother was
a
dope fiend
It
would
And
will
be
have been better
He wouldn't
— and hate her!
it
have had to
TYRONE His voice quivering.
Hush, Mary, a curse put
of God!
for the love
He
He knows
loves you.
on you without your knowing or willing
it.
it
was
He's proud
you're his mother!
Abruptly as he hears the pantry door opening.
Hush, now! Here comes Cathleen. You don't want her
to see
you
crying.
She turns quickly away from him wiping her
eyes.
doorway. She
is
A moment
to
the
windows at
right,
hastily
later Cathleen appears in the back-parlor
uncertain in her walk
and grinning
woozily.
CATHLEEN Starts guiltily
Dinner
is
when
served,
she sees
Tyrone— with
dignity.
Sir.
Raising her voice unnecessarily.
Dinner
is
served,
Ma'am.
She forgets her dignity and addresses Tyrone with good-natured familiarity.
So you're here, are you? Well, her the
Madame
said
Then reading accusation Don't be looking it.
I
was
at
well.
Won't Bridget be
in a rage!
I
told
you wouldn't be home.
me
in his eye.
that way. If I've a drop taken,
I
didn't steal
invited.
She turns with huffy dignity and disappears through the back parlor.
TYRONE Sighs— then summoning his actors
Come
heartiness.
along, dear. Let's have our dinner. I'm
hungry
as a hunter.
MARY Comes
to
him — her face
is
composed in plaster again and her tone
is
remote.
I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me, James. anything.
me
is
She
kisses
to
My hands
go to
I
couldn't possibly eat
me dreadfully. think bed and rest. Good night, dear. pain
I
the best thing for
him mechanically and turns toward the front parlor.
125
TYRONE Harshly.
Up
to take
like a
mad
more of
that
God-damned
poison,
is
that
it?
You'll be
ghost before the night's over!
MARY Starts to
walk
away— blankly.
know what you're talking bitter things when you've drunk or Edmund. I
don't
about, James.
She moves off through the front parlor.
knowing what
to do.
He
is
You
say such mean,
too much. You're as bad as Jamie
He
stands a second as if not
a sad, bewildered, broken old man.
walks wearily off through the back parlor toward the dining room.
CURTAIN
126
He
Act Four
SCENE The same.
It
turned out, living
is
around midnight. The lamp
room only
windows
lamp on
the reading
is
He
He
bottle
there will be
an ample
owlish, deliberate
and
on the tray
afresh full bottle on the table,
tain
is
lighted.
As
Outside the
the curtain
wears his pince-nez,
has taken off his coat
gown. The whiskey
His
the table
rises,
heard, followed by the ships bells from the harbor.
seated at the table.
is
solitaire.
light shines through the front parlor. In the
the wall offog appears denser than ever.
the foghorn
Tyrone
now no
so that
in the front hall has been
is
in
is
playing
three-quarters empty. There
is
which he has brought from the cellar so
He is drunk and shows it by the
reserve at hand.
manner
and
has on an old brown dressing
which he peers at each card
to
make
cer-
certain of his aim. of its identity, and then plays it as if he wasn't have a misted, oily look and his mouth is slack. But despite all
eyes
the whiskey in him, he has not escaped,
at the close
of the preceding
act,
and he
looks as he appeared
a sad, defeated old man, possessed by
twn. hopeless resignat
As
the curtain
shuffles
with
them
rises,
he finishes a game
clumsily,
difficulty,
and sweeps
He He retrieves them
the cards together.
dropping a couple on the floor.
and starts to shuffle again, when he hears someone enter-
ing the front door.
He peers
over his pince-nez through the front parlor.
TYRONE His voice
Who's
thick.
that?
Edmund's
Is it
you,
Edmund?
voice answers curtly, "Yes."
Then he evidently
collides
with
127
—
something in the dark hall hall lamp
the
Turn that
is
and can
out before you come
light
But Edmund doesnt. He comes now,
too,
but
be heard cursing.
turned on. Tyrone frowns
like his father
A
moment
later
and calls.
in.
in through the front parlor.
he carries
it well,
and gives
He is drunk
little
physical
of it except in his eyes and a chip-on-the-shoulder aggressiveness in manner. Tyrone speaks, at first with a warm, relieved welcome.
sign his
I'm glad you've come, lad. I've been
Then
damned
lonely.
resentfully.
You're a fine one to run
away and
me
leave
to
sit
alone here
all
night
when you know With sharp I
told
you
irritation.
to turn out that light!
We're not giving a
ball.
There's no
reason to have the house ablaze with electricity at this time of night,
burning up money!
EDMUND Angrily.
Ablaze with
electricity!
One
in the front hall until they
on
bulb! Hell, everyone keeps a light
go
to bed.
He rubs his knee. I damned near busted my knee on
the hat stand.
TYRONE The
light
enough
from here shows
if you
in the hall.
You could
see
your way well
were sober.
EDMUND If /was sober?
I
like that!
TYRONE I
don't give a
damn what
ful fools, for the
other people do. If they want to be waste-
sake of show,
let
them
be!
EDMUND One
bulb! Christ, don't be such a cheap skate! I've proved by
ures if you left the light bulb
one drink!
128
on
all
night
it
wouldn't be
as
fig-
much
as
TYRONE To
hell
with your
figures!
The proof is
in the bills
I
have to pay!
EDMUND Sits
down
opposite his father— contemptuously.
Yes, facts don't that's
mean
a thing,
do they? What you want
to believe,
the only truth!
Derisively.
Shakespeare was an Irish Catholic, for example.
TYRONE Stubbornly.
So he was. The proof
is
in his plays.
EDMUND Well he wasn't, and
there's
no proof of it
in his plays, except to you!
Jeeringly.
The Duke of Wellington,
there
was another good
Irish Catholic!
TYRONE never said he was a good one.
I
He was
a renegade but a Catholic
just the same.
EDMUND Well, he wasn't. lic
You just want
to believe
no one but an
Irish
Catho-
general could beat Napoleon.
TYRONE I'm not going to argue with you.
I
asked you to turn out that light
in the hall.
EDMUND I
heard you, and
as far as
I'm concerned
it
stays on.
TYRONE None of your damned
insolence! Are
you going
to
obey
me
or not?
EDMUND Not!
If you
want
to be a crazy miser put
it
out yourself!
129
TYRONE With threatening anger. Listen to me! I've put
done
things you've
up with
from you because from the mad
a lot
at times I've
thought you weren't quite right in
my
hand
to you.
But
there's a straw that breaks the camel's back. You'll
obey
me and
put
your head.
I've
out that light
you—
excused you and never
big as
or,
you
are,
I'll
give
lifted
you
a thrashing that'll teach
!
Suddenly he remembers Edmund's
illness
and instantly becomes guilty
and shamefaced. Forgive me, lad.
forgot
I
—
You shouldn't goad me
into losing
my
temper.
EDMUND Ashamed himself now. Forget
Papa.
it,
am
I
nothing.
I
He starts
to get up.
apologize, too.
a bit soused,
I
I
guess.
had no I'll
right being nasty
put out the
damned
about
light.
TYRONE No,
stay
where you
He stands
are.
up abruptly
Let
it
burn.
— and a bit drunkenly — and begins turning on
the three bulbs in the chandelier, with a childish, bitterly dramatic
selfi
pity.
We'll have
house
is
them
the
He finishes
all
on! Let
them burn! To
end of the road, and
turning on the
it
might
hell
with them! The poor-
as well
be sooner
as later!
lights.
EDMUND Has watched
this
proceeding with an awakened sense of humor— now
he grins, teasing affectionately. That's a grand curtain.
He
laughs.
You're a wonder, Papa.
TYRONE Sits
down sheepishly— grumbles pathetically. The poor old ham! But
That's right, laugh at the old fool!
130
the
final curtain will
be in the poorhouse just the same, and
that's
not
comedy! Then
as
Edmund is still grinning,
Well, well,
let's
though you do your best of a
not
dollar. You're
given up hope
EDMUND How would
I
he changes the subject.
not argue. You've got brains in that head of yours,
he'll
to
like
deny them.
You'll live to learn the value
your damned tramp of a brother.
ever get sense.
Where
is
he,
I've
by the way?
know?
TYRONE I
thought you'd gone back uptown to meet him.
EDMUND No.
walked out
I
to the beach.
I
haven't seen
him
since this after-
noon.
TYRONE if you split
Well,
the
money
I
gave you with him, like a fool
—
EDMUND Sure
did. He's always staked
I
me when
he had anything.
TYRONE Then
it
doesn't take a soothsayer to
tell he's
probably in the whore-
house.
EDMUND Whatofitifheis?Whynot?
TYRONE Contemptuously.
Why
not, indeed.
It's
the
fit
place for him. If he's ever had a loftier
dream than whores and whiskey,
he's
never shown
it.
EDMUND Oh,
for Pete's sake, Papa! If you're
beat
it.
He starts
going to
start that stuff,
I'll
to get up.
131
TYRONE Placatingly.
All right,
all
right,
Will you join
either.
EDMUND Now you're
Ah!
stop.
I'll
me
God
knows,
I
don't like the subject
in a drink?
talking!
TYRONE Passes the bottle to
him — mechanically.
I'm wrong to treat you. You've had enough already.
EDMUND Pouring a big drink— a
Enough
is
He hands
bit drunkenly.
not as good as a
back the
feast.
bottle.
TYRONE It's
much
too
in
your condition.
EDMUND Forget
He
my condition!
raises his glass.
Here's how.
TYRONE Drink
hearty.
They drink. If
you walked
all
the
way
to the
beach you must be
chilled.
EDMUND Oh,
I
dropped
in at the
Inn on the way out and back.
TYRONE It's
not a night
I'd
pick for a long walk.
EDMUND I
loved the fog.
He sounds more
132
It
was what
tipsy
I
and looks
needed. it.
damp and
TYRONE You should have more
sense than to risk—
EDMUND To
hell
He
quotes from
with sense! We're
"They
Dowson
crazy.
all
What do we want
with sense?
sardonically.
weeping and the laughter,
are not long, the
Love and desire and hate: I
think they have no portion in us after
We
pass the gate.
They
of wine and
are not long, the days
Out of a misty dream Our path emerges for Within
roses:
a while, then closes
a dream."
Staring before him.
The
fog was where
can't see this house.
other places I
didn't
down
meet
wanted
to be.
the avenue.
I
Halfway down the path you
know
You'd never
That's what
it is.
world where truth
is
I
it
was
Or any
here.
of the
couldn't see but a few feet ahead.
a soul. Everything looked
ing was what in another
I
and sounded
Noth-
unreal.
wanted — to be alone with myself
untrue and
can hide from
life
Out beyond the harbor, where the road runs along the beach, lost the feeling
each other.
It
of being on land. The fog and
was
drowned long
like
ago.
As
walking on the bottom of the if I
was
fog was the ghost of the sea.
more than
He sees
the sea
damned
even
seemed part of sea.
As
a ghost belonging to the fog,
It felt
itself. I
if
I
had
and the
peaceful to be nothing
a ghost within a ghost.
his father staring at
him with mingled worry and irritated dis-
He grins mockingly. look at me as if I'd gone
approval.
Don't to see
life as it is, if
You look
they can help
in their faces
and you die— that
nutty. I'm talking sense.
is,
and turn inside
it? It's
the three
to stone.
Or
you — and have
it's
to
Who wants
Gorgons
in one. see
him
go on living
as a
Pan.
You
ghost.
TYRONE Impressed and at the same time revolted.
You have
a poet in
you but
it's
a
damned morbid
one! 133
Forcing a smile.
Devil take your pessimism.
I
feel low-spirited
enough.
He sighs.
Why
can't
you remember your Shakespeare and
raters. You'll find
what you're trying
forget the third-
him — as
to say in
you'll find
everything else worth saying.
He quotes, using his fine voice. "We are such stuff as dreams rounded with
are
made
on,
and our
little life is
a sleep."
EDMUND Ironically.
Fine! That's beautiful. stuff as
more
manure
is
But
made
I
wasn't trying to say that.
on, so
let's
We
drink up and forget
are such it.
That's
my idea.
TYRONE Disgustedly.
Ach! Keep such sentiments to yourself.
I
shouldn't have given you
that drink.
EDMUND It
did pack a wallop,
He grins Even
all
right.
On you,
too.
with affectionate teasing.
if you've
never missed a performance!
Aggressively.
Well, what's
wrong with being drunk?
Let's not kid each other, Papa.
Not
It's
what we're
tonight.
trying to forget. Hurriedly.
But
let's
not talk about
it. It's
no use now.
TYRONE Dully.
No. All we can do
is
try to be
resigned— again.
EDMUND Or
i34
be so drunk you can forget.
after, isn't it?
We know
what we're
He
and
recites,
recites well,
with
bitter, ironical passion, the
of Baudelaire s prose poem. "Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that
Symons
translation
If you
would not
feel
the only question.
is
the horrible burden of Time weighing on your
shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually.
Drunken with what? With wine, with you
And
poetry, or with virtue, as
But be drunken.
will. if
sometimes, on the
stairs
of a palace, or on the green side
of a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your
own room, you
should
awaken and the drunkenness be half or wholly slipped away from you, ask of the wind, or of the wave, or of the
of the clock, of whatever ask what hour
you:
star,
or of the bird, or
or sighs, or rocks, or sings, or speaks,
and the wind, wave,
star, bird,
clock, will answer
the hour to be drunken! Be drunken, if you
'It is
martyred
it is;
flies,
slaves
would not be
of Time; be drunken continually! With wine, with
poetry, or with virtue, as
you
"
will.'
He grins at his father provocatively.
TYRONE Thickly humorous. I
wouldn't worry about the virtue part of
Then Pah!
it,
if
I
were you.
disgustedly. It's
morbid nonsense! What
little
truth
is
in
it
you'll find
nobly
said in Shakespeare.
Then
appreciatively.
But you recited
it
well, lad.
Who wrote
it?
EDMUND Baudelaire.
TYRONE Never heard of him.
EDMUND Grins provocatively.
He
also
wrote a
poem about Jamie and
the Great
White Way.
i35
"
TYRONE That
loafer!
hope
I
to
God
he misses the
last car
and has
to stay up-
town!
EDMUND Goes on, ignoring
this.
Although he was French and never saw Broadway and died before
He knew him and
Jamie was born.
Old
Little
New
York
just the
same.
He
recites the
"With
Symons' translation of Baudelaire's "Epilogue.
heart at rest
climbed the
I
citadel's
Steep height, and saw the city as from a tower, Hospital, brothel, prison,
and such
hells,
Where evil comes up softly like a flower. Thou knowest, O Satan, patron of my pain, Not for vain tears I went up at that hour; But
like
an old sad
To drink
Whose
faithful lecher, fain
delight of that
hellish
Whether thou Sodden with
enormous
trull
beauty makes me young sleep,
again.
with heavy vapours
new apparelled,
day, or,
full,
stand
In gold-laced veils of evening beautiful, I
love thee, infamous city! Harlots
Hunted have
pleasures of their
The vulgar herd can
and
own
to give,
never understand."
TYRONE With
irritable disgust.
Morbid Filth
filth!
Where
the hell
do you
get
and despair and pessimism! Another
your
taste in literature?
atheist,
I
suppose.
you deny God, you deny hope. That's the trouble with you. get
down on your
knees
When
If you'd
—
EDMUND
—
As if he hadn't heard sardonically. It's a good likeness of Jamie, don't you think, hunted by himself
136
and whiskey, hiding he
them
likes
He
fat
Broadway hotel room with some
upon mine
heart
I
felt
her
warm
Surely the kisses of her bought red
mouth were
lay;
sweet;
was desolate and sick of an old passion,
I
When awoke I
and found the dawn was
have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in
I
—
heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she
But
fat tart
but with deep feeling.
recites derisively,
"All night
in a
— reciting Dowson's Cynara to her.
gray:
my
fashion."
Jeeringly.
And
the poor fat burlesque queen doesn't get a
word of it, but
sus-
And Jamie never loved any Cynara, and a woman in his life, even in his fashion! But he
pects she's being insulted!
was never
faithful to
there, kidding himself he
lies
is
superior and enjoys pleasures "the
vulgar herd can never understand"!
He
laughs.
It's
nuts
— completely nuts!
TYRONE Vaguely
— his voice thick.
madness,
It's
yes. If
deny God, you deny
you'd get on your knees and pray.
When you
sanity.
EDMUND Ignoring
But
And
this.
who am
I
to feel superior? I've
sinthe hangover, writing a
done the same damned thing.
no more crazy than Dowson himself, inspired by an ab-
it's
it
to a
dumb
barmaid,
poor crazy souse, and gave him the gate
He
laughs
— then soberly,
to
who thought
marry
he was
a waiter!
with genuine sympathy.
Poor Dowson. Booze and consumption got him.
He
starts
and for a
second looks miserable
and frightened. Then with
defensive irony.
Perhaps
it
would be
tactful
of me to change the subject.
TYRONE Thickly.
Where you
get your taste in authors
—
That damned
library of
yours! 137
—
He
indicates the small bookcase at rear.
Voltaire, Rousseau,
And
and madmen!
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Ibsen! Atheists,
your poets! This Dowson, and
fools,
this Baudelaire,
and Swinburne and Oscar Wilde, and Whitman and Poe! Whoremongers and degenerates! Pah!
When
I've three
speare there {he nods at the large bookcase)
good
you could
sets
of Shake-
read.
EDMUND Provocatively.
They
say he
was
a souse, too.
TYRONE They lie! I don't doubt he liked his glass — it's a good man's failing but he knew how to drink so it didn't poison his brain with morbidness
He
and
filth.
Don't compare him with the pack you've got
in there.
indicates the small bookcase again.
Your dirty Zola!
And
your Dante Gabriel Rossetti
who was
a
dope
fiend!
He starts and looks guilty.
EDMUND With defensive Perhaps
it
dryness.
would be wise
to
change the subject.
A pause. You
can't accuse
dollars
me
of not knowing Shakespeare. Didn't
from you once when you bet
part of his in a week, as I
learned
Macbeth and
you used
recited
it
to
me do
I
I
win
five
couldn't learn a leading
in stock in the old days.
letter perfect,
with you giving
me
the cues.
TYRONE Approvingly.
That's true. So
He smiles It I
was
you
teasingly
did.
and sighs.
a terrible ordeal,
kept wishing
I'd
I
remember, hearing you murder the
He chuckles and Edmund grins. Then upstairs— with dread.
138
lines.
paid over the bet without making you prove
it.
he starts as he hears a soundfrom
Did you hear?
She's
moving around.
I
was hoping she'd gone
to
sleep.
EDMUND Forget
He
it!
How about another drink?
reaches out
and gets
When
did
Mama go
and hands
the bottle, pours a drink
Then with a strained casualness,
as his father pours
it
back.
a drink.
to bed?
TYRONE Right after you
left.
She wouldn't eat any dinner.
What made you
run away?
EDMUND Nothing. Abruptly raising his glass. Well, here's how.
TYRONE Mechanically.
Drink
hearty, lad.
They drink. Tyrone again She's
moving around
listens to
a lot.
I
hope
— with dread.
sounds upstairs to
God
she doesn't
come down.
EDMUND Dully. Yes. She'll
be nothing but a ghost haunting the past by
He pauses — then Back before
I
this time.
miserably.
was born
—
TYRONE knew me. known were in her
Doesn't she do the same with me? Back before she ever
You'd think the only happy days father's
home, or
at the
she's ever
Convent, praying and playing the piano.
Jealous resentment in his bitterness.
As
I've told
salt.
you
before,
you must take her memories with
Her wonderful home was ordinary enough. Her
the great, generous, noble Irish gentleman she a nice
enough man, good company and
and he liked me.
He was
a
makes
good
a grain
of
father wasn't
talker.
out. I
He was
liked
him
prosperous enough, too, in his wholesale
i39
grocery business, an able man. But he had his weakness. She con-
demns drop
my drinking he was
till
became
a steady
but she forgets
but after that he
forty,
champagne
made up
He
That was
it
his
finished
him quick—
—
and the consumption
He stops
for lost time.
drinker, the worst kind.
grand pose, to drink only champagne. Well, that
he never touched a
his. It's true
with a guilty glance at his son.
EDMUND Sardonically.
We
don't seem able to avoid unpleasant topics,
do we?
TYRONE Sighs sadly.
No. Then with apathetic attempt at
What do you
say to a
game
heartiness.
or two of Casino, lad?
EDMUND All right.
TYRONE Shuffling the cards clumsily.
We can't lock up and go to bed which
hope he won't
I
— and
I
till
Jamie comes on the
don't
want
to
go
last
trolley—
upstairs,
anyway,
she's asleep.
till
EDMUND Neither do
I.
TYRONE Keeps shuffling the cards fumblingly, forgetting
As of
I
was saying, you must take her
salt.
The piano
pianist.
tales
to
deal them.
of the past with a grain
playing and her dream of becoming a concert
That was put
in her
head by the nuns
flattering her.
She
They loved her for being so devout. They're innocent women, anyway, when it comes to the world. They don't know
was
their pet.
that not one in a million playing. that's
140
Not
that your
no reason
to take
who shows
mother it
promise ever
rises to
concert
didn't play well for a schoolgirl, but
for granted she could have
—
EDMUND Sharply.
Why don't you
deal, if we're
going to
play.
TYRONE Eh?
am.
I
Dealing with very uncertain judgment ofdistance.
And
become
the idea she might have
a nun. That's the worst.
mother was one of the most beautiful
knew her,
it,
too.
behind
She was a
all
bit
girls
you could ever
of a rogue and a coquette,
her shyness and blushes. She was never
Your
see.
God
made
nounce the world. She was bursting with health and high
She
bless
to respirits
and the love of loving.
EDMUND For God's sake, Papa!
Why don't you
pick up your hand?
TYRONE Picks
it
up
— dully.
Yes, let's see
what
I
have here.
They both stare at their cards unseeingly. Then they both
start.
Tyrone
whispers.
Listen!
EDMUND She's
coming downstairs.
TYRONE Hurriedly.
We'll play our game. Pretend not to notice and
she'll
soon go up
again.
EDMUND Staring through the front parlor I
don't see her. She
must have
— with
relief.
started
down and
then turned back.
TYRONE Thank God.
EDMUND Yes.
It's
pretty horrible to see her the
way
she
must be now. 141
—
With
The
Or
bitter misery.
hardest thing to take
more
the blank wall she builds around her.
is
bank of fog
in
which she hides and
Deliberately, that's the hell of
it!
You know something
it
it's
like a
deliberately— to get beyond our reach, to be rid of
we're alive!
It's
as
if,
in spite
of loving
us,
loses herself.
in her does
us, to forget
she hated us!
TYRONE Remonstrates gently.
Now, now,
lad. It's
not
her. It's the
damned
poison.
EDMUND Bitterly.
She takes
it
to get that effect.
At
least,
I
know
she did this time!
Abruptly.
My play,
isn't it?
He plays a
Here.
card.
TYRONE Plays mechanically She's ing.
been
— gently reproachful.
terribly frightened
Don't be too hard on
Once
about your
her, lad.
illness, for all
Remember she's
that cursed poison gets a hold
her pretend-
not responsible.
on anyone
EDMUND His face grows hard and he
stares at his father
with bitter accusation.
know damned well she's not to blame! And I know who is! You are! Your damned stinginess! If you'd spent money for a decent doctor when she was so sick after I was born, she'd never have known morphine existed! Instead you put her in the hands of a hotel quack who wouldn't admit his ignorance and took the easiest way out, not giving a damn what It
never should have gotten a hold on her!
happened
I
to her afterwards! All because his fee
was cheap! Another
one of your bargains!
TYRONE Stung— angrily. Be
quiet!
How dare you talk of something you know nothing about!
Trying to control his temper.
142
You must was
try to see
my
side of
that kind of a doctor?
it,
He had
too, lad. a
How
was
to
I
know
he
good reputation —
EDMUND Among
the souses in the hotel bar,
I
suppose!
TYRONE That's a
asked the hotel proprietor to
lie! I
recommend
the best
—
EDMUND At the same time crying poorhouse and making it plain you wanted a cheap one! I know your system! By God, I ought to after Yes!
this afternoon!
TYRONE Guiltily defensive.
What about
this afternoon?
EDMUND Never mind now. We're talking about Mama! I'm saying no matter how you excuse yourself you know damned well your stinginess is to
blame
—
TYRONE And
say you're a
I
liar!
Shut your mouth right now, or
—
EDMUND Ignoring After
you
this.
you found out
she'd been
made
a
morphine
send her to a cure then, at the start, while she
addict, still
why didn't
had
a
chance?
No, that would have meant spending some money! I'll bet you told her all she had to do was use a little will power! That's what you still
believe in your heart, in spite of what doctors,
something about
it,
who
really
know
have told you!
TYRONE You
know better than that now! But how was I to know What did I know of morphine? It was years before I discov-
lie
then?
again!
I
ered what was wrong. that's
all.
Why didn't
I
I
thought she'd never got over her sickness,
send her to a cure, you say?
Bitterly.
143
Haven't
What
I? I've
spent thousands
upon thousands
in cures!
A waste.
good have they done her? She always started again.
EDMUND Because you've never given her anything that would help her want to stay off
No home
it!
except this
summer dump in a money to make
hates and you've refused even to spend
place she this
look
decent, while you keep buying more property, and playing sucker
con
for every
man
with a gold mine, or a
silver
mine, or any kind of
get-rich-quick swindle! You've dragged her around on the road, sea-
son after season, on one-night stands, with no one she could talk waiting night after night in dirty hotel rooms for you to
with a bun on didn't
want
after the bars closed! Christ,
be cured. Jesus,
to
when
is
think of
I
it
it I
to,
come back
any wonder she hate your guts!
TYRONE Strickenly.
Edmund! Then
in
a
rage.
How dare you talk to your father like After
all I've
done
that,
you
insolent
young cub!
for you.
EDMUND We'll
come
to that,
what you're doing
for
me!
TYRONE Looking guilty again
— ignores
this.
Will you stop repeating your mother's crazy accusations, which she never makes unless
it's
the poison talking?
the road against her will. Naturally, her.
And
she
I
with
144
I
when
to
she's
needn't have been lonely. There was always the
my company and
never dragged her on
came because she loved me and wanted
That's the truth, no matter what she says
And she
I
wanted her with me.
to talk to, if she'd wanted.
insisted, in spite her.
I
loved
be with me. not
herself.
members of
She had her children, too,
of the expense, on having a nurse to
travel
— EDMUND Bitterly.
Yes,
your one generosity, and that because you were jealous of her
much
paying too It
attention to us,
was another mistake,
and had that
herself,
to
and wanted us out of your way!
too! If she'd
had
to take care
of
me
all
by
occupy her mind, maybe she'd have been
able
TYRONE Goaded into
Or for that when she's never
vindictiveness.
matter,
if
you
insist
on judging things by what she
not in her right mind,
if
you hadn't been born
says
she'd
—
He stops ashamed.
EDMUND Suddenly spent and miserable. Sure.
I
know
that's
what she
feels,
Papa.
TYRONE Protests penitently.
She doesn't! She loves you
as dearly as ever
only said that because you put
me
mother loved
in such a
raking up the past, and saying you hate
a son!
God-damned
I
rage,
me —
EDMUND Dully. I
didn't
mean
it,
Papa.
He suddenly smiles— kidding a bit drunkenly. I'm like Mama, I can't help liking you, in spite
of everything.
TYRONE Grins a bit drunkenly in return. I
might say the same of you. You're no great shakes
case of "A
as a son. It's a
poor thing but mine own."
They both chuckle with
real,
if alcoholic, affection. Tyrone changes the
subject.
What's happened
to
our game?
Whose
play
is it?
i45
EDMUND Yours,
I
guess.
Tyrone plays a card which
Edmund takes and
the
game gets forgotten
again.
TYRONE You mustn't
let
yourself be too downhearted, lad, by the bad news
you had today Both the doctors promised me, at this place you're going, you'll
be cured in
six
if
you obey orders
months, or a year
at
most.
EDMUND His face hard again.
Don't kid me. You don't believe
that.
TYRONE Too vehemently.
Of course
I
believe
it!
and the specialist—
Why shouldn't
I
believe
it
when both Hardy
?
EDMUND You think I'm going
to die.
TYRONE That's a
lie!
You're crazy!
EDMUND More
bitterly.
So why waste money? That's why you're sending farm
me
to a state
—
TYRONE In guilty confusion.
What
state
farm?
and both doctors
It's
said
the Hilltown Sanatorium, that's it
was the best place
all I
know,
for you.
EDMUND Scathingly.
For the money! That lie,
146
Papa!
is,
for nothing, or practically nothing.
You know damned
well Hilltown Sanatorium
is
Don't a state
institution!
wormed
Jamie suspected you'd cry poorhouse to Hardy and he
the truth out of him.
TYRONE Furiously.
That drunken
loafer!
I'll
me
your mind against
him out
kick
ever since
in the gutter! He's
you were old enough
poisoned
to listen!
EDMUND You
can't
deny
the truth about the state farm, can you?
it's
TYRONE It's
not true the way you look at
That's nothing against
it.
The
it!
place than any private sanatorium. tage of
it? It's
owner.
I
What
it.
it is
run by the
state?
money to make a better And why shouldn't I take advan-
my right— and yours. We're
help to support
if
state has the
residents. I'm a property
I'm taxed to death
—
EDMUND With
bitter irony.
on property valued
Yes,
at a
quarter of a million.
TYRONE Lies! It's all
mortgaged!
EDMUND Hardy and
know what you're worth. I wonder what when they heard you moaning poorhouse and
the specialist
they thought of you
showing you wanted
to
wish
me on
charity!
TYRONE It's
a
lie!
All
I
told
torium because
I
them was
I
couldn't afford any millionaire's sana-
was land poor. That's the
truth!
EDMUND And
then you went to the Club to meet McGuire and
you with another As Tyrone starts Don't
lie
about
bum
let
him
stick
piece of property!
to deny. it!
you. Jamie kidded
We
met McGuire in the hotel bar after he left him about hooking you, and he winked and
laughed!
i47
TYRONE Lyingfeebly.
He's a
liar if
he said—
EDMUND Don't
about
lie
With gathering
it!
intensity.
God, Papa, ever
since
out what hard work
went
I
my own,
and was on
to sea
for little
pay was, and what
and found like to
it felt
be
camp on park benches because I had no you because I knew what you'd been up against as a kid. I've tried to make allowances. Christ, you have to make allowances in this damned family or go nuts! I have tried to make allowances for myself when I remember all the rotbroke, and starve, and
place to sleep, I've tried to be fair to
ten stuff I've pulled! I've tried to feel like
money
being what you are where of yours
this last stunt
Not because of the I've treated
when
you
too much!
is
rotten
way you're
rottenly, in
Don't you
know Hardy
town
will talk
Jesus, Papa, haven't
makes
treating
my way, more
yourself up before the whole
know!
It
a question of your son having
it's
Mama that you can't help God Almighty, me want to puke!
concerned. But
is
as
me. To
hell
with
that!
than once. But to think
consumption, you can show
such a stinking old tightwad!
and the whole damned town
will
you any pride or shame?
Bursting with rage.
And
don't think
damned
bum
state
let
I'll
you
get
away with
property with! You stinking old miser
He chokes
it!
I
won't go to any
farm just to save you a few lousy dollars to buy more
huskily, his voice trembling
with
—
rage,
!
and then
is
shaken by
a fit of coughing.
TYRONE Has shrunk back
in his chair
greater than his anger.
Be
quiet!
said
where you
148
this attack, his guilty contrition
Don't say that to me! You're drunk!
Stop coughing,
Who
under
He stammers.
lad.
you had like.
I
I
won't mind you.
You've got yourself worked up over nothing. to
go to
don't give a
this Hill town place?
damn what
it
You can go any-
costs. All
I
care about
is
you
to have
Edmund
me
a stinking miser, just because
I
doctors to think I'm a millionaire they can swindle.
want
don't
get well. Don't call
He
has stopped coughing.
looks sick
and weak. His
father
him frightenedly.
stares at
You look weak,
lad.
You'd better take a bracer.
EDMUND Grabs the
bottle
and pours
his glass
brimfull— weakly.
Thanks.
He gulps down
the whiskey.
TYRONE Pours himselfa big drink, which empties the
head bows and he
stares
all
it.
His
resentment.
old miser. Well,
being, although
and drinks
dully at the cards on the table— vaguely.
Whose play is it? He goes on dully, without
A stinking
bottle,
maybe
my life since
I
you're right.
had anything
Maybe I've
I
can't help
thrown money
buy drinks for everyone in the house, or loaned sponges I knew would never pay it back—
over the bar to
money
to
With a loose-mouthed sneer ofself contempt. But, of course, that was in barrooms, when can't feel that
home
I first
way about
it
when
I'm sober in
But
it
still,
full
my
of whiskey.
home.
It
was
I
at
learned the value of a dollar and the fear of the poor-
house. I've never been able to believe in feared
was
I
my
luck since.
I've
always
would change and everything I had would be taken away. the more property you own, the safer you think you are.
but it's the way I have to feel. Banks fail, you think you can keep land beneath but and your money's gone,
That may not be your
logical,
feet.
Abruptly his tone becomes scornfully superior.
You do!
said
you
How
lege,
realized
what
I'd
been up against
could you? You've had
though you didn't stay
as a boy.
The
hell
you
everything— nurses, schools, col-
there. You've
had food, clothing. Oh,
work with your back and hands, a and I respect bit of being homeless and penniless in a foreign land, to you. It adventure and romance of game was a it But for it. you I
know you had
was
a fling of hard
play.
149
EDMUND Dully
sarcastic.
Yes, particularly the time
and almost
Priest's,
I
tried to
commit
suicide at
Jimmie the
did.
TYRONE You weren't
your right mind.
in
No
son of mine would ever
— You
were drunk.
EDMUND I
was stone cold
sober.
That was the
trouble. I'd stopped to think
too long.
TYRONE With drunken peevishness. Don't
start
listen.
I
your damned atheist morbidness again!
was trying
to
make
plain to
don't care to
I
you —
Scornfully.
What do you know father deserted
my
of the value of a dollar?
mother and went back
he did soon enough, and deserved hell.
He
mistook
was gossip ever
rat
poison for
to,
flour,
and
I
was ten
I
hope
my
Which
he's roasting in
or sugar, or something. There
wasn't by mistake but that's a
it
When
to Ireland to die.
lie.
No
my family
one in
—
EDMUND My bet it wasn't by mistake. is,
TYRONE More morbidness! Your brother put can suspect
was
and
left,
a sister a
hard put to
hovel
in
we
150
little
older
moved
and two younger than me.
to other parts.
They
My
mother
My
couldn't help.
me
two older
They were
There was no damned ro-
to keep themselves alive.
it
our poverty. Twice we were evicted from the miserable called
thrown out too,
The worst he
a stranger in a strange land, with four small children,
brothers had
mance
that in your head.
the only truth for him. But never mind.
is
though
home, with
in the street, I
tried
and
hard not
my mother's few sticks of furniture my mother and sisters crying. I cried,
to,
because
I
was the
man of the
family.
At ten years
old!
There was no more school
for
me.
hours a day in a machine shop, learning to make
worked twelve
I
files.
A dirty barn
of a place where rain dripped through the roof, where you roasted in
summer, and there was no stove where the onlv
with cold,
dows, so on grey days
touching the
you think
I
files
light
in winter,
have to
I'd
You
in order to see!
got for
talk
week!
Fifty cents a
it?
And my poor mother washed and
week!
home
my older
and
the day,
sister
to keep the house.
enough food
to eat. Well
We
small filthy win-
bent over with
sit
sewed, and
numb
and your hands got
came through two
my eyes
of work!
almost
And what do
the truth! Fifty cents a
It's
scrubbed for the Yanks by
my
two younger stayed
at
never had clothes enough to wear, nor
remember one Thanksgiving, or maybe it in whose house mother had been
I
was Christmas, when some Yank
scrubbing gave her a dollar extra for a present, and on the way she spent
it all
on food.
and saying with to
God,
He
for
tears
once in our
brave, sweet
home
can remember her hugging and kissing us
down
of joy running
wipes tears from his
A fine,
I
her tired face: "Glory be
have enough for each of us!"
lives we'll
eyes.
woman. There never was
a braver or finer.
EDMUND Moved.
must have been.
Yes, she
TYRONE Her one
fear
was she'd get old and
sick
and have
to die in the poor-
house.
He pauses— then It
was
much
then.
You have for a
me I
adds with grim humor.
in those days
a
learned to be a miser.
And once you've learned
to look for bargains. If
good bargain,
it's
I
good
you'll
place.
I
A
a lesson,
took
dollar
it's
was worth so
hard to unlearn
this state
have to forgive me. The doctors did
You must
never meant you to go there
believe that,
if you
didn't
Edmund. And
want
it.
farm sanatorium
I
tell
swear
to.
Vehemently.
You can choose any place
I
can afford.
place
Any
you
like!
Never mind what
it
costs!
Any
place you like— within reason.
151
At this
an
had
good
a record as
as
His resentment has
lips.
elaborately offhand, casual air.
There was another sanatorium the it
Edmunds
a grin twitches
qualification,
gone. His father goes on with
specialist
any place
recommended. He
in the country.
said
endowed by a
It's
group of millionaire factory owners, for the benefit of their workers principally, but you're eligible to
There's such a pile of
much.
go there because you're a resident.
money behind
it,
they don't have to charge
only seven dollars a week but you get ten times that value.
It's
Hastily. I
don't
want
you
to persuade
repeating what
I
was
to anything, understand. I'm simply
told.
EDMUND Concealing his smile— casually.
Oh,
I
there.
know
Abruptly he It
is
like a
good bargain
to
me.
I'd like to
go
settles that.
miserably desperate again
damn now,
doesn't matter a
Changing
sounds
that. It
So that
— dully.
anyway. Let's forget
it!
the subject.
How about our game? Whose
play
is it?
TYRONE Mechanically. I
don't know. Mine,
Edmund plays a
I
card.
guess.
No,
yours.
it's
His father takes
it.
Then about
to
play from his
hand, he again forgets the game.
maybe
Yes,
life
overdid the lesson for me, and
too much, and the time
came when
made
a dollar
that mistake ruined
worth
my career
as a fine actor.
Sadly.
never admitted this to anyone before, lad, but tonight I'm so
I've
heartsick
pride
and
I
feel at
the end of everything,
pretense.
made such
That God-damned play
a great success in
with
its
else,
and by the time
damned
had
identified
W
I
I
woke up
I
didn't
want
to the fact I'd
thing and did try other plays,
me
bought
for a
— a great money success —
promise of an easy fortune.
the
and what's the use of fake
it
to
it
song and
ruined
me
do anything
become was too
with that one part, and didn't want
a slave to late.
me
They
in any-
thing
else.
They were
right, too. I'd lost the great talent
I
once had
through years of easy repetition, never learning a new part, never
working hard. Thirty-five
really
a season like snapping
Yet before
young
worked
I'd
read
I
like hell. I'd left a I
study the Bible.
I
educated myself.
could cut with a knife.
I
good job
I
poetry.
And
acted well in him.
I
I
when Edwin Booth came
1874
felt
Shakespearean actor,
was leading man,
I
is
I
would have acted
of being
in
alive in his great
inspired by him.
kept on.
if I'd
I
I
could have
know
that! In
Chicago where
to the theater in
I
played Cassius to his Brutus one night, Brutus
I
to his Cassius the next, Othello to his Iago,
night
was wild with ambi-
got rid of an Irish brogue you
loved Shakespeare.
his plays for nothing, for the joy
a great
I
machinist to
as a
studied Shakespeare as you'd
I
any of
been
was considered one of
I
loved the theater.
the plays ever written.
all
dollars net profit
was too great a temptation.
actors with the greatest artistic promise in
take supers' parts because tion.
thousand
to forty
fingers! It
bought the damned thing
I
the three or four
America.
your
and so on. The
played Othello, he said to our manager, "That young
playing Othello better than
I
first
man
ever did!"
Proudly.
That from Booth, the was it I
And I was
true!
greatest actor of his
now, that night was the high spot
wanted
it!
And
day or any other!
only twenty-seven years old! As in
for a time after that
bition high. Married your mother.
I
my career.
I
And
it
look back on
I
had
life
where
kept on upward with am-
Ask her what
I
was
like in those
days.
Her
later
my good bad luck made me find the big money-maker. It my eyes at first. It was a great romantic part knew I
love
was an added incentive to ambition. But a few years
wasn't that in
I
could play better than anyone. But
from the
start
— and then
thirty-five to forty
days
life
had
thousand net
it
was
a great
me where
it
box
office success
wanted me — at from
profit a season!
A fortune
in those
— or even in these.
Bitterly.
What
the hell was
Well, no matter.
He glances
My play,
it I
It's
wanted
a late
day
to buy,
I
wonder, that was worth
—
for regrets.
vaguely at his cards.
isn't it?
153
.
EDMUND Moved,
with understanding
stares at his father
I'm glad you've told
me
Papa.
this,
I
— slowly.
know you
a lot better now.
TYRONE With a
loose,
Maybe
I
tempt
twisted smile
shouldn't have told you.
for
And
me.
it's
a
Maybe you'll
only
feel
more con-
poor way to convince you of the value of a
dollar.
as if this phrase automatically aroused an habitual association in
Then his
mind, he glances up at the chandelier disapprovingly.
The I
glare
from those extra
turn them out, do you?
making the
Electric
lights hurts
We
Company
my eyes. You
don't
mind
don't need them, and there's
if
no use
rich.
EDMUND Controlling a wild impulse to
No,
sure not.
Turn them
laugh— agreeably.
out.
TYRONE Gets heavily
and a
bit waveringly to his feet
and gropes
uncertainly for
mind going back to its line of thought. know what the hell it was I wanted to buy.
the lights— his
No,
I
don't
He clicks
out one bulb.
On my solemn oath, Edmund, I'd gladly face not having an land to call my own, nor a penny in the bank— He
clicks
I'd
be willing to have no
I
acre of
out another bulb.
could look back
home but the poorhouse in my old age if now on having been the fine artist I might have
been.
He
turns out the third bulb, so only the reading
down again
heavily.
Edmund
strained, ironical laughter. Tyrone
is
What
at?
the devil are
you laughing
hurt.
EDMUND Not
i54
at
you, Papa. At
life. It's
lamp
is
on,
and sits
suddenly cannot hold back a burst of
so
damned
crazy.
—
TYRONE Growls.
More of your morbidness!
we
There's nothing
wrong with
not in our
but in ourselves that we
life. It's
who — He quotes. "The
dear Brutus,
fault,
is
stars,
are underlings."
He pauses — then The
praise
down
his exact
used to read
bad
didn't
I
sadly.
Edwin Booth gave
Somewhere
words
my Othello. made the manager put kept it in my wallet for years. I
in writing.
I
I
every once in a while until finally
it
want
to face
in this house.
it I
any more. Where
remember
I
put
it
it
made me now,
is it
away
I
feel so
wonder?
carefully
EDMUND With a wry ironical sadness. It
might be
ding
an old trunk in the
in
Then
if we're
going to play cards,
takes the card his father
play the game, ing
along with Mama's wed-
as his father stares at him, he adds quickly.
For Pete's sake,
He
attic,
dress.
a sound
to
like
let's play.
had played and leads. For a moment,
mechanical
chess players.
Then Tyrone
they
stops, listen-
upstairs.
TYRONE She's
still
moving around. God knows when
she'll
go to
sleep.
EDMUND Pleads
tensely.
For Christ's sake, Papa, forget
He up.
reaches out
and pours a
it!
drink. Tyrone starts to protest, then gives
Edmund drinks. He puts down
it
the glass. His expression changes.
When he speaks it is as if he were deliberately giving way and seeking to hide behind a maudlin manner.
to
drunken-
ness
Yes, she
here
we
moves above and beyond sit
us, a
ghost haunting the past, and
pretending to forget, but straining our ears listening for
the slightest sound, hearing the fog drip from the eaves like the un-
even tick of a rundown, crazy clock— or
like the
dreary tears of a
i55
trollop spattering in a
puddle of
beer on a honky-tonk table
stale
top!
He laughs Not
with maudlin appreciation.
so bad, that
Then with alcoholic You've just told
eh? Original, not Baudelaire. Give
last,
all
high spots in your memories.
connected with the
was on the Squarehead square
The
in the Trades.
on the bowsprit, facing
rigger,
ing high above me.
I
was
set free!
I
for
Buenos
I
white in the moonlight, tower-
sail
for a
moment
myself
lost
I
— actually lost my
became white
dissolved in the sea,
want
to put
when
I
it
life,
sky!
I
sails
and
or the
that way.
life
The
Only a
joy,
ship
within something greater
of Man, to Life
Then another
lazy
life.
flying
belonged, without past or future,
time,
was lookout on the crow's nest
sea, that time.
lay
with the water foaming into spume
within peace and unity and a wild
my own
I
Aires. Full
became drunk with the beauty and singing
I
and the high dim-starred than
to
When
became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the
spray,
ship.
bound
Want
Here's one.
sea.
old hooker driving fourteen knots.
astern,
under me, the masts with every
rhythm of it, and
credit!
talkativeness.
me some
hear mine? They're
moon
me
ground
swell
itself!
dawn watch.
in the
and
To God,
a slow
drowsy
passengers asleep and none of the crew in sight.
of man. Black smoke pouring from
if
you
on the American Line,
the funnels behind
A
roll
calm
of the
No sound
and beneath
me. Dreaming, not keeping lookout, feeling alone, and above, and apart,
and
watching the dawn creep
sea
which
slept together.
like a
Then
the
painted dream over the sky
moment
came. The peace, the end of the quest, the
last
longing to a fulfillment beyond men's lousy,
hopes and dreams!
swimming experience. to a rock,
And
Became
swaying
there lost
a beach,
I
greedy fears and life,
when
I
was
have had the same
the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored
of beatitude. Like
seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For
— and seeing the secret,
meaning! Then the hand
lets
are the secret. For a
the veil
fall
and you
a
second
are alone,
in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no
good 156
is
on
my
in the tide. Like a saint's vision
the veil of things as they
second you see
pitiful,
several other times in
far out, or lying alone
of ecstatic freedom
harbor, the joy of be-
reason!
He grins It
wryly.
my
was a great mistake,
being born a man,
would have been
I
much more successful as a sea gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a in love
little
with death!
TYRONE Stares at
him — impressed.
Yes, there's the
makings of a poet
Then protesting
uneasily.
But
that's
morbid
in
you
all
right.
wanted and loving
craziness about not being
death.
EDMUND Sardonically.
The makings of a panhandling
poet.
for a
only the habit.
No, I'm
smoke.
He
afraid I'm like the
couldn't touch what
I
guy who
is
always
hasn't even got the makings. He's got I
tried to tell
just
stammered. That's the best
I'll
will
be faithful realism,
Stammering
at least.
ever do,
I
mean, is
you if
I
just
live.
now.
Well,
I it
the native eloquence
of us fog people.
A pause.
Then they both jump
side the house, as ifsomeone
startledly as there
is
a noise from out-
had stumbled andfallen on
the front steps.
Edmund grins. Well, that sounds like the absent brother. a
bun
He must
have a peach of
on.
TYRONE Scowling.
That
loafer!
He gets
caught the
last car,
bad luck
to
it.
Edmund. I'll go out on the porch. He has an adder when he's drunk. I'd only lose my temper.
Get him like
He
to his feet.
to bed,
a tongue
He goes out the door to the side porch as the front door in the hall bangs Edmund watches with amusement Jamie's wavering progress through the front parlor. Jamie comes in. He is very drunk
shut behind Jamie.
157
and woozy on blurred, his
His
his legs.
mouth
eyes are glassy, his face bloated, his speech
slack like his fathers,
a
leer
on
his lips.
JAMIE Swaying and blinking
What
ho!
What
doorway— in a loud voice.
in the
ho!
EDMUND Sharply.
Nix on the loud
noise!
JAMIE Blinks at him.
Oh,
hello, Kid.
With great seriousness. I'm
drunk
as
as a fiddler's bitch.
EDMUND Dryly.
Thanks
me your
for telling
great secret.
JAMIE Grins foolishly.
Unneshesary information Number One, eh? He bends and slaps at the knees of his trousers. Had serious accident. The front steps tried to trample on me. Took
Yes.
advantage of fog to waylay me.
Dark
Ought
to be a lighthouse out there.
in here, too.
Scowling.
What the hell is this, the morgue? Lesh have some He sways forward to the table, reciting Kipling. "Ford, ford, ford
Kabul
Kabul
on
subject.
river,
Ford
o'
Keep
the crossing-stakes beside you, an' they will surely guide
river in the dark!
'Cross the ford
He fumbles at the Thash more wad?
158
o'
light
like
o'
Kabul
chandelier
it.
To
hell
you
river in the dark."
and manages
to
turn on the three bulbs.
with old Gaspard. Where
is
the old tight-
EDMUND Out on
the porch.
JAMIE Can't expect us to
His
Have
Say!
He
live in the
got the
I
d.t.'s?
and grabs
reaches out fumblingly
By God,
it's real.
Key
He slops a
to
it.
Man
What's matter with the Old
be ossified to forget he lock.
Black Hole of Calcutta.
on the full bottle of whiskey.
eyes fix
left this
tonight?
Grab opportunity by the
out.
Must fore-
my success.
big drink into a glass.
EDMUND You're stinking now.
That
will
knock you
stiff.
JAMIE
Wisdom from still
He
the
mouth of babes. Can
wet behind the
the wise stuff, Kid. You're
ears.
lowers himself into a chair, holding the drink carefully
aloft.
EDMUND All right. Pass out if you
want
to.
JAMIE Can't, that's trouble.
Had enough
to sink a ship, but can't sink.
Well, here's hoping.
He
drinks.
EDMUND Shove over the
bottle.
I'll
have one, too.
JAMIE With sudden, big-brotherly
No, you
don't.
Maybe no one I
solicitude,
grabbing the
bottle.
Not while I'm around. Remember else gives a
damn
if you die,
love your guts, Kid. Everything else
is
but
I
do.
doctor's orders.
My kid brother.
gone. You're
all
I've
got
left.
Pulling bottle closer to him.
So no booze Beneath
his
for you, if
I
can help
it.
drunken sentimentality there
is
a genuine
sincerity.
159
EDMUND Irritably.
Oh,
lay off
it.
JAMIE Is
hurt and his face hardens.
You don't
believe
I
care, eh? Just
He shoves
the bottle over.
All right.
Go
ahead and
drunken
bull.
yourself.
kill
EDMUND Seeing he
Sure
hurt
is
— affectionately.
know you
I
care, Jamie,
and I'm going on the wagon. But
Too many damned
tonight doesn't count.
things have
happened
today.
He pours a
drink.
Here's how.
He drinks. JAMIE Sobers up momentarily I
know, Kid.
It's
and with a pitying look.
been a lousy day for you.
Then with sneering cynicism. I'll
bet old Gaspard hasn't tried to keep you off booze. Probably give
you a
case to take with
The sooner you
you
to the state
kick the bucket, the
less
farm for pauper patients. expense.
With contemptuous hatred.
What
a bastard to have for a father! Christ, if
book, no one would believe
you put him
in a
it!
EDMUND Defensively.
Oh,
Papa's
all
right, if
you
try to understand
him — and keep your
sense of humor.
JAMIE Cynically.
He's been putting on the old sob act for you, eh? you. But not me. Never again.
160
He can
always kid
Then
slowly.
Although, in a way, has even that
I
do
coming
feel
him about one
sorry for
But he
thing.
to him. He's to blame.
Hurriedly.
But to
He
with
hell
that.
grabs the bottle
and pours another
drink, appearing very
drunk
again.
That
me. This one ought to put the lights out. got it out of Doc Hardy this sanatorium is a
lash drink's getting
Did you charity
tell
Gaspard
I
dump?
EDMUND Reluctantly. Yes.
I
told
him
I
can go anywhere
He adds, Within
wouldn't go there. I
It's all
settled
now.
He
said
I
want.
smiling without resentment.
reason, of course.
JAMIE Drunkenly imitating his father.
Of course,
lad.
Anything within reason.
Sneering.
That means another cheap dump. Old Gaspard, the miser Bells," that's a part he can play without make-up.
in
"The
EDMUND Irritably.
Oh, shut
times. up, will you. I've heard that Gaspard stuff a million
JAMIE Shrugs his shoulders— thickly.
Aw
right, if you're shatisfied— let
funeral— I mean,
I
hope
it
him
get
away with
it.
It's
your
won't be.
EDMUND Changing
What
the subject.
did you do uptown tonight?
Go
to
Mamie
Burns?
161
"
JAMIE Very drunk, his
Where
Sure thing. ship?
And
woman's
head nodding.
love.
love?
could
else
Don't forget
find suitable feminine
I
love.
What
is
a
man
companion-
without a good
A God-damned hollow shell.
EDMUND Chuckles
tipsily, letting
now and be drunk.
himselfgo
You're a nut.
JAMIE Quotes with gusto from Oscar Wilde's "The Harlot's House.
"Then, turning to 'The dead
The
dust
is
my
love,
I
said,
dancing with the dead,
whirling with the dust.'
— she heard the violin,
But she
And
are
left
my side
and entered
in:
Love passed into the house of lust.
Then suddenly the tune went false, ." The dancers wearied of the waltz He breaks off, thickly. Not strictly accurate. If my love was with me, .
must have been
.
I
didn't notice
She
it.
a ghost.
He pauses. Guess which one of Mamie's charmers her woman's love.
It'll
hand you
I
picked to bless
a laugh, Kid.
I
me
with
picked Fat Violet.
EDMUND Laughs drunkenly.
No, honest? Some
pick!
God, she weighs
a ton.
What
the hell
for,
a
joke?
JAMIE
No
joke.
Very
serious.
sad about myself and for a
162
the time
I
hit
the other poor
Mamie's
bums
dump
I
felt
in the world.
very
Ready
weep on any old womanly bosom. You know how you
when John soon
By all
as
I
get
Barleycorn turns on the soft music inside you. Then,
got in the door,
Mamie began
telling
me
all
her troubles.
Beefed let
how
rotten business was, and she was going to give Fat Vio-
the gate. Customers didn't
for Vi.
fall
was she could play the piano. Lately
Vi's
Only reason
she'd kept her
gone on drunks and been
too boiled to play, and was eating her out of house and home, and
although Vi was a goodhearted dumbbell, and she because she didn't ness
know how
the hell she'd
was business, and she couldn't afford
Well, that
made me
feel
to
felt
sorry for her
make
a living,
run a
home for fat tarts.
sorry for Fat Violet, so
I
still
busi-
squandered two
bucks of your dough to escort her upstairs. With no dishonorable intentions whatever.
was a
little
like
I
them
but not that
fat,
fat.
All
I
wanted
heart-to-heart talk concerning the infinite sorrow of life.
EDMUND Chuckles drunkenly.
Poor Vi!
bet
I'll
and gave her
you
and Swinburne and Dowson
recited Kipling
have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in
"I
my fashion."
JAMIE Grins
Sure
loosely.
— with
She stood
it
Old Master, John Barleycorn, playing soft music. Then she got good and sore. Got the idea I
the
for a while.
me a grand bawling out. Said she a drunken bum who recited poetry. Then she began
took her upstairs for a joke. Gave
was better than to cry.
So
I
had
to say
to believe that,
and
I
I
her up, and she kissed
loved her because she was stayed with her to prove
me when
me, and we both cried was
fine,
except
a
little
I left,
more
and
fat,
it,
I'd
that cheered
said she'd fallen hard for
in the hallway,
Mamie Burns thought
and she wanted
and
and everything
gone bughouse.
EDMUND Quotes
derisively.
"Harlots and
Hunted have
The
pleasures of their
own
to give,
vulgar herd can never understand."
JAMIE Nods
his
head drunkenly.
Egzactly! Hell of a
good time,
at that.
You should have stuck around
163
"
with me, Kid.
were
Mamie Burns
She meant
sick.
He pauses — then
inquired after you. Sorry to hear you
too.
it,
with maudlin humor, in a ham-actor tone.
This night has opened
my eyes
boy!
of acting back to the performing
are
shall give the art
I
to a great career in store for
most perfect expression. By applying
its
talents in their
proper sphere,
I
my
shall attain the
me,
seals,
my
which
natural God-given
pinnacle of success!
I'll be the lover of the fat woman in Barnum and Bailey's circus! Edmund laughs. Jamie's mood changes to arrogant disdain. Pah! Imagine me sunk to the fat girl in a hick town hooker shop!
Me!
Who
have made some of the best-lookers on Broadway
sit
up
and beg!
He quotes from
Kipling's "Sestina
"Speakin in general,
The appy
I
of the Tramp-Royal. 'em all,
'ave tried
roads that take you o'er the world."
With sodden melancholy.
Not
so apt.
where
fast.
in the end,
Happy
roads
is
bunk. Weary roads
That's where I've got
even
if
is
right.
Get you no-
— nowhere. Where everyone lands
most of the suckers won't admit
it.
EDMUND Derisively.
Can
it!
You'll
JAMIE Starts and
be crying in a minute.
stares at his brother
for a second with bitter
hostility
—
thickly.
Don't get
Then
— too damned fresh.
abruptly.
But you're
Glad
I
right.
To
hell
with repining! Fat Violet's a good kid.
stayed with her. Christian act.
Cured her
blues. Hell
of a
good time. You should have stuck with me, Kid. Taken your mind off your troubles.
what
He
can't
What's the use coming home
be helped. All over— finished
stops, his
head nodding drunkenly,
he looks up, his face hard, "If
164
I
now — not
his eyes
and quotes jeeringly.
were hanged on the highest
hill,
to get the blues over
a hope!
closing— then suddenly
Mother I
o'
mine,
know whose
O mother o' mine!
love
would follow me
still
." .
.
EDMUND Violently.
Shut up!
JAMIE In a cruel, sneering tone with hatred in
it.
Where's the hophead? Gone to sleep?
Edmundjerks as ifhed been face looks stricken
and sick.
struck.
There
is
a tense
Edmunds
silence.
Then in a burst of rage he springs from his
chair.
EDMUND You
dirty bastard!
He punches
his brother in the face,
a blow that glances off the cheek-
bone. For a second Jamie reacts pugnaciously
and half rises from
his
chair to do battle, but suddenly he seems to sober up to a shocked realization
of what he has said and he sinks back
limply.
JAMIE Miserably.
Thanks, Kid.
I
certainly
had that coming. Don't know what made
me— booze talking— You know me,
Kid.
EDMUND His anger ebbing.
know you'd never say that unless — But God, how drunk you are, it's no excuse! He pauses — miserably.
I
I'm sorry
He sinks
I
hit you.
You and
I
never scrap
Jamie, no marter
— that bad.
back on his chair.
JAMIE Huskily. It's all
right.
Glad you
did.
My dirty tongue.
Like to cut
it
He hides his face in his hands— dully. I suppose it's because I feel so damned sunk. Because
out.
this
time
165
— Mama had me fooled. I
really believed she
I
always believe the worst, but this time
had
it
licked.
She thinks
believed the best.
I
His voice flutters. I
suppose
hope,
He
if
I
can't forgive her
begins to sob,
sober,
and the
— yet.
game,
she'd beaten the
It
meant
so
much.
I'd
begun
to
could, too.
I
horrible part
of his weeping is that
it
appears
not the maudlin tears ofdrunkenness.
EDMUND Blinking back tears himself
God, don't
I
know how you
Stop
feel!
it,
Jamie!
JAMIE Trying to control his sobs.
known about Mama
I've
the I'd
first
time
I
so
much
never dreamed before that any
He pauses. And then this
longer than you. Never forget
got wise. Caught her in the act with a hypo. Christ,
stuff of you getting
women
but whores took dope!
consumption.
It's
We've been more than brothers. You're the only pal love your guts. I'd
do anything
got
me
licked.
I've ever had.
I
for you.
EDMUND Reaches out I
know
and pats
his
arm.
that, Jamie.
JAMIE His crying over
— drops his hands from his face — with a strange bitter-
ness.
Yet
I'll
about
bet you've heard
my
hoping
ing to myself that Papa
were to
die,
Mama and old Gaspard spill so much bunk
for the worst,
Mama and
is I
you suspect
old and can't
would
get
all
last
right
much
he's got,
now
longer,
and
I'm think-
and
if you
so I'm probably
hoping
EDMUND Indignantly.
Shut up, you damned
166
fool!
What
the hell put that in your nut?
He stares at his Yes, that's
brother accusingly.
what
I'd like to
What
know.
put that in your mind?
JAMIE Confusedly— appearing drunk again.
What
Don't be a dumbbell! the worst. I've got so
Then drunkenly
What
you
are
with me!
I've
Always suspected of hoping
said!
I
can't help
I
for
—
resentful.
trying to do, accuse
learned
more of
me? Don't play the wise guy
than you'll ever know! Just be-
life
cause you've read a lot of highbrow junk, don't think you can fool
me! You're only an overgrown
The
family
About nothing! About I
a
boobs
wake up! You're
few poems
flatter
setting
you with bunk
Abruptly his tone changes
away from him,
Papa's pet!
getting a swelled head
lately.
town newspaper!
in a hick
Hell,
No
to
no
rivers
on
You
fire!
about your future
let
hick town
—
disgusted contrition.
Edmund has
looked
trying to ignore this tirade.
Hell, Kid, forget
is
Mama's baby and
used to write better stuff for the Lit magazine in college! You
better
it.
kid!
White Hope! You've been
That goes
it.
one hopes more than
I
for Sweeny.
do
you'll
You know
knock 'em
I
don't
dead.
all
mean
No
one
prouder you've started to make good.
Drunkenly
assertive.
Why shouldn't on me.
I've
I
be proud? Hell,
it's
purely
selfish.
You
reflect credit
had more to do with bringing you up than anyone.
wised you up about women, so you'd never be a
any mistakes you didn't want reading poetry
first?
make!
And who
Swinburne, for example?
once wanted to write, write! Hell, you're
to
I
planted
more than
it
my
in
I
fall
guy, or
you on
steered
did!
And
I
make to
because
I
your mind that someday you'd
brother.
I
made you!
You're
my
Frankenstein!
He
has risen to a note ofdrunken arrogance.
Edmund is grinning with
amusement now.
EDMUND All right, I'm
He
your Frankenstein. So
let's
have a drink.
laughs.
You
crazy nut!
167
JAMIE Thickly. I'll
have a drink. Not you. Got to take care of you.
He
reaches out with a foolish grin
of doting
and grabs
affection
his
brothers hand.
Don't be scared of this sanatorium business. Hell, you can beat that standing on your head. Six months and you'll be in the pink. Probably haven't got consumption at
Doctors
all.
years ago to cut out booze or I'd soon be
They're
all
con men. Anything
farm stuff is
to grab
lot
me
of fakers. Told
dead— and
your dough.
I'll
here
I
am.
bet this state
game. Doctors get a cut for every patient
political graft
they send.
EDMUND Disgustedly amused.
You're the limit! At the Last Judgment, you'll be around telling
everyone
it's
in the bag.
JAMIE
And but
I'll
be
right. Slip a piece
if you're
of change to the Judge and be saved,
broke you can go to
hell!
He grins at this
blasphemy and Edmund has
"Therefore put
money
to laugh.
Jamie goes
on.
in thy purse." That's the only dope.
Mockingly.
The secret of my success! Look what it's got me! He lets Edmunds hand go to pour a big drink, and gulps it down. He stares at his brother with bleary affection — takes his hand again and begins to talk thickly but with a strange, convincing sincerity. Listen, Kid, you'll
Or might
talk.
be going away.
May
not be drunk enough to
you now. Something
I
ought
not get another chance to tell
to have told
you
truth.
own good. He pauses— struggling with himself Edmund stares, easy.
Jamie
I've
168
Want
bull,
to
but "in vino Veritas"
warn you
— against
been rotten bad influence.
pose.
tell
impressed and un-
blurts out.
Not drunken ously.
So got to
you long ago — for your
me.
And
stuff.
You
Mama
worst of
better take
and Papa
it is, I
did
it
seri-
are right. it
on pur-
!
EDMUND Uneasily.
Shut up!
don't want to
I
hear—
JAMIE You
Nix, Kid!
hates
My
life.
Did
listen!
it
on purpose
a
bum
Made
it's
my
Or
mistakes.
Made my Made whores
a fake.
drunk romantic.
getting
of you.
been dead so long. That
putting you wise so you'd learn from
Believed that myself at times, but
look good.
make
to
A big part. That part that's
part of me did.
mistakes fascinat-
ing vampires instead of poor, stupid, diseased slobs they really are.
Made
fun of work
me
and make
game. Never wanted you succeed
as sucker's
look even worse by comparison.
Always jealous of you. Mama's baby, Papa's
Wanted you
to
fail.
pet!
He stares at Edmund with increasing enmity. And it was your being born that started Mama on dope. I know that's not your fault, but all the same, God damn you, I can't help hating your guts
—
EDMUND Almost frightenedly. Jamie!
Cut
out! You're crazy!
it
JAMIE But don't get wrong
idea, Kid.
I
love
you more than
I
hate you.
My saying what I'm telling you now proves run the risk you'll hate me— and you're all I've got left. But didn't mean to tell you it. I
I
that last stuff— go that far back. Don't I
wanted
to say
is,
I'd like to see
the world. But you'd better be
damnedest revenge.
to
On
make you
everyone
fail.
else.
hopes you won't get
Mama
again!
He
well.
you become the
greatest success in
on your guard. Because
Can't help
it. I
I'll
Got
hate myself.
do
my
to take
Especially you. Oscar Wilde's "Reading
Gaol" has the dope twisted. The the thing he loved. That's
know what made me. What
what
man was dead and
it
Maybe
ought to he's
be.
so he
The dead
had
to kill
part of me
even glad the game has got
wants company, he doesn't want to be the only
corpse around the house!
He gives a
hard, tortured laugh.
169
EDMUND You
Jesus, Jamie!
have gone crazy!
really
JAMIE Think it over when you're Make up your mind you've got to tie a can to me— get me out of your life — think of me as dead — tell people, "I had a brother, but he's dead." And when you come back, look out for me. I'll be waiting to welcome you with that "my old
Think
over and you'll see I'm right.
it
away from
me
pal" stuff,
and
I
you
get stab
in the sanatorium.
give
you the glad hand, and
at the first
good chance
in the back.
EDMUND Shut up!
I'll
be
God-damned
if
I'll
listen to
you any more —
JAMIE As if he hadn't heard.
Only don't Give
me
Very drunkenly, his
Gone
me, don't you, Kid? You
Ought You're
His
to be. all
last
He falls
I
made
got
I've
eyes close.
That
warned you — for your
man
than
this, that
sake.
he saveth
head bobbing.
Feel better now.
all.
I
Greater love hath no
from himself.
his brother
That's
Remember
forget me.
credit.
He
left.
to confession.
understand. You're a
Know you damned
absolve
fine kid.
you. So go and get well. Don't die on me.
God
bless you, Kid.
mumbles.
drink— the old K. O.
into
a drunken doze, not completely asleep.
Edmund buries his
face in his hands miserably. Tyrone comes in quietly through the screen
door from the porch, his dressing gown wet with fog, the collar turned
up around
his throat.
time pitying.
His face
Edmund does
is
stern
TYRONE In a low voice.
Thank God
he's asleep.
Edmund looks I
up with a
start.
thought he'd never stop talking.
170
and
disgusted but at the
not notice his entrance.
same
He
down
turns
We'd
him
stay
Edmund remains silent. heard the
I
you'll
of his dressing gown.
the collar
better let
last
part of his talk.
heed the warning,
Edmund gives
where he
is
and
Tyrone regards
now
it
sleep
what
It's
it off.
him — then goes I've
comes from
on.
warned you.
his
I
hope
own mouth.
no sign of having heard.
Tyrone adds pityingly.
But don't take
it
too
much
worst of himself when
good thing
He
A
looks
left in
to heart, lad.
He
loves to exaggerate the
drunk. He's devoted to you.
he's
It's
the one
him.
down on Jamie with a
sweet spectacle for me!
My
bitter sadness.
first-born,
my name in honor and dignity, who
who
I
hoped would bear
showed such
brilliant
promise!
EDMUND Miserably.
Keep
quiet, can't you, Papa?
TYRONE Pours a drink.
A waste! A wreck,
drunken hulk, done with and
a
He drinks. Jamie has
become
restless,
finished!
sensing his father's presence, strug-
from his stupor. Now he gets his eyes open to blink up at The latter moves back a step defensively, his face growing hard.
gling up Tyrone.
JAMIE Suddenly points a finger at him and
Clarence
is
come,
That stabbed Seize
Then
on him,
me
false, fleeting,
in the field
Furies, take
recites
with dramatic emphasis.
perjured Clarence,
by Tewksbury.
him
into torment."
resentfully.
What the hell are you staring at? He recites sardonically from Rossetti. "Look I
am
in
my
face.
also called
My name
No
is
Might-Have-Been;
More, Too Late, Farewell."
TYRONE I'm well aware of that, and
God knows
I
don't
want
to look at
it.
171
EDMUND Papa! Quit
it!
JAMIE Derisively.
Got
a great idea for you, Papa. Put
season. Great part in
it
on
revival
of "The Bells" this
you can play without make-up. Old Gas-
pard, the miser!
Tyrone turns away, trying
to control his temper.
EDMUND Shut up, Jamie!
JAMIE Jeeringly.
Edwin Booth never saw
claim
I
the day
when he could
a performance as a trained seal. Seals are intelligent
They
up any bluffs about hams earning their daily
don't put
they're just
the Art of Acting.
good
give as
and honest.
They admit
fish.
TYRONE Stung, turns on
You
him
in
a
rage.
loafer!
EDMUND Papa!
Do you want
to start a
row that
will bring
Jamie, go back to sleep! You've shot off your
Mama
mouth
down?
too
much
already.
Tyrone turns away.
JAMIE Thickly.
All right, Kid.
He
Not looking
closes his eyes, his
down, turning
for
argument. Too
damned
head nodding. Tyrone comes
he wont look at Jamie. At once he becomes
she'd go to
bed so that
TYRONE Heavily.
wish to
172
God
and sits
his chair so
sleepy, too.
I
sleepy.
to the table
I
could, too.
Drowsily.
I'm dog tired.
can't stay
I
up
all
night like
I
used
Getting old
to.
—
old and finished.
With a bone-cracking yawn. Can't keep
my eyes
open.
think
I
you do the same, Edmund? His voice
trails off.
His
Edmund
Why don't
—
and he
begins to breathe
He
hears something
sits tensely.
nervously forward in his chair, staring through the front par-
He jumps
lor into the hall.
seems for a second he
is
down again and waits, his chair.
catch a few winks.
I'll
pass the time until she
eyes close, his chin sags,
heavily through his mouth.
andjerks
It'll
up with a hunted, distracted
going
to
expression. It
hide in the back parlor. Then he
his eyes averted, his
sits
hands gripping the arms of
Suddenly allfive bulbs ofthe chandelier in the front parlor are
turned on from a wall switch, and a
moment later someone starts play-
ing the piano in there— the opening of one of Chopin's simpler waltzes,
done with a forgetful,
stiff-fingered groping, as if an
awkward school-
girl were practicing it for the first time. Tyrone starts to wide-awakeness
and sober
moment
dread,
and Jamie's head jerks back and his The playing
they listen frozenly.
and Mary appears
For a
eyes open.
stops as abruptly as it began,
in the doorway. She wears a sky-blue dressing gown
over her nightdress, dainty slippers with pompons on her bare feet.
face
is
paler than
ever.
Her
eyes look
enormous. They glisten
ished black jewels. The uncanny thing
is
that her face
youthful. Experience seems ironed out of it. It
innocence, the in
two
pigtails
mouth caught
in a shy smile.
which hang over her
glectfully, trailing
breast.
hesitates in the
puckered puzzledly,
appears so
Her white
hair
is
braided
Over one arm, carried ne-
trimmed
it,
is
an
with duchesse lace.
doorway, glancing round the room, her forehead like
someone who has come
thing but has become absent-minded on the was. They stare at her. She seems
ofother objects
now
a marble mask ofgirlish
on the floor, as if she had forgotten she held
old-fashioned white satin wedding gown,
She
is
Her
like pol-
to
a room
to get
some-
way and forgotten what
aware of them merely
in the room, the furniture, the
as she
is
windows, familiar things
she accepts automatically as naturally belonging there but which she too preoccupied
it
aware
is
to notice.
173
JAMIE Breaks the cracking silence— bitterly, self-defensively sardonic.
The Mad
Scene. Enter Ophelia!
His father and brother both turn on him fiercely.
He
Edmund is
quicker.
slaps Jamie across the mouth with the back of his hand.
TYRONE His voice trembling with suppressedfury.
Good
boy,
Edmund. The
JAMIE Mumbles guiltily, without All right, Kid.
He puts his
dirty blackguard! His
own mother!
resentment.
Had it coming. But I told you how much I'd hoped—
hands over
his face
and begins
to sob.
TYRONE kick you out in the gutter tomorrow, so help
I'll
But Jamie s sobbing breaks
his anger,
me God.
and he turns and shakes his shoul-
der, pleading.
Jamie, for the love of God, stop
Then Mary
and
speaks,
it!
they freeze into silence again, staring at her.
She has paid no attention whatever
to the incident. It is
simply a part
of the familiar atmosphere of the room, a background which does not touch her preoccupation; and she speaks aloud to herself, not to them.
MARY I
play so badly now. I'm
me
tell me it isn't fair to my father when much money for extra lessons. She's quite right, it isn't
fair,
when
tice
every day from
he's so
good and generous, and
my hands. The
She
out of practice. Sister Theresa will give
a dreadful scolding. She'll
he spends so
to
all
lifts
her hands
now
fingers to
The knuckles
are
Infirmary and
show
all
so
proud of me.
on. But something horrible has
I'll
prac-
happened
have gotten so stiff—
examine them with a frightened puzzlement. swollen. They're so ugly. Sister
I'll
have to go to the
Martha.
With a sweet smile ofaffectionate trust. and a little cranky, but I love her just the same, and she has
She's old
things in her medicine chest that'll cure anything. She'll give
i74
me
something
my
on
to rub
and
Virgin,
hands, and
tell
me
to prav to the Blessed
be well again in no time.
they'll
She forgets her hands and comes into the room, the wedding gown
trail-
ing on the floor. She glances around vaguely, her forehead puckered again.
Let
me
What
see.
minded
did
I
come
here to find?
terrible,
It's
how
absent-
become. I'm always dreaming and forgetting.
I've
TYRONE In a stifled voice.
What's that
Edmund?
she's carrying,
EDMUND Dully.
Her wedding gown,
I
suppose.
TYRONE Christ!
He gets Man-!
and stands
to his feet
Isn't
it
— in anguish.
directly in her path
bad enough—?
Controlling himself— gently persuasive.
Here, it
let
me
take
dirty dragging
She
lets
herself,
him
it,
take
dear. You'll only step
on the
it
floor.
regarding
it,
on
it
Then you'd be
and
tear
it
and get
sorry afterwards.
him from somewhere far away within
without recognition, without either affection or animosity.
MARY With the shy
politeness
gentleman who
relieves
Thank you. You
of a well-bred young
girl
toward an
elderly
her ofa bundle.
are very kind.
She regards the wedding gown with a puzzled interest. It's
a
wedding gown.
It's
verv lovely,
A shadow crosses her face and she looks I
remember now.
don't I
know what
can only find
I I
found
wanted
it
isn't it?
vaguely uneasy.
in the attic
it for.
hidden
in a trunk.
I'm going to be a nun
—
But
— that
is,
I
if
She looks around the room, her forehead puckered again.
What
is it
I'm looking for?
I
know
it's
something
I
lost.
175
She moves back from Tyrone, aware of him now only as some obstacle in her path.
TYRONE In hopeless appeal.
Mary!
But it cannot penetrate her preoccupation. She doesn't seem
He gives
up
helplessly,
to
hear him.
shrinking into himself even his defensive drunk-
enness taken from him, leaving
him
wedding gown
his chair, holding the
sick
and sober. He
in his
sinks back on
arms with an unconscious
clumsy, protective gentleness.
JAMIE Drops
his
handfrom
sobered up, too
his face, his eyes
on the table
top.
He has suddenly
— dully.
It's
no good, Papa.
He
recites from
Swinburne's "A Leave-taking"
and does
it well,
simply
but with a bitter sadness. "Let us
rise
up and
part; she will not
know.
Let us go seaward as the great winds go,
of blown sand and foam; what help
Full
There
is
no
help, for
all
is
here?
these things are so,
And all the world is bitter as a tear. And how these things are, though ye
strove to show,
She would not know."
MARY Looking around her.
Something She
starts to
I
miss
terribly. It can't
be altogether
move around in back offamies
lost.
chair.
JAMIE Turns
to look
up into her face
— and cannot help appealing pleadingly
in his turn.
Mama! She does not seem Hell!
He
to hear.
What's the use?
recites from "A
He looks away hopelessly. no good.
Leave-taking" again with increased bitterness.
"Let us go hence,
176
It's
my songs; she will
not hear.
Let us go hence together without fear;
Keep
And
silence
over
all
now, for singing-time old things and
She loves not you nor Yea,
though we sang
me
all
is
over,
things dear.
as all
we
love her.
as angels in her ear,
She would not hear."
MARY Looking around her.
Something
need
I
lonely nor afraid. that.
I
terribly.
I
remember when
can't have lost
it
forever,
I
I
had
would
was never
it I
die if
I
thought
Because then there would be no hope.
She moves like a sleepwalker, around the back ofJamie's forward toward left front, passing behind Edmund.
chair, then
EDMUND Turns impulsively
and grabs her arm. As he pleads he
a bewilderedly hurt
Mama!
It isn't
a
has the quality of
little boy.
summer
cold! I've got consumption!
MARY For a second he seems
command to
have broken through
to
her expression becomes
terrified.
She
to her.
She trembles and
calls distractedly, as
if giving a
herself.
No!
And instantly she is far away again.
She murmurs gently but imperson-
ally.
You must not right,
He
when
lets
I
try to
am
touch me. You must not try to hold me.
hoping
to
hand drop from her arm. She moves
his
the sofa beneath the
folded in her
lap, in
It isn't
be a nun.
windows and
sits
left to
the front
end of
down, facing front, her hands
a demure schoolgirlish pose.
JAMIE Gives
Edmund a strange
You damned
He
recites
fool. It's
look of mingled pity andjealous gloating. no good.
again from the Swinburne poem.
"Let us go hence, go hence; she will not see.
Sing
all
once more together; surely
she,
177
She too, remembering days and words that were, Will turn a
toward
little
We are hence, we are gone, Nay, and though
She would not
men
all
but we,
us, sighing;
as
though we had not been
seeing had pity
there.
on me,
see."
TYRONE Trying
to
shake off his hopeless stupor.
Oh, we're I've
never
fools to
known
pay any attention.
her to
drown
damned
the
It's
herself in
it
deep
as
poison. But
as this.
Gruffly.
me
Pass
poetry.
I
that bottle, Jamie.
won't have
Jamie pushes the
in
it
bottle
And
stop reciting that
damned morbid
my house! He pours
toward him.
a drink without
arranging the wedding gown he holds carefully over his other
on
and shoves
his lap,
bottle to
the bottle back.
Edmund, who,
his sons follow suit mechanically,
and they slowly
Jamie pours
in turn, pours one. Tyrone
his
dis-
arm and
and passes
the
his glass
and
lifts
but before they can drink Mary speaks
lower their drinks to the table, forgetting them.
MARY Her face
Staring dreamily before her.
and innocent. The aloud to I
had a
saint
on
looks extraordinarily youthful
shyly eager, trusting smile
on her
is
lips as
she talks
herself.
talk
with Mother Elizabeth. She
earth.
I
her better than
love her dearly.
my own
It
and good.
so sweet
is
may be
sinful of
me
but
A
love
I
mother. Because she always understands,
even before you say a word. Her kind blue eyes look right into your heart.
even
You
can't keep
She gives a
little
All the same,
told her
I
I
I
secrets
rebellious toss
from
her.
to find
I
to
of her head
be a nun.
had prayed
me worthy.
was praying
You couldn't deceive
— with girlish pique.
I
I
said
told
I
I
explained
how
sure
to the Blessed Virgin to
in the shrine
island in the lake.
Mother
of
I
had had
Our Lady of
knew,
I
was of
make me
a true vision
as surely as
I
knew
I
I
my
sure,
when
Lourdes, on the
little
was kneel-
ing there, that the Blessed Virgin had smiled and blessed
178
her,
to.
don't think she was so understanding this time.
wanted
vocation, that
and
any
were mean enough to want
if you
me
with
her consent. But
Mother Elizabeth
than that, even, that
She
said, if
test
by going
was so
I
home
I
must prove then
sure, after
I
I
it
me
told
must be more sure
I
wasn't simply
my imagination.
wouldn't mind putting myself to a
graduated, and living as other
girls lived,
going out to parties and dances and enjoying myself; and then after a year or
two
we would
it
She I
tosses
talk
I still
felt sure,
I
over again.
head— indignantly.
her
never dreamed Holy Mother would give
really
shocked.
but
knew
I
mixed up,
it
so
I
said,
of course,
I
never lost
me
such advice!
was simply a waste of time. After I
went
love
to the shrine
me and
my faith
see
I
was
would do anything she suggested, and prayed
I
left her, I felt all
to the Blessed Vir-
knew she heard my prayer and no harm ever came to me so long as
gin and found peace again because
would always I
if
could come back to see her and
I
in her.
She pauses and a look ofgrowing uneasiness comes over her face. She passes a
handover herforehead as if brushing cobwebs from her brain
—
vaguely.
That was
in the winter of senior year.
happened
to
me.
Yes,
and was so happy She
stares before
I
remember.
I
Then fell
something
with James Tyrone
for a time.
her in a sad dream. Tyrone
and Jamie remain
in the spring
in love
stirs
in his chair.
Edmund
motionless.
CURTAIN Tao House
September 20, 1940
i79
DRAMA
Long Day's Journey into Night EUGENE O'NEILL Eugene
O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Long Day's Journey into
Night, written in
death,
is
1940 and released
now
in
1956
after the playwright's
newly designed edition. The
available in a
restoration of several previously missing lines of dialogue and stage direction, recently discovered
by
scholars,
artist of O'Neill's
draw the curtain on the
extraordinary
own
secrets of his
into your own. Long Day's Journey
into
this edition
and theater
essential resource for students, scholars,
"Only an
makes
family to is
directors.
and perception can
skill
Night
an
make you peer
the most remarkable "
achievement of one of the world's greatest dramatists Jose Quintero
"Long Day's Journey act of
O'Neill's
is
mercy upon
last,
most realized
his family
and
his
play, a
own
grand
life."
Arthur Miller
"Long Day's Journey
into
Night has long since
become
a classic
not only of the American stage, but of universal theater.
And
apart from
invaluable key to
its
its
secure place in literature, the play author's creative evolution
Rosetta stone of O'Neill's
life
and
It
is
an
serves as the
art."
Barbara Gelb,
coauthor with Arthur Gelb of the definitive biography, O'Neill
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS New Haven
and London ISBN 0-300-04601-4
Cover
illustration
by Michael McCurdy
Design by Richard Hendel
9
780300"0460U
