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Title: Plays

Author: Susan Glaspell

Contributor: George Cram Cook

Release date: May 4, 2019 [eBook #59432]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS ***

PLAYS
BY
SUSAN GLASPELL

BOSTON
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1920,
By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)

PRODUCTION OF ANY OF THE PLAYS HEREIN PRINTED
MUST NOT BE MADE EXCEPT BY WRITTEN PERMISSION
OF THE AUTHOR, WHO MAY BE ADDRESSED
IN CARE OF THE PUBLISHERS

PRESS OF GEO. H. ELLIS CO., BOSTON

CONTENTS
PAGE
Trifles. A Play in One Act 1
The People. A Play in One Act 31
Close the Book. A Comedy in One Act 61
The Outside. A Play in One Act 97
Woman’s Honor. A Comedy in One Act 119
Bernice. A Play in Three Acts 157
Suppressed Desires. A Comedy in Two Scenes 231
(IN COLLABORATION WITH GEORGE CRAM COOK)
Tickless Time. A Comedy in One Act 273
(IN COLLABORATION WITH GEORGE CRAM COOK)

TRIFLES
A PLAY IN ONE ACT

First Performed by the Provincetown Players at the
Wharf Theatre, Provincetown, Mass.,
August 8, 1916

ORIGINAL CAST

George Henderson, County Attorney Robert Rogers
Henry Peters, Sheriff Robert Conville
Lewis Hale, A Neighboring Farmer George Cram Cook
Mrs. Peters Alice Hall
Mrs. Hale Susan Glaspell

TRIFLES
Scene: The kitchen in the now abandoned farmhouse of John Wright, a
gloomy kitchen, and left without having been put in order—unwashed pans
under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the bread-box, a dish-towel on the
table—other signs of incompleted work. At the rear the outer door opens
and the Sheriff comes in followed by the County Attorney and Hale. The
Sheriff and Hale are men in middle life, the County Attorney is a young
man; all are much bundled up and go at once to the stove. They are
followed by the two women—the Sheriff’s wife first; she is a slight wiry
woman, a thin nervous face. Mrs. Hale is larger and would ordinarily be
called more comfortable looking, but she is disturbed now and looks
fearfully about as she enters. The women have come in slowly, and stand
close together near the door.
County Attorney
[Rubbing his hands.] This feels good. Come up to the fire, ladies.
Mrs. Peters
[After taking a step forward.] I’m not—cold.
Sheriff
[Unbuttoning his overcoat and stepping away from the stove as if to mark
the beginning of official business.] Now, Mr. Hale, before we move things
about, you explain to Mr. Henderson just what you saw when you came
here yesterday morning.
County Attorney
By the way, has anything been moved? Are things just as you left them
yesterday?
Sheriff
[Looking about.] It’s just the same. When it dropped below zero last night I
thought I’d better send Frank out this morning to make a fire for us—no use

getting pneumonia with a big case on, but I told him not to touch anything
except the stove—and you know Frank.
County Attorney
Somebody should have been left here yesterday.
Sheriff
Oh—yesterday. When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for that man
who went crazy—I want you to know I had my hands full yesterday. I knew
you could get back from Omaha by today and as long as I went over
everything here myself—
County Attorney
Well, Mr. Hale, tell just what happened when you came here yesterday
morning.
Hale
Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes. We came along the
road from my place and as I got here I said, “I’m going to see if I can’t get
John Wright to go in with me on a party telephone.” I spoke to Wright about
it once before and he put me off, saying folks talked too much anyway, and
all he asked was peace and quiet—I guess you know about how much he
talked himself; but I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about
it before his wife, though I said to Harry that I didn’t know as what his wife
wanted made much difference to John—
County Attorney
Let’s talk about that later, Mr. Hale. I do want to talk about that, but tell
now just what happened when you got to the house.
Hale
I didn’t hear or see anything; I knocked at the door, and still it was all quiet
inside. I knew they must be up, it was past eight o’clock. So I knocked
again, and I thought I heard somebody say, “Come in.” I wasn’t sure, I’m
not sure yet, but I opened the door—this door [indicating the door by which
the two women are still standing] and there in that rocker—[pointing to it]
sat Mrs. Wright.
[They all look at the rocker.

County Attorney
What—was she doing?
Hale
She was rockin’ back and forth. She had her apron in her hand and was kind
of—pleating it.
County Attorney
And how did she—look?
Hale
Well, she looked queer.
County Attorney
How do you mean—queer?
Hale
Well, as if she didn’t know what she was going to do next. And kind of
done up.
County Attorney
How did she seem to feel about your coming?
Hale
Why, I don’t think she minded—one way or other. She didn’t pay much
attention. I said, “How do, Mrs. Wright, it’s cold, ain’t it?” And she said, “Is
it?”—and went on kind of pleating at her apron. Well, I was surprised; she
didn’t ask me to come up to the stove, or to set down, but just sat there, not
even looking at me, so I said, “I want to see John.” And then she—laughed.
I guess you would call it a laugh. I thought of Harry and the team outside,
so I said a little sharp: “Can’t I see John?” “No,” she says, kind o’ dull like.
“Ain’t he home?” says I. “Yes,” says she, “he’s home.” “Then why can’t I
see him?” I asked her, out of patience. “’Cause he’s dead,” says she.
“Dead?” says I. She just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but
rockin’ back and forth. “Why—where is he?” says I, not knowing what to
say. She just pointed upstairs—like that [himself pointing to the room
above]. I got up, with the idea of going up there. I walked from there to here
—then I says, “Why, what did he die of?” “He died of a rope round his

neck,” says she, and just went on pleatin’ at her apron. Well, I went out and
called Harry. I thought I might—need help. We went upstairs and there he
was lyin’—
County Attorney
I think I’d rather have you go into that upstairs, where you can point it all
out. Just go on now with the rest of the story.
Hale
Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked ... [Stops, his face
twitches] ... but Harry, he went up to him, and he said, “No, he’s dead all
right, and we’d better not touch anything.” So we went back down stairs.
She was still sitting that same way. “Has anybody been notified?” I asked.
“No,” says she, unconcerned. “Who did this, Mrs. Wright?” said Harry. He
said it business-like—and she stopped pleatin’ of her apron. “I don’t know,”
she says. “You don’t know?” says Harry. “No,” says she. “Weren’t you
sleepin’ in the bed with him?” says Harry. “Yes,” says she, “but I was on the
inside.” “Somebody slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him and
you didn’t wake up?” says Harry. “I didn’t wake up,” she said after him. We
must ’a looked as if we didn’t see how that could be, for after a minute she
said, “I sleep sound.” Harry was going to ask her more questions but I said
maybe we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner, or the sheriff, so
Harry went fast as he could to Rivers’ place, where there’s a telephone.
County Attorney
And what did Mrs. Wright do when she knew that you had gone for the
coroner?
Hale
She moved from that chair to this one over here [Pointing to a small chair
in the corner] and just sat there with her hands held together and looking
down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some conversation, so I said I had
come in to see if John wanted to put in a telephone, and at that she started to
laugh, and then she stopped and looked at me—scared. [The County
Attorney, who has had his notebook out, makes a note.] I dunno, maybe it
wasn’t scared. I wouldn’t like to say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then
Dr. Lloyd came, and you, Mr. Peters, and so I guess that’s all I know that
you don’t.

County Attorney
[Looking around.] I guess we’ll go upstairs first—and then out to the barn
and around there. [To the Sheriff.] You’re convinced that there was nothing
important here—nothing that would point to any motive.
Sheriff
Nothing here but kitchen things.
[The County Attorney, after again looking around the kitchen, opens
the door of a cupboard closet. He gets up on a chair and looks on a
shelf. Pulls his hand away, sticky.
County Attorney
Here’s a nice mess.
[The women draw nearer.
Mrs. Peters
[To the other woman.] Oh, her fruit; it did freeze. [To the Lawyer.] She
worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire’d go out and her
jars would break.
Sheriff
Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin’ about her
preserves.
County Attorney
I guess before we’re through she may have something more serious than
preserves to worry about.
Hale
Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.
[The two women move a little closer together.
County Attorney
[With the gallantry of a young politician.] And yet, for all their worries,
what would we do without the ladies? [The women do not unbend. He goes
to the sink, takes a dipperful of water from the pail and pouring it into a
basin, washes his hands. Starts to wipe them on the roller-towel, turns it for

a cleaner place.] Dirty towels! [Kicks his foot against the pans under the
sink.] Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?
Mrs. Hale
[Stiffly.] There’s a great deal of work to be done on a farm.
County Attorney
To be sure. And yet [With a little bow to her] I know there are some
Dickson county farmhouses which do not have such roller towels.
[He gives it a pull to expose its full length again.
Mrs. Hale
Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men’s hands aren’t always as clean as
they might be.
County Attorney
Ah, loyal to your sex, I see. But you and Mrs. Wright were neighbors. I
suppose you were friends, too.
Mrs. Hale
[Shaking her head.] I’ve not seen much of her of late years. I’ve not been in
this house—it’s more than a year.
County Attorney
And why was that? You didn’t like her?
Mrs. Hale
I liked her all well enough. Farmers’ wives have their hands full, Mr.
Henderson. And then—
County Attorney
Yes—?
Mrs. Hale
[Looking about.] It never seemed a very cheerful place.
County Attorney
No—it’s not cheerful. I shouldn’t say she had the homemaking instinct.

Mrs. Hale
Well, I don’t know as Wright had, either.
County Attorney
You mean that they didn’t get on very well?
Mrs. Hale
No, I don’t mean anything. But I don’t think a place’d be any cheerfuller for
John Wright’s being in it.
County Attorney
I’d like to talk more of that a little later. I want to get the lay of things
upstairs now.
[He goes to the left, where three steps lead to a stair door.
Sheriff
I suppose anything Mrs. Peters does’ll be all right. She was to take in some
clothes for her, you know, and a few little things. We left in such a hurry
yesterday.
County Attorney
Yes, but I would like to see what you take, Mrs. Peters, and keep an eye out
for anything that might be of use to us.
Mrs. Peters
Yes, Mr. Henderson.
[The women listen to the men’s steps on the stairs, then look about the
kitchen.
Mrs. Hale
I’d hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and
criticising.
[She arranges the pans under sink which the Lawyer had shoved out of
place.
Mrs. Peters
Of course it’s no more than their duty.

Mrs. Hale
Duty’s all right, but I guess that deputy sheriff that came out to make the
fire might have got a little of this on. [Gives the roller towel a pull.] Wish
I’d thought of that sooner. Seems mean to talk about her for not having
things slicked up when she had to come away in such a hurry.
Mrs. Peters
[Who has gone to a small table in the left rear corner of the room, and lifted
one end of a towel that covers a pan.] She had bread set.
[Stands still.
Mrs. Hale
[Eyes fixed on a loaf of bread beside the bread-box, which is on a low shelf
at the other side of the room. Moves slowly toward it.] She was going to put
this in there. [Picks up loaf, then abruptly drops it. In a manner of returning
to familiar things.] It’s a shame about her fruit. I wonder if it’s all gone.
[Gets up on the chair and looks.] I think there’s some here that’s all right,
Mrs. Peters. Yes—here; [Holding it toward the window] this is cherries, too.
[Looking again.] I declare I believe that’s the only one. [Gets down, bottle
in her hand. Goes to the sink and wipes it off on the outside.] She’ll feel
awful bad after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the
afternoon I put up my cherries last summer.
[She puts the bottle on the big kitchen table, center of the room. With a
sigh, is about to sit down in the rocking-chair. Before she is seated
realizes what chair it is; with a slow look at it, steps back. The chair
which she has touched rocks back and forth.
Mrs. Peters
Well, I must get those things from the front room closet. [She goes to the
door at the right, but after looking into the other room, steps back.] You
coming with me, Mrs. Hale? You could help me carry them.
[They go in the other room; reappear, Mrs. Peters carrying a dress and
skirt, Mrs. Hale following with a pair of shoes.
Mrs. Peters
My, it’s cold in there.

[She puts the clothes on the big table, and hurries to the stove.
Mrs. Hale
[Examining the skirt.] Wright was close. I think maybe that’s why she kept
so much to herself. She didn’t even belong to the Ladies Aid. I suppose she
felt she couldn’t do her part, and then you don’t enjoy things when you feel
shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie
Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir. But that—oh, that was
thirty years ago. This all you was to take in?
Mrs. Peters
She said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want, for there isn’t much to
get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just to make her feel
more natural. She said they was in the top drawer in this cupboard. Yes,
here. And then her little shawl that always hung behind the door. [Opens
stair door and looks.] Yes, here it is.
[Quickly shuts door leading upstairs.
Mrs. Hale
[Abruptly moving toward her.] Mrs. Peters?
Mrs. Peters
Yes, Mrs. Hale?
Mrs. Hale
Do you think she did it?
Mrs. Peters
[In a frightened voice.] Oh, I don’t know.
Mrs. Hale
Well, I don’t think she did. Asking for an apron and her little shawl.
Worrying about her fruit.
Mrs. Peters
[Starts to speak, glances up, where footsteps are heard in the room above.
In a low voice.] Mr. Peters says it looks bad for her. Mr. Henderson is awful
sarcastic in a speech and he’ll make fun of her sayin’ she didn’t wake up.

Mrs. Hale
Well, I guess John Wright didn’t wake when they was slipping that rope
under his neck.
Mrs. Peters
No, it’s strange. It must have been done awful crafty and still. They say it
was such a—funny way to kill a man, rigging it all up like that.
Mrs. Hale
That’s just what Mr. Hale said. There was a gun in the house. He says that’s
what he can’t understand.
Mrs. Peters
Mr. Henderson said coming out that what was needed for the case was a
motive; something to show anger, or—sudden feeling.
Mrs. Hale
[Who is standing by the table.] Well, I don’t see any signs of anger around
here. [She puts her hand on the dish towel which lies on the table, stands
looking down at table, one half of which is clean, the other half messy.] It’s
wiped to here. [Makes a move as if to finish work, then turns and looks at
loaf of bread outside the breadbox. Drops towel. In that voice of coming
back to familiar things.] Wonder how they are finding things upstairs. I
hope she had it a little more red-up up there. You know, it seems kind of
sneaking. Locking her up in town and then coming out here and trying to
get her own house to turn against her!
Mrs. Peters
But Mrs. Hale, the law is the law.
Mrs. Hale
I s’pose ’tis. [Unbuttoning her coat.] Better loosen up your things, Mrs.
Peters. You won’t feel them when you go out.
[Mrs. Peters takes off her fur tippet, goes to hang it on hook at back of
room, stands looking at the under part of the small corner table.
Mrs. Peters
She was piecing a quilt.

[She brings the large sewing basket and they look at the bright pieces.
Mrs. Hale
It’s log cabin pattern. Pretty, isn’t it? I wonder if she was goin’ to quilt it or
just knot it?
[Footsteps have been heard coming down the stairs. The Sheriff enters
followed by Hale and the County Attorney.
Sheriff
They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it!
[The men laugh, the women look abashed.
County Attorney
[Rubbing his hands over the stove.] Frank’s fire didn’t do much up there,
did it? Well, let’s go out to the barn and get that cleared up.
[The men go outside.
Mrs. Hale
[Resentfully.] I don’t know as there’s anything so strange, our takin’ up our
time with little things while we’re waiting for them to get the evidence.
[She sits down at the big table smoothing out a block with decision.] I don’t
see as it’s anything to laugh about.
Mrs. Peters
[Apologetically.] Of course they’ve got awful important things on their
minds.
[Pulls up a chair and joins Mrs. Hale at the table.
Mrs. Hale
[Examining another block.] Mrs. Peters, look at this one. Here, this is the
one she was working on, and look at the sewing! All the rest of it has been
so nice and even. And look at this! It’s all over the place! Why, it looks as if
she didn’t know what she was about!
[After she has said this they look at each other, then start to glance back
at the door. After an instant Mrs. Hale has pulled at a knot and
ripped the sewing.

Mrs. Peters
Oh, what are you doing, Mrs. Hale?
Mrs. Hale
[Mildly.] Just pulling out a stitch or two that’s not sewed very good.
[Threading a needle.] Bad sewing always made me fidgety.
Mrs. Peters
[Nervously.] I don’t think we ought to touch things.
Mrs. Hale
I’ll just finish up this end. [Suddenly stopping and leaning forward.] Mrs.
Peters?
Mrs. Peters
Yes, Mrs. Hale?
Mrs. Hale
What do you suppose she was so nervous about?
Mrs. Peters
Oh—I don’t know. I don’t know as she was nervous. I sometimes sew awful
queer when I’m just tired. [Mrs. Hale starts to say something, looks at
Mrs. Peters, then goes on sewing.] Well I must get these things wrapped
up. They may be through sooner than we think. [Putting apron and other
things together.] I wonder where I can find a piece of paper, and string.
Mrs. Hale
In that cupboard, maybe.
Mrs. Peters
[Looking in cupboard.] Why, here’s a bird-cage. [Holds it up.] Did she have
a bird, Mrs. Hale?
Mrs. Hale
Why, I don’t know whether she did or not—I’ve not been here for so long.
There was a man around last year selling canaries cheap, but I don’t know
as she took one; maybe she did. She used to sing real pretty herself.

Mrs. Peters
[Glancing around.] Seems funny to think of a bird here. But she must have
had one, or why would she have a cage? I wonder what happened to it.
Mrs. Hale
I s’pose maybe the cat got it.
Mrs. Peters
No, she didn’t have a cat. She’s got that feeling some people have about
cats—being afraid of them. My cat got in her room and she was real upset
and asked me to take it out.
Mrs. Hale
My sister Bessie was like that. Queer, ain’t it?
Mrs. Peters
[Examining the cage.] Why, look at this door. It’s broke. One hinge is
pulled apart.
Mrs. Hale
[Looking too.] Looks as if someone must have been rough with it.
Mrs. Peters
Why, yes.
[She brings the cage forward and puts it on the table.
Mrs. Hale
I wish if they’re going to find any evidence they’d be about it. I don’t like
this place.
Mrs. Peters
But I’m awful glad you came with me, Mrs. Hale. It would be lonesome for
me sitting here alone.
Mrs. Hale
It would, wouldn’t it? [Dropping her sewing.] But I tell you what I do wish,
Mrs. Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here. I—
[Looking around the room]—wish I had.

Mrs. Peters
But of course you were awful busy, Mrs. Hale—your house and your
children.
Mrs. Hale
I could’ve come. I stayed away because it weren’t cheerful—and that’s why
I ought to have come. I—I’ve never liked this place. Maybe because it’s
down in a hollow and you don’t see the road. I dunno what it is, but it’s a
lonesome place and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie
Foster sometimes. I can see now—
[Shakes her head.
Mrs. Peters
Well, you mustn’t reproach yourself, Mrs. Hale. Somehow we just don’t see
how it is with other folks until—something comes up.
Mrs. Hale
Not having children makes less work—but it makes a quiet house, and
Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come in. Did you
know John Wright, Mrs. Peters?
Mrs. Peters
Not to know him; I’ve seen him in town. They say he was a good man.
Mrs. Hale
Yes—good; he didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and
paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of
day with him—[Shivers.] Like a raw wind that gets to the bone. [Pauses,
her eye falling on the cage.] I should think she would ’a wanted a bird. But
what do you suppose went with it?
Mrs. Peters
I don’t know, unless it got sick and died.
[She reaches over and swings the broken door, swings it again, both
women watch it.
Mrs. Hale

You weren’t raised round here, were you? [Mrs. Peters shakes her head.]
You didn’t know—her?
Mrs. Peters
Not till they brought her yesterday.
Mrs. Hale
She—come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself—real sweet
and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery. How?—she—did—change.
[Silence; then as if struck by a happy thought and relieved to get back to
every day things.] Tell you what, Mrs. Peters, why don’t you take the quilt
in with you? It might take up her mind.
Mrs. Peters
Why, I think that’s a real nice idea, Mrs. Hale. There couldn’t possibly be
any objection to it, could there? Now, just what would I take? I wonder if
her patches are in here—and her things.
[They look in the sewing basket.
Mrs. Hale
Here’s some red. I expect this has got sewing things in it. [Brings out a
fancy box.] What a pretty box. Looks like something somebody would give
you. Maybe her scissors are in here. [Opens box. Suddenly puts her hand to
her nose.] Why—[Mrs. Peters bends nearer, then turns her face away.]
There’s something wrapped up in this piece of silk.
Mrs. Peters
Why, this isn’t her scissors.
Mrs. Hale
[Lifting the silk.] Oh, Mrs. Peters—its—
[Mrs. Peters bends closer.
Mrs. Peters
It’s the bird.
Mrs. Hale

[Jumping up.] But, Mrs. Peters—look at it! Its neck! Look at its neck! It’s
all—other side to.
Mrs. Peters
Somebody—wrung—its—neck.
[Their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension, of horror. Steps are
heard outside. Mrs. Hale slips box under quilt pieces, and sinks into
her chair. Enter Sheriff and County Attorney. Mrs. Peters rises.
County Attorney
[As one turning from serious things to little pleasantries.] Well, ladies, have
you decided whether she was going to quilt it or knot it?
Mrs. Peters
We think she was going to—knot it.
County Attorney
Well, that’s interesting, I’m sure. [Seeing the bird-cage.] Has the bird
flown?
Mrs. Hale
[Putting more quilt pieces over the box.] We think the—cat got it.
County Attorney
[Preoccupied.] Is there a cat?
[Mrs. Hale glances in a quick covert way at Mrs. Peters.
Mrs. Peters
Well, not now. They’re superstitious, you know. They leave.
County Attorney
[To Sheriff Peters, continuing an interrupted conversation.] No sign at all
of anyone having come from the outside. Their own rope. Now let’s go up
again and go over it piece by piece. [They start upstairs.] It would have to
have been someone who knew just the—
[Mrs. Peters sits down. The two women sit there not looking at one
another, but as if peering into something and at the same time

holding back. When they talk now it is in the manner of feeling their
way over strange ground, as if afraid of what they are saying, but as
if they can not help saying it.
Mrs. Hale
She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty box.
Mrs. Peters
[In a whisper.] When I was a girl—my kitten—there was a boy took a
hatchet, and before my eyes—and before I could get there—[Covers her
face an instant.] If they hadn’t held me back I would have—[Catches
herself, looks upstairs where steps are heard, falters weakly]—hurt him.
Mrs. Hale
[With a slow look around her.] I wonder how it would seem never to have
had any children around. [Pause.] No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird—a
thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too.
Mrs. Peters
[Moving uneasily.] We don’t know who killed the bird.
Mrs. Hale
I knew John Wright.
Mrs. Peters
It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs. Hale. Killing a
man while he slept, slipping a rope around his neck that choked the life out
of him.
Mrs. Hale
His neck. Choked the life out of him.
[Her hand goes out and rests on the bird-cage.
Mrs. Peters
[With rising voice.] We don’t know who killed him. We don’t know.
Mrs. Hale

[Her own feeling not interrupted.] If there’d been years and years of
nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful—still, after the bird
was still.
Mrs. Peters
[Something within her speaking.] I know what stillness is. When we
homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died—after he was two years
old, and me with no other then—
Mrs. Hale
[Moving.] How soon do you suppose they’ll be through, looking for the
evidence?
Mrs. Peters
I know what stillness is. [Pulling herself back.] The law has got to punish
crime, Mrs. Hale.
Mrs. Hale
[Not as if answering that.] I wish you’d seen Minnie Foster when she wore
a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang. [A
look around the room.] Oh, I wish I’d come over here once in a while! That
was a crime! That was a crime! Who’s going to punish that?
Mrs. Peters
[Looking upstairs.] We mustn’t—take on.
Mrs. Hale
I might have known she needed help! I know how things can be—for
women. I tell you, it’s queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together and we live
far apart. We all go through the same things—it’s all just a different kind of
the same thing. [Brushes her eyes, noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out
for it.] If I was you I wouldn’t tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her it ain’t.
Tell her it’s all right. Take this in to prove it to her. She—she may never
know whether it was broke or not.
Mrs. Peters
[Takes the bottle, looks about for something to wrap it in; takes petticoat
from the clothes brought from the other room, very nervously begins

winding this around the bottle. In a false voice.] My, it’s a good thing the
men couldn’t hear us. Wouldn’t they just laugh! Getting all stirred up over a
little thing like a—dead canary. As if that could have anything to do with—
with—wouldn’t they laugh!
[The men are heard coming down stairs.
Mrs. Hale
[Under her breath.] Maybe they would—maybe they wouldn’t.
County Attorney
No, Peters, it’s all perfectly clear except a reason for doing it. But you know
juries when it comes to women. If there was some definite thing. Something
to show—something to make a story about—a thing that would connect up
with this strange way of doing it—
[The women’s eyes meet for an instant. Enter Hale from outer door.
Hale
Well, I’ve got the team around. Pretty cold out there.
County Attorney
I’m going to stay here a while by myself. [To the Sheriff.] You can send
Frank out for me, can’t you? I want to go over everything. I’m not satisfied
that we can’t do better.
Sheriff
Do you want to see what Mrs. Peters is going to take in?
[The Lawyer goes to the table, picks up the apron, laughs.
County Attorney
Oh, I guess they’re not very dangerous things the ladies have picked out.
[Moves a few things about, disturbing the quilt pieces which cover the box.
Steps back.] No, Mrs. Peters doesn’t need supervising. For that matter, a
sheriff’s wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, Mrs. Peters?
Mrs. Peters
Not—just that way.

Sheriff
[Chuckling.] Married to the law. [Moves toward the other room.] I just want
you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to take a look at these
windows.
County Attorney
[Scoffingly.] Oh, windows!
Sheriff
We’ll be right out, Mr. Hale.
[Hale goes outside. The Sheriff follows the County Attorney into the
other room. Then Mrs. Hale rises, hands tight together, looking
intensely at Mrs. Peters, whose eyes make a slow turn, finally
meeting Mrs. Hale’s. A moment Mrs. Hale holds her, then her own
eyes point the way to where the box is concealed. Suddenly Mrs.
Peters throws back quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag
she is wearing. It is too big. She opens box, starts to take bird out,
cannot touch it, goes to pieces, stands there helpless. Sound of a
knob turning in the other room. Mrs. Hale snatches the box and
puts it in the pocket of her big coat. Enter County Attorney and
Sheriff.
County Attorney
[Facetiously.] Well, Henry, at least we found out that she was not going to
quilt it. She was going to—what is it you call it, ladies?
Mrs. Hale
[Her hand against her pocket.] We call it—knot it, Mr. Henderson.
(Curtain)

THE PEOPLE
A PLAY IN ONE ACT

First performed by the Provincetown Players,
New York, March 9, 1917

ORIGINAL CAST

Edward Wills, Editor of “The People” George Cram Cook
Oscar Tripp, Associate Editor Pendleton King
The Artist Donald Corley
Sara Nina Moise
Tom Howe, Printer Lewis B. Ell
The Boy from Georgia Leslie C. Bemis
The Man from the Cape Ira Remsen
The Woman from Idaho Susan Glaspell
The Earnest Approach Lew Parrish
The Light Touch Pierre Loving
The Firebrand Harry Kemp
The Philosopher Hutchinson Collins

THE PEOPLE
Scene: The office of “The People,” a morning in March, 1917. There is
little furniture—a long table strewn with manuscripts and papers, a desk.
On the walls are revolutionary posters; wads of paper are thrown about on
the floor—the office of a publication which is radical and poor. This is an
inner office; at the rear is the door into the outer one. Oscar is seated at the
table writing. Tom, a printer who loves the cause—or the crowd—almost
enough to print for it, comes from the other room, a galley-proof in his
hand.
Tom
Why are you writing?
Oscar
[Jauntily.] Because I am a writer.
Tom
But I thought you said there wasn’t going to be another issue of The People.
Oscar
[With dignity.] I am writing.
Tom
There’s a woman here with a suit case.
Oscar
What’s in it?
Tom
She wants to see the Editor.
Oscar
[After writing.] All right.

[Tom goes out and a moment later the woman appears. She is middle
aged, wears plain clothes not in fashion. Her manner is a little
shrinking and yet as she stands in the doorway looking about the
bare room, her face is the face of one who has come a long way and
reached a wonderful place.
The Woman
This is the office of The People?
Oscar
Um-hum.
The Woman
[In a bated way.] I came to see the author of those wonderful words.
Oscar
[Rising.] Which wonderful words?
The Woman
About moving toward the beautiful distances.
Oscar
Oh. Those are Mr. Wills’ wonderful words.
[Begins to write as one who has lost interest.
The Woman
Could I see him?
Oscar
He isn’t here yet. He’s just back from California. Won’t be at the office till a
little later.
The Woman
[With excitement.] He has been to California? He has just ridden across this
country?
Oscar
Yes. Long trip. He was very cross over the ’phone.

The Woman
Oh—no. I think you’re mistaken.
Oscar
Anything you care to see me about?
The Woman
[After considering.] I could see him a little later, couldn’t I?
Oscar
Yes, if its important. Of course he’ll be very busy.
The Woman
It is important. At least—yes, it is important.
Oscar
Very well then—later in the morning.
The Woman
[Thinking aloud.] I will stand down on the street and watch the people go
by.
Oscar
What?
The Woman
The people. It’s so wonderful to see them—so many of them. Don’t you
often just stand and watch them?
Oscar
No, madam, not often. I am too busy editing a magazine about them.
The Woman
Of course you are busy. You help edit this magazine?
[Looks about at the posters.
Oscar
I am associate editor of The People.

The Woman
That’s a great thing for you—and you so young. Does Mr. Wills write in
this room?
Oscar
That is his desk.
The Woman
[Looking at the desk.] It must be a wonderful thing for you to write in the
same room with him.
Oscar
Well, I don’t know; perhaps it is a wonderful thing for him to—I am Oscar
Tripp, the poet.
The Woman
[Wistfully.] It would be beautiful to be a poet. [Pause.] I will come back
later.
[Picks up suit-case.
Oscar
Just leave that if you aren’t going to be using it in the meantime.
The Woman
[Putting it down near the door.] Oh, thank you. I see you are a kind young
man.
Oscar
That is not the general opinion.
The Woman
I wonder why it is that the general opinion is so often wrong?
[Stands considering it for a moment, then goes out.
Oscar
I don’t quite understand that woman.
[Tom comes back.

Tom
If this paper can’t go on, I ought to know it. I could get a job on the Evening
World. [Oscar continues writing.] Can it go on?
Oscar
I don’t see how it can, but many a time I haven’t seen how it could—and it
did. Doubtless it will go on, and will see days so much worse than these that
we will say, “Ah, the good old days of March, 1917.”
Tom
But can it pay salaries?
Oscar
[Shocked.] Oh, no, I think not; but we must work because we love our
work.
Tom
We must eat because we love our food.
Oscar
You’ll know soon. There’s to be a meeting here this morning.
[Enter Sara. Tom goes into the other room. Sara has the appearance of a
young business woman and the simple direct manner of a woman
who is ready to work for a thing she believes in.
Sara
Ed not here yet?
Oscar
No.
Sara
Did he get any money?
Oscar
Doesn’t look like it. He was snappish over the phone. Guess he’s for giving
it up this time.

Sara
I don’t want to give it up.
[She takes a seat at the table where Oscar is writing and unfolds a
manuscript she has brought with her.
Oscar
Well, it’s not what we want, it’s what people want, and there aren’t enough
of them who want us.
Sara
The fault must lie with us.
Oscar
I don’t think so. The fault lies with the failure to—
[The Artist has entered.
Artist
I’ll tell you where the fault lies. We should give more space to pictures and
less to stupid reading matter.
Oscar
We have given too much expensive white paper to pictures and too little to
reading matter—especially to poetry. That’s where the fault lies.
[Enter Edward Wills, editor.
Ed
I’ll tell you where the fault lies. [Points first to The Artist, then to Oscar.]
Here! Just this! Everybody plugging for his own thing. Nobody caring
enough about the thing as a whole.
Oscar
[Rising.] I’ll tell you where the fault lies. [Points to Ed.] Here! This. The
Editor-in-chief returning from a long trip and the first golden words that fall
from his lips words of censure for his faithful subordinates.
Sara
How are you Ed?

Ed
Rotten. I hate sleeping cars. I always catch cold.
Sara
Any luck?
Ed
[His hand around his ear.] What’s the word?
[Enter The Earnest Approach.
Earnest Approach
I have heard that you may have to discontinue.
Ed
[Sitting down at his desk, beginning to look through his mail.] It seems we
might as well.
Earnest Approach
Now just let me tell you what the trouble has been and how you can remedy
it. The People has been afraid of being serious. But you deal with ideas, and
you must do it soberly. There is a place for a good earnest journal of protest,
but all this levity—this fooling—
[Enter The Light Touch.
Light Touch
Came in to see you, Ed, to say I hope the news I’m hearing isn’t true.
Ed
If it’s bad, it’s true.
Light Touch
Well, it’s an awful pity, but you’ve been too damn serious. A lighter touch—
that’s what The People needs. You’re as heavy as mud. Try it awhile longer
along frivolous lines. I was in the building and just ran in to let you have
my idea of what’s the matter with you.
Oscar

If we had as many subscribers as we have people to tell us what’s the matter
with us—
[Enter Philosopher and Firebrand, Tom follows them in, a page of
manuscript in his hand.
Ed
Now the Philosopher and the Firebrand will tell us what’s the matter with
us.
Firebrand
Too damn bourgeois! You should print on the cover of every issue—“To
hell with the bourgeoisie!” Pigs!
Philosopher
The trouble with this paper is efficiency.
[This is too much for all of them. The Printer falls back against the wall,
then staggers from the room.
Ed
Dear God! There are things it seems to me I can not bear.
Philosopher
It should be more carelessly done, and then it would be more perfectly
done. You should be less definite, and you would have more definiteness.
You should not know what it is you want, and then you would find what
you are after.
Oscar
You talk as if we had not been a success. But just last night I heard of a
woman in Bronxville who keeps The People under her bed so her husband
won’t know she’s reading it.
Firebrand
If you had been a success you would have fired that woman with so great a
courage that she would proudly prop The People on the pillow!
Artist
[Who is sketching The Firebrand.] It was my pictures got us under the bed.

Oscar
[Haughtily.] I was definitely told it was my last “Talk with God” put us
under the bed.
Firebrand
Can you not see that she puts you under the bed because you yourselves
have made concessions to the bourgeoisie? Cows! Geese!
Artist
It must be more frivolous!
Oscar
It must print more poetry.
[They glare at one another.
Earnest Approach
It should be more serious.
Light Touch
It must be more frivolous!
[Enter The Boy from Georgia—dressed like a freshman with a good
allowance.
The Boy
Is this the office of The People?
Oscar
No, this is a lunatic asylum.
The Boy
[After a bewildered moment.] Oh, you’re joking. You know
[Confidentially], I wondered about that—whether you would joke here. I
thought you would. [Stepping forward.] I came to see the Editor—I want to
tell him—
Ed

So many people are telling me so many things, could you tell yours a little
later?
The Boy
Oh, yes. Of course there must be many important things people have to tell
you.
Ed
Well—many.
[The Boy goes out—reluctantly.
Artist
[Who has all the time been glaring at Oscar.] Speaking for the artists, I
want to say right now—
Oscar
Speaking for the writers, I wish to say before we go further—
Earnest Approach
A more serious approach—
Light Touch
A lighter touch—
Firebrand
Speaking for myself—
Philosopher
Speaking for the truth—
[Phone rings, Oscar answers. Enter The Man from the Cape—slow,
heavy.
Ed
You have come to tell us something about this paper?
The Man
Yes.

Ed
There are a number ahead of you. Will you wait your turn? [A look of
disappointment.] I’ll be glad to see you as soon as I can. There in the
outside office?
[A moment The Man stands there, a mute ponderous figure, then very
slowly goes out.
Oscar
[Hanging up receiver.] Moritz Paper Company. Bill got to be paid today.
And here—
[Takes from his drawer a huge packet of bills.
Earnest Approach
You could pay your bills if you were not afraid to be serious!
Light Touch
You could pay your bills if you were not afraid to be gay!
Earnest Approach
[From the door, solemnly.] A more earnest approach would save The
People.
Light Touch
A lighter touch would turn the trick!
[With that they leave.
Firebrand
[Going over and pounding on The Editor’s desk.] To hell with the
bourgeoisie! Apes!
Philosopher
Efficiency has put out the spark.
Ed
Well, as long as the spark appears to be good and out, may I, in the name of
efficiency, ask you who do not belong here to retire, that we may go ahead
with our work?

Philosopher
There would be greater efficiency in our remaining. There would be form.
You have lacked form.
Firebrand
You have lacked courage! Donkeys!
Ed
It would be illuminating, Leo, to hear you run through the animal kingdom
—toads, crocodiles, a number of things you haven’t mentioned yet, but the
animal kingdom is large—and we have work to do.
Philosopher
You lack form in your work. By form I do not mean what you think I mean.
I mean that particular significance of the insignificant which is the
fundamental—
Ed
We couldn’t understand it. Why tell us?
Philosopher
No. You couldn’t understand it.
[He leaves them to their fate.
Firebrand
Rest in peace. [Gesture of benediction. Then hissingly.] Centipedes!
[He goes—leaving a laugh behind him.
Ed
What’s the matter with us is our friends.
Sara
[Quietly.] Well, to be or not to be. I guess it’s up to you, Ed.
Ed
Just what would we be going on for? To make a few more people like the
dear ones who have just left us? Seems to me we could best serve society

by not doing that. Precisely what do we do?—aside from getting under the
bed in Bronxville. Now and then something particularly rotten is put over
and we have a story that gets a rise out of a few people, but—we don’t
change anything.
Sara
We had another hope. We were going to express ourselves so simply and so
truly that we would be expressing the people.
Ed
[Wearily.] The People. I looked at them all the way across this continent.
Oh, I got so tired looking at them—on farms, in towns, in cities. They’re
like toys that you wind up and they’ll run awhile. They don’t want to be
expressed. It would topple them over. The longer I looked the more
ridiculous it seemed to me that we should be giving our lives to—[Picks up
the magazine and reads.] The People—“A Journal of the Social
Revolution.” Certainly we’d better cut the sub-title. The social revolution is
dead.
Oscar
You don’t think you are bringing back any news, do you, Ed?
Artist
[Taking up magazine.] Instead of a sub-title we could have a design. Much
better.
[Glares at Oscar, then begins to draw.
Sara
This is a long way from what you felt a year ago, Ed. You had vision then.
Ed
You can’t keep vision in this office. It’s easy enough to have a beautiful
feeling about the human race when none of it is around. The trouble about
doing anything for your fellow-man is that you have to do it with a few of
them. Oh, of course that isn’t fair. We care. I’ll say that for us. Even Oscar
cares, or he wouldn’t work the way he has. But what does our caring come
to? It doesn’t connect up with anything, and God knows it doesn’t seem to

be making anything very beautiful of us. There’s something rather pathetic
about us.
Oscar
Or is it merely ridiculous?
Sara
Let me read you something, Ed. [She takes The People and reads very
simply.] “We are living now. We shall not be living long. No one can tell us
we shall live again. This is our little while. This is our chance. And we take
it like a child who comes from a dark room to which he must return—
comes for one sunny afternoon to a lovely hillside, and finding a hole,
crawls in there till after the sun is set. I want that child to know the sun is
shining upon flowers in the grass. I want him to know it before he has to go
back to the room that is dark. I wish I had pipes to call him to the hilltop of
beautiful distances. I myself could see farther if he were seeing at all.
Perhaps I can tell you: you who have dreamed and dreaming know, and
knowing care. Move! Move from the things that hold you. If you move,
others will move. Come! Now. Before the sun goes down.” [Very quietly.]
You wrote that, Ed.
Ed
Yes, I wrote it; and do you want to know why I wrote it? I wrote it because I
was sore at Oscar and wanted to write something to make him feel ashamed
of himself.
[While Sara is reading, The Woman has appeared at the door, has moved
a few steps into the room as if drawn by the words she is hearing.
Behind her are seen The Boy from Georgia, The Man from the
Cape.
The Woman
[Moving forward.] I don’t believe that’s true! I don’t believe that’s true!
Maybe you think that’s why you wrote it, but it’s not the reason. You wrote
it because it’s the living truth, and it moved in you and you had to say it.
Ed
[Rising.] Who are you?

The Woman
I am one of the people. I have lived a long way off. I heard that call and—I
had to come.
The Boy
[Blithely.] I’ve come too. I’m from Georgia. I read it, and I didn’t want to
stay at school any longer. I said, “I want something different and bigger—
something more like this.” I heard about your not being able to sell your
paper on the newsstands just because lots of people don’t want anything
different and bigger, and I said to myself, “I’ll sell the paper! I’ll go and sell
it on the streets!” And I got so excited about it that I didn’t even wait for the
dance. There was a dance that night, and I had my girl too.
The Woman
He didn’t even wait for the dance.
Oscar
The idealists are calling upon the intellectuals, and “calling” them.
Ed
[To The Man.] And what did you leave, my friend?
The Man
[Heavily.] My oyster bed. I’m from the Cape. I had a chance to go in on an
oyster bed. I read what you wrote—a woman who had stopped in an
automobile left it, and I said to myself, “I’m nothing but an oyster myself.
Guess I’ll come to life.”
Ed
But—what did you come here for?
The Man
Well—for the rest of it.
Ed
The rest of what?
The Man

The rest of what you’ve got.
The Boy
Yes—that’s it; we’ve come for the rest of what you’ve got.
Oscar
This is awkward for Ed.
The Woman
Give it to us.
Ed
What?
The Woman
The rest of it.
Ed
[An instant’s pause.] I haven’t got anything more to give.
The Boy
But you made us think you had. You led us to believe you had.
The Woman
And you have. If you hadn’t more to give, you couldn’t have given that.
Oscar
Very awkward.
The Woman
You said—“I call to you. You who have dreamed, and dreaming know, and
knowing care.” Well, three of us are here. From the South and the East and
the West we’ve come because you made us want something we didn’t have,
made us want it so much we had to move the way we thought was toward it
—before the sun goes down.
The Boy
We thought people here had life—something different and bigger.

Oscar
Perhaps we’d better go. Poor Ed.
Ed
I wish you’d shut up, Oscar.
The Woman
I know you will give it to us.
Ed
Give what to you?
The Woman
What you have for the people. [Oscar coughs.] What you made us know we
need.
Oscar
You shouldn’t have called personally. You should have sent in your needs
by mail.
Ed
Oscar, try and act as if you had a soul.
The Woman
I think he really has. [A look at Oscar—then, warmly.] At least he has a
heart. It’s only that he feels he must be witty. But you—you’re not going to
let us just go away again, are you? He gave up his oyster bed, and this boy
didn’t even wait for the dance, and me—I gave up my tombstone.
Ed
Your—?
The Woman
Yes—tombstone. It had always been a saying in our family—“He won’t
even have a stone to mark his grave.” They said it so much that I thought it
meant something. I sew—plain sewing, but I’ve often said to myself
—“Well, at least I’ll have a stone to mark my grave.” And then, there was a
man who had been making speeches to the miners—I live in a town in

Idaho—and he had your magazine, and he left it in the store, and the
storekeeper said to me, when I went there for thread—“Here, you like to
read. Don’t you want this? I wish you’d take it away, because if some folks
in this town see it, they’ll think I’m not all I should be.” He meant the
cover.
Artist
[Brightening.] That was my cover.
The Woman
[After a smile at The Artist.] So I took it home, and when my work was
done that night, I read your wonderful words. They’re like a spring—if
you’ve lived in a dry country, you’ll know what I mean. And they made me
know that my tombstone was as dead as—well, [With a little laugh] as dead
as a tombstone. So I had to have something to take its place.
Sara
[Rising and going to The Woman.] Talk to him. Tell him about it. Come,
Oscar!
The Boy
As long as there seems to be so much uncertainty about this, perhaps I’d
better telegraph father. You see, the folks don’t know where I am. I just
came.
The Woman
He didn’t even stay for the dance.
The Boy
I’ll be glad to sell the papers. [Seeing a pile of them on the table.] Here,
shall I take these?—and I’ll stop people on the street and tell why I’m
selling them.
Oscar
No, you can’t do that. You’d be arrested.
The Woman

Let him sell them. What’s the difference about the law, if you have the right
idea?
Oscar
The right idea has given us trouble enough already.
The Man
There’s something sure about an oyster bed.
Oscar
You come with me and have a drink. Something sure about that too.
The Woman
He could have had a drink at home.
Sara
[To Artist.] Coming, Joe? [To The Boy.] It was corking of you to want to
help us. We must talk about—
[All go out except The Woman and The Editor. A Pause.
The Woman
I am sorry for you.
Ed
Why?
The Woman
[Feeling her way and sadly.] Because you have the brain to say those
things, and not the spirit to believe them. I couldn’t say them, and yet I’ve
got something you haven’t got. [With more sureness.] Because I know the
thing you said was true.
Ed
Will you sit down?
The Woman
No—I’ll go. [Stands there uncertainly.] I don’t know why I should be
disappointed. I suppose it’s not fair to ask you to be as big as the truth you

saw. Why should I expect you would be?
Ed
I’m sorry. I suppose now you’ll regret your tombstone.
The Woman
No—it was wonderful to ride across this country and see all the people. The
train moving along seemed to make something move in me. I had thoughts
not like any thoughts I’d ever had before—your words like a spring
breaking through the dry country of my mind. I thought of how you call
your paper “A Journal of The Social Revolution,” and I said to myself—
This is the Social Revolution! Knowing that your tombstone doesn’t matter!
Seeing—that’s the Social Revolution.
Ed
Seeing—?
The Woman
[As if it is passing before her.] A plain, dark trees off at the edge, against the
trees a little house and a big barn. A flat piece of land fenced in. Stubble,
furrows. Horses waiting to get in at the barn; cows standing around a pump.
A tile yard, a water tank, one straight street of a little town. The country so
still it seems dead. The trees like—hopes that have been given up. The
grave yards—on hills—they come so fast. I noticed them first because of
my tombstone, but I got to thinking about the people—the people who spent
their whole lives right near the places where they are now. There’s
something in the thought of them—like the cows standing around the pump.
So still, so patient, it—kind of hurts. And their pleasures:—a flat field
fenced in. Your great words carried me to other great words. I thought of
Lincoln, and what he said of a few of the dead. I said it over and over. I said
things and didn’t know the meaning of them ’till after I had said them. I
said—“The truth—the truth—the truth that opens from our lives as water
opens from the rocks.” Then I knew what that truth was. [Pause, with an
intensity peculiarly simple.] “Let us here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain.” I mean—all of them. [A gesture, wide, loving.]
Let life become what it may become!—so beautiful that everything that is
back of us is worth everything it cost.

[Enter Tom.
Tom
I’ve got—[Feeling something unusual.] Sorry to butt in, but I can still get
that job on The Evening World. If this paper is going to stop, I’ve got to
know it.
Ed
Stop! This paper can’t stop!
Tom
Can’t stop! Last I heard, it couldn’t do anything else.
Ed
That was—long ago.
Tom
Oh—you’ve got something to go on with?
Ed
Yes, something to go on with.
Tom
I see. [Looks at woman, as if he doesn’t see, glances at her suit-case.] I’m
glad. But—I’ve got to be sure. This—is the truth?
Ed
The truth. The truth that opens from our lives as water opens from the
rocks.
[Tom backs up.
The Woman
[Turning a shining face to The Printer.] Nobody really needs a tombstone!
(Curtain)

CLOSE THE BOOK
A COMEDY IN ONE ACT

First Performed by the Provincetown Players,
New York, Nov. 2, 1917

ORIGINAL CAST

Jhansi Edith Unger
Peyton Root, an Instructor in the University James Light
Mrs. Root, Peyton’s Mother Susan Glaspell
Mrs. Peyton, His Grandmother Clara Savage
Uncle George Peyton, President of the Board of Justus Sheffield
Regents
Bessie Root Alice
MacDougal
State Senator Byrd David Carb
Mrs. State Senator Byrd Esther Pinch

CLOSE THE BOOK
Scene: The library in the Root home, the library of middle-western people
who are an important family in their community, a university town, and who
think of themselves as people of culture. It is a room which shows pride of
family: on the rear wall are two large family portraits—one a Revolutionary
soldier, the other a man of a later period. On the low book-cases, to both
sides of door rear, and on the mantel, right, are miniatures and other old
pictures. There is old furniture—mahogany recently done over: an easy
chair near the fireplace, a divan left. A Winged Victory presides over one of
the book-cases, a Burne Jones is hung. It is a warmly lighted, cheerful room
—books and flowers about. At the rear is a door opening on the hall, at the
left a door into another room. There is a corner window at the right. Jhansi
and Peyton are seated on the divan. Mrs. Root is just going into the hall.
She seems perturbed. Jhansi is dressed as a non-conformist, but attractively.
Peyton is a rather helpless young man, with a sense of humor that is itself
rather helpless.
Mrs. Root
I’ll see, Peyton, if your grandmother isn’t ready to come down.
[She leaves them.
Jhansi
[Springing up.] It’s absurd that I should be here!
Peyton
I know, Jhansi, but just this once—as long as it means so much to mother,
and doesn’t really hurt us.
Jhansi
But it does hurt me, Peyton. These walls stifle me. You come of people who
have been walled in all their lives. It doesn’t cage you. But me—I am a
gypsy! Sometimes I feel them right behind me—all those wanderers, people
who were never caught; feel them behind me pushing me away from all
this!

Peyton
But not pushing you away from me, dear. You love me, Jhansi, in spite of
my family?
Jhansi
If I didn’t love you do you think I could endure to come to this dreadful
place? [A look about the comfortable room]—and meet these dreadful
people? Forgive me for alluding to your home and family, Peyton, but I
must not lose my honesty, you know.
Peyton
No, dear; I don’t think you are losing it. And perhaps I’d better not lose
mine either. There’s one thing I haven’t mentioned yet. [Hesitates.] Mr.
Peyton is coming to dinner tonight.
Jhansi
Mr. Peyton. What Peyton?
Peyton
Yes—that one.
Jhansi
And you ask me—standing for the things I do in this university—to sit
down to dinner with the president of the board of regents!
Peyton
Mother’d asked him before I knew it.
Jhansi
[With scorn.] Your uncle!
Peyton
He’s not my uncle—he’s mother’s. And you see it’s partly on account of
grandmother just getting back from California. He’s grandmother’s brother-
in-law, you know. I suppose she doesn’t realize what it means to have to sit
down to dinner with him—she’s done it so much. And then mother thought
it would be nice for you to meet him.
Jhansi

Nice!
Peyton
He’s pleasant at dinner.
Jhansi
Pleasant!
Peyton
Mother’s a little worried about my position in the university.
Jhansi
It would be wonderful for you to lose your position in the university.
Peyton
Yes—wonderful.
Jhansi
And then you and I could walk forth free!
Peyton
Free—but broke.
Jhansi
Peyton, you disappoint me. Just the fact that that man is coming to dinner
changes you.
Peyton
Oh, no. But you are fortunately situated, Jhansi, having no people. It’s
easier to be free when there’s nobody who minds.
Jhansi
I am going!
Peyton
Oh come now, dearest, you can’t go when you’re expected for dinner.
Nobody’s that free.
Jhansi

Dinner! A dinner to celebrate our engagement! It’s humiliating, Peyton. I
should take you by the hand and you and I should walk together down the
open road.
Peyton
We will, Jhansi; we will—in time.
Jhansi
We should go now.
Peyton
Think so? Mother’s going to have turkey.
Jhansi
Better a dinner of berries and nuts—!
Peyton
We’ll have berries—cranberries, and nuts, too.
Jhansi
Where is my coat?
Peyton
[Seizing her and kissing her.] Some day, serene and unhampered, we’ll take
to the open road—a road with berries and nuts.
[Grandmother Peyton and Mrs. Root are at the door.
Mrs. Root
Mother, this is Peyton’s friend Miss Mason. One of our important students.
Grandmother
[In her brittle way.] Yes? I never was a very important student myself. I
didn’t like to study. Because my family were professors, I suppose.
Mrs. Root
Peyton’s grandmother is a descendant of Gustave Phelps—one of the
famous teachers of pioneer days.
Jhansi

[Her head going up.] I am a descendant of people who never taught
anybody anything!
Peyton
Jhansi and I were just going to finish an article on Free Speech which must
get to the Torch this evening.
Grandmother
[Moving toward the big chair near the fire.] Free Speech? How amusing.
Peyton
You may be less amused some day, grandmother.
[Jhansi and Peyton go into the other room.
Grandmother
That may be a free speech. I wouldn’t call it a pleasant one.
Mrs. Root
[Sinking to the divan.] Oh, he was speaking of the open road again—berries
and nuts—!
Grandmother
[Beginning to knit.] Berries and nuts? Well, it sounds quite innocuous to
me. Some of our young people are less simple in their tastes.
Mrs. Root
[In great distress.] Mother, how would you like to see your grandson
become a gypsy?
Grandmother
Peyton a gypsy? You mean in a carnival?
Mrs. Root
No, not in a carnival! In life.
Grandmother
But he isn’t dark enough.
Mrs. Root

And is that the only thing against it! I had thought you would be a help to
me, mother.
Grandmother
Well, my dear Clara, I have no doubt I will be a help to you—in time. This
idea of Peyton becoming a gypsy is too startling for me to be a help
instantly. In the first place, could he be? You can’t be anything you take it
into your head to be—even if it is undesirable. And then, why should he be?
Doesn’t he still teach English right here in the university?
Mrs. Root
I don’t know how much longer he’ll teach it. He said the other day that
American literature was a toddy with the stick left out. Saying that of the
very thing he’s paid to teach! It got in the papers and was denounced in an
editorial on “Untrue Americans.” Peyton—a descendant of John Peyton of
Valley Forge! [Indicates the Revolutionary portrait]—denounced in an
article on Untrue Americans! And in one of those awful columns—those
silly columns—they said maybe the stick hadn’t been left out of his toddy.
But it isn’t that. Peyton doesn’t drink—to speak of. It’s this girl. She’s the
stick. And I tell you people don’t like it, mother. It’s not what we pay our
professors for. Peyton used to be perfectly satisfied with civilization. But
now he talks about society. Makes light remarks.
Grandmother
I should say that was going out of his way to be disagreeable. What
business has a professor of English to say anything about society? It’s not in
his department.
Mrs. Root
I told Peyton he should be more systematic.
Grandmother
How did this gypsy get here?
Mrs. Root
She was brought up by a family named Mason. But it seems she was a
gypsy child, who got lost or something, and those Masons took her in. I’m
sure it was very good of them, and it’s too bad they weren’t able to make

her more of a Christian. She is coming to have a following in the university!
There are people who seem to think that because you’re outside society you
have some superior information about it.
Grandmother
Well, don’t you think you’re needlessly disturbed? In my day, a young man
would be likely enough to fall in love with a good-looking gypsy, not very
likely to marry her.
Mrs. Root
Times have changed, mother. They marry them now. [Both sigh.] Of course,
it’s very commendable of them.
Grandmother
[Grimly.] Oh, quite—commendable.
Mrs. Root
I was brought up in university circles. I’m interested in ideas. But
sometimes I think there are too many ideas.
Grandmother
An embarrassment of riches. So you have set out to civilize the young
woman?
Mrs. Root
I’d rather have her sit at my table than have my son leave some morning in
a covered wagon!
Grandmother
I wonder how it is about gypsies. About the children. I wonder if it’s as it is
with the negroes.
Mrs. Root
Mother!
Grandmother
It would be startling, wouldn’t it?—if one of them should turn out to be a
real gypsy and take to this open road.

Mrs. Root
[Covering her face.] Oh!
Grandmother
Quite likely they’d do it by motor.
Mrs. Root
[Rising.] Mother!—how can you say such dreadful things—and just when I
have this trying dinner. Oh, I wish Bessie would come! [Goes to the
window.] She is a comfort to me.
Grandmother
Where is Bessie?
Mrs. Root
She’s away in the motor. [Again shudders.] Bessie feels dreadfully about
her brother. She is trying to do something. She said it would be a surprise—
a happy surprise. [Someone heard in the hall.] Perhaps this is Bessie. [Enter
Mr. Peyton.] Oh, it’s Uncle George.
Uncle George
Early I know. Came to have a little visit with Elizabeth. [Goes to
Grandmother and shakes hands.] How are you, young woman?
Grandmother
My nerves seem to be stronger than the nerves I see around me. And how
are you, George?
Uncle George
Oh, I’m well.
Grandmother
But—?
Uncle George
Responsibilities.
Grandmother
The bank?

Uncle George
I’d rather run ten banks than a tenth of a university. You can control money.
Mrs. Root
I’m sorry, Uncle George, that Peyton should be adding to your worries.
Uncle George
What’s the matter with Peyton?
Grandmother
Wild oats.
Uncle George
Well, I wish he’d sow them in less intellectual fields.
Mrs. Root
I am prepared to speak freely with you, Uncle George. The matter with
Peyton is this girl. Well, they’re going to be married. Yes [Answering his
gesture of protest] and I think it’s a good thing. She won’t be in a position
to say so much about freedom after she is married.
Uncle George
But they say she’s a gypsy.
Mrs. Root
She won’t be a gypsy after she’s Peyton’s wife. She’ll be a married woman.
Uncle George
Yes, but in the meantime we will have swallowed a gypsy.
Grandmother
And I was just wondering how it would be about the children.
Mrs. Root
Mother, please don’t be indelicate again.
[Pause.
Grandmother

Well, if there’s nothing else we may speak of, let’s talk about free speech.
They’re writing a paper on it in there.
Uncle George
I don’t know what this university is coming to! An institution of learning! It
isn’t that I don’t believe in free speech. Every true American believes in
free speech, but—
[Slight Pause.
Grandmother
[With Emphasis.] Certainly.
Uncle George
Ask them to come out here with their paper on free speech. I’ll be glad to
give them the benefit of my experience.
Mrs. Root
Yes, it will be delightful to all be together.
[She goes to get Peyton and Jhansi.
Grandmother
This girl doesn’t look to me like one who is thirsting for the benefit of
another person’s experience.
Uncle George
She’s a bad influence. She’s leading our young people to criticise the
society their fathers have builded up.
Grandmother
There’s a great deal of ingratitude in the world.
[Mrs. Root returns, followed by the two young people.
Mrs. Root
I told Uncle George you were eager to bring him and Jhansi together.
Jhansi, this is Mr. Peyton, who looks after the affairs of the university for
you students. Of course you’ve heard about Miss Mason, Uncle George,
one of our—cleverest students.

Uncle George
Yes, we were speaking of Miss Mason’s cleverness just the other day—in
board meeting.
Jhansi
And just the other day—at the student assembly—we were speaking of how
you look after the affairs of the university for us.
Grandmother
I hope you both spoke affectionately.
Uncle George
Well, Peyton, very busy I take it. You’re adding to your duties, aren’t you?
Peyton
Not that I know of.
Uncle George
Your grandmother said something about a high falutin paper on free speech.
Peyton
I suppose that’s an inherited tendency. You know one of my ancestors
signed a paper on free speech. It had a high falutin name: “The Declaration
of Independence”!
Mrs. Root
I wish Bessie would come!
Uncle George
Do you think much about your ancestors, Peyton?
Peyton
Not a great deal.
Uncle George
Peyton has some rather interesting ancestors, Miss Mason. There’s Captain
John Peyton. That’s his picture. He helped win one of the battles which
made this country possible—the country in which you are living. And a
descendant of John Peyton—Richard Peyton [Points out the picture] gave

the money which founded this university—the university in which you are
now acquiring your education.
Jhansi
[Lightly.] Perhaps it would be quite as well if this university—and this
country—never had existed.
Mrs. Root
I don’t see why Bessie doesn’t come!
Jhansi
Of course I look at it as an outsider. I am not a part of your society.
Uncle George
Peyton is.
Mrs. Root
There’s Bessie!
[Bessie rushes in.
Bessie
Grandmother! [Swiftly kissing her.] How wonderful to have you with us
again! Dear Uncle George!
Uncle George
Glad you got here, Bessie. Your mother has been looking for you.
Bessie
[A movement of greeting to Jhansi.] Isn’t it beautiful to all be together? A
real family party! And now—we have a moment or two before dinner,
mother?
Mrs. Root
The man who brought the turkey in from the country had a runaway, so it
was a little late in arriving.
Bessie

How fortunate! Oh, it does seem that all things work together for the best.
Mother, I have had a completely successful day!
Grandmother
Where’ve you been, Bessie?
Bessie
I’ve been fifty miles to the north—in Baxter County. Does that mean
anything to you, Jhansi?
Jhansi
Not a thing.
Bessie
[Still breathlessly.] Dear uncle, I hope you will understand what I am about
to do. It might seem unrestrained—not in the best of taste, but it’s just
because you stand for so much in Peyton’s life that I want you to hear our
good news as soon as we hear it ourselves. You knew that these two
children were in love and going to be married. [A bow from Uncle George.]
You know—Jhansi dear, I may speak very freely, may I not?
Jhansi
I believe in free speech.
Bessie
Yes—how dear of you. Jhansi has endured in proud silence a great grief.
And now, dear child, because of the touching dignity with which you have
stood outside and alone, it is a moment of special joyfulness to me when I
can say—Welcome Within!
Peyton
What are you talking about, Bessie?
Bessie
You must not stand outside society! You belong within the gates. You are
one of us!
Jhansi
I’m not.

Bessie
Dear child you are as respectable as we are.
Jhansi
[Rising.] I am not.
Bessie
Of course, you can’t grasp it in an instant. But I have looked it all up, dear. I
have the proofs.
Peyton
Well it wasn’t your affair, Bessie.
Bessie
I made it my affair because I love my brother. Jhansi dear, [As one who tells
tremendous good news] your father was Henry Harrison, a milkman in the
town of Sunny Center—an honorable and respected man. Your parents were
married in the Baptist Church!
Jhansi
I deny it! I deny this charge!
Bessie
[Stepping to the hall.] Dear Senator and Mrs. Byrd, will you come now?
[Enter State Senator Byrd and Mrs. State Senator Byrd, Mrs. Byrd
carrying a large book.
Bessie
Jhansi dear, you are about to enter upon the happiest moment of your life,
for State Senator Byrd, one of our law-making body, is a cousin of your
dear dead mother.
Senator Byrd
Aggie’s little girl!
[He goes to Jhansi with outstretched hands. But Aggie’s little girl stands
like a rock.
Bessie

And here, Jhansi, is your cousin Mrs. Byrd, who has come all this way to
assure you you have a family.
Mrs. Byrd
Indeed you have! There’s Ella Andrews, one of our teachers—a lovely girl.
She’s your first cousin. We are second cousins. You may have some little
family pride in knowing that I was last spring elected President of the
Federated Clubs of Baxter County. Just last week I entertained the officers
of all the clubs at our home—our new home, erected last year after your
cousin Ephraim completed his first term in the upper house of the State
Legislature. Your cousin Ephraim has been re-elected. He is on the Ways
and Means Committee.
Uncle George
[Approaching Senator Byrd.] I have heard of Senator Ephraim Byrd of the
Ways and Means Committee. That was good work you fellows—
[They talk of this.
Mrs. Root
And to think, Jhansi, that your cousin Mrs. Byrd is a prominent
clubwoman!
Grandmother
[After a look at Jhansi.] Her cup runneth over.
Mrs. Root
Isn’t Bessie wonderful, mother? How did you find it all out, Bessie?
Bessie
From clue to clue I worked my way to Sunny Center. I would say to myself
—Do this for Peyton; do this for Jhansi. And so, I heard of an old minister
who had been there years and years. I went to him and—he had married
Jhansi’s father and mother! Dearest child, your mother taught in his
Sunday-School!
Senator Byrd
Oh, yes, Aggie loved the Baptist Sunday-School!

Jhansi
It’s very strange that my mother—I am referring to Mrs. Mason—never told
me of this!
Bessie
But she never told you you were a gypsy, either, did she? No; she just
wanted you to think you were their own child. And then I suppose you
heard some foolish tale at school.
Mrs. Byrd
You see Jhansi’s mother and father—her real ones—died of typhoid fever
before she was two years old. They got it from the cows. Well, the
Harrisons were friends of the Mason’s—they all worked together in the
church—and so they took Jhansi, and soon after that they moved away and
we lost track of them. You know what a busy world it is—particularly for
people who have duties in their community.
Jhansi
I haven’t accepted this story! You can’t prove it!
[Mrs. Byrd impressively hands her husband the book.
Senator Byrd
“Iowa descendants of New England families.”
Mrs. Root
Oh, yes; that is one of the books in which our family is written up! [To
Peyton.] My dearest boy, from my heart I congratulate you!
Senator Byrd
Pages fifty-seven to sixty-one—inclusive, are devoted, Jhansi, to our
family.
Mrs. Byrd
My own family appears on page 113.
[Senator Byrd holds the book out to Jhansi, who once more stands like a
rock. Uncle George steps forward to look at the book.
Uncle George

Oh, you are a descendant of Peter Byrd.
Senator Byrd
One of those dare-devils whose leg was shot under him at Bull Run.
Bessie
You heard that, Jhansi?
Mrs. Root
A descendant of Peter Byrd!—whose leg was shot under him—
Jhansi
So this is what I was brought here for, is it? To have my character torn
down—to ruin my reputation and threaten my integrity by seeking to
muzzle me with a leg at Bull Run and set me down in the Baptist Sunday-
School in a milk-wagon! I see the purpose of it all. I understand the hostile
motive behind all this—but I tell you it’s a lie. Something here [Hand on
heart] tells me I am not respectable!
Uncle George
Reaction.
Jhansi
I am Jhansi—Jhansi—a child of the gypsies! I am a wanderer! I am an
outlaw!
Mrs. Byrd
Yes, you are Jhansi. And did you ever stop to think how you came by that
outlandish name?
Jhansi
It has always assured me of my birthright.
Mrs. Byrd
Well, you’d better look in your geography. You were named after a town in
India where your mother’s missionary circle was helping to support a
missionary.
Senator Byrd

Aggie was crazy about the missionaries.
Jhansi
[Falling back, breaking.] Peyton, I release you from our engagement.
Peyton
No. N-o; don’t do that. [Stoutly.] I love you for yourself alone—in spite of
anything that may be true. But I must say Bessie—!
Jhansi
[Beginning to sob.] I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it! And to think that Peyton’s
mother was an illegitimate child.
Mrs. Root
[Dazed.] What’s that?
Grandmother
[Rising.] Yes; what is that?
Mrs. Root
Am I to understand—?
Grandmother
Am I to be told—at my age—that I gave birth to an illegitimate child? This
is a surprise to me—and not a pleasant one!
Peyton
[To Jhansi.] It would have been better not to have mentioned that.
Uncle George
This is reaction. I think perhaps we need a physician.
Jhansi
I don’t need a physician. Peyton certainly told me that his mother was an
illegitimate child. Of course, Peyton, if you were just boasting about your
family—say so.
Uncle George
What have you to say, Peyton?

Grandmother
Before he says anything, Bessie, you bring me that portfolio from the lower
right-hand corner of my desk. Key in the upper left hand pigeon hole.
[Bessie goes.
Mrs. Root
Peyton!
Peyton
Why I didn’t mean any harm, mother. I certainly didn’t mean anything
against you, or grandmother. Quite the contrary. I was just anxious that
Jhansi should have a little respect for our family. It didn’t seem to have a
leg to stand on.
Jhansi
So you made it up—out of whole cloth?
Peyton
No, not out of whole cloth.
Grandmother
Out of what cloth, then? Kindly tell me, out of what cloth?
Mrs. Root
Peyton is not himself.
Peyton
Well, it just came into my head that it was possible. You see, grandmother,
your having moved—I do wish you could see that I meant nothing against
your character. Absolutely the contrary. But your having moved—
Grandmother
My having moved where?
Peyton
Your having moved from New York State to Ohio at just that time—
Grandmother

I always did like to travel. Is that anything against a person’s character?
Peyton
I was claiming that you had character.
Grandmother
I’ll stick to my own, thank you. I’ve had it quite a while and am used to it.
But I’d like to know right now what there is so immoral in moving from
one state to another—even if you are going to have a baby?
Jhansi
[Raising her head.] There is nothing immoral in anything.
Grandmother
Fiddlesticks. [Bessie hands her the folio.] You found it, Bessie? The key?
Here, Peyton; come here. [Opens portfolio, takes out a rolled paper.]
Happily preserved for this defense of my character in my old age, is my
wedding certificate.
Mrs. Byrd
This is painful.
[With ostentatious tact she turns and looks at a print on the rear wall;
motions Senator Byrd to join her.
Grandmother
I want you to look at the date—right there beside that pink cupid—cherub,
perhaps it is—anyway, read aloud the figures you see.
Peyton
[Sullenly.] 1869.
Grandmother
And here, in this other document, very fortunately at hand to meet the
attacks of my only grandson upon my integrity, what do you read there?
Peyton
Clara—aged six weeks.

Grandmother
And the date?
[Mrs. Root, Bessie, Uncle George, all listen a little anxiously.
Peyton
December, 1871.
[A sigh of relief.
Grandmother
I trust now, Peyton, you will admit that a woman may move from one state
to another without being dissolute.
[At this word Mrs. Root is unable to bear more and hides her face in her
handkerchief.
Uncle George
[As one saving the situation.] Genealogy is interesting. One is democratic,
of course, but when there is behind one what there is behind us, Senator, it
enhances one’s powers—responsibility—obligation. [He has taken up the
book and been running through the pages.] Descendants of John Peyton.
Here, Peyton, are some things about your ancestors. Read them. Perhaps
then instead of tearing down you will have an impulse to build up. I
commend this book to you young people for study. It will do you no harm
to think a little of those worthy men from whom you come.
[Marks the place with a card and gives the book to Peyton.
Jhansi
[Springing up.] I shall waste no time thinking of the worthy men from
whom I come! If I am related to a law-maker—I owe it to my soul to
become a law-breaker!
Mrs. Root
You see, Bessie, what you have done.
Jhansi
When I thought there was in me no taint of civilization, I could put up with
your silly conventions, but if in a material sense I am part of your society,

then I have a spiritual obligation to fulfil in leaving it! Peyton, respectability
threatens to wall us in and stifle us. Are you ready to walk from this house
with me tonight, entering upon a free union that says that—[A snap of the
finger] for law?
Peyton
Why—certainly.
Mrs. Byrd
Well, if it comes to a matter of not caring to claim relationship, we certainly
hesitated some time. Those Harrisons were not all they should be.
Jhansi
[A note of hope in her voice.] No?
Mrs. Byrd
I said to Senator Byrd, now that the girl is marrying into one of the best
families in the state—not that that influenced us especially, but I said, if she
is trying to make something of herself, we must stand by her, and we will
mention only pleasant things. We will not allude to what her grandfather
did!
Jhansi
What did he do?
Senator Byrd
He burned down his neighbor’s house because that neighbor chased home
his pigs.
Jhansi
Really? Yes!—my grandfather would do that!
Peyton
Were any of the family found in the charred remains?
Senator Byrd
The family, I believe, escaped.
Mrs. Byrd

But no thanks to old man Harrison.
Jhansi
No!—I’m sure grandfather meant them to burn. [Seizing book.] I wonder if
grandfather’s protest is recorded in this book!
Mrs. Byrd
That book does not emphasize unfortunate occurrences.
Mrs. Root
And how right it is! One should think only of the good in human nature.
Peyton
[Looking with Jhansi.] What is this fine print at the bottom of the page?
Mrs. Byrd
[Hastily.] That is not important.
Senator Byrd
It is in fine print because it is not important.
Peyton
One of the descendants of Peter Byrd. [To Jhansi.] The leg at Bull Run, you
know. He—
Mrs. Root
Peyton, remember that you are in your own house.
Peyton
“Unfaithful to the high office of treasurer of the Baxter County Cemetery
Association.”
Jhansi
[Gasping, then beaming.] Why—why!—a grave robber! Was he a near
relative?
Mrs. Byrd
I must say, Miss Root, that we did not come here to have our family
inquired into as far back as ancient history!

Mrs. Root
No, Mrs. Byrd, I quite agree with you that it is not necessary to go too far
back in any family.
Grandmother
Neither necessary nor desirable.
Bessie
Those early days must have been very trying.
Peyton
Jhansi! The fine print of your family is thrilling. Here is a man—
Mrs. Root
Peyton, stop reading from that tiresome and obsolete book. It is not
hospitable.
Mrs. Byrd
Turn to your own family history and read a little fine print in it!
[The other members of the Peyton-Root family give each other startled,
nervous glances.
Peyton
Why what a lovely idea. Uncle has marked it for us. [After looking.] Fine
print in our family?
Mrs. Byrd
It’s there.
Bessie
Genealogy is so confusing. I never could understand it.
Mrs. Root
And I don’t see why one should try to understand it. Live well in the present
—that is sufficient.
Grandmother

It looks to me as if that book was not thoughtfully edited. I’m surprised it
has sold.
Peyton
[Snatching book from Jhansi.] Jhansi! I don’t want to boast! I hope I shall
not become a snob. You too have a family—and they had their impulsive
moments—but what was the most largely low-down thing a man of early
days could do? [Peytons and Roots draw together anxiously; the Byrds
wait complacently.] As uncle has pointed out, Jhansi, I am a descendant of
Captain John Peyton. But when you have a remote ancestor, you also have
his less remote descendants—a fact sometimes overlooked. Well, Stuart
Peyton—
Bessie
Mother, I wonder if the turkey isn’t ready now?
Mrs. Root
It’s time for it to be ready.
[She hurries out.
Peyton
Stuart Peyton—“convicted of selling whiskey and firearms to the Indians.”
[Assumes an overbearing attitude.
Mrs. Byrd
I guess the early days were trying, in more than one family.
Peyton
[Peering into the book.] And what is this? What is this? Stuart Peyton was
the father of Richard Peyton—
Jhansi
Who founded this university!
Peyton
[In the voice of Uncle George.] The university in which you are now
acquiring your education.

Mrs. Byrd
Oh, I have no doubt that inducing the Indians to massacre the whites was
profitable.
Peyton
A good sound basis for the family fortune.
Uncle George
Young man, you go too far!
Peyton
[Holding book out to Uncle George.] In thinking of these worthy men from
whom I come? [Turns to the wall on which hang portraits of John and
Richard Peyton.] We don’t seem to have Stuart’s picture. Jhansi, I don’t
know that we need to leave society. There seems little—crevices in these
walls of respectability.
Jhansi
And whenever we feel a bit stifled we can always find air through our
family trees!
Mrs. Byrd
I think, Senator, that we will not remain longer.
[Mrs. Root returns.
Mrs. Root
Mary was just coming. Now we’ll have dinner!
Bessie
Yes, a little family party to celebrate the happy—
Peyton
[Again bent over his family history.] Grandmother! Here’s something about
your ancestor, Gustave Phelps.
Grandmother
[Rising. With weight.] Peyton—close that book.

(Curtain)

THE OUTSIDE
A PLAY IN ONE ACT

First Performed by the Provincetown Players,
December 28, 1917

ORIGINAL CAST

Captain of “The Bars” Life-Saving Station, Abram Gillette
Bradford, a Live-saver Hutchinson Collins
Tony, a Portuguese Live-Saver Louis Ell
Mrs. Patrick, who lives in the abandoned Station Ida Rauh
Allie Mayo, who works for her Susan Glaspell

THE OUTSIDE
Scene: A room in a house which was once a life-saving station. Since
ceasing to be that it has taken on no other character, except that of a place
which no one cares either to preserve or change. It is painted the life-saving
gray, but has not the life-saving freshness. This is one end of what was the
big boat room, and at the ceiling is seen a part of the frame work from
which the boat once swung. About two thirds of the back wall is open,
because of the big sliding door, of the type of barn door, and through this
open door are seen the sand dunes, and beyond them the woods. At one
point the line where woods and dunes meet stands out clearly and there are
indicated the rude things, vines, bushes, which form the outer uneven rim of
the woods—the only things that grow in the sand. At another point a sand-
hill is menacing the woods. This old life-saving station is at a point where
the sea curves, so through the open door the sea also is seen. [The station is
located on the outside shore of Cape Cod, at the point, near the tip of the
Cape, where it makes that final curve which forms the Provincetown
Harbor.] The dunes are hills and strange forms of sand on which, in places,
grows the stiff beach grass—struggle; dogged growing against odds. At
right of the big sliding door is a drift of sand and the top of buried beach
grass is seen on this. There is a door left, and at right of big sliding door is
a slanting wall. Door in this is ajar at rise of curtain, and through this door
Bradford and Tony, life-savers, are seen bending over a man’s body,
attempting to restore respiration. The captain of the life-savers comes into
view outside the big open door, at left; he appears to have been hurrying,
peers in, sees the men, goes quickly to them.
Captain
I’ll take this now, boys.
Bradford
No need for anybody to take it, Capt’n. He was dead when we picked him
up.
Captain

Dannie Sears was dead when we picked him up. But we brought him back.
I’ll go on awhile.
[The two men who have been bending over the body rise, stretch to relax,
and come into the room.
Bradford
[Pushing back his arms and putting his hands on his chest.] Work,—tryin’
to put life in the dead.
Captain
Where’d you find him, Joe?
Bradford
In front of this house. Not forty feet out.
Captain
What’d you bring him up here for?
[He speaks in an abstracted way, as if the working part of his mind is on
something else, and in the muffled voice of one bending over.
Bradford
[With a sheepish little laugh.] Force of habit, I guess. We brought so many
of ’em back up here. [Looks around the room.] And then it was kind of
unfriendly down where he was—the wind spittin’ the sea onto you till he’d
have no way of knowin’ he was ashore.
Tony
Lucky I was not sooner or later as I walk by from my watch.
Bradford
You have accommodating ways, Tony. Not sooner or later. I wouldn’t say it
of many Portagees. But the sea [Calling it in to the Captain] is friendly as a
kitten alongside the women that live here. Allie Mayo—they’re both crazy
—had that door open [Moving his head toward the big sliding door]
sweepin’ out, and when we come along she backs off and stands lookin’ at
us, lookin’—Lord, I just wanted to get him somewhere else. So I kicked this
door open with my foot [Jerking his hand toward the room where the

Captain is seen bending over the man] and got him away. [Under his
voice.] If he did have any notion of comin’ back to life, he wouldn’t a come
if he’d seen her. [More genially.] I wouldn’t.
Captain
You know who he is, Joe?
Bradford
I never saw him before.
Captain
Mitchell telephoned from High Head that a dory came ashore there.
Bradford
Last night wasn’t the best night for a dory. [To Tony, boastfully.] Not that I
couldn’t ’a’ stayed in one. Some men can stay in a dory and some can’t.
[Going to the inner door.] That boy’s dead, Capt’n.
Captain
Then I’m not doing him any harm.
Bradford
[Going over and shaking the frame where the boat once swung.] This the
first time you ever been in this place, ain’t it, Tony?
Tony
I never was here before.
Bradford
Well, I was here before. [A laugh.] And the old man—[Nodding toward the
Captain] he lived here for twenty-seven years. Lord, the things that
happened here. There’ve been dead ones carried through that door.
[Pointing to the outside door.] Lord—the ones I’ve carried. I carried in Bill
Collins, and Lou Harvey and—huh! ’sall over now. You ain’t seen no
wrecks. Don’t ever think you have. I was here the night the Jennie Snow
was out there. [Pointing to the sea.] There was a wreck. We got the boat that
stood here [Again shaking the frame] down that bank. [Goes to the door
and looks out.] Lord, how’d we ever do it? The sand has put this place on

the blink all right. And then when it gets too God-forsaken for a life-savin’
station, a lady takes it for a summer residence—and then spends the winter.
She’s cheerful one.
Tony
A woman—she makes things pretty. This not like a place where a woman
live. On the floor there is nothing—on the wall there is nothing. Things—
[Trying to express it with his hands] do not hang on other things.
Bradford
[Imitating Tony’s gesture.] No—things do not hang on other things. In my
opinion the woman’s crazy—sittin’ over there on the sand—[A gesture
towards the dunes] what’s she lookin’ at? There ain’t nothin’ to see. And I
know the woman that works for her’s crazy—Allie Mayo. She’s a
Provincetown girl. She was all right once, but—
[Mrs. Patrick comes in from the hall at the right. She is a “city woman,”
a sophisticated person who has been caught into something as
unlike the old life as the dunes are unlike a meadow. At the moment
she is excited and angry.
Mrs. Patrick
You have no right here. This isn’t the life-saving station any more. Just
because it used to be—I don’t see why you should think—This is my
house! And—I want my house to myself!
Captain
[Putting his head through the door. One arm of the man he is working with
is raised, and the hand reaches through the doorway.] Well I must say, lady,
I would think that any house could be a life-saving station when the sea had
sent a man to it.
Mrs. Patrick
[Who has turned away so she cannot see the hand.] I don’t want him here! I
—[Defiant, yet choking] I must have my house to myself!
Captain
You’ll get your house to yourself when I’ve made up my mind there’s no
more life in this man. A good many lives have been saved in this house,

Mrs. Patrick—I believe that’s your name—and if there’s any chance of
bringing one more back from the dead, the fact that you own the house ain’t
goin’ to make a damn bit of difference to me!
Mrs. Patrick
[In a thin wild way.] I must have my house to myself.
Captain
Hell with such a woman!
[Moves the man he is working with and slams the door shut.
[As the Captain says, “And if there’s any chance of bringing one more back
from the dead,” Allie Mayo has appeared outside the wide door which
gives on the dunes, a bleak woman, who at first seems little more than a
part of the sand before which she stands. But as she listens to this conflict
one suspects in her that peculiar intensity of twisted things which grow in
unfavoring places.
Mrs. Patrick
I—I don’t want them here! I must—
[But suddenly she retreats, and is gone.
Bradford
Well, I couldn’t say, Allie Mayo, that you work for any too kind-hearted a
lady. What’s the matter with the woman? Does she want folks to die?
Appears to break her all up to see somebody trying to save a life. What d’
you work for such a fish for? A crazy fish—that’s what I call the woman.
I’ve seen her—day after day—settin’ over there where the dunes meet the
woods, just sittin’ there, lookin’. [Suddenly thinking of it.] I believe she likes
to see the sand slippin’ down on the woods. Pleases her to see somethin’
gettin’ buried, I guess.
[Allie Mayo, who has stepped inside the door and moved half across the
room, toward the corridor at the right, is arrested by this last—
stands a moment as if seeing through something, then slowly on, and
out.
Bradford

Some coffee’d taste good. But coffee, in this house? Oh, no. It might make
somebody feel better. [Opening the door that was slammed shut.] Want me
now, Capt’n?
Captain
No.
Bradford
Oh, that boy’s dead, Capt’n.
Captain
[Snarling.] Dannie Sears was dead, too. Shut that door. I don’t want to hear
that woman’s voice again, ever.
[Closing the door and sitting on a bench built into that corner between
the big sliding door and the room where the Captain is.
Bradford
They’re a cheerful pair of women—livin’ in this cheerful place—a place
that life savers had to turn over to the sand—huh! This Patrick woman used
to be all right. She and her husband was summer folks over in town. They
used to picnic over here on the outside. It was Joe Dyer—he’s always
talkin’ to summer folks—told ’em the government was goin’ to build the
new station and sell this one by sealed bids. I heard them talkin’ about it.
They was sittin’ right down there on the beach, eatin’ their supper. They was
goin’ to put in a fire-place and they was goin’ to paint it bright colors, and
have parties over here—summer folk notions. Their bid won it—who’d
want it?—a buried house you couldn’t move.
Tony
I see no bright colors.
Bradford
Don’t you? How astonishin’! You must be color blind. And I guess we’re
the first party. [Laughs.] I was in Bill Joseph’s grocery store, one day last
November, when in she comes—Mrs. Patrick, from New York. “I’ve come
to take the old life-saving station,” says she. “I’m going to sleep over there
tonight!” Huh! Bill is used to queer ways—he deals with summer folks, but
that got him. November—an empty house, a buried house, you might say,

off here on the outside shore—way across the sand from man or beast. He
got it out of her, not by what she said, but by the way she looked at what he
said, that her husband had died, and she was runnin’ off to hide herself, I
guess. A person’d feel sorry for her if she weren’t so stand-offish, and so
doggon mean. But mean folks have got minds of their own. She slept here
that night. Bill had men hauling things till after dark—bed, stove, coal. And
then she wanted somebody to work for her. “Somebody,” says she, “that
doesn’t say an unnecessary word!” Well, when Bill come to the back of the
store, I said, “Looks to me as if Allie Mayo was the party she’s lookin’ for.”
Allie Mayo has got a prejudice against words. Or maybe she likes ’em so
well she’s savin’ of ’em. She’s not spoke an unnecessary word for twenty
years. She’s got her reasons. Women whose men go to sea ain’t always
talkative.
[The Captain comes out. He closes door behind him and stands there
beside it. He looks tired and disappointed. Both look at him. Pause.
Captain
Wonder who he was.
Bradford
Young. Guess he’s not been much at sea.
Captain
I hate to leave even the dead in this house. But we can get right back for
him. [A look around.] The old place used to be more friendly. [Moves to
outer door, hesitates, hating to leave like this.] Well, Joe, we brought a good
many of them back here.
Bradford
Dannie Sears is tendin’ bar in Boston now.
[The three men go; as they are going around the drift of sand Allie Mayo
comes in carrying a pot of coffee; sees them leaving, puts down the
coffee pot, looks to the door the Captain has closed, moves toward
it, as if drawn. Mrs. Patrick follows her in.
Mrs. Patrick
They’ve gone?

[Mrs. Mayo nods, facing the closed door.
Mrs. Patrick
And they’re leaving—him? [Again the other woman nods.] Then he’s—?
[Mrs. Mayo just stands there.] They have no right—just because it used to
be their place—! I want my house to myself!
[Snatches her coat and scarf from a hook and starts through the big door
toward the dunes.
Allie Mayo
Wait.
[When she has said it she sinks into that corner seat—as if overwhelmed
by what she has done. The other woman is held.
Allie Mayo
[To herself.] If I could say that, I can say more. [Looking at the woman she
has arrested, but speaking more to herself.] That boy in there—his face—
uncovered something—[Her open hand on her chest. But she waits, as if
she cannot go on; when she speaks it is in labored way—slow, monotonous,
as if snowed in by silent years.] For twenty years, I did what you are doing.
And I can tell you—it’s not the way. [Her voice has fallen to a whisper; she
stops, looking ahead at something remote and veiled.] We had been married
—two years. [A start, as of sudden pain. Says it again, as if to make herself
say it.] Married—two years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler.
Times hard. He had to go. A year and a half—it was to be. A year and a half.
Two years we’d been married.
[She sits silent, moving a little back and forth.
The day he went away. [Not spoken, but breathed from pain.] The days after
he was gone.
I heard at first. Last letter said farther north—not another chance to write
till on the way home.
[A wait.
Six months. Another. I did not hear. [Long wait.] Nobody ever heard.

[After it seems she is held there, and will not go on.] I used to talk as much
as any girl in Provincetown. Jim used to tease me about my talking. But
they’d come in to talk to me. They’d say—“You may hear yet.” They’d talk
about what must have happened. And one day a woman who’d been my
friend all my life said—“Suppose he was to walk in!” I got up and drove
her from my kitchen—and from that time till this I’ve not said a word I
didn’t have to say. [She has become almost wild in telling this. That passes.
In a whisper.] The ice that caught Jim—caught me. [A moment as if held in
ice. Comes from it. To Mrs. Patrick simply.] It’s not the way. [A sudden
change.] You’re not the only woman in the world whose husband is dead!
Mrs. Patrick
[With the cry of the hurt.] Dead? My husband’s not dead.
Allie Mayo
He’s not? [Slowly understands.] Oh.
[The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks up her coat which has
fallen to the floor and steps outside.
Allie Mayo
[Almost failing to do it.] Wait.
Mrs. Patrick
Wait? Don’t you think you’ve said enough? They told me you didn’t say an
unnecessary word!
Allie Mayo
I don’t.
Mrs. Patrick
And you can see, I should think, that you’ve bungled into things you know
nothing about!
[As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she pushes the sand by the
door down on the half buried grass—though not as if knowing what
she is doing.
Allie Mayo

[Slowly.] When you keep still for twenty years you know—things you
didn’t know you knew. I know why you’re doing that. [She looks up at her,
startled.] Don’t bury the only thing that will grow. Let it grow.
[The woman outside still crying under her breath turns abruptly and
starts toward the line where dunes and woods meet.
Allie Mayo
I know where you’re going! [Mrs. Patrick turns, but not as if she wants to.]
What you’ll try to do. Over there. [Pointing to the line of woods.] Bury it.
The life in you. Bury it—watching the sand bury the woods. But I’ll tell
you something! They fight too. The woods! They fight for life the way that
Captain fought for life in there!
[Pointing to the closed door.
Mrs. Patrick
[With a strange exultation.] And lose the way he lost in there!
Allie Mayo
[Sure, sombre.] They don’t lose.
Mrs. Patrick
Don’t lose? [Triumphant.] I have walked on the tops of buried trees!
Allie Mayo
[Slow, sombre, yet large.] And vines will grow over the sand that covers the
trees, and hold it. And other trees will grow above the buried trees.
Mrs. Patrick
I’ve watched the sand slip down on the vines that reach out farthest.
Allie Mayo
Another vine will reach that spot. [Under her breath, tenderly.] Strange
little things that reach out farthest!
Mrs. Patrick
And will be buried soonest!
Allie Mayo

And hold the sand for things behind them. They save a wood that guards a
town.
Mrs. Patrick
I care nothing about a woods to guard a town. This is the outside—these
dunes where only beach grass grows, this outer shore where men can’t live.
The Outside. You who were born here and who die here have named it that.
Allie Mayo
Yes, we named it that, and we had reason. He died here [Reaches her hand
toward the closed door] and many a one before him. But many another
reached the harbor! [Slowly raises her arm, bends it to make the form of the
Cape. Touches the outside of her bent arm.] The Outside. But an arm that
bends to make a harbor—where men are safe.
Mrs. Patrick
I’m outside the harbor—on the dunes, land not life.
Allie Mayo
Dunes meet woods and woods hold dunes from a town that’s shore to a
harbor.
Mrs. Patrick
This is the Outside. Sand. [Picking some of it up in her hand and letting it
fall on the beach grass.] Sand that covers—hills of sand that move and
cover.
Allie Mayo
Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from Provincetown. Provincetown
—where they turn when boats can’t live at sea. Did you ever see the sails
come round here when the sky is dark? A line of them—swift to the harbor
—where their children live. Go back! [Pointing.] Back to your edge of the
woods that’s the edge of the dunes.
Mrs. Patrick
The edge of life. Where life trails off to dwarfed things not worth a name.
[Suddenly sits down in the doorway.

Allie Mayo
Not worth a name. And—meeting the Outside!
[Big with the sense of the wonder of life.
Mrs. Patrick
[Lifting sand and letting it drift through her hand.] They’re what the sand
will let them be. They take strange shapes like shapes of blown sand.
Allie Mayo
Meeting the Outside. [Moving nearer; speaking more personally.] I know
why you came here. To this house that had been given up; on this shore
where only savers of life try to live. I know what holds you on these dunes,
and draws you over there. But other things are true beside the things you
want to see.
Mrs. Patrick
How do you know they are? Where have you been for twenty years?
Allie Mayo
Outside. Twenty years. That’s why I know how brave they are. [Indicating
the edge of the woods. Suddenly different.] You’ll not find peace there
again! Go back and watch them fight!
Mrs. Patrick
[Swiftly rising.] You’re a cruel woman—a hard, insolent woman! I knew
what I was doing! What do you know about it? About me? I didn’t go to the
Outside. I was left there. I’m only—trying to get along. Everything that can
hurt me I want buried—buried deep. Spring is here. This morning I knew it.
Spring—coming through the storm—to take me—take me to hurt me.
That’s why I couldn’t bear—[She looks at the closed door] things that made
me know I feel. You haven’t felt for so long you don’t know what it means!
But I tell you, Spring is here! And now you’d take that from me—[Looking
now toward the edge of the woods] the thing that made me know they
would be buried in my heart—those things I can’t live and know I feel.
You’re more cruel than the sea! “But other things are true beside the things
you want to see!” Outside. Springs will come when I will not know that it is
spring. [As if resentful of not more deeply believing what she says.] What

would there be for me but the Outside? What was there for you? What did
you ever find after you lost the thing you wanted?
Allie Mayo
I found—what I find now I know. The edge of life—to hold life behind me
—
[A slight gesture toward Mrs. Patrick.
Mrs. Patrick
[Stepping back.] You call what you are life? [Laughs.] Bleak as those ugly
things that grow in the sand!
Allie Mayo
[Under her breath, as one who speaks tenderly of beauty.] Ugly!
Mrs. Patrick
[Passionately.] I have known life. I have known life. You’re like this Cape.
A line of land way out to sea—land not life.
Allie Mayo
A harbor far at sea. [Raises her arm, curves it in as if around something she
loves.] Land that encloses and gives shelter from storm.
Mrs. Patrick
[Facing the sea, as if affirming what will hold all else out.] Outside sea.
Outer shore. Dunes—land not life.
Allie Mayo
Outside sea—outer shore, dark with the wood that once was ships—dunes,
strange land not life—woods, town and harbor. The line! Stunted straggly
line that meets the Outside face to face—and fights for what itself can never
be. Lonely line. Brave growing.
Mrs. Patrick
It loses.
Allie Mayo
It wins.

Mrs. Patrick
The farthest life is buried.
Allie Mayo
And life grows over buried life! [Lifted into that; then, as one who states a
simple truth with feeling.] It will. And Springs will come when you will
want to know that it is Spring.
[The Captain and Bradford appear behind the drift of sand. They have a
stretcher. To get away from them Mrs. Patrick steps farther into the
room; Allie Mayo shrinks into her corner. The men come in, open
the closed door and go in the room where they left the dead man. A
moment later they are seen outside the big open door, bearing the
man away. Mrs. Patrick watches them from sight.
Mrs. Patrick
[Bitter, exultant.] Savers of life! [To Allie Mayo.] You savers of life!
“Meeting the Outside!” Meeting—[But she cannot say it mockingly again;
in saying it, something of what it means has broken through, rises. Herself
lost, feeling her way into the wonder of life.] Meeting the Outside!
[It grows in her as slowly.
(Curtain)

WOMAN’S HONOR
A COMEDY IN ONE ACT

First Performed by the Provincetown Players,
April 26, 1918

Mr. Foster, The Lawyer Justus Sheffield
Gordon Wallace, The Prisoner Clark Branyon
Boy Murray Cooper
The Shielded One Marjory Lacey
The Motherly One Dorothy Upjohn
The Scornful One The Ida Rauh
The Silly One Women Norma Millay
The Mercenary One Alice Macdougal
The Cheated One Susan Gaspell

WOMAN’S HONOR
Scene: A room in the sheriff’s house which is used for conferences. At the
rear is a door into the hall, at the left a door leads to an adjoining room.
There is also a door at the right, going to the corridor which connects this
house with the jail.
Lawyer and Prisoner are found in heated conversation. The prisoner, an
attractive young man, is seated, and has just turned away from the Lawyer,
irritated.
Lawyer
Do you know that murder is no laughing matter?
Prisoner
Well, was I laughing?
Lawyer
[Shoots it at him.] Where were you on the night of October 25? [Prisoner
sits like one who never means to speak again.] Your silence shields a
woman’s honor. Do you know what’s going to be said of you? You’re going
to be called old-fashioned! [A worried look flits over the prisoner’s face.] A
man will not tell where he is because it involves a woman’s honor! How
quaint! [In a different voice.] Say, do you think she’s worth it?
[Prisoner rises angrily.
Yes, get red in the face, I should think you would. Blush. Blush for shame.
Shame of having loved a woman who’d let a man face death to shield her
own honor!
Prisoner
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Lawyer
It’s just like a woman, the cowards. That’s what I most despise in women.
Afraid they won’t be looked upon as the pure noble sensitive souls they

spend their lives trying to make us believe they are. Sickening!
Prisoner
There are things you don’t understand.
Lawyer
Oh, yes, I do. I suppose she’s got a husband. I suppose he’d divorce her.
Then she wouldn’t be asked out to tea quite so often. Good Lord—die for
something real!
Prisoner
You and I have different ideals, Mr. Foster. There are things we don’t
discuss.
Lawyer
There are things we have to discuss. If you insist upon this romantic course,
then at least we will have to get something out of that.
Prisoner
What do you mean?
Lawyer
Simply that public feeling has got to swing toward you or the jury will say
you murdered Erwalt. If we can’t have an alibi, let us by all means have a
hero!
Prisoner
[Outraged.] Have you given out a story to the newspapers?
Lawyer
[Drawing paper from his pocket.] Very delicately done. “A life for a life.”
Isn’t that moving? “While Gordon Wallace languishes in his cell, some
woman is safe in a shielded home. Charged with the murder of John Erwalt,
young Wallace fails to cut his chain of circumstantial evidence with an alibi.
Where was Gordon Wallace on the night of October 25? He maintains a
dogged silence. Behind that silence rests a woman’s honor”—and so on, at
some length.
Prisoner

You had no right to give out a story without my consent!
Lawyer
Oh, yes, I have. If I can’t get your consent for saving your life, then, my
young friend, I shall save it without your consent. Pardon my rudeness.
Prisoner
How will this save it?
Lawyer
How little romantic young men know the romantic sex. Wives—including, I
hope, jurors’ wives—will cry, “Don’t let that chivalrous young man die!”
Women just love to have their honor shielded. It is very touching to them.
Prisoner
Mr. Foster, I tell you again, I dislike your attitude toward women! Laugh at
me if you will, but I have respect and reverence for women. I believe it is
perfectly true that men must guard them. Call me a romantic young fool if it
pleases you, but I have had a mother—a sister—sweetheart. Yes, I am ready
to die to shield a woman’s honor!
[As he says this the door slowly opens and a woman steps in.
Shielded One
No! You shall not!
[Quite taken aback, the men stand looking at her. She has breeding, poise
—obviously she has stepped out of a world where women are
shielded. She maintains a front of her usual composure, but there is
an intensity—an excitement—which indicates she is feeling some big
new thing. Lawyer looks from her to the Prisoner, who is staring at
the Woman.
Lawyer
[To Woman.] Oh—you’ve come?
Shielded One
[Firmly, but with emotion.] I have come.
Prisoner

I don’t understand.
Lawyer
You were not willing to let him die?
Shielded One
No.
Lawyer
Good. This young man—[He pauses, embarrassed, for it does not seem a
thing to say to this lady] was with you on the night of October 25?
Shielded One
Yes.
Prisoner
Why, no I wasn’t.
Lawyer
There is no use, Gordon, in trying to keep the lady from doing what she has
apparently determined to do.
Shielded One
No. You cannot keep me from doing what I have determined to do.
Lawyer
For my part, I respect you for it. Then you are prepared to testify that on the
night of October 25 Gordon Wallace was with you from twelve o’clock
midnight till eight next morning?
Shielded One
[A little falteringly, yet fervent.] Yes.
Lawyer
Was with you—continuously?
Shielded One
Yes.

Lawyer
Your name is—?
[He takes out his note-book.
Prisoner
[In distress.] Don’t give him your name! He’ll use it! I tell you this is all a
mistake. I don’t know this lady. I never saw her before. [To the Woman.]
You mustn’t do this!
Shielded One
[Proudly, and with relief.] I have done it!
Lawyer
And as I said, madam, I greatly respect you for doing it. You are, if I may
say so, unlike most of your sex. Now—your name?
Shielded One
[This is not easy for her.] Mrs. Oscar Duncan.
Lawyer
And Mrs. Duncan you live at—? [A noise in the hall.] I fear some one is
coming in. Will you just step in here?
[He shows her into the room at the left. They hear the corridor door open
and turn. A woman is coming in—rather plump, middle-aged—a
pleasant, motherly looking woman. She looks from the Lawyer to
the Prisoner, moves to get a better look at the young man, who
becomes nervous under this scrutiny; then she seems to have it
straight in her mind, nods pleasantly.
Motherly One
[Cheerily.] Good morning.
Lawyer
Good morning.
Motherly One
[To Prisoner.] Good morning.

Prisoner
[Not cheerily.] Good morning.
Motherly One
There was no one out there, so I just walked right in. [Lawyer nods.] I
thought you might be glad to see me.
Lawyer
Oh—we are. [To Gordon.] Aren’t we?
Motherly One
I suppose I am in the right place.
Lawyer
Well, it is the right place for some things.
Motherly One
Is it the place to tell the truth about Gordon Wallace?
Lawyer
It seems to be.
Motherly One
[Very cheerfully.] Well, then, on the night of October 25 that young man—
[Steps for a better look at the Prisoner] this young man—was with me.
Lawyer
From twelve o’clock midnight until eight next morning?
Motherly One
[Placidly.] From twelve o’clock midnight till eight next morning.
[She takes a muffler from her bag and sits down and begins to knit.
Lawyer
Was with you—continuously?
Motherly One
Oh, certainly—continuously.

[She knits serenely on.
Lawyer
Well—Gordon.
Motherly One
[Pleasantly.] It seems that mufflers get longer and longer. [Looking up at
Lawyer.] Doesn’t it?
Lawyer
Why—perhaps they do. But—you are willing to leave your name and
address?
Motherly One
Certainly, I’m willing to leave my name and address. What else would I be
here for? Oh—but could I use the telephone first. [Rises.] It will be better to
let them know that I’ll probably be late getting home for lunch.
Lawyer
[Is about to open door of the room in which the Shielded One is waiting.]
No—there’s some one in there. Here [Going to the door at the other side of
the room], I’ll show you how to get through to the jail phone.
Motherly One
The jail! But we’ll soon have you out of jail.
[She goes, giving the young man an encouraging smile. The Lawyer steps
out with her. The young man hears the rear door opening—this door
into the hall has a slight squeak—starts nervously, looks around to
see a young woman come in. In a keen, cool amused way she is
staring at him. He turns away, petulantly hitching his chair. She
moves where she can see him better, takes from her bag a newspaper
picture, looks from it to him. He turns, sees what she is doing; she
smiles at him. He looks like one at bay. Enter Lawyer. Sees what is
going on, smiles.
Lawyer
On the night of October 25—?

Scornful One
[To Lawyer.] I understand that down here a man is about to die for a
woman’s honor.
Lawyer
He had some such thing in mind.
Scornful One
[To Lawyer.] Now you can’t get away with that. Sorry to upset your plans,
but the death seems uncalled for. On the night of October 25—Gordon
Wallace was with me.
Lawyer
From twelve o’clock midnight till eight next morning?
Scornful One
From twelve o’clock midnight until eight next morning.
Lawyer
[Rather feebly.] Con-tinuously?
Scornful One
[In an offhand voice.] Continuously.
Lawyer
Well—well, Gordon, I begin to understand why you hesitated to tell the
truth about that momentous night. Rise and thank the lady, Gordon; it
would seem the least you could do would be to rise and—
[As he is saying this to Gordon, in rushes a fussily dressed hysterical
woman and throws her arms around the Lawyer’s neck.
Silly One
Darling! I cannot let you die for me!
Lawyer
[Trying to free himself.] Pardon me, madam, but—
Silly One

Gordon! You call me madam after that night together. Oh my beloved, when
I think of those hours I lay in your arms—
Lawyer
Pardon me, but you never lay in—
Silly One
I know. Ah—I understand. You pretend not to know me. You would die to
shield me—but you shall not! You cannot escape me!
Lawyer
[Still unsuccessful in freeing himself.] Apparently not. But permit me to tell
you, you are making a mistake.
Silly One
No! I am not making a mistake! You shall not die for me.
Lawyer
I really don’t intend to—if I can help it.
Silly One
Love is so beautiful. So ennobling! [Overcome with emotion, loosens her
hold.] When I think of that night—October 25—
[Sinks into a chair.
Lawyer
[After settling his collar.] Well, Gordon, have you a choice? [Pause.] You
see you didn’t understand women as well as you thought.
Prisoner
[Fiercely.] Neither did you!
[The Sheriff’s Boy comes in.
Boy
While I was over at the bank, women came.
Lawyer
Yes, I know.

Boy
[Looking at the two women in the room.] But more women. [Prisoner starts
in terror.] Six women are out there.
Prisoner
Don’t let them in!
Lawyer
Tell the ladies we shall not need them. Thank them for coming. [Boy goes
out. To Prisoner.] Well, come now. What shall we do with this
embarrassment of—generosity? You see dying for a woman’s honor isn’t as
easy as you might think. It even looks as though there were a sort of
conspiracy against it.
Prisoner
I’m not going to be made a fool of.
Lawyer
Are you sure you can help it?
[The Boy comes back, looking worried.
Boy
Some of those women won’t go away. I don’t know what to do with them.
Lawyer
No, it’s not a matter the young can cope with.
[He goes out with the Boy. The amused young Woman sits looking the
Prisoner over, to his embarrassment and final irritation.
Scornful One
So you were thinking of dying for a woman’s honor. [He says nothing.]
Now do you think that’s a very nice way to treat the lady? [He turns away
petulantly.] Seems to me you should think of her feelings. Have you a right
to ruin her life?
Prisoner
[Startled into speech.] Ruin her life?

Scornful One
Why certainly. A life that somebody has died for is practically a ruined life.
For how are you going to think of it as anything but—a life that somebody
has died for? [She pulls her chair to a more confidential angle.] Did it ever
strike you as funny that woman’s honor is only about one thing, and that
man’s honor is about everything but that thing? [After waiting for the
answer which does not come.] Now woman’s honor means woman’s virtue.
But this lady for whom you propose to die has no virtue.
Prisoner
[Springing up.] Please be careful what you say.
Scornful One
I’m being very careful. I’m thinking it out just as carefully as I can. The
night of October 25, or at some time previous to that, she lost her virtue,
and you propose to die to keep us from knowing about this loss. Now, it has
happened, hasn’t it? On the night of October 25, from twelve o’clock
midnight till eight next morning continuously she lost her virtue. You aren’t
dying to keep her virtuous. I fancy few lives have been laid upon that altar.
But you’re dying to keep us from knowing she is what she is. Dear me, it
seems rather sad.
Silly One
[Controlling her tears.] It is noble beyond words.
Scornful One
There’s where you’re going to get your approbation.
[The Motherly One now returns from her telephoning. She looks at the
Silly Woman, then at the Scornful One—these two stand looking
one another up and down.
Scornful One
[In her amused manner.] Can it be that we are two souls with but a single
thought?
Motherly One
[In her mothering voice.] Perhaps we are two hearts that beat as one.

[They stand there a moment not knowing what to do; then, still
uncertainly, they sit down, stealing glances at one another. Finally
the Scornful One smiles.
Scornful One
We might draw lots.
Silly One
Love conquereth all things.
Scornful One
Even the female brain.
Motherly One
I wonder why you others came.
Scornful One
Why did you come?
Motherly One
Oh, I have children of my own. I thought, he’s just a nice boy, and probably
she’s just some nice girl afraid of her mother. And I thought—well, now
what an awful pity to let him die, or even spend a lot of time in prison. I
said to myself, it would be just like a lot of men to fuss around about a
woman’s honor and really let it hurt somebody. So I decided—well, I’ll go.
What harm can it do me? [Resumes her knitting.] You see, I’m in the habit
of trying to save lives. I do nursing—practical nursing—and I didn’t happen
to be on a case just now, so I thought—well, I’ll just take this case. Some of
the folks I nurse for may be shocked—but good sensible nurses aren’t so
easy to get. Of course my children may be upset about it—but they’re awful
nice children, and when they’re a little older probably they’ll be pleased to
think their mother didn’t want a nice boy to die. [Drops her knitting.] I
wonder if she will come.
[Looks at the other two with new interest.
Scornful One
I wonder.

Silly One
“She” is here.
Scornful One
Oh, it’s not you. You thought it was the lawyer you were with. Anyway,
people who do things don’t make so much fuss about them.
Motherly One
[Whose interest has not been diverted.] I think she will have to come.
[The door of the room into which the Shielded One was shown opens
quietly and without the others being aware of it the Shielded One is
standing in the doorway, bringing with her that sense of the ordered
protected life out of which she has stepped.
Scornful One
I’m sure I don’t see how she could ever think of staying away. I hate a
coward.
Motherly One
Some women think a great deal about their honor. I think usually it’s
women who aren’t very well—or who haven’t much else to take up their
time.
[Impulsively the Shielded One steps forward as if to speak. Hearing her,
they turn, and in their interest rise and stand looking at her.
Motherly One
Oh—you’ve come?
[The Prisoner, who to get away from the women gives the impression of
being crowded into a corner, also turns and rises.
Prisoner
[To Shielded One, rather crossly.] Please go away!
Scornful One
O-h.
Prisoner

Can’t you see there is no need for your staying?
Shielded One
[Quietly.] There is need of it.
[She sits down, the other women still surveying her.
Motherly One
It’s true we aren’t all needed. Who will be best—? [To Scornful One.] Tell
me, why are you here?
Scornful One
Well, you see for myself I haven’t any honor to worry about, and haven’t
had for some time. So I thought, if the sacrifice of a woman’s honor is
going to save, a man’s life, let me, who have none, nobly sacrifice mine.
Motherly One
What do you mean, you haven’t had any honor for some time?
Scornful One
Oh, I haven’t had my honor around with me since I was seventeen.
Motherly One
[Kindly.] Do you miss it?
Scornful One
Well—yes; sometimes when I’m tired I might like to slump back into it.
You see honor camouflages so many things—stupidity, selfishness—greed,
lust, avarice, gluttony. So without it you’re almost forced to be a decent sort
—and that’s sometimes wearing. [In another voice.] But I’ll tell you why
I’m really here! When men begin to sob around about woman’s honor they
get my goat. That lawyer—he thought he was going to get away with it.
Why, woman’s honor would have died out long ago if it hadn’t been for
men’s talk about it.
Motherly One
I suppose it really has to be kept up, as long as it gives men such noble
feelings.

Scornful One
That man—the one when I was seventeen—he’s that sort. He would be of
course. Why, this instant his eyes would become “pools of feeling” if any
one were to talk about saving a woman’s honor. [Under her breath.] Gee!
Motherly One
[With a diffident glance at the Shielded One.] If she is here, she must be
feeling quite upset. If she cares enough about her honor to have held back
this long—it can’t be easy to let it go.
Scornful One
She’ll be better off without it.
Motherly One
I don’t know. You see, she’s had it quite a while. She’s used to it. I was
thinking—
[The door opens and a brisk young woman dressed in cheap, up-to-the-
minute clothes darts in. All turn and look at her, continue to stare.
Something in this scrutiny becomes disconcerting.
Mercenary One
While he was busy with the other women—I just slipped by. Is this—?
[Sees the young man, now huddled in terror.
Scornful One
Sit down and wait your turn.
Mercenary One
Are all of you ahead of me?
Scornful One
Your number seems to be five.
[Number five sits down; a pause in which they continue to look at her in
this unusual way—she finally rather indignantly settles her coat, her
hat, assuring herself nothing is the matter with her.
Motherly One

You look young for this.
Mercenary One
Well, if you’ll excuse my saying so, the same objection can’t be made to
some of you.
Scornful One
What are you here for?
Mercenary One
Oh, I guess I’m here for about the same reason all of you are here.
Motherly One
But we are here for different reasons.
Mercenary One
Say, what are you tryin’ to put over on me? Suppose I think you’re here for
your health? Or out of kindness? Or to show your great beauty? Hard-ly.
Anybody not feeble-minded could dope out why you’re sitting here like
owls.
Scornful One
Well—why?
Mercenary One
Oh, not for money, of course.
[She has horrified them all.
Motherly One
I’m sorry you said that.
Silly One
How sordid! How desecrating!
Mercenary One
Say—I don’t like the atmosphere of this place.
Scornful One

We don’t like it as well as we did.
Mercenary One
A business proposition is a business proposition. What a man needs and can
pay for—
Silly One
[Rising and wringing her hands.] I really must ask you—Love is so
beautiful!
Mercenary One
Well, suppose it is? What’s that got to do with it?
Motherly One
You seem hard for one so young.
Mercenary One
I may be hard, but I’m not a nut.
Scornful One
Woman’s honor doesn’t play much part in your young life, does it? Or
woman’s self-respect, either.
Mercenary One
[Rising.] Say, you think you can sit there and insult me? I don’t know what
you are, but I’ll have you know I’m an honest working girl! I heard they
were going to take on another stenographer down here, but I don’t like the
atmosphere of this place.
[She leaves.
Silly One
[Settling herself with relief.] It was a misunderstanding. Ah, life is paved
with misunderstanding.
Motherly One
It will be said we did this for money.
Scornful One

Oh, a great deal will be said. If you care about what’s said you’d better
follow the honest working girl out that door.
Motherly One
What’s said makes an awful difference in some people’s lives.
[Her eyes turn toward the Shielded One.
Scornful One
They don’t know how much difference until they’ve heard it said.
[She too looks at the Shielded One.
Motherly One
You get made into one thing and then it’s not easy to be another. And as the
honest working girl hinted, some of us aren’t as young as—we’d like to be.
Scornful One
Age shouldn’t discourage one. It’s never too late to mend.
[The door swings, the women look expectantly around; the unfortunate
young man, whose face has been buried in his hands, looks round in
terror. They wait a moment but no one comes in.
Motherly One
If “she” is here, and really minds losing her honor—well, she could just go
home. [Silly One rises, simpers, sits down again.] We can’t all lose our
honor. It might do the young man more harm than good. It’s different with
you—[To Scornful One] you had an early start. And then you’ve got
character. You don’t need honor to lean on.
Shielded One
[Breaking her silence with simple intensity.] What is woman’s honor?
Scornful One
A thing men talk about.
Motherly One
A safe corner.

Silly One
A star to guide them!
Shielded One
[Very earnestly.] Guide them where?
Scornful One
Yes, where? Many a woman who’s guided hasn’t guided anywhere.
Shielded One
[Passionately.] Aren’t we something more than things to be noble about?
Scornful One
Of course what we’ve really been is kind. We have not deprived them of the
pleasures of being noble. If we do it now, it will leave them in a bleak
world.
Shielded One
[Troubled but determined.] Can’t we put something in its place, so they
won’t be too desolate and yet we won’t be so—
Scornful One
Bored.
Motherly One
If we could only get them noble about something else. I should really hate
to take it from them entirely. It’s like giving up smoking or drinking. You
have to do it gradually, and there should be something to put in its place.
Scornful One
If we could only think up a new vice for them.
Motherly One
They have all those.
Shielded One
Oh, I hope you women can work out some way to free us from men’s noble
feelings about it! I speak for all the women of my—[Hesitates] under-
world, all those others smothered under men’s lofty sentiments toward

them! I wish I could paint for you the horrors of the shielded life. [Says
“shielded” as if it were “shameful.”] I know you would feel something
must be done to save us. After all [Growing a little wild] are we not your
sisters? Our honor has been saved so many times. We are tired. And so
when I read in the paper this morning that woman’s honor was being saved
again—
Scornful One
[Excitedly going to her.] Read in the paper? Then you’re not—the one?
Shielded One
Not that one, but—
[Slowly the door opens and a woman comes in—comes with a strange
quiet. She droops, she has a queer passivity—she is unaccountably
forceful. Gives a sense of one who has been cheated and is going to
be cheated no more. She is scarcely aware of the other women. Her
eyes, dead, or rather dogged with life, go to the unfortunate young
man. He has turned to look at her; he is not able to look away.
Scornful One
[Nervously.] Are you a stenographer?
Cheated One
[Not interested in this.] No.
[In her dogged way she advances upon the Prisoner. He is afraid. She
sits down close to him, as if to cut off escape.
Motherly One
[Low.] I wonder if she is here.
Scornful One
I wonder.
Shielded One
[With an effort bringing herself and the others back to her.] But don’t turn
against me because I’m not this particular woman. What a detail that is. I

am—those victims of men’s dreadful—[Turns away her face] need for
nobility. I’d rather die than go back to it! Help me to lead another life!
Scornful One
[Fervently.] We must lift her up.
Motherly One
We will find a place for her in the great good world outside the shielded
life.
Shielded One
Then you others go, and I will stay.
[Motherly One and Scornful One rise and move to the door.
Silly One
I will give my life for yours, my sister!
Scornful One
No you won’t. I’ll have nothing to do with saving you. You deserve nothing
better than woman’s honor. Come with us.
[But at the door these three stand looking back at the Cheated One.
Scornful One
[Moving down to her.] Aren’t you coming with us?
Cheated One
[Without raising her eyes.] No.
Scornful One
Why not?
Cheated One
I shall stay.
Motherly One
Perhaps she is here. And if “she” is here—then we have not the right to
leave her.

[Indicating the Shielded One.
Scornful One
[To Cheated One.] Tell us: are you the woman Gordon Wallace was with on
the night of October 25?
Cheated One
Yes.
Motherly One
Of course we’ve all said that.
Scornful One
But she says it in a different way.
Motherly One
[To Shielded One.] I am afraid that you will have to leave with us. It seems
she has the right.
[These four move to the door.
Shielded One
[Thinking of it just in time.] But do you think she has the right just because
she is the one?
[To consider this, they go back and sit down.
Silly One
Leave me!
Scornful One
[Wickedly inspired.] Suppose we do! You know, I like the idea. Why—the
more I think about it—the better I like it. [To the other women.] Yes, come!
[To the young man.] This is the lady you were going to die for!
Shielded One
[Distressed.] But, no! What can it do for her? And how, through her, can we
reach my poor sisters smothered under woman’s honor? I insist upon it! I
am the one!

Cheated One
[Suddenly turning upon her.] You are not the one!
Motherly One
Now I think, to avoid feeling between you two, I had better stay. I’m a
nurse, and a mother, and I keep coming back to the idea these things are
needed.
Scornful One
No, you have too many other things to do. I am the one to remain. I am—
peculiarly fitted for it.
Shielded One
You are not fitted for it at all. There is no one less fitted for it than you.
Scornful One
How do you make that out?
Shielded One
You don’t need it. Woman’s honor never hurt you.
Scornful One
[Reluctantly accepting this. To Prisoner.] Are you acquainted with this
woman?
[Indicates Cheated One.
Prisoner
No.
Scornful One
Then why are you so afraid of her?
Prisoner
I’m not—
[But he is forced to meet the smoldering eye of the Cheated One; he
cannot look away.
Shielded One

[Almost in tears.] But you were going to help me lead a better life. And now
you stand here quibbling over a petty question of fact, when the whole great
question of escape from woman’s honor is at stake! Oh, is it true that
women will not help one another? That they are hard and self-seeking?
[She breaks down; Motherly One goes to comfort her.
Silly One
My heart is full—
Scornful One
Your heart is full of a simpering parrot!
[The Lawyer returns.
Lawyer
Ladies—ladies—quarreling? I’m sorry to find you in this mood. I had
hoped while you were here together you might—arrive at some
understanding.
Scornful One
[To Silly One.] I wish you’d go home. We might arrive at something if we
didn’t have you on our backs.
Lawyer
Now why must women always dislike each other?
Motherly One
[In her motherly way.] If I were you I’d try not to talk much.
Lawyer
Why not?
Scornful One
She has a kind heart. Now I—I’d let you talk.
Lawyer
Sometimes it seems quite as well not to try to follow women.
Scornful One

Sometimes even better.
Lawyer
Well now, Ladies, let us drop personal dissentions for the moment. This
unfortunate young man, Mr. Wallace, is much moved by your generosity.
He had made up his mind to die for woman’s honor. Now it seems he is not
to do so—a change of plan to which he has not yet adjusted himself. His
perturbation makes him unequal to selecting the lady who was with him on
the night of October 25. [Door swings, Prisoner looks around nervously.]
So—I would like to get your feeling. Since it seems unnecessary for all of
you to have been with the young man on the night of October 25—
[Again door swings.
Prisoner
[In a rasped voice.] Could that door be closed? It makes me—nervous.
[Motherly Woman closes the door.
Lawyer
Now, doubtless you will agree with me that we should always eliminate
waste. If a woman’s honor is to be sacrificed, may I without indelicacy
inquire who would sacrifice least?
Shielded One
[Firmly.] I would.
Lawyer
[Weakly.] You would?
Cheated One
[In a voice dull as destiny.] The rest of you can talk as long as you like. I
shall stay.
[She rises and takes firm hold of the unfortunate young man’s chair.
Lawyer
Well, there seems something final about that.
Motherly One

Tell us, are you the one?
Cheated One
I am the one to stay.
Scornful One
Now, don’t cheat. Tell us, are you—
Cheated One
[Passion flaming through sullenness.] Cheat? Cheat? You say to me, don’t
cheat? I don’t cheat. I’ve been cheated. Cheated out of my chance to have a
man I wanted by a man who would have what he wanted. Then he saved my
woman’s honor. Married me and cheated me out of my life. I’m just
something to be cheated. That’s the way I think of myself. Until this
morning. Until I read about Gordon Wallace. Then I saw a way to get away
from myself. It’s the first thing I ever wanted to do that I’ve done. You’ll
not cheat me out of this. Don’t you try!
Shielded One
But she is thinking of it in just a personal way.
Cheated One
That’s why I stay.
Shielded One
But think of my poor sisters! All those unfortunate women—
Cheated One
The only unfortunate woman I’ll think about is myself.
Shielded One
[Wildly.] You hear her? The only unfortunate woman she’ll think about—
Motherly One
[Approaching Cheated One.] Now we really must ask you—
Silly One
Love is so beautiful!

Scornful One
You can’t cheat just because you’ve been cheated.
Cheated One
[Inflamed—incoherent.] You say cheat to me again? You say cheat to—
Lawyer
[Stepping in to pacify.] Ladies—ladies. Surely there must be a way out of
the difficulty. Perhaps we can work out some way to—
Scornful One
To save both of them through Gordon Wallace!
[All women except Cheated One draw together excitedly. The Prisoner,
who has rapidly been approaching the breaking point makes a move
as if he must try to escape. The Cheated One is watching the other
women.
Scornful One
Here! Yes! On the night of October 25—
[Their heads together in low-voiced conference with Lawyer. Suddenly
the Prisoner slips around the Cheated One—trying now not to be
cheated of what is being said—and makes for the door. It opens in
his face, and the doorway is blocked by a large and determined
woman. Prisoner staggers back to Lawyer’s arms.
Prisoner
Oh, hell. I’ll plead guilty.
(Curtain)

BERNICE
A PLAY IN THREE ACTS

First Performed by the Provincetown Players,
New York,
March 21, 1919.

ORIGINAL CAST

Mr. Allen, Bernice’s Father O. K. Liveright
Abbie Susan Glaspell
Craig Norris, Bernice’s Husband James K. Light
Laura (Mrs. Kirby), Craig’s Sister Blanche Hays
Margaret Pierce, Bernice’s Friend Ida Rauh

BERNICE
ACT ONE

Scene: The living-room of Bernice’s house in the country. You feel yourself
in the house of a woman you would like to know, a woman of sure and
beautiful instincts, who lives simply. At the spectator’s right, stairs go up
from the living room; back of this—right, rear, a door; to the front of the
stairs is a narrowed passage as of a hall leading to the kitchen. On the
other side of the room, is a tea-table before the fireplace, and before it is a
low rounded chair, as if awaiting the one who will come to serve tea.
Toward the rear of this left wall is a door. This door is closed. From the
back of the room French windows lead directly out of doors. On each side
of this door is a window thus opening almost the entire wall to the October
woods. There are comfortable seats under the windows, books about. It is
late afternoon and the sun glows through the flaming leaves. As the curtain
is drawn the Father is seen sitting at a long table at the side of the stairway,
playing solitaire. At the back of the cards, open books are propped against
the wall, and papers on which he has been writing. Abbie, a middle-aged
servant, is attending to the open fire.
Father
[Holding up a card he is about to place.] Ten minutes since the train
whistled. They’ll be here in five minutes now.
Abbie
Yes, sir.
Father
It will be hard for Craig to come in this house, Abbie.
Abbie
Oh, yes.
Father

Bernice made this house. [Looking around.] Everything is Bernice. [A
pause.] Change something, Abbie! [With growing excitement.] Put
something in a different place. [He takes a pillow from the seat under the
window, holds it irresolutely a moment, puts it on the floor at the side of the
fireplace. On the other side he moves a high vase from the window. Then
helplessly.] Well, I don’t know. You can’t get Bernice out of this room. The
tea-table! Come, Abbie, quick! We will take this out of the room. [Together,
Abbie reluctant, they move it to the passage-way leading out from the
living-room. The Father comes back and sees the chair, now without its
table. He goes as if to move it, but cannot do this; looks old and broken as
he faces the closed door.] I wish they’d left Bernice upstairs, Abbie, in her
own room. Now there—so near the living-room—right off the living-room.
[Hastily goes back to his cards, but in an instant he brushes them together
and pulls the open book toward him, and papers; but he only rests his hand
on the book.] There’ll be only Craig and his sister on this train, Abbie.
Abbie
That’s all I know of.
Father
But Margaret Pierce will be here soon. As soon as she can get here,
Margaret will come. Within an hour, probably.
Abbie
[Apprehensive.] You think so, sir?
Father
I think so. That train from the West got to the Junction at three. I have a
feeling Margaret won’t wait for the five o’clock train to get here. She’ll get
a car. [Abbie goes to the door and looks out.] It would save a little time, and
—she doesn’t know that Bernice—Yes, Margaret will get here the quickest
way. She always came to Bernice when Bernice needed her.
Abbie
She doesn’t need anyone now.
Father

No. But yes—in a way, she does. She needs some one to be here to do what
she can’t go on doing. Margaret will see that—when she knows. Margaret
sees everything.
Abbie
[Frightened now.] You think so, sir?
Father
Oh, yes, she does. Bernice knew that. “Margaret sees things,” I’ve heard
Bernice say. [Abbie turns from him.] Now Mrs. Kirby, Craig’s sister Laura,
she’s a sensible woman, she’ll be a help to you, Abbie, in—arranging
things. But see things? No. How different people are. They’re all different,
Abbie. I don’t think Bernice cared much for Laura—though she didn’t mind
her. She’d just laugh about Laura—about her being so sure of everything. It
was nice, Abbie, the way Bernice would just laugh about things. She had no
malice.
Abbie
[Strangely intense.] No. She didn’t have, did she?
Father
Oh, no, Abbie. Malice wasn’t in her. It was just that a good many things—
well, the things that are important to most people weren’t so important to
Bernice. It was another set of things were important. People called her
detached. But—I don’t know. Maybe they’re detached, Abbie. Maybe it’s
Laura Kirby, the sensible woman, who’s detached,—Bernice would have
laughed at that—the practical person who’s detached, and Bernice.... You
know what I mean, Abbie?
Abbie
I think I do—knowing her.
Father
To you—did she seem detached?
Abbie
[Tenderly thinking it out.] She was loving, and thoughtful, and gay. But
always a little of what she is now—[Faces the closed door] off by herself.

[With that intensity the present moment does not account for.] You can’t
expect to understand a person who is “off by herself.” Now can you?
Father
I understood Bernice. Except, there were things—outside what I
understood.
Abbie
[Eagerly.] That’s it. And we should take what we had, shouldn’t we, and not
try to reach into—to where we didn’t go.
Father
I suppose that’s true, Abbie. [Buries his face.] I wish my little girl hadn’t
died. What am I going to do, Abbie? How can I stay here? And how can I
go away? We should die in our proper order; I should have gone before my
daughter. Anything else makes confusion. There’s not going to be anybody
to laugh at me now, Abbie. I’ll miss the way Bernice laughed at me, a laugh
that took me in and—yes, took me in. She laughed at my spending the
whole time of the war studying Sanscrit. Well, why shouldn’t I? What can
the old do about war? I had my vision of life. If that had been followed
there’d have been no war. But in a world that won’t have visions—why not
study Sanscrit while such a world is being made over—into another such
world. [Listening.] You hear some one, Abbie?
Abbie
[After listening.] It didn’t turn in.
Father
And you, Abbie. [With wonder.] Why you were with us when Bernice was
born.
Abbie
Yes, I was—in the room the night she was born. The night she died I
thought of the night she was born.
Father
That was—how long ago, Abbie?
Abbie

Thirty-five years ago.
Father
Was Bernice thirty-five years old? She was, Abbie—my little girl? Well, life
moves by—and we hardly know it’s moving. Why, Abbie, your whole life
has been lived around Bernice. [Abbie nods.] It will be now as if things had
—fallen apart. And it was the main thing in your life—doing things for her.
Abbie
[With excitement.] Yes, it was the main thing in my life—doing what she
wanted. I couldn’t do anything else now, could I?
Father
[A little surprised at her agitation, but not thinking about it.] Why, no. Now
some one is coming, Abbie. You hear them coming?
Abbie
I think so. [She goes to the door.] Yes.
[Abbie opens the door and Laura and Craig come in. Craig holds back
as if to enter this house is something he can scarcely make himself
do; he does not look around the room.
Laura
[To the Father, taking his hand.] This is so hard for you, Mr. Allen. I cannot
tell you—[Turning to Abbie] Abbie.
Father
[Going to Craig, who is still at the door.] Well, Craig. [The Father holds
out his hand, Craig takes it.] Well, I don’t know what we’re going to do
without her.
Laura
[Coming to the rescue with the practical.] And where are you going to put
us, Abbie?
Abbie
I have the rooms ready upstairs.

Craig
[As if he cannot do this.] Upstairs?
Abbie
[In a low voice.] She is down here, sir.
[She indicates the closed door. Then takes Laura’s bag and they start
upstairs. Craig does not move.
Laura
[On the stairway.] Aren’t you coming up, Craig, to get clean and rest a
little?
Craig
In a minute or two. [He sits down—on the edge of a chair near the door.
The Father and husband sit there silent.] Bernice—hadn’t been sick long,
had she?
Father
No, it was very sudden. You know she had had trouble occasionally in the
past year; Dr. Willis had said she might have to go to the hospital. At first
this seemed like that—so Abbie and I weren’t really alarmed. Of course we
sent for Willis, but he was in Boston. Young Stuart had the grip. So there
was no doctor here—till afterwards.
Craig
And—how long was Bernice sick?
[He speaks with difficulty.
Father
She spoke of feeling badly on Tuesday. She was lying down most of that
day. Wednesday—she didn’t get up at all Wednesday. And she died late
Wednesday night. [Emotion breaking through.] Abbie and I were here all
alone!
Craig
Did she say—Did she leave—Well, we can talk of that later.
Father

[Changing to something not so hard to speak of.] You landed last week?
Craig
Yes, I was held in New York by things to do. [A glance at the Father.] Of
course, if I had had any idea—
Father
Of course.
Craig
But Bernice wrote me she was fine.
Father
She seemed so. She was well and—seemed very happy here this fall. You
know how she loves to tramp the woods in the fall. She was counting on
your coming home. She had done over your room upstairs. And hers too.
They both look so nice and fresh. And she was just starting to do some
things to Margaret’s room. Margaret was coming next month for a rest.
She’s been working very hard.
Craig
Are you expecting Margaret now?
Father
Yes. Wednesday evening Bernice seemed to want Margaret to come. She
thought maybe Margaret could get away now, and that it would do her good
too. She had been worrying about her—thinking she was working too hard.
Margaret’s been in Chicago, you know, working on some labor things—I
never know just what it is she is doing. Bernice seemed to want to see her. I
wonder if Bernice herself felt it was more than we knew. Anyway, she
wanted us to send for Margaret.
Craig
But you didn’t send for me until—until it was over.
Father
No. You see we didn’t know—Abbie and I didn’t have any idea—I spoke of
sending for you when we sent the telegram for Margaret, but Bernice said

you’d be here soon anyway, and she didn’t want to hurry you away from
New York. [As if not understanding it himself, and trying to find an
explanation.] I suppose you were doing something that she knew about, and
didn’t want to interrupt.
[Craig half looks at him.
Craig
And Margaret answered that she was coming?
Father
Yes, we heard from her Thursday morning that she had started. She could
get here today. We didn’t know where to reach her telling her it was too late
now for—for the visit with Bernice. [Breaking.] I just can’t believe it!
Think of what you and I are talking about! Bernice, out of life. She was so
—of it. Didn’t you feel that, Craig—about Bernice?
Craig
Yes. She seemed so—secured. It never seemed anything could—destroy
Bernice.
Father
When I think she won’t come down those stairs again!
Craig
I can’t—think of things that way now.
Father
No. No, of course not. [He does not know what to say, so gathers together
his cards, then books.] I’ll just—I was just going in my room. [Pause.] I’ve
been getting on fine with my Sanscrit, Craig.
Craig
That’s good.
Father
And now the war is over, and some of the people who fussed around about
it influenced it as little as I, and I—have my Sanscrit. You know, Bernice

used to laugh at me, Craig. She—the way she used to laugh at us—lovingly.
Seems to me I’ll miss that most of all.
[He goes into his room—through the door to the rear of the stairway.
[Alone in the room, Craig tries to look around. He cannot. He has taken
a step toward the closed door when he hears Abbie’s step on the
stairs.
Craig
[Impetuously going to her, his hands out.] Abbie, you were good to her.
[Takes her hands, holds them tight. Then changing.] Why didn’t you
telegraph me when she was taken sick? [Violently.] Do you think there was
anything in New York I wouldn’t have left? Bernice knew that if she needed
me—She never seemed to need me. I never felt she—couldn’t get along
without me. [Taking a few stumbling steps toward the room where Bernice
is.] Oh, I wish I could have a talk with her.
Abbie
Mr. Norris! [Her tone halts him.] There’s something I must tell you.
Craig
A—message she left?
Abbie
Message? No. Yes—perhaps. Before you go in there I must tell you—
[They are arrested by the sound of a stopping car; neither moves; in a
moment Margaret Pierce hurries in.
Margaret
[After looking at them.] She’s worse? [Growing more and more alarmed by
them.] Where is she?
[Starts towards the stairs.
Abbie
No—there.
[Pointing.

Craig
[Stepping between Margaret and the closed door.] She’s dead, Margaret.
Margaret
Dead? Oh—no. Not Bernice. [Waits imploringly.] But that couldn’t be.
Craig
I know. I know what you mean, Margaret.
[It seems Margaret is about to fall; Craig brings a chair; without taking
a step she sinks to it, facing the closed door. Abbie turns and goes
out, toward the kitchen.
Margaret
[A slight quick turn of her head to him.] I don’t believe it!
Craig
It’s true, Margaret.
Margaret
[Like blood from her heart.] But Bernice—she was life.
Craig
I know—what you mean.
Margaret
[After much has gone on in her.] And I wasn’t here!
Craig
No. Nor I.
Margaret
[A moment later, just having taken this in.] Why weren’t you here?
Craig
I didn’t know she was sick.
Margaret
Your boat got in a week ago.

Craig
Yes. I was detained in New York.
Margaret
Detained by May Fredericks?
Craig
Margaret! Bernice wouldn’t want you to talk that way to me—now.
Margaret
No.
Craig
Why, she knew it. Bernice knew I was staying out on Long Island with
them while I was attending to some things about my work. I had a beautiful
letter from Bernice. She was perfectly all right—about everything. And I
was anxious now to get home to her. I was getting ready to start the very
day I got the telegram that—that it was like this. You mean—you think I
didn’t make Bernice happy, Margaret?
Margaret
Oh, I don’t think you had the power to make her very unhappy.
Craig
That’s a cruel thing to say, Margaret. Bernice wouldn’t say that to me.
Margaret
[Who is all the while looking straight ahead at the closed door.] No.
Craig
She understood me.
Margaret
And was indulgent.
Craig
[After a pause.] Margaret, did you ever feel you didn’t really get to
Bernice?

Margaret
Get to her? So far as I had power. She never held me back. Life broke
through her—a life deeper than anything that could happen to her.
Craig
Yes, that’s it. Something you couldn’t destroy. A life in her deeper than
anything that could be done to her. That—that makes a difference,
Margaret. I never had Bernice.
Margaret
Oh, wasn’t it wonderful to you that beneath what you “had” was a life too
full, too rich to be had? I should think that would flow over your life and
give it beauty.
Craig
I suppose a man’s feeling is different. He has to feel that he moves—
completely moves—yes, could destroy—not that he would, but has the
power to reshape the—
Margaret
Craig! “Reshape” Bernice! [In anguish.] Oh, I came to see her. Not to sit
here talking to you.
Craig
I loved her, Margaret. I valued her—even though her life wasn’t made by
my life. And she loved me. You think she didn’t?
Margaret
No, Craig, I don’t think she didn’t. I know she did. I was thinking of those
things in her—even greater than loving. Those things in her even loving
never—caught.
Craig
Yes. I know, Margaret.
Margaret
I want to see Bernice!
[Crying she goes blindly toward the closed door, and to Bernice.

[A second time left alone in the room, Craig now looks at those various
things with which he and Bernice have lived. When he can no longer
do this he goes to the passage way at the front of the staircase.
Craig
Abbie! [After a moment’s wait Abbie comes slowly in.] When Miss
Margaret came, you were about to tell me something. My wife—left a
message for me?
Abbie
Yes. No—I don’t know. [Wildly.] She killed herself!
Craig
[Falling back.] What—are—you—saying?
Abbie
She—did it herself. Took her life. Now I’ve told you! You know now!
Craig
[Roughly taking hold of her.] What’s this you’re saying? What’s this lie
you’re trying to—[Letting go of her—in horror, imploringly.] Abbie! Tell
me it isn’t true.
Abbie
It’s true. I’m telling you. It’s true. She—didn’t want to live any longer—so
she took something—ended her life. That’s all. That’s all I can tell you.
Nobody knows. Not her father—nobody. I thought I ought to tell you. Now
I’ve told you! Let me go. I’ve told you—I—
[She breaks from him and rushes out. Craig does not move. Margaret
comes from Bernice, without looking at Craig, opens the door to go
outside.
Craig
[Scarcely able to call to her.] Margaret.
Margaret
[Not turning.] I’ll be back soon.

Craig
[Wildly.] You can’t go away leaving me alone with this! I tell you I can’t
stand it. You’re going to the woods to think of Bernice! Well I’ll tell you
one thing. You never knew Bernice. You thought she didn’t love me. You
think I didn’t matter. But Bernice killed herself because she loved me so!
Margaret
What—are—you—saying?
Craig
Abbie just told me. No one knows. Not her father—only Abbie.
Margaret
It is not true.
Craig
Yes. Abbie was with her. Oh, Margaret, she loved me like that.
Margaret
And you killed her!
Craig
No—Oh, don’t say that! I didn’t know.
Margaret
[After trying to take it in.] I knew Bernice. She was life. She came from the
whole of life. You are asking me to believe that because of—some little
thing in her own life—
Craig
But it wasn’t a little thing. That’s what we didn’t know. I was everything to
Bernice. More than all that life we felt—[Some one is heard above.] I think
Laura’s coming down. Laura mustn’t know. I had to have you know.
Nobody else. Not Laura.
Laura
[On the stairs.] Oh, Margaret, you have come?
Margaret

I was just going out. [As Laura comes nearer.] I’m going to take a walk!
[She goes out.
Laura
[Looking after her.] Take a walk. She always does some strange thing.
[Craig has sunk to a chair, his back to Laura.] Why should she rush away
like this, as if it were so much harder for her to stay in this house than for
anyone else? [Craig, bowed, covers his face with his hands.] Has she been
trying to make you feel badly, Craig? [She goes up to him and puts a hand
on his bent shoulder.] Don’t let her do that. It isn’t true. It isn’t as if Bernice
were—like most women. There was something—aloof in Bernice. You saw
it in her eyes; even in her smile. Oh, I thought she was wonderful, too.
Only, it isn’t as if Bernice—
Craig
If you think she didn’t love me, you’re wrong!
Laura
Oh—Craig! Love you, of course. Only—things that might have hurt
another woman—
Craig
How do we know who’s hurt? Who isn’t? Who loves—who doesn’t love?
Don’t talk, Laura.
[She stands there beside him; the Father, coming in, at first sees only
Laura.
Father
I must have dropped the ten of diamonds. [Seeing Craig.] Of course. Of
course. I try not to think of it. My little girl. She loved life so. Always. From
the time she was a baby she did rejoice so in the world.
[He stands looking at the closed door. Abbie comes in; looks at Craig,
hesitates, then slowly crosses the room and takes the traveling-bag
he brought in when he came; another look at his bowed head, then,
herself bowed, starts up the stairs.
(Curtain)

ACT TWO

Scene: As in Act One, save that it is evening now; the reading lamp is
lighted, and candles. Laura is sitting before the fire knitting. Abbie is
standing at the foot of the stairs, as if Laura had called to her as she came
down.
Laura
But he took the tray, did he, Abbie?
Abbie
He let me leave it.
Laura
And how did he seem?
Abbie
I didn’t see his face. And he didn’t say anything.
Laura
He wasn’t like that until Margaret Pierce came. How long was Mrs. Norris
sick, Abbie? [As she asks this the outer door opens and Margaret comes
in.] Been out looking at the stars, Margaret? Aren’t they bright up here in
the hills?
Margaret
I—I didn’t see them.
[She looks at Abbie, who is looking at her. Abbie turns away from
Margaret’s look.
Laura
I was asking you—how long was Mrs. Norris sick, Abbie?
Abbie
Two days.
Laura

And just what did the doctor say was the matter?
Abbie
The doctor wasn’t here.
[She steals a glance at Margaret, who is all the while looking at her.
Laura
I know. But afterwards—what was his opinion?
Abbie
Attacks like she had had before—only worse. Ulcers in the stomach, he
thought it was.
Laura
It’s a great pity you couldn’t get a doctor. That’s the worst of living way up
here by one’s self. Mrs. Norris had seemed well, hadn’t she?
Abbie
Yes, except once in a while; the doctor had said that she ought to go to the
hospital to find out.
Margaret
[To Laura.] Too bad Craig wasn’t here.
Laura
Yes. He was detained in New York.
Margaret
Yes. I know.
Laura
Abbie, I wish you would go up and ask Mr. Norris if he would like some
more coffee and—see how he seems. [To Margaret, resentfully.] I don’t
understand why Craig should be quite like this. [Abbie does not move until
Laura looks at her in surprise, then she turns to go.] No; I’ll go myself,
Abbie. I want to see how he is.
[She goes up, and Abbie comes back. Without looking at Margaret she is
turning toward the kitchen.

Margaret
Abbie! [Reluctantly Abbie comes back, at first not looking up. Then she
raises her eyes.] Yes, he told me. [Abbie does not speak or move.] Had she
seemed unhappy, Abbie?
Abbie
No. No, I hadn’t noticed anything.
Margaret
Abbie! Don’t shut me out like this! She wouldn’t shut me out. Bernice
loved me.
Abbie
I know. I know she did. But there’s nothing for me to tell you, Miss
Margaret, and it’s hard for me to talk about. I loved her too. I lived with her
her whole life long. First the baby I took care of and played with—then all
the changing with the different years—then this—
[A move of her hands towards the closed door.
Margaret
Yes—then this. [Gently.] That’s it, Abbie. “This”—takes away from all that.
Abbie, do you understand it? If you do, won’t you help me?
Abbie
I don’t understand it.
Margaret
It’s something so—outside all the rest. That’s why I can’t accept it.
Something in me just won’t take it in—because it isn’t right. I knew her. I
know I knew her! And this—Why then I didn’t know her. Can’t you help
me?
Abbie
I don’t see how, Miss Margaret.
Margaret
But if you would tell me things you know—little things—even though they
meant nothing to you they might mean something to me. Abbie! Because

you loved her don’t you want what she was to go on living in our hearts?
Abbie
Oh, I do! I do! But she’ll go on living in my heart without my
understanding what she did.
Margaret
But differently. I’ll tell you what I mean. Everything about her has always
been—herself. That was one of the rare things about her. And herself—oh,
it’s something you don’t want to lose! It’s been the beauty in my life. In my
busy practical life, Bernice—what she was—like a breath that blew over
my life and—made it something.
Abbie
I know—just what you mean, Miss Margaret.
Margaret
It’s inconceivable that she should—cut off her own life. In her lived all the
life that was behind her. You felt that in her—so wonderfully. She felt it in
herself—or her eyes couldn’t have been like that. Could they? Could they,
Abbie?
Abbie
It—wouldn’t seem so.
Margaret
She wouldn’t destroy so much. Why she never destroyed anything—a
flower—a caterpillar. Don’t you see what I mean, Abbie? This denies so
much. And then is it true that all this time she wasn’t happy? Why she
seemed happy—as trees grow. Did Mr. Norris make her unhappy? Oh, don’t
think you shouldn’t talk about it. Don’t act as if I shouldn’t ask. It’s too big
for those little scruples. Abbie! I can’t let Bernice’s life go out in darkness.
So tell me—just what happened—each little thing. [Margaret has taken
hold of Abbie; Abbie has turned away.] When did you first know she had—
taken something? Just what did she say to you about it? I want to know
each little thing! I have a right to know.
[A step is heard above.

Abbie
[As if saved.] Mrs. Kirby’s coming down now.
Margaret
I want to talk to you, Abbie, after the others have gone to bed.
[Laura comes down, Abbie passes her at the foot of the stairs, and goes
through to the kitchen.
Laura
Margaret, what is to be gained in making people feel worse than they need?
Craig upstairs—he’s so broken—strange. And even Abbie as she passed me
now. You seem to do this to them. And why?
Margaret
I don’t do it to them. I’m not very happy myself.
Laura
Of course not. None of us can be that. But I believe we should try to bear
things with courage.
Margaret
That comes easily from the person who’s bearing little!
Laura
You think it means nothing to me that my brother has lost his wife?
Margaret
Your brother has lost his wife! That’s all you see in it!
Laura
I don’t see why you seem so wild—so resentful, Margaret. Death should
soften us.
[She takes her old place before the fire.
Margaret
Well I can tell you this doesn’t soften me!
Laura

I see that you feel hard toward Craig. But Bernice didn’t. You think he
should have come right home. But you must be just enough to admit he
didn’t have any idea Bernice was going to be taken suddenly sick. He had
been out of the country for three months, naturally there were things
connected with his writing to see about.
Margaret
Connected with his writing! Laura! Don’t lie about life with death in the
next room. If you want to talk at a time like this, have the decency to be
honest! Try to see the truth about living. Craig stayed in New York with
May Fredericks—and he doesn’t pretend anything else. Stayed there with
May Fredericks, continuing an affair that has been going on for the past
year. And before it was May Fredericks it was this one and that one. Well,
all right. That may be all right. I’m not condemning Craig for his affairs.
I’m condemning you for the front you’re trying to put up!
Laura
I certainly am not trying to put up any front. It’s merely that there seems
nothing to be gained in speaking of certain things. If Craig was—really
unfaithful, I do condemn him for that. I haven’t your liberal ideas. [Slight
pause, she takes up her knitting.] It’s unfortunate Bernice hadn’t the power
to hold Craig.
Margaret
Hadn’t the power to hold Craig!
Laura
She didn’t want to—I suppose your scoffing means. Well, she should have
wanted to. It’s what a wife should want to do.
Margaret
Oh, Laura, Bernice will never say one more word for herself! In there.
Alone. Still. She will not do one new thing to—to throw a light back on
other things. That’s death. A leaving of one’s life. Leaving it—with us. I
cannot talk to you about what Bernice “should have been.” What she was
came true and deep from—[Throwing out her hands as if giving up saying
it. Taking it up again.] It’s true there was something in her Craig did not
control. Something he couldn’t mess up. There was something in her he

might have drawn from and become bigger than he was. But he’s vain. He
has to be bowling some one over all the time—to show that he has power.
Laura
I don’t agree with you that Craig is especially vain. He’s a man. He does
want to affect—yes, dominate the woman he loves. And if Bernice didn’t
give him that feeling of—
Margaret
Supremacy.
Laura
There’s no use trying to talk with you of personal things. Certainly I don’t
want to quarrel tonight. That would not be the thing. [In a new tone.] How
is your work going? I don’t quite know what you are doing now, but trying
to get some one out of prison, I suppose?
Margaret
Yes; I am trying to get out of prison all those people who are imprisoned for
ideas.
Laura
I see.
Margaret
I doubt if you see, Laura.
Laura
Well I don’t say I sympathize. But I see.
Margaret
No; for if you did see, you would have to sympathize. If you did see, you
would be ashamed; you would have to—hang your head for this thing of
locking any man up because of what his mind sees. If thinking is not to
become—whatever thinking may become!—then why are we here at all?
[She stops and thinks of it.] Why does Bernice—her death—make that so
simple tonight? Because she was herself. She had the gift for being herself.

And she wanted each one to have the chance to be himself. Anything else
hurt her—as it hurt her to see a dog tied, or a child at a narrow window.
Laura
I don’t think Bernice was a very good wife for a writer.
Margaret
She would have been a wonderful wife for a real writer.
Laura
Oh, I know she didn’t value Craig’s work. And that’s another thing. And I
suppose you don’t value it either. [She looks at Margaret, who does not
speak.] Fortunately there are many thousands of people in this country who
do value it. And I suppose you think what I do of little value too. I suppose
you scoff at those things we do to put cripples back in life.
Margaret
No, Laura, I don’t scoff at anything that can be done for cripples. Since men
have been crippled, cripples must be helped. I only say—Don’t cripple
minds—strong free minds that might go—we know not where! Might go
into places where the light of a mind has never been. [Rising.] Think of it!
Think of that chance of making life even greater than death. [With passion.]
If you have any respect for life—any reverence—you have to leave the
mind free. I do not scoff at you, but you are not a serious person. You have
no faith—no hope—no self-respect!
Laura
[Rising.] You tell me I have no self-respect! You who have not cared what
people thought of you—who have not had the sense of fitness—the taste—
to hold the place you were born to—you tell me, against whom no word
was ever spoken, that I have no self-respect?
Margaret
You have a blameless reputation, Laura. You have no self-respect. If you
had any respect for your own mind you could not be willing to limit the
mind of any other. If you had any respect for your own spiritual life you
could not be willing to push your self into the spiritual life of another.
[Roughly.] No! You could not. [As one seeing far.] I see it as I never saw it.

Oh I wish I could talk to Bernice! Something is down. I could see things as
I never saw them.
Laura
[Gathering up the things she had been working with.] I will go before I am
insulted further.
Margaret
There’s nothing insulting in trying to find the truth. [Impulsively reaching
out her hands to Laura, as she is indignantly going.] Oh, Laura, we die so
soon! We live so in the dark. We never become what we might be. I should
think we could help each other more.
Laura
[After being a moment held.] It would have to be done more
sympathetically.
Margaret
I didn’t mean to be unsympathetic. [Watching Laura go up the stairs.] I
suppose that’s the trouble with me. [She stands a moment thinking of this.
Then there is something she wants to say. She knows then that she is alone
—and in this room. Slowly she turns and faces the closed door. Stands so,
quite still, realizing. Suddenly turns to the stairway, goes up a few steps.]
Craig! [Listens, then goes up another step and calls a little louder.] Craig!
Laura
[From above.] Please don’t disturb Craig, Margaret.
[Margaret hesitates, turns to go down. A door opens above.
Craig
Did some one call me?
Margaret
I did, Craig. I’m down here alone—lonely.
Craig
[As if glad to do so.] I’ll come down. [After coming.] I wanted to come
down. I thought Laura was down here. I can’t pretend—not tonight.

Margaret
No. I can’t. I wanted so to talk to Bernice, and when I couldn’t I—called to
you.
Craig
I was glad to hear my name. It’s too much alone. [He and Margaret stand
there hesitatingly, as if they are not able to do it—settle down in this room
and talk. Craig takes out his cigarette case. In the subdued voice of one
whose feeling is somewhere else.] You want a cigarette, Margaret?
Margaret
No. I don’t believe so.
Craig
Oh, I remember, you don’t like these. Bernice must have some of the—
[He opens a chest on the mantel, takes from it a beautiful little box.
Margaret
[As she sees the box.] Oh—[Turning away.] Thank you, Craig, but—
Craig
Of course. [Holds the box for a moment, then slowly replaces it. He looks
around the room. Then, helplessly.] I don’t know what I’m going to do.
[He sits down before the fire. Margaret also sits. The door at the other
side of the room opens and the Father comes in from his room.
Father
I was going to bed now. I thought I’d go in here first.
[Slowly goes in where Bernice is. A little while Craig and Margaret sit
there silent.
Craig
And I don’t know what he’s going to do. Poor old man. Bernice was
certainly good to him—keeping him happy in that life he made for himself
away from life. It’s queer about him, Margaret. Somehow he just didn’t go
on, did he? Made a fight in his youth, and stopped there. He’s one of the
wrecks of the Darwinian theory. Spent himself fighting for it, and—let it go

at that. [Running his hand through his hair.] Oh, well, I suppose we’re all
wrecks of something. [With a nervous laugh.] What are you a wreck of,
Margaret? You’re a wreck of free speech. [Impatiently.] I’m talking like a
fool. I’m nervous. I’ll be glad when he goes to bed. [Looking upstairs.] I
guess Laura’s gone to bed. [After looking into the fire.] Well, Bernice isn’t
leaving any children to—be without her. I suppose now it’s just as well we
lost our boy before we ever had him. But she would have made a wonderful
mother, wouldn’t she, Margaret?
Margaret
Oh, yes!
Craig
You ever wish you had children, Margaret?
Margaret
Yes.
Craig
[Roughly.] Well, why don’t you have?
Margaret
[Slowly.] Why, I don’t just know, Craig. Life—seems to get filled up so
quickly.
Craig
Yes. And before we know it, it’s all over—or as good as over. Funny—how
your mind jumps around. Just then I thought of my mother. How she used
to say: “Now eat your bread, Craig.”
[His voice breaks, he buries his face in his hands. Margaret reaches
over and puts a hand on his shoulder. The door opens and the
Father comes out. He stands looking at them.
Father
[Gently.] Yes. Of course. I’m glad you’re here Margaret. But my little girl
looks very peaceful, Craig. [Pause.] She had a happy life.

[Craig moves, turning a little away. Margaret makes a move as if to
shield him, but does not do this.
Father
Yes; she had a happy life. Didn’t she, Margaret?
Margaret
I always thought so.
Father
Oh, yes. She did. In her own way. A calm way, but very full of her own kind
of happiness. [After reflection.] Bernice was good to me. I suppose she
might have liked me to have done more things, but—she wanted me to do
what—came naturally to me. I suppose that’s why we always felt so—
comfortable with her. She was never trying to make us some—outside
thing. Well—you know, Margaret, I can see her now as a baby. She was
such a nice baby. She used to—reach out her hands. [Doing this himself.]
Well, I suppose they all do. I’m going to bed. [After starting.] I’m glad
you’re here with Craig, Margaret. Bernice would like this. You two who
know all about her—well, no, nobody knew all about Bernice—but you two
who were closest to her, here now as—close as you can be. I’m going to
bed. Good-night.
Margaret
[Crying.] Good-night.
Craig
[After the father has closed his door. With violence.] “Reached out her
hands!” And what did she get? [Roughly grasping Margaret’s wrists.] I
killed Bernice. There’s no use in your saying I didn’t. I did. Only—[Letting
go of her] don’t flay me tonight, Margaret. I couldn’t stand it tonight. [With
another abrupt change.] Am I a fool? Why did I never know Bernice loved
me like this? [In anguish.] Why wouldn’t I know it? [Pause.] We don’t
know anything about each other. Do we, Margaret? Nothing. We never—get
anywhere. [Shivering.] I’m cold. I wonder if there’s anything to drink in the
house. There must be something. [He goes out into the kitchen; after a
moment there is the sound of running water; he comes in with a bottle of
whiskey, a pitcher of water.] I don’t see the glasses. Things seem to have

been moved. [Looks at Margaret as if expecting she will go and get them;
she does not; he goes out again. From the kitchen.] Margaret, have you any
idea where the glasses are?
Margaret
No, Craig. I don’t know. [After hearing him moving things around.] Isn’t
Abbie somewhere there?
Craig
No; she isn’t here. She seems to have gone outdoors. She’s left the door
open too. No wonder it was cold. [Calling at an outer door.] Abbie! [Sound
of the door closing. Again the sound of dishes being moved.] Well, I don’t
know where they can have put—
Margaret
[Covering her face.] Don’t look for things. [More quietly.] Bring anything,
Craig, there must be something there.
Craig
[Coming in with cups.] Things have been moved around. I stumbled over
things that didn’t used to be there. You’ll have a little, Margaret? It—we
need something.
Margaret
I don’t—oh, I don’t care.
[He pours the drinks and drinks his.
Craig
[Abruptly shoving his cup away.] Margaret, I loved Bernice. I suppose you
don’t believe that! And I thought Bernice knew I loved her, in spite of—
other things. What do you think it is is the matter with me, Margaret, that I
—[Saying it as if raw] miss things. You can tell me. I’d be glad to feel some
one knew. Only—don’t leave me alone while you’re telling me!
Margaret
I’m afraid I have nothing to tell you, Craig. I thought I knew Bernice. And
now—I did know Bernice! [Gropingly.] I feel something we don’t get to.

Craig
And Bernice can’t help us.
Margaret
I think she would expect us to—find our way. She could always find her
way. She had not meant to leave us here. Bernice was so kind.
Craig
She was kind.
Margaret
Such a sensitive kindness. The kindness that divined feeling and was there
ahead—to meet it. This is the very thing she would not do.
Craig
[Slowly, as if feeling his way.] Margaret, I wish I could tell you about me
and Bernice. I loved her. She loved me. But there was something in her that
had almost nothing to do with our love.
Margaret
Yes.
Craig
Well, that isn’t right, Margaret. You want to feel that you have the woman
you love. Yes—completely. Yes, every bit of her!
Margaret
So you turned to women whom you could have.
Craig
Yes.
Margaret
But you “had” all of them simply because there was less to have. You want
no baffling sense of something beyond you. [He looks at her reproachfully.]
You wanted me to help you find the truth. I don’t believe you can stand
truth, Craig.
Craig

It’s hard tonight.
Margaret
[Intensely.] But perhaps it is tonight or not at all. It’s a strange thing this has
done. A light trying to find its way through a fog. [In her mind the light tries
to do this.] Craig, why do you write the things you do?
Craig
Oh, Margaret, is this any time to talk of work?
Margaret
It seems to be. Tonight it’s all part of the same thing. Laura and I were
talking of work—quarreling about it: you were talking of Bernice’s father.
The light—just goes there. That poor sad old man—why didn’t he go on?
You said he was a wreck of the Darwinian theory. Then me—a wreck of
free speech.
Craig
Oh I didn’t mean you were, Margaret.
Margaret
But I might be. I can see that. We give ourselves in fighting for a thing that
seems important and in that fight we get out of the flow of life. We had
meant it to deepen the flow—but we get caught. I know people like that.
People who get at home in their fight—and stay there—and are left there
when the fight’s over—like this old man. How many nights Bernice and I
have sat in this room and talked of things! And I had thought—[With
sudden angry passion.] If you had been good to her, she would be in this
room now. [After a look at him.] I’m sorry. But can I help feeling it?
Craig
I didn’t know.
Margaret
No; you didn’t know. We don’t know. When you think what a writer might
do for life—for we don’t know. You write so well, Craig, but—what of it?
What is it is the matter with you—with all you American writers—’most all
of you. A well-put-up light—but it doesn’t penetrate anything. It never

makes the fog part. Just shows itself off—a well-put-up light. [Growing
angry.] It would be better if we didn’t have you at all! Can’t you see that it
would? Lights which—only light themselves keep us from having light—
from knowing what the darkness is. [After thinking.] Craig, as you write
these things are there never times when you sit there dumb and know that
you are glib and empty?
Craig
Did you ever try to write, Margaret?
Margaret
No.
Craig
I suppose you think it’s very simple to be real. I suppose you think we could
do it—if we just wanted to do it. Try it. You try.
Margaret
So you do this just to cover the fact that you can’t do anything? Your skill—
a mask for your lack of power?
Craig
I should think you’d want to be good to me tonight, Margaret.
Margaret
Be good to you! Keep you from seeing. That’s the way we’re good to each
other. There’s only one thing I could do for you tonight, Craig. You don’t
want that. So—
[Moves as if to rise.
Craig
No, don’t go away. My brain won’t keep still either. What I think is just as
bad as what you say. Well, why do you think it is I—miss things—never get
anywhere?
Margaret
I don’t know. And it’s true of all of us. Of me too. I do things that to me
seem important, and yet I just do them—I don’t get to the thing I’m doing

them for—to life itself. I don’t simply and profoundly get to life. Bernice
did.
Craig
Yes. Bernice did.
Margaret
And yet you had to—shy away from Bernice. Into a smaller world that
could be all your world. No, Craig, you haven’t power. It’s true. And for
one hour in our lives let’s try to—Those love affairs of yours—they’re like
your false writing—to keep yourself from knowing you haven’t power. Did
you ever see a child try to do a thing—fail—then turn to something he
could do and make a great show of doing that? That’s what most of our
lives are like.
Craig
[Rudely.] Well, why haven’t I power? If you are going to be any good to me
—tell me that.
Margaret
[Shaking her head.] I can’t tell you that. I haven’t any light that—goes
there. But isn’t it true? Isn’t your life this long attempt to appear effective—
to persuade yourself that you are something? What a way to spend the little
time there is for living.
Craig
I fancy it’s the way most lives are spent.
Margaret
That only makes it infinitely sadder.
Craig
[As if he can stay in this no longer.] As to writing, Margaret, the things that
interest you wouldn’t interest most people.
Margaret
“Wouldn’t interest most people!” Oh, Craig, don’t slide away from that one
honest moment. Say you haven’t got it. Don’t say they wouldn’t want it.

Why, if now—in this our day—our troubled day of many shadows—came a
light—a light to reach those never lighted places—wouldn’t want it? I wish
some one could try them! No, Craig, they all have their times of suspecting
their lives are going by in a fog. They’re pitifully anxious for a little light.
Why—they continue to look to writers. You know, Craig, what living
makes of us—it’s a rim—a bounded circle—and yet we know—have our
times of suspecting—that if we could break through that. [Seeing.] O-h. It’s
like living in the mountains—those high vast places of Colorado—in a little
house with shaded windows. You’d suspect what was there! A little
sunshine through the cracks—mountain smells—and at times the house
would shake—and you’d wonder—and be fretted in your little room. And if
some day you could put up the shade and—see where you were. Life would
never be so small a thing again. Bernice could do that. Her own life did not
bound her.
Craig
No. That was what—
Margaret
Hurt your vanity?
Craig
I don’t know. I’m trying to be honest. I honestly don’t know.
Margaret
No. We don’t know. That’s why—oh, Craig, it would be so wonderful to be
a writer—something that gets a little farther than others can get—gets at
least the edge of the shadow. [After her own moment on the edge of the
shadow.] If you ever felt the shock of reality, and got that back in you—you
wouldn’t be thinking of whom it would “interest”! But, Craig—this. [A
movement toward the closed room.] Doesn’t this give you that shock of
reality?
Craig
What of you? Doesn’t it give it to you? You’re speaking as if this hadn’t
happened! You leave it out—what Bernice did because of me. You’re
talking of my having no power. What of this? Had I no power? [After her

look at him.] Oh, yes—I know I used it terribly—plenty of years for my
heart to break over that. But can you say I didn’t have it?
Margaret
I do leave it out. It isn’t right there should be anything in Bernice not
Bernice. And she had a great rightness—rightness without effort—that rare,
rare thing.
Craig
You say it isn’t right—and so you leave it out? And then you talk about the
shock of reality.
Margaret
I don’t say it isn’t fact. I say it isn’t—in the rightness.
Craig
“In the rightness!” Is that for you to say? Is rightness what you think? What
you can see? No. You didn’t know Bernice. You didn’t know she loved me
—that way. And I didn’t know. But she did! How could I have had that—
and not known? But I did have it! I did have it! You say life broke through
her—the whole of life. But Bernice didn’t want—the whole of life. She
wanted me. [He goes to the door, bows against it, all sorrow and need.] I
want to talk to her—not you. I want her now—knowing.
[He opens that door and goes in to Bernice. Margaret stands
motionless, searching, and as if something is coming to her from the
rightness. When she speaks it is a denial from that inner affirmation.
Margaret
No! I say—No! [Feeling some one behind her, swiftly turning she sees
Abbie outside, looking through the not quite drawn curtains of the door. She
goes to the door and draws Abbie in.] Yes, I am here—and I say no. [She
has hold of her, drawing her in as she says it.] You understand—I say no. I
don’t believe it. What you told me—I don’t believe it.
Abbie
[At first it is horror—then strange relief, as if nothing could be so bad as
this has been.] Well, I’m glad you know.

Margaret
[Very slowly, knowing now it is fact she has come to.] Glad I know what?
Abbie
That it isn’t true. That she didn’t do it.
Margaret
Didn’t do it? Did not take her own life?
Abbie
No. Of course she didn’t.
Margaret
[Still very slowly, as if much more is coming than she can take in.] Then
why—did you say she did?
Abbie
Because she said I must. Oh—look at me! Look at me! But you knew her.
You know the strength of her. If she’d told you the way she told me—you’d
have done it too. You would!
Margaret
[Saying each word by itself.] I can not understand one word you’re saying.
Something is wrong with you. [Changing, and roughly taking hold of
Abbie.] Tell me. Quick, the truth.
Abbie
Wednesday night, about eight o’clock, about an hour after she told me to
telegraph you, she said, “Why, Abbie, I believe I’m going to die.” I said no,
but she said, “I think so.” I said we’d send for Mr. Norris. She said no, and
not to frighten her father. I—I didn’t think she was going to die. All the time
I was trying to get the doctor. There were two hours when she was—quiet.
Quiet—not like any quiet I ever knew. Thinking. You could see thinking in
her eyes—stronger than sickness. Then, after ten, she called me to her. She
took my hands. She said, “Abbie, you’ve lived with me all my life.” “Yes,”
I said. “You love me.” “Oh, yes,” I said. “Will you do something for me?”
“You know I will,” I told her. “Abbie,” she said, looking right at me, all of
her looking right at me, “if I die, I want you to tell my husband I killed

myself.” [Margaret falls back.] Yes, I did that too. Then I thought it was
her mind. But I looked at her, and oh, her mind was there! It was terrible—
how it was all there. She said—and then she [The sobs she has been holding
back almost keep Abbie from saying this]—held out her hands to me—“Oh,
Abbie, do this last thing for me! After all there has been, I have a right to do
it. If my life is going—let me have this much from it!” And as still I
couldn’t—couldn’t—the tears ran down her face and she said, “I want to
rest before pain comes again. Promise me so I can rest.” And I promised.
And you would have too!
Margaret
You don’t know what you’re telling me! You don’t know what you’re
doing. You do this now—after she can do nothing? [Holding out her hands.]
Abbie! Tell me it isn’t true!
Abbie
It’s true.
Margaret
You are telling me her life was hate? [Stops, half turns to the room where
Craig is with Bernice.] You are telling me she covered hate with—with the
beauty that was like nothing else? Abbie! You are telling me that as Bernice
left life she held out her hands and asked you to take this back for her?
Abbie
There are things we can’t understand. There’s no use trying.
[She turns to go.
Margaret
You can’t leave me like this!
Abbie
[More gently.] You shouldn’t have tried to know. But—if you have got to
know things—you have got to take them.
[Craig comes out; Abbie goes.
Craig

Go in there, Margaret. There’s something wonderful there.
Margaret
[Turned from him, her face buried in her hands.] Oh no—no—no. I can
never go in there. I—I never was—in there.
[Her other words are lost in wild sobbing. He stands regarding her in
wonder, but not losing what he himself has found.
(Curtain)

ACT THREE

Scene: The same as in Acts One and Two; it is early afternoon of the next
day; the door leading outdoors is a little open; when the curtain is drawn
Craig is seen outside, just passing the window, as one who is walking back
and forth in thinking. In the room are Laura and the Father—the Father
sitting at the table by the stairs—Laura, standing, watches Craig pass the
door; she has in her hand a paper on which are some memoranda. After
watching Craig she sighs, looks at her notes, sits down.
Laura
I’m sorry to be troubling you, Mr. Allen. Certainly you should not be asked
to discuss these matters about—arrangements. But really, you and I seem
the only people who are capable of going on with things. I must say, I don’t
know what to make of everyone else. They all seem to be trying to—keep
away from one. I think that’s a little unnecessary. Of course I know what
grief does, and I’m sure I have every consideration for that, but really—I’m
sorry Craig keeps his own sister out. When I’m here to help him. And Abbie
—why she seems to have lost her head. Just when it’s so important that she
look after things. And as to Margaret Pierce—she certainly is worse than
useless. I don’t see what she came for if she didn’t want to be helpful.
Father
Margaret and Bernice were very dear friends, Laura.
Laura
Is that any reason for not being helpful in Bernice’s household at a time like
this? Really I do like control. [After looking at her notes.] Then the minister
will come here at three, Mr. Allen. Why that will be little more than an
hour! Think of things having been neglected like this! [As Craig, having
turned in his walk, is again passing the door.] Craig! [He steps to the door.]
The minister, Mr. Howe, will come here, Craig, at three.
Craig
What for?
Laura

Craig! What for?
Craig
I don’t see why he comes here. Why Bernice scarcely knew him. [To her
father.] Did Bernice know him?
Father
Well, I don’t know whether she knew him, but—
Laura
It is not a personal matter, Craig.
Craig
I think it is. Very personal.
Laura
You mean to say you are not going to have any service?
Craig
I haven’t thought anything about it. Oh, Laura! How can I think of such
things now?
Laura
Well, I will think of them for you, dear.
Craig
Don’t bring him here. He can go—[Stops] there, if he wants to. Where—we
have to go. Not here. In her own house. The very last thing.
Father
I’m afraid it will seem strange, Craig.
Craig
Strange? Do I care if it seems strange? Bernice seemed strange too. But she
wasn’t strange. She was wonderful. [Putting out his hand impatiently.] Oh,
no, Laura. There’s so much else to think of—now.
[He steps out of the door and stands there, his back to the room.
Father

[In a low voice.] I wonder—could we go somewhere else? Into my room,
perhaps. I’m afraid we are keeping Craig out of here. And I think he wants
to be here—near Bernice. We will be undisturbed in my room.
[He gets up and goes to the door of his room, Laura turns to follow.
Outside Craig passes from sight.
Laura
I think it’s too bad things have to be made so—complicated.
Father
[After opening the door.] Oh, Margaret is in here.
Margaret
[From the other room.] I was just going out. I just came in here to—
[Enters.] I just went in there—I didn’t think about it being your room.
Father
Why that was quite all right, Margaret. I’m only sorry to disturb you.
Margaret
No. That doesn’t matter. I—wasn’t doing anything.
Laura
There is a great deal to do.
[She follows the Father into his room. Margaret walks across the room,
walks back, stands still, head bent, hands pressing her temples.
Abbie comes part way down the stairs, sees Margaret, stands still
as if not to be heard, turns to go back upstairs.
Margaret
[Hearing her, looking up.] Abbie! [Abbie comes slowly down.] Where is he,
Mr. Norris? Where is he?
Abbie
I don’t know. He was here a little while ago. Perhaps he went out.
[Indicating the open door.

Margaret
I have to tell him!
Abbie
[After an incredulous moment.] Tell him what you made me tell you?
Margaret
Of course I have to tell him! You think I can leave that on him? And the
things I said to him—they were not just.
Abbie
And you’d rather be “just” than leave it as she wanted it?
Margaret
Oh, but Abbie—what she wanted—[Holds up her hand as if to shut
something from her eyes.] No. You can’t put that on anyone. I couldn’t live
—feeling I had left on him what shouldn’t be there.
Abbie
But you wouldn’t tell him now?
Margaret
I must tell him now. Or I won’t tell him. And I must go away. I can’t stay. I
can’t stay here.
Abbie
But what will they think—your leaving? You mean—before we’ve taken
her away?
Margaret
Oh, I don’t know. How can I—plan it out? I’m going as soon as I can tell
him. All night—all day—I’ve been trying to tell him—and when I get near
him—I run away. Why did you tell me?
Abbie
[Harshly.] Why did you know—what you weren’t to know? But if you have
some way of knowing what you aren’t told—you think you have the right to

do your thing with that? Undo what she did? What I did? Do you know
what it took out of me to do this? There’s nothing left of me.
Margaret
[With a laugh. Right on the verge of being not herself.] No. You’re a wreck.
Another wreck. It’s your Darwinian theory. Your free speech.
Abbie
Oh, I was afraid of you. I didn’t want you to come. I knew you’d—get to
things.
[Abbie goes to the door and looks out.
Margaret
He is out there?
Abbie
Yes.
[Margaret tries to go; moves just a little.] And you’d go to him and—what
for?
Margaret
Because I can’t live—leaving that on him—having him think—when I
know he didn’t. I can’t leave that on him one more hour.
Abbie
[Standing in the door to block her going.] And when you take that from him
—what do you give to him?
[They stare at one another; Margaret falls back.
Margaret
Don’t ask me to see so many things, Abbie. I can only see this thing. I’ve
grown afraid of seeing.
Abbie
[After looking at her, seeing something of her suffering.] Miss Margaret,
why did you do what you did last night? How did you know?

Margaret
I don’t know.
Abbie
But you knew.
Margaret
No. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. It didn’t come from me. It came—from
the rightness.
[A laugh.
Abbie
If you could get that without being told—why don’t you get more without
being told? [Margaret gives her a startled look.] For you will never be
told.
Margaret
You know more?
Abbie
No. My knowing stops with what you got from me last night. But I knew
her. I thought maybe, as you have some way of knowing what you aren’t
told, you could—see into this. See.
Margaret
I’ve lost my seeing. It was through her I saw. It was through Bernice I could
see. And now it’s dark. [Slowly turning toward the closed room.] Oh, how
still death is.
[The two women are as if caught into this stillness.
Abbie
[Looking from the door.] He turned this way. [Swiftly turning back to
Margaret.] But you couldn’t tell him.
Margaret
No, I can’t. Yes, I must! I tell you there’s something in me can’t stand it to
see any one go down under a thing he shouldn’t have to bear. Why that

feeling has made my life! Do you think I’ve wanted to do the kind of work I
do? Don’t you think I’d like to be doing—happier things? But there’s
something in my blood drives me to—what’s right.
Abbie
And something in my blood drives me to what’s right! And I went against it
—went against my whole life—so she could rest. I did it because I loved
her. But you didn’t love her.
Margaret
Oh—Abbie!
Abbie
Not as you love—what’s right. If you loved her, don’t you want to protect
her—now that she lies dead in there? [Her voice breaking.] Oh, Miss
Margaret, it was right at the very end of her life. Maybe when we’re going
to die things we’ve borne all our lives are things we can’t bear any longer.
Just—don’t count that last hour.
Margaret
[After a moment of being swayed by this.] Yet you counted it, Abbie. You
did what she said—because of the strength of her. You told me last night—
her mind was there. Terrible the way it was right there. She hadn’t left her
life.
Abbie
Well, and if she hadn’t left her life! If all those years with him there was
something she hid, and if she seemed to feel—what she didn’t feel. She did
it well, didn’t she?—and almost to the last. Shan’t we hide it now? For her?
You and me, who loved her—isn’t she safe—with us? [Going nearer
Margaret.] Perhaps if you would go in there now—
Margaret
Oh no—no.
Abbie
[In a last deeply emotional appeal.] Miss Margaret, didn’t she do a good
deal for you?

Margaret
Do a good deal for me? Yes. Yes!
Abbie
Yes. She did for me. I—I’m something more on account of her. Aren’t you?
Margaret
Yes.
Abbie
Yes, I think you are too. I can see myself as I’d have been if my life hadn’t
been lived round her. [Thinks, shakes her head.] It would be left you—what
feels and knows it feels. And you said it was through Bernice you could see.
Well, lets forget what we don’t want to know! On account of what we are
that we wouldn’t have been—lets put it out of our minds! One ugly thing in
a whole beautiful life! Let it go! And let all the rest live! [They can see
Craig outside.] Oh—do this for her. Make yourself do it. Let that be what’s
dead—and let all the rest live! You were her friend not his.
[Craig turns to the house, but when about to come in, turns away,
covering his face.
Margaret
[Taking hold of Abbie.] You see? He thinks she loved him and he killed her.
He might do what he thinks she did!
Abbie
[Falling back.] O-h.
[Craig comes in, stands by the door; Margaret has drawn Abbie over
near the stairway. He sees them, but gives no heed to them,
immersed in what he is living through. While he stands there
Margaret does not move. He turns toward the room where Bernice
is; when he moves Margaret goes a little toward him—his back is
to her; Abbie moves to step between Craig and Margaret;
Margaret puts her aside. But when Craig comes to the closed door,
and stands there an instant before it, not opening it, Margaret too
stops, as if she cannot come nearer him. It is only after he has
opened the door and closed it behind him that she goes to it. She

puts out her hands, but she does not even touch the door and when
she cannot do this she covers her face and, head bent, stands there
before the closed door. Laura and the Father come out from the
room where they have been. As they enter Abbie slowly goes out,
toward the kitchen.
Laura
[After looking at Margaret, who has not moved.] We are going in an hour,
Margaret.
Margaret
Going?
Laura
Taking Bernice to the cemetery.
Margaret
Oh. Are we?
[After a look which shows her disapproval Laura goes out, following
Abbie.
Father
[Sitting.] I can’t believe that, Margaret.
Margaret
No. [Margaret sits in the window seat, by which she has been standing. As
if she is just realizing what they have said.] You say—we are taking Bernice
away from here—in an hour?
Father
Yes. Think of it, Margaret. I just can’t—take it in.
Margaret
No.
Father
There is something I want to tell you, Margaret. [Margaret gives him a
quick look, then turns away, as if afraid.] I’ve been wanting to tell you—but

it’s hard to talk of such things. But before we—take Bernice away, before
you—see her the last time—I want you to know. That night—the night
Bernice died—at the very last, Abbie was afraid then—and had called to
me. Abbie and I were in there and—Abbie went out, about the telephone
call we had in for the doctor. I was all alone in there a few minutes—right at
the last. Bernice said one last word, Margaret. Your name.
Margaret
She called to me?
Father
No, I wouldn’t say she called to you. Just said your name. The way we say
things to ourselves—say them without knowing we were going to say them.
She didn’t really say it. She breathed it. It seemed to come from her whole
life.
Margaret
O-h. Then it wasn’t as if she had left me? It wasn’t as if anything was in
between—
Father
Why no, Margaret. What an idea. Why I don’t think you ever were as close
to Bernice as when she said your name and died.
[Margaret’s head goes down; she is crying. Craig comes out, carefully
closing the door behind him. Partly crosses the room, looks
uncertainly at the outer door as if to go outside again.
Father
Sit down, Craig. [Craig does this.] Let’s not try to keep away from each
other now. We’re all going through the same thing—in our—our different
ways. [A pause. Margaret raises her head; she is turned a little away from
the other two.] I was so glad when you came, Margaret. I don’t want
Bernice to slip away from us. In an hour we—take her away from here—
out of this house she loved. I don’t want her to slip away from us. She loved
you so, Margaret. Didn’t she, Craig?
Craig
Yes. She did love Margaret.

Father
Oh, yes. “Margaret sees things,” she’d say. [Wistfully.] She had great beauty
—didn’t she, Margaret?
Margaret
I always thought so.
Father
Oh, yes. I was thinking last night—malice was not in Bernice. I never knew
her to do a—really unfriendly thing to any one. [Again in that wistful way.]
You know, Margaret, I had thought you would say things like this—and
better than I can say them, to—to keep my little girl for us all. I suppose
I’m a foolish old man but I seem to want them said. [Pause. Margaret
seems to try to speak, but does not.] I think it was gentle of Bernice to be
amused by things she—perhaps couldn’t admire in us she loved. Me. I
suppose she might have liked a father who amounted to more—but she
always seemed to take pleasure in me. Affectionate amusement. Didn’t you
feel that in Bernice, Craig?
Craig
Yes—that was one thing. A surface for other things. [He speaks out of pain,
but out of pain which wants, if it can, to speak.] But only a surface. [With
passion.] All of Bernice went into her love for me. Those big impersonal
things—they were not apart. All of Bernice—loved me. [His voice breaks,
he goes to the door, starts out. Suddenly steps back—with a quick rough
turn to her.] Isn’t that so, Margaret?
Margaret
I can see—what you mean, Craig.
Father
Why of course Bernice loved you. I know that.
[Craig goes outside.
[Looking after him.] I hope I didn’t send Craig away. You and he would
rather not talk. Perhaps that is better. I seem to want to—gather up things
that will keep Bernice. It’s so easy for the dead to slip from us. But I
mustn’t bother you.

Margaret
Oh, you aren’t! I—I’m sorry I’m not—doing more. I’m pulled down.
Father
I know, Margaret. I can see that. Another time you and I will talk of
Bernice. I didn’t mean she didn’t love Craig. Of course not. Only
[Hesitatingly] I did feel that much as went into her loving—there was more
than went into her loving.
Margaret
Yes.
Father
I think it wasn’t that she—wanted it that way. You know, Margaret, I felt
something—very wistful in Bernice. [Margaret looks at him, nods.] In this
calm now—I feel the wistfulness there was in her other calm.
Margaret
Yes.
Father
As if she wanted to give us more. Oh—she gave more than any one else
could have given. But not all she was. And she would like to have given us
—all she was. She wanted to give—what couldn’t be given. [Pause.] You
know what I mean, Margaret?
Margaret
Yes, I do know.
Father
And so—wistfulness. I see it now. [After thinking.] I think Bernice feared
she was not a very good wife for Craig. [Margaret gives him a startled
look.] Little things she’d say. I don’t know—perhaps I’m wrong. [After a
move of Margaret’s.] You were going to say something, Margaret.
Margaret
No. I was just thinking of what you said.
Father

Craig didn’t dominate Bernice. I don’t know whose fault it was. I don’t
know that it was anyone’s fault. Just the way things were. He—I say it in all
kindness, he just didn’t—have it in him. [Slowly.] As I haven’t had certain
things in me.
[Abbie comes in.
Abbie
People are coming. The Aldrichs—other neighbors.
Father
Oh—they are coming? [With pain.] Already? Oh. They are to wait in the
south room—till a little later. I’ll speak to them.
[They go out; Margaret has a moment alone. Then Craig comes in from
outside.
Craig
People are beginning to come. I suppose they’ll come in here soon. I—I
don’t want them to.
[Laura enters with boxes of flowers.
Oh—Laura, please. Bernice loved flowers.
Laura
Well—Craig.
Craig
Would you take them around the other way? Or keep them till later—or
something. I don’t want them here!
[Laura goes out.
Craig
I don’t want things to be different. Not now—in the last hour. It’s still
Bernice’s house. [After watching her a moment.] Margaret, I’m afraid I
shouldn’t have told you. It’s doing too much to you. Surely—no matter
what you feel about me—this—what I told you—isn’t going to keep you
away from Bernice?

Margaret
No, Craig. What you told me—isn’t going to do that.
Craig
I shouldn’t have told you. But there are things—too much to be alone with.
And yet—we are alone with them. [He is seated, looking out toward the
woods. Very slowly—with deep feeling.] It is a different world. Life will
never be—that old thing again.
Margaret
[Rising.] Craig! [He looks at her.] Craig, I must tell you—
[She does not go on.
Craig
[After waiting an instant, looks away.] I know. We can’t say things. When
we get right to life—we can’t say things.
Margaret
But I must say them. I have to tell you—life need not be a different thing.
Craig
Need not? You think I want that old thing back? Pretending. Fumbling.
Always trying to seem something—to feel myself something. No. That’s a
strange thing for you to say, Margaret—that I can go back to my make-
believe, now that I’ve got to life. This—[As if he cannot speak of it] this—
even more than it makes me want to die it makes me want to—Oh,
Margaret, if I could have Bernice now—knowing. And yet—I never had her
until now. This—has given Bernice to me.
Margaret
[As if his words are a light she is almost afraid to use.] This—has given
Bernice to you?
Craig
I was thinking—walking out there I was thinking, if I knew only—what I
knew when I came here—that Bernice was dead—I wonder if I could have
got past that failure.

Margaret
Failure, Craig?
Craig
Of never having had her. That she had lived, and loved me—loved me, you
see—lived and loved me and died without my ever having had her. What
would there have been to go on living for? Why should such a person go on
living? Now—of course it is another world. This comes crashing through
my make-believe—and Bernice’s world get to me. Don’t you see,
Margaret?
Margaret
Perhaps—I do. [She looks at the closed door; looks back to him. Waits.] O-
h. [Waits again, and it grows in her.] Perhaps I do.
[Turns and very slowly goes to the closed door, opens it, goes in. At the
other side of the room Abbie comes in with a floral piece.
Craig
No, Abbie. I just told my sister—I don’t want this room to be different.
[Looking around.] It is different. What have you done to it?
[He sees the pillow crowded in at the side of the fireplace. Restores it to
its place in the window.
Abbie
And this was here.
[She returns the vase to its place.
Craig
Of course it was. But it isn’t right yet. [After considering.] Why—the tea
table! [Abbie turns toward the kitchen.] What did you put it out there for? I
remember now—I stumbled against it last night. [They bring it in.] Why,
yes, Abbie, the tea-table was always here—before the fire.
Abbie
And—
[She hesitates, but Craig follows her eyes to the chair.

Craig
Yes. [He too hesitates; then gives the chair its old place before the table, as
if awaiting the one who will come and pour tea. A moment they stand
looking at it. Then Craig looks around the room.] And what if it is still
wrong, Abbie?
Abbie
In the fall there were always branches in that vase. [Indicating the one she
has returned to its place.] The red and yellow branches from outside.
Craig
Yes.
[He goes out. With feeling which she cannot quite control Abbie does a
few little things at the tea-table, relating one thing to another until it
is as it used to be. Margaret comes out from the room where she
has been with Bernice, leaving the door wide open behind her. With
the quiet of profound wonder; in a feeling that creates the great
stillness, she goes to Abbie.
Margaret
Oh—Abbie. Yes—I know now. I want you to know. Only—there are things
not for words. Feeling—not for words. As a throbbing thing that flies and
sings—not for the hand. [She starts to close her hand, uncloses it.] But,
Abbie—there is nothing to hide. There is no shameful thing. What you saw
in her eyes as she brooded over life in leaving it—what made you afraid—
was her seeing—her seeing into the shadowed places of the life she was
leaving. And then—a gift to the spirit. A gift sent back through the dark.
Preposterous. Profound. Oh—love her Abbie! She’s worth more love than
we have power to give! [Craig has come back with some branches from the
trees; he stands outside the door a moment, taking out a few he does not
want. Margaret hears him and turns. Then turns back.] Power. Oh, how
strange.
[Craig comes in, and Margaret and Abbie watch him as he puts the
bright leaves in the vase. The Father comes in.
Father

The man who is in charge says we will have to be ready now to—[Seeing
what has been done to the room.] Oh, you have given the room back to
Bernice!
Margaret
Given everything back to Bernice. Bernice. Insight. The tenderness of
insight. And the courage. [To the Father, and suddenly with tears in her
voice.] She was wistful. And held out her hands [Doing this] with gifts she
was not afraid to send back. [Very simply.] She loved you, Craig.
Craig
I know that, Margaret. I know now how much.
Margaret
[Low.] And more than that. [Her voice electric.] Oh, in all the world—since
first life moved—has there been any beauty like the beauty of perceiving
love?... No. Not for words.
[She closes her hand, uncloses it in a slight gesture of freeing what she
would not harm.
(Curtain)

SUPPRESSED DESIRES
A COMEDY IN TWO SCENES
(In Collaboration with George Cram Cook)
First Performed by the Provincetown Players, at the
Wharf Theatre, Provincetown, Mass.,
August, 1914

ORIGINAL CAST

Henrietta Brewster Susan Glaspell
Stephen Brewster George Cram Cook
Mabel Mary Pyne

SUPPRESSED DESIRES
Scene I: A studio apartment in an upper story, Washington Square South.
Through an immense north window in the back wall appear tree tops and
the upper part of the Washington Arch. Beyond it you look up Fifth Avenue.
Near the window is a big table, loaded at one end with serious-looking
books and austere scientific periodicals. At the other end are architect’s
drawings, blue prints, dividing compasses, square, ruler, etc. At the left is a
door leading to the rest of the apartment; at the right the outer door. A
breakfast table is set for three, but only two are seated at it—Henrietta and
Stephen Brewster. As the curtains withdraw Steve pushes back his coffee
cup and sits dejected.
Henrietta
It isn’t the coffee, Steve dear. There’s nothing the matter with the coffee.
There’s something the matter with you.
Steve
[Doggedly.] There may be something the matter with my stomach.
Henrietta
[Scornfully.] Your stomach! The trouble is not with your stomach but in
your subconscious mind.
Steve
Subconscious piffle!
[Takes morning paper and tries to read.
Henrietta
Steve, you never used to be so disagreeable. You certainly have got some
sort of a complex. You’re all inhibited. You’re no longer open to new ideas.
You won’t listen to a word about psychoanalysis.
Steve
A word! I’ve listened to volumes!

Henrietta
You’ve ceased to be creative in architecture—your work isn’t going well.
You’re not sleeping well—
Steve
How can I sleep, Henrietta, when you’re always waking me up to find out
what I’m dreaming?
Henrietta
But dreams are so important, Steve. If you’d tell yours to Dr. Russell he’d
find out exactly what’s wrong with you.
Steve
There’s nothing wrong with me.
Henrietta
You don’t even talk as well as you used to.
Steve
Talk? I can’t say a thing without you looking at me in that dark fashion you
have when you’re on the trail of a complex.
Henrietta
This very irritability indicates that you’re suffering from some suppressed
desire.
Steve
I’m suffering from a suppressed desire for a little peace.
Henrietta
Dr. Russell is doing simply wonderful things with nervous cases. Won’t you
go to him, Steve?
Steve
[Slamming down his newspaper.] No, Henrietta, I won’t!
Henrietta
But, Stephen—!

Steve
Tst! I hear Mabel coming. Let’s not be at each other’s throats the first day of
her visit.
[He takes out cigarettes. Mabel comes in from door left, the side opposite
Steve, so that he is facing her. She is wearing a rather fussy
negligee in contrast to Henrietta, who wears “radical” clothes.
Mabel is what is called plump.
Mabel
Good morning.
Henrietta
Oh, here you are, little sister.
Steve
Good morning, Mabel.
[Mabel nods to him and turns, her face lighting up, to Henrietta.
Henrietta
[Giving Mabel a hug as she leans against her.] It’s so good to have you
here. I was going to let you sleep, thinking you’d be tired after the long trip.
Sit down. There’ll be fresh toast in a minute and [Rising] will you have—
Mabel
Oh, I ought to have told you, Henrietta. Don’t get anything for me. I’m not
eating breakfast.
Henrietta
[At first in mere surprise.] Not eating breakfast?
[She sits down, then leans toward Mabel who is seated now, and
scrutinizes her.
Steve
[Half to himself.] The psychoanalytical look!
Henrietta
Mabel, why are you not eating breakfast?

Mabel
[A little startled.] Why, no particular reason. I just don’t care much for
breakfast, and they say it keeps down—[A hand on her hip—the gesture of
one who is “reducing”] that is, it’s a good thing to go without it.
Henrietta
Don’t you sleep well? Did you sleep well last night?
Mabel
Oh, yes, I slept all right. Yes, I slept fine last night, only [Laughing] I did
have the funniest dream!
Steve
S-h! S-t!
Henrietta
[Moving closer.] And what did you dream, Mabel?
Steve
Look-a-here, Mabel, I feel it’s my duty to put you on. Don’t tell Henrietta
your dreams. If you do she’ll find out that you have an underground desire
to kill your father and marry your mother—
Henrietta
Don’t be absurd, Stephen Brewster. [Sweetly to Mabel.] What was your
dream, dear?
Mabel
[Laughing.] Well, I dreamed I was a hen.
Henrietta
A hen?
Mabel
Yes; and I was pushing along through a crowd as fast as I could, but being a
hen I couldn’t walk very fast—it was like having a tight skirt, you know;
and there was some sort of creature in a blue cap—you know how mixed up

dreams are—and it kept shouting after me, “Step, Hen! Step, Hen!” until I
got all excited and just couldn’t move at all.
Henrietta
[Resting chin in palm and peering.] You say you became much excited?
Mabel
[Laughing.] Oh, yes; I was in a terrible state.
Henrietta
[Leaning back, murmurs.] This is significant.
Steve
She dreams she’s a hen. She is told to step lively. She becomes violently
agitated. What can it mean?
Henrietta
[Turning impatiently from him.] Mabel, do you know anything about
psychoanalysis?
Mabel
[Feebly.] Oh—not much. No—I—[Brightening.] It’s something about the
war, isn’t it?
Steve
Not that kind of war.
Mabel
[Abashed.] I thought it might be the name of a new explosive.
Steve
It is.
Mabel
[Apologetically to Henrietta, who is frowning.] You see, Henrietta, I—we
do not live in touch with intellectual things, as you do. Bob being a dentist
—somehow our friends—
Steve

[Softly.] Oh, to be a dentist!
[Goes to window and stands looking out.
Henrietta
Don’t you see anything more of that editorial writer—what was his name?
Mabel
Lyman Eggleston?
Henrietta
Yes, Eggleston. He was in touch with things. Don’t you see him?
Mabel
Yes, I see him once in a while. Bob doesn’t like him very well.
Henrietta
Your husband does not like Lyman Eggleston? [Mysteriously.] Mabel, are
you perfectly happy with your husband?
Steve
[Sharply.] Oh, come now, Henrietta—that’s going a little strong!
Henrietta
Are you perfectly happy with him, Mabel?
[Steve goes to work-table.
Mabel
Why—yes—I guess so. Why—of course I am!
Henrietta
Are you happy? Or do you only think you are? Or do you only think you
ought to be?
Mabel
Why, Henrietta, I don’t know what you mean!
Steve

[Seizes stack of books and magazines and dumps them on the breakfast
table.] This is what she means, Mabel. Psychoanalysis. My work-table
groans with it. Books by Freud, the new Messiah; books by Jung, the new
St. Paul; the Psychoanalytical Review—back numbers two-fifty per.
Mabel
But what’s it all about?
Steve
All about your sub-un-non-conscious mind and desires you know not of.
They may be doing you a great deal of harm. You may go crazy with them.
Oh, yes! People are doing it right and left. Your dreaming you’re a hen—
[Shakes his head darkly.
Henrietta
Any fool can ridicule anything.
Mabel
[Hastily, to avert a quarrel.] But what do you say it is, Henrietta?
Steve
[Looking at his watch.] Oh, if Henrietta’s going to start that!
[During Henrietta’s next speech settles himself at work-table and
sharpens a lead pencil.
Henrietta
It’s like this, Mabel. You want something. You think you can’t have it. You
think it’s wrong. So you try to think you don’t want it. Your mind protects
you—avoids pain—by refusing to think the forbidden thing. But it’s there
just the same. It stays there shut up in your unconscious mind, and it festers.
Steve
Sort of an ingrowing mental toenail.
Henrietta
Precisely. The forbidden impulse is there full of energy which has simply
got to do something. It breaks into your consciousness in disguise, masks

itself in dreams, makes all sorts of trouble. In extreme cases it drives you
insane.
Mabel
[With a gesture of horror.] Oh!
Henrietta
[Reassuring.] But psychoanalysis has found out how to save us from that. It
brings into consciousness the suppressed desire that was making all the
trouble. Psychoanalysis is simply the latest scientific method of preventing
and curing insanity.
Steve
[From his table.] It is also the latest scientific method of separating
families.
Henrietta
[Mildly.] Families that ought to be separated.
Steve
The Dwights, for instance. You must have met them, Mabel, when you were
here before. Helen was living, apparently, in peace and happiness with good
old Joe. Well—she went to this psychoanalyzer—she was “psyched,” and
biff!—bang!—home she comes with an unsuppressed desire to leave her
husband.
[He starts work, drawing lines on a drawing board with a T-square.
Mabel
How terrible! Yes, I remember Helen Dwight. But—but did she have such a
desire?
Steve
First she’d known of it.
Mabel
And she left him?
Henrietta

[Coolly.] Yes, she did.
Mabel
Wasn’t he kind to her?
Henrietta
Why yes, good enough.
Mabel
Wasn’t he kind to her.
Henrietta
Oh, yes—kind to her.
Mabel
And she left her good kind husband—!
Henrietta
Oh, Mabel! “Left her good, kind husband!” How naïve—forgive me, dear,
but how bourgeoise you are! She came to know herself. And she had the
courage!
Mabel
I may be very naïve and—bourgeoise—but I don’t see the good of a new
science that breaks up homes.
[Steve applauds.
Steve
In enlightening Mabel, we mustn’t neglect to mention the case of Art
Holden’s private secretary, Mary Snow, who has just been informed of her
suppressed desire for her employer.
Mabel
Why, I think it is terrible, Henrietta! It would be better if we didn’t know
such things about ourselves.
Henrietta
No, Mabel, that is the old way.

Mabel
But—but her employer? Is he married?
Steve
[Grunts.] Wife and four children.
Mabel
Well, then, what good does it do the girl to be told she has a desire for him?
There’s nothing can be done about it.
Henrietta
Old institutions will have to be reshaped so that something can be done in
such cases. It happens, Mabel, that this suppressed desire was on the point
of landing Mary Snow in the insane asylum. Are you so tight-minded that
you’d rather have her in the insane asylum than break the conventions?
Mabel
But—but have people always had these awful suppressed desires?
Henrietta
Always.
Steve
But they’ve just been discovered.
Henrietta
The harm they do has just been discovered. And free, sane people must face
the fact that they have to be dealt with.
Mabel
[Stoutly.] I don’t believe they have them in Chicago.
Henrietta
[Business of giving Mabel up.] People “have them” wherever the living
Libido—the center of the soul’s energy—is in conflict with petrified moral
codes. That means everywhere in civilization. Psychoanalysis—
Steve
Good God! I’ve got the roof in the cellar!

Henrietta
The roof in the cellar!
Steve
[Holding plan at arm’s length.] That’s what psychoanalysis does!
Henrietta
That’s what psychoanalysis could un-do. Is it any wonder I’m concerned
about Steve? He dreamed the other night that the walls of his room melted
away and he found himself alone in a forest. Don’t you see how significant
it is for an architect to have walls slip away from him? It symbolizes his
loss of grip in his work. There’s some suppressed desire—
Steve
[Hurling his ruined plan viciously to the floor.] Suppressed hell!
Henrietta
You speak more truly than you know. It is through suppressions that hells
are formed in us.
Mabel
[Looking at Steve, who is tearing his hair.] Don’t you think it would be a
good thing, Henrietta, if we went somewhere else? [They rise and begin to
pick up the dishes. Mabel drops a plate which breaks. Henrietta draws up
short and looks at her—the psychoanalytic look.] I’m sorry, Henrietta. One
of the Spode plates, too. [Surprised and resentful as Henrietta continues to
peer at her.] Don’t take it so to heart, Henrietta.
Henrietta
I can’t help taking it to heart.
Mabel
I’ll get you another. [Pause. More sharply as Henrietta does not answer.] I
said I’ll get you another plate, Henrietta.
Henrietta
It’s not the plate.
Mabel

For heaven’s sake, what is it then?
Henrietta
It’s the significant little false movement that made you drop it.
Mabel
Well, I suppose everyone makes a false movement once in a while.
Henrietta
Yes, Mabel, but these false movements all mean something.
Mabel
[About to cry.] I don’t think that’s very nice! It was just because I happened
to think of that Mabel Snow you were talking about—
Henrietta
Mabel Snow!
Mabel
Snow—Snow—well, what was her name, then?
Henrietta
Her name is Mary. You substituted your own name for hers.
Mabel
Well, Mary Snow, then; Mary Snow. I never heard her name but once. I
don’t see anything to make such a fuss about.
Henrietta
[Gently.] Mabel dear—mistakes like that in names—
Mabel
[Desperately.] They don’t mean something, too, do they?
Henrietta
[Gently.] I am sorry, dear, but they do.
Mabel
But I’m always doing that!

Henrietta
[After a start of horror.] My poor little sister, tell me about it.
Mabel
About what?
Henrietta
About your not being happy. About your longing for another sort of life.
Mabel
But I don’t.
Henrietta
Ah, I understand these things, dear. You feel Bob is limiting you to a life in
which you do not feel free—
Mabel
Henrietta! When did I ever say such a thing?
Henrietta
You said you are not in touch with things intellectual. You showed your
feeling that it is Bob’s profession—that has engendered a resentment which
has colored your whole life with him.
Mabel
Why—Henrietta!
Henrietta
Don’t be afraid of me, little sister. There’s nothing can shock me or turn me
from you. I am not like that. I wanted you to come for this visit because I
had a feeling that you needed more from life than you were getting. No one
of these things I have seen would excite my suspicion. It’s the combination.
You don’t eat breakfast [Enumerating on her fingers]; you make false
moves; you substitute your own name for the name of another whose love is
misdirected. You’re nervous; you look queer; in your eyes there’s a
frightened look that is most unlike you. And this dream. A hen. Come with
me this afternoon to Dr. Russell! Your whole life may be at stake, Mabel.
Mabel

[Gasping.] Henrietta, I—you—you always were the smartest in the family,
and all that, but—this is terrible! I don’t think we ought to think such
things. [Brightening.] Why, I’ll tell you why I dreamed I was a hen. It was
because last night, telling about that time in Chicago, you said I was as mad
as a wet hen.
Henrietta
[Superior.] Did you dream you were a wet hen?
Mabel
[Forced to admit it.] No.
Henrietta
No. You dreamed you were a dry hen. And why, being a hen, were you
urged to step?
Mabel
Maybe it’s because when I am getting on a street car it always irritates me
to have them call “Step lively.”
Henrietta
No, Mabel, that is only a child’s view of it—if you will forgive me. You see
merely the elements used in the dream. You do not see into the dream; you
do not see its meaning. This dream of the hen—
Steve
Hen—hen—wet hen—dry hen—mad hen! [Jumps up in a rage.] Let me out
of this!
Henrietta
[Hastily picking up dishes, speaks soothingly.] Just a minute, dear, and we’ll
have things so you can work in quiet. Mabel and I are going to sit in my
room.
[She goes out left, carrying dishes.
Steve
[Seizing hat and coat from an alcove near the outside door.] I’m going to be
psychoanalyzed. I’m going now! I’m going straight to that infallible doctor

of hers—that priest of this new religion. If he’s got honesty enough to tell
Henrietta there’s nothing the matter with my unconscious mind, perhaps I
can be let alone about it, and then I will be all right. [From the door in a low
voice.] Don’t tell Henrietta I’m going. It might take weeks, and I couldn’t
stand all the talk.
[He hurries out.
Henrietta
[Returning.] Where’s Steve? Gone? [With a hopeless gesture.] You see how
impatient he is—how unlike himself! I tell you, Mabel, I’m nearly
distracted about Steve.
Mabel
I think he’s a little distracted, too.
Henrietta
Well, if he’s gone—you might as well stay here. I have a committee
meeting at the book-shop, and will have to leave you to yourself for an hour
or two. [As she puts her hat on, taking it from the alcove where Steve found
his, her eye, lighting up almost carnivorously, falls on an enormous volume
on the floor beside the work table. The book has been half hidden by the
wastebasket. She picks it up and carries it around the table toward Mabel.]
Here, dear, is one of the simplest statements of psychoanalysis. You just
read this and then we can talk more intelligently. [Mabel takes volume and
staggers back under its weight to chair rear center, Henrietta goes to outer
door, stops and asks abruptly.] How old is Lyman Eggleston?
Mabel
[Promptly.] He isn’t forty yet. Why, what made you ask that, Henrietta?
[As she turns her head to look at Henrietta her hands move toward the
upper corners of the book balanced on her knees.
Henrietta
Oh, nothing. Au revoir.
[She goes out. Mabel stares at the ceiling. The book slides to the floor.
She starts; looks at the book, then at the broken plate on the table.]

The plate! The book! [She lifts her eyes, leans forward elbow on knee, chin
on knuckles and plaintively queries] Am I unhappy?
(Curtain)

Scene II: Two weeks later. The stage is as in Scene I, except that the
breakfast table has been removed. During the first few minutes the dusk of a
winter afternoon deepens. Out of the darkness spring rows of double street-
lights almost meeting in the distance. Henrietta is at the psychoanalytical
end of Steve’s work-table, surrounded by open books and periodicals,
writing. Steve enters briskly.
Steve
What are you doing, my dear?
Henrietta
My paper for the Liberal Club.
Steve
Your paper on—?
Henrietta
On a subject which does not have your sympathy.
Steve
Oh, I’m not sure I’m wholly out of sympathy with psychoanalysis,
Henrietta. You worked it so hard. I couldn’t even take a bath without it’s
meaning something.
Henrietta
[Loftily.] I talked it because I knew you needed it.
Steve
You haven’t said much about it these last two weeks. Uh—your faith in it
hasn’t weakened any?
Henrietta

Weakened? It’s grown stronger with each new thing I’ve come to know.
And Mabel. She is with Dr. Russell now. Dr. Russell is wonderful! From
what Mabel tells me I believe his analysis is going to prove that I was right.
Today I discovered a remarkable confirmation of my theory in the hen-
dream.
Steve
What is your theory?
Henrietta
Well, you know about Lyman Eggleston. I’ve wondered about him. I’ve
never seen him, but I know he’s less bourgeois than Mabel’s other friends—
more intellectual—and [Significantly] she doesn’t see much of him because
Bob doesn’t like him.
Steve
But what’s the confirmation?
Henrietta
Today I noticed the first syllable of his name.
Steve
Ly?
Henrietta
No—egg.
Steve
Egg?
Henrietta
[Patiently.] Mabel dreamed she was a hen. [Steve laughs.] You wouldn’t
laugh if you knew how important names are in interpreting dreams. Freud is
full of just such cases in which a whole hidden complex is revealed by a
single significant syllable—like this egg.
Steve
Doesn’t the traditional relation of hen and egg suggest rather a maternal
feeling?

Henrietta
There is something maternal in Mabel’s love, of course, but that’s only one
element.
Steve
Well, suppose Mabel hasn’t a suppressed desire to be this gentleman’s
mother, but his beloved. What’s to be done about it? What about Bob?
Don’t you think it’s going to be a little rough on him?
Henrietta
That can’t be helped. Bob, like everyone else, must face the facts of life. If
Dr. Russell should arrive independently at this same interpretation I shall
not hesitate to advise Mabel to leave her present husband.
Steve
Um—hum! [The lights go up on Fifth Avenue. Steve goes to the window
and looks out.] How long is it we’ve lived here, Henrietta?
Henrietta
Why, this is the third year, Steve.
Steve
I—we—one would miss this view if one went away, wouldn’t one?
Henrietta
How strangely you speak! Oh, Stephen, I wish you’d go to Dr. Russell.
Don’t think my fears have abated because I’ve been able to restrain myself.
I had to on account of Mabel. But now, dear—won’t you go?
Steve
I—[He breaks off, turns on the light, then comes and sits beside Henrietta.]
How long have we been married, Henrietta?
Henrietta
Stephen, I don’t understand you! You must go to Dr. Russell.
Steve
I have gone.

Henrietta
You—what?
Steve
[Jauntily.] Yes, Henrietta, I’ve been psyched.
Henrietta
You went to Dr. Russell?
Steve
The same.
Henrietta
And what did he say?
Steve
He said—I—I was a little surprised by what he said, Henrietta.
Henrietta
[Breathlessly.] Of course—one can so seldom anticipate. But tell me—your
dream, Stephen? It means—?
Steve
It means—I was considerably surprised by what it means.
Henrietta
Don’t be so exasperating!
Steve
It means—you really want to know, Henrietta?
Henrietta
Stephen, you’ll drive me mad!
Steve
He said—of course he may be wrong in what he said.
Henrietta
He isn’t wrong. Tell me!

Steve
He said my dream of the walls receding and leaving me alone in a forest
indicates a suppressed desire—
Henrietta
Yes—yes!
Steve
To be freed from—
Henrietta
Yes—freed from—?
Steve
Marriage.
Henrietta
[Crumples. Stares.] Marriage!
Steve
He—he may be mistaken, you know.
Henrietta
May be mistaken?
Steve
I—well, of course, I hadn’t taken any stock in it myself. It was only your
great confidence—
Henrietta
Stephen, are you telling me that Dr. Russell—Dr. A. E. Russell—told you
this? [Steve nods.] Told you you have a suppressed desire to separate from
me?
Steve
That’s what he said.
Henrietta
Did he know who you were?

Steve
Yes.
Henrietta
That you were married to me?
Steve
Yes, he knew that.
Henrietta
And he told you to leave me?
Steve
It seems he must be wrong, Henrietta.
Henrietta
[Rising.] And I’ve sent him more patients—! [Catches herself and resumes
coldly.] What reason did he give for this analysis?
Steve
He says the confining walls are a symbol of my feeling about marriage and
that their fading away is a wish-fulfillment.
Henrietta
[Gulping.] Well, is it? Do you want our marriage to end?
Steve
It was a great surprise to me that I did. You see I hadn’t known what was in
my unconscious mind.
Henrietta
[Flaming.] What did you tell Dr. Russell about me to make him think you
weren’t happy?
Steve
I never told him a thing, Henrietta. He got it all from his confounded clever
inferences. I—I tried to refute them, but he said that was only part of my
self-protective lying.

Henrietta
And that’s why you were so—happy—when you came in just now!
Steve
Why, Henrietta, how can you say such a thing? I was sad. Didn’t I speak
sadly of—of the view? Didn’t I ask how long we had been married?
Henrietta
[Rising.] Stephen Brewster, have you no sense of the seriousness of this?
Dr. Russell doesn’t know what our marriage has been. You do. You should
have laughed him down! Confined—in life with me? Did you tell him that I
believe in freedom?
Steve
I very emphatically told him that his results were a great surprise to me.
Henrietta
But you accepted them.
Steve
Oh, not at all. I merely couldn’t refute his arguments. I’m not a
psychologist. I came home to talk it over with you. You being a disciple of
psychoanalysis—
Henrietta
If you are going, I wish you would go tonight!
Steve
Oh, my dear! I—surely I couldn’t do that! Think of my feelings. And my
laundry hasn’t come home.
Henrietta
I ask you to go tonight. Some women would falter at this, Steve, but I am
not such a woman. I leave you free. I do not repudiate psychoanalysis; I say
again that it has done great things. It has also made mistakes, of course. But
since you accept this analysis—[She sits down and pretends to begin work.]
I have to finish this paper. I wish you would leave me.
Steve

[Scratches his head, goes to the inner door.] I’m sorry, Henrietta, about my
unconscious mind.
[Alone, Henrietta’s face betrays her outraged state of mind—
disconcerted, resentful, trying to pull herself together. She attains an
air of bravely bearing an outrageous thing.—The outer door opens
and Mabel enters in great excitement.
Mabel
[Breathless.] Henrietta, I’m so glad you’re here. And alone? [Looks toward
the inner door.] Are you alone, Henrietta?
Henrietta
[With reproving dignity.] Very much so.
Mabel
[Rushing to her.] Henrietta, he’s found it!
Henrietta
[Aloof.] Who has found what?
Mabel
Who has found what? Dr. Russell has found my suppressed desire!
Henrietta
That is interesting.
Mabel
He finished with me today—he got hold of my complex—in the most
amazing way! But, oh, Henrietta—it is so terrible!
Henrietta
Do calm yourself, Mabel. Surely there’s no occasion for all this agitation.
Mabel
But there is! And when you think of the lives that are affected—the
readjustments that must be made in order to bring the suppressed hell out of
me and save me from the insane asylum—!

Henrietta
The insane asylum!
Mabel
You said that’s where these complexes brought people!
Henrietta
What did the doctor tell you, Mabel?
Mabel
Oh, I don’t know how I can tell you—it is so awful—so unbelievable.
Henrietta
I rather have my hand in at hearing the unbelievable.
Mabel
Henrietta, who would ever have thought it? How can it be true? But the
doctor is perfectly certain that I have a suppressed desire for—
[Looks at Henrietta, is unable to continue.
Henrietta
Oh, go on, Mabel. I’m not unprepared for what you have to say.
Mabel
Not unprepared? You mean you have suspected it?
Henrietta
From the first. It’s been my theory all along.
Mabel
But, Henrietta, I didn’t know myself that I had this secret desire for
Stephen.
Henrietta
[Jumps up.] Stephen!
Mabel
My brother-in-law! My own sister’s husband!

Henrietta
You have a suppressed desire for Stephen!
Mabel
Oh, Henrietta, aren’t these unconscious selves terrible? They seem so unlike
us!
Henrietta
What insane thing are you driving at?
Mabel
[Blubbering.] Henrietta, don’t you use that word to me. I don’t want to go
to the insane asylum.
Henrietta
What did Dr. Russell say?
Mabel
Well, you see—oh, it’s the strangest thing! But you know the voice in my
dream that called “Step, Hen!” Dr. Russell found out today that when I was
a little girl I had a story-book in words of one syllable and I read the name
Stephen wrong. I used to read it S-t-e-p, step, h-e-n, hen. [Dramatically.]
Step Hen is Stephen. [Enter Stephen, his head bent over a time-table.]
Stephen is Step Hen!
Steve
I? Step Hen?
Mabel
[Triumphantly.] S-t-e-p, step, H-e-n, hen, Stephen!
Henrietta
[Exploding.] Well, what if Stephen is Step Hen? [Scornfully.] Step Hen!
Step Hen! For that ridiculous coincidence—
Mabel
Coincidence! But it’s childish to look at the mere elements of a dream. You
have to look into it—you have to see what it means!

Henrietta
On account of that trivial, meaningless play on syllables—on that flimsy
basis—you are ready—[Wails.] O-h!
Steve
What on earth’s the matter? What has happened? Suppose I am Step Hen?
What about it? What does it mean?
Mabel
[Crying.] It means—that I—have a suppressed desire for you!
Steve
For me! The deuce you have! [Feebly.] What—er—makes you think so?
Mabel
Dr. Russell has worked it out scientifically.
Henrietta
Yes. Through the amazing discovery that Step Hen equals Stephen!
Mabel
[Tearfully.] Oh, that isn’t all—that isn’t near all. Henrietta won’t give me a
chance to tell it. She’d rather I’d go to the insane asylum than be
unconventional.
Henrietta
We’ll all go there if you can’t control yourself. We are still waiting for some
rational report.
Mabel
[Drying her eyes.] Oh, there’s such a lot about names. [With some pride.] I
don’t see how I ever did it. It all works in together. I dreamed I was a hen
because that’s the first syllable of Hen-rietta’s name, and when I dreamed I
was a hen, I was putting myself in Henrietta’s place.
Henrietta
With Stephen?
Mabel

With Stephen.
Henrietta
[Outraged.] Oh! [Turns in rage upon Stephen, who is fanning himself with
the time-table.] What are you doing with that time-table?
Steve
Why—I thought—you were so keen to have me go tonight—I thought I’d
just take a run up to Canada, and join Billy—a little shooting—but—
Mabel
But there’s more about the names.
Henrietta
Mabel, have you thought of Bob—dear old Bob—your good, kind
husband?
Mabel
Oh, Henrietta, “my good, kind husband!”
Henrietta
Think of him, Mabel, out there alone in Chicago, working his head off,
fixing people’s teeth—for you!
Mabel
Yes, but think of the living Libido—in conflict with petrified moral codes!
And think of the perfectly wonderful way the names all prove it. Dr. Russell
said he’s never seen anything more convincing. Just look at Stephen’s last
name—Brewster. I dream I’m a hen, and the name Brewster—you have to
say its first letter by itself—and then the hen, that’s me, she says to him:
“Stephen, Be Rooster!”
[Henrietta and Stephen collapse into the nearest chairs.
Mabel
I think it’s perfectly wonderful! Why, if it wasn’t for psychoanalysis you’d
never find out how wonderful your own mind is!
Steve

[Begins to chuckle.] Be Rooster! Stephen, Be Rooster!
Henrietta
You think it’s funny, do you?
Steve
Well, what’s to be done about it? Does Mabel have to go away with me?
Henrietta
Do you want Mabel to go away with you?
Steve
Well, but Mabel herself—her complex—her suppressed desire—!
Henrietta
[Going to her.] Mabel, are you going to insist on going away with Stephen?
Mabel
I’d rather go with Stephen than go to the insane asylum!
Henrietta
For heaven’s sake, Mabel, drop that insane asylum! If you did have a
suppressed desire for Stephen hidden away in you—God knows it isn’t
hidden now. Dr. Russell has brought it into your consciousness—with a
vengeance. That’s all that’s necessary to break up a complex.
Psychoanalysis doesn’t say you have to gratify every suppressed desire.
Steve
[Softly.] Unless it’s for Lyman Eggleston.
Henrietta
[Turning on him.] Well, if it comes to that, Stephen Brewster, I’d like to
know why that interpretation of mine isn’t as good as this one? Step, Hen!
Steve
But Be Rooster! [He pauses, chuckling to himself.] Step-Hen B-rooster. And
Henrietta. Pshaw, my dear, Doc Russell’s got you beat a mile! [He turns
away and chuckles.] Be rooster!

Mabel
What has Lyman Eggleston got to do with it?
Steve
According to Henrietta, you, the hen, have a suppressed desire for
Eggleston, the egg.
Mabel
Henrietta, I think that’s indecent of you! He is bald as an egg and little and
fat—the idea of you thinking such a thing of me!
Henrietta
Well, Bob isn’t little and bald and fat! Why don’t you stick to your own
husband? [To Stephen.] What if Dr. Russell’s interpretation has got mine
“beat a mile”? [Resentful look at him.] It would only mean that Mabel
doesn’t want Eggleston and does want you. Does that mean she has to have
you?
Mabel
But you said Mabel Snow—
Henrietta
Mary Snow! You’re not as much like her as you think—substituting your
name for hers! The cases are entirely different. Oh, I wouldn’t have
believed this of you, Mabel. [Beginning to cry.] I brought you here for a
pleasant visit—thought you needed brightening up—wanted to be nice to
you—and now you—my husband—you insist—
[In fumbling her way to her chair she brushes to the floor some sheets
from the psychoanalytical table.
Steve
[With solicitude.] Careful, dear. Your paper on psychoanalysis!
[Gathers up sheets and offers them to her.
Henrietta
I don’t want my paper on psychoanalysis! I’m sick of psychoanalysis!
Steve

[Eagerly.] Do you mean that, Henrietta?
Henrietta
Why shouldn’t I mean it? Look at all I’ve done for psychoanalysis—and—
[Raising a tear-stained face] what has psychoanalysis done for me?
Steve
Do you mean, Henrietta, that you’re going to stop talking psychoanalysis?
Henrietta
Why shouldn’t I stop talking it? Haven’t I seen what it does to people?
Mabel has gone crazy about psychoanalysis!
[At the word “crazy” with a moan Mabel sinks to chair and buries her
face in her hands.
Steve
[Solemnly.] Do you swear never to wake me up in the night to find out what
I’m dreaming?
Henrietta
Dream what you please—I don’t care what you’re dreaming.
Steve
Will you clear off my work-table so the Journal of Morbid Psychology
doesn’t stare me in the face when I’m trying to plan a house?
Henrietta
[Pushing a stack of periodicals off the table.] I’ll burn the Journal of
Morbid Psychology!
Steve
My dear Henrietta, if you’re going to separate from psychoanalysis, there’s
no reason why I should separate from you.
[They embrace ardently. Mabel lifts her head and looks at them woefully.
Mabel
[Jumping up and going toward them.] But what about me? What am I to do
with my suppressed desire?

Steve
[With one arm still around Henrietta, gives Mabel a brotherly hug.] Mabel,
you just keep right on suppressing it!
(Curtain)

TICKLESS TIME
A COMEDY IN ONE ACT
(In Collaboration with George Cram Cook)
First performed by the Provincetown Players,
New York, December 20, 1918

ORIGINAL CAST

Ian Joyce, Who Has Made a Sun-dial James Light
Eloise Joyce, Wedded to the Sun-dial Norma Millay
Mrs. Stubbs, a Native Jean Robb
Eddy Knight, a Standardized Mind Hutchinson Collins
Alice Knight, a Standardized Wife Alice MacDougal
Annie, Who Cooks by the Joyces’ Clock Edna St. Vincent Millay

TICKLESS TIME
Scene: A garden in Provincetown. On the spectator’s right a two-story
house runs back from the proscenium—a door towards the front, a second-
story window towards the back. Across the back runs a thick-set row of
sunflowers nearly concealing a fence or wall. Back of this are trees and sky.
There is a gate at the left rear corner of the garden. People entering it come
straight toward the front, down the left side and, to reach the house door,
pass across the front of the stage. A fence with sunflowers like that at the
back closes off the left wing of the stage—a tree behind this left fence.
The sun-dial stands on a broad step or pedestal which partly masks the
digging which takes place behind it. The position of the sun-dial is to the
left of the center of the stage midway between front and back.
From behind the tree on the left the late afternoon sun throws a well-defined
beam of light upon the horizontal plate of the sun-dial and upon the shaft
which supports it. On this shaft is the accompanying diagram: two feet high
and clearly visible.

On the plate of the sun-dial stands the alarm-clock. A huge shovel leans
against the wall of the house-corner at the back.
Ian is at the sun-dial. He sights over the style to some distant stake left rear,
marking the north. He then sights over the east and west line toward the six
o’clock sun. Looks at shadow. Looks at alarm clock. Is intensely pleased.

Ian
[Turning toward house and calling excitedly.] Eloise! Oh, Eloise!
Eloise
[Inside house.] Hello!
Ian
Come quick! You’ll miss it.
Eloise
[Poking her head out of the second-story window; she cranes her neck to
look straight up in the air.] What is it?
Ian
Come down here quick or you’ll miss it.
Eloise
[Disappears from window. A moment later comes running out, one braid of
hair up and one braid down. Again looks wildly up in the air.] Where is it?
Ian
[Absorbed in the sun-dial.] Where’s what?
Eloise
The airplane.
Ian
Airplane? It’s the sun-dial. It’s right. Just look at this six o’clock shadow.
[She goes around to the other side of it.] It’s absolutely, mathematically—
you’re in the way of the sun, Eloise. [She steps aside.] Look! the style is set
square on the true north—this is the fifteenth of June—the clock is checked
to the second by telegraph with the observatory at Washington and see! the
clock is exactly nineteen minutes and twenty seconds behind the shadow—
the precise difference between Provincetown local time and standard
Eastern time.
Eloise

Then the sun-dial’s really finished—and working right! After all these,
weeks! Oh, Ian!
[Embraces him.
Ian
It’s good to get it right after all those mistakes. [With vision.] Why, Eloise,
getting this right has been a symbol of man’s whole search for truth—the
discovery and correction of error—the mind compelled to conform step by
step to astronomical fact—to truth.
Eloise
[Going to it again.] And to think that it’s the sun-dial which is true and the
clock—all the clocks—are wrong! I’m glad it is true. Alice Knight has been
here talking to me for an hour. I want to think that something’s true.
Ian
That’s just it, Eloise. The sun-dial is more than sun-dial. It’s a first-hand
relation with truth. A personal relation. When you take your time from a
clock you are mechanically getting information from a machine. You’re
nothing but a clock yourself.
Eloise
Like Alice Knight.
Ian
But the sun-dial—this shadow is an original document—a scholar’s source.
Eloise
To tell time by the shadow of the sun—so large and simple.
Ian
I wouldn’t call it simple. Here on this diagram I have worked out—
Eloise
Dearest, you know I can’t understand diagrams. But I get the feeling of it,
Ian—the sun, the North star. I love to think that this [Placing her hands on
the style] is set by the North star. [Her right hand remains on the style, her

left prolongs its line heavenward.] Why, if I could go on long enough I’d
get to the North star!
Ian
[Impressively.] The line that passes along the edge of this style joins the two
poles of the heavens. [Eloise pulls away her hand as one who fears an
electric shock.] Look at this slow shadow and what you see is the spin of
the earth on its axis. It is not so much the measure of time as time itself
made visible.
Eloise
[Knitting her brows to get this: escaping to an impetuous generality.] Ian,
which do you think is the more wonderful—space or time?
Ian
[Again sighting over his east and west lines. Good-humoredly.] Both are a
little large for our approbation.
Eloise
[Sitting on the steps and putting up the other braid.] Do you know, Ian,
that’s the one thing about them I don’t quite like. You can’t get very
intimate with them, can you? They make you so humble. That’s one nice
thing about a clock. A clock is sometimes wrong.
Ian
Don’t you want to live in a first-hand relation to truth?
Eloise
Yes; yes, I do—generally.
Ian
I have a feeling as of having touched vast forces. To work directly with
worlds—it lifts me out of that little routine of our lives which is itself a
clock.
Eloise
[Catching his exultation.] Let us be like this! Let us have done with clocks!
Ian

Eloise, how wonderful! Can the clocks and live by the sun-dial? Live by the
non-automatic sun-dial—as a pledge that we ourselves refuse to be
automatons!
Eloise
Like Alice Knight. [She takes clock from dial and puts it face downward on
the ground.] I shall never again have anything to do with a clock!
Ian
Eloise! How corking of you! I didn’t think you had it in you. [Raising his
right hand.] Do you solemnly swear to live by the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth?
Eloise
[Her hand upon the sun-dial.] I swear.
Ian
Bring them!
Eloise
Bring—?
Ian
The clocks! Bring them! [Seizes the spade over by the house; begins to dig
a grave behind the sun-dial.] Bring every one! We will bury the clocks
before the sun-dial—an offering, a living sacrifice. I tell you this is great,
Eloise. What is a clock? Something agreed upon and arbitrarily imposed
upon us. Standard time. Not true time. Symbolizing the whole
standardization of our lives. Clocks! Why, it is clockiness that makes
America mechanical and mean! Clock-minded! A clock is a little machine
that shuts us out from the wonder of time. [A large gesture with the shovel.]
Who thinks of spinning worlds when looking at a clock? How dare clocks
do this to us? But the sun-dial—because there was creation, because there
are worlds outside our world, because space is rhythm and time is flow that
shadow falls precisely there and not elsewhere! Bring them, Eloise! I am
digging the graves of the clocks!
[Eloise swept up by this ecstasy, yet frightened at what it is bringing her
to, hesitates, then runs to house. Ian digs with rhythmic vigor. A

moment later Eloise is seen peering down at him from window, in
her arms a cuckoo clock. It begins to cuckoo, startling Eloise.
Ian
That damned cuckoo!
[A moment later Eloise comes out, bearing cuckoo clock and an old-
fashioned clock. Ian’s back is to her; she has to pass the alarm
clock, lying where she left it, prone on the ground. She hesitates,
then carefully holding the other two clocks in one arm, she stealthily
goes rear and puts the alarm clock behind the sunflowers. Then
advances with the other two.
Ian
[While digging.] Into these graves go all that is clock-like in our own minds.
All that a clock world has made of us lies buried here!
[Eloise stands rather appalled at the idea of so much of herself going
into a grave. Puts the old-fashioned clock carefully on the ground.
Gingerly fits the cuckoo clock into the completed grave. With an
exclamation of horror lifts it out of the grave. Listens to its tick. Puts
her ear to the sun-dial; listens vainly.
Eloise
The sun-dial doesn’t tick, does it, Ian?
Ian
Why should it tick?
Eloise
Do you know, Ian, I [Timidly] I like to hear the ticking of a clock. [No reply.
Eloise holds up the cuckoo clock.] This was a wedding present.
Ian
No wonder marriage fails.
[He moves to take it from her.
Eloise
I wonder if we hadn’t better leave the cuckoo until tomorrow.

Ian
Flaming worlds! A cuckoo!
Eloise
Eddy and Alice gave us the cuckoo. You know they’re coming back. I asked
them for dinner. They might not understand our burying their clock.
Ian
Their failure to understand need not limit our lives.
[Puts the cuckoo clock in its grave and begins to cover it.
Eloise
[As the earth goes on.] I liked the cuckoo! I liked to see him popping out!
Ian
[Kindly.] You will grow, Eloise. You will go out to large things now that you
have done with small ones.
Eloise
I hope so. It will be hard on me if I don’t.
[Ian reaches for the other clock.
Eloise
[Snatching it.] Oh, Ian, I don’t think I ought to bury this one. It’s the clock
my grandmother started housekeeping with!
Ian
[Firmly taking clock.] And see what it did to her. Meticulous old woman!
[Puts it in its grave.
Eloise
You were glad enough to get her pies and buckwheat cakes.
Ian
She had all the small virtues. But a standardized mind. [Trampling down the
grave.] She lacked scope. And now—a little grave for little clocks. [Takes
out his watch, puts it in the grave.] Your watch, Eloise.

Eloise
[Holding to her wrist watch.] I thought I’d keep my watch, Ian. [Hastily.]
For an ornament, you know.
Ian
We are going to let truth be your ornament, Eloise.
Eloise
Nobody sees truth. [With a fresh outburst.] This watch was my graduation
present!
Ian
Symbolizing all the standardized arbitrary things you were taught!
Commemorating the clock-like way your mind was made to run. Free
yourself of that watch, Eloise. [Eloise reluctantly frees herself. Ian briskly
covers the watches. Moves to the unfilled grave.] Is there nothing for this
grave? [Eloise shakes her head.] Sure—the alarm clock!
Eloise
[Running to the sunflowers and spreading out her skirts before them.] Oh,
Ian, not the alarm clock! How would we ever go to Boston? The train
doesn’t run by the sun.
Ian
Then the train is wrong.
Eloise
But, Ian, if the train is wrong we have to be wrong to catch the train.
Ian
That’s civilization. [Stands resolutely by the grave.] The alarm clock,
Eloise. The grave awaits it.
Eloise
[Taking it up, her arms folded around it.] I wanted to go to Boston and buy
a hat!
Ian

The sun will fall upon your dear head and give you life.
Eloise
[About to cry.] But no style! It ticks so loud and sure!
Ian
All false things are loud and sure.
Eloise
I need a tick! I am afraid of tickless time!
[Holding the clock in both hands she places it against her left ear.
Ian
[Spade still in his right hand, he places his left arm around her
reassuringly.] You will grow, Eloise. You are growing.
[He takes the clock as he is saying this. She turns her head backward
following the departing clock with surprised and helpless eyes.
Disconsolately watches him bury it.
Eloise
[An inspiration.] Ian! Couldn’t you fix the sun-dial to be set and go off?
Ian
[Pained.] “Set and go off?” [Pause; regards the sun.] Sine sole sileo.
Eloise
What did you say, Ian?
Ian
I said: Sine sole sileo.
Eloise
Well, I don’t know what you say when you say that.
Ian
It’s a Latin motto I’ve just thought of for the sun-dial. It means, “Without
sun, I am silent.” Silence is a great virtue. [Having finished the grave, he
looks around, making sure there are no more clocks. Joyously.] Now we are

freed! Eloise, think what life is going to be! Done with approximations.
Done with machine thinking. In a world content with false time, we are
true.
Eloise
[Sitting on the steps.] Yes, it’s beautiful. I want to be true. It’s just that it’s a
little hard to be true in a false world. For instance, tomorrow I have an
appointment with the dentist. If I come on sun-time I suppose I’ll be twenty
minutes—
Ian
[Eagerly. Going to the sun-dial and pointing.] If you will just let me explain
this table—[Eloise shrinks back. Ian gives it up.] Oh, well, tell him you are
living by the truth.
Eloise
I’m afraid he’ll charge me for it. And when we ask people for dinner at
seven, they’ll get here at twenty minutes of seven. Or will it be twenty
minutes after seven?
Ian
[Smoothing down graves.] It will be a part of eternal time.
Eloise
Yes,—that’s true. Only the roast isn’t so eternal. Why do they have clocks
wrong?
Ian
Oh, Eloise, I’ve explained it so many times. You—living in Provincetown,
three hundred miles to the eastward, are living by the mean solar time of
Philadelphia. [Venomously.] Do you want to live by the mean solar time of
Philadelphia?
Eloise
Certainly not. [An idea.] Then has Philadelphia got the right time?
Ian
It’s right six miles this side of Philadelphia.

Eloise
We might move to Philadelphia.
[Enter through gate, Mrs. Stubbs, a Provincetown “native.”
Mrs. Stubbs
Now, Mr. Joyce, this sun clock,—is it running?
Ian
It doesn’t “run,” Mrs. Stubbs. It is acted upon.
Mrs. Stubbs
Oh. Well, is it being acted upon?
Ian
As surely as the sun shines.
Mrs. Stubbs
[Looking at the sun.] And it is shining today, isn’t it? Well, will you tell me
the time? My clock has stopped and I want to set it.
Ian
[Happily.] You hear, Eloise? Her clock has stopped.
Mrs. Stubbs
Yes, I forgot to wind it.
Eloise
[Grieved to think of any one living in such a world.] Wind it!
Ian
Do you not see, Mrs. Stubbs, where the shadow falls? [She comes up the
steps.] From its millions of spinn—You’re in the way of the sun, Mrs.
Stubbs. [She steps aside.] Its millions of spinning miles the sun casts that
shadow and here we know that it is eight minutes past six.
Mrs. Stubbs
Now, ain’t that wonderful? Dear, dear, I wish Mr. Stubbs could make a sun
clock. But he’s not handy around the house. Past six. Well, I must hurry

back. They work tonight at the cold storage but Mr. Stubbs gets home for
his supper at half past six.
[Starts away, reaching the gate.
Eloise
[Running to her.] Oh, Mrs. Stubbs! Don’t get his supper by sun time. It
wouldn’t be ready. It—[With a hesitant look at Ian] might get cold. [Mrs.
Stubbs stares.] You see, Mr. Stubbs is coming home by the mean solar time
of Philadelphia.
Mrs. Stubbs
[Loyal to Mr. Stubbs.] Who said he was?
Eloise
[In distress.] Oh, it’s all so false! And arbitrary!
[To Ian.] But I think Mrs. Stubbs had better be false and arbitrary too. Mr.
Stubbs might rather have his supper than the truth.
Mrs. Stubbs
[Advancing a little.] What is this about my being false? And—arbitrary?
Eloise
You see, you have to be, Mrs. Stubbs. We don’t blame you. How can you
live by the truth if Mr. Stubbs doesn’t work by it?
Mrs. Stubbs
This is the first word I ever heard said against Johnnie Stubbs’ way of
freezin’ fish.
Eloise
Oh, Mrs. Stubbs, if it were merely his way of freezing fish!
Ian
Since you are not trying to establish a direct relation with truth, set your
clock at five minutes of six. The clocks, as would be clear to you if you
would establish a first-hand relation with this diagram, Eloise, are slow.
Mrs. Stubbs

You mean your sun clock’s wrong.
Ian
All other clocks are wrong.
Eloise
You live by the mean solar time of Philadelphia.
Mrs. Stubbs
I do no such thing!
Eloise
Yes, you do, Mrs. Stubbs. You see the sun can’t be both here and in
Philadelphia at the same time. Now could it? So we have to pretend to be
where it is in Philadelphia.
Mrs. Stubbs
Who said we did?
Eloise
Well, [After a look at Ian] the Government.
Mrs. Stubbs
Them congressmen!
Eloise
But Mr. Joyce and I—You’re standing on a grave, Mrs. Stubbs. [Mrs.
Stubbs jumps.] The grave of my grandmother’s clock. [In reply to Mrs.
Stubbs look of amazement.] Oh, yes! That clock has done harm enough.
Mrs. Stubbs, think what time is—and then consider my grandmother’s
clock! Tick, tick! Tick, tick! Messing up eternity like that!
Mrs. Stubbs
[After failing to think of anything adequate.] I must get Mr. Stubbs his
supper!
[Frightened exit.
Ian

[Standing near house door.] Eloise, how I love you when feeling lifts you
out of routine! Do you know, dearest, you are very sensitive in the way you
feel feeling? Sometimes I think that to feel feeling is greater than to feel.
You’re like the dial. Your sensitiveness is the style—the gnomon—to cast
the shadow of the feeling all around you and mark what has been felt.
[They embrace. Eddy and Alice open the gate.
Eddy
Ahem! [He comes down.] Ahem! We seem to have come ahead of time.
Eloise
Oh, Eddy! Alice! [Moving toward Eddy but not passing the dial.] We are
living by sun time now. You haven’t arrived for twenty minutes.
Eddy
We haven’t arrived for twenty minutes? [Feeling of himself.] Why do I
seem to be here?
Alice
[Approaching dial.] So this is the famous sun-dial? How very interesting it
is!
Eloise
It’s more than that.
Alice
Yes, it’s really beautiful, isn’t it?
Eloise
It’s more than that.
Eddy
Is it?
Eloise
It’s a symbol. It means that Ian and I are done with approximations
arbitrarily and falsely imposed upon us.

Eddy
Well, I should think you would be. Who’s been doing that to you?
Eloise
Don’t step on the graves, please, Alice.
Alice
[Starting back in horror.] Graves?
Eloise
[Pointing down.] The lies we inherited lie buried there.
Eddy
Well, I should think that might make quite a graveyard. So the sun-dial is
built on lies.
Eloise
Indeed it is not!
Alice
Does it keep time?
Ian
It doesn’t “keep” time. It gives it.
Eddy
[Comparing with his watch.] Well, it gives it wrong. It’s twenty minutes
fast.
[Ian and Eloise smile at one another in a superior way.
Alice
You couldn’t expect a home-made clock to be perfectly accurate. I think it’s
doing very well to come within twenty minutes of the true time.
Ian
It is true time.
Eloise

You think it’s twenty minutes fast because your puny, meticulous little
watch is twenty minutes slow.
Alice
Why is it, Eddy? [Comparing watches across the sun-dial.] No, Eddy’s
watch is right by mine.
Ian
And neither of you is right by the truth.
Eloise
[Pityingly.] Don’t you know that you are running by the mean solar time of
Philadelphia?
Eddy
Well, isn’t everybody else running that way?
Eloise
Does that make it right?
Eddy
I get you. You are going to cast off standard time and live by solar time.
Eloise
Lies for truth.
Eddy
But how are you going to connect up with other people?
Ian
We can allow for their mistakes.
Eloise
We will connect with other people in so far as other people are capable of
connecting with the truth!
Eddy
I’m afraid you’ll be awful lonesome sometimes.

Alice
But, Eloise, do you mean to say that you are going to insist on being right
when other people are wrong?
Eloise
I insist upon it.
Alice
What a life!
Eddy
Come now, what difference does it make if we’re wrong if we’re all wrong
together?
Ian
That idea has made a clock of the human mind.
[Enter Annie.
Annie
Mrs. Joyce, can’t I have my clock back now? I don’t know when to start
dinner.
Ian
[Consulting dial.] By true time, Annie, it is twenty minutes past six.
Eloise
[Confidentially.] By false time, it is six.
Annie
I have to have my kitchen clock back.
[She looks around for it.
Ian
We are done with clocks, Annie.
Annie
You mean I’m not to have it back?

Eloise
It lies buried there.
Annie
Buried? My clock buried? It’s not dead!
Ian
It’s dead to us, Annie.
Annie
[After looking at the grave.] Do I get a new clock?
Eloise
We are going to establish a first-hand relation with truth.
Annie
You can’t cook without a clock.
Ian
A superstition. And anyway—have you not the sun?
Annie
[After regarding the sun.] I’d rather have a clock than the sun.
[Returns to her clockless kitchen.
Ian
That’s what clocks have made of the human mind.
Eddy
[Coming to Ian.] Of course, this is all a joke.
Ian
The attempt to reach truth has always been thought a joke.
Eddy
But this isn’t any new truth! Why re-reach it?
Ian

I’m reaching it myself. I’m getting the impact—as of a fresh truth.
Alice
But hasn’t it all been worked out for us?
Ian
And we take it never knowing—never feeling—what it is we take.
Eloise
And that has made us the mechanical things we are!
Annie
[Frantically rushes in, peeling an onion.] Starting the sauce for the
spaghetti. Fry onions in butter three minutes.
[Wildly regards sun-dial—traces curved line of diagram with knife. Looks
despairingly at the sun. Tears back into house.
Ian
You get no sense of wonder in looking at a clock.
Alice
Yes, do you know, I do. I’ve always thought that clocks were perfectly
wonderful. I never could understand how they could run like that.
Eloise
I suppose you know they run wrong?
Eddy
What do you mean “run wrong?”
Eloise
Why, you are running by the mean solar time of Philadelphia! And yet here
you are in Provincetown where the sun is a very different matter. You have
no direct relation with the sun.
Eddy
That doesn’t seem to worry me much.
Ian

No, it wouldn’t worry you, Eddy. You’re too perfect a product of a
standardized world.
[Eddy bows acknowledgment.
Annie
[Rushing out to look at dial.] Add meat, brown seven minutes.
[Measures seven minutes between thumb and finger, holds up this
fragment of time made visible and carries it carefully into the house.
Eddy
That girl’ll get heart disease.
Ian
Let her establish a first-hand relation to heat. If she’d take a look at the food
instead of the clock—!
Eddy
Trouble is we have to establish a first-hand relation with the spaghetti.
[Eddy now comes down and regards the sun-dial. Moralizes.] If other
people have got the wrong dope, you’ve got to have the wrong dope or be
an off ox.
Ian
Perfect product of a standardized nation!
Eddy
[Pointing with his stick.] What’s this standardized snake?
Ian
That’s my diagram correcting the sun.
Eddy
Does one correct the sun?
Eloise
[From behind the dial.] Ian! Correcting the sun!
Ian

You see there are only four days in the year when the apparent time is the
same as the average time.
Eloise
[In growing alarm.] Do you mean to tell me the sun is not right with itself?
Ian
I’ve tried to explain it to you, Eloise, but you said you could get the feeling
of it without understanding it. This curve [Pointing] marks the variation.
Here today, you see, the shadow is “right” as you call it—that is, average. It
will be right again here in September and again on December twenty-first.
Alice
My birthday!
Eloise
Ian, you mean to say the sun only tells the right sun-time four days in the
year?
Ian
It always tells the “right” sun-time, but here the said right sun-time is
fifteen minutes behind its own average, and here it is sixteen minutes ahead.
This scale here across the bottom shows you the number of minutes to add
or subtract.
Eloise
[With bitterness.] Add! Subtract! Then you and your sun are false!
Ian
No, Eloise, not false. Merely intricate. Merely not regular. Machines are
regular.
Eloise
You got me to bury the clocks and live by the sun—and now you tell me
you have to fix up the sun.
Ian
It was you who said bury the clocks.

Eloise
I suppose you have to do something to the North star too!
Ian
Yes, the North star is not true north.
[He starts to point out its error, sighting over the style of the dial.
Eloise
What is true? What is true?
Ian
[With vision.] The mind of man.
Eloise
I think I’d better have a clock. [A new gust.] You told me I was to live by
the sun and now—after the clocks are in their graves—what I am to live by
is that snake.
[She points at diagram.
Ian
You are a victim of misplaced confidence, Eloise. Sometimes when one
feels things without understanding them, one feels the wrong thing. But
there’s nothing to worry about. The sun and I can take care of the sun’s
irregularities.
Eddy
Take heart, Eloise. It’s a standardized sun.
Ian
It’s not a blindly accepted sun!
Annie
[Who comes as one not to be put aside.] What’ll I do when it rains?
Ian
You’ll use your mind.
Annie

To tell time by? [Looking to Eloise.] I think I’d better find another place.
Alice
[Coming forward, regarding this as a really serious matter.] No, don’t do
that, Annie.
Eloise
[Tearfully.] You don’t know the wonders of your own mind!
Annie
No, ma’m. [After a look at the sun, becomes terrified.] It’s going down!
Eddy
Yes, it goes down.
Annie
How’ll we tell time when it’s dark?
Ian
Sine sole sileo.
Annie
Is that saying how we’ll know when it’s time to go to bed?
Ian
The doves know when to go to bed.
Annie
The doves don’t go to the pictures.
Eloise
[Hysterically.] You’ll grow, Annie!
Annie
I’d rather have a clock!
[Exit.
Ian
She’d rather have a clock than grow.

Alice
Now why can’t one do both?
Ian
One doesn’t—that’s the answer. One merely has the clock. I’d rather be a
fool than a machine.
Eddy
I never definitely elected to be either.
Ian
One can be both without electing either.
Eloise
I want to hear the ticking of a clock!
Eddy
It’s a nice thing to hear. The ticking of a clock means the minds of many
men. As long as the mind of man has to—fix up the facts of nature in order
to create ideal time I feel it’s a little more substantial to have the minds of
many men.
Alice
As I’ve told you before, Eloise, you can’t do better than accept the things
that have been all worked out for you.
Ian
You hear them, Eloise? You see where this defense of clocks is leading?
Eloise
Ian, I’m terribly worried—and a little hurt—about the sun. [As one
beginning a dirge.] The sun has failed me. The North star is false.
Ian
[Going to her.] I am here, dearest.
Eloise
Sometimes you seem so much like space. I am running by the sun—that
wobbly sun [Looking at it] and everyone else is running by Philadelphia. I

want a little clock to tick to me!
Ian
You will grow, dearest.
Eloise
There’s no use growing. The things you grow to are wrong. [Pressing her
hands to her head.] I need a tick in time!
Ian
[Striding savagely from her.] Very well, then; dig up the clocks.
Eddy
Now you’re? talking!
[Eloise springs up.
Ian
Dig up the clocks! And we spend our lives nineteen minutes and twenty
seconds apart!
[Eloise is arrested, appalled. Dreadful pause.
Eloise
You mean we’d never get together?
Ian
Time would lie between us. I refuse to be re-caught into a clock world. It
was you, Eloise, who proposed we give up the clocks and live in this first-
hand relation to truth.
Eloise
I didn’t know I was proposing a first-hand relation with that snake!
Ian
It’s not a snake! It’s a little piece of the long winding road to truth. It’s the
discarding of error, the adjustment of fact. And I did it myself. And it puts
me on that road. Oh, I know [To Eddy and Alice] how you can laugh if you
yourself feel no need to feel truth. And you, Eloise, if you don’t want to feel

time—return to your mean little clock. What is a clock? A clock is the
soulless—
[The alarm clock enters a protest. Smothered sound of the alarm going
off underground. Eloise screams.
Eloise
The alarm clock! It’s going off!
Alice
Buried alive!
Eloise
Oh, no—oh, no! How terrible! Ian, how terrible!
[She runs to him. Alarm clock, being intermittent, goes off again.
Ian
Eloise, if you listen to the voice of that clock—!
Eddy
How bravely it tries to function in its grave!
Alice
The death struggle—the last gasp!
[With another scream Eloise snatches spade, begins to dig; alarm clock
gives another little gasp; spade is too slow for her: in her
desperation goes to it with her hands. Gets it and, as she holds it
aloft, the alarm clock rings its triumph.
Eloise
[Holding it to her ear.] It’s ticking! It ticks! It ticks! Oh, it’s good to hear
the ticking of a clock!
[As he hears this, Ian, after a moment of terrible silence, goes and
unscrews the plate of the sun-dial. All watch him, afraid to speak.
He takes it off, holds it above the grave from which the alarm clock
has been rescued.
Eloise

Ian! What are you doing? [He does not answer, but puts the sun-dial in the
alarm clock’s grave.] Ian! No! No! Not that! Not your beautiful sun-dial!
Oh, no! Not that!
[Ian, having finished the burial of the sun-dial, sees the alarm clock and
puts it on the pedestal from which the sun-dial has been taken.
Ian
We bow down, as of old, to the mechanical. We will have no other god but
it.
[He then sits on the step, sunk in gloom. Annie appears, in her hand a
panful of water.
Annie
This liver has to soak five minutes. I’ll soak it here. [Sees the alarm clock;
with a cry of joy.] My clock! My clock! [Overcome with emotion.] Oh! My
clock! My clock! Can I take it in the house to finish dinner?
Eloise
[In a hopeless voice.] Yes, take it away.
[Beaming, Annie bears it to her kitchen. Eloise now kneels behind the
grave of the sun-dial.
Eddy
Let us leave them alone with their dead.
[Leads Alice to the corner of the house; they look off down the road.
Eloise and Ian sit there on either side of the grave, swaying a little
back and forth, as those who mourn.
Eloise
[Looking at grave.] I had thought life was going to be so beautiful.
Ian
It might have been.
Eloise
[Looking at empty pedestal.] I suppose it will never be beautiful again.

Ian
It cannot be beautiful again.
[Suddenly, with a cry, Eloise gets up and darts to the house: comes
racing back with the alarm clock, snatches spade, desperately
begins to dig a grave.
Eloise
Ian! Ian! Don’t you see what I’m doing? I’m willing to have a first-hand
relation with the sun even though it’s not regular.
[But Ian is as one who has lost hope. Eddy and Alice turn to watch the
re-burial of the alarm clock. Annie strides in.
Annie
[In no mood for feeling.] Where’s my alarm clock?
Eloise
I am burying it.
Annie
Again? [Looks at sun-dial.] And even the sun-clock’s gone?
Eddy
All is buried. Truth. Error. We have returned to the nothing from which we
came.
Annie
This settles it. Now I go. I leave.
[Firm with purpose re-enters the house.
Alice
[Excitedly.] Eloise! She means it!
Eloise
[Dully.] I suppose she does.
[Continues her grave digging.
Alice

But you can’t get anybody else! You can’t get anybody now. Oh, this is
madness. What does any of the rest of it matter if you have lost your cook?
[To Ian.] Eloise can’t do the work! Peel potatoes—scrub. What’s the
difference what’s true if you have to clean out your own sink? [Despairing
of him she turns to Eloise.] Eloise, stop fussing about the moon and stars!
You’re losing your cook!
[Annie comes from the house with suit-case, shawl-strap and hand-bag
on long strings. Marches straight to left of stage, makes a face at the
sun, marches to gate left rear and off.
Alice
Eddy, go after her! Heavens! Has no one a mind? Go after her!
Eddy
What’s the good of going after her without a clock?
Alice
Well, get a clock! For heaven’s sake, get a clock! Eloise, get off the grave of
the alarm clock! [Eloise stands like a monument. To Eddy.] Well, there are
graves all around you. Dig something else up. No! You call her back. I’ll—
[Snatches spade, which is resting against sun-dial pedestal, begins to dig.
Eddy stands at back, calling.
Eddy
Annie! Oh, Annie! Wait, Annie!
Alice
[While frantically digging.] Say something to interest her, imbecile!
Eddy
[Stick in one hand, straw hat in the other, making wild signals with both.]
Come home, Annie! Clock! Clock! [Giving up that job and throwing off his
coat.] You interest her and I’ll dig.
[They change places.
Alice
She’s most to the bend! Eddy, don’t you know how to dig?

[Eddy, who has been digging with speed and skill, produces the clock
with which Eloise’s grandmother started housekeeping. Starts to
dash off with it.
Eloise
[Dully.] That clock doesn’t keep time. Annie hates it.
Ian
[As if irritated by all this inefficiency.] What she wants is the alarm clock.
Get off the grave, Eloise.
[He disinters alarm clock and with it runs after Annie. Alice draws a
long breath and rubs her back. Eddy brings the clock he dug up and
sets it on the pedestal. Then he looks down at the disturbed graves.
Eddy
Here’s a watch! [Lifts it from the grave; holds it out to Eloise; she does not
take it. He puts it on the pedestal beside the clock.] Here’s another watch.
[Holds up Ian’s watch.] Quite a valuable piece of ground.
[Now is heard the smothered voice of a cuckoo.
Alice
[Jumping.] What’s that?
Eloise
The cuckoo. I suppose it’s lonesome.
Alice
[Outraged.] Cuckoo! [Pointing.] In that grave? The cuckoo we gave you?
[Eloise nods.] You buried our wedding present? [Eloise again nods. Eddy
and Alice draw together in indignation.] Well, I must say, the people who
try to lead the right kind of lives always do the wrong thing. [Stiffly.] I am
not accustomed to having my wedding presents put in graves. Will you
please dig it up, Eddy? It will do very well on the mantel in our library. And
my back nearly broken digging for your cook!
[She holds her back. While Eddy is digging up the cuckoo, Annie and Ian
appear and march across from gate to house, Annie triumphantly
bearing her alarm clock, Ian—a captive at her chariot wheels—

following with suit-case, shawl strap and long strings of bag around
his wrist. A moment later Ian comes out of the house, looks at each
dug-up thing, stands by the grave of the sun-dial. Enter Mrs.
Stubbs.
Mrs. Stubbs
Oh, Mr. Joyce, I’ve come to see your sun-clock again. Mr. Stubbs says he’ll
not be run from Philadelphia. He says if you have got the time straight from
the sun—[Sees that the sun-dial is gone.] Oh, do you take it in at night?
Ian
The sun-dial lies buried there.
Mrs. Stubbs
You’ve buried the sun-clock? And dug up all the wrong clocks? [With a
withering glance at Eloise.] That’s how a smart man’s appreciated! What
did you bury it for, Mr. Joyce?
[Eddy gives the cuckoo clock to Alice.
Ian
It cannot live in this world where no one wants truth or feeling about truth.
This is a world for clocks.
Mrs. Stubbs
Well, I want truth! And so does Johnnie Stubbs! If you’ll excuse my saying
so, Mr. Joyce, after you’ve made a thing that’s right you oughtn’t to bury it,
even if there is nobody to want it. And now that I want it—[Mrs. Stubbs
takes the spade and begins to dig up the sun-dial. Ian cannot resist this and
helps her. He lifts the sun-dial, she brushes it off and he fits it to its place on
the pedestal.] Now there it is, Mr. Joyce, and as good as if it had never seen
the grave. [She looks at the setting sun.] And there’s time for it to make its
shadow before this sun has gone.
Ian
The simple mind has beauty.
Eloise
[Coming to him.] I want to be simpler.

Mrs. Stubbs
Now what time would you say it was, Mr. Joyce?
Ian
I would say it was twenty minutes of seven, Mrs. Stubbs.
Mrs. Stubbs
[Looking at Eddy and Alice and the cuckoo clock.] And they would say it
was twenty minutes past six! Well, I say: let them that want sun time have
sun time and them that want tick time have tick time.
[Annie appears at the door.
Annie
[In a flat voice.] It’s dinner time!
(Curtain)

Transcriber’s Notes:
The one illustration has been moved to a paragraph break near where it is mentioned.
Punctuation has been made consistent.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in the original
publication, except that obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
The following change was made:
p. 255: Steve changed to Henrietta (Henrietta? Henrietta Why,)

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