The Project Gutenberg EBook of Plays, by Susan Glaspell

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net


Title: Plays

Author: Susan Glaspell

Release Date: January 7, 2004 [EBook #10623]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS ***




Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.





Plays by

Susan Glaspell


TRIFLES

THE OUTSIDE

THE VERGE

INHERITORS




TRIFLES


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


GEORGE HENDERSON (County Attorney)

HENRY PETERS (Sheriff)

LEWIS HALE, A neighboring farmer

MRS PETERS

MRS HALE


SCENE: _The kitchen is the now abandoned farmhouse of_ JOHN WRIGHT, _a
gloomy kitchen, and left without having been put in order--unwashed pans
under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the bread-box, a dish-towel on
the table--other signs of incompleted work. At the rear the outer door
opens and the_ SHERIFF _comes in followed by the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _and_
HALE. _The_ SHERIFF _and_ HALE _are men in middle life, the_ COUNTY
ATTORNEY _is a young man; all are much bundled up and go at once to the
stove. They are followed by the two women--the_ SHERIFF_'s wife first;
she is a slight wiry woman, a thin nervous face_. MRS HALE _is larger
and would ordinarily be called more comfortable looking, but she is
disturbed now and looks fearfully about as she enters. The women have
come in slowly, and stand close together near the door_.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_rubbing his hands_) This feels good. Come up to the
fire, ladies.

MRS PETERS: (_after taking a step forward_) I'm not--cold.

SHERIFF: (_unbuttoning his overcoat and stepping away from the stove as
if to mark the beginning of official business_) Now, Mr Hale, before we
move things about, you explain to Mr Henderson just what you saw when
you came here yesterday morning.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: By the way, has anything been moved? Are things just as
you left them yesterday?

SHERIFF: (_looking about_) It's just the same. When it dropped below
zero last night I thought I'd better send Frank out this morning to make
a fire for us--no use getting pneumonia with a big case on, but I told
him not to touch anything except the stove--and you know Frank.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Somebody should have been left here yesterday.

SHERIFF: Oh--yesterday. When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for
that man who went crazy--I want you to know I had my hands full
yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by today and as long as
I went over everything here myself--

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, Mr Hale, tell just what happened when you came
here yesterday morning.

HALE: Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes. We came
along the road from my place and as I got here I said, I'm going to see
if I can't get John Wright to go in with me on a party telephone.' I
spoke to Wright about it once before and he put me off, saying folks
talked too much anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet--I guess
you know about how much he talked himself; but I thought maybe if I went
to the house and talked about it before his wife, though I said to Harry
that I didn't know as what his wife wanted made much difference to
John--

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Let's talk about that later, Mr Hale. I do want to talk
about that, but tell now just what happened when you got to the house.

HALE: I didn't hear or see anything; I knocked at the door, and still it
was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up, it was past eight o'clock.
So I knocked again, and I thought I heard somebody say, 'Come in.' I
wasn't sure, I'm not sure yet, but I opened the door--this door
(_indicating the door by which the two women are still standing_) and
there in that rocker--(_pointing to it_) sat Mrs Wright.

(_They all look at the rocker_.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY: What--was she doing?

HALE: She was rockin' back and forth. She had her apron in her hand and
was kind of--pleating it.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: And how did she--look?

HALE: Well, she looked queer.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: How do you mean--queer?

HALE: Well, as if she didn't know what she was going to do next. And
kind of done up.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: How did she seem to feel about your coming?

HALE: Why, I don't think she minded--one way or other. She didn't pay
much attention. I said, 'How do, Mrs Wright it's cold, ain't it?' And
she said, 'Is it?'--and went on kind of pleating at her apron. Well, I
was surprised; she didn't ask me to come up to the stove, or to set
down, but just sat there, not even looking at me, so I said, 'I want to
see John.' And then she--laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh. I
thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said a little sharp: 'Can't
I see John?' 'No', she says, kind o' dull like. 'Ain't he home?' says I.
'Yes', says she, 'he's home'. 'Then why can't I see him?' I asked her,
out of patience. ''Cause he's dead', says she. _'Dead_?' says I. She
just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but rockin' back and
forth. 'Why--where is he?' says I, not knowing what to say. She just
pointed upstairs--like that (_himself pointing to the room above_) I got
up, with the idea of going up there. I walked from there to here--then I
says, 'Why, what did he die of?' 'He died of a rope round his neck',
says she, and just went on pleatin' at her apron. Well, I went out and
called Harry. I thought I might--need help. We went upstairs and there
he was lyin'--

COUNTY ATTORNEY: I think I'd rather have you go into that upstairs,
where you can point it all out. Just go on now with the rest of the
story.

HALE: Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked ...
(_stops, his face twitches_) ... but Harry, he went up to him, and he
said, 'No, he's dead all right, and we'd better not touch anything.' So
we went back down stairs. She was still sitting that same way. 'Has
anybody been notified?' I asked. 'No', says she unconcerned. 'Who did
this, Mrs Wright?' said Harry. He said it business-like--and she stopped
pleatin' of her apron. 'I don't know', she says. 'You don't _know_?'
says Harry. 'No', says she. 'Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with him?'
says Harry. 'Yes', says she, 'but I was on the inside'. 'Somebody
slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him and you didn't wake up?'
says Harry. 'I didn't wake up', she said after him. We must 'a looked as
if we didn't see how that could be, for after a minute she said, 'I
sleep sound'. Harry was going to ask her more questions but I said maybe
we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner, or the sheriff,
so Harry went fast as he could to Rivers' place, where there's a
telephone.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: And what did Mrs Wright do when she knew that you had
gone for the coroner?

HALE: She moved from that chair to this one over here (_pointing to a
small chair in the corner_) and just sat there with her hands held
together and looking down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some
conversation, so I said I had come in to see if John wanted to put in a
telephone, and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and
looked at me--scared, (_the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY, _who has had his notebook
out, makes a note_) I dunno, maybe it wasn't scared. I wouldn't like to
say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr Lloyd came, and you, Mr
Peters, and so I guess that's all I know that you don't.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_looking around_) I guess we'll go upstairs first--and
then out to the barn and around there, (_to the_ SHERIFF) You're
convinced that there was nothing important here--nothing that would
point to any motive.

SHERIFF: Nothing here but kitchen things.

(_The_ COUNTY ATTORNEY, _after again looking around the kitchen, opens
the door of a cupboard closet. He gets up on a chair and looks on a
shelf. Pulls his hand away, sticky_.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Here's a nice mess.

(_The women draw nearer_.)

MRS PETERS: (_to the other woman_) Oh, her fruit; it did freeze, (_to
the_ LAWYER) She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the
fire'd go out and her jars would break.

SHERIFF: Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin'
about her preserves.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: I guess before we're through she may have something
more serious than preserves to worry about.

HALE: Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.

(_The two women move a little closer together_.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_with the gallantry of a young politician_) And yet,
for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies? (_the women
do not unbend. He goes to the sink, takes a dipperful of water from the
pail and pouring it into a basin, washes his hands. Starts to wipe them
on the roller-towel, turns it for a cleaner place_) Dirty towels!
(_kicks his foot against the pans under the sink_) Not much of a
housekeeper, would you say, ladies?

MRS HALE: (_stiffly_) There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: To be sure. And yet (_with a little bow to her_) I know
there are some Dickson county farmhouses which do not have such roller
towels. (_He gives it a pull to expose its length again_.)

MRS HALE: Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always
as clean as they might be.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Ah, loyal to your sex, I see. But you and Mrs Wright
were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too.

MRS HALE: (_shaking her head_) I've not seen much of her of late years.
I've not been in this house--it's more than a year.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: And why was that? You didn't like her?

MRS HALE: I liked her all well enough. Farmers' wives have their hands
full, Mr Henderson. And then--

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes--?

MRS HALE: (_looking about_) It never seemed a very cheerful place.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: No--it's not cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the
homemaking instinct.

MRS HALE: Well, I don't know as Wright had, either.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: You mean that they didn't get on very well?

MRS HALE: No, I don't mean anything. But I don't think a place'd be any
cheerfuller for John Wright's being in it.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'd like to talk more of that a little later. I want to
get the lay of things upstairs now. (_He goes to the left, where three
steps lead to a stair door_.)

SHERIFF: I suppose anything Mrs Peters does'll be all right. She was to
take in some clothes for her, you know, and a few little things. We left
in such a hurry yesterday.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes, but I would like to see what you take, Mrs Peters,
and keep an eye out for anything that might be of use to us.

MRS PETERS: Yes, Mr Henderson.

(_The women listen to the men's steps on the stairs, then look about the
kitchen_.)

MRS HALE: I'd hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around
and criticising.

(_She arranges the pans under sink which the_ LAWYER _had shoved out of
place_.)

MRS PETERS: Of course it's no more than their duty.

MRS HALE: Duty's all right, but I guess that deputy sheriff that came
out to make the fire might have got a little of this on. (_gives the
roller towel a pull_) Wish I'd thought of that sooner. Seems mean to
talk about her for not having things slicked up when she had to come
away in such a hurry.

MRS PETERS: (_who has gone to a small table in the left rear corner of
the room, and lifted one end of a towel that covers a pan_) She had
bread set. (_Stands still_.)

MRS HALE: (_eyes fixed on a loaf of bread beside the bread-box, which is
on a low shelf at the other side of the room. Moves slowly toward it_)
She was going to put this in there, (_picks up loaf, then abruptly drops
it. In a manner of returning to familiar things_) It's a shame about her
fruit. I wonder if it's all gone. (_gets up on the chair and looks_) I
think there's some here that's all right, Mrs Peters. Yes--here;
(_holding it toward the window_) this is cherries, too. (_looking
again_) I declare I believe that's the only one. (_gets down, bottle in
her hand. Goes to the sink and wipes it off on the outside_) She'll feel
awful bad after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the
afternoon I put up my cherries last summer.

(_She puts the bottle on the big kitchen table, center of the room. With
a sigh, is about to sit down in the rocking-chair. Before she is seated
realizes what chair it is; with a slow look at it, steps back. The chair
which she has touched rocks back and forth_.)

MRS PETERS: Well, I must get those things from the front room closet,
(_she goes to the door at the right, but after looking into the other
room, steps back_) You coming with me, Mrs Hale? You could help me carry
them.

(_They go in the other room; reappear,_ MRS PETERS _carrying a dress and
skirt,_ MRS HALE _following with a pair of shoes._)

MRS PETERS: My, it's cold in there.

(_She puts the clothes on the big table, and hurries to the stove._)

MRS HALE: (_examining the skirt_) Wright was close. I think maybe that's
why she kept so much to herself. She didn't even belong to the Ladies
Aid. I suppose she felt she couldn't do her part, and then you don't
enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and
be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in
the choir. But that--oh, that was thirty years ago. This all you was to
take in?

MRS PETERS: She said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want, for there
isn't much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just
to make her feel more natural. She said they was in the top drawer in
this cupboard. Yes, here. And then her little shawl that always hung
behind the door. (_opens stair door and looks_) Yes, here it is.

(_Quickly shuts door leading upstairs._)

MRS HALE: (_abruptly moving toward her_) Mrs Peters?

MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale?

MRS HALE: Do you think she did it?

MRS PETERS: (_in a frightened voice_) Oh, I don't know.

MRS HALE: Well, I don't think she did. Asking for an apron and her
little shawl. Worrying about her fruit.

MRS PETERS: (_starts to speak, glances up, where footsteps are heard in
the room above. In a low voice_) Mr Peters says it looks bad for her. Mr
Henderson is awful sarcastic in a speech and he'll make fun of her
sayin' she didn't wake up.

MRS HALE: Well, I guess John Wright didn't wake when they was slipping
that rope under his neck.

MRS PETERS: No, it's strange. It must have been done awful crafty and
still. They say it was such a--funny way to kill a man, rigging it all
up like that.

MRS HALE: That's just what Mr Hale said. There was a gun in the house.
He says that's what he can't understand.

MRS PETERS: Mr Henderson said coming out that what was needed for the
case was a motive; something to show anger, or--sudden feeling.

MRS HALE: (_who is standing by the table_) Well, I don't see any signs
of anger around here, (_she puts her hand on the dish towel which lies
on the table, stands looking down at table, one half of which is clean,
the other half messy_) It's wiped to here, (_makes a move as if to
finish work, then turns and looks at loaf of bread outside the breadbox.
Drops towel. In that voice of coming back to familiar things._) Wonder
how they are finding things upstairs. I hope she had it a little more
red-up up there. You know, it seems kind of sneaking. Locking her up in
town and then coming out here and trying to get her own house to turn
against her!

MRS PETERS: But Mrs Hale, the law is the law.

MRS HALE: I s'pose 'tis, (_unbuttoning her coat_) Better loosen up your
things, Mrs Peters. You won't feel them when you go out.

(MRS PETERS _takes off her fur tippet, goes to hang it on hook at back
of room, stands looking at the under part of the small corner table_.)

MRS PETERS: She was piecing a quilt. (_She brings the large sewing
basket and they look at the bright pieces_.)

MRS HALE: It's log cabin pattern. Pretty, isn't it? I wonder if she was
goin' to quilt it or just knot it?

(_Footsteps have been heard coming down the stairs_. The SHERIFF enters
followed by HALE and the COUNTY ATTORNEY.)

SHERIFF: They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it! (_The
men laugh, the women look abashed_.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_rubbing his hands over the stove_) Frank's fire
didn't do much up there, did it? Well, let's go out to the barn and get
that cleared up. (_The men go outside_.)

MRS HALE: (_resentfully_) I don't know as there's anything so strange,
our takin' up our time with little things while we're waiting for them
to get the evidence. (_she sits down at the big table smoothing out a
block with decision_) I don't see as it's anything to laugh about.

MRS PETERS: (_apologetically_) Of course they've got awful important
things on their minds.

(_Pulls up a chair and joins MRS HALE at the table_.)

MRS HALE: (_examining another block_) Mrs Peters, look at this one.
Here, this is the one she was working on, and look at the sewing! All
the rest of it has been so nice and even. And look at this! It's all
over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn't know what she was about!

(_After she has said this they look at each other, then start to glance
back at the door. After an instant_ MRS HALE _has pulled at a knot and
ripped the sewing_.)

MRS PETERS: Oh, what are you doing, Mrs Hale?

MRS HALE: (_mildly_) Just pulling out a stitch or two that's not sewed
very good. (_threading a needle_) Bad sewing always made me fidgety.

MRS PETERS: (nervously) I don't think we ought to touch things.

MRS HALE: I'll just finish up this end. (_suddenly stopping and leaning
forward_) Mrs Peters?

MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale?

MRS HALE: What do you suppose she was so nervous about?

MRS PETERS: Oh--I don't know. I don't know as she was nervous. I
sometimes sew awful queer when I'm just tired. (MRS HALE _starts to say
something, looks at_ MRS PETERS, _then goes on sewing_) Well I must get
these things wrapped up. They may be through sooner than we think,
(_putting apron and other things together_) I wonder where I can find a
piece of paper, and string.

MRS HALE: In that cupboard, maybe.

MRS PETERS: (_looking in cupboard_) Why, here's a bird-cage, (_holds it
up_) Did she have a bird, Mrs Hale?

MRS HALE: Why, I don't know whether she did or not--I've not been here
for so long. There was a man around last year selling canaries cheap,
but I don't know as she took one; maybe she did. She used to sing real
pretty herself.

MRS PETERS: (_glancing around_) Seems funny to think of a bird here. But
she must have had one, or why would she have a cage? I wonder what
happened to it.

MRS HALE: I s'pose maybe the cat got it.

MRS PETERS: No, she didn't have a cat. She's got that feeling some
people have about cats--being afraid of them. My cat got in her room and
she was real upset and asked me to take it out.

MRS HALE: My sister Bessie was like that. Queer, ain't it?

MRS PETERS: (_examining the cage_) Why, look at this door. It's broke.
One hinge is pulled apart.

MRS HALE: (_looking too_) Looks as if someone must have been rough with
it.

MRS PETERS: Why, yes.

(_She brings the cage forward and puts it on the table_.)

MRS HALE: I wish if they're going to find any evidence they'd be about
it. I don't like this place.

MRS PETERS: But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs Hale. It would be
lonesome for me sitting here alone.

MRS HALE: It would, wouldn't it? (_dropping her sewing_) But I tell you
what I do wish, Mrs Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when _she_
was here. I--(_looking around the room_)--wish I had.

MRS PETERS: But of course you were awful busy, Mrs Hale--your house and
your children.

MRS HALE: I could've come. I stayed away because it weren't
cheerful--and that's why I ought to have come. I--I've never liked this
place. Maybe because it's down in a hollow and you don't see the road. I
dunno what it is, but it's a lonesome place and always was. I wish I had
come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now--(_shakes her
head_)

MRS PETERS: Well, you mustn't reproach yourself, Mrs Hale. Somehow we
just don't see how it is with other folks until--something comes up.

MRS HALE: Not having children makes less work--but it makes a quiet
house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come
in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs Peters?

MRS PETERS: Not to know him; I've seen him in town. They say he was a
good man.

MRS HALE: Yes--good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most,
I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs Peters. Just to
pass the time of day with him--(_shivers_) Like a raw wind that gets to
the bone, (_pauses, her eye falling on the cage_) I should think she
would 'a wanted a bird. But what do you suppose went with it?

MRS PETERS: I don't know, unless it got sick and died.

(_She reaches over and swings the broken door, swings it again, both
women watch it_.)

MRS HALE: You weren't raised round here, were you? (_MRS PETERS shakes
her head_) You didn't know--her?

MRS PETERS: Not till they brought her yesterday.

MRS HALE: She--come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird
herself--real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and--fluttery.
How--she--did--change. (_silence; then as if struck by a happy thought
and relieved to get back to everyday things_) Tell you what, Mrs Peters,
why don't you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her mind.

MRS PETERS: Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs Hale. There
couldn't possibly be any objection to it, could there? Now, just what
would I take? I wonder if her patches are in here--and her things.

(_They look in the sewing basket_.)

MRS HALE: Here's some red. I expect this has got sewing things in it.
(_brings out a fancy box_) What a pretty box. Looks like something
somebody would give you. Maybe her scissors are in here. (_Opens box.
Suddenly puts her hand to her nose_) Why--(MRS PETERS _bends nearer,
then turns her face away_) There's something wrapped up in this piece of
silk.

MRS PETERS: Why, this isn't her scissors.

MRS HALE: (_lifting the silk_) Oh, Mrs Peters--it's--

(MRS PETERS _bends closer_.)

MRS PETERS: It's the bird.

MRS HALE: (_jumping up_) But, Mrs Peters--look at it! It's neck! Look at
its neck!

It's all--other side _to_.

MRS PETERS: Somebody--wrung--its--neck.

(_Their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension, of horror. Steps are
heard outside_. MRS HALE _slips box under quilt pieces, and sinks into
her chair. Enter_ SHERIFF _and_ COUNTY ATTORNEY. MRS PETERS _rises_.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_as one turning from serious things to little
pleasantries_) Well ladies, have you decided whether she was going to
quilt it or knot it?

MRS PETERS: We think she was going to--knot it.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, that's interesting, I'm sure. (_seeing the
birdcage_) Has the bird flown?

MRS HALE: (_putting more quilt pieces over the box_) We think the--cat
got it.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_preoccupied_) Is there a cat?

(MRS HALE _glances in a quick covert way at_ MRS PETERS.)

MRS PETERS: Well, not now. They're superstitious, you know. They leave.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_to_ SHERIFF PETERS, _continuing an interrupted
conversation_) No sign at all of anyone having come from the outside.
Their own rope. Now let's go up again and go over it piece by piece.
(_they start upstairs_) It would have to have been someone who knew just
the--

(MRS PETERS _sits down. The two women sit there not looking at one
another, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding
back. When they talk now it is in the manner of feeling their way over
strange ground, as if afraid of what they are saying, but as if they can
not help saying it_.)

MRS HALE: She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty
box.

MRS PETERS: (_in a whisper_) When I was a girl--my kitten--there was a
boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes--and before I could get
there--(_covers her face an instant_) If they hadn't held me back I
would have--(_catches herself, looks upstairs where steps are heard,
falters weakly_)--hurt him.

MRS HALE: (_with a slow look around her_) I wonder how it would seem
never to have had any children around, (_pause_) No, Wright wouldn't
like the bird--a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too.

MRS PETERS: (_moving uneasily_) We don't know who killed the bird.

MRS HALE: I knew John Wright.

MRS PETERS: It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs
Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope around his neck that
choked the life out of him.

MRS HALE: His neck. Choked the life out of him.

(_Her hand goes out and rests on the bird-cage_.)

MRS PETERS: (_with rising voice_) We don't know who killed him. We don't
_know_.

MRS HALE: (_her own feeling not interrupted_) If there'd been years and
years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful--still,
after the bird was still.

MRS PETERS: (_something within her speaking_) I know what stillness is.
When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died--after he was two
years old, and me with no other then--

MRS HALE: (_moving_) How soon do you suppose they'll be through, looking
for the evidence?

MRS PETERS: I know what stillness is. (_pulling herself back_) The law
has got to punish crime, Mrs Hale.

MRS HALE: (_not as if answering that_) I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster
when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the
choir and sang. (_a look around the room_) Oh, I _wish_ I'd come over
here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to
punish that?

MRS PETERS: (_looking upstairs_) We mustn't--take on.

MRS HALE: I might have known she needed help! I know how things can
be--for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs Peters. We live close
together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things--it's
all just a different kind of the same thing, (_brushes her eyes,
noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for it_) If I was you, I
wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her it _ain't_. Tell her it's
all right. Take this in to prove it to her. She--she may never know
whether it was broke or not.

MRS PETERS: (_takes the bottle, looks about for something to wrap it in;
takes petticoat from the clothes brought from the other room, very
nervously begins winding this around the bottle. In a false voice_) My,
it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us. Wouldn't they just laugh!
Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a--dead canary. As if
that could have anything to do with--with--wouldn't they _laugh_!

(_The men are heard coming down stairs_.)

MRS HALE: (_under her breath_) Maybe they would--maybe they wouldn't.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: No, Peters, it's all perfectly clear except a reason
for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was
some definite thing. Something to show--something to make a story
about--a thing that would connect up with this strange way of doing it--

(_The women's eyes meet for an instant. Enter HALE from outer door_.)

HALE: Well, I've got the team around. Pretty cold out there.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'm going to stay here a while by myself, (_to the_
SHERIFF) You can send Frank out for me, can't you? I want to go over
everything. I'm not satisfied that we can't do better.

SHERIFF: Do you want to see what Mrs Peters is going to take in?

(_The_ LAWYER _goes to the table, picks up the apron, laughs_.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY: Oh, I guess they're not very dangerous things the
ladies have picked out. (_Moves a few things about, disturbing the quilt
pieces which cover the box. Steps back_) No, Mrs Peters doesn't need
supervising. For that matter, a sheriff's wife is married to the law.
Ever think of it that way, Mrs Peters?

MRS PETERS: Not--just that way.

SHERIFF: (_chuckling_) Married to the law. (_moves toward the other
room_) I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to
take a look at these windows.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_scoffingly_) Oh, windows!

SHERIFF: We'll be right out, Mr Hale.

(HALE _goes outside. The_ SHERIFF _follows the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _into
the other room. Then_ MRS HALE _rises, hands tight together, looking
intensely at_ MRS PETERS, _whose eyes make a slow turn, finally meeting_
MRS HALE_'s. A moment_ MRS HALE _holds her, then her own eyes point the
way to where the box is concealed. Suddenly_ MRS PETERS _throws back
quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing. It is
too big. She opens box, starts to take bird out, cannot touch it, goes
to pieces, stands there helpless. Sound of a knob turning in the other
room_. MRS HALE _snatches the box and puts it in the pocket of her big
coat. Enter_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _and_ SHERIFF.)

COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_facetiously_) Well, Henry, at least we found out that
she was not going to quilt it. She was going to--what is it you call it,
ladies?

MRS HALE: (_her hand against her pocket_) We call it--knot it, Mr
Henderson.


(CURTAIN)




THE OUTSIDE


First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Playwrights' Theatre,
December 28, 1917.


CAPTAIN (of 'The Bars' Life-Saving Station)

BRADFORD (a Life-Saver)

TONY (a Portuguese Life-Saver)

MRS PATRICK (who lives in the abandoned Station)

ALLIE MAYO (who works for her)


SCENE: _A room in a house which was once a life-saving station. Since
ceasing to be that it has taken on no other character, except that of a
place which no one cares either to preserve or change. It is painted the
life-saving grey, but has not the life-saving freshness. This is one end
of what was the big boat room, and at the ceiling is seen a part of the
frame work from which the boat once swung. About two thirds of the back
wall is open, because of the big sliding door, of the type of barn door,
and through this open door are seen the sand dunes, and beyond them the
woods. At one point the line where woods and dunes meet stands out
clearly and there are indicated the rude things, vines, bushes, which
form the outer uneven rim of the woods--the only things that grow in the
sand. At another point a sand-hill is menacing the woods. This old
life-saving station is at a point where the sea curves, so through the
open door the sea also is seen. (The station is located on the outside
shore of Cape Cod, at the point, near the tip of the Cape, where it
makes that final curve which forms the Provincetown Harbor.) The dunes
are hills and strange forms of sand on which, in places, grows the stiff
beach grass--struggle; dogged growing against odds. At right of the big
sliding door is a drift of sand and the top of buried beach grass is
seen on this. There is a door left, and at right of big sliding door is
a slanting wall. Door in this is ajar at rise of curtain, and through
this door_ BRADFORD _and_ TONY, _life-savers, are seen bending over a
man's body, attempting to restore respiration. The captain of the
life-savers comes into view outside the big open door, at left; he
appears to have been hurrying, peers in, sees the men, goes quickly to
them._

CAPTAIN: I'll take this now, boys.

BRADFORD: No need for anybody to take it, Capt'n. He was dead when we
picked him up.

CAPTAIN: Dannie Sears was dead when we picked him up. But we brought him
back. I'll go on awhile.

(_The two men who have been bending over the body rise, stretch to
relax, and come into the room._)

BRADFORD: (_pushing back his arms and putting his hands on his chest_)
Work,--tryin to put life in the dead.

CAPTAIN: Where'd you find him, Joe?

BRADFORD: In front of this house. Not forty feet out.

CAPTAIN: What'd you bring him up here for?

(_He speaks in an abstracted way, as if the working part of his mind is
on something else, and in the muffled voice of one bending over._)

BRADFORD: (_with a sheepish little laugh_) Force of habit, I guess. We
brought so many of 'em back up here, (_looks around the room_) And then
it was kind of unfriendly down where he was--the wind spittin' the sea
onto you till he'd have no way of knowin' he was ashore.

TONY: Lucky I was not sooner or later as I walk by from my watch.

BRADFORD: You have accommodating ways, Tony. No sooner or later. I
wouldn't say it of many Portagees. But the sea (_calling it in to the_
CAPTAIN) is friendly as a kitten alongside the women that live _here_.
Allie Mayo--they're _both_ crazy--had that door open (_moving his head
toward the big sliding door_) sweepin' out, and when we come along she
backs off and stands lookin' at us, _lookin_'--Lord, I just wanted to
get him somewhere else. So I kicked this door open with my foot
(_jerking his hand toward the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is seen bending
over the man_) and got him _away. (under his voice_) If he did have any
notion of comin' back to life, he wouldn't a come if he'd seen her.
(_more genially_) I wouldn't.

CAPTAIN: You know who he is, Joe?

BRADFORD: I never saw him before.

CAPTAIN: Mitchell telephoned from High Head that a dory came ashore
there.

BRADFORD: Last night wasn't the _best_ night for a dory. (_to_ TONY,
_boastfully_) Not that I couldn't 'a' stayed in one. Some men can stay
in a dory and some can't. (_going to the inner door_) That boy's dead,
Capt'n.

CAPTAIN: Then I'm not doing him any harm.

BRADFORD: (_going over and shaking the frame where the boat once swung_)
This the first time you ever been in this place, ain't it, Tony?

TONY: I never was here before.

BRADFORD: Well, _I_ was here before. (_a laugh_) And the old
man--(_nodding toward the_ CAPTAIN) he lived here for twenty-seven
years. Lord, the things that happened _here_. There've been dead ones
carried through _that_ door. (_pointing to the outside door_) Lord--the
ones _I've_ carried. I carried in Bill Collins, and Lou Harvey and--huh!
'sall over now. You ain't seen no _wrecks_. Don't ever think you have. I
was here the night the Jennie Snow was out there. (_pointing to the
sea_) There was a _wreck_. We got the boat that stood here (_again
shaking the frame_) down that bank. (_goes to the door and looks out_)
Lord, how'd we ever do it? The sand has put his place on the blink all
right. And then when it gets too God-for-saken for a life-savin'
station, a lady takes it for a summer residence--and then spends the
winter. She's a cheerful one.

TONY: A woman--she makes things pretty. This not like a place where a
woman live. On the floor there is nothing--on the wall there is nothing.
Things--(_trying to express it with his hands_) do not hang on other
things.

BRADFORD: (_imitating_ TONY_'s gesture_) No--things do not hang on other
things. In my opinion the woman's crazy--sittin' over there on the
sand--(_a gesture towards the dunes_) what's she _lookin'_ at? There
ain't nothin' to _see_. And I know the woman that works for her's
crazy--Allie Mayo. She's a Provincetown girl. She was all right once,
but--

(MRS PATRICK _comes in from the hall at the right. She is a 'city
woman', a sophisticated person who has been caught into something as
unlike the old life as the dunes are unlike a meadow. At the moment she
is excited and angry_.)

MRS PATRICK: You have no right here. This isn't the life-saving station
any more. Just because it used to be--I don't see why you should
think--This is my house! And--I want my house to myself!

CAPTAIN: (_putting his head through the door. One arm of the man he is
working with is raised, and the hand reaches through the doorway_) Well
I must say, lady, I would think that any house could be a life-saving
station when the sea had sent a man to it.

MRS PATRICK: (_who has turned away so she cannot see the hand_) I don't
want him here! I--(_defiant, yet choking_) I must have my house to
myself!

CAPTAIN: You'll get your house to yourself when I've made up my mind
there's no more life in this man. A good many lives have been saved in
this house, Mrs Patrick--I believe that's your name--and if there's any
chance of bringing one more back from the dead, the fact that you own
the house ain't goin' to make a damn bit of difference to me!

MRS PATRICK: (_in a thin wild way_) I must have my house to myself.

CAPTAIN: Hell with such a woman!

(_Moves the man he is working with and slams the door shut. As the_
CAPTAIN _says, 'And if there's any chance of bringing one more back from
the dead_', ALLIE MAYO _has appeared outside the wide door which gives
on to the dunes, a bleak woman, who at first seems little more than a
part of the sand before which she stands. But as she listens to this
conflict one suspects in her that peculiar intensity of twisted things
which grow in unfavoring places_.)

MRS PATRICK: I--I don't want them here! I must--

(_But suddenly she retreats, and is gone_.)

BRADFORD: Well, I couldn't say, Allie Mayo, that you work for any too
kind-hearted a lady. What's the matter with the woman? Does she want
folks to die? Appears to break her all up to see somebody trying to save
a life. What d'you work for such a fish for? A crazy fish--that's what I
call the woman. I've seen her--day after day--settin' over there where
the dunes meet the woods, just sittin' there, lookin'. (_suddenly
thinking of it_) I believe she _likes_ to see the sand slippin' down on
the woods. Pleases her to see somethin' gettin' buried, I guess.

(ALLIE MAYO, _who has stepped inside the door and moved half across the
room, toward the corridor at the right, is arrested by this last--stands
a moment as if seeing through something, then slowly on, and out_.)

BRADFORD: Some coffee'd taste good. But coffee, in this house? Oh, no.
It might make somebody feel better. (_opening the door that was slammed
shut_) Want me now, Capt'n?

CAPTAIN: No.

BRADFORD: Oh, that boy's dead, Capt'n.

CAPTAIN: (_snarling_) Dannie Sears was dead, too. Shut that door. I
don't want to hear that woman's voice again, ever.

(_Closing the door and sitting on a bench built into that corner between
the big sliding door and the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is_.)

BRADFORD: They're a cheerful pair of women--livin' in this cheerful
place--a place that life savers had to turn over to the sand--huh! This
Patrick woman used to be all right. She and her husband was summer folks
over in town. They used to picnic over here on the outside. It was Joe
Dyer--he's always talkin' to summer folks--told 'em the government was
goin' to build the new station and sell this one by sealed bids. I heard
them talkin' about it. They was sittin' right down there on the beach,
eatin' their supper. They was goin' to put in a fire-place and they was
goin' to paint it bright colors, and have parties over here--summer folk
notions. Their bid won it--who'd want it?--a buried house you couldn't
move.

TONY: I see no bright colors.

BRADFORD: Don't you? How astonishin'! You must be color blind. And I
guess _we're_ the first party. (_laughs_) I was in Bill Joseph's grocery
store, one day last November, when in she comes--Mrs Patrick, from New
York. 'I've come to take the old life-saving station', says she. 'I'm
going to sleep over there tonight!' Huh! Bill is used to queer ways--he
deals with summer folks, but that got _him_. November--an empty house, a
buried house, you might say, off here on the outside shore--way across
the sand from man or beast. He got it out of her, not by what she said,
but by the way she looked at what he said, that her husband had died,
and she was runnin' off to hide herself, I guess. A person'd feel sorry
for her if she weren't so stand-offish, and so doggon _mean_. But mean
folks have got minds of their own. She slept here that night. Bill had
men hauling things till after dark--bed, stove, coal. And then she
wanted somebody to work for her. 'Somebody', says she, 'that doesn't say
an unnecessary word!' Well, then Bill come to the back of the store, I
said, 'Looks to me as if Allie Mayo was the party she's lookin' for.'
Allie Mayo has got a prejudice against words. Or maybe she likes 'em so
well she's savin' of 'em. She's not spoke an unnecessary word for twenty
years. She's got her reasons. Women whose men go to sea ain't always
talkative.

(_The_ CAPTAIN _comes out. He closes door behind him and stands there
beside it. He looks tired and disappointed. Both look at him. Pause_.)

CAPTAIN: Wonder who he was.

BRADFORD: Young. Guess he's not been much at sea.

CAPTAIN: I hate to leave even the dead in this house. But we can get
right back for him. (_a look around_) The old place used to be more
friendly. (_moves to outer door, hesitates, hating to leave like this_)
Well, Joe, we brought a good many of them back here.

BRADFORD: Dannie Sears is tendin' bar in Boston now.

(_The three men go; as they are going around the drift of sand_ ALLIE
MAYO _comes in carrying a pot of coffee; sees them leaving, puts down
the coffee pot, looks at the door the_ CAPTAIN _has closed, moves toward
it, as if drawn_. MRS PATRICK _follows her in_.)

MRS PATRICK: They've gone?

(MRS MAYO _nods, facing the closed door_.)

MRS PATRICK: And they're leaving--him? (_again the other woman nods_)
Then he's--? (MRS MAYO _just stands there_) They have no right--just
because it used to be their place--! I want my house to myself!

(_Snatches her coat and scarf from a hook and starts through the big
door toward the dunes_.)

ALLIE MAYO: Wait.

(_When she has said it she sinks into that corner seat--as if
overwhelmed by what she has done. The other woman is held_.)

ALLIE MAYO: (_to herself._) If I could say that, I can say more.
(_looking at woman she has arrested, but speaking more to herself_) That
boy in there--his face--uncovered something--(_her open hand on her
chest. But she waits, as if she cannot go on; when she speaks it is in
labored way--slow, monotonous, as if snowed in by silent years_) For
twenty years, I did what you are doing. And I can tell you--it's not the
way. (_her voice has fallen to a whisper; she stops, looking ahead at
something remote and veiled_) We had been married--two years. (_a start,
as of sudden pain. Says it again, as if to make herself say it_)
Married--two years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler. Times hard.
He had to go. A year and a half--it was to be. A year and a half. Two
years we'd been married.

(_She sits silent, moving a little back and forth._)

The day he went away. (_not spoken, but breathed from pain_) The days
after he was gone.

I heard at first. Last letter said farther north--not another chance to
write till on the way home. (_a wait_)

Six months. Another, I did not hear. (_long wait_) Nobody ever heard.
(_after it seems she is held there, and will not go on_) I used to talk
as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim used to tease me about my
talking. But they'd come in to talk to me. They'd say--'You may hear
_yet._' They'd talk about what must have happened. And one day a woman
who'd been my friend all my life said--'Suppose he was to walk _in!_' I
got up and drove her from my kitchen--and from that time till this I've
not said a word I didn't have to say. (_she has become almost wild in
telling this. That passes. In a whisper_) The ice that caught
Jim--caught me. (_a moment as if held in ice. Comes from it. To_ MRS
PATRICK _simply_) It's not the way. (_a sudden change_) You're not the
only woman in the world whose husband is dead!

MRS PATRICK: (_with a cry of the hurt_) Dead? My husband's not _dead_.

ALLIE MAYO: He's _not?_ (_slowly understands_) Oh.

(_The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks up her coat which has
fallen to the floor and steps outside._)

ALLIE MAYO: (_almost failing to do it_) Wait.

MRS PATRICK: Wait? Don't you think you've said enough? They told me you
didn't say an unnecessary word!

ALLIE MAYO: I don't.

MRS PATRICK: And you can see, I should think, that you've bungled into
things you know nothing about!

(_As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she pushes the sand by the
door down on the half buried grass--though not as if knowing what she is
doing._)

ALLIE MAYO: (_slowly_) When you keep still for twenty years you
know--things you didn't know you knew. I know why you're doing that.
(_she looks up at her, startled_) Don't bury the only thing that will
grow. Let it grow.

(_The woman outside still crying under her breath turns abruptly and
starts toward the line where dunes and woods meet._)

ALLIE MAYO: I know where you're going! (MRS PATRICK _turns but not as if
she wants to_) What you'll try to do. Over there. (_pointing to the line
of woods_) Bury it. The life in you. Bury it--watching the sand bury the
woods. But I'll tell you something! _They_ fight too. The woods! They
fight for life the way that Captain fought for life in there!

(_Pointing to the closed door_.)

MRS PATRICK: (_with a strange exultation_) And lose the way he lost in
there!

ALLIE MAYO: (_sure, sombre_) They don't lose.

MRS PATRICK: Don't _lose_? (_triumphant_) I have walked on the tops of
buried trees!

ALLIE MAYO: (_slow, sombre, yet large_) And vines will grow over the
sand that covers the trees, and hold it. And other trees will grow over
the buried trees.

MRS PATRICK: I've watched the sand slip down on the vines that reach out
farthest.

ALLIE MAYO: Another vine will reach that spot. (_under her breath,
tenderly_) Strange little things that reach out farthest!

MRS PATRICK: And will be buried soonest!

ALLIE MAYO: And hold the sand for things behind them. They save a wood
that guards a town.

MRS PATRICK: I care nothing about a wood to guard a town. This is the
outside--these dunes where only beach grass grows, this outer shore
where men can't live. The Outside. You who were born here and who die
here have named it that.

ALLIE MAYO: Yes, we named it that, and we had reason. He died here
(_reaches her hand toward the closed door_) and many a one before him.
But many another reached the harbor! (_slowly raises her arm, bends it
to make the form of the Cape. Touches the outside of her bent arm_) The
Outside. But an arm that bends to make a harbor--where men are safe.

MRS PATRICK: I'm outside the harbor--on the dunes, land not life.

ALLIE MAYO: Dunes meet woods and woods hold dunes from a town that's
shore to a harbor.

MRS PATRICK: This is the Outside. Sand (_picking some of it up in her
hand and letting it fall on the beach grass_) Sand that _covers_--hills
of sand that move and cover.

ALLIE MAYO: Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from Provincetown.
Provincetown--where they turn when boats can't live at sea. Did you ever
see the sails come round here when the sky is dark? A line of
them--swift to the harbor--where their children live. Go back!
(_pointing_) Back to your edge of the woods that's the _edge of the
dunes_.

MRS PATRICK: The edge of life. Where life trails off to dwarfed things
not worth a name.

(_Suddenly sits down in the doorway_.)

ALLIE MAYO: Not worth a name. And--meeting the Outside!

(_Big with the sense of the wonder of life_.)

MRS PATRICK: (_lifting sand and letting it drift through her hand_.)
They're what the sand will let them be. They take strange shapes like
shapes of blown sand.

ALLIE MAYO: Meeting the Outside. (_moving nearer; speaking more
personally_) I know why you came here. To this house that had been given
up; on this shore where only savers of life try to live. I know what
holds you on these dunes, and draws you over there. But other things are
true beside the things you want to see.

MRS PATRICK: How do you know they are? Where have you been for twenty
years?

ALLIE MAYO: Outside. Twenty years. That's why I know how brave _they_
are (_indicating the edge of the woods. Suddenly different_) You'll not
find peace there again! Go back and watch them _fight_!

MRS PATRICK: (_swiftly rising_) You're a cruel woman--a hard, insolent
woman! I knew what I was doing! What do you know about it? About me? I
didn't go to the Outside. I was left there. I'm only--trying to get
along. Everything that can hurt me I want buried--buried deep. Spring is
here. This morning I _knew_ it. Spring--coming through the storm--to
take me--take me to hurt me. That's why I couldn't bear--(_she looks at
the closed door_) things that made me know I feel. You haven't felt for
so long you don't know what it means! But I tell you, Spring is here!
And now you'd take _that_ from me--(_looking now toward the edge of the
woods_) the thing that made me know they would be buried in my
heart--those things I can't _live_ and know I feel. You're more cruel
than the sea! 'But other things are true beside the things you want to
see!' Outside. Springs will come when I will not know that it is spring.
(_as if resentful of not more deeply believing what she says_) What
would there be for me but the Outside? What was there for you? What did
you ever find after you lost the thing you wanted?

ALLIE MAYO: I found--what I find now I know. The edge of life--to hold
life behind me--

(_A slight gesture toward_ MRS PATRICK.)

MRS PATRICK: (_stepping back_) You call what you are life? (_laughs_)
Bleak as those ugly things that grow in the sand!

ALLIE MAYO: (_under her breath, as one who speaks tenderly of beauty_)
Ugly!

MRS PATRICK: (_passionately_) I have _known_ life. I have known _life_.
You're like this Cape. A line of land way out to sea--land not life.

ALLIE MAYO: A harbor far at sea. (_raises her arm, curves it in as if
around something she loves_) Land that encloses and gives shelter from
storm.

MRS PATRICK: (_facing the sea, as if affirming what will hold all else
out_) Outside sea. Outer shore. Dunes--land not life.

ALLIE MAYO: Outside sea--outer shore, dark with the wood that once was
ships--dunes, strange land not life--woods, town and harbor. The line!
Stunted straggly line that meets the Outside face to face--and fights
for what itself can never be. Lonely line. Brave growing.

MRS PATRICK: It loses.

ALLIE MAYO: It wins.

MRS PATRICK: The farthest life is buried.

ALLIE MAYO: And life grows over buried life! (_lifted into that; then,
as one who states a simple truth with feeling_) It will. And Springs
will come when you will want to know that it is Spring.

(_The_ CAPTAIN _and_ BRADFORD _appear behind the drift of sand. They
have a stretcher. To get away from them_ MRS PATRICK _steps farther into
the room_; ALLIE MAYO _shrinks into her corner. The men come in, open
the closed door and go in the room where they left the dead man. A
moment later they are seen outside the big open door, bearing the man
away_. MRS PATRICK _watches them from sight_.)

MRS PATRICK: (_bitter, exultant_) Savers of life! (_to_ ALLIE MAYO) You
savers of life! 'Meeting the Outside!' Meeting--(_but she cannot say it
mockingly again; in saying it, something of what it means has broken
through, rises. Herself lost, feeling her way into the wonder of life_)
Meeting the Outside!

(_It grows in her as_ CURTAIN _lowers slowly_.)




THE VERGE


First performed at the Provincetown Playhouse on November 14, 1921.


PERSONS OF THE PLAY

ANTHONY

HARRY ARCHER, Claire's husband

HATTIE, The maid

CLAIRE

DICK, Richard Demming

TOM EDGEWORTHY

ELIZABETH, Claire's daughter

ADELAIDE, Claire's sister

DR EMMONS


ACT I

_The Curtain lifts on a place that is dark, save for a shaft of light
from below which comes up through an open trap-door in the floor. This
slants up and strikes the long leaves and the huge brilliant blossom of
a strange plant whose twisted stem projects from right front. Nothing is
seen except this plant and its shadow. A violent wind is heard. A moment
later a buzzer. It buzzes once long and three short. Silence. Again the
buzzer. Then from below--his shadow blocking the light, comes_ ANTHONY,
_a rugged man past middle life;--he emerges from the stairway into the
darkness of the room. Is dimly seen taking up a phone._

ANTHONY: Yes, Miss Claire?--I'll see. (_he brings a thermometer to the
stairway for light, looks sharply, then returns to the phone_) It's down
to forty-nine. The plants are in danger--(_with great relief and
approval_) Oh, that's fine! (_hangs up the receiver_) Fine!

(_He goes back down the stairway, closing the trap-door upon himself,
and the curtain is drawn upon darkness and wind. It opens a moment later
on the greenhouse in the sunshine of a snowy morning. The snow piled
outside is at times blown through the air. The frost has made patterns
on the glass as if--as Plato would have it--the patterns inherent in
abstract nature and behind all life had to come out, not only in the
creative heat within, but in the creative cold on the other side of the
glass. And the wind makes patterns of sound around the glass house.

The back wall is low; the glass roof slopes sharply up. There is an
outside door, a little toward the right. From outside two steps lead
down to it. At left a glass partition and a door into the inner room.
One sees a little way into this room. At right there is no dividing wall
save large plants and vines, a narrow aisle between shelves of plants
leads off.

This is not a greenhouse where plants are being displayed, nor the usual
workshop for the growing of them, but a place for experiment with
plants, a laboratory.

At the back grows a strange vine. It is arresting rather than beautiful.
It creeps along the low wall, and one branch gets a little way up the
glass. You might see the form of a cross in it, if you happened to think
it that way. The leaves of this vine are not the form that leaves have
been. They are at once repellent and significant_.

ANTHONY _is at work preparing soil--mixing, sifting. As the wind tries
the door he goes anxiously to the thermometer, nods as if reassured and
returns to his work. The buzzer sounds. He starts to answer the
telephone, remembers something, halts and listens sharply. It does not
buzz once long and three short. Then he returns to his work. The buzzer
goes on and on in impatient jerks which mount in anger. Several times_
ANTHONY _is almost compelled by this insistence, but the thing that
holds him back is stronger. At last, after a particularly mad splutter,
to which_ ANTHONY _longs to make retort, the buzzer gives it up_.
ANTHONY _goes on preparing soil.

A moment later the glass door swings violently in, snow blowing in, and
also_ MR HARRY ARCHER, _wrapped in a rug._)

ANTHONY: Oh, please close the door, sir.

HARRY: Do you think I'm not trying to? (_he holds it open to say this_)

ANTHONY: But please _do_. This stormy air is not good for the plants.

HARRY: I suppose it's just the thing for me! Now, what do you mean,
Anthony, by not answering the phone when I buzz for you?

ANTHONY: Miss Claire--Mrs Archer told me not to.

HARRY: Told you not to answer me?

ANTHONY: Not you especially--nobody but her.

HARRY: Well, I like her nerve--and yours.

ANTHONY: You see, she thought it took my mind from my work to be
interrupted when I'm out here. And so it does. So she buzzes once long
and--Well, she buzzes her way, and all other buzzing--

HARRY: May buzz.

ANTHONY: (_nodding gravely_) She thought it would be better for the
flowers.

HARRY: I am not a flower--true, but I too need a little attention--and a
little heat. Will you please tell me why the house is frigid?

ANTHONY: Miss Claire ordered all the heat turned out here, (_patiently
explaining it to_ MISS CLAIRE's _speechless husband_) You see the roses
need a great deal of heat.

HARRY: (_reading the thermometer_) The roses have seventy-three I have
forty-five.

ANTHONY: Yes, the roses need seventy-three.

HARRY: Anthony, this is an outrage!

ANTHONY: I think it is myself; when you consider what we paid for the
heating plant--but as long as it is defective--Why, Miss Claire would
never have done what she has if she hadn't looked out for her plants in
just such ways as this. Have you forgotten that Breath of Life is about
to flower?

HARRY: And where's my breakfast about to flower?--that's what I want to
know.

ANTHONY: Why, Miss Claire got up at five o'clock to order the heat
turned off from the house.

HARRY: I see you admire her vigilance.

ANTHONY: Oh, I do. (_fervently_) I do. Harm was near, and that woke her
up.

HARRY: And what about the harm to--(_tapping his chest_) Do roses get
pneumonia?

ANTHONY: Oh, yes--yes, indeed they do. Why, Mr Archer, look at Miss
Claire herself. Hasn't she given her heat to the roses?

HARRY: (_pulling the rug around him, preparing for the blizzard_) She
has the fire within.

ANTHONY: (_delighted_) Now isn't that true! How well you said it. (_with
a glare for this appreciation_, HARRY _opens the door. It blows away
from him_) Please do close the door!

HARRY: (_furiously_) You think it is the aim of my life to hold it open?

ANTHONY: (_getting hold of it_) Growing things need an even temperature,
(_while saying this he gets the man out into the snow_)

(ANTHONY _consults the thermometer, not as pleased this time as he was
before. He then looks minutely at two of the plants--one is a rose, the
other a flower without a name because it has not long enough been a
flower. Peers into the hearts of them. Then from a drawer under a shelf,
takes two paper bags, puts one over each of these flowers, closing them
down at the bottom. Again the door blows wildly in, also_ HATTIE, _a
maid with a basket_.)

ANTHONY: What do you mean--blowing in here like this? Mrs Archer has
ordered--

HATTIE: Mr Archer has ordered breakfast served here, (_she uncovers the
basket and takes out an electric toaster_)

ANTHONY: _Breakfast_--here? _Eat_--here? Where plants grow?

HATTIE: The plants won't poison him, will they? (_at a loss to know what
to do with things, she puts the toaster under the strange vine at the
back, whose leaves lift up against the glass which has frost leaves on
the outer side_)

ANTHONY: (_snatching it away_) You--you think you can cook eggs under
the Edge Vine?

HATTIE: I guess Mr Archer's eggs are as important as a vine. I guess my
work's as important as yours.

ANTHONY: There's a million people like you--and like Mr Archer. In all
the world there is only one Edge Vine.

HATTIE: Well, maybe one's enough. It don't look like nothin', anyhow.

ANTHONY: And you've not got the wit to know that that's why it's the
Edge Vine.

HATTIE: You want to look out, Anthony. You talk nutty. Everybody says
so.

ANTHONY: Miss Claire don't say so.

HATTIE: No, because she's--

ANTHONY: You talk too much!

(_Door opens, admitting_ HARRY; _after looking around for the best place
to eat breakfast, moves a box of earth from the table_.)

HARRY: Just give me a hand, will you, Hattie?

(_They bring it to the open space and he and_ HATTIE _arrange breakfast
things_, HATTIE _with triumphant glances at the distressed_ ANTHONY)

ANTHONY: (_deciding he must act_) Mr Archer, this is not the place to
eat breakfast!

HARRY: Dead wrong, old boy. The place that has heat is the place to eat
breakfast. (_to_ HATTIE) Tell the other gentlemen--I heard Mr Demming
up, and Mr Edgeworthy, if he appears, that as long as it is such a
pleasant morning, we're having breakfast outside. To the conservatory
for coffee.

(HATTIE _giggles, is leaving_.)

And let's see, have we got everything? (_takes the one shaker, shakes a
little pepper on his hand. Looks in vain for the other shaker_) And tell
Mr Demming to bring the salt.

ANTHONY: But Miss Claire will be very angry.

HARRY: I am very angry. Did I choose to eat my breakfast at the other
end of a blizzard?

ANTHONY: (_an exclamation of horror at the thermometer_) The temperature
is falling. I must report. (_he punches the buzzer, takes up the phone_)
Miss Claire? It is Anthony. A terrible thing has happened. Mr
Archer--what? Yes, a terrible thing.--Yes, it is about Mr
Archer.--No--no, not dead. But here. He is here. Yes, he is well, he
seems well, but he is eating his breakfast. Yes, he is having breakfast
served out here--for himself, and the other gentlemen are to come
too.--Well, he seemed to be annoyed because the heat had been turned off
from the house. But the door keeps opening--this stormy wind blowing
right over the plants. The temperature has already fallen.--Yes, yes. I
thought you would want to come.

(ANTHONY _opens the trap-door and goes below_. HARRY _looks
disapprovingly down into this openness at his feet, returns to his
breakfast_. ANTHONY _comes up, bearing a box_.)

HARRY: (_turning his face away_) Phew! What a smell.

ANTHONY: Yes. Fertilizer has to smell.

HARRY: Well, it doesn't have to smell up my breakfast!

ANTHONY: (_with a patient sense of order_) The smell belongs here. (_he
and the smell go to the inner room_)

(_The outer door opens just enough to admit_ CLAIRE--_is quickly closed.
With_ CLAIRE _in a room another kind of aliveness is there_.)

CLAIRE: What are you doing here?

HARRY: Getting breakfast. (_all the while doing so_)

CLAIRE: I'll not have you in my place!

HARRY: If you take all the heat then you have to take me.

CLAIRE: I'll show you how I have to take you. (_with her hands begins
scooping upon him the soil_ ANTHONY _has prepared_)

HARRY: (_jumping up, laughing, pinning down her arms, putting his arms
around her_) Claire--be decent. What harm do I do here?

CLAIRE: You pull down the temperature.

HARRY: Not after I'm in.

CLAIRE: And you told Tom and Dick to come and make it uneven.

HARRY: Tom and Dick are our guests. We can't eat where it's warm and
leave them to eat where it's cold.

CLAIRE: I don't see why not.

HARRY: You only see what you want to see.

CLAIRE: That's not true. I wish it were. No; no, I don't either. (_she
is disturbed--that troubled thing which rises from within, from deep,
and takes_ CLAIRE. _She turns to the Edge Vine, examines. Regretfully
to_ ANTHONY, _who has come in with a plant_) It's turning back, isn't
it?

ANTHONY: Can you be sure yet, Miss Claire?

CLAIRE: Oh yes--it's had its chance. It doesn't want to be--what hasn't
been.

HARRY: (_who has turned at this note in her voice. Speaks kindly_) Don't
take it so seriously, Claire. (CLAIRE _laughs_)

CLAIRE: No, I suppose not. But it _does_ matter--and why should I
pretend it doesn't, just because I've failed with it?

HARRY: Well, I don't want to see it get you--it's not important enough
for that.

CLAIRE: (_in her brooding way_) Anything is important enough for
that--if it's important at all. (_to the vine_) I thought you were out,
but you're--going back home.

ANTHONY: But you're doing it this time, Miss Claire. When Breath of Life
opens--and we see its heart--

(CLAIRE _looks toward the inner room. Because of intervening plants they
do not see what is seen from the front--a plant like caught motion, and
of a greater transparency than plants have had. Its leaves, like waves
that curl, close around a heart that is not seen. This plant stands by
itself in what, because of the arrangement of things about it, is a
hidden place. But nothing is between it and the light_.)

CLAIRE: Yes, if the heart has (_a little laugh_) held its own, then
Breath of Life is alive in its otherness. But Edge Vine is running back
to what it broke out of.

HARRY: Come, have some coffee, Claire.

(ANTHONY _returns to the inner room, the outer door opens_. DICK _is
hurled in_.)

CLAIRE: (_going to the door, as he gasps for breath before closing it_)
How dare you make my temperature uneven! (_she shuts the door and leans
against it_)

DICK: Is that what I do?

(_A laugh, a look between them, which is held into significance_.)

HARRY: (_who is not facing them_) Where's the salt?

DICK: Oh, I fell down in the snow. I must have left the salt where I
fell. I'll go back and look for it.

CLAIRE: And change the temperature? We don't need salt.

HARRY: You don't need salt, Claire. But we eat eggs.

CLAIRE: I must tell you I don't like the idea of any food being eaten
here, where things have their own way to go. Please eat as little as
possible, and as quickly.

HARRY: A hostess calculated to put one at one's ease.

CLAIRE: (_with no ill-nature_) I care nothing about your ease. Or about
Dick's ease.

DICK: And no doubt that's what makes you so fascinating a hostess.

CLAIRE: Was I a fascinating hostess last night, Dick? (_softly sings_)
'Oh, night of love--' (_from the Barcorole of 'Tales of Hoffman'_)

HARRY: We've got to have salt.

(_He starts for the door._ CLAIRE _slips in ahead of him, locks it,
takes the key. He marches off, right_.)

CLAIRE: (_calling after him_) That end's always locked.

DICK: Claire darling, I wish you wouldn't say those startling things.
You do get away with it, but I confess it gives me a shock--and really,
it's unwise.

CLAIRE: Haven't you learned that the best place to hide is in the truth?
(_as_ HARRY _returns_) Why won't you believe me, Harry, when I tell you
the truth--about doors being locked?

HARRY: Claire, it's selfish of you to keep us from eating salt just
because you don't eat salt.

CLAIRE: (_with one of her swift changes_) Oh, Harry! Try your egg
without salt. Please--please try it without salt! (_an intensity which
seems all out of proportion to the subject_)

HARRY: An egg demands salt.

CLAIRE: 'An egg demands salt.' Do you know, Harry, why you are such an
unseasoned person? 'An egg demands salt.'

HARRY: Well, it doesn't always get it.

CLAIRE: But your spirit gets no lift from the salt withheld.

HARRY: Not an inch of lift. (_going back to his breakfast_)

CLAIRE: And pleased--so pleased with itself, for getting no lift. Sure,
it is just the right kind of spirit--because it gets no lift. (_more
brightly_) But, Dick, you must have tried your egg without salt.

DICK: I'll try it now. (_he goes to the breakfast table_)

CLAIRE: You must have tried and tried things. Isn't that the way one
leaves the normal and gets into the byways of perversion?

HARRY: Claire.

DICK: (_pushing back his egg_) If so, I prefer to wait for the salt.

HARRY: Claire, there is a _limit_.

CLAIRE: Precisely what I had in mind. To perversion too there is a
limit. So--the fortifications are unassailable. If one ever does get
out, I suppose it is--quite unexpectedly, and perhaps--a bit terribly.

HARRY: Get out where?

CLAIRE: (_with a bright smile_) Where you, darling, will never go.

HARRY: And from which you, darling, had better beat it.

CLAIRE: I wish I could. (_to herself_) No--no I don't either

(_Again this troubled thing turns her to the plant. She puts by
themselves the two which_ ANTHONY _covered with paper bags. Is about to
remove these papers_. HARRY _strikes a match_.)

CLAIRE: (_turning sharply_) You can't smoke here. The plants are not
used to it.

HARRY: Then I should think smoking would be just the thing for them.

CLAIRE: There is design.

HARRY: (_to_ DICK) Am I supposed to be answered? I never can be quite
sure at what moment I am answered.

(_They both watch_ CLAIRE, _who has uncovered the plants and is looking
intently into the flowers. From a drawer she takes some tools. Very
carefully gives the rose pollen to an unfamiliar flower--rather
wistfully unfamiliar, which stands above on a small shelf near the door
of the inner room_.)

DICK: What is this you're doing, Claire?

CLAIRE: Pollenizing. Crossing for fragrance.

DICK: It's all rather mysterious, isn't it?

HARRY: And Claire doesn't make it any less so.

CLAIRE: Can I make life any less mysterious?

HARRY: If you know what you are doing, why can't you tell Dick?

DICK: Never mind. After all, why should I be told? (_he turns away_)

(_At that she wants to tell him. Helpless, as one who cannot get across
a stream, starts uncertainly_.)

CLAIRE: I want to give fragrance to Breath of Life (_faces the room
beyond the wall of glass_)--the flower I have created that is outside
what flowers have been. What has gone out should bring fragrance from
what it has left. But no definite fragrance, no limiting enclosing
thing. I call the fragrance I am trying to create Reminiscence. (_her
hand on the pot of the wistful little flower she has just given pollen_)
Reminiscent of the rose, the violet, arbutus--but a new thing--itself.
Breath of Life may be lonely out in what hasn't been. Perhaps some day I
can give it reminiscence.

DICK: I see, Claire.

CLAIRE: I wonder if you do.

HARRY: Now, Claire, you're going to be gay to-day, aren't you? These are
Tom's last couple of days with us.

CLAIRE: That doesn't make me especially gay.

HARRY: Well, you want him to remember you as yourself, don't you?

CLAIRE: I would like him to. Oh--I would like him to!

HARRY: Then be amusing. That's really you, isn't it, Dick?

DICK: Not quite all of her--I should say.

CLAIRE: (_gaily_) Careful, Dick. Aren't you indiscreet? Harry will be
suspecting that I am your latest strumpet.

HARRY: Claire! What language you use! A person knowing you only by
certain moments could never be made to believe you are a refined woman.

CLAIRE: True, isn't it, Dick?

HARRY: It would be a good deal of a lark to let them listen in at
times--then tell them that here is the flower of New England!

CLAIRE: Well, if this is the flower of New England, then the half has
never been told.

DICK: About New England?

CLAIRE: I thought I meant that. Perhaps I meant--about me.

HARRY: (_going on with his own entertainment_) Explain that this is what
came of the men who made the laws that made New England, that here is
the flower of those gentlemen of culture who--

DICK: Moulded the American mind!

CLAIRE: Oh! (_it is pain_)

HARRY: Now what's the matter?

CLAIRE: I want to get away from them!

HARRY: Rest easy, little one--you do.

CLAIRE: I'm not so sure--that I do. But it can be done! We need not be
held in forms moulded for us. There is outness--and otherness.

HARRY: Now, Claire--I didn't mean to start anything serious.

CLAIRE: No; you never mean to do that. I want to break it up! I tell
you, I want to break it up! If it were all in pieces, we'd be (_a little
laugh_) shocked to aliveness (_to_ DICK)--wouldn't we? There would be
strange new comings together--mad new comings together, and we would
know what it is to be born, and then we might know--that we are. Smash
it. (_her hand is near an egg_) As you'd smash an egg. (_she pushes the
egg over the edge of the table and leans over and looks, as over a
precipice_)

HARRY: (_with a sigh_) Well, all you've smashed is the egg, and all that
amounts to is that now Tom gets no egg. So that's that.

CLAIRE: (_with difficulty, drawing herself back from the fascination of
the precipice_) You think I can't smash anything? You think life can't
break up, and go outside what it was? Because you've gone dead in the
form in which you found yourself, you think that's all there is to the
whole adventure? And that is called sanity. And made a virtue--to lock
one in. You never worked with things that grow! Things that take a
sporting chance--go mad--that sanity mayn't lock them in--from life
untouched--from life--that waits, (_she turns toward the inner room_)
Breath of Life. (_she goes in there_)

HARRY: Oh, I wish Claire wouldn't be strange like that, (_helplessly_)
What is it? What's the matter?

DICK: It's merely the excess of a particularly rich temperament.

HARRY: But it's growing on her. I sometimes wonder if all this
(_indicating the place around him_) is a good thing. It would be all
right if she'd just do what she did in the beginning--make the flowers
as good as possible of their kind. That's an awfully nice thing for a
woman to do--raise flowers. But there's something about this--changing
things into other things--putting things together and making queer new
things--this--

DICK: Creating?

HARRY: Give it any name you want it to have--it's unsettling for a
woman. They say Claire's a shark at it, but what's the good of it, if it
gets her? What is the good of it, anyway? Suppose we can produce new
things. Lord--look at the one ones we've got. (_looks outside; turns
back_) Heavens, what a noise the wind does make around this place, (_but
now it is not all the wind, but_ TOM EDGEWORTHY, _who is trying to let
himself in at the locked door, their backs are to him_) I want my _egg_.
You can't eat an egg without salt. I must say I don't get Claire lately.
I'd like to have Charlie Emmons see her--he's fixed up a lot of people
shot to pieces in the war. Claire needs something to tone her nerves
_up_. You think it would irritate her?

DICK: She'd probably get no little entertainment out of it.

HARRY: Yes, dog-gone her, she would. (TOM _now takes more heroic
measures to make himself heard at the door_) Funny--how the wind can
fool you. Now by not looking around I could imagine--why, I could
imagine anything. Funny, isn't it, about imagination? And Claire says I
haven't got any!

DICK: It would make an amusing drawing--what the wind makes you think is
there. (_first makes forms with his hands, then levelling the soil
prepared by_ ANTHONY, _traces lines with his finger_) Yes, really--quite
jolly.

(TOM, _after a moment of peering in at them, smiles, goes away._)

HARRY: You're another one of the queer ducks, aren't you? Come now--give
me the dirt. Have you queer ones really got anything--or do you just put
it over on us that you have?

DICK: (_smiles, draws on_) Not saying anything, eh? Well, I guess you're
wise there. If you keep mum--how are we going to prove there's nothing
there?

DICK: I don't keep mum. I draw.

HARRY: Lines that don't make anything--how can they tell you anything?
Well, all I ask is, don't make Claire queer. Claire's a first water good
sport--really, so don't encourage her to be queer.

DICK: Trouble is, if you're queer enough to be amusing, it might--open
the door to queerness.

HARRY: Now don't say things like that to Claire.

DICK: I don't have to.

HARRY: Then _you_ think she's queer, do you? Queer as you are, you think
she's queer. I would like to have Dr Emmons come out. (_after a moment
of silently watching_ DICK, _who is having a good time with his
drawing_) You know, frankly, I doubt if you're a good influence for
Claire. (DICK _lifts his head ever so slightly_) Oh, I don't worry a bit
about--things a husband might worry about. I suppose an intellectual
woman--and for all Claire's hate of her ancestors, she's got the bug
herself. Why, she has times of boring into things until she doesn't know
you're there. What do you think I caught her doing the other day?
Reading Latin. Well--a woman that reads Latin needn't worry a husband
much.

DICK: They said a good deal in Latin.

HARRY: But I was saying, I suppose a woman who lives a good deal in her
mind never does have much--well, what you might call passion, (_uses the
word as if it shouldn't be used. Brows knitted, is looking ahead, does
not see_ DICK_'s face. Turning to him with a laugh_) I suppose you know
pretty much all there is to know about women?

DICK: Perhaps one or two details have escaped me.

HARRY: Well, for that matter, you might know all there is to know about
women and not know much about Claire. But now about (_does not want to
say passion again_)--oh, feeling--Claire has a certain--well, a
certain--

DICK: Irony?

HARRY: Which is really more--more--

DICK: More fetching, perhaps.

HARRY: Yes! Than the thing itself. But of course--you wouldn't have much
of a thing that you have irony about.

DICK: Oh--wouldn't you! I mean--a man might.

HARRY: I'd like to talk to Edgeworth about Claire. But it's not easy to
talk to Tom about Claire--or to Claire about Tom.

DICK: (_alert_) They're very old friends, aren't they?

HARRY: Why--yes, they are. Though they've not been together much of late
years, Edgeworthy always going to the ends of the earth to--meditate
about something. I must say I don't get it. If you have a place--that's
the place for you to be. And he did have a place--best kind of family
connections, and it was a very good business his father left him.
Publishing business--in good shape, too, when old Edgeworthy died. I
wouldn't call Tom a great success in life--but Claire does listen to
what he says.

DICK: Yes, I've noticed that.

HARRY: So, I'd like to get him to tell her to quit this queer business
of making things grow that never grew before.

DICK: But are you sure that's what he would tell her? Isn't he in the
same business himself?

HARRY: Why, he doesn't raise anything.

(TOM _is again at the door_.)

DICK: Anyway, I think he might have some idea that we can't very well
reach each other.

HARRY: Damn nonsense. What have we got intelligence for?

DICK: To let each other alone, I suppose. Only we haven't enough to do
it.

(TOM _is now knocking on the door with a revolver_. HARRY _half turns,
decides to be too intelligent to turn_.)

HARRY: Don't tell me I'm getting nerves. But the way some of you people
talk is enough to make even an aviator jumpy. Can't reach each other!
Then we're fools. If I'm here and you're there, why can't we reach each
other?

DICK: Because I am I and you are you.

HARRY: No wonder your drawing's queer. A man who can't reach another
man--(TOM _here reaches them by pointing the revolver in the air and
firing it_. DICK _digs his hand into the dirt_. HARRY _jumps to one
side, fearfully looks around_. TOM, _with a pleased smile to see he at
last has their attention, moves the handle to indicate he would be glad
to come in_.)

HARRY: Why--it's Tom! What the--? (_going to the door_) He's locked out.
And Claire's got the key. (_goes to the inner door, tries it_) And she's
locked in! (_trying to see her in there_) Claire! Claire! (_returning to
the outer door_) Claire's got the key--and I can't get to Claire.
(_makes a futile attempt at getting the door open without a key, goes
back to inner door--peers, pounds_) Claire! Are you there? Didn't you
hear the revolver? Has she gone down the cellar? (_tries the trap-door_)
Bolted! Well, I love the way she keeps people locked out!

DICK: And in.

HARRY: (_getting angry, shouting at the trap-door_) Didn't you hear the
revolver? (_going to_ TOM) Awfully sorry, old man, but--(_in
astonishment to_ DICK) He can't hear me. (TOM, _knocking with the
revolver to get their attention, makes a gesture of inquiry with it_)
No--no--no! Is he asking if he shall shoot himself? (_shaking his head
violently_) Oh, no--no! Um--_um_!

DICK: Hardly seems a man would shoot himself because he can't get to his
breakfast.

HARRY: I'm coming to believe people would do anything! (TOM _is making
another inquiry with the revolver_) No! not here. Don't shoot yourself.
(_trying hard to get the word through_) _Shoot_ yourself. I mean--don't,
(_petulantly to_ DICK) It's ridiculous that you can't make a man
understand you when he looks right at you like that. (_turning back to_
TOM) Read my lips. Lips. I'm saying--Oh damn. Where is Claire? All
right--I'll explain it with motions. We wanted the salt ... (_going over
it to himself_) and Claire wouldn't let us go out for it on account of
the temperature. Salt. Temperature. (_takes his egg-cup to the door,
violent motion of shaking in salt_) But--no (_shakes his head_) No salt.
(_he then takes the thermometer, a flower pot, holds them up to_ TOM) On
account of the temperature. Tem-per-a--(TOM _is not getting it_)
Oh--well, what can you do when a man don't _get_ a thing? (TOM _seems to
be preparing the revolver for action_. HARRY _pounds on the inner door_)
Claire! Do you want Tom to shoot himself?

(_As he looks in there, the trap-door lifts, and CLAIRE comes half-way
up._)

CLAIRE: Why, what is Tom doing out there, with a revolver?

HARRY: He is about to shoot himself because you've locked him out from
his breakfast.

CLAIRE: He must know more interesting ways of destroying himself.
(_bowing to_ TOM) Good morning. (_from his side of the glass_ TOM _bows
and smiles back_) Isn't it strange--our being in here--and he being out
there?

HARRY: Claire, have you no ideas of hospitality? Let him in!

CLAIRE: In? Perhaps that isn't hospitality.

HARRY: Well, whatever hospitality is, what is out there is snow--and
wind--and our guest--who was asked to come here for his breakfast. To
think a man has to _such_ things.

CLAIRE: I'm going to let him in. Though I like his looks out there.
(_she takes the key from her pocket_)

HARRY: Thank heaven the door's coming open. Somebody can go for salt,
and we can have our eggs.

CLAIRE: And open the door again--to let the salt in? No. If you insist
on salt, tell Tom now to go back and get it. It's a stormy morning and
there'll be just one opening of the door.

HARRY: How can we tell him what we can't make him hear? And why does he
think we're holding this conversation instead of letting him in?

CLAIRE: It would be interesting to know. I wonder if he'll tell us?

HARRY: Claire! Is this any time to wonder anything?

CLAIRE: Give up the idea of salt for your egg and I'll let him in.
(_holds up the key to _TOM_ to indicate that for her part she is quite
ready to let him in_)

HARRY: I want my egg!

CLAIRE: Then ask him to bring the salt. It's quite simple.

(HARRY _goes through another pantomime with the egg-cup and the missing
shaker._ CLAIRE, _still standing half-way down cellar, sneezes._ HARRY,
_growing all the while less amiable, explains with thermometer and
flower-pot that there can only be one opening of the door._ TOM _looks
interested, but unenlightened. But suddenly he smiles, nods, vanishes._)

HARRY: Well, thank heaven (_exhausted_) that's over.

CLAIRE: (_sitting on the top step_) It was all so queer. He locked out
on his side of the door. You locked in on yours. Looking right at each
other and--

HARRY: (_in mockery_) And me trying to tell him to kindly fetch the
salt!

CLAIRE: Yes.

HARRY: (_to_ DICK) Well, I didn't do so bad a job, did I? Quite an idea,
explaining our situation with the thermometer and the flower-pot. That
was really an apology for keeping him out there. Heaven knows--some
explanation was in order, (_he is watching, and sees_ TOM _coming_) Now
there he is, Claire. And probably pretty well fed up with the weather.

(CLAIRE _goes to the door, stops before it. She and_ TOM _look at each
other through the glass. Then she lets him in._)

TOM: And now I am in. For a time it seemed I was not to be in. But after
I got the idea that you were keeping me out there to see if I could get
the idea--it would be too humiliating for a wall of glass to keep one
from understanding. (_taking it from his pocket_) So there's the other
thermometer. Where do you want it? (CLAIRE _takes it_)

CLAIRE: And where's the pepper?

TOM: (_putting it on the table_) And here's the pepper.

HARRY: Pepper?

TOM: When Claire sneezed I knew--

CLAIRE: Yes, I knew if I sneezed you would bring the pepper.

TOM: Funny how one always remembers the salt, but the pepper gets
overlooked in preparations. And what is an egg without pepper?

HARRY: (_nastily_) There's your egg, Edgeworth. (_pointing to it on the
floor_) Claire decided it would be a good idea to smash everything, so
she began with your egg.

TOM: (_looking at his egg_) The idea of smashing everything is really
more intriguing than an egg.

HARRY: Nice that you feel that way about it.

CLAIRE: (_giving_ TOM _his coffee_) You want to hear something amusing?
I married Harry because I thought he would smash something.

HARRY: Well, that was an error in judgment.

CLAIRE: I'm such a naive trusting person (HARRY _laughs_--CLAIRE _gives
him a surprised look, continues simply_). Such a guileless soul that I
thought flying would do something to a man. But it didn't take us out.
We just took it in.

TOM: It's only our own spirit can take us out.

HARRY: Whatever you mean by out.

CLAIRE: (_after looking intently at_ TOM, _and considering it_) But our
own spirit is not something on the loose. Mine isn't. It has something
to do with what I do. To fly. To be free in air. To look from above on
the world of all my days. Be where man has never been! Yes--wouldn't you
think the spirit could get the idea? The earth grows smaller. I am
leaving. What are they--running around down there? Why do they run
around down there? Houses? Houses are funny lines and down-going
slants--houses are vanishing slants. I am alone. Can I breathe this
rarer air? Shall I go higher? Shall I go too high? I am loose. I am out.
But no; man flew, and returned to earth the man who left it.

HARRY: And jolly well likely not to have returned at all if he'd had
those flighty notions while operating a machine.

CLAIRE: Oh, Harry! (_not lightly asked_) Can't you see it would be
better not to have returned than to return the man who left it?

HARRY: I have some regard for human life.

CLAIRE: Why, no--I am the one who has the regard for human life, (_more
lightly_) That was why I swiftly divorced my stick-in-the-mud artist and
married--the man of flight. But I merely passed from a stick-in-the-mud
artist to a--

DICK: Stick-in-the-air aviator?

HARRY: Speaking of your stick-in-the-mud artist, as you romantically
call your first blunder, isn't his daughter--and yours--due here to-day?

CLAIRE: I knew something was disturbing me. Elizabeth. A daughter is
being delivered unto me this morning. I have a feeling it will be more
painful than the original delivery. She has been, as they quaintly say,
educated; prepared for her place in life.

HARRY: And fortunately Claire has a sister who is willing to give her
young niece that place.

CLAIRE: The idea of giving anyone a place in life.

HARRY: Yes! The very idea!

CLAIRE: Yes! (_as often, the mocking thing gives true expression to what
lies sombrely in her_) The war. There was another gorgeous chance.

HARRY: Chance for what? I call you, Claire. I ask you to say what you
mean.

CLAIRE: I don't know--precisely. If I did--there'd be no use saying it.
(_at_ HARRY's _impatient exclamation she turns to_ TOM)

TOM: (_nodding_) The only thing left worth saying is the thing we can't
say.

HARRY: Help!

CLAIRE: Yes. But the war didn't help. Oh, it was a stunning chance! But
fast as we could--scuttled right back to the trim little thing we'd been
shocked out of.

HARRY: You bet we did--showing our good sense.

CLAIRE: Showing our incapacity--for madness.

HARRY: Oh, come now, Claire--snap out of it. You're not really trying to
say that capacity for madness is a good thing to have?

CLAIRE: (_in simple surprise_) Why yes, of course.

DICK: But I should say the war did leave enough madness to give you a
gleam of hope.

CLAIRE: Not the madness that--breaks through. And it was--a stunning
chance! Mankind massed to kill. We have failed. We are through. We will
destroy. Break this up--it can't go farther. In the air above--in the
sea below--it is to kill! All we had thought we were--we aren't. We were
shut in with what wasn't so. Is there one ounce of energy has not gone
to this killing? Is there one love not torn in two? Throw it in! Now?
Ready? Break up. Push. Harder. Break up. And then--and then--But we
didn't say--'And then--' The spirit didn't take the tip.

HARRY: Claire! Come now (_looking to the others for help_)--let's talk
of something else.

CLAIRE: Plants do it. The big leap--it's called. Explode their
species--because something in them knows they've gone as far as they can
go. Something in them knows they're shut in to just that. So--go
mad--that life may not be prisoned. Break themselves up into crazy
things--into lesser things, and from the pieces--may come one sliver of
life with vitality to find the future. How beautiful. How brave.

TOM: (_as if he would call her from too far--or would let her know he
has gone with her_) Claire!

CLAIRE: (_her eyes turning to him_) Why should we mind lying under the
earth? We who have no such initiative--no proud madness? Why think it
death to lie under life so flexible--so ruthless and ever-renewing?

ANTHONY: (_from the door of the inner room_) Miss Claire?

CLAIRE: (_after an instant_) Yes? (_she goes with him, as they disappear
his voice heard_,'show me now ... want those violets bedded')

HARRY: Oh, this has got to _stop_. I've got to--put a stop to it some
way. Why, Claire used to be the best sport a man ever played around
with. I can't stand it to see her getting hysterical.

TOM: That was not hysterical.

HARRY: What was it then--I want to know?

TOM: It was--a look.

HARRY: Oh, I might have known I'd get no help from either of you. Even
you, Edgeworthy--much as she thinks of you--and fine sort as I've no
doubt you are, you're doing Claire no good--encouraging her in these
queer ways.

TOM: I couldn't change Claire if I would.

HARRY: And wouldn't if you could.

TOM: No. But you don't have to worry about me. I'm going away in a day
or two. And I shall not be back.

HARRY: Trouble with you is, it makes little difference whether you're
here or away. Just the fact of your existence does encourage Claire in
this--this way she's going.

TOM: (_with a smile_) But you wouldn't ask me to go so far as to stop my
existence? Though I would do that for Claire--if it were the way to help
her.

HARRY: By Jove, you say that as if you meant it.

TOM: Do you think I would say anything about Claire I didn't mean?

HARRY: You think a lot of her, don't you? (TOM _nods_) You don't mean
(_a laugh letting him say it_)--that you're--in love with Claire!

TOM: In love? Oh, that's much too easy. Certainly I do love Claire.

HARRY: Well, you're a cool one!

TOM: Let her be herself. Can't you see she's troubled?

HARRY: Well, what is there to trouble Claire? Now I ask you. It seems to
me she has everything.

TOM: She's left so--open. Too exposed, (_as_ HARRY _moves impatiently_)
Please don't be annoyed with me. I'm doing my best at saying it. You see
Claire isn't hardened into one of those forms she talks about. She's
too--aware. Always pulled toward what could be--tormented by the lost
adventure.

HARRY: Well, there's danger in all that. Of course there's danger.

TOM: But you can't help that.

HARRY: Claire was the best fun a woman could be. Is yet--at times.

TOM: Let her be--at times. As much as she can and will. She does need
that. Don't keep her from it by making her feel you're holding her in
it. Above all, don't try to stop what she's doing here. If she can do it
with plants, perhaps she won't have to do it with herself.

HARRY: Do what?

TOM: (_low, after a pause_) Break up what exists. Open the door to
destruction in the hope of--a door on the far side of destruction.

HARRY: Well, you give me the willies, (_moves around in irritation,
troubled. To_ ANTHONY, _who is passing through with a sprayer_) Anthony,
have any arrangements been made about Miss Claire's daughter?

ANTHONY: I haven't heard of any arrangements.

HARRY: Well, she'll have to have some heat in her room. We can't all
live out here.

ANTHONY: Indeed you cannot. It is not good for the plants.

HARRY: I'm going where I can _smoke_, (_goes out_)

DICK: (_lightly, but fascinated by the idea_) You think there is a door
on the--hinter side of destruction?

TOM: How can one tell--where a door may be? One thing I want to say to
you--for it is about you. (_regards_ DICK _and not with his usual
impersonal contemplation_) I don't think Claire should have--any door
closed to her. (_pause_) You know, I think, what I mean. And perhaps you
can guess how it hurts to say it. Whether it's--mere escape
within,--rather shameful escape within, or the wild hope of that door
through, it's--(_suddenly all human_) Be good to her! (_after a
difficult moment, smiles_) Going away for ever is like dying, so one can
say things.

DICK: Why do you do it--go away for ever?

TOM: I haven't succeeded here.

DICK: But you've tried the going away before.

TOM: Never knowing I would not come back. So that wasn't going away. My
hope is that this will be like looking at life from outside life.

DICK: But then you'll not be in it.

TOM: I haven't been able to look at it while in it.

DICK: Isn't it more important to be in it than to look at it?

TOM: Not what I mean by look.

DICK: It's hard for me to conceive of--loving Claire and going away from
her for ever.

TOM: Perhaps it's harder to do than to conceive of.

DICK: Then why do it?

TOM: It's my only way of keeping her.

DICK: I'm afraid I'm like Harry now. I don't get you.

TOM: I suppose not. Your way is different, (_with calm, with
sadness--not with malice_) But I shall have her longer. And from deeper.

DICK: I know that.

TOM: Though I miss much. Much, (_the buzzer_. TOM _looks around to see
if anyone is coming to answer it, then goes to the phone_) Yes?... I'll
see if I can get her. (_to_ DICK) Claire's daughter has arrived,
(_looking in the inner room--returns to phone_) I don't see her.
(_catching a glimpse of ANTHONY off right_) Oh, Anthony, where's Miss
Claire? Her daughter has arrived.

ANTHONY: She's working at something very important in her experiments.

DICK: But isn't her daughter one of her experiments?

ANTHONY: (_after a baffled moment_) Her daughter is finished.

TOM: (_at the phone_) Sorry--but I can't get to Claire. She appears to
have gone below. (ANTHONY _closes the trap-door_) I did speak to
Anthony, but he says that Claire is working at one of her experiments
and that her daughter is finished. I don't know how to make her hear--I
took the revolver back to the house. Anyway you will remember Claire
doesn't answer the revolver. I hate to reach Claire when she doesn't
want to be reached. Why, of course--a daughter is very important, but
oh, that's too bad. (_putting down the receiver_) He says the girl's
feelings are hurt. Isn't that annoying? (_gingerly pounds on the
trap-door. Then with the other hand. Waits_. ANTHONY _has a gentle smile
for the gentle tapping--nods approval as,_ TOM _returns to the phone_)
She doesn't come up. Indeed I did--with both fists--Sorry.

ANTHONY: Please, you won't try again to disturb Miss Claire, will you?

DICK: Her daughter is here, Anthony. She hasn't seen her daughter for a
year.

ANTHONY: Well, if she got along without a mother for a year--(_goes back
to his work_)

DICK: (_smiling after_ ANTHONY) Plants are queer. Perhaps it's _safer_
to do it with pencil (_regards_ TOM)--or with pure thought. Things that
grow in the earth--

TOM: (_nodding_) I suppose because we grew in the earth.

DICK: I'm always shocked to find myself in agreement with Harry, but I
too am worried about Claire--and this, (_looking at the plants_)

TOM: It's her best chance.

DICK: Don't you hate to go away to India--for ever--leaving Claire's
future uncertain?

TOM: You're cruel now. And you knew that you were being cruel.

DICK: Yes, I like the lines of your face when you suffer.

TOM: The lines of yours when you're causing suffering--I don't like
them.

DICK: Perhaps that's your limitation.

TOM: I grant you it may be. (_They are silent_) I had an odd feeling
that you and I sat here once before, long ago, and that we were plants.
And you were a beautiful plant, and I--I was a very ugly plant. I
confess it surprised me--finding myself so ugly a plant.

(_A young girl is seen outside_. HARRY _gets the door open for her and
brings_ ELIZABETH _in_.)

HARRY: There's heat here. And two of your mother's friends. Mr
Demming--Richard Demming--the artist--and I think you and Mr Edgeworthy
are old friends.

(ELIZABETH _comes forward. She is the creditable young American--well
built, poised, 'cultivated', so sound an expression of the usual as to
be able to meet the world with assurance--assurance which training has
made rather graceful. She is about seventeen--and mature. You feel solid
things behind her_.)

TOM: I knew you when you were a baby. You used to kick a great deal
then.

ELIZABETH: (_laughing, with ease_) And scream, I haven't a doubt. But
I've stopped that. One does, doesn't one? And it was you who gave me the
idol.

TOM: Proselytizing, I'm afraid.

ELIZABETH: I beg--? Oh--_yes (laughing cordially_) I _see. (she
doesn't_) I dressed the idol up in my doll's clothes. They fitted
perfectly--the idol was just the size of my doll Ailine. But mother
didn't like the idol that way, and tore the clothes getting them off.
(_to_ HARRY, _after looking around_) Is mother here?

HARRY: (_crossly_) Yes, she's here. Of course she's here. And she must
know you're here, (_after looking in the inner room he goes to the
trap-door and makes a great noise_)

ELIZABETH: Oh--_please_. Really--it doesn't make the least difference.

HARRY: Well, all I can say is, your manners are better than your
mother's.

ELIZABETH: But you see I don't do anything interesting, so I have to
have good manners. (_lightly, but leaving the impression there is a
certain superiority in not doing anything interesting. Turning cordially
to_ DICK) My father was an artist.

DICK: Yes, I know.

ELIZABETH: He was a portrait painter. Do you do portraits?

DICK: Well, not the kind people buy.

ELIZABETH: They bought father's.

DICK: Yes, I know he did that kind.

HARRY: (_still irritated_) Why, you don't do portraits.

DICK: I did one of you the other day. You thought it was a milk-can.

ELIZABETH: (_laughing delightedly_) No? Not really? Did you think--How
could you think--(_as_ HARRY _does not join the laugh_) Oh, I beg your
pardon. I--Does mother grow beautiful roses now?

HARRY: No, she does not.

(_The trap-door begins to move_. CLAIRE's _head appears_.)

ELIZABETH: Mother! It's been so long--(_she tries to overcome the
difficulties and embrace her mother_)

CLAIRE: (_protecting a box she has_) Careful, Elizabeth. We mustn't
upset the lice.

ELIZABETH: (_retreating_) Lice? (_but quickly equal even to lice_)
Oh--yes. You take it--them--off plants, don't you?

CLAIRE: I'm putting them on certain plants.

ELIZABETH: (_weakly_) Oh, I thought you took them off.

CLAIRE: (_calling_) Anthony! (_he comes_) The lice. (_he takes them from
her_) (CLAIRE, _who has not fully ascended, looks at_ ELIZABETH,
_hesitates, then suddenly starts back down the stairs_.)

HARRY: (_outraged_) Claire! (_slowly she re-ascends--sits on the top
step. After a long pause in which he has waited for_ CLAIRE _to open a
conversation with her daughter_.) Well, and what have you been doing at
school all this time?

ELIZABETH: Oh--studying.

CLAIRE: Studying what?

ELIZABETH: Why--the things one studies, mother.

CLAIRE: Oh! The things one studies. (_looks down cellar again_)

DICK: (_after another wait_) And what have you been doing besides
studying?

ELIZABETH: Oh--the things one does. Tennis and skating and dancing and--

CLAIRE: The things one does.

ELIZABETH: Yes. All the things. The--the things one does. Though I
haven't been in school these last few months, you know. Miss Lane took
us to Europe.

TOM: And how did you like Europe?

ELIZABETH: (_capably_) Oh, I thought it was awfully amusing. All the
girls were quite mad about Europe. Of course, I'm glad I'm an American.

CLAIRE: Why?

ELIZABETH: (_laughing_) Why--mother! Of course one is glad one is an
American. All the girls--

CLAIRE: (_turning away_) O--h! (_a moan under the breath_)

ELIZABETH: Why, mother--aren't you well?

HARRY: Your mother has been working pretty hard at all this.

ELIZABETH: Oh, I do so want to know all about it? Perhaps I can help
you! I think it's just awfully amusing that you're doing something. One
does nowadays, doesn't one?--if you know what I mean. It was the war,
wasn't it, made it the thing to do something?

DICK: (_slyly_) And you thought, Claire, that the war was lost.

ELIZABETH: The _war? Lost!_ (_her capable laugh_) Fancy our losing a
war! Miss Lane says we should give _thanks_. She says we should each do
some expressive thing--you know what I mean? And that this is the
_keynote_ of the age. Of course, one's own kind of thing. Like
mother--growing flowers.

CLAIRE: You think that is one's own kind of thing?

ELIZABETH: Why, of course I do, mother. And so does Miss Lane. All the
girls--

CLAIRE: (_shaking her head as if to get something out_) S-hoo.

ELIZABETH: What is it, mother?

CLAIRE: A fly shut up in my ear--'All the girls!'

ELIZABETH: (_laughing_) Mother was always so amusing. So _different_--if
you know what I mean. Vacations I've lived mostly with Aunt Adelaide,
you know.

CLAIRE: My sister who is fitted to rear children.

HARRY: Well, somebody has to do it.

ELIZABETH: And I do love Aunt Adelaide, but I think its going to be
awfully amusing to be around with mother now--and help her with her
work. Help do some useful beautiful thing.

CLAIRE: I am not doing any useful beautiful thing.

ELIZABETH: Oh, but you are, mother. Of course you are. Miss Lane says
so. She says it is your splendid heritage gives you this impulse to do a
beautiful thing for the race. She says you are doing in your way what
the great teachers and preachers behind you did in theirs.

CLAIRE: (_who is good for little more_) Well, all I can say is, Miss
Lane is stung.

ELIZABETH: Mother! What a thing to say of Miss Lane. (_from this
slipping into more of a little girl manner_) Oh, she gave me a spiel one
day about living up to the men I come from.

(CLAIRE _turns and regards her daughter_.)

CLAIRE: You'll do it, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH: Well, I don't know. Quite a job, I'll say. Of course, I'd
have to do it in my way. I'm not going to teach or preach or be a stuffy
person. But now that--(_she here becomes the product of a superior
school_) values have shifted and such sensitive new things have been
liberated in the world--

CLAIRE: (_low_) Don't use those words.

ELIZABETH: Why--why not?

CLAIRE: Because you don't know what they mean.

ELIZABETH: Why, of course I know what they mean!

CLAIRE: (_turning away_) You're--stepping on the plants.

HARRY: (_hastily_) Your mother has been working awfully hard at all
this.

ELIZABETH: Well, now that I'm here you'll let me help you, won't you,
mother?

CLAIRE: (_trying for control_) You needn't--bother.

ELIZABETH: But I _want_ to. Help add to the wealth of the world.

CLAIRE: Will you please get it out of your head that I am adding to the
wealth of the world!

ELIZABETH: But, mother--of course you are. To produce a new and better
kind of plant--

CLAIRE: They may be new. I don't give a damn whether they're better.

ELIZABETH: But--but what are they then?

CLAIRE: (_as if choked out of her_) They're different.

ELIZABETH: (_thinks a minute, then laughs triumphantly_) But what's the
use of making them different if they aren't better?

HARRY: A good square question, Claire. Why don't you answer it?

CLAIRE: I don't have to answer it.

HARRY: Why not give the girl a fair show? You never have, you know.
Since she's interested, why not tell her what it is you're doing?

CLAIRE: She is not interested.

ELIZABETH: But I am, mother. Indeed I am. I do want awfully to
understand what you are doing, and help you.

CLAIRE: You can't help me, Elizabeth.

HARRY: Why not let her try?

CLAIRE: Why do you ask me to do that? This is my own thing. Why do you
make me feel I should--(_goes to_ ELIZABETH) I will be good to you,
Elizabeth. We'll go around together. I haven't done it, but--you'll see.
We'll do gay things. I'll have a lot of beaus around for you. Anything
else. Not--this is--Not this.

ELIZABETH: As you like, mother, of course. I just would have been so
glad to--to share the thing that interests you. (_hurt borne with good
breeding and a smile_)

HARRY: Claire! (_which says, 'How can you?'_)

CLAIRE: (_who is looking at_ ELIZABETH) Yes, I will try.

TOM: I don't think so. As Claire says--anything else.

ELIZABETH: Why, of course--I don't at all want to intrude.

HARRY: It'll do Claire good to take someone in. To get down to brass
tacks and actually say what she's driving at.

CLAIRE: Oh--_Harry_. But yes--I will try. (_does try, but no words come.
Laughs_) When you come to say it it's not--One would rather not nail it
to a cross of words--(_laughs again_) with brass tacks.

HARRY: (_affectionately_) But I want to see you put things into words,
Claire, and realize just where you are.

CLAIRE: (_oddly_) You think that's a--good idea?

ELIZABETH: (_in her manner of holding the world capably in her hands_)
Now let's talk of something else. I hadn't the least idea of making
mother feel badly.

CLAIRE: (_desperately_) No, we'll go on. Though I don't know--where
we'll end. I can't answer for that. These plants--(_beginning
flounderingly_) Perhaps they are less beautiful--less sound--than the
plants from which they diverged. But they have found--otherness,
(_laughs a little shrilly_) If you know--what I mean.

TOM: Claire--stop this! (_To_ HARRY) This is wrong.

CLAIRE: (_excitedly_) No; I'm going on. They have been shocked out of
what they were--into something they were not; they've broken from the
forms in which they found themselves. They are alien. Outside. That's
it, outside; if you--know what I mean.

ELIZABETH: (_not shocked from what she is_) But of course, the object of
it all is to make them better plants. Otherwise, what would be the sense
of doing it?

CLAIRE: (_not reached by_ ELIZABETH) Out there--(_giving it with her
hands_) lies all that's not been touched--lies life that waits. Back
here--the old pattern, done again, again and again. So long done it
doesn't even know itself for a pattern--in immensity. But this--has
invaded. Crept a little way into--what wasn't. Strange lines in life
unused. And when you make a pattern new you know a pattern's made with
life. And then you know that anything may be--if only you know how to
reach it. (_this has taken form, not easily, but with great struggle
between feeling and words_)

HARRY: (_cordially_) Now I begin to get you, Claire. I never knew before
why you called it the Edge Vine.

CLAIRE: I should destroy the Edge Vine. It isn't--over the edge. It's
running, back to--'all the girls'. It's a little afraid of Miss Lane,
(_looking sombrely at it_) You are out, but you are not alive.

ELIZABETH: Why, it looks all right, mother.

CLAIRE: Didn't carry life with it from the life it left. Dick--you know
what I mean. At least you ought to. (_her ruthless way of not letting
anyone's feelings stand in the way of truth_) Then destroy it for me!
It's hard to do it--with the hands that made it.

DICK: But what's the point in destroying it, Claire?

CLAIRE: (_impatiently_) I've told you. It cannot create.

DICK: But you say you can go on producing it, and it's interesting in
form.

CLAIRE: And you think I'll stop with that? Be shut in--with different
life--that can't creep on? (_after trying to put destroying hands upon
it_) It's hard to--get past what we've done. Our own dead things--block
the way.

TOM: But you're doing it this next time, Claire, (_nodding to the inner
room_.) In there!

CLAIRE: (_turning to that room_) I'm not sure.

TOM: But you told me Breath of Life has already produced itself. Doesn't
that show it has brought life from the life it left?

CLAIRE: But timidly, rather--wistfully. A little homesick. If it is less
sure this time, then it is going back to--Miss Lane. But if the
pattern's clearer now, then it has made friends of life that waits. I'll
know to-morrow.

ELIZABETH: You know, something tells me this is _wrong_.

CLAIRE: The hymn-singing ancestors are tuning up.

ELIZABETH: I don't know what you mean by that, mother but--

CLAIRE: But we will now sing, 'Nearer, my God, to Thee: Nearer to--'

ELIZABETH: (_laughingly breaking in_) Well, I don't care. Of course you
can make fun at me, but something does tell me this is wrong. To do
what--what--

DICK: What God did?

ELIZABETH: Well--yes. Unless you do it to make them better--to _do_ it
just to do it--that doesn't seem right to me.

CLAIRE: (_roughly_) 'Right to you!' And that's all you know of
adventure--and of anguish. Do you know it is you--world of which you're
so true a flower--makes me have to leave? You're there to hold the door
shut! Because you're young and of a gayer world, you think I can't _see_
them--those old men? Do you know why you're so sure of yourself? Because
you can't _feel_. Can't feel--the limitless--out there--a sea just over
the hill. I will not stay with you! (_buries her hands in the earth
around the Edge Vine. But suddenly steps back from it as she had from_
ELIZABETH) And I will not stay with _you! (grasps it as we grasp what we
would kill, is trying to pull it up. They all step forward in horror.
ANTHONY is drawn in by this harm to the plant_)

ANTHONY: Miss Claire! Miss Claire! The work of years!

CLAIRE: May only make a prison! (_struggling with_ HARRY, _who is trying
to stop her_) You think I too will die on the edge? (_she has thrown him
away, is now struggling with the vine_) Why did I make you? To get past
you! (_as she twists it_) Oh yes, I know you have thorns! The Edge Vine
should have thorns, (_with a long tremendous pull for deep roots, she
has it up. As she holds the torn roots_) Oh, I have loved you so! You
took me where I hadn't been.

ELIZABETH: (_who has been looking on with a certain practical horror_)
Well, I'd say it would be better not to go there!

CLAIRE: Now I know what you are for! (_flings her arm back to strike_
ELIZABETH _with the Edge Vine_)

HARRY: (_wresting it from her_) Claire! Are you mad?

CLAIRE: No, I'm not mad. I'm--too sane! (_pointing to_ ELIZABETH--_and
the words come from mighty roots_) To think that object ever moved my
belly and sucked my breast! (ELIZABETH _hides her face as if struck_)

HARRY: (_going to_ ELIZABETH, _turning to_ CLAIRE) This is atrocious!
You're cruel.

(_He leads_ ELIZABETH _to the door and out. After an irresolute moment
in which he looks from_ CLAIRE _to_ TOM, DICK _follows._ ANTHONY _cannot
bear to go. He stoops to take the Edge Vine from the floor._ CLAIRE's
_gesture stops him. He goes into the inner room._)

CLAIRE: (_kicking the Edge Vine out of her way, drawing deep breaths,
smiling_) O-h. How good I feel! Light! (_a movement as if she could
fly_) Read me something, Tom dear. Or say something pleasant--about God.
But be very careful what you say about him! I have a feeling--he's not
far off.

CURTAIN




ACT II


_Late afternoon of the following day._ CLAIRE _is alone in the tower--a
tower which is thought to be round but does not complete the circle. The
back is curved, then jagged lines break from that, and the front is a
queer bulging window--in a curve that leans. The whole structure is as
if given a twist by some terrific force--like something wrong. It is
lighted by an old-fashioned watchman's lantern hanging from the ceiling;
the innumerable pricks and slits in the metal throw a marvellous pattern
on the curved wall--like some masonry that hasn't been.

There are no windows at back, and there is no door save an opening in
the floor. The delicately distorted rail of a spiral staircase winds up
from below._ CLAIRE _is seen through the huge ominous window as if shut
into the tower. She is lying on a seat at the back looking at a book of
drawings. To do this she has left the door of her lantern a little
open--and her own face is clearly seen.

A door is heard opening below; laughing voices,_ CLAIRE _listens, not
pleased._

ADELAIDE: (_voice coming up_) Dear--dear, why do they make such
twisting steps.

HARRY: Take your time, most up now. (HARRY_'s head appears, he looks
back._) Making it all right?

ADELAIDE: I can't tell yet. (_laughingly_) No, I don't think so.

HARRY: (_reaching back a hand for her_) The last lap--is the bad lap.
(ADELAIDE _is up, and occupied with getting her breath._)

HARRY: Since you wouldn't come down, Claire, we thought we'd come up.

ADELAIDE: (_as_ CLAIRE _does not greet her_) I'm sorry to intrude, but I
have to see you, Claire. There are things to be arranged. (CLAIRE
_volunteering nothing about arrangements,_ ADELAIDE _surveys the tower.
An unsympathetic eye goes from the curves to the lines which diverge.
Then she looks from the window_) Well, at least you have a view.

HARRY: This is the first time you've been up here?

ADELAIDE: Yes, in the five years you've had the house I was never asked
up here before.

CLAIRE: (_amiably enough_) You weren't asked up here now.

ADELAIDE: Harry asked me.

CLAIRE: It isn't Harry's tower. But never mind--since you don't like
it--it's all right.

ADELAIDE: (_her eyes again rebuking the irregularities of the tower_)
No, I confess I do not care for it. A round tower should go on being
round.

HARRY: Claire calls this the thwarted tower. She bought the house
because of it. (_going over and sitting by her, his hand on her ankle_)
Didn't you, old girl? She says she'd like to have known the architect.

ADELAIDE: Probably a tiresome person too incompetent to make a perfect
tower.

CLAIRE: Well, now he's disposed of, what next?

ADELAIDE: (_sitting down in a manner of capably opening a conference_)
Next, Elizabeth, and you, Claire. Just what is the matter with
Elizabeth?

CLAIRE: (_whose voice is cool, even, as if herself is not really engaged
by this_) Nothing is the matter with her. She is a tower that is a
tower.

ADELAIDE: Well, is that anything against her?

CLAIRE: She's just like one of her father's portraits. They never
interested me. Nor does she. (_looks at the drawings which do interest
her_)

ADELAIDE: A mother cannot cast off her own child simply because she does
not interest her!

CLAIRE: (_an instant raising cool eyes to_ ADELAIDE) Why can't she?

ADELAIDE: Because it would be monstrous!

CLAIRE: And why can't she be monstrous--if she has to be?

ADELAIDE: You don't have to be. That's where I'm out of patience with
you Claire. You are really a particularly intelligent, competent person,
and it's time for you to call a halt to this nonsense and be the woman
you were meant to be!

CLAIRE: (_holding the book up to see another way_) What inside dope have
you on what I was meant to be?

ADELAIDE: I know what you came from.

CLAIRE: Well, isn't it about time somebody got loose from that? What I
came from made you, so--

ADELAIDE: (_stiffly_) I see.

CLAIRE: So--you being such a tower of strength, why need I too be
imprisoned in what I came from?

ADELAIDE: It isn't being imprisoned. Right there is where you make your
mistake, Claire. Who's in a tower--in an unsuccessful tower? Not I. I go
about in the world--free, busy, happy. Among people, I have no time to
think of myself.

CLAIRE: No.

ADELAIDE: No. My family. The things that interest them; from morning
till night it's--

CLAIRE: Yes, I know you have a large family, Adelaide; five and
Elizabeth makes six.

ADELAIDE: We'll speak of Elizabeth later. But if you would just get out
of yourself and enter into other people's lives--

CLAIRE: Then I would become just like you. And we should all be just
alike in order to assure one another that we're all just right. But
since you and Harry and Elizabeth and ten million other people bolster
each other up, why do you especially need me?

ADELAIDE: (_not unkindly_) We don't need you as much as you need us.

CLAIRE: (_a wry face_) I never liked what I needed.

HARRY: I am convinced I am the worst thing in the world for you, Claire.

CLAIRE: (_with a smile for his tactics, but shaking her head_) I'm
afraid you're not. I don't know--perhaps you are.

ADELAIDE: Well, what is it you want, Claire?

CLAIRE: (_simply_) You wouldn't know if I told you.

ADELAIDE: That's rather arrogant.

HARRY: Yes, take a chance, Claire. I have been known to get an idea--and
Adelaide quite frequently gets one.

CLAIRE: (_the first resentment she has shown_) You two feel very
superior, don't you?

ADELAIDE: I don't think we are the ones who are feeling superior.

CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you are. Very superior to what you think is my feeling
of superiority, comparing my--isolation with your 'heart of humanity'.
Soon we will speak of the beauty of common experiences, of the--Oh, I
could say it all before we come to it.

HARRY: Adelaide came up here to help you, Claire.

CLAIRE: Adelaide came up here to lock me in. Well, she can't do it.

ADELAIDE: (_gently_) But can't you see that one may do that to one's
self?

CLAIRE: (_thinks of this, looks suddenly tired--then smiles_) Well, at
least I've changed the keys.

HARRY: 'Locked in.' Bunkum. Get that our of your head, Claire. Who's
locked in? Nobody that I know of, we're all free Americans. Free as air.

ADELAIDE: I wish you'd come and hear one of Mr Morley's sermons, Claire.
You're very old-fashioned if you think sermons are what they used to be.

CLAIRE: (_with interest_) And do they still sing 'Nearer, my God, to
Thee'?

ADELAIDE: They do, and a noble old hymn it is. It would do you no harm
at all to sing it.

CLAIRE: (_eagerly_) Sing it to me, Adelaide. I'd like to hear you sing
it.

ADELAIDE: It would be sacrilege to sing it to you in this mood.

CLAIRE: (_falling back_) Oh, I don't know. I'm not so sure God would
agree with you. That would be one on you, wouldn't it?

ADELAIDE: It's easy to feel one's self set apart!

CLAIRE: No, it isn't.

ADELAIDE: (_beginning anew_) It's a new age, Claire. Spiritual values--

CLAIRE: Spiritual values! (_in her brooding way_) So you have pulled
that up. (_with cunning_) Don't think I don't know what it is you do.

ADELAIDE: Well, what do I do? I'm sure I have no idea what you're
talking about.

HARRY: (_affectionately, as_ CLAIRE _is looking with intentness at what
he does not see_) What does she do, Claire?

CLAIRE: It's rather clever, what she does. Snatching the phrase--(_a
movement as if pulling something up_) standing it up between her
and--the life that's there. And by saying it enough--'We have life! We
have life! We have life!' Very good come-back at one who would really
be--'Just so! _We_ are that. Right this way, please--'That, I suppose is
what we mean by needing each other. All join in the chorus, 'This is it!
This is it! This is it!' And anyone who won't join is to be--visited by
relatives, (_regarding_ ADELAIDE _with curiosity_) Do you really think
that anything is going on in you?

ADELAIDE: (_stiffly_) I am not one to hold myself up as a perfect
example of what the human race may be.

CLAIRE: (_brightly_) Well, that's good.

HARRY: Claire!

CLAIRE: Humility's a _real_ thing--not just a fine name for laziness.

HARRY: Well, Lord A'mighty, you can't call Adelaide lazy.

CLAIRE: She stays in one place because she hasn't the energy to go
anywhere else.

ADELAIDE: (_as if the last word in absurdity has been said) I_ haven't
energy?

CLAIRE: (_mildly_) You haven't any energy at all, Adelaide. That's why
you keep so busy.

ADELAIDE: _Well_--Claire's nerves are in a worse state than I had
realized.

CLAIRE: So perhaps we'd better look at Blake's drawings, (_takes up the
book_)

ADELAIDE: It would be all right for me to look at Blake's drawings.
You'd better look at the Sistine Madonna, (_affectionately, after she
has watched_ CLAIRE_'s face a moment_) What is it, Claire? Why do you
shut yourself out from us?

CLAIRE: I told you. Because I do not want to be shut in with you.

ADELAIDE: All of this is not very pleasant for Harry.

HARRY: I want Claire to be gay.

CLAIRE: Funny--you should want that, (_speaks unwillingly, a curious,
wistful unwillingness_) Did you ever say a preposterous thing, then go
trailing after the thing you've said and find it wasn't so preposterous?
Here is the circle we are in._describes a big circle_) Being gay. It
shoots little darts through the circle, and a minute later--gaiety all
gone, and you looking through that little hole the gaiety left.

ADELAIDE: (_going to her, as she is still looking through that little
hole_) Claire, dear, I wish I could make you feel how much I care for
you. (_simply, with real feeling_) You can call me all the names you
like--dull, commonplace, lazy--that is a new idea, I confess, but the
rest of our family's gone now, and the love that used to be there
between us all--the only place for it now is between you and me. You
were so much loved, Claire. You oughtn't to try and get away from a
world in which you are so much loved, (_to_ HARRY) Mother--father--all
of us, always loved Claire best. We always loved Claire's queer gaiety.
Now you've got to hand it to us for that, as the children say.

CLAIRE: (_moved, but eyes shining with a queer bright loneliness_) But
never one of you--once--looked with me through the little pricks the
gaiety made--never one of you--once, looked with me at the queer light
that came in through the pricks.

ADELAIDE: And can't you see, dear, that it's better for us we didn't?
And that it would be better for you now if you would just resolutely
look somewhere else? You must see yourself that you haven't the poise of
people who are held--well, within the circle, if you choose to put it
that way. There's something about being in that main body, having one's
roots in the big common experiences, gives a calm which you have missed.
That's _why_ I want you to take Elizabeth, forget yourself, and--

CLAIRE: I do want calm. But mine would have to be a calm I--worked my
way to. A calm all prepared for me--would stink.

ADELAIDE: (_less sympathetically_) I know you have to be yourself,
Claire. But I don't admit you have a right to hurt other people.

HARRY: I think Claire and I had better take a nice long trip.

ADELAIDE: Now why don't you?

CLAIRE: I am taking a trip.

ADELAIDE: Well, Harry isn't, and he'd like to go and wants you to go
with him. Go to Paris and get yourself some awfully good-looking
clothes--and have one grand fling at the gay world. You really love
that, Claire, and you've been awfully dull lately. I think that's the
whole trouble.

HARRY: I think so too.

ADELAIDE: This sober business of growing plants--

CLAIRE: Not sober--it's mad.

ADELAIDE: All the more reason for quitting it.

CLAIRE: But madness that is the only chance for sanity.

ADELAIDE: Come, come, now--let's not juggle words.

CLAIRE: (_springing up_) How dare you say that to me, Adelaide. You who
are such a liar and thief and whore with words!

ADELAIDE: (_facing her, furious_) How _dare_ you--

HARRY: Of course not, Claire. You have the most preposterous way of
using words.

CLAIRE: I respect words.

ADELAIDE: Well, you'll please respect me enough not to dare use certain
words to me!

CLAIRE: Yes, I do dare. I'm tired of what you do--you and all of you.
Life--experience--values--calm--sensitive words which raise their heads
as indications. And you _pull them up_--to decorate your stagnant little
minds--and think that makes you--And because you have pulled that word
from the life that grew it you won't let one who's honest, and aware,
and troubled, try to reach through to--to what she doesn't know is
there, (_she is moved, excited, as if a cruel thing has been done_) Why
did you come here?

ADELAIDE: To try and help you. But I begin to fear I can't do it. It's
pretty egotistical to claim that what so many people are, is wrong.

(_CLAIRE, after looking intently at ADELAIDE, slowly, smiling a little,
describes a circle. With deftly used hands makes a quick vicious break
in the circle which is there in the air._)

HARRY: (_going to her, taking her hands_) It's getting close to
dinner-time. You were thinking of something else, Claire, when I told
you Charlie Emmons was coming to dinner to-night, (_answering her look_)
Sure--he is a neurologist, and I want him to see you. I'm perfectly
honest with you--cards all on the table, you know that. I'm hoping if
you like him--and he's the best scout in the world, that he can help
you. (_talking hurriedly against the stillness which follows her look
from him to ADELAIDE, where she sees between them an 'understanding'
about her_) Sure you need help, Claire. Your nerves are a little on the
blink--from all you've been doing. No use making a mystery of it--or a
tragedy. Emmons is a cracker-jack, and naturally I want you to get a
move on yourself and be happy again.

CLAIRE: (_who has gone over to the window_) And this neurologist can
make me happy?

HARRY: Can make you well--and then you'll be happy.

ADELAIDE: (_in the voice of now fixing it all up_) And I had just an
idea about Elizabeth. Instead of working with mere plants, why not think
of Elizabeth as a plant and--

(CLAIRE, _who has been looking out of the window, now throws open one of
the panes that swings out--or seems to, and calls down in great
excitement._)

CLAIRE: Tom! _Tom!_ Quick! Up here! I'm in trouble!

HARRY: (_going to the window_) That's a rotten thing to do, Claire!
You've frightened him.

CLAIRE: Yes, how fast he can run. He was deep in thought and I stabbed
right through.

HARRY: Well, he'll be none too pleased when he gets up here and finds
there was no reason for the stabbing!

(_They wait for his footsteps,_ HARRY _annoyed,_ ADELAIDE _offended, but
stealing worried looks at_ CLAIRE, _who is looking fixedly at the place
in the floor where_ TOM _will appear.--Running footsteps._)

TOM: (_his voice getting there before he does_) Yes,
Claire--yes--yes--(_as his head appears_) What is it?

CLAIRE: (_at once presenting him and answering his question_) My sister.

TOM: (_gasping_) Oh,--why--is that all? I mean--how do you do? Pardon, I
(_panting_) came up--rather hurriedly.

HARRY: If you want to slap Claire, Tom, I for one have no objection.

CLAIRE: Adelaide has the most interesting idea, Tom. She proposes that I
take Elizabeth and roll her in the gutter. Just let her lie there until
she breaks up into--

ADELAIDE: _Claire!_ I don't see how--even in fun--pretty vulgar fun--you
can speak in those terms of a pure young girl. I'm beginning to think I
had better take Elizabeth.

CLAIRE: Oh, I've thought that all along.

ADELAIDE: And I'm also beginning to suspect that--oddity may be just a
way of shifting responsibility.

CLAIRE: (_cordially interested in this possibility_) Now you know--that
might be.

ADELAIDE: A mother who does not love her own child! You are an unnatural
woman, Claire.

CLAIRE: Well, at least it saves me from being a natural one.

ADELAIDE: Oh--I know, you think you have a great deal! But let me tell
you, you've missed a great deal! You've never known the faintest
stirring of a mother's love.

CLAIRE: That's not true.

HARRY: No. Claire loved our boy.

CLAIRE: I'm glad he didn't live.

HARRY: (_low_) Claire!

CLAIRE: I loved him. Why should I want him to live?

HARRY: Come, dear, I'm sorry I spoke of him--when you're not feeling
well.

CLAIRE: I'm feeling all right. _Just_ because I'm seeing something, it
doesn't mean I'm sick.

HARRY: Well, let's go down now. About dinner-time. I shouldn't wonder if
Emmons were here. (_as ADELAIDE is starting down stairs_) Coming,
Claire?

CLAIRE: No.

HARRY: But it's time to go down for dinner.

CLAIRE: I'm not hungry.

HARRY: But we have a guest. Two guests--Adelaide's staying too.

CLAIRE: Then you're not alone.

HARRY: But I invited Dr Emmons to meet you.

CLAIRE: (_her smile flashing_) Tell him I am violent to-night.

HARRY: Dearest--how can you joke about such things!

CLAIRE: So you do think they're serious?

HARRY: (_irritated_) No, I do not! But I want you to come down for
dinner!

ADELAIDE: Come, come, Claire; you know quite well this is not the sort
of thing one does.

CLAIRE: Why go on saying one doesn't, when you are seeing one does (_to_
TOM) Will you stay with me a while? I want to purify the tower.

(ADELAIDE _begins to disappear_)

HARRY: Fine time to choose for a _tête-à-tête. (as he is leaving_) I'd
think more of you, Edgeworthy, if you refused to humour Claire in her
ill-breeding.

ADELAIDE: (_her severe voice coming from below_) It is not what she was
taught.

CLAIRE: No, it's not what I was taught, (_laughing rather timidly_) And
perhaps you'd rather have your dinner?

TOM: No.

CLAIRE: We'll get something later. I want to talk to you. (_but she does
not--laughs_) Absurd that I should feel bashful with you. Why am I so
awkward with words when I go to talk to you?

TOM: The words know they're not needed.

CLAIRE: No, they're not needed. There's something underneath--an open