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

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

CLAIRE: (shaking her head as if to get something out) S-hoo.

ELIZABETH: What is it, mother?

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

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

CLAIRE: My sister who is fitted to rear children.

HARRY: Well, somebody has to do it.

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

CLAIRE: I am not doing any useful beautiful thing.

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

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

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

(CLAIRE turns and regards her daughter.)

CLAIRE: You'll do it, Elizabeth.

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

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

ELIZABETH: Why—why not?

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

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

CLAIRE: (turning away) You're—stepping on the plants.

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

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

CLAIRE: (trying for control) You needn't—bother.

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

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

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

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

ELIZABETH: But—but what are they then?

CLAIRE: (as if choked out of her) They're different.

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

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

CLAIRE: I don't have to answer it.

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

CLAIRE: She is not interested.

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

CLAIRE: You can't help me, Elizabeth.

HARRY: Why not let her try?

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

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

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

CLAIRE: (who is looking at ELIZABETH) Yes, I will try.

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

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

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

CLAIRE: Oh—Harry. But yes—I will try. (does try, but no words come. Laughs) When you come to say it it's not—One would rather not nail it to a cross of words—(laughs again) with brass tacks.

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

CLAIRE: (oddly) You think that's a—good idea?

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

CLAIRE: (desperately) No, we'll go on. Though I don't know—where we'll end. I can't answer for that. These plants—(beginning flounderingly) Perhaps they are less beautiful—less sound—than the plants from which they diverged. But they have found—otherness, (laughs a little shrilly) If you know—what I mean.

TOM: Claire—stop this! (To HARRY) This is wrong.

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

ELIZABETH: (not shocked from what she is) But of course, the object of it all is to make them better plants. Otherwise, what would be the sense of doing it?

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

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

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

ELIZABETH: Why, it looks all right, mother.

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLAIRE: (turning to that room) I'm not sure.

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

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

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

CLAIRE: The hymn-singing ancestors are tuning up.

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

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

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

DICK: What God did?

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

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

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

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

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

CLAIRE: Now I know what you are for! (flings her arm back to strike ELIZABETH with the Edge Vine)

HARRY: (wresting it from her) Claire! Are you mad?

CLAIRE: No, I'm not mad. I'm—too sane! (pointing to ELIZABETH—and the words come from mighty roots) To think that object ever moved my belly and sucked my breast! (ELIZABETH hides her face as if struck)

HARRY: (going to ELIZABETH, turning to CLAIRE) This is atrocious! You're cruel.

(He leads ELIZABETH to the door and out. After an irresolute moment in which he looks from CLAIRE to TOM, DICK follows. ANTHONY cannot bear to go. He stoops to take the Edge Vine from the floor. CLAIRE's gesture stops him. He goes into the inner room.)

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

CURTAIN



ACT II

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

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

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

ADELAIDE: (voice coming up) Dear—dear, why do they make such twisting steps.

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

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

HARRY: (reaching back a hand for her) The last lap—is the bad lap. (ADELAIDE is up, and occupied with getting her breath.)

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

ADELAIDE: (as CLAIRE does not greet her) I'm sorry to intrude, but I have to see you, Claire. There are things to be arranged. (CLAIRE volunteering nothing about arrangements, ADELAIDE surveys the tower. An unsympathetic eye goes from the curves to the lines which diverge. Then she looks from the window) Well, at least you have a view.

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

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

CLAIRE: (amiably enough) You weren't asked up here now.

ADELAIDE: Harry asked me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ADELAIDE: Well, is that anything against her?

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

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

CLAIRE: (an instant raising cool eyes to ADELAIDE) Why can't she?

ADELAIDE: Because it would be monstrous!

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

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

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

ADELAIDE: I know what you came from.

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

ADELAIDE: (stiffly) I see.

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

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

CLAIRE: No.

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

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

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

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

ADELAIDE: (not unkindly) We don't need you as much as you need us.

CLAIRE: (a wry face) I never liked what I needed.

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

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

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

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

ADELAIDE: That's rather arrogant.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLAIRE: (thinks of this, looks suddenly tired—then smiles) Well, at least I've changed the keys.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLAIRE: No, it isn't.

ADELAIDE: (beginning anew) It's a new age, Claire. Spiritual values—

CLAIRE: Spiritual values! (in her brooding way) So you have pulled that up. (with cunning) Don't think I don't know what it is you do.

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

HARRY: (affectionately, as CLAIRE is looking with intentness at what he does not see) What does she do, Claire?

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

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

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

HARRY: Claire!

CLAIRE: Humility's a real thing—not just a fine name for laziness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HARRY: I want Claire to be gay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ADELAIDE: Now why don't you?

CLAIRE: I am taking a trip.

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

HARRY: I think so too.

ADELAIDE: This sober business of growing plants—

CLAIRE: Not sober—it's mad.

ADELAIDE: All the more reason for quitting it.

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

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

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

ADELAIDE: (facing her, furious) How dare you—

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

CLAIRE: I respect words.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(They wait for his footsteps, HARRY annoyed, ADELAIDE offended, but stealing worried looks at CLAIRE, who is looking fixedly at the place in the floor where TOM will appear.—Running footsteps.)

TOM: (his voice getting there before he does) Yes, Claire—yes—yes—(as his head appears) What is it?

CLAIRE: (at once presenting him and answering his question) My sister.

TOM: (gasping) Oh,—why—is that all? I mean—how do you do? Pardon, I (panting) came up—rather hurriedly.

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

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

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

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

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

CLAIRE: (cordially interested in this possibility) Now you know—that might be.

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

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

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

CLAIRE: That's not true.

HARRY: No. Claire loved our boy.

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

HARRY: (low) Claire!

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

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

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

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

CLAIRE: No.

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

CLAIRE: I'm not hungry.

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

CLAIRE: Then you're not alone.

HARRY: But I invited Dr Emmons to meet you.

CLAIRE: (her smile flashing) Tell him I am violent to-night.

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

CLAIRE: So you do think they're serious?

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

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

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

(ADELAIDE begins to disappear)

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

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

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

TOM: No.

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

TOM: The words know they're not needed.

CLAIRE: No, they're not needed. There's something underneath—an open way—down below the way that words can go. (rather desperately) It is there, isn't it?

TOM: Oh, yes, it is there.

CLAIRE: Then why do we never—go it?

TOM: If we went it, it would not be there.

CLAIRE: Is that true? How terrible, if that is true.

TOM: Not terrible, wonderful—that it should—of itself—be there.

CLAIRE: (with the simplicity that can say anything) I want to go it, Tom, I'm lonely up on top here. Is it that I have more faith than you, or is it only that I'm greedier? You see, you don't know (her reckless laugh) what you're missing. You don't know how I could love you.

TOM: Don't, Claire; that isn't—how it is—between you and me.

CLAIRE: But why can't it be—every way—between you and me?

TOM: Because we'd lose—the open way. (the quality of his denial shows how strong is his feeling for her) With anyone else—not with you.

CLAIRE: But you are the only one I want. The only one—all of me wants.

TOM: I know; but that's the way it is.

CLAIRE: You're cruel.

TOM: Oh, Claire, I'm trying so hard to—save it for us. Isn't it our beauty and our safeguard that underneath our separate lives, no matter where we may be, with what other, there is this open way between us? That's so much more than anything we could bring to being.

CLAIRE: Perhaps. But—it's different with me. I'm not—all spirit.

TOM: (his hand on her) Dear!

CLAIRE: No, don't touch me—since (moving) you're going away to-morrow? (he nods) For—always? (his head just moves assent) India is just another country. But there are undiscovered countries.

TOM: Yes, but we are so feeble we have to reach our country through the actual country lying nearest. Don't you do that yourself, Claire? Reach your country through the plants' country?

CLAIRE: My country? You mean—outside?

TOM: No, I don't think it that way.

CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you do.

TOM: Your country is the inside, Claire. The innermost. You are disturbed because you lie too close upon the heart of life.

CLAIRE: (restlessly) I don't know; you can think it one way—or another. No way says it, and that's good—at least it's not shut up in saying. (she is looking at her enclosing hand, as if something is shut up there)

TOM: But also, you know, things may be freed by expression. Come from the unrealized into the fabric of life.

CLAIRE: Yes, but why does the fabric of life have to—freeze into its pattern? It should (doing it with her hands) flow, (then turning like an unsatisfied child to him) But I wanted to talk to you.

TOM: You are talking to me. Tell me about your flower that never was before—your Breath of Life.

CLAIRE: I'll know to-morrow. You'll not go until I know?

TOM: I'll try to stay.

CLAIRE: It seems to me, if it has—then I have, integrity in—(smiles, it is as if the smile lets her say it) otherness. I don't want to die on the edge!

TOM: Not you!

CLAIRE: Many do. It's what makes them too smug in allness—those dead things on the edge, died, distorted—trying to get through. Oh—don't think I don't see—The Edge Vine! (a pause, then swiftly) Do you know what I mean? Or do you think I'm just a fool, or crazy?

TOM: I think I know what you mean, and you know I don't think you are a fool, or crazy.

CLAIRE: Stabbed to awareness—no matter where it takes you, isn't that more than a safe place to stay? (telling him very simply despite the pattern of pain in her voice) Anguish may be a thread—making patterns that haven't been. A thread—blue and burning.

TOM: (to take her from what even he fears for her) But you were telling me about the flower you breathed to life. What is your Breath of Life?

CLAIRE: (an instant playing) It's a secret. A secret?—it's a trick. Distilled from the most fragile flowers there are. It's only air—pausing—playing; except, far in, one stab of red, its quivering heart—that asks a question. But here's the trick—I bred the air-form to strength. The strength shut up behind us I've sent—far out. (troubled) I'll know tomorrow. And I have another gift for Breath of Life; some day—though days of work lie in between—some day I'll give it reminiscence. Fragrance that is—no one thing in here but—reminiscent. (silence, she raises wet eyes) We need the haunting beauty from the life we've left. I need that, (he takes her hands and breathes her name) Let me reach my country with you. I'm not a plant. After all, they don't—accept me. Who does—accept me? Will you?

TOM: My dear—dear, dear, Claire—you move me so! You stand alone in a clearness that breaks my heart, (her hands move up his arms. He takes them to hold them from where they would go—though he can hardly do it) But you've asked what you yourself could answer best. We'd only stop in the country where everyone stops.

CLAIRE: We might come through—to radiance.

TOM: Radiance is an enclosing place.

CLAIRE: Perhaps radiance lighting forms undreamed, (her reckless laugh) I'd be willing to—take a chance, I'd rather lose than never know.

TOM: No, Claire. Knowing you from underneath, I know you couldn't bear to lose.

CLAIRE: Wouldn't men say you were a fool!

TOM: They would.

CLAIRE: And perhaps you are. (he smiles a little) I feel so desperate, because if only I could—show you what I am, you might see I could have without losing. But I'm a stammering thing with you.

TOM: You do show me what you are.

CLAIRE: I've known a few moments that were life. Why don't they help me now? One was in the air. I was up with Harry—flying—high. It was about four months before David was born—the doctor was furious—pregnant women are supposed to keep to earth. We were going fast—I was flying—I had left the earth. And then—within me, movement, for the first time—stirred to life far in air—movement within. The man unborn, he too, would fly. And so—I always loved him. He was movement—and wonder. In his short life were many flights. I never told anyone about the last one. His little bed was by the window—he wasn't four years old. It was night, but him not asleep. He saw the morning star—you know—the morning star. Brighter—stranger—reminiscent—and a promise. He pointed—'Mother', he asked me, 'what is there—beyond the stars?' A baby, a sick baby—the morning star. Next night—the finger that pointed was—(suddenly bites her own finger) But, yes, I am glad. He would always have tried to move and too much would hold him. Wonder would die—and he'd laugh at soaring, (looking down, sidewise) Though I liked his voice. So I wish you'd stay near me—for I like your voice, too.

TOM: Claire! That's (choked) almost too much.

CLAIRE: (one of her swift glances—canny, almost practical) Well, I'm glad if it is. How can I make it more? (but what she sees brings its own change) I know what it is you're afraid of. It's because I have so much—yes, why shouldn't I say it?—passion. You feel that in me, don't you? You think it would swamp everything. But that isn't all there is to me.

TOM: Oh, I know it! My dearest—why, it's because I know it! You think I am—a fool?

CLAIRE: It's a thing that's—sometimes more than I am. And yet I—I am more than it is.

TOM: I know. I know about you.

CLAIRE: I don't know that you do. Perhaps if you really knew about me—you wouldn't go away.

TOM: You're making me suffer, Claire.

CLAIRE: I know I am. I want to. Why shouldn't you suffer? (now seeing it more clearly than she has ever seen it) You know what I think about you? You're afraid of suffering, and so you stop this side—in what you persuade yourself is suffering, (waits, then sends it straight) You know—how it is—with me and Dick? (as she sees him suffer) Oh, no, I don't want to hurt you! Let it be you! I'll teach you—you needn't scorn it. It's rather wonderful.

TOM: Stop that, Claire! That isn't you.

CLAIRE: Why are you so afraid—of letting me be low—if that is low? You see—(cannily) I believe in beauty. I have the faith that can be bad as well as good. And you know why I have the faith? Because sometimes—from my lowest moments—beauty has opened as the sea. From a cave I saw immensity.

My love, you're going away— Let me tell you how it is with me; I want to touch you—somehow touch you once before I die— Let me tell you how it is with me. I do not want to work, I want to be; Do not want to make a rose or make a poem— Want to lie upon the earth and know. (closes her eyes) Stop doing that!—words going into patterns; They do it sometimes when I let come what's there. Thoughts take pattern—then the pattern is the thing. But let me tell you how it is with me. (it flows again) All that I do or say—it is to what it comes from, A drop lifted from the sea. I want to lie upon the earth and know. But—scratch a little dirt and make a flower; Scratch a bit of brain—something like a poem. (covering her face) Stop doing that. Help me stop doing that!

TOM: (and from the place where she had carried him) Don't talk at all. Lie still and know— And know that I am knowing.

CLAIRE: Yes; but we are so weak we have to talk; To talk—to touch. Why can't I rest in knowing I would give my life to reach you? That has—all there is. But I must—put my timid hands upon you, Do something about infinity. Oh, let what will flow into us, And fill us full—and leave us still. Wring me dry, And let me fill again with life more pure. To know—to feel, And do nothing with what I feel and know— That's being good. That's nearer God.

(drenched in the feeling that has flowed through her—but surprised—helpless) Why, I said your thing, didn't I? Opened my life to bring you to me, and what came—is what sends you away.

TOM: No! What came is what holds us together. What came is what saves us from ever going apart. (brokenly) My beautiful one. You—you brave flower of all our knowing.

CLAIRE: I am not a flower. I am too torn. If you have anything—help me. Breathe, Breathe the healing oneness, and let me know in calm. (with a sob his head rests upon her)

CLAIRE: (her hands on his head, but looking far) Beauty—you pure one thing. Breathe—Let me know in calm. Then—trouble me, trouble me, for other moments—in farther calm. (slow, motionless, barely articulate)

TOM: (as she does not move he lifts his head. And even as he looks at her, she does not move, nor look at him) Claire—(his hand out to her, a little afraid) You went away from me then. You are away from me now.

CLAIRE: Yes, and I could go on. But I will come back, (it is hard to do. She brings much with her) That, too, I will give you—my by-myself-ness. That's the uttermost I can give. I never thought—to try to give it. But let us do it—the great sacrilege! Yes! (excited, she rises; she has his hands, and bring him up beside her) Let us take the mad chance! Perhaps it's the only way to save—what's there. How do we know? How can we know? Risk. Risk everything. From all that flows into us, let it rise! All that we never thought to use to make a moment—let it flow into what could be! Bring all into life between us—or send all down to death! Oh, do you know what I am doing? Risk, risk everything, why are you so afraid to lose? What holds you from me? Test all. Let it live or let it die. It is our chance—our chance to bear—what's there. My dear one—I will love you so. With all of me. I am not afraid now—of—all of me. Be generous. Be unafraid. Life is for life—though it cuts us from the farthest life. How can I make you know that's true? All that we're open to—(hesitates, shudders) But yes—I will, I will risk the life that waits. Perhaps only he who gives his loneliness—shall find. You never keep by holding, (gesture of giving) To the uttermost. And it is gone—or it is there. You do not know and—that makes the moment—(music has begun—a phonograph downstairs; they do not heed it) Just as I would cut my wrists—(holding them out) Yes, perhaps this lesser thing will tell it—would cut my wrists and let the blood flow out till all is gone if my last drop would make—would make—(looking at them fascinated) I want to see it doing that! Let me give my last chance for life to—

(He snatches her—they are on the brink of their moment; now that there are no words the phonograph from downstairs is louder. It is playing languorously the Barcarole; they become conscious of this—they do not want to be touched by the love song.)

CLAIRE: Don't listen. That's nothing. This isn't that, (fearing) I tell you—it isn't that. Yes, I know—that's amorous—enclosing. I know—a little place. This isn't that, (her arms going around him—all the lure of 'that' while she pleads against it as it comes up to them) We will come out—to radiance—in far places (admitting, using) Oh, then let it be that! Go with it. Give up—the otherness. I will! And in the giving up—perhaps a door—we'd never find by searching. And if it's no more—than all have known, I only say it's worth the allness! (her arms wrapped round him) My love—my love—let go your pride in loneliness and let me give you joy!

TOM: (drenched in her passion, but fighting) It's you. (in anguish) You rare thing untouched—not—not into this—not back into this—by me—lover of your apartness.

(She steps back. She sees he cannot. She stands there, before what she wanted more than life, and almost had, and lost. A long moment. Then she runs down the stairs.)

CLAIRE: (her voice coming up) Harry! Choke that phonograph! If you want to be lewd—do it yourselves! You tawdry things—you cheap little lewd cowards, (a door heard opening below) Harry! If you don't stop that music, I'll kill myself.

(far down, steps on stairs)

HARRY: Claire, what is this?

CLAIRE: Stop that phonograph or I'll—

HARRY: Why, of course I'll stop it. What—what is there to get so excited about? Now—now just a minute, dear. It'll take a minute.

(CLAIRE comes back upstairs, dragging steps, face ghastly. The amorous song still comes up, and louder now that doors are open. She and TOM do not look at one another. Then, on a languorous swell the music comes to a grating stop. They do not speak or move. Quick footsteps—HARRY comes up.)

HARRY: What in the world were you saying, Claire? Certainly you could have asked me more quietly to turn off the Victrola. Though what harm was it doing you—way up here? (a sharp little sound from CLAIRE; she checks it, her hand over her mouth. HARRY looks from her to TOM) Well, I think you two would better have had your dinner. Won't you come down now and have some?

CLAIRE: (only now taking her hand from her mouth) Harry, tell him to come up here—that insanity man. I—want to ask him something.

HARRY: 'Insanity man!' How absurd. He's a nerve specialist. There's a vast difference.

CLAIRE: Is there? Anyway, ask him to come up here. Want to—ask him something.

TOM: (speaking with difficulty) Wouldn't it be better for us to go down there?

CLAIRE: No. So nice up here! Everybody—up here!

HARRY: (worried) You'll—be yourself, will you, Claire? (She checks a laugh, nods.) I think he can help you.

CLAIRE: Want to ask him to—help me.

HARRY: (as he is starting down) He's here as a guest to-night, you know, Claire.

CLAIRE: I suppose a guest can—help one.

TOM: (when the silence rejects it) Claire, you must know, it's because it is so much, so—

CLAIRE: Be still. There isn't anything to say.

TOM: (torn—tortured) If it only weren't you!

CLAIRE: Yes,—so you said. If it weren't. I suppose I wouldn't be so—interested! (hears them starting up below—keeps looking at the place where they will appear)

(HARRY is heard to call, 'Coming, Dick?' and DICK's voice replies, 'In a moment or two.' ADELAIDE comes first.)

ADELAIDE: (as her head appears) Well, these stairs should keep down weight. You missed an awfully good dinner, Claire. And kept Mr Edgeworth from a good dinner.

CLAIRE: Yes. We missed our dinner. (her eyes do not leave the place where DR EMMONS will come up)

HARRY: (as he and EMMONS appear) Claire, this is—

CLAIRE: Yes, I know who he is. I want to ask you—

ADELAIDE: Let the poor man get his breath before you ask him anything. (he nods, smiles, looks at CLAIRE with interest. Careful not to look too long at her, surveys the tower)

EMMONS: Curious place.

ADELAIDE: Yes; it lacks form, doesn't it?

CLAIRE: What do you mean? How dare you?

(It is impossible to ignore her agitation; she is backed against the curved wall, as far as possible from them. HARRY looks at her in alarm, then in resentment at TOM, who takes a step nearer CLAIRE.)

HARRY: (trying to be light) Don't take it so hard, Claire.

CLAIRE: (to EMMONS) It must be very interesting—helping people go insane.

ADELAIDE: Claire! How preposterous.

EMMONS: (easily) I hope that's not precisely what we do.

ADELAIDE: (with the smile of one who is going to 'cover it'.) Trust Claire to put it in the unique and—amusing way.

CLAIRE: Amusing? You are amused? But it doesn't matter, (to the doctor) I think it is very kind of you—helping people go insane. I suppose they have all sorts of reasons for having to do it—reasons why they can't stay sane any longer. But tell me, how do they do it? It's not so easy to—get out. How do so many manage it?

EMMONS: I'd like immensely to have a talk with you about all this some day.

ADELAIDE: Certainly this is not the time, Claire.

CLAIRE: The time? When you—can't go any farther—isn't that that—

ADELAIDE: (capably taking the whole thing into matter-of-factness) What I think is, Claire has worked too long with plants. There's something—not quite sound about making one thing into another thing. What we need is unity. (from CLAIRE something like a moan) Yes, dear, we do need it. (to the doctor) I can't say that I believe in making life over like this. I don't think the new species are worth it. At least I don't believe in it for Claire. If one is an intense, sensitive person—

CLAIRE: Isn't there any way to stop her? Always—always smothering it with the word for it?

EMMONS: (soothingly) But she can't smother it. Anything that's really there—she can't hurt with words.

CLAIRE: (looking at him with eyes too bright) Then you don't see it either, (angry) Yes, she can hurt it! Piling it up—always piling it up—between us and—What there. Clogging the way—always, (to EMMONS) I want to cease to know! That's all I ask. Darken it. Darken it. If you came to help me, strike me blind!

EMMONS: You're really all tired out, aren't you? Oh, we've got to get you rested.

CLAIRE: They—deny it saying they have it; and he (half looks at TOM—quickly looks away)—others, deny it—afraid of losing it. We're in the way. Can't you see the dead stuff piled in the path? (Pointing.)

DICK: (voice coming up) Me too?

CLAIRE: (staring at the path, hearing his voice a moment after it has come) Yes, Dick—you too. Why not—you too. (after he has come up) What is there any more than you are?

DICK: (embarrassed by the intensity, but laughing) A question not at all displeasing to me. Who can answer it?

CLAIRE: (more and more excited) Yes! Who can answer it? (going to him, in terror) Let me go with you—and be with you—and know nothing else!

ADELAIDE: (gasping) Why—!

HARRY: Claire! This is going a little too—

CLAIRE: Far? But you have to go far to—(clinging to DICK) Only a place to hide your head—what else is there to hope for? I can't stay with them—piling it up! Always—piling it up! I can't get through to—he won't let me through to—what I don't know is there! (DICK would help her regain herself) Don't push me away! Don't—don't stand me up, I will go back—to the worst we ever were! Go back—and remember—what we've tried to forget!

ADELAIDE: It's time to stop this by force—if there's no other way. (the doctor shakes his head)

CLAIRE: All I ask is to die in the gutter with everyone spitting on me. (changes to a curious weary smiling quiet) Still, why should they bother to do that?

HARRY: (brokenly) You're sick, Claire. There's no denying it. (looks at EMMONS, who nods)

ADELAIDE: Something to quiet her—to stop it.

CLAIRE: (throwing her arms around DICK) You, Dick. Not them. Not—any of them.

DICK: Claire, you are overwrought. You must—

HARRY: (to DICK, as if only now realizing that phase of it) I'll tell you one thing, you'll answer to me for this! (he starts for DICK—is restrained by EMMONS, chiefly by his grave shake of the head. With HARRY's move to them, DICK has shielded CLAIRE)

CLAIRE: Yes—hold me. Keep me. You have mercy! You will have mercy. Anything—everything—that will let me be nothing!

CURTAIN



ACT III

In the greenhouse, the same as Act I. ANTHONY is bedding small plants where the Edge Vine grew. In the inner room the plant like caught motion glows as from a light within. HATTIE, the Maid, rushes in from outside.

ANTHONY: (turning angrily) You are not what this place—

HATTIE: Anthony, come in the house. I'm afraid. Mr Archer, I never saw him like this. He's talking to Mr Demming—something about Mrs Archer.

ANTHONY: (who in spite of himself is disturbed by her agitation) And if it is, it's no business of yours.

HATTIE: You don't know how he is. I went in the room and—

ANTHONY: Well, he won't hurt you, will he?

HATTIE: How do I know who he'll hurt—a person's whose—(seeing how to get him) Maybe he'll hurt Mrs Archer.

ANTHONY: (startled, then smiles) No; he won't hurt Miss Claire.

HATTIE: What do you know about it?—out here in the plant house?

ANTHONY: And I don't want to know about it. This is a very important day for me. It's Breath of Life I'm thinking of today—not you and Mr Archer.

HATTIE: Well, suppose he does something to Mr Demming?

ANTHONY: Mr Demming will have to look out for himself, I am at work.

(resuming work)

HATTIE: Don't you think I ought to tell Mrs Archer that—

ANTHONY: You let her alone! This is no day for her to be bothered by you. At eleven o'clock (looks at watch) she comes out here—to Breath of Life.

HATTIE: (with greed for gossip) Did you see any of them when they came downstairs last night?

ANTHONY: I was attending to my own affairs.

HATTIE: They was all excited. Mr Edgeworth—he went away. He was gone all night, I guess. I saw him coming back just as the milkman woke me up. Now he's packing his things. He wanted to get to Mrs Archer too—just a little while ago. But she won't open her door for none of them. I can't even get in to do her room.

ANTHONY: Then do some other room—and leave me alone in this room.

HATTIE: (a little afraid of what she is asking) Is she sick, Anthony—or what? (vindicating herself, as he gives her a look) The doctor, he stayed here late. But she'd locked herself in. I heard Mr Archer—

ANTHONY: You heard too much! (he starts for the door, to make her leave, but DICK rushes in. Looks around wildly, goes to the trap-door, finds it locked)

ANTHONY: What are you doing here?

DICK: Trying not to be shot—if you must know. This is the only place I can think of—till he comes to his senses and I can get away. Open that, will you? Rather—ignominious—but better be absurd than be dead.

HATTIE: Has he got the revolver?

DICK: Gone for it. Thought I wouldn't sit there till he got back, (to ANTHONY) Look here—don't you get the idea? Get me some place where he can't come.

ANTHONY: It is not what this place is for.

DICK: Any place is for saving a man's life.

HATTIE: Sure, Anthony. Mrs Archer wouldn't want Mr Demming shot.

DICK: That's right, Anthony. Miss Claire will be angry at you if you get me shot. (he makes for the door of the inner room)

ANTHONY: You can't go in there. It's locked. (HARRY rushes in from outside.)

HARRY: I thought so! (he has the revolver. HATTIE screams)

ANTHONY: Now, Mr Archer, if you'll just stop and think, you'll know Miss Claire wouldn't want Mr Demming shot.

HARRY: You think that can stop me? You think you can stop me? (raising the revolver) A dog that—

ANTHONY: (keeping squarely between HARRY and DICK) Well, you can't shoot him in here. It is not good for the plants. (HARRY is arrested by this reason) And especially not today. Why, Mr Archer, Breath of Life may flower today. It's years Miss Claire's been working for this day.

HARRY: I never thought to see this day!

ANTHONY: No, did you? Oh, it will be a wonderful day. And how she has worked for it. She has an eye that sees what isn't right in what looks right. Many's the time I've thought—Here the form is set—and then she'd say, 'We'll try this one', and it had—what I hadn't known was there. She's like that.

HARRY: I've always been pleased, Anthony, at the way you've worked with Miss Claire. This is hardly the time to stand there eulogizing her. And she's (can hardly say it) things you don't know she is.

ANTHONY: (proudly) Oh, I know that! You think I could work with her and not know she's more than I know she is?

HARRY: Well, if you love her you've got to let me shoot the dirty dog that drags her down!

ANTHONY: Not in here. Not today. More than like you'd break the glass. And Breath of Life's in there.

HARRY: Anthony, this is pretty clever of you—but—

ANTHONY: I'm not clever. But I know how easy it is to turn life back. No, I'm not clever at all (CLAIRE has appeared and is looking in from outside), but I do know—there are things you mustn't hurt, (he sees her) Yes, here's Miss Claire.

(She comes in. She is looking immaculate.)

CLAIRE: From the gutter I rise again, refreshed. One does, you know. Nothing is fixed—not even the gutter, (smilingly to HARRY and refusing to notice revolver or agitation) How did you like the way I entertained the nerve specialist?

HARRY: Claire! You can joke about it?

CLAIRE: (taking the revolver from the hand she has shocked to limpness) Whom are you trying to make hear?

HARRY: I'm trying to make the world hear that (pointing) there stands a dirty dog who—

CLAIRE: Listen, Harry, (turning to HATTIE, who is over by the tall plants at right, not wanting to be shot but not wanting to miss the conversation) You can do my room now, Hattie. (HATTIE goes) If you're thinking of shooting Dick, you can't shoot him while he's backed up against that door.

ANTHONY: Just what I told them, Miss Claire. Just what I told them.

CLAIRE: And for that matter, it's quite dull of you to have any idea of shooting him.

HARRY: I may be dull—I know you think I am—but I'll show you that I've enough of the man in me to—

CLAIRE: To make yourself ridiculous? If I ran out and hid my head in the mud, would you think you had to shoot the mud?

DICK: (stung out of fear) That's pretty cruel!

CLAIRE: Well, would you rather be shot?

HARRY: So you just said it to protect him!

CLAIRE: I change it to grass, (nodding to DICK) Grass. If I hid my face in the grass, would you have to burn the grass?

HARRY: Oh, Claire, how can you? When you know how I love you—and how I'm suffering?

CLAIRE: (with interest) Are you suffering?

HARRY: Haven't you eyes?

CLAIRE: I should think it would—do something to you.

HARRY: God! Have you no heart? (the door opens. TOM comes in)

CLAIRE: (scarcely saying it) Yes, I have a heart.

TOM: (after a pause) I came to say good-bye.

CLAIRE: God! Have you no heart? Can't you at least wait till Dick is shot?

TOM: Claire! (now sees the revolver in her hand that is turned from him. Going to her) Claire!

CLAIRE: And even you think this is so important? (carelessly raises the revolver, and with her left hand out flat, tells TOM not to touch her) Harry thinks it important he shoot Dick, and Dick thinks it important not to be shot, and you think I mustn't shoot anybody—even myself—and can't any of you see that none of that is as important as—where revolvers can't reach? (putting revolver where there is no Edge Vine) I shall never shoot myself. I'm too interested in destruction to cut it short by shooting. (after looking from one to the other, laughs. Pointing) One—two—three. You-love-me. But why do you bring it out here?

ANTHONY: (who has resumed work) It is not what this place is for.

CLAIRE: No this place is for the destruction that can get through.

ANTHONY: Miss Claire, it is eleven. At eleven we are to go in and see—

CLAIRE: Whether it has gone through. But how can we go—with Dick against the door?

ANTHONY: He'll have to move.

CLAIRE: And be shot?

HARRY: (irritably) Oh, he'll not be shot. Claire can spoil anything.

(DICK steps away from the door; CLAIRE takes a step nearer it.)

CLAIRE: (halting) Have I spoiled everything? I don't want to go in there.

ANTHONY: We're going in together, Miss Claire. Don't you remember? Oh (looking resentfully at the others) don't let any little thing spoil it for you—the work of all those days—the hope of so many days.

CLAIRE: Yes—that's it.

ANTHONY: You're afraid you haven't done it?

CLAIRE: Yes, but—afraid I have.

HARRY: (cross, but kindly) That's just nervousness, Claire. I've had the same feeling myself about making a record in flying.

CLAIRE: (curiously grateful) You have, Harry?

HARRY: (glad enough to be back in a more usual world) Sure. I've been afraid to know, and almost as afraid of having done it as of not having done it.

(CLAIRE nods, steps nearer, then again pulls back.)

CLAIRE: I can't go in there. (she almost looks at TOM) Not today.

ANTHONY: But, Miss Claire, there'll be things to see today we can't see tomorrow.

CLAIRE: You bring it in here!

ANTHONY: In—out from its own place? (she nods) And—where they are? (again she nods. Reluctantly he goes to the door) I will not look into the heart. No one must know before you know.

(In the inner room, his head a little turned away, he is seen very carefully to lift the plant which glows from within. As he brings it in, no one looks at it. HARRY takes a box of seedlings from a stand and puts them on the floor, that the newcomer may have a place.)

ANTHONY: Breath of Life is here, Miss Claire.

(CLAIRE half turns, then stops.)

CLAIRE: Look—and see—what you see.

ANTHONY: No one should see what you've not seen.

CLAIRE: I can't see—until I know.

(ANTHONY looks into the flower.)

ANTHONY: (agitated) Miss Claire!

CLAIRE: It has come through?

ANTHONY: It has gone on.

CLAIRE: Stronger?

ANTHONY: Stronger, surer.

CLAIRE: And more fragile?

ANTHONY: And more fragile.

CLAIRE: Look deep. No—turning back?

ANTHONY: (after a searching look) The form is set. (he steps back from it)

CLAIRE: Then it is—out. (from where she stands she turns slowly to the plant) You weren't. You are.

ANTHONY: But come and see, Miss Claire.

CLAIRE: It's so much more than—I'd see.

HARRY: Well, I'm going to see. (looking into it) I never saw anything like that before! There seems something alive—inside this outer shell.

DICK: (he too looking in and he has an artist's manner of a hand up to make the light right) It's quite new in form. It—says something about form.

HARRY: (cordially to CLAIRE, who stands apart) So you've really put it over. Well, well,—congratulations. It's a good deal of novelty, I should say, and I've no doubt you'll have a considerable success with it—people always like something new. I'm mighty glad—after all your work, and I hope it will—set you up.

CLAIRE: (low—and like a machine) Will you all—go away?

(ANTHONY goes—into the other room.)

HARRY: Why—why, yes. But—oh, Claire! Can't you take some pleasure in your work? (as she stands there very still) Emmons says you need a good long rest—and I think he's right.

TOM: Can't this help you, Claire? Let this be release. This—breath of the uncaptured.

CLAIRE: (and though speaking, she remains just as still) Breath of the uncaptured? You are a novelty. Out? You have been brought in. A thousand years from now, when you are but a form too long repeated, Perhaps the madness that gave you birth will burst again, And from the prison that is you will leap pent queernesses To make a form that hasn't been— To make a person new. And this we call creation, (very low, her head not coming up) Go away!

(TOM goes; HARRY hesitates, looking in anxiety at CLAIRE. He starts to go, stops, looks at DICK, from him to CLAIRE. But goes. A moment later DICK moves near CLAIRE; stands uncertainly, then puts a hand upon her. She starts, only then knowing he is there.)

CLAIRE: (a slight shrinking away, but not really reached) Um, um.

(He goes. CLAIRE steps nearer her creation. She looks into what hasn't been. With her breath, and by a gentle moving of her hands, she fans it to fuller openness. As she does this TOM returns and from outside is looking in at her. Softly he opens the door and comes in. She does not know that he is there. In the way she looks at the flower he looks at her.)

TOM: Claire, (she lifts her head) As you stood there, looking into the womb you breathed to life, you were beautiful to me beyond any other beauty. You were life and its reach and its anguish. I can't go away from you. I will never go away from you. It shall all be—as you wish. I can go with you where I could not go alone. If this is delusion, I want that delusion. It's more than any reality I could attain, (as she does not move) Speak to me, Claire. You—are glad?

CLAIRE: (from far) Speak to you? (pause) Do I know who you are?

TOM: I think you do.

CLAIRE: Oh, yes. I love you. That's who you are. (waits again) But why are you something—very far away?

TOM: Come nearer.

CLAIRE: Nearer? (feeling it with her voice) Nearer. But I think I am going—the other way.

TOM: No, Claire—come to me. Did you understand, dear? I am not going away.

CLAIRE: You're not going away?

TOM: Not without you, Claire. And you and I will be together. Is that—what you wanted?

CLAIRE: Wanted? (as if wanting is something that harks far back. But the word calls to her passion) Wanted! (a sob, hands out, she goes to him. But before his arms can take her, she steps back) Are you trying to pull me down into what I wanted? Are you here to make me stop?

TOM: How can you ask that? I love you because it is not in you to stop.

CLAIRE: And loving me for that—would stop me? Oh, help me see it! It is so important that I see it.

TOM: It is important. It is our lives.

CLAIRE: And more than that. I cannot see it because it is so much more than that.

TOM: Don't try to see all that it is. From peace you'll see a little more.

CLAIRE: Peace? (troubled as we are when looking at what we cannot see clearly) What is peace? Peace is what the struggle knows in moments very far apart. Peace—that is not a place to rest. Are you resting? What are you? You who'd take me from what I am to something else?

TOM: I thought you knew, Claire.

CLAIRE: I know—what you pass for. But are you beauty? Beauty is that only living pattern—the trying to take pattern. Are you trying?

TOM: Within myself, Claire. I never thought you doubted that.

CLAIRE: Beauty is it. (she turns to Breath of Life, as if to learn it there, but turns away with a sob) If I cannot go to you now—I will always be alone.

(TOM takes her in his arms. She is shaken, then comes to rest.)

TOM: Yes—rest. And then—come into joy. You have so much life for joy.

CLAIRE: (raising her head, called by promised gladness) We'll run around together. (lovingly he nods) Up hills. All night on hills.

TOM: (tenderly) All night on hills.

CLAIRE: We'll go on the sea in a little boat.

TOM: On the sea in a little boat.

CLAIRE: But—there are other boats on other seas, (drawing back from him, troubled) There are other boats on other seas.

TOM: (drawing her back to him) My dearest—not now, not now.

CLAIRE: (her arms going round him) Oh, I would love those hours with you. I want them. I want you! (they kiss—but deep in her is sobbing) Reminiscence, (her hand feeling his arm as we touch what we would remember) Reminiscence. (with one of her swift changes steps back from him) How dare you pass for what you're not? We are tired, and so we think it's you. Stop with you. Don't get through—to what you're in the way of. Beauty is not something you say about beauty.

TOM: I say little about beauty, Claire.

CLAIRE: Your life says it. By standing far off you pass for it. Smother it with a life that passes for it. But beauty—(getting it from the flower) Beauty is the humility breathed from the shame of succeeding.

TOM: But it may all be within one's self, dear.

CLAIRE: (drawn by this, but held, and desperate because she is held) When I have wanted you with all my wanting—why must I distrust you now? When I love you—with all of me, why do I know that only you are worth my hate?

TOM: It's the fear of easy satisfactions. I love you for it.

CLAIRE: (over the flower) Breath of Life—you here? Are you lonely—Breath of Life?

TOM: Claire—hear me! Don't go where we can't go. As there you made a shell for life within, make for yourself a life in which to live. It must be so.

CLAIRE: As you made for yourself a shell called beauty?

TOM: What is there for you, if you'll have no touch with what we have?

CLAIRE: What is there? There are the dreams we haven't dreamed. There is the long and flowing pattern, (she follows that, but suddenly and as if blindly goes to him) I am tired. I am lonely. I'm afraid, (he holds her, soothing. But she steps back from him) And because we are tired—lonely—and afraid, we stop with you. Don't get through—to what you're in the way of.

TOM: Then you don't love me?

CLAIRE: I'm fighting for my chance. I don't know—which chance.

(Is drawn to the other chance, to Breath of Life. Looks into it as if to look through to the uncaptured. And through this life just caught comes the truth she chants.)

I've wallowed at a coarse man's feet, I'm sprayed with dreams we've not yet come to. I've gone so low that words can't get there, I've never pulled the mantle of my fears around me And called it loneliness—And called it God. Only with life that waits have I kept faith.

(with effort raising her eyes to the man)

And only you have ever threatened me.

TOM: (coming to her, and with strength now) And I will threaten you. I'm here to hold you from where I know you cannot go. You're trying what we can't do.

CLAIRE: What else is there worth trying?

TOM: I love you, and I will keep you—from fartherness—from harm. You are mine, and you will stay with me! (roughly) You hear me? You will stay with me!

CLAIRE: (her head on his breast, in ecstasy of rest. Drowsily) You can keep me?

TOM: Darling! I can keep you. I will keep you—safe.

CLAIRE: (troubled by the word, but barely able to raise her head) Safe?

TOM: (bringing her to rest again) Trust me, Claire.

CLAIRE: (not lifting her head, but turning it so she sees Breath of Life) Now can I trust—what is? (suddenly pushing him roughly away) No! I will beat my life to pieces in the struggle to—

TOM: To what, Claire?

CLAIRE: Not to stop it by seeming to have it. (with fury) I will keep my life low—low—that I may never stop myself—or anyone—with the thought it's what I have. I'd rather be the steam rising from the manure than be a thing called beautiful! (with sight too clear) Now I know who you are. It is you puts out the breath of life. Image of beauty—You fill the place—should be a gate. (in agony) Oh, that it is you—fill the place—should be a gate! My darling! That it should be you who—(her hands moving on him) Let me tell you something. Never was loving strong as my loving of you! Do you know that? Oh, know that! Know it now! (her arms go around his neck) Hours with you—I'd give my life to have! That it should be you—(he would loosen her hands, for he cannot breathe. But when she knows she is choking him, that knowledge is fire burning its way into the last passion) It is you. It is you.

TOM: (words coming from a throat not free) Claire! What are you doing? (then she knows what she is doing)

CLAIRE: (to his resistance) No! You are too much! You are not enough. (still wanting not to hurt her, he is slow in getting free. He keeps stepping backward trying, in growing earnest, to loosen her hands. But he does not loosen them before she has found the place in his throat that cuts off breath. As he gasps)

Breath of Life—my gift—to you!

(She has pushed him against one of the plants at right as he sways, strength she never had before pushes him over backward, just as they have struggled from sight. Violent crash of glass is heard.)

TOM: (faint smothered voice) No. I'm—hurt.

CLAIRE: (in the frenzy and agony of killing) Oh, gift! Oh, gift! (there is no sound.

CLAIRE rises—steps back—is seen now; is looking down) Gift.

(Like one who does not know where she is, she moves into the room—looks around. Takes a step toward Breath of Life; turns and goes quickly to the door. Stops, as if stopped. Sees the revolver where the Edge Vine was. Slowly goes to it. Holds it as if she cannot think what it is for. Then raises it high and fires above through the place in the glass left open for ventilation. ANTHONY comes from the inner room. His eyes go from her to the body beyond. HARRY rushes in from outside.)

HARRY: Who fired that?

CLAIRE: I did. Lonely.

(Seeing ANTHONY'S look, HARRY 's eyes follow it.)

HARRY: Oh! What? What? (DICK comes running in) Who? Claire!

(DICK sees—goes to TOM)

CLAIRE: Yes. I did it. MY—Gift.

HARRY: Is he—? He isn't—? He isn't—?

(Tries to go in there. Cannot—there is the sound of broken glass, of a position being changed—then DICK reappears.)

DICK: (his voice in jerks) It's—it's no use, but I'll go for a doctor.

HARRY: No—no. Oh, I suppose—(falling down beside CLAIRE—his face against her) My darling! How can I save you now?

CLAIRE: (speaking each word very carefully) Saved—myself.

ANTHONY: I did it. Don't you see? I didn't want so many around. Not—what this place is for.

HARRY: (snatching at this but lets it go) She wouldn't let—(looking up at CLAIRE—then quickly hiding his face) And—don't you see?

CLAIRE: Out. (a little like a child's pleased surprise) Out.

(DICK stands there, as if unable to get to the door—his face distorted, biting his hand.)

ANTHONY: Miss Claire! You can do anything—won't you try?

CLAIRE: Reminiscence? (speaking the word as if she has left even that, but smiles a little)

(ANTHONY takes Reminiscence, the flower she was breeding for fragrance for Breath of Life—holds it out to her. But she has taken a step forward, past them all.)

CLAIRE: Out. (as if feeling her way) Nearer, (Her voice now feeling the way to it.) Nearer— (Voice almost upon it.) —my God, (Falling upon it with surprise.) to Thee, (Breathing it.) Nearer—to Thee, E'en though it be— (A slight turn of the head toward the dead man she loves—a mechanical turn just as far the other way.) a cross That (Her head going down.) raises me; (Her head slowly coming up—singing it.) Still all my song shall be, Nearer, my—

(Slowly the curtain begins to shut her out. The last word heard is the final Nearer—a faint breath from far.)

CURTAIN



INHERITORS

Inheritors was first performed at the Provincetown Playhouse on April 27, 1921.

SMITH (a young business man)

GRANDMOTHER (SILAS MORTON'S mother)

SILAS MORTON (a pioneer farmer)

FELIX FEJEVARY, the First (an exiled Hungarian nobleman)

FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second (his son, a Harvard student)

FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second (a banker)

SENATOR LEWIS (a State Senator)

HORACE FEJEVARY (son of FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second)

DORIS (a student at Morton College)

FUSSIE (another college girl)

MADELINE FEJEVARY MORTON (daughter of IRA MORTON, and granddaughter of SILAS MORTON)

ISABEL FEJEVARY (wife of FELIX FEJEVARY, the Second, and MADELINE'S aunt)

HARRY (a student clerk)

HOLDEN (Professor at Morton College)

IRA MORTON (son of SILAS MORTON, and MADELINE'S father)

EMIL JOHNSON (an Americanized Swede)

ACT I

SCENE: Sitting-room of the Mortons' farmhouse in the Middle West—on the rolling prairie just back from the Mississippi. A room that has been long and comfortably lived in, and showing that first-hand contact with materials which was pioneer life. The hospitable table was made on the place—well and strongly made; there are braided rugs, and the wooden chairs have patchwork cushions. There is a corner closet—left rear. A picture of Abraham Lincoln. On the floor a home-made toy boat. At rise of curtain there are on the stage an old woman and a young man. GRANDMOTHER MORTON is in her rocking-chair near the open door, facing left. On both sides of door are windows, looking out on a generous land. She has a sewing basket and is patching a boy's pants. She is very old. Her hands tremble. Her spirit remembers the days of her strength.

SMITH has just come in and, hat in hand, is standing by the table. This was lived in the year 1879, afternoon of Fourth of July.

SMITH: But the celebration was over two hours ago.

GRANDMOTHER: Oh, celebration, that's just the beginning of it. Might as well set down. When them boys that fought together all get in one square—they have to swap stories all over again. That's the worst of a war—you have to go on hearing about it so long. Here it is—1879—and we haven't taken Gettysburg yet. Well, it was the same way with the war of 1832.

SMITH: (who is now seated at the table) The war of 1832?

GRANDMOTHER: News to you that we had a war with the Indians?

SMITH: That's right—the Blackhawk war. I've heard of it.

GRANDMOTHER: Heard of it!

SMITH: Were your men in that war?

GRANDMOTHER: I was in that war. I threw an Indian in the cellar and stood on the door. I was heavier then.

SMITH: Those were stirring times.

GRANDMOTHER: More stirring than you'll ever see. This war—Lincoln's war—it's all a cut and dried business now. We used to fight with anything we could lay hands on—dish water—whatever was handy.

SMITH: I guess you believe the saying that the only good Indian is a dead Indian.

GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. We roiled them up considerable. They was mostly friendly when let be. Didn't want to give up their land—but I've noticed something of the same nature in white folks.

SMITH: Your son has—something of that nature, hasn't he?

GRANDMOTHER: He's not keen to sell. Why should he? It'll never be worth less.

SMITH: But since he has more land than any man can use, and if he gets his price—

GRANDMOTHER: That what you've come to talk to him about?

SMITH: I—yes.

GRANDMOTHER: Well, you're not the first. Many a man older than you has come to argue it.

SMITH: (smiling) They thought they'd try a young one.

GRANDMOTHER: Some one that knew him thought that up. Silas'd help a young one if he could. What is it you're set on buying?

SMITH: Oh, I don't know that we're set on buying anything. If we could have the hill (looking off to the right) at a fair price—

GRANDMOTHER: The hill above the town? Silas'd rather sell me and the cat.

SMITH: But what's he going to do with it?

GRANDMOTHER: Maybe he's going to climb it once a week.

SMITH: But if the development of the town demands its use—

GRANDMOTHER: (smiling) You the development of the town?

SMITH: I represent it. This town has been growing so fast—

GRANDMOTHER: This town began to grow the day I got here.

SMITH: You—you began it?

GRANDMOTHER: My husband and I began it—and our baby Silas.

SMITH: When was that?

GRANDMOTHER: 1820, that was.

SMITH: And—you mean you were here all alone?

GRANDMOTHER: No, we weren't alone. We had the Owens ten miles down the river.

SMITH: But how did you get here?

GRANDMOTHER: Got here in a wagon, how do you s'pose? (gaily) Think we flew?

SMITH: But wasn't it unsafe?

GRANDMOTHER: Them set on safety stayed back in Ohio.

SMITH: But one family! I should think the Indians would have wiped you out.

GRANDMOTHER: The way they wiped us out was to bring fish and corn. We'd have starved to death that first winter hadn't been for the Indians.

SMITH: But they were such good neighbours—why did you throw dish water at them?

GRANDMOTHER: That was after other white folks had roiled them up—white folks that didn't know how to treat 'em. This very land—land you want to buy—was the land they loved—Blackhawk and his Indians. They came here for their games. This was where their fathers—as they called 'em—were buried. I've seen my husband and Blackhawk climb that hill together. (a backward point right) He used to love that hill—Blackhawk. He talked how the red man and the white man could live together. But poor old Blackhawk—what he didn't know was how many white man there was. After the war—when he was beaten but not conquered in his heart—they took him east—Washington, Philadelphia, New York—and when he saw the white man's cities—it was a different Indian came back. He just let his heart break without ever turning a hand.

SMITH: But we paid them for their lands. (she looks at him) Paid them something.

GRANDMOTHER: Something. For fifteen million acres of this Mississippi Valley land—best on this globe, we paid two thousand two hundred and thirty-four dollars and fifty cents, and promised to deliver annually goods to the value of one thousand dollars. Not a fancy price—even for them days, (children's voices are heard outside. She leans forward and looks through the door, left) Ira! Let that cat be!

SMITH: (looking from the window) These, I suppose, are your grandchildren?

GRANDMOTHER: The boy's my grandson. The little girl is Madeline Fejevary—Mr Fejevary's youngest child.

SMITH: The Fejevary place adjoins on this side? (pointing right, down)

GRANDMOTHER: Yes. We've been neighbours ever since the Fejevarys came here from Hungary after 1848. He was a count at home—and he's a man of learning. But he was a refugee because he fought for freedom in his country. Nothing Silas could do for him was too good. Silas sets great store by learning—and freedom.

SMITH: (thinking of his own project, looking off toward the hill—the hill is not seen from the front) I suppose then Mr Fejevary has great influence with your son?

GRANDMOTHER: More 'an anybody. Silas thinks 'twas a great thing for our family to have a family like theirs next place to. Well—so 'twas, for we've had no time for the things their family was brought up on. Old Mrs Fejevary (with her shrewd smile)—she weren't stuck up—but she did have an awful ladylike way of feeding the chickens. Silas thinks—oh, my son has all kinds of notions—though a harder worker never found his bed at night.

SMITH: And Mr Fejevary—is he a veteran too?

GRANDMOTHER: (dryly) You don't seem to know these parts well—for one that's all stirred up about the development of the town. Yes—Felix Fejevary and Silas Morton went off together, down that road (motioning with her hand, right)—when them of their age was wanted. Fejevary came back with one arm less than he went with. Silas brought home everything he took—and something he didn't. Rheumatiz. So now they set more store by each other 'an ever. Seems nothing draws men together like killing other men. (a boy's voice teasingly imitating a cat) Madeline, make Ira let that cat be. (a whoop from the girl—a boy's whoop) (looking) There they go, off for the creek. If they set in it—(seems about to call after them, gives this up) Well, they're not the first.

(rather dreams over this)

SMITH: You must feel as if you pretty near owned this country.

GRANDMOTHER: We worked. A country don't make itself. When the sun was up we were up, and when the sun went down we didn't. (as if this renews the self of those days) Here—let me set out something for you to eat. (gets up with difficulty)

SMITH: Oh, no, please—never mind. I had something in town before I came out.

GRANDMOTHER: Dunno as that's any reason you shouldn't have something here.

(She goes off, right; he stands at the door, looking toward the hill until she returns with a glass of milk, a plate of cookies.)

SMITH: Well, this looks good.

GRANDMOTHER: I've fed a lot of folks—take it by and large. I didn't care how many I had to feed in the daytime—what's ten or fifteen more when you're up and around. But to get up—after sixteen hours on your feet—I was willin', but my bones complained some.

SMITH: But did you—keep a tavern?

GRANDMOTHER: Keep a tavern? I guess we did. Every house is a tavern when houses are sparse. You think the way to settle a country is to go on ahead and build hotels? That's all you folks know. Why, I never went to bed without leaving something on the stove for the new ones that might be coming. And we never went away from home without seein' there was a-plenty for them that might stop.

SMITH: They'd come right in and take your food?

GRANDMOTHER: What else could they do? There was a woman I always wanted to know. She made a kind of bread I never had before—and left a-plenty for our supper when we got back with the ducks and berries. And she left the kitchen handier than it had ever been. I often wondered about her—where she came from, and where she went, (as she dreams over this there is laughing and talking at the side of the house) There come the boys.

(MR FEJEVARY comes in, followed by SILAS MORTON. They are men not far from sixty, wearing their army uniforms, carrying the muskets they used in the parade. FEJEVARY has a lean, distinguished face, his dark eyes are penetrating and rather wistful. The left sleeve of his old uniform is empty. SILAS MORTON is a strong man who has borne the burden of the land, and not for himself alone—the pioneer. Seeing the stranger, he sets his musket against the wall and holds out his hand to him, as MR FEJEVARY goes up to GRANDMOTHER MORTON.)

SILAS: How do, stranger?

FEJEVARY: And how are you today, Mrs Morton?

GRANDMOTHER: I'm not abed—and don't expect to be.

SILAS: (letting go of the balloons he has bought) Where's Ira? and Madeline?

GRANDMOTHER: Mr Fejevary's Delia brought them home with her. They've gone down to dam the creek, I guess. This young man's been waiting to see you, Silas.

SMITH: Yes, I wanted to have a little talk with you.

SILAS: Well, why not? (he is tying the gay balloons to his gun, then as he talks, hangs his hat in the corner closet) We've been having a little talk ourselves. Mother, Nat Rice was there. I've not seen Nat Rice since the day we had to leave him on the road with his torn leg—him cursing like a pirate. I wanted to bring him home, but he had to go back to Chicago. His wife's dead, mother.

GRANDMOTHER: Well, I guess she's not sorry.

SILAS: Why, mother.

GRANDMOTHER: 'Why, mother.' Nat Rice is a mean, stingy, complaining man—his leg notwithstanding. Where'd you leave the folks?

SILAS: Oh—scattered around. Everybody visitin' with anybody that'll visit with them. Wish you could have gone.

GRANDMOTHER: I've heard it all. (to FEJEVARY) Your folks well?

FEJEVARY: All well, Mrs Morton. And my boy Felix is home. He'll stop in here to see you by and by.

SILAS: Oh, he's a fine-looking boy, mother. And think of what he knows! (cordially including the young man) Mr Fejevary's son has been to Harvard College.

SMITH: Well, well—quite a trip. Well, Mr Morton, I hope this is not a bad time for me to—present a little matter to you?

SILAS: (genially) That depends, of course, on what you're going to present. (attracted by a sound outside) Mind if I present a little matter to your horse? Like to uncheck him so's he can geta a bit o'grass.

SMITH: Why—yes. I suppose he would like that.

SILAS: (going out) You bet he'd like it. Wouldn't you, old boy?

SMITH: Your son is fond of animals.

GRANDMOTHER: Lots of people's fond of 'em—and good to 'em. Silas—I dunno, it's as if he was that animal.

FEJEVARY: He has imagination.

GRANDMOTHER: (with surprise) Think so?

SILAS: (returning and sitting down at the table by the young man) Now, what's in your mind, my boy?

SMITH: This town is growing very fast, Mr Morton.

SILAS: Yes. (slyly—with humour) I know that.

SMITH: I presume you, as one of the early settlers—as in fact a son of the earliest settler, feel a certain responsibility about the welfare of—

SILAS: I haven't got in mind to do the town a bit of harm. So—what's your point?

SMITH: More people—more homes. And homes must be in the healthiest places—the—the most beautiful places. Isn't it true, Mr Fejevary, that it means a great deal to people to have a beautiful outlook from their homes? A—well, an expanse.

SILAS: What is it they want to buy—these fellows that are figuring on making something out of—expanse? (a gesture for expanse, then a reassuring gesture) It's all right, but—just what is it?

SMITH: I am prepared to make you an offer—a gilt-edged offer for that (pointing toward it) hill above the town.

SILAS: (shaking his head—with the smile of the strong man who is a dreamer) The hill is not for sale.

SMITH: But wouldn't you consider a—particularly good offer, Mr Morton?

(SILAS, who has turned so he can look out at the hill, slowly shakes his head.)

SMITH: Do you feel you have the right—the moral right to hold it?

SILAS: It's not for myself I'm holding it.

SMITH: Oh,—for the children?

SILAS: Yes, the children.

SMITH: But—if you'll excuse me—there are other investments might do the children even more good.

SILAS: This seems to me—the best investment.

SMITH: But after all there are other people's children to consider.

SILAS: Yes, I know. That's it.

SMITH: I wonder if I understand you, Mr Morton?

SILAS: (kindly) I don't believe you do. I don't see how you could. And I can't explain myself just now. So—the hill is not for sale. I'm not making anybody homeless. There's land enough for all—all sides round. But the hill—

SMITH: (rising) Is yours.

SILAS: You'll see.

SMITH: I am prepared to offer you—

SILAS: You're not prepared to offer me anything I'd consider alongside what I am considering. So—I wish you good luck in your business undertakings.

SMITH: Sorry—you won't let us try to help the town.

SILAS: Don't sit up nights worrying about my chokin' the town.

SMITH: We could make you a rich man, Mr Morton. Do you think what you have in mind will make you so much richer?

SILAS: Much richer.

SMITH: Well, good-bye. Good day, sir. Good day, ma'am.

SILAS: (following him to the door) Nice horse you've got.

SMITH: Yes, seems all right.

(SILAS stands in the doorway and looks off at the hill.)

GRANDMOTHER: What are you going to do with the hill, Silas?

SILAS: After I get a little glass of wine—to celebrate Felix and me being here instead of farther south—I'd like to tell you what I want for the hill. (to FEJEVARY rather bashfully) I've been wanting to tell you.

FEJEVARY: I want to know.

SILAS: (getting the wine from the closet) Just a little something to show our gratitude with.

(Goes off right for glasses.)

GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe it'd be better to sell the hill—while they're anxious.

FEJEVARY: He seems to have another plan for it.

GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I hope the other plan does bring him something. Silas has worked—all the days of his life.

FEJEVARY: I know.

GRANDMOTHER: You don't know the hull of it. But I know. (rather to herself) Know too well to think about it.

GRANDMOTHER: (as SILAS returns) I'll get more cookies.

SILAS: I'll get them, mother.

GRANDMOTHER: Get 'em myself. Pity if a woman can't get out her own cookies.

SILAS: (seeing how hard it is for her) I wish mother would let us do things for her.

FEJEVARY: That strength is a flame frailness can't put out. It's a great thing for us to have her,—this touch with the life behind us.

SILAS: Yes. And it's a great thing for us to have you—who can see those things and say them. What a lot I'd 'a' missed if I hadn't had what you've seen.

FEJEVARY: Oh, you only think that because you've got to be generous.

SILAS: I'm not generous. I'm seeing something now. Something about you. I've been thinking of it a good deal lately—it's got something to do with—with the hill. I've been thinkin' what it's meant all these years to have a family like yours next place to. They did something pretty nice for the corn belt when they drove you out of Hungary. Funny—how things don't end the way they begin. I mean, what begins don't end. It's another thing ends. Set out to do something for your own country—and maybe you don't quite do the thing you set out to do—

FEJEVARY: No.

SILAS: But do something for a country a long way off.

FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I've not done much for any country.

SILAS: (brusquely) Where's your left arm—may I be so bold as to inquire? Though your left arm's nothing alongside—what can't be measured.

FEJEVARY: When I think of what I dreamed as a young man—it seems to me my life has failed.

SILAS: (raising his glass) Well, if your life's failed—I like failure.

(GRANDMOTHER MORTON returns with her cookies.)

GRANDMOTHER: There's two kinds—Mr Fejevary. These have seeds in 'em.

FEJEVARY: Thank you. I'll try a seed cookie first.

SILAS: Mother, you'll have a glass of wine?

GRANDMOTHER: I don't need wine.

SILAS: Well, I don't know as we need it.

GRANDMOTHER: No, I don't know as you do. But I didn't go to war.

FEJEVARY: Then have a little wine to celebrate that.

GRANDMOTHER: Well, just a mite to warm me up. Not that it's cold. (FEJEVARY brings it to her, and the cookies) The Indians used to like cookies. I was talking to that young whippersnapper about the Indians. One time I saw an Indian watching me from a bush, (points) Right out there. I was never afraid of Indians when you could see the whole of 'em—but when you could see nothin' but their bright eyes—movin' through leaves—I declare they made me nervous. After he'd been there an hour I couldn't seem to put my mind on my work. So I thought, Red or White, a man's a man—I'll take him some cookies.

FEJEVARY: It succeeded?

GRANDMOTHER: So well that those leaves had eyes next day. But he brought me a fish to trade. He was a nice boy.

SILAS: Probably we killed him.

GRANDMOTHER: I dunno. Maybe he killed us. Will Owens' family was massacred just after this. Like as not my cookie Indian helped out there. Something kind of uncertain about the Indians.

SILAS: I guess they found something kind of uncertain about us.

GRANDMOTHER: Six o' one and half a dozen of another. Usually is.

SILAS: (to FEJEVARY) I wonder if I'm wrong. You see, I never went to school—

GRANDMOTHER: I don't know why you say that, Silas. There was two winters you went to school.

SILAS: Yes, mother, and I'm glad I did, for I learned to read there, and liked the geography globe. It made the earth so nice to think about. And one day the teacher told us all about the stars, and I had that to think of when I was driving at night. The other boys didn't believe it was so. But I knew it was so! But I mean school—the way Mr Fejevary went to school. He went to universities. In his own countries—in other countries. All the things men have found out, the wisest and finest things men have thought since first they began to think—all that was put before them.

FEJEVARY: (with a gentle smile) I fear I left a good deal of it untouched.

SILAS: You took a plenty. Tell in your eyes you've thought lots about what's been thought. And that's what I was setting out to say. It makes something of men—learning. A house that's full of books makes a different kind of people. Oh, of course, if the books aren't there just to show off.

GRANDMOTHER: Like in Mary Baldwin's new house.

SILAS: (trying hard to see it) It's not the learning itself—it's the life that grows up from learning. Learning's like soil. Like—like fertilizer. Get richer. See more. Feel more. You believe that?

FEJEVARY: Culture should do it.

SILAS: Does in your house. You somehow know how it is for the other fellow more'n we do.

GRANDMOTHER: Well, Silas Morton, when you've your wood to chop an' your water to carry, when you kill your own cattle and hogs, tend your own horses and hens, make your butter, soap, and cook for whoever the Lord sends—there's none too many hours of the day left to be polite in.

SILAS: You're right, mother. It had to be that way. But now that we buy our soap—we don't want to say what soap-making made us.

GRANDMOTHER: We're honest.

SILAS: Yes. In a way. But there's another kind o' honesty, seems to me, goes with that more seein' kind of kindness. Our honesty with the Indians was little to brag on.

GRANDMOTHER: You fret more about the Indians than anybody else does.

SILAS: To look out at that hill sometimes makes me ashamed.

GRANDMOTHER: Land sakes, you didn't do it. It was the government. And what a government does is nothing for a person to be ashamed of.

SILAS: I don't know about that. Why is he here? Why is Felix Fejevary not rich and grand in Hungary to-day? 'Cause he was ashamed of what his government was.

GRANDMOTHER: Well, that was a foreign government.

SILAS: A seeing how 'tis for the other person—a bein' that other person, kind of honesty. Joke of it, 'twould do something for you. 'Twould 'a' done something for us to have been Indians a little more. My father used to talk about Blackhawk—they was friends. I saw Blackhawk once—when I was a boy. (to FEJEVARY) Guess I told you. You know what he looked like? He looked like the great of the earth. Noble. Noble like the forests—and the Mississippi—and the stars. His face was long and thin and you could see the bones, and the bones were beautiful. Looked like something that's never been caught. He was something many nights in his canoe had made him. Sometimes I feel that the land itself has got a mind that the land would rather have had the Indians.

GRANDMOTHER: Well, don't let folks hear you say it. They'd think you was plum crazy.

SILAS: I s'pose they would, (turning to FEJEVARY) But after you've walked a long time over the earth—and you all alone, didn't you ever feel something coming up from it that's like thought?

FEJEVARY: I'm afraid I never did. But—I wish I had.

SILAS: I love land—this land. I suppose that's why I never have the feeling that I own it.

GRANDMOTHER: If you don't own it—I want to know! What do you think we come here for—your father and me? What do you think we left our folks for—left the world of white folks—schools and stores and doctors, and set out in a covered wagon for we didn't know what? We lost a horse. Lost our way—weeks longer than we thought 'twould be. You were born in that covered wagon. You know that. But what you don't know is what that's like—without your own roof—or fire—without—

(She turns her face away.)

SILAS: No. No, mother, of course not. Now—now isn't this too bad? I don't say things right. It's because I never went to school.

GRANDMOTHER: (her face shielded) You went to school two winters.

SILAS: Yes. Yes, mother. So I did. And I'm glad I did.

GRANDMOTHER: (with the determination of one who will not have her own pain looked at) Mrs Fejevary's pansy bed doing well this summer?

FEJEVARY: It's beautiful this summer. She was so pleased with the new purple kind you gave her. I do wish you could get over to see them.

GRANDMOTHER: Yes. Well, I've seen lots of pansies. Suppose it was pretty fine-sounding speeches they had in town?

FEJEVARY: Too fine-sounding to seem much like the war.

SILAS: I'd like to go to a war celebration where they never mentioned war. There'd be a way to celebrate victory, (hearing a step, looking out) Mother, here's Felix.

(FELIX, a well-dressed young man, comes in.)

GRANDMOTHER: How do, Felix?

FELIX: And how do you do, Grandmother Morton?

GRANDMOTHER: Well, I'm still here.

FELIX: Of course you are. It wouldn't be coming home if you weren't.

GRANDMOTHER: I've got some cookies for you, Felix. I set 'em out, so you wouldn't have to steal them. John and Felix was hard on the cookie jar.

FELIX: Where is John?

SILAS: (who is pouring a glass of wine for FELIX) You've not seen John yet? He was in town for the exercises. I bet those young devils ran off to the race-track. I heard whisperin' goin' round. But everybody'll be home some time. Mary and the girls—don't ask me where they are. They'll drive old Bess all over the country before they drive her to the bam. Your father and I come on home 'cause I wanted to have a talk with him.