You see it yourself, don’t you? It’s not that at all. You see that, don’t you?
VICTOR, quietly, avidly: What?
WALTER, with his driving need: Is it really that something fell apart? Were we really brought up to believe in one another? We were brought up to succeed, weren’t we? Why else would he respect me so and not you? What fell apart? What was here to fall apart?
Victor looks away at the burgeoning vision.
Was there ever any love here? When he needed her, she vomited. And when you needed him, he laughed. What was unbearable is not that it all fell apart, it was that there was never anything here.
Victor turns back to him, fear on his face.
ESTHER, as though she herself were somehow moving under the rays of judgment: But who … who can ever face that, Walter?
WALTER, to her: You have to! To Victor: What you saw behind the library was not that there was no mercy hi the world, kid. It’s that there was no love in this house. There was no loyalty. There was nothing here but a straight financial arrangement. That’s what was unbearable. And you proceeded to wipe out what you saw.
VICTOR, with terrible anxiety: Wipe out—
WALTER: Vic, I’ve been hi this box. I wasted thirty years protecting myself from that catastrophe. He indicates the chair: And I only got out alive when I saw that there was no catastrophe, there had never been. They were never lovers—she said a hundred times that her marriage destroyed her musical career. I saw that nothing fell here, Vic—and he doesn’t follow me any more with that vomit on his hands. I don’t look high and low for some betrayal any more; my days belong to me now, I’m not afraid to risk believing someone. All I ever wanted was simply to do science, but I invented an efficient, disaster-proof, money-maker. You—to Esther, with a warm smile: He could never stand the sight of blood. He was shy, he was sensitive … To Victor: And what do you do? March straight into the most violent profession there is. We invent ourselves, Vic, to wipe out what we know. You invent a life of self-sacrifice, a life of duty; but what never existed here cannot be upheld. You were not upholding something, you were denying what you knew they were. And denying yourself. And that’s all that is standing between us now—an illusion, Vic. That I kicked them in the face and you must uphold them against me. But I only saw then what you see now—there was nothing here to betray. I am not your enemy. It is all an illusion and if you could walk through it, we could meet … His reconciliation is on him. You see why I said before, that in the hospital—when it struck me so that we … we’re brothers. It was only two seemingly different roads out of the same trap. It’s almost as though—he smiles warmly, uncertain still—we’re like two halves of the same guy. As though we can’t quite move ahead—alone. You ever feel that?
Victor is silent.
Vic?
Pause.
VICTOR: Walter, I’ll tell you—there are days when I can’t remember what I’ve got against you. He laughs emptily, in suffering. It hangs in me like a rock. And I see myself in a store window, and my hair going, I’m walking the streets—and I can’t remember why. And you can go crazy trying to figure it out when all the reasons disappear—when you can’t even hate any more.
WALTER: Because it’s unreal, Vic, and underneath you know it is.
VICTOR: Then give me something real.
WALTER: What can I give you?
VICTOR: I’m not blaming you now, I’m asking you. I can understand you walking out. I’ve wished a thousand times I’d done the same thing. But, to come here through all those years knowing what you knew and saying nothing …?
WALTER: And if I said—Victor, if I said that I did have some wish to hold you back? What would that give you now?
VICTOR: Is that what you wanted? Walter, tell me the truth.
WALTER: I wanted the freedom to do my work. Does that mean I stole your life? Crying out and standing: You made those choices, Victor! And that’s what you have to face!
VICTOR: But, what do you face? You’re not turning me into a walking fifty-year-old mistake—we have to go home when you leave, we have to look at each other. What do you face?
WALTER: I have offered you everything I know how to!
VICTOR: I would know if you’d come to give me something! I would know that!
WALTER, crossing for his coat: You don’t want the truth, you want a monster!
VICTOR: You came for the old handshake, didn’t you! The okay!
Walter halts in the doorway.
And you end up with the respect, the career, the money, and the best of all, the thing that nobody else can tell you so you can believe it—that you’re one hell of a guy and never harmed anybody in your life! Well, you won’t get it, not till I get mine!
WALTER: And you? You never had any hatred for me? Never a wish to see me destroyed? To destroy me, to destroy me with this saintly self-sacrifice, this mockery of sacrifice? What will you give me, Victor?
VICTOR: I don’t have it to give you. Not any more. And you don’t have it to give me. And there’s nothing to give—I see that now. I just didn’t want him to end up on the grass. And he didn’t. That’s all it was, and I don’t need anything more. I couldn’t work with you, Walter. I can’t. I don’t trust you.
WALTER: Vengeance. Down to the end. To Esther. He is sacrificing his life to vengeance.
ESTHER: Nothing was sacrificed.
WALTER, to Victor: To prove with your failure what a treacherous son of a bitch I am!—to hang yourself in my doorway!
ESTHER: Leave him, Walter—please, don’t say any more!
WALTER—humiliated by her. He is furious. He takes an unplanned step toward the door: You quit; both of you. To Victor as well: You lay down and quit, and that’s the long and short of all your ideology. It is all envy!
Solomon enters, apprehensive, looks from one to the other.
And to this moment you haven’t the guts to face it! But your failure does not give you moral authority! Not with me! I worked for what I made and there are people walking around today who’d have been dead if I hadn’t. Yes. Moving toward the door, he points at the center chair. He was smarter than all of us—he saw what you wanted and he gave it to you! He suddenly reaches out and grabs Solomon’s face and laughs. Go ahead, you old mutt—rob them blind, they love it! Letting go, he turns to Victor. You will never, never again make me ashamed! He strides toward the doorway. A gown lies on the dining table, spread out, and he is halted in surprise at the sight of it.
Suddenly Walter sweeps it up in his hands and rushes at Victor, flinging the gown at him with an outcry. Victor backs up at his wild approach.
VICTOR: Walter!
The flicker of a humiliated smile passes across Walter’s face. He wants to disappear into air. He turns, hardly glancing at Victor, makes for the door, and, straightening, goes out.
VICTOR—starts hesitantly to the door: Maybe he oughtn’t go into the street like that—
SOLOMON, stopping him with his hand: Let him go.
Victor turns to Solomon uncertainly.
What can you do?
ESTHER: Whatever you see, huh.
Solomon turns to her, questioningly.
You believe what you see.
SOLOMON, thinking she was rebuking him: What then?
ESTHER: No—it’s wonderful. Maybe that’s why you’re still going.
Victor turns to her. She stares at the doorway.
I was nineteen years old when I first walked up those stairs—if that’s believable. And he had a brother, who was the cleverest, most wonderful young doctor … in the world. As he’d be soon. Somehow, some way. She turns to the center chair. And a rather sweet, inoffensive gentleman, always waiting for the news to come on. …And next week, men we never saw or heard of will come and smash it all apart and take it all away.—So many times I thought—the one thing he wanted most was to talk to his brother, and that if they could— But he’s come and he’s gone. And I still feel it—isn’t that terrible? It always seems to me that one li
ttle step more and some crazy kind of forgiveness will come and lift up everyone. When do you stop being so … foolish?
SOLOMON: I had a daughter, should rest in peace, she took her own life. That’s nearly fifty years. And every night I lay down to sleep, she’s sitting there. I see her clear like I see you. But if it was a miracle and she came to life, what would I say to her? He turns back to Victor, paying out. So you got there seven; so I’m giving you eight, nine, ten, eleven—he searches, finds a fifty—and there’s a fifty for the harp. Now you’ll excuse me—I got a lot of work here tonight. He gets his pad and pencil and begins carefully listing each piece.
VICTOR—folds the money: We could still make the picture, if you like.
ESTHER: Okay.
He goes to his suit and begins to rip the plastic wrapper off.
Don’t bother.
He looks at her.
She turns to Solomon. Goodbye, Mr. Solomon.
SOLOMON—looks up from his pad: Goodbye, dear. I like that suit, that’s very nice. He returns to his work.
ESTHER: Thank you. She walks out with her life.
VICTOR—buckles on his gun belt, pulls up his tie: When will you be taking it away?
SOLOMON: With God’s help if I’ll live, first thing in the morning.
VICTOR, of the suit: I’ll be back for this later, then. And there’s my foil, and the mask, and the gauntlets. Puts on his uniform jacket.
SOLOMON, continuing his work: Don’t worry, I wouldn’t touch it.
VICTOR, extending his hand: I’m glad to have met you, Solomon.
SOLOMON: Likewise. And I want to thank you.
VICTOR: What for?
SOLOMON, with a glance at the furniture: Well … who would ever believe I would start such a thing again … ? He cuts himself off. But go, go, I got a lot of work here.
VICTOR, starting to the door, putting his cap on: Good luck with it.
SOLOMON: Good luck you can never know till the last minute, my boy.
VICTOR, smiling: Right. Yes. With a last look around at the room. Well … bye-bye.
SOLOMON, as Victor goes out: Bye-bye, bye-bye.
He is alone. He has the pad and pencil in his hand, and he takes the pencil to start work again. But he looks about, and the challenge of it all oppresses him and he is afraid and worried. His hand goes to his cheek, he pulls his flesh in fear, his eyes circling the room.
His eye falls on the phonograph. He goes, inspects it, winds it up, sets the tone arm on the record, and , flicks the starting lever. The Laughing Record plays. As the two comedians begin their routine, his depressed expression gives way to surprise. Now he smiles. He chuckles, and remembers. Now a laugh escapes, and he nods his head in recollection. He is laughing now, and shakes his head back and forth as though to say, “It still works!” And the laughter, of the record and his own, increase and combine. He holds his head, unable to stop laughing, and sits in the center chair. He leans back sprawling in the chair, laughing with tears in his eyes, howling helplessly to the air.
SLOW CURTAIN
AUTHOR’S PRODUCTION NOTE
A fine balance of sympathy should be maintained in the playing of the roles of Victor and Walter. The actor playing Walter must not regard his attempts to win back Victor’s friendship as mere manipulation. From entrance to exit, Walter is attempting to put into action what he has learned about himself, and sympathy will be evoked for him in proportion to the openness, the depth of need, the intimations of suffering with which the role is played.
This admonition goes beyond the question of theatrics to the theme of the play. As the world now operates, the qualities of both brothers are necessary to it; surely their respective psychologies and moral values conflict at the heart of the social dilemma. The production must therefore withhold judgment in favor of presenting both men in all their humanity and from their own viewpoints. Actually, each has merely proved to the other what the other has known but dared not face. At the end, demanding of one another what was forfeited to time, each is left touching the structure of his life.
The play can be performed with an intermission, as indicated at the end of Act One, if circumstances require it. But an unbroken performance is preferable.
The play was directed by Ulu Grosbard and produced by Robert Whitehead. It opened on February 7, 1968, at the Morosco Theatre, New York City.
THE CAST
(in order of appearance)
VICTOR FRANZ
Pat Mingle
ESTHER FRANZ
Kate Reid
GREGORY SOLOMON
Harold Gary
WALTER FRANZ
Arthur Kennedy
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First published in the United States of America by The Viking Press 1968
Published in Penguin Classics 2009
Copyright © Arthur Miller and Ingeborg M. Miller, 1968
The moral right of the author has been asserted
This play in its printed form is designed for the reading public only. All dramatic rights in it are fully protected by copyrights and no public or private performance – professional or amateur – and no public readings for profit may be given without the written permission of the author’s representatives and the payment of royalty. Anyone disregarding the author’s rights renders himself liable to prosecution. Communication should be addressed to the author’s representatives, International Creative Management, 40 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019.
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ISBN: 978-0-241-96012-7
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