The Man Who Had All the Luck

by Arthur Miller

  DAVID: Why didn’t you stop me from feeding?

  GUS: Dan’ll be here. Maybe he can do something.

  DAVID [facing HESTER]: What can he do? Something’s wrong in the feed! He can’t pull it out of their stomachs! [With welling grief. To HESTER.] Why didn’t you tell me? [HESTER retreats a few inches.] Why are you moving away from me? [He suddenly reaches out and catches her arm.] You wanted them to die!

  HESTER [straining at his grip]: You always said something had to happen. It’s better this way, isn’t it?

  DAVID: Better?! My boy is a pauper, we’re on the bottom of a hole, how is it better!

  HESTER [her fear alone makes her brave]: Then I . . . I think I’ll have to go away, Davey. I can’t stay here, then.

  She moves toward the stairs. He lets her move a few steps, then moves across to her and she stops and faces him.

  DAVID: You can’t . . . What did you say?

  HESTER: I can’t live with you, Davey. Not with the baby.

  DAVID: No, Hester . . .

  HESTER: I don’t want him to see you this way. It’s a harmful thing. I’m going away.

  DAVID [he breathes as though about to burst into weeping. He looks to GUS, stares at him, then back to her. Incredibly]: You’re going with him?

  HESTER [she darts a suddenly frightened glance toward GUS]: Oh, no, no, I didn’t mean that. He was going anyway.

  DAVID [it is truer to him now]: You’re going with him.

  HESTER: No, David, I’m not going with anybody . . .

  DAVID [with certainty. Anger suddenly stalks him]: You’re going with him!

  HESTER: No, Davey . . . !

  DAVID [To GUS]: You told her not to tell me!

  HESTER: He wasn’t even here when Dan phoned!

  DAVID: How do I know where he was! [To Gus] You think I’m a blind boy?!

  HESTER: You’re talking like a fool!

  DAVID: You couldn’t have done this to me! He wants you! He starts to stride for GUS. HESTER gets in front of him.

  HESTER: I did it! [Grabs his coat.] Davey, I did it myself!

  DAVID: No, you couldn’t have! Not you! [To GUS.] You think I’ve fallen apart? You want her . . . ?

  He starts to push her aside, knocking a chair over, going for GUS. She slaps him hard across the face. He stops moving.

  HESTER [with loathing and heartbreak]: I did it!

  For an instant they are still, she watching for his reaction. He quietly draws in a sob, looking at her in grief.

  HESTER: I wanted you like you were, Davey—a good man, able to do anything. You were always a good man, why can’t you understand that?

  DAVID: A good man! You pick up a phone and everything you’ve got dies in the ground! A man! What good is a man!

  HESTER: You can start again, start fresh and clean!

  DAVID: For what! For what!! The world is a madhouse, what can you build in a madhouse that won’t be knocked down when you turn your back!

  HESTER: It was you made it all and you destroyed it! I’m going,

  Davey . . . [With a sob.] I can’t bear any more. [She rushes to the landing.]

  DAVID [A call, and yet strangled by sobs]: Hester . . .

  HESTER halts, looks at him. His hands raised toward her, shaken and weeping, he moves toward the landing . . . frantically.

  I love you . . . I love you. . . . Don’t . . . don’t . . . don’t.

  He reaches her, and sobbing, lost, starts drawing her down to him as the door, left, swings open. DAN DIBBLE rushes in and halts when he sees DAVID. He carries a small satchel.

  DIBBLE [indicating downstage, right]: I’ve been out there looking for you, what are you doing in here? I’ve got something may help them. Come on. [He starts for the door.]

  DAVID: I don’t want to look at them, Dan. [He goes to a chair.]

  DIBBLE: You can’t be sure, it might take . . . [Opens the door.]

  DAVID: No, I’m sure they digested, it’s over two hours.

  DIBBLE [stops moving suddenly at door]: Over two hours what?

  DAVID: Since I fed them.

  DIBBLE: You didn’t give them this morning’s load of fish?

  DAVID: What else could I give them? The load I split with you, goddamit.

  DIBBLE: Well, you just couldn’t’ve, David. They don’t show a sign yet: that kind of silkworm’ll kill them in twenty minutes. You must’ve . . .

  DAVID: Silkworm.—But my fish wasn’t wormy . . .

  DIBBLE: They don’t look like worms, they’re very small, you wouldn’t have noticed them, they’re black, about the size of a . . .

  DAVID: Poppyseed . . .

  DIBBLE: A grain of ground pepper, yah. Come on . . . [But DAVID is motionless, staring . . .] Well? You want me to look at them?

  DAVID slowly sits in a chair.

  GUS: At least have a look, Dave. [Slight pause.]

  DAVID [wondrously; but also an edge of apology]: . . . I saw them, Dan. I didn’t know what they were but I decided not to take any chances, so I threw them away.

  DIBBLE [angering]: But you couldn’t have gone over every piece of fish!

  DAVID: Well I . . . yah, I did, Dan. Most of it was okay, but the ones with the black specks I threw away.

  HESTER: Davey!—you saved them!

  DAVID: Well, you told me to watch the feed very carefully, Dan—I figured you’d notice them the same as me!

  DIBBLE: But you know nobody’s got the time to go over every goddam piece of fish!

  DAVID: But I thought everybody did!—I swear, Dan!

  DIBBLE: God Almighty, Dave, a man’d think you’d warn him if you saw silkworm!—the least you could’ve done is call me.

  DAVID: I started to, I had the phone in my hand—but it seemed ridiculous, me telling you something. Listen, let me give you some of my breeders to start you off again.

  DIBBLE: No—no . . .

  DAVID: Please, Dan, go out and pick whatever you like.

  DIBBLE: . . . Well, I might think about that, but I’m too old to start all over again, I don’t think I could get up the steam. Well, goodnight.

  DIBBLE exits.

  GUS and HESTER stand watching DAVID who is puzzled and astonished.

  DAVID: I can’t believe it. He’s the best in the business.

  GUS: Not anymore.

  HESTER: This wasn’t something from the sky, dear. This was you only. You must see that now, don’t you?

  The baby crying is heard from above.

  I’d better go up, he’s hungry. Come up?—Why don’t you,

  Dave?

  DAVID [awkwardly]: I will . . . right away. [HESTER exits. His face is rapt.] But they couldn’t all have made their own luck!—J.B. with his drinking, Shory with his whores, Dad and Amos . . . and you losing your shop. [Seizing on it.] And I could never have fixed that Marmon if you hadn’t walked in like some kind of an angel!—that Marmon wasn’t me!

  GUS: You’d have towed it to Newton and fixed it there without me. [Grasps DAVID’s hand.] But is that really the question anyway? Of course bad things must happen. And you can’t help it when God drops the other shoe. But whether you lay there or get up again—that’s the part that’s entirely up to you, that’s for sure.

  DAVID: You don’t understand it either, do you.

  GUS: No, but I live with it. All I know is you are a good man, but also you have luck. So you have to grin and bear it—you are lucky!

  DAVID: For now.

  GUS: Well, listen—“for now” is a very big piece of “forever.” HESTER [ from above]: Dave? You coming up?

  GUS: Go on, kiss the little fellow.

  DAVID: . . . I had the phone in my hand to call him. And I put it down. I had his whole ranch right here in my hand.

  GUS: You mean you were a little bit like God . . . for him.

  DAVID: Yes. Except I didn’t know it.

  GUS [a thumb pointing heavenward]: Maybe he doesn’t know either.

  HESTER [from above]: David? Are you there?

  GUS: Goodnight, Dave.


  DAVID [with a farewell wave to GUS, calls upstairs]: Yes, I’m here!

  He goes to the stairs. A shock of thunder strikes. He quickly turns toward the windows, the old apprehension in his face.

  . . . [To himself.] For now.

  [With a self-energized determination in his voice and body.] Comin’ up!

  As he mounts the stairs a rumble of thunder sounds in the distance.