Slight pause.
MARCO: Maybe he wants to apologize to me.
Marco is staring away. Alfieri takes one of his hands.
ALFIERI: This is not God, Marco. You hear? Only God makes justice.
MARCO: All right.
ALFIERI, nodding, not with assurance: Good! Catherine, Rodolpho, Marco, let us go.
Catherine kisses Rodolpho and Marco, then kisses Alfieri’s hand.
CATHERINE: I’ll get Beatrice and meet you at the church. She leaves quickly.
Marco rises. Rodolpho suddenly embraces him. Marco pats him on the back and Rodolpho exits after Catherine. Marco faces Alfieri.
ALFIERI: Only God, Marco.
Marco turns and walks out. Alfieri with a certain processional tread leaves the stage. The lights dim out.
The lights rise in the apartment. Eddie is alone in the rocker, rocking back and forth in little surges. Pause. Now Beatrice emerges from a bedroom. She is in her best clothes, wearing a hat.
BEATRICE, with fear, going to Eddie: I’ll be back in an hour, Eddie. All right?
EDDIE, quietly, almost inaudibly, as though drained: What, have I been talkin’ to myself?
BEATRICE: Eddie, for God’s sake, it’s her wedding.
EDDIE: Didn’t you hear what I told you? You walk out that door to that wedding you ain’t comin’ back here, Beatrice.
BEATRICE: Why! What do you want?
EDDIE: I want my respect. Didn’t you ever hear of that? From my wife?
Catherine enters from bedroom.
CATHERINE: It’s after three; we’re supposed to be there already, Beatrice. The priest won’t wait.
BEATRICE: Eddie. It’s her wedding. There’ll be nobody there from her family. For my sister let me go. I’m goin’ for my sister.
EDDIE, as though hurt: Look, I been arguin’ with you all day already, Beatrice, and I said what I’m gonna say. He’s gonna come here and apologize to me or nobody from this house is goin’ into that church today. Now if that’s more to you than I am, then go. But don’t come back. You be on my side or on their side, that’s all.
CATHERINE, suddenly: Who the hell do you think you are?
BEATRICE: Sssh!
CATHERINE: You got no more right to tell nobody nothin’! Nobody! The rest of your life, nobody!
BEATRICE: Shut up, Katie! She turns Catherine around.
CATHERINE: You’re gonna come with me!
BEATRICE: I can’t, Katie, I can’t . . .
CATHERINE: How can you listen to him? This rat!
BEATRICE, shaking Catherine: Don’t you call him that!
CATHERINE, clearing from Beatrice: What’re you scared of? He’s a rat! He belongs in the sewer!
BEATRICE: Stop it!
CATHERINE, weeping: He bites people when they sleep! He comes when nobody’s lookin’ and poisons decent people. In the garbage he belongs!
Eddie seems about to pick up the table and fling it at her.
BEATRICE: No, Eddie! Eddie! To Catherine: Then we all belong in the garbage. You, and me too. Don’t say that. Whatever happened we all done it, and don’t you ever forget it, Catherine. She goes to Catherine. Now go, go to your wedding, Katie, I’ll stay home. Go. God bless you, God bless your children.
Enter Rodolpho.
RODOLPHO: Eddie?
EDDIE: Who said you could come in here? Get outa here!
RODOLPHO: Marco is coming, Eddie. Pause. Beatrice raises her hands in terror. He’s praying in the church. You understand? Pause. Rodolpho advances into the room. Catherine, I think it is better we go. Come with me.
CATHERINE: Eddie, go away, please.
BEATRICE, quietly: Eddie. Let’s go someplace. Come. You and me. He has not moved. I don’t want you to be here when he comes. I’ll get your coat.
EDDIE: Where? Where am I goin’? This is my house.
BEATRICE, crying out: What’s the use of it! He’s crazy now, you know the way they get, what good is it! You got nothin’ against Marco, you always liked Marco!
EDDIE: I got nothin’ against Marco? Which he called me a rat in front of the whole neighborhood? Which he said I killed his children! Where you been?
RODOLPHO, quite suddenly, stepping up to Eddie: It is my fault, Eddie. Everything. I wish to apologize. It was wrong that I do not ask your permission. I kiss your hand. He reaches for Eddie’s hand, but Eddie snaps it away from him.
BEATRICE: Eddie, he’s apologizing!
RODOLPHO: I have made all our troubles. But you have insult me too. Maybe God understand why you did that to me. Maybe you did not mean to insult me at all—
BEATRICE: Listen to him! Eddie, listen what he’s tellin’ you!
RODOLPHO: I think, maybe when Marco comes, if we can tell him we are comrades now, and we have no more argument between us. Then maybe Marco will not—
EDDIE: Now, listen—
CATHERINE: Eddie, give him a chance!
BEATRICE: What do you want! Eddie, what do you want!
EDDIE: I want my name! He didn’t take my name; he’s only a punk. Marco’s got my name—to Rodolpho: and you can run tell him, kid, that he’s gonna give it back to me in front of this neighborhood, or we have it out. Hoisting up his pants: Come on, where is he? Take me to him.
BEATRICE: Eddie, listen—
EDDIE: I heard enough! Come on, let’s go!
BEATRICE: Only blood is good? He kissed your hand!
EDDIE: What he does don’t mean nothin’ to nobody! To Rodolpho: Come on!
BEATRICE, barring his way to the stairs: What’s gonna mean somethin’? Eddie, listen to me. Who could give you your name? Listen to me, I love you, I’m talkin’ to you, I love you; if Marco’ll kiss your hand outside, if he goes on his knees, what is he got to give you? That’s not what you want.
EDDIE: Don’t bother me!
BEATRICE: You want somethin’ else, Eddie, and you can never have her!
CATHERINE, in horror: B.!
EDDIE, shocked, horrified, his fist clenching: Beatrice!
Marco appears outside, walking toward the door from a distant point.
BEATRICE, crying out, weeping: The truth is not as bad as blood, Eddie! I’m tellin’ you the truth—tell her good-by forever!
EDDIE, crying out in agony: That’s what you think of me—that I would have such a thought? His fists clench his head as though it will burst.
MARCO, calling near the door outside: Eddie Carbone!
Eddie swerves about; all stand transfixed for an instant. People appear outside.
EDDIE, as though flinging his challenge: Yeah, Marco! Eddie Carbone. Eddie Carbone. Eddie Carbone. He goes up the stairs and emerges from the apartment. Rodolpho streaks up and out past him and runs to Marco.
RODOLPHO: No, Marco, please! Eddie, please, he has children! You will kill a family!
BEATRICE: Go in the house! Eddie, go in the house!
EDDIE—he gradually comes to address the people: Maybe he come to apologize to me. Heh, Marco? For what you said about me in front of the neighborhood? He is incensing himself and little bits of laughter even escape him as his eyes are murderous and he cracks his knuckles in his hands with a strange sort of relaxation. He knows that ain’t right. To do like that? To a man? Which I put my roof over their head and my food in their mouth? Like in the Bible? Strangers I never seen in my whole life? To come out of the water and grab a girl for a passport? To go and take from your own family like from the stable—and never a word to me? And now accusations in the bargain! Directly to Marco: Wipin’ the neighborhood with my name like a dirty rag! I want my name, Marco. He is moving now, carefully, toward Marco. Now gimme my name and we go together to the wedding.
BEATRICE AND CATHERINE, keening: Eddie! Eddie, don’t! Eddie!
EDDIE: No, Marco knows what’s right from wrong. Tell
the people, Marco, tell them what a liar you are! He has his arms spread and Marco is spreading his. Come on, liar, you know what you done! He lunges for Marco as a great hushed shout goes up from the people.
Marco strikes Eddie beside the neck.
MARCO: Animal! You go on your knees to me!
Eddie goes down with the blow and Marco starts to raise a foot to stomp him when Eddie springs a knife into his hand and Marco steps back. Louis rushes in toward Eddie.
LOUIS: Eddie, for Christ’s sake!
Eddie raises the knife and Louis halts and steps back.
EDDIE: You lied about me, Marco. Now say it. Come on now, say it!
MARCO: Anima-a-a-l!
Eddie lunges with the knife. Marco grabs his arm, turning the blade inward and pressing it home as the women and Louis and Mike rush in and separate them, and Eddie, the knife still in his hand, falls to his knees before Marco. The two women support him for a moment, calling his name again and again.
CATHERINE: Eddie, I never meant to do nothing bad to you.
EDDIE: Then why— Oh, B.!
BEATRICE: Yes, yes!
EDDIE: My B.!
He dies in her arms, and Beatrice covers him with her body. Alfieri, who is in the crowd, turns out to the audience. The lights have gone down, leaving him in a glow, while behind him the dull prayers of the people and the keening of the women continue.
ALFIERI: Most of the time now we settle for half and I like it better. But the truth is holy, and even as I know how wrong he was, and his death useless, I tremble, for I confess that something perversely pure calls to me from his memory—not purely good, but himself purely, for he allowed himself to be wholly known and for that I think I will love him more than all my sensible clients. And yet, it is better to settle for half, it must be! And so I mourn him—I admit it—with a certain . . . alarm.
CURTAIN
AFTER THE FALL
A PLAY IN TWO ACTS
1964
Characters
QUENTIN
MAGGIE
HOLGA
FELICE
LOUISE
MOTHER
FATHER
DAN
ELSIE
LOU
MICKEY
LUCAS
CARRIE
Harley Barnes, Chairman, nurses, porter, secretary, hospital attendant, a group of boys, and passers-by
ACT ONE
The action takes place in the mind, thought, and memory of Quentin. Except for one chair there is no furniture in the conventional sense; there are no walls or substantial boundaries.
The setting consists of three levels rising to the highest at the back, crossing in a curve from one side of the stage to the other. Rising above it, and dominating the stage, is the blasted stone tower of a German concentration camp. Its wide lookout windows are like eyes, which at the moment seem blind and dark; bent reinforcing rods stick out of it like broken tentacles.
On the two lower levels are sculpted areas; indeed, the whole effect is neolithic, a lava-like, supple geography in which, like pits and hollows found in lava, the scenes take place. The mind has no color but its memories are brilliant against the grayness of its landscape. When people sit they do so on any of the abutments, ledges, or crevices. A scene may start in a confined area, but spread or burst out onto the entire stage, overrunning any other area.
People appear and disappear instantaneously, as in the mind; but it is not necessary that they walk off the stage. The dialogue will make clear who is “alive” at any moment and who is in abeyance.
The effect, therefore, will be the surging, flitting, instantaneousness of a mind questing over its own surfaces and into its depths.
The stage is dark. Now there is a sense that some figure has moved in the farthest distance; a footstep is heard, then others. As light dimly rises, the persons in the play move in a random way up from beneath the high back platform. Some sit at once, others come farther downstage, seem to recognize each other, still others move alone and in total separateness. They are speaking toward Quentin in sibilant whispers, some angrily, some in appeal to him. Now Quentin, a man in his forties, moves out of this mass and continues down to the front of the stage. All movement ceases. Quentin addresses the Listener, who, if he could be seen, would be sitting just beyond the edge of the stage itself.
QUENTIN: Hello! God, it’s good to see you again! I’m very well. I hope it wasn’t too inconvenient on such short notice. Fine, I just wanted to say hello, really. Thanks. He sits on invitation. Slight pause. Actually, I called you on the spur of the moment this morning; I have a bit of a decision to make. You know—you mull around about something for months and all of a sudden there it is and you don’t know what to do.
He sets himself to begin, looks off.
Ah . . .
Interrupted, he turns back to Listener, surprised.
I’ve quit the firm, didn’t I write you about that? Really! I was sure I’d written. Oh, about fourteen months ago; a few weeks after Maggie died. Maggie stirs on the second platform. It just got to where I couldn’t concentrate on a case any more; not the way I used to. I felt I was merely in the service of my own success. It all lost any point. Although I do wonder sometimes if I am simply trying to destroy myself. . . . Well, I have walked away from what passes for an important career. . . . Not very much, I’m afraid; I still live in the hotel, see a few people, read a good deal—Smiles—stare out the window. I don’t know why I’m smiling; maybe I feel that’s all over now, and I’ll harness myself to something again. Although I’ve had that feeling before and done nothing about it, I—
Again, interrupted, he looks surprised.
God, I wrote you about that, didn’t I? Maybe I dream these letters. Mother died. Oh, it’s four—Airplane sound is heard behind him—five months ago now. Yes, quite suddenly; I was in Germany at the time and—it’s one of the things I wanted—Holga appears on upper platform, looking about for him—to talk to you about. I . . . met a woman there. He grins. I never thought it could happen again, but we became quite close. In fact, she’s arriving tonight, for some conference at Columbia—she’s an archaeologist. I’m not sure, you see, if I want to lose her, and yet it’s outrageous to think of committing myself again. . . . Well, yes, but look at my life. A life, after all, is evidence, and I have two divorces in my safe-deposit box. Turning to glance up at Holga: I tell you frankly, I’m a little afraid. . . . Well, of who and what I’m bringing to her. He sits again, leans forward. You know, more and more I think that for many years I looked at life like a case at law, a series of proofs. When you’re young you prove how brave you are, or smart; then, what a good lover; then, a good father; finally, how wise, or powerful or what-the-hell-ever. But underlying it all, I see now, there was a presumption. That I was moving on an upward path toward some elevation, where—God knows what—I would be justified, or even condemned—a verdict anyway. I think now that my disaster really began when I looked up one day—and the bench was empty. No judge in sight. And all that remained was the endless argument with oneself—this pointless litigation of existence before an empty bench. Which, of course, is another way of saying—despair. And, of course, despair can be a way of life; but you have to believe in it, pick it up, take it to heart, and move on again. Instead, I seem to be hung up. Slight pause. And the days and the months and now the years are draining away. A couple of weeks ago I suddenly became aware of a strange fact. With all this darkness, the truth is that every morning when I awake, I’m full of hope! With everything I know—I open my eyes, I’m like a boy! For an instant there’s some—unformed promise in the air. I jump out of bed, I shave, I can’t wait to finish breakfast—and then, it seeps in my room, my life and its pointlessness. And I thought—if I could corner that hope, find what it consists of and either kill it for a lie, or really make it mine . . .
FELICE, having
entered: You do remember me, don’t you? Two years ago in your office, when you got my husband to sign the divorce papers?
QUENTIN, to Listener: I’m not sure why I bring her up. I ran into her on the street last month . . .
FELICE: I always wanted to tell you this—you changed my life!
QUENTIN, to Listener: There’s something about that girl unnerves me.
FELICE, facing front, standing beside him: You see, my husband was always so childish, alone with me. But the way you talked to him; it made him act so dignified I almost began to love him! And when we got out in the street he asked me something. Should I tell you, or do you know already?
QUENTIN, now turning to her: He asked to go to bed with you one last time?
FELICE: How did you know that?
QUENTIN: Well, what harm would it have done?
Felice: But wouldn’t it be funny the same day we agreed to divorce?
QUENTIN: Honey, you never stop loving whoever you loved. Why must you try?
Louise starts down toward him, and Maggie appears far upstage in gold dress among anonymous men. Quentin turns back to Listener.
Why do I make such stupid statements!
MAGGIE, from among the men, laughing as though with joy at seeing him: Quentin! She is gone.
QUENTIN: These goddamned women have injured me! Have I learned nothing?
HOLGA, appearing under the tower with flowers as Maggie and men go dark: Would you like to see Salzburg? I think they play The Magic Flute tonight.
QUENTIN, of Holga: I don’t know what I’d be bringing to that girl.
Holga exits. Louise has moved down in front of him, and he glances at her.
I don’t know how to blame with confidence.
FELICE, as Louise moves thoughtfully upstage and exits: But I finally got your point! It’s that there is no point, right? No one has to be to blame! And as soon as I realized that, I started to dance better!
QUENTIN, to Listener: God, what excellent advice I give!
FELICE: I almost feel free when I dance now! Sometimes I only have to think high and I go high! I get a long thought and I fly across the floor. She flies out into darkness.
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 56