Father enters the area, talking to the young, invisible Quentin.
FATHER: Quentin, would you get the office on the phone? To Mother: Why would you call the Turkish bath?
MOTHER: I thought you forgot about the wedding.
FATHER: I wish I could, but I’m paying for it.
MOTHER: He’ll pay you back!
FATHER: I believe it, I just wouldn’t want to hang by my hair that long. He turns, and, going to a point, he takes up an invisible phone. Herman? Hold the wire.
MOTHER: I don’t want to be late, now.
FATHER: She won’t give birth if we’re half-hour late.
MOTHER: Don’t be so smart! He fell in love, what’s so terrible about that?
FATHER: They all fall in love on my money. I married into a love nest! He turns to Quentin, laughing. Did they pass a law that kid can’t get a haircut? Reaching into his pocket, tossing a coin: Here, at least get a shine. To Mother: I’ll be right up, dear, go ahead.
MOTHER: I’ll put in your studs. God, he’s so beautiful in a tuxedo!
She goes a distance out of the area, but halts, turns, eavesdrops on Father.
FATHER, into phone: Herman? The accountant still there? Put him on.
QUENTIN, suddenly, recalling, to the Listener: Oh, yes!
FATHER: Billy? You finished? Well, what’s the story, where am I?
QUENTIN: Yes!
FATHER: Don’t you read the papers? What’ll I do with Irving Trust? I can’t give it away. What bank?
Mother descends a step, alarmed.
I been to every bank in New York, I can’t get a bill paid, how the hell they going to lend me money? No-no, there’s no money in London, there’s no money in Hamburg, there ain’t a cargo moving in the world, the ocean’s empty, Billy—now tell me the truth, where am I?
He puts down the phone. Pause. Mother comes up behind him. He stands almost stiffly, as though to take a storm.
MOTHER: What’s that about? What are you winding up?
Father stands staring; but she seems to hear additional shocking facts.
What are you talking about? When did this start? . . . Well, how much are you taking out of it? . . . You lost your mind? You’ve got over four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of stocks, you can sell the—
Father laughs silently.
You sold those wonderful stocks? I just bought a new grand piano, why didn’t you say something? And a silver service for my brother, and you don’t say anything! More subdued, she walks a few steps in thought. Well, then—you’d better cash your insurance; you’ve got at least seventy-five thousand cash value— Halts, turning in shock. When!
Father is gradually losing his stance, his grandeur; he pulls his tie loose.
All right, then—we’ll get rid of my bonds. Do it tomorrow. . . . What do you mean? Well, you get them back, I’ve got ninety-one thousand dollars in bonds you gave me. Those are my bonds. I’ve got bonds— She breaks off, open horror on her face and now a growing contempt. You mean you saw everything going down and you throw good money after bad? Are you some kind of a moron?
FATHER: You don’t walk away from a business; I came to this country with a tag around my neck like a package in the bottom of the boat!
MOTHER: I should have run the day I met you.
FATHER, as though stabbed: Rose! He sits, closing his eyes, his neck bent.
MOTHER: I should have done what my sisters did, tell my parents to go to hell and thought of myself for once! I should have run for my life!
FATHER, indicating a point nearby: Sssh, I hear the kids—
MOTHER: I ought to get a divorce!
FATHER: Rose, the college men are jumping out of windows.
MOTHER: But your last dollar! Bending over, into his face: You are an idiot!
Her nearness forces him to stand; they look at each other, strangers.
QUENTIN, looking up at the tower: Yes! For no reason—they don’t even ask your name!
FATHER, looking toward the nearby point: Somebody crying? Quentin’s in there. You better talk to him.
She goes in some trepidation toward the indicated point. A foot or so from it, she halts.
MOTHER: Quentin? Darling? You better get dressed. Don’t cry, dear—
She is stopped short by something “Quentin” has said.
What I said? Why, what did I say? . . . Well, I was a little angry, that’s all, but I never said that. I think he’s a wonderful man! Laughs. How could I say a thing like that? Quentin! As though he is disappearing, she extends her arms. I didn’t say anything! With a cry toward someone lost, rushing out after the boy: Darling, I didn’t say anything!
Father and Dan exit.
Instantly Holga appears, coming toward him.
QUENTIN, to himself, turning up toward the tower: They don’t even ask your name.
HOLGA, looking about for him: Quentin? Quentin?
QUENTIN, to Holga: You love me, don’t you?
HOLGA: Yes. Of the wildflowers in her arms: Look, the car will be all sweet inside!
QUENTIN, clasping her hands: Let’s get out of this dump. Come on, I’ll race you to the car!
HOLGA: Okay! On your mark!
They get set.
QUENTIN: Last one there’s a rancid wurst!
HOLGA: Get ready! Set!
Quentin suddenly looks up at the tower and sits on the ground as though he had committed a sacrilege.
She has read his emotion, touches his face.
Quentin, dear—no one they didn’t kill can be innocent again.
QUENTIN: But how did you solve it? How do you get so purposeful? You’re so full of hope!
HOLGA: Quentin, I think it’s a mistake to ever look for hope outside one’s self. One day the house smells of fresh bread, the next of smoke and blood. One day you faint because the gardener cut his finger off, within a week you’re climbing over the corpses of children bombed in a subway. What hope can there be if that is so? I tried to die near the end of the war. She rises, moves up the stair toward the tower. The same dream returned each night until I dared not go to sleep and grew quite ill. I dreamed I had a child, and even in the dream I saw it was my life, and it was an idiot, and I ran away. But it always crept onto my lap again, clutched at my clothes. Until I thought, if I could kiss it, whatever in it was my own, perhaps I could sleep. And I bent to its broken face, and it was horrible . . . but I kissed it. I think one must finally take one’s life in one’s arms, Quentin. Come, they play The Magic Flute tonight. You like The Magic Flute?
She exits from beneath the tower on the upper level.
QUENTIN, alone: I miss her . . . badly. And yet, I can’t sign my letters to her “With love.” I put, “Sincerely,” or “As ever”—Felice enters far away upstage—some such brilliant evasion. I’ve lost the sense of some absolute necessity. Whether I open a book or think of marrying again, it’s so damned clear I’m choosing what I do—and it cuts the strings between my hands and heaven. It sounds foolish, but I feel . . . unblessed.
Felice holds up her hand in blessing, then exits.
And I keep looking back to when there seemed to be some duty in the sky. I had a dinner table and a wife—in the distance Louise appears with a dishcloth, wiping silver, wearing a kitchen apron—a child and the world so wonderfully threatened by injustices I was born to correct! It seems so fine! Remember—when there were good people and bad people? And how easy it was to tell! The worst son of a bitch, if he loved Jews and hated Hitler, he was a buddy. Like some kind of paradise compared to this.
He is aware of Elsie appearing on second platform; a beach robe hangs from her shoulders, her arms out of the sleeves, her back to us.
Until I begin to look at it. God, when I think of what I believed I want to hide! Glancing at Elsie: But I wasn’t all that young! A man of thirty-two sees a
guest changing out of a wet bathing suit in his bedroom . . .
Elsie, as he approaches, turns to him and her robe slips off one shoulder.
. . . and she stands there with her two bare faces hanging out.
ELSIE: Oh, are you through working? Why don’t you swim now? The water’s just right.
QUENTIN—a laugh of great pain, crying out: I tell you I didn’t believe she knew she was naked!
Louise enters and sits at right, as though on the ground. Elsie descends to join her and Quentin follows her with his eyes.
It’s Eden! . . . Well, because she was married! How could a woman who can tell when the Budapest String Quartet is playing off key; who refuses to wear silk stockings—Lou enters upstage, reading a brief—because the Japanese are invading Manchuria; whose husband, my friend, a saintly professor of law, is editing my first appeal to the Supreme Court on the grass outside that window—I could see the top of his head past her tit, for God’s sake! Of course I saw, but it’s what you allow yourself to admit! To admit what you see endangers principles!
Quentin turns to Louise and Elsie seated on the ground. They are talking in an intense whisper. He now approaches them from behind. Halts, turns to the Listener.
And you know? When two women are whispering, and they stop abruptly when you appear . . .
ELSIE AND LOUISE, turning to him after an abrupt stop to their talking: Hi.
QUENTIN: The subject must have been sex. And if one of them is your wife . . . she must have been talking about you.
ELSIE, as though to get him to go: Lou’s behind the house, reading your brief. He says it’s superb!
QUENTIN: I hope so, Elsie. I’ve been kind of nervous about what he’d say.
ELSIE: I wish you’d tell him that, Quentin! Will you? Just how much his opinion means to you. It’s important you tell him. It’s so enchanting here. Taking in Louise, standing: I envy you both so much!
She goes upstage, pausing beside her husband, Lou. He is a very tender, kindly man in shorts; he is absorbed in reading the brief.
I want one more walk along the beach before the train. Did you comb your hair today?
LOU: I think so. Closing the brief, coming down to Quentin: Quentin! This is superb! It’s hardly like a brief at all; there’s a majestic quality, like a classic opinion!
Elsie exits. Lou, chuckling, tugs Quentin’s sleeve.
I almost feel honored to have known you!
QUENTIN: I’m so glad, Lou—
LOU, with an arm around Louise: Your whole career will change with this! Could I ask a favor?
QUENTIN: Oh, anything, Lou.
LOU: Would you offer it to Elsie, to read? I know it seems an extraordinary request, but—
QUENTIN: No, I’d be delighted.
LOU: It’s shaken her terribly—my being subpoenaed and all those damned headlines. Despite everything, it does affect one’s whole relationship. So any gesture of respect—for example I gave her the manuscript of my new textbook and I’ve even called off publication for a while to incorporate her criticisms. It may be her psychoanalysis, but she’s become remarkably acute—
LOUISE: My roast! She exits upstage.
QUENTIN: But I hope you don’t delay it too long, Lou; it’d be wonderful to publish something now. Just to show those bastards.
LOU, glancing behind him: But you see, it’s a textbook for the schools, and Elsie feels that it will only start a new attack on me.
QUENTIN: But they’ve investigated you. What more damage could they do?
LOU: Another attack might knock me off the faculty. It’s only Mickey’s vote that saved me the last time. He made a marvelous speech at the dean’s meeting when I refused to testify.
QUENTIN: Well, that’s Mickey.
LOU: Yes, but Elsie feels—I’d just be drawing down the lightning again to publish now. And yet to put that book away is like a kind of suicide to me—everything I know is in that book.
QUENTIN: Lou, you have a right to publish; a radical past is not leprosy—we only turned left because it seemed the truth was there. You mustn’t be ashamed.
LOU, in pain: Goddammit, yes! Except—I never told you this, Quentin. . . . He holds his position, de-animated.
QUENTIN, to Listener, as he comes down to the edge of the stage: Yes, the day the world ended and nobody was innocent again. God, how swiftly it all fell down!
LOU, speaking straight front: When I returned from Russia and published my study of Soviet law—I left out many things I saw. I lied. For a good cause, I thought, but all that lasts is the lie.
Elsie and Louise enter, talking together intimately and unheard.
And it’s so strange to me now—I have many failings, but I have never been a liar. And I lied for the Party, over and over, year after year. And that’s why now, with this book of mine, I want so much to be true to myself! You see, it’s no attack I fear, but being forced to defend my own incredible lies! He turns, surprised, to see Elsie.
ELSIE: Lou, I’m quite surprised. I thought we’d settled this.
Father and Dan appear upstage.
LOU: Yes, dear, I only wanted Quentin’s feeling—
ELSIE: Your shirt’s out, dear.
He quickly tucks it into his shorts. And she turns to Quentin.
You certainly don’t think he ought to publish.
QUENTIN: But the alternative seems—
ELSIE, with a volcanic, suppressed alarm: But, dear, that’s the situation! Lou’s not like you, Quentin; you and Mickey can function in the rough-and-tumble of private practice, but Lou’s a purely academic person. He’s incapable of going out and—
Upstage, Mother appears beside Father.
LOU, with a difficult grin and chuckle: Well, dear, I’m not all that delicate, I—
ELSIE, with a sudden flash of contempt, to Lou: This is hardly the time for illusions!
MOTHER: You idiot!
Quentin is shocked, turns quickly to Mother, who stands accusingly over the seated Father.
My bonds?
QUENTIN, watching Mother go: Why do I think of things falling apart? Were they ever whole?
Mother exits; for a moment Father and Dan stay on in darkness, frozen in their despair.
Louise now stands up.
LOUISE: Quentin?
He turns his eyes to the ground, then to the Listener. . . .
QUENTIN: Wasn’t that a terrifying thing, what Holga said?
LOUISE: I’ve decided to go into psychoanalysis.
QUENTIN: To take up your life—like an idiot child?
LOUISE: I want to talk about some things with you.
QUENTIN: But can anybody really do that? Kiss his life?
LOUISE, at a loss for an instant: Sit down, will you?
She gathers her thoughts. He hesitates, as though pained at the memory, and also because at the time he lived this it was an agony. And as he approaches his chair . . .
QUENTIN, to the Listener: It was like—a meeting. In seven years we had never had a meeting. Never, never what you’d call—a meeting.
LOUISE: We don’t seem—a long pause while she peers at a forming thought—married.
QUENTIN: We?
It is sincere, what she says, but she has had to learn the words, so there is the faintest air of a formula in her way of speaking.
LOUISE: You don’t pay any attention to me.
QUENTIN, to help her: You mean like Friday night? When I didn’t open the car door for you?
LOUISE: Yes, that’s part of what I mean.
QUENTIN: But I told you; you always opened the car door for yourself.
LOUISE: I’ve always done everything for myself, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. Everybody notices it, Quentin.
QUENTIN: What?
LOUISE: The way you behave toward me. I don�
��t exist. People are supposed to find out about each other. I am not all this uninteresting. Many people, men and women, think I am interesting.
QUENTIN: Well, I— He breaks off. I—don’t know what you mean.
LOUISE: You have no conception of what a woman is.
QUENTIN: But I do pay attention—just last night I read you my whole brief.
LOUISE: Quentin, you think reading a brief to a woman is talking to her?
QUENTIN: But that’s what’s on my mind.
LOUISE: But if that’s all on your mind, what do you need a wife for?
QUENTIN: Now what kind of a question is that?
LOUISE: Quentin, that’s the question!
QUENTIN, after a slight pause, with fear, astonishment: What’s the question?
LOUISE: What am I to you? Do you—do you ever ask me anything? Anything personal?
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 58