QUENTIN, with rising alarm: But Louise, what am I supposed to ask you? I know you!
LOUISE: No. She stands with dangerous dignity. You don’t know me. Pause. She proceeds now with caution. I don’t intend to be ashamed of myself any more. I used to think it was normal, or even that you don’t see me because I’m not worth seeing. But I think now that you don’t really see any woman. Except in some ways your mother. You do sense her feelings; you do know when she’s unhappy or anxious, but not me. Or any other woman.
Elsie appears on second platform, about to drop her robe as before.
QUENTIN: That’s not true, though. I—
LOUISE: Elsie’s noticed it too.
QUENTIN, guiltily snapping away from the vision of Elsie: What?
LOUISE: She’s amazed at you.
QUENTIN: Why, what’d she say?
LOUISE: She says you don’t seem to notice when a woman is present.
QUENTIN: Oh. He is disarmed, confused, and silent.
LOUISE: And you know how she admires you.
Elsie disappears. Quentin nods seriously. Suddenly he turns to the Listener and bursts into an agonized, ironical laughter. He abruptly breaks it off and returns to silence before Louise. With uncertainty; it is her first attempt at confrontation:
Quentin?
He stands in silence.
Quentin?
He is silent.
Silence is not going to solve it any more, Quentin. I can’t live this way.
Pause. Quentin gathers courage.
QUENTIN: Maybe I don’t speak because the one time I did tell you my feelings you didn’t get over it for six months.
LOUISE, angered: It wasn’t six months, it was a few weeks. I did overreact, but it’s understandable. You come back from a trip and tell me you’d met a woman you wanted to sleep with.
QUENTIN: That’s not the way I said it.
LOUISE: It’s exactly the way. And we were married a year.
QUENTIN: It is not the way I said it, Louise. It was an idiotic thing to tell you, but I still say I meant it as a compliment; that I did not touch her because I realized what you meant to me. And for damn near a year you looked at me as though I were some kind of a monster who could never be trusted again. Immediately to the Listener: And why do I believe she’s right! That’s the point! Yes—now, now! It’s innocence, isn’t it? The innocent are always better, aren’t they? Then why can’t I be innocent?
The tower appears.
Even this slaughterhouse! Why does something in me bow its head like an accomplice in this place!
Mother appears upstage.
Huh? Please, yes, if you think you know. Turning to Mother: In what sense treacherous?
MOTHER: What poetry he brought me! He understood me, Strauss. And two weeks after the wedding, Papa hands me the menu. To read!
QUENTIN: Huh! Yes! And to a little boy—who knows how to read; a powerful reader, that little boy!
MOTHER: I want your handwriting beautiful, darling; I want you to be . . .
QUENTIN, realizing: . . . an accomplice!
MOTHER, turning on Father, who still sits dejectedly: My bonds? And you don’t even tell me anything. Are you a moron? You idiot!
QUENTIN, watching her and Father go dark, to the Listener: But why is the world so treacherous?
Mickey appears upstage, faces Louise in silence.
Shall we lay it all to mothers? Aren’t there mothers who keep dissatisfaction hidden to the grave, and do not split the faith of sons until they go in guilt for what they did not do? And I’ll go further—here’s the final bafflement for me—is it altogether good to be not guilty for what another does?
Father and Dan exit in darkness. The tower goes dark.
MICKEY, to Louise, grinning: You proud of him?
LOUISE: Yes!
MICKEY, coming to Quentin, who turns to him: The brief is fine, kid; it almost began to move me.
LOUISE: Lou and Elsie are here.
MICKEY: Oh! I didn’t know. You look wonderful, Louise. You look all excited.
LOUISE: Thanks! It’s nice to hear! She shyly, soundlessly laughs, glancing at Quentin, and goes.
MICKEY: You got trouble?
QUENTIN, embarrassed: I don’t think so, she’s going into psychoanalysis.
MICKEY: You got trouble. Shakes his head, laughing thoughtfully. I think maybe you got married too young; I did too. Although, you don’t fool around, do you?
QUENTIN: I don’t, no.
MICKEY: Then what the hell are you so guilty about?
QUENTIN: I didn’t know I was till lately.
MICKEY: You know, when it first happened to me, I set aside five minutes a day just imagining my wife as a stranger. As though I hadn’t made her yet. You got to generate some respect for her mystery. Start with five minutes; I can go as long as an hour, now.
QUENTIN: Makes it seem like a game, though, doesn’t it?
MICKEY: Well, it is, isn’t it, in a way? As soon as there’s two people, you can’t be absolutely sincere, can you? I mean she’s not your rib.
QUENTIN: I guess that’s right, yes.
Pause. Lou and Elsie are heard offstage. Mickey walks to a point, looks down as over a cliff.
MICKEY: Dear Lou; look at him down there, he never learned how to swim, always paddled like a dog. Comes back. I used to love that man. I still do. Quentin, I’ve been subpoenaed.
QUENTIN, shocked: Oh, God! The Committee?
MICKEY: Yes. I wish you’d have come into town when I called you. But it doesn’t matter now.
QUENTIN: I had a feeling it was something like that. I guess I—I didn’t want to know any more. I’m sorry, Mick. To Listener: Yes, not to see! To be innocent!
A long pause. They find it hard to look directly at each other.
MICKEY: I’ve been going through hell, Quent. It’s strange—to have to examine what you stand for; not theoretically, but on a life-and-death basis. A lot of things don’t stand up.
QUENTIN: I guess the main thing is not to be afraid.
MICKEY, after a pause: I don’t think I am now.
A pause. Both sit staring ahead. Finally Mickey turns and looks at Quentin, who now faces him. Mickey tries to smile.
You may not be my friend any more.
QUENTIN, trying to laugh it away—a terror rising in him: Why?
MICKEY: I’m going to tell the truth.
Pause.
QUENTIN: How do you mean?
MICKEY: I’m—going to name names.
QUENTIN, incredulously: Why?
MICKEY: Because—I want to. Fifteen years, wherever I go, whatever I talk about, the feeling is always there that I’m deceiving people.
QUENTIN: But why couldn’t you just tell about yourself?
Maggie enters, lies down on second platform.
MICKEY: They want the names, and they mean to destroy anyone who—
QUENTIN: I think it’s a mistake, Mick. All this is going to pass, and I think you’ll regret it. And anyway, Max has always talked against this kind of thing!
MICKEY: I’ve had it out with Max. I testify or I’ll be voted out of the firm.
QUENTIN: I can’t believe it! What about DeVries?
MICKEY: DeVries was there, and Burton, and most of the others. I wish you’d have seen their faces when I told them. Men I’ve worked with for thirteen years. Played tennis; intimate friends, you know? And as soon as I said, “I had been”—stones.
The tower lights.
QUENTIN, to the Listener: Everything is one thing! You see—I don’t know what we are to one another!
MICKEY: I only know one thing, Quent, I want to live a straightforward, open life!
Lou enters in bathing trunks, instantly overjoyed at seeing Mickey. The tower goes dark.
&
nbsp; LOU: Mick! I thought I heard your voice! Grabs his hand. How are you!
Lou and Mickey de-animate in an embrace. Holga appears with flowers on upper level.
QUENTIN, glancing up at Holga: How do you dare make promises again? I have lived through all the promises, you see?
Holga exits.
LOU, resuming, moving downstage with Mickey: Just the question of publishing my book, now. Elsie’s afraid it will wake up all the sleeping dogs again.
MICKEY: But don’t you have to take that chance? I think a man’s got to take the rap, Lou, for what he’s done, for what he is. After all, it’s your work.
LOU: I feel exactly that way! Grabs his arm, including Quentin in his feeling. Golly, Mick! Why don’t we get together as we used to! I miss all that wonderful talk! Of course I know how busy you are now, but—
MICKEY: Elsie coming up?
LOU: You want to see her? I could call down to the beach. He starts off, but Mickey stops him.
MICKEY: Lou.
LOU, sensing something odd: Yes, Mick.
QUENTIN, facing the sky: Dear God.
MICKEY: I’ve been subpoenaed.
LOU: No! Mickey nods, looks at the ground. Lou grips his arm. Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Mick. But can I say something—it might ease your mind; once you’re in front of them it all gets remarkably simple!
QUENTIN: Oh dear God!
LOU: Everything kind of falls away excepting—one’s self. One’s truth.
MICKEY, after a slight pause: I’ve already been in front of them, Lou. Two weeks ago.
LOU: Oh! Then what do they want with you again?
MICKEY, after a pause, with a fixed smile on his face: I asked to be heard again.
LOU, puzzled, open-eyed: Why?
MICKEY—he carefully forms his thought: Because I want to tell the truth.
LOU, with the first rising of incredulous fear: In—what sense? What do you mean?
MICKEY: Lou, when I left the hearing room I didn’t feel I had spoken. Something else had spoken, something automatic and inhuman. I asked myself, what am I protecting by refusing to answer? Lou, you must let me finish! You must. The Party? But I despise the Party, and have for many years. Just like you. Yet there is something, something that closes my throat when I think of telling names. What am I defending? It’s a dream now, a dream of solidarity. But the fact is, I have no solidarity with the people I could name—excepting for you. And not because we were Communists together, but because we were young together. Because we—when we talked it was like some brotherhood opposed to all the world’s injustice. Therefore, in the name of that love, I ought to be true to myself now. And the truth, Lou, my truth, is that I think the Party is a conspiracy—let me finish. I think we were swindled; they took our lust for the right and used it for Russian purposes. And I don’t think we can go on turning our backs on the truth simply because reactionaries are saying it. What I propose—is that we try to separate our love for one another from this political morass. And I’ve said nothing just now that we haven’t told each other for the past five years.
LOU: Then—what’s your proposal?
MICKEY: That we go back together. Come with me. And answer the questions.
LOU: Name—the names?
MICKEY: Yes. I’ve talked to all the others in the unit. They’ve agreed, excepting for Ward and Harry. They cursed me out, but I expected that.
LOU, dazed: Let me understand—you are asking my permission to name me?
Pause.
You may not mention my name. He begins physically shaking. And if you do it, Mickey, you are selling me for your own prosperity. If you use my name I will be dismissed. You will ruin me. You will destroy my career.
MICKEY: Lou, I think I have a right to know exactly why you—
LOU: Because if everyone broke faith there would be no civilization! That is why that Committee is the face of the Philistine! And it astounds me that you can speak of truth and justice in relation to that gang of cheap publicity hounds! Not one syllable will they get from me! Not one word from my lips! No—your eleven-room apartment, your automobile, your money are not worth this.
MICKEY, stiffened: That’s a lie! You can’t reduce it all to money, Lou! That is false!
LOU, turning on him: There is only one truth here. You are terrified! They have bought your soul!
Elsie appears upstage, listening. Louise enters, watches.
MICKEY, angrily, but contained: And yours? Lou! Is it all yours, your soul?
LOU, beginning to show tears: How dare you speak of my—
MICKEY, quaking with anger: You’ve got to take it if you’re going to dish it out, don’t you? Have you really earned this high moral tone—this perfect integrity? I happen to remember when you came back from your trip to Russia; and I remember who made you throw your first version into my fireplace!
LOU, with a glance toward Elsie: The idea!
MICKEY: I saw you burn a true book and write another that told lies! Because she demanded it, because she terrified you, because she has taken your soul!
LOU, shaking his fist in the air: I condemn you!
MICKEY: But from your conscience or from hers? Who is speaking to me, Lou?
LOU: You are a monster!
Lou bursts into tears, walks off toward Elsie; he meets her in the near distance; her face shows horror. At the front of stage Mickey turns and looks across the full width toward Quentin at the farthest edge of light, and . . .
MICKEY, reading Quentin’s feelings: I guess you’ll want to get somebody else to go over your brief with you. Pause. Quent—
Quentin, indecisive, but not contradicting him, now turns to him.
Good-by, Quentin.
QUENTIN, in a dead tone: Good-by, Mickey.
Mickey goes out.
ELSIE: He’s a moral idiot!
Holga enters above. Quentin turns to Elsie; something perhaps in his gaze or in the recesses of her mind makes her close her robe, which she holds tightly shut.
Isn’t that incredible?
Louise exits.
QUENTIN, quietly: Yes.
ELSIE: After such friendship! Such love between them! And for so many years!
She goes to Lou. Lifts him and tenderly leads him off.
The camp tower comes alive, and Quentin moves out of this group, slowly toward it, looking up.
Holga descends, carrying flowers. She is a distance away from Quentin, who turns to her.
QUENTIN: You—love me, don’t you?
HOLGA: Yes.
An instant’s hesitation, and he turns quickly to Listener and cries out.
QUENTIN: Is it that I’m looking for some simple-minded constancy that never is and never was?
Holga exits. Now Louise approaches him. They are alone.
LOUISE: Quentin, I’m trying to understand why you got so angry with me at the party the other night.
QUENTIN: I wasn’t angry; I simply felt that every time I began to talk you cut in to explain what I was about to say. He goes and gets a sheaf of paper, sits.
LOUISE: Well, I’d had a drink; I was a little high; I felt happy, I guess, that you weren’t running for cover when everybody else was.
QUENTIN: Yes, but Max was there and DeVries, and they don’t feel they’re running for cover. I only want to win Lou’s case, not some moral victory over the firm—I felt you were putting me out on a limb.
Louise: Quentin, I saw you getting angry when I was talking about that new anti-virus vaccine.
He tries to remember, believing she is right.
What is it? The moment I begin to assert myself it seems to threaten you. I don’t think you want me to be happy.
QUENTIN—there is a basic concession made by his tone of admitted bewilderment: I tell you the truth, Louise, I don’t think I feel very sure of
myself any more. I’m glad I took on Lou, but it only hit me lately that no respectable lawyer would touch him. It’s like some unseen web of connection between people is simply not there. And I always relied on it, somehow; I never quite believed that people could be so easily disposed of. And it’s larger than the political question. I think it’s got me a little scared.
LOUISE, with a wish for his sympathy, not accusing: Well, then, you must know how I felt when I found that letter in your suit.
QUENTIN, turning to her, aware: I didn’t do that to dispose of you, Louise. She does not reply. I thought we’d settled about that girl. Is that what this is about? She still does not reply. You mean you think I’m still—
LOUISE, directly at him: I don’t know what you’re doing. I thought you told the truth about that other girl years ago, but after what happened again this spring—I don’t know anything.
QUENTIN, after a pause: Tell me something; until this party the other night—in fact this whole year, I thought you seemed much happier. I swear to God, Louise, I thought we were building something till the other night!
Louise: But why?
QUENTIN: I’ve been trying like hell to show what I think of you. You’ve seen that, haven’t you?
Louise: Quentin, you are full of resentment against me, you think I’m blind?
QUENTIN: What I resent is being forever on trial, Louise. Are you an innocent bystander here?
Louise: I said I did contribute; I demanded nothing for much too long.
QUENTIN: You mean the summer before last you didn’t come to me and say that if I didn’t change you would divorce me?
Louise: I never said I was planning a—
QUENTIN: You said if it came down to it you would divorce me—that’s not a contribution?
Louise: Well, it certainly ought not send a man out to play doctor with the first girl he could lay his hands on.
QUENTIN: How much shame do you want me to feel? I hate what I did. But, I think I’ve explained it—I felt like nothing; I shouldn’t have, but I did, and I took the only means I knew to—
Louise: This is exactly what I mean Quentin—you are still defending it. Right now.
He is stopped by this truth.
QUENTIN: Look, you’re—not at all to blame, hey?
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 59