QUENTIN: Well, they made them too tight, but I can take a walk in them.
MAGGIE: Fags wear pants like that; I told you. They attract each other with their asses.
QUENTIN: You calling me a fag now?
MAGGIE, very drunk: Just I’ve known fags and some of them didn’t even know themselves that they were. . . . And I didn’t know if you knew about that.
QUENTIN: That’s a hell of a way to reassure yourself, Maggie.
MAGGIE, staggering slightly: I’m allowed to say what I see!
QUENTIN: You trying to get me to throw you out? Is that what it is? So life will get real again?
MAGGIE, pointing at him, at his control: Wha’s that suppose to be, strong and silent? I mean what is it?
She stumbles and falls. He makes no move to pick her up.
QUENTIN, standing over her: And now I walk out, huh? And you finally know where you are, huh? He picks her up angrily. Is that what you want?
Breaking from him, she pitches forward. He catches her and roughly puts her on the bed.
MAGGIE: Wha’s the angle? Whyn’t you beat it? She gets on her feet again. You gonna wait till I’m old? You know what another cab driver said to me today? “I’ll give you fifty dollars . . .” An open, lost sob, wild and contradictory, flies out of her. You know what’s fifty dollars to a cab driver? Her pain moves into him, his anger is swamped with it. Go ahead, you can go; I can even walk a straight line, see? Look, see? She walks with arms out, one foot in front of the other. So what is it, heh? I mean you want dancing? You want dancing? Breathlessly she turns on the phonograph and goes into a hip-flinging caricature of a dance around him. I mean what do you want? What is it?
QUENTIN: Please don’t do that. He catches her and lays her down on the bed.
MAGGIE: You gonna wait till I’m old? Or what? I mean what is it? What is it?
She lies there, gasping. He stares down at her, addressing the Listener, as he sits beside the bed.
QUENTIN: It’s that if there is love, it must be limitless; a love not even of persons but blind, blind to insult, blind to the spear in the flesh, like justice blind, like . . .
Felice appears behind him. He has been raising up his arms. Father appears, slumped in chair.
MOTHER’S VOICE, off: Idiot!
A dozen men appear on second level, under the harsh white light of a subway platform, some of them reading newspapers. Apart from them Mickey and Lou appear from each side, approaching each other.
MAGGIE, rushing off unsteadily: I mean whyn’t you beat it?
QUENTIN, his arms down, crying out to Listener: But in whose name do you turn your back?
MICKEY: That we go together, Lou, and name the names! Lou!
Lou, staring at Quentin, mounts the platform where the men wait for a subway train.
QUENTIN: I saw it clear—in whose name you turn your back! I saw it once, I saw the name!
The approaching sound of a subway train is heard, and Lou leaps; the racking squeal of brakes.
LOU: Quentin! Quentin!
All the men look at Quentin, then at the “tracks.” The men groan. Quentin’s hands are a vise against his head. The tower lights as . . . Mother enters in prewar costume, sailboat in hand, bending toward the “bathroom door” as before.
QUENTI:N In whose name? In whose blood-covered name do you look into a face you loved, and say, Now you have been found wanting, and now in your extremity you die! It had a name, it . . .
MOTHER, toward the “bathroom door”: Quentin? Quentin?
QUENTIN: Hah? He hurries toward her, but in fear.
Mother: See what we brought you from Atlantic City! From the boardwalk!
Men exit from subway platform. A tremendous crash of surf spins Quentin about, and Mother is gone and the light of the moon is rising on the pier.
QUENTIN: By the ocean. That cottage. That night. The last night.
Maggie in a rumpled wrapper, a bottle in her hand, her hair in snags over her face, staggers out to the edge of the pier and stands in the sound of the surf. Now she starts to topple over the edge of the pier, and he rushes to her and holds her in his hands. Maggie turns around and they embrace. Now the sound of jazz from within is heard, softly.
MAGGIE: You were loved, Quentin; no man was ever loved like you.
QUENTIN, releasing her: Carrie tell you I called? My plane couldn’t take off all day—
MAGGIE, drunk, but aware: I was going to kill myself just now. He is silent. Or don’t you believe that either?
QUENTIN, with an absolute calm, a distance, but without hostility: I saved you twice, why shouldn’t I believe it? Going toward her: This dampness is bad for your throat, you oughtn’t be out here.
MAGGIE—she defiantly sits, her legs dangling: Where’ve you been?
QUENTIN, going upstage, removing his jacket: I’ve been in Chicago. I told you. The Hathaway estate.
MAGGIE, with a sneer: Estates!
QUENTIN: Well, I have to pay some of our debts before I save the world. He removes his jacket and puts it on bureau box; sits and removes a shoe.
MAGGIE, from the pier: Didn’t you hear what I told you?
QUENTIN: I heard it. I’m not coming out there, Maggie, it’s too wet.
She looks toward him, gets up, unsteadily enters the room.
MAGGIE: I didn’t go to rehearsal today.
QUENTIN: I didn’t think you did.
MAGGIE: And I called the network that I’m not finishing that stupid show. I’m an artist! And I don’t have to do stupid shows, no matter what contract you made!
QUENTIN: I’m very tired, Maggie. I’ll sleep in the living room. Good night. He stands and starts out upstage.
MAGGIE: What is this?
Pause. He turns back to her from the exit.
QUENTIN: I’ve been fired.
MAGGIE: You’re not fired.
QUENTIN: I didn’t expect you to take it seriously, but it is to me; I can’t make a decision any more without something sits up inside me and busts out laughing.
MAGGIE: That my fault, huh?
Slight pause. Then he resolves.
QUENTIN: Look, dear, it’s gone way past blame or justifying ourselves, I . . . talked to your doctor this afternoon.
MAGGIE, stiffening with fear and suspicion: About what?
QUENTIN: You want to die, Maggie, and I really don’t know how to prevent it. But it struck me that I have been playing with your life out of some idiotic hope of some kind that you’d come out of this endless spell. But there’s only one hope, dear—you’ve got to start to look at what you’re doing.
MAGGIE: You going to put me away somewhere. Is that it?
QUENTIN: Your doctor’s trying to get a plane up here tonight; you settle it with him.
MAGGIE: You’re not going to put me anywhere, mister. She opens the pill bottle.
QUENTIN: You have to be supervised, Maggie. She swallows pills. Now listen to me while you can still hear. If you start going under tonight I’m calling the ambulance. I haven’t the strength to go through that alone again. I’m not protecting you from the newspapers any more, Maggie, and the hospital means a headline. She raises the whisky bottle to drink. You’ve got to start facing the consequences of your actions, Maggie. She drinks whisky. Okay. I’ll tell Carrie to call the ambulance as soon as she sees the signs. I’m going to sleep at the inn. He gets his jacket.
MAGGIE: Don’t sleep at the inn!
QUENTIN: Then put that stuff away and go to sleep.
Maggie—afraid he is leaving, she tries to smooth her tangled hair: Could you . . . stay five minutes?
QUENTIN: Yes. He returns.
MAGGIE: You can even have the bottle if you want. I won’t take any more. She puts the pill bottle on the bed before him.
QUENTIN, against his wish to take it: I
don’t want the bottle.
MAGGIE: ’Member how you used talk to me till I fell asleep?
QUENTIN: Maggie, I’ve sat beside you in darkened rooms for days and weeks at a time, and my office looking high and low for me—
MAGGIE: No, you lost patience with me.
QUENTIN, after a slight pause: That’s right, yes.
MAGGIE: So you lied, right?
QUENTIN: Yes, I lied. Every day. We are all separate people. I tried not to be, but finally one is—a separate person. I have to survive too, honey.
MAGGIE: So where you going to put me?
QUENTIN, trying not to break: You discuss that with your doctor.
MAGGIE: But if you loved me . . .
QUENTIN: But how would you know, Maggie? Do you know any more who I am? Aside from my name? I’m all the evil in the world, aren’t I? All the betrayal, the broken hopes, the murderous revenge? She pours pills into her hand, and he stands. Now fear is in his voice. A suicide kills two people, Maggie, that’s what it’s for! So I’m removing myself, and perhaps it will lose its point. He resolutely starts out. She falls back on the bed. Her breathing is suddenly deep. He starts toward Carrie, who sits in semi-darkness, praying. Carrie!
MAGGIE: Quentin, what’s Lazarus?
He halts. She looks about for him, not knowing he has left. Quentin?
Not seeing him, she starts up off the bed; a certain alarm . . .
Quen?
He comes halfway back.
QUENTIN: Jesus raised him from the dead. In the Bible. Go to sleep now.
MAGGIE: Wha’s ’at suppose to prove?
QUENTIN: The power of faith.
MAGGIE: What about those who have no faith?
QUENTIN: They only have the will.
MAGGIE: But how you get the will?
QUENTIN: You have faith.
MAGGIE: Some apples. She lies back. A pause. I want more cream puffs. And my birthday dress? If I’m good? Mama? I want my mother! She sits up, looks about as in a dream, turns and sees him. Why you standing there? She gets out of bed, squinting, and comes up to him, peers into his face; her expression comes alive. You—you want music?
QUENTIN: All right, you lie down, and I’ll put a little music on.
MAGGIE: No, you; you, sit down. And take off your shoes. I mean just to rest. You don’t have to do anything. She staggers to the machine, turns it on; jazz. She tries to sing, but suddenly comes totally awake. Was I sleeping?
QUENTIN: For a moment, I think.
MAGGIE, coming toward him in terror: Was—was my—was anybody else here?
QUENTIN: No. Just me.
MAGGIE: Is there smoke? With a cry she clings to him; he holds her close.
QUENTIN: Your mother’s dead and gone, dear, she can’t hurt you any more, don’t be afraid.
MAGGIE, in the helpless voice of a child as he returns her to the bed: Where you going to put me?
QUENTIN, his chest threatening a sob: Nowhere, dear—the doctor’ll decide with you.
MAGGIE: See? I’ll lay down. She lies down. See? She takes a strange, deep breath. You—you could have the pills if you want.
QUENTIN—stands and, after a hesitation, starts away: I’ll have Carrie come in and take them.
MAGGIE, sliding off the bed, holding the pill bottle out to him: No. I won’t give them to Carrie. Only you. You take them.
QUENTIN: Why do you want me to have them?
MAGGIE, extending them: Here.
QUENTIN, after a pause: Do you see it, Maggie? Right now? You’re trying to make me the one who does it to you? I grab them; and then we fight, and then I give them up, and you take your death from me. Something in you has been setting me up for a murder. Do you see it? He moves backward. But now I’m going away; so you’re not my victim any more. It’s just you, and your hand.
MAGGIE: But Jesus must have loved her.
QUENTIN: Who?
MAGGIE: Lazarus?
Pause. He sees, he gropes toward his vision.
QUENTIN: That’s right, yes! He . . . loved her enough to raise her from the dead. But He’s God, see . . . and God’s power is love without limit. But when a man dares reach for that . . . he is only reaching for the power. Whoever goes to save another person with the lie of limitless love throws a shadow on the face of God. And God is what happened, God is what is; and whoever stands between another person and her truth is not a lover, he is . . . He breaks off, lost, peering, and turns back to Maggie for his clue. And then she said. He goes back to Maggie, crying out to invoke her. And then she said!
MAGGIE: I still hear you. Way inside. Quentin? My love? I hear you! Tell me what happened!
QUENTIN, through a sudden burst of tears: Maggie, we . . . used one another!
MAGGIE: Not me, not me!
QUENTIN: Yes, you. And I. “To live” we cried, and “Now” we cried. And loved each other’s innocence, as though to love enough what was not there would cover up what was. But there is an angel, and night and day he brings back to us exactly what we want to lose. So you must love him because he keeps truth in the world. You eat those pills to blind yourself, but if you could only say, “I have been cruel,” this frightening room would open. If you could say, “I have been kicked around, but I have been just as inexcusably vicious to others, called my husband idiot in public, I have been utterly selfish despite my generosity, I have been hurt by a long line of men but I have cooperated with my persecutors—”
Maggie—she has been writhing in fury: Son of a bitch!
QUENTIN: “And I am full of hatred; I, Maggie, sweet lover of all life—I hate the world!”
MAGGIE: Get out of here!
QUENTIN: Hate women, hate men, hate all who will not grovel at my feet proclaiming my limitless love for ever and ever! But no pill can make us innocent. Throw them in the sea, throw death in the sea and all your innocence. Do the hardest thing of all—see your own hatred and live!
MAGGIE: What about your hatred? You know when I wanted to die. When I read what you wrote, kiddo. Two months after we were married, kiddo.
QUENTIN: Let’s keep it true—you told me you tried to die long before you met me.
MAGGIE: So you’re not even there, huh? I didn’t even meet you. You coward! What about your hatred! She moves front. I was married to a king, you son of a bitch! I was looking for a fountain pen to sign some autographs. And there’s his desk—She is speaking toward some invisible source of justice now, telling her injury—and there’s his empty chair where he sits and thinks how to help people. And there’s his handwriting. And there’s some words. She almost literally reads in the air, and with the same original astonishment. “The only one I will ever love is my daughter. If I could only find an honorable way to die.” Now she turns to him. When you gonna face that, Judgey? Remember how I fell down, fainted? On the new rug? That’s what killed me, Judgey. Right? She staggers up to him, and into his face: ’Zat right?
QUENTIN, after a pause: All right. You pour them back, and I’ll tell you the truth about that.
MAGGIE: You won’t tell truth.
He tries to tip her hand toward the bottle, holding both her wrists.
QUENTIN, with difficulty: We’ll see. Pour them back first, and we’ll see.
She lets him pour them back, but sits on the bed, holding the bottle in both hands.
MAGGIE, after a deep breath: Liar.
QUENTIN, in quiet tension against his own self-condemnation: We’d had our first party in our own house. Some important people, network heads, directors—
MAGGIE: And you were ashamed of me. Don’t lie, now! You’re still playing God! That’s what killed me, Quentin!
QUENTIN: All right. I wasn’t . . . ashamed. But . . . afraid. Pause. I wasn’t sure if any of them . . . had had you.
MAGGIE, astounded: But I didn’t know any of thos
e!
QUENTIN, not looking at her: I swear to you, I did get to where I couldn’t imagine what I’d ever been ashamed of. But it was too late. I had written that, and I was like all the others who’d betrayed you, and I could never be trusted again.
MAGGIE, with a mixture of accusation and lament for a lost life, weeping: Why did you write that?
QUENTIN: Because when the guests had gone, and you suddenly turned on me, calling me cold, remote, it was the first time I saw your eyes that way—betrayed, screaming that I’d made you feel you didn’t exist—
MAGGIE: Don’t mix me up with Louise!
QUENTIN: That’s just it. That I could have brought two women so different to the same accusation—it closed a circle for me. And I wanted to face the worst thing I could imagine—that I could not love. And I wrote it down, like a letter from hell.
She starts to raise her hand to her mouth, and he steps in and holds her wrist.
That’s rock bottom. What more do you want?
She looks at him; her eyes unreadable.
Maggie, we were both born of many errors; a human being has to forgive himself! Neither of us is innocent. What more do you want?
A strange calm overtakes her. She lies back on the bed. The hostility seems to have gone.
MAGGIE: Love me, and do what I tell you. And stop arguing. He moves in anguish up and down beside the bed.
And take down the sand dune. It’s not too expensive. I want to hear the ocean when we make love in here, but we never hear the ocean.
QUENTIN: We’re nearly broke, Maggie; and that dune keeps the roof from blowing off.
MAGGIE: So you buy a new roof. I’m cold. Lie on me.
QUENTIN: I can’t do that again, not when you’re like this.
MAGGIE: Just till I sleep!
QUENTIN—an outcry: Maggie, it’s a mockery. Leave me something.
MAGGIE: Just out of humanness! I’m cold!
Holding down self-disgust, he lies down on her but holds his head away. Pause.
If you don’t argue with me any more, I’ll let you be my lawyer again. ’Kay? If you don’t argue? Ludwig doesn’t argue. He is silent. And don’t keep saying we’re broke? And the sand dune? The agony is growing in his face, of total disintegration. ’Cause I love the ocean sound; like a big mother—sssh, sssh, sssh. He lifts himself off, stands looking down at her. Her eyes are closed. You gonna be good now? She takes a very deep breath.
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 65