LEDUC: Yes. Because it cannot be shared. It is total, absolute, waste.
He leans forward suddenly, trying to collect himself against his terror. He glances at the door.
How strange—one can even become impatient.
A groan as he shakes his head with wonder and anger at himself.
Hm!—what devils they are.
VON BERG, with an overtone of closeness to Leduc: You understand now why I left Vienna. They can make death seductive. It is their worst sin. I had dreams at night—Hitler in a great flowing cloak, almost like a gown, almost like a woman. He was beautiful.
LEDUC: Listen—don’t mention the furnaces to my wife.
VON BERG: I’m glad you say that, I feel very relieved, there’s really no point . . .
LEDUC, in a higher agony as he realizes: No, it’s . . . it’s . . . You see there was no reason for me to be caught here. We have a good hideout. They’d never have found us. But she has an exposed nerve in one tooth and I thought I might find some codein. Just say I was arrested.
VON BERG: Does she have sufficient money?
LEDUC: You could help her that way if you like. Thank you.
VON BERG: The children are small?
LEDUC: Two and three.
VON BERG: How dreadful. How dreadful. He looks with a glance of fury at the door. Do you suppose if I offered him something? I can get hold of a good deal of money. I know so little about people—I’m afraid he’s rather an idealist. It could infuriate him more.
LEDUC: You might try to feel him out. I don’t know what to tell you.
VON BERG: How upside down everything is—to find oneself wishing for a money-loving cynic!
LEDUC: It’s perfectly natural. We have learned the price of idealism.
VON BERG: And yet can one wish for a world without ideals? That’s what’s so depressing—one doesn’t know what to wish for.
LEDUC, in anger: You see, I knew it when I walked down the road, I knew it was senseless! For a goddamned toothache! So what, so she doesn’t sleep for a couple of weeks! It was perfectly clear I shouldn’t be taking the chance.
VON BERG: Yes, but if one loves someone . . .
LEDUC: We are not in love any more. It’s just too difficult to separate in these times.
VON BERG: Oh, how terrible.
LEDUC, more softly, realizing a new idea: Listen . . . about the furnaces . . . don’t mention that to her. Not a word, please. With great self-contempt: God, at a time like this—to think of taking vengeance on her! What scum we are! He almost sways in despair.
Pause. Von Berg turns to Leduc; tears are in his eyes.
VON BERG: There is nothing, is that it? For you there is nothing?
LEDUC, flying out at him suddenly: Well what do you propose? Excuse me, but what in hell are you talking about?
The door opens. The Professor comes out and beckons to the Old Jew. He seems upset, by an argument he had in the office, possibly.
Next.
The Old Jew does not turn to him.
You hear me, why do you sit there?
He strides to the Old Jew and lifts him to his feet brusquely. The man reaches down to pick up his bundle, but the Professor tries to push it back to the floor.
Leave that.
With a wordless little cry, the Old Jew clings to his bundle.
Leave it!
The Professor strikes at the Old Jew’s hand, but he only holds on tighter, uttering his wordless little cries. The Police Captain comes out as the Professor pulls at the bundle.
Let go of that!
The bundle rips open. A white cloud of feathers blows up out of it. For an instant everything stops as the Professor looks in surprise at the feathers floating down. The Major appears in the doorway as the feathers settle.
CAPTAIN: Come on.
The Captain and the Professor lift the Old Jew and carry him past the Major into the office. The Major with deadened eyes glances at the feathers and limps in, closing the door behind him.
Leduc and Von Berg stare at the feathers, some of which have fallen on them. They silently brush them off. Leduc picks the last one off his jacket, opens his fingers, and lets it fall to the floor.
Silence. Suddenly a short burst of laughter is heard from the office.
VON BERG, with great difficulty, not looking at Leduc: I would like to be able to part with your friendship. Is that possible?
Pause.
LEDUC: Prince, in my profession one gets the habit of looking at oneself quite impersonally. It is not you I am angry with. In one part of my mind it is not even this Nazi. I am only angry that I should have been born before the day when man has accepted his own nature; that he is not reasonable, that he is full of murder, that his ideals are only the little tax he pays for the right to hate and kill with a clear conscience. I am only angry that, knowing this, I still deluded myself. That there was not time to truly make part of myself what I know, and to teach others the truth.
VON BERG, angered, above his anxiety: There are ideals, Doctor, of another kind. There are people who would find it easier to die than stain one finger with this murder. They exist. I swear it to you. People for whom everything is not permitted, foolish people and ineffectual, but they do exist and will not dishonor their tradition. Desperately: I ask your friendship.
Again laughter is heard from within the office. This time it is louder. Leduc slowly turns to Von Berg.
LEDUC: I owe you the truth, Prince; you won’t believe it now, but I wish you would think about it and what it means. I have never analyzed a gentile who did not have, somewhere hidden in his mind, a dislike if not a hatred for the Jews.
VON BERG, clapping his ears shut, springing up: That is impossible, it is not true of me!
LEDUC, standing, coming to him, a wild pity in his voice: Until you know it is true of you you will destroy whatever truth can come of this atrocity. Part of knowing who we are is knowing we are not someone else. And Jew is only the name we give to that stranger, that agony we cannot feel, that death we look at like a cold abstraction. Each man has his Jew; it is the other. And the Jews have their Jews. And now, now above all, you must see that you have yours—the man whose death leaves you relieved that you are not him, despite your decency. And that is why there is nothing and will be nothing—until you face your own complicity with this . . . your own humanity.
VON BERG: I deny that. I deny that absolutely. I have never in my life said a word against your people. Is that your implication? That I have something to do with this monstrousness! I have put a pistol to my head! To my head!
Laughter is heard again.
LEDUC, hopelessly: I’m sorry; it doesn’t really matter.
VON BERG: It matters very much to me. Very much to me!
LEDUC, in a level tone full of mourning; and yet behind it a howling horror: Prince, you asked me before if I knew your cousin, Baron Kessler.
Von Berg looks at him, already with anxiety.
Baron Kessler is a Nazi. He helped to remove all the Jewish doctors from the medical school.
Von Berg is struck; his eyes glance about.
You were aware of that, weren’t you?
Half-hysterical laughter comes from the office.
You must have heard that at some time or another, didn’t you?
VON BERG, stunned, inward-seeing: Yes. I heard it. I . . . had forgotten it. You see, he was . . .
LEDUC: . . . Your cousin. I understand.
They are quite joined; and Leduc is mourning for the Prince as much as for himself, despite his anger.
And in any case, it is only a small part of Baron Kessler to you. I do understand it. But it is all of Baron Kessler to me. When you said his name it was with love; and I’m sure he must be a man of some kindness, with whom you can see eye to eye in many things. But when I hear that na
me I see a knife. You see now why I say there is nothing, and will be nothing, when even you cannot really put yourself in my place? Even you! And that is why your thoughts of suicide do not move me. It’s not your guilt I want, it’s your responsibility—that might have helped. Yes, if you had understood that Baron Kessler was in part, in some part, in some small and frightful part—doing your will. You might have done something then, with your standing, and your name and your decency, aside from shooting yourself!
VON BERG, in full horror, his face upthrust, calling: What can ever save us? He covers his face with his hands.
The door opens. The Professor comes out.
PROFESSOR, beckoning to the Prince: Next.
Von Berg does not turn, but holds Leduc in his horrified, beseeching gaze. The Professor approaches the Prince.
Come!
The Professor reaches down to take Von Berg’s arm. Von Berg angrily brushes away his abhorrent hand.
VON BERG: Hände weg!
The Professor retracts his hand, immobilized, surprised, and for a moment has no strength against his own recognition of authority. Von Berg turns back to Leduc, who glances up at him and smiles with warmth, then turns away.
Von Berg turns toward the door and, reaching into his breast pocket for a wallet of papers, goes into the office. The Professor follows and closes the door.
Alone, Leduc sits motionless. Now he begins the movements of the trapped; he swallows with difficulty, crosses and recrosses his legs. Now he is still again and bends over and cranes around the corner of the corridor to look for the guard. A movement of his foot stirs up feathers. The accordion is heard outside. He angrily kicks a feather off his foot. Now he makes a decision; he quickly reaches into his pocket, takes out a clasp knife, opens the blade, and begins to get to his feet, starting for the corridor.
The door opens and Von Berg comes out. In his hand is a white pass. The door shuts behind him. He is looking at the pass as he goes by Leduc, and suddenly turns, walks back, and thrusts the pass into Leduc’s hand.
VON BERG, in a strangely angered whisper, motioning him out: Take it! Go!
Von Berg sits quickly on the bench, taking out the wedding ring. Leduc stares at him, a horrified look on his face. Von Berg hands him the ring.
Number nine Rue Charlot. Go.
LEDUC, in a desperate whisper: What will happen to you?
VON BERG, angrily waving him away: Go, go!
Leduc backs away, his hands springing to cover his eyes in the awareness of his own guilt.
LEDUC—a plea in his voice: I wasn’t asking you to do this! You don’t owe me this!
VON BERG: Go!
Leduc, his eyes wide in awe and terror, suddenly turns and strides up the corridor. At the end of it the Guard appears, hearing his footsteps. He gives the Guard the pass and disappears.
A long pause. The door opens. The Professor appears.
PROFESSOR: Ne— He breaks off. Looks about, then, to Von Berg: Where’s your pass?
Von Berg stares ahead. The Professor calls into the office.
Man escaped!
He runs up the corridor, calling.
Man escaped! Man escaped!
The Police Captain rushes out of the office. Voices are heard outside calling orders. The accordion stops. The Major hurries out of the office. The Police Captain rushes past him.
CAPTAIN: What? Glancing back at Von Berg, he realizes and rushes up the corridor, calling: Who let him out! Find that man! What happened?
The voices outside are swept away by a siren going off. The Major has gone to the opening of the corridor, following the Police Captain. For a moment he remains looking up the corridor. All that can be heard now is the siren moving off in pursuit. It dies away, leaving the Major’s rapid and excited breaths, angry breaths, incredulous breaths.
Now he turns slowly to Von Berg, who is staring straight ahead. Von Berg turns and faces him. Then he gets to his feet. The moment lengthens, and lengthens yet. A look of anguish and fury is stiffening the Major’s face; he is closing his fists. They stand there, forever incomprehensible to one another, looking into each other’s eyes.
At the head of the corridor four new men, prisoners, appear. Herded by the Detectives, they enter the detention room and sit on the bench, glancing about at the ceiling, the walls, the feathers on the floor, and the two men who are staring at each other so strangely.
THE PRICE
A PLAY
1968
Characters
VICTOR FRANZ
ESTHER FRANZ
GREGORY SOLOMON
WALTER FRANZ
ACT ONE
Today. New York.
Two windows are seen at the back of the stage. Daylight filters through their sooty panes, which have been X’d out with fresh whitewash to prepare for the demolition of the building.
Now daylight seeps through a skylight in the ceiling, grayed by the grimy panes. The light from above first strikes an overstuffed armchair in center stage. It has a faded rose slipcover. Beside it on its right, a small table with a filigreed radio of the Twenties on it and old newspapers; behind it a bridge lamp. At its left an old wind-up Victrola and a pile of records on a low table. A white cleaning cloth and a mop and pail are nearby.
The room is progressively seen. The area around the armchair alone appears to be lived-in, with other chairs and a couch related to it. Outside this area, to the sides and back limits of the room and up the walls, is the chaos of ten rooms of furniture squeezed into this one.
There are four couches and three settees strewn at random over the floor, armchairs, wingbacks, a divan, occasional chairs. On the floor and stacked against the three walls up to the ceiling are bureaus, armoires, a tall secretary, a breakfront, a long, elaborately carved serving table, end tables, a library table, desks, glass-front bookcases, bow-front glass cabinets, and so forth. Several long rolled-up rugs and some shorter ones. A long sculling oar, bedsteads, trunks. And overhead one large and one smaller crystal chandelier hang from ropes, not connected to electric wires. Twelve dining-room chairs stand in a row along a dining-room table at left.
There is a rich heaviness, something almost Germanic, about the furniture, a weight of time upon the bulging fronts and curving chests marshalled against the walls. The room is monstrously crowded and dense, and it is difficult to decide if the stuff is impressive or merely over-heavy and ugly.
An uncovered harp, its gilt chipped, stands alone downstage, right. At the back, behind a rather makeshift drape, long since faded, can be seen a small sink, a hotplate, and an old icebox. Up right, a door to the bedroom. Down left, a door to the corridor and stairway, which are unseen.
We are in the attic of a Manhattan brownstone soon to be torn down.
From the down-left door, Police Sergeant Victor Franz enters in uniform. He halts inside the room, glances about, walks at random a few feet, then comes to a halt. Without expression, yet somehow stilled by some emanation from the room, he lets his gaze move from point to point, piece to piece, absorbing its sphinxlike presence.
He moves to the harp with a certain solemnity, as toward a coffin, and, halting before it, reaches out and plucks a string. He turns and crosses to the dining-room table and removes his gun belt and jacket, hanging them on a chair which he has taken off the table, where it had been set upside down along with two others.
He looks at his watch, waiting for time to pass. Then his eye falls on the pile of records in front of the phonograph. He raises the lid of the machine, sees a record already on the turntable, cranks, and sets the tone arm on the record. Gallagher and Shean sing. He smiles at the corniness.
With the record going he moves to the long sculling oar which stands propped against furniture and touches it. Now he recalls something, reaches in behind a chest, and takes out a fencing foil and mask. He snaps the foil in the air, his gaze held
by memory. He puts the foil and mask on the table, goes through two or three records on the pile, and sees a title that makes him smile widely. He replaces the Gallagher and Shean record with this. It is a Laughing Record—two men trying unsuccessfully to get out a whole sentence through their wild hysteria.
He smiles. Broader. Chuckles. Then really laughs. It gets into him; he laughs more fully. Now he bends over with laughter, taking an unsteady step as helplessness rises in him.
Esther, his wife, enters from the down-left door. His back is to her. A half-smile is already on her face as she looks about to see who is laughing with him. She starts toward him, and he hears her heels and turns.
ESTHER: What in the world is that?
VICTOR, surprised: Hi! He lifts the tone arm, smiling, a little embarrassed.
ESTHER: Sounded like a party in here!
He gives her a peck.
Of the record: What is that?
VICTOR, trying not to disapprove openly: Where’d you get a drink?
ESTHER: I told you. I went for my checkup. She laughs with a knowing abandonment of good sense.
VICTOR: Boy, you and that doctor. I thought he told you not to drink.
ESTHER—laughs: I had one! One doesn’t hurt me. Everything’s normal anyway. He sent you his best. She looks about.
VICTOR: Well, that’s nice. The dealer’s due in a few minutes, if you want to take anything.
ESTHER, looking around with a sigh: Oh, dear God—here it is again.
VICTOR: The old lady did a nice job.
ESTHER: Ya—I never saw it so clean. Indicating the room: Make you feel funny?
VICTOR—shrugs: No, not really—she didn’t recognize me, imagine?
ESTHER: Dear boy, it’s a hundred and fifty years. Shaking her head as she stares about: Huh.
VICTOR: What?
ESTHER: Time.
VICTOR: I know.
ESTHER: There’s something different about it.
VICTOR: No, it’s all the way it was. Indicating one side of the room: I had my desk on that side and my cot. The rest is the same.
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 71