TOM: I don’t raise tomatoes . . . Listen, the TV is flogging the story and it’s humiliating for the women; let’s settle on a statement and be done with it. What do you want?
LYMAN: What I always wanted; both of them.
TOM: Be serious . . .
LYMAN: I know these women and they still love me! It’s only what they think they’re supposed to feel that’s confusing them. —Do I sound crazy?
TOM: Listen, I forgot to tell you—Jeff Huddleston called me this morning; heard it on the radio; he insists you resign from the board.
LYMAN: Not on your life! That fat fraud—Jeff Huddleston’s got a woman stashed in Trump Tower and two in L.A.
TOM: Huddleston!
LYMAN: He offered to loan me one once! Huddleston has more outside ass than a Nevada whorehouse!
TOM: But he doesn’t marry them.
LYMAN: Right!—in other words, what I really violated was the law of hypocrisy.
TOM: Unfortunately that’s the one that operates.
LYMAN: Not with me, baby! I may be a bastard but I am not a hypocrite! I am not quitting my company! What’s Leah saying . . . anything?
TOM: She’s stunned. But frankly, I’m not sure she’s out of the question either . . . if that’s the move you wanted to make.
LYMAN, deeply touched: What size these women have! Weeping threatens again. Oh Tom, I’m lost!
Bessie and Theo enter. Theo stands beside his bed staring at him without expression. Bessie doesn’t so much as look at him. After a long moment . . .
Downing fear: My God, Theo—thank you . . . I mean for coming. I didn’t expect you . . .
She sits down in a potent silence. Bessie stands, fiercely aloof. He is openly and awkwardly ashamed.
Hi, Bessie.
BESSIE: I’m here for her sake, she wanted to say something to you. Hurrying her along. Mother?
But Theo takes no notice, staring at Lyman with a fixed, unreadable smile. After a long, awkward moment . . .
LYMAN, to fill the void: How are you feeling today? I hear you were . . .
THEO, dead flat, cutting him off: I won’t be seeing you again, Lyman.
LYMAN, despite everything, a bit of a blow—slight pause: Yes. Well . . . I guess there’s no use in apologizing. . . . But I am sorry, Theo.
THEO: I can’t leave my life lying all over the floor like this.
LYMAN: I’ll talk about anything you like.
THEO: I seem confused but I’m not; there’s just so much that I . . . that I don’t want bottled up in me anymore.
LYMAN: Sure, I understand.
THEO: —Do you remember that young English instructor whose wife walked out on him—his advice to you about sex?
LYMAN: An English instructor? At Cornell, you mean?
THEO: “Bend it in half,” he said, “and tie a rubber band around it.”
LYMAN, laughing, a little alarmed: Oh sure, Jim Donaldson!
THEO: Everyone used to laugh at that.
LYMAN: Her smile is empty, his charm desperate. Right! “Bend it in half and . . .” Continues a strained chuckling.
THEO, cutting him off: I hated you laughing at that; it showed a vulgar and disgusting side of you. I was ashamed . . . for you and for myself.
LYMAN, brought up short: I see. But that’s so long ago, Theo . . .
THEO: I want to tell you that I nearly ended it right then and there, but I thought I was too inexperienced to make a judgment. But I was right—you were a vulgar, unfeeling man, and you are still.
Anxiously, Lyman glances over to Bessie for help or explanation of this weirdness.
LYMAN: I see. Well, I guess our whole life was a mistake then. Angered but attempting charm. But I made a good living.
BESSIE: Please, Mother, let’s go, he’s mocking you, can’t you hear it?
LYMAN, flaring up: Must I not defend myself? Please go ahead, Theo, I understand what you’re saying, and it’s okay, it’s what you feel.
THEO, seemingly relaxed: —What was the name of the river, about half an hour’s walk past the Chemistry building?
LYMAN, puzzled—is she mad?: What river?
THEO: Where we went skinny-dipping with those geologists and their girls?
LYMAN, at a loss for a moment: Oh, you mean graduation night!
THEO: . . . The whole crowd swimming naked at the falls . . . and the girls all laughing in the darkness . . . ?
LYMAN, starting to smile but still uncomprehending: Oh sure . . . that was a great night!
THEO: I straddled you, and over your shoulder . . . did I dream this? I recall a white wall of limestone, rising straight out of the river . . . ?
LYMAN: That’s right, Devonian. It was full of fossils.
THEO: Yes! Beetle imprints, worm tracks, crustacea fifty million years old going straight up like a white temple wall . . . and we floated around below, like two frogs attached in the darkness . . . our wet eyelashes touching.
LYMAN: Yes. It was beautiful. I’m glad you remember it that way.
THEO: Of course I do; I was never a Puritan, Lyman, it is simply a question of taste—that night was inspiring.
LYMAN: Well, I never had taste, we both know that. But I won’t lie to you, Theo—taste to me is what’s left of life after people can’t screw anymore.
THEO: You should have told me that thirty years ago.
LYMAN: I didn’t know it thirty years ago.
THEO: And do you remember what you said as we floated there?
LYMAN, hesitates: Yes.
THEO: You couldn’t.
LYMAN: I said, “What could ever come between us?” Correct?
THEO, surprised, derailed: . . . But did you mean that then? Please tell me the truth, it’s important to me.
LYMAN, affected: Yes, I meant it.
THEO: Then . . . when did you begin to fool me?
LYMAN: Please don’t go on anymore . . .
THEO: I am trying to pinpoint when my life died. That’s not unreasonable, is it?
LYMAN: From my heart, Theo, I ask your pardon.
THEO: —When did Billie Holiday die?
LYMAN, perplexed: Billie Holiday?—oh I don’t know, ten, twelve years ago? Why?
Theo goes silent, staring into space. He is suddenly weeping at the sight of her suffering.
Why do you want to know about Billie?
BESSIE: All right, Mother, let’s go, huh?
LYMAN: I think it might be better if she talked it out . . .
BESSIE: No one is interested in what you think. To Theo: I want you to come now!
LYMAN: Have mercy!
BESSIE: You talking mercy?!
LYMAN: For her, not me! Don’t you hear what she’s trying to say?—she loved me!
BESSIE: How can you listen to this shit!
LYMAN: How dare you! I gave you a damned fine life, Bessie!
BESSIE: You have nothing to say anymore, you are nonsense!
THEO: Please, dear!—wait outside for a few minutes. Bessie, seeing her adamance, strides out. You’ve torn out her heart. Lyman turns away trying not to weep. Was there some pleasure in making a fool of me? Why couldn’t you have told me about this woman?
LYMAN: I did try, many times, but . . . I guess it sounds crazy, but . . . I just couldn’t bear to lose you.
THEO: But—with sudden, near-hysterical intensity—you were lying to me every day all these nine or ten years—what could you possibly lose?
LYMAN, determined not to flinch: . . . Your happiness.
THEO: My happiness! In God’s name what are you talking about!
LYMAN: Only the truth can help us, Theo—I think you were happier in those last years than ever in our marriage—you feel that, don’t you?
She doesn’t contradict.
May
I tell you why? Because I was never bored being with you.
THEO: You’d been bored with me?
LYMAN: Same as you’d been bored with me, dear . . . I’m talking about—you know—just normal marital boredom.
She seems obtuse to this, so he tries to explain.
You know, like at dinner—when I’d repeat some inane story you’d heard a thousand times . . . ? Like my grandfather losing three fingers under the Ninth Avenue trolley . . . ?
THEO: But I loved that story! I was never bored with you . . . stupid as that was.
LYMAN, now she just seems perverse: Theo, you were bored—it’s no sin! Same as I was when, for instance, you’d start telling people for the ten thousandth time that . . . his charming laugh . . . as a minister’s daughter you were not permitted to climb a tree and show off your panties?
THEO, sternly resisting his charm: But I think that story describes a kind of society that has completely disappeared! That story has historical importance!
LYMAN, the full agony: That story is engraved in my flesh! . . . And I beg you, don’t make this a moral dilemma. It is just common domestic tedium, dear, it is life, and there’s no other woman I know who has the honesty and strength to accept it as life—if you wanted to!
THEO, a pause; above her confusion, she is striving desperately to understand: And why do you say I was happier in these last years?
LYMAN: Because you could see my contentment, and I was content . . .
THEO: Because she . . . ?
LYMAN: Because whenever you started with your panties again I could still find you lovable, knowing that story was not going to be my entire and total fate till the day I died.
THEO: . . . Because she was waiting for you.
LYMAN: Right.
THEO: You were never bored with her?
LYMAN: Oh God yes! Sometimes even more than with you.
THEO, with quick, intense, hopeful curiosity: Really! And what then?
LYMAN: Then I would thank my luck that I had you to come back to. —I know how hard this is to understand, Theo.
THEO: No-no . . . I guess I’ve always known it.
LYMAN: What.
THEO: You are some kind of . . . of giant clam.
LYMAN: Clam?
THEO: Waiting on the bottom for whatever happens to fall from the ocean into your mouth; you are simply a craving, and that craving you call love. You are a kind of monster, and I think you even know it, don’t you. I can almost pity you, Lyman. She turns to leave. I hope you make a good recovery. It’s all very clear now, I’m glad I stayed.
LYMAN: It’s amazing—the minute the mystery of life appears, you think everything’s cleared up.
THEO: There’s no mystery to me, you have never loved anyone!
LYMAN: Then explain to yourself how this worthless, loveless, treacherous clam could have single-handedly made two such different women happier than they’d ever been in their lives!
THEO: Really! Laughs, ending in a near-scream. Really and truly happy?!
LYMAN: . . . In fact, if I dared admit the whole idiotic truth, the only one who suffered these past nine years—was me!
An enormous echoing roar fills the theater—the roar of a lion. Light rises on Bessie looking front through field glasses; she is wearing shorts and a pith helmet and khaki safari jacket.
THEO: You suffering?—oh dear God save us!
She is trying to sustain her bitter laughter and moves toward Bessie, and as she enters Bessie’s area Theo’s laughter dies off and she takes a pith helmet out of a picnic basket and puts it on. Lyman, slipping out of bed at the same time, follows Theo. There is no dialogue break.
LYMAN: . . . What would you call it, then—having to look into your innocent, loving faces, when I knew the hollowness your happiness was based on? That isn’t suffering?
He takes his place beside the two women, looking in the same direction out front, shading his eyes. With no break in dialogue . . .
BESSIE, looking through field glasses: Good heavens, is he going to mount her again?
LYMAN: They don’t call him the king of the beasts for nothing, honey.
BESSIE: Poor thing, how patient she is.
THEO, taking the glasses from her: Oh come, dear, she’s not only patient.
BESSIE, spreading a tablecloth and picnic things on the ground: But it’s only once every half a year, isn’t it?
LYMAN: Once that we know about.
THEO, helping to spread the picnic: Oh no, they’re marvelously loyal couples.
LYMAN: No, dear, lions have harems—you’re thinking of storks.
BESSIE, offering an egg: Daddy?
LYMAN, sitting—happily eating: I love you in those helmets, you look like two noble ladies on safari.
THEO, stretching out on the ground: The air here! The silence. These hills.
BESSIE: Thanks for bringing me, Daddy. I wish Harold could have been here. —Why do you look sad?
LYMAN: Just thinking. To Theo: About monogamy—why you suppose we think of it as a higher form of life? She turns up to him . . . defensively . . . I mean I was just wondering.
THEO: Well, it implies an intensification of love.
LYMAN: How about that, Bess? You had a lot of boyfriends before Harold, didn’t you?
BESSIE: Well . . . yes, I guess it is more intense with one.
LYMAN: But how does that make it a higher form?
THEO: Monogamy strengthens the family; random screwing undermines it.
LYMAN: But as one neurotic to another, what’s so good about strengthening the family?
THEO: Well, for one thing it enhances liberty.
BESSIE: Liberty? Really?
THEO: The family disciplines its members; when the family is weak the state has to move in; so the stronger the family the fewer the police. And that is why monogamy is a higher form.
LYMAN: Jesus, did you just make that up? To Bessie: Isn’t she marvelous? I’m giving her an A-plus!
THEO, happily hurt: Oh shut up.
LYMAN: But what about those Muslims? They’re very big on stable families but a lot of them have two or three wives.
THEO: But only one is really the wife.
LYMAN: Not according to my father—they often had two main women in Albania, one to run the house and the other for the bed. But they were both serious wives.
THEO: Your father’s sociology was on a par with his morals. A wife to your father was a walking dish towel.
LYMAN, laughs, to Bessie: Your mother is a classical woman, you know why?
BESSIE, laughing delightedly: Why?
LYMAN: Because she is always clear and consistent and . . .
THEO: . . . Rather boring.
He guffaws warmly, clapping his hands over his head in appreciation.
BESSIE: You are not boring! Rushing to embrace Theo. Tell her she is not boring!
LYMAN, embracing Theo with Bessie: Theo, please . . . I swear I didn’t mean boring!
THEO, tearfully hurt: Well I’d rather be boring and clear than cute and stupid!
LYMAN: Who asked you to be cute!—now please don’t go on about it.
THEO: I wish I knew how to amuse you! Your eyes have been glazed over since we stepped onto this wretched continent!
LYMAN, guiltily stretching an awkward embrace toward her: I love this trip, and being with both of you . . . ! Theo, please!—now you are making me guilty!
The lion’s roar interrupts and they all look front in shock.
BESSIE: Is he heading here . . . ? Daddy!—he’s trotting!
GUIDE’S VOICE, off, on bullhorn: You will have to come back to the car, everyone! At once!
LYMAN: Quick! He pushes both women off.
BESSIE, on exiting: Daddy, come . . . !
THEO, sensing he is remai
ning behind: Lyman . . . ?
LYMAN: Go! He pushes Theo off, but turns back himself.
GUIDE’S VOICE: Come back to the car at once, Mr. Felt!
Lion’s roar—but closer now. Lyman facing front and the lion, prepared to run for it but holding his ground.
Mr. Felt, get back to the car!
Another roar.
LYMAN, eyes on the lion, shouting toward it with fear’s exhilaration: I am happy, yes! That I’m married to Theodora and have Bessie . . . yes, and Leah, too!
Another roar!
BESSIE, from a distance: Daddy, please come here!
LYMAN: And that I’ve made a mountain of money . . . yes, and have no impending lawsuits!
BESSIE, from a distance: Daddy . . . !
LYMAN, flinging his words toward the approaching beast, but crouched and ready to flee: . . . And that I don’t sacrifice one day to things I don’t believe in—including monogamy, yes!—arms thrown out, terror-inspired—I love my life, I am not guilty! I dare you to eat me, son of a bitch!
Immense roar! Wide-eyed, crouched now, and on the very verge of fleeing, he is watching the approaching lion—whose roar, as we now hear, has changed to a rather more relaxed guttural growling, much diminished; and Lyman cautiously straightens up, and now turns triumphantly toward the women offstage. And Bessie flies out and throws her arms around him in ecstatic relief, kissing him.
BESSIE, looking front: Daddy, he turned back! What did you do that for!
Theo enters.
THEO: He turned back! To Lyman: How did you do that! To Bessie: Did you see how he stopped and turned around? To Lyman: What happened?
LYMAN: I think I’ve lost my guilt! I think he sensed it! Half-laughing. Maybe lions don’t eat happy people!
THEO: What are you talking about?
LYMAN, staring in wonder: I tell you his roar hit my teeth like voltage and suddenly it was so clear that . . . Turns to her. I’ve always been happy with you, Theo!—I just somehow couldn’t accept it! But I am never going to apologize for my happiness again!—it’s a miracle!
THEO, with tears of gratitude, clasping her hands together prayerfully: Oh, Lyman! Rushing to kiss him. Oh, darling!
LYMAN, still riding his wave, holding out his hand to her: What old good friends we are, Theo! Put her there! She laughs and manfully shakes hands. What a person you are, what a grave and beautiful face you have!
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 116