The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume II

by Thornton Wilder

  The Flight into Egypt

  CHARACTERS

  HEPZIBAH, a donkey

  OUR LADY, Mary

  ST. JOSEPH, her husband

  SETTING

  The Holy Land. Egypt.

  From time to time there are auctions of the fittings that made up the old dime museums, and at such an auction you should be able to pick up a revolving cyclorama of the Holy Land and Egypt, which is the scenery for this piece. Turn down the gaslights, for it is night in Palestine, and introduce a lady and a child on a donkey. They are accompanied by an old man on foot. The donkey’s name is Hepzibah.

  HEPZIBAH (For the tenth time): I’m tired.

  OUR LADY: I know, I know.

  HEPZIBAH: I’m willing to carry you as far and as fast as I can, but within reason.

  ST. JOSEPH: If you didn’t talk so much you’d have more strength for the journey.

  HEPZIBAH: It’s not my lungs that are tired, it’s my legs. When I talk I don’t notice how tired I am.

  OUR LADY: Do as you think best, Hepzibah, but do keep moving. I can still hear Herod’s soldiers behind us.

  (Noise of ironmongery in the wings, right.)

  HEPZIBAH: Well, I’m doing my best.

  (Silence. The Tigris passes on the cyclorama.)

  We must talk or I’ll have to halt. We talked over the Romans and the whole political situation, and I must say again that I and every thinking person can only view such a situation with alarm, with real alarm. We talked over the village, and I don’t think there’s anything more to say about that. Did I remember to tell you that Issachbar’s daughter’s engagement had been broken?

  OUR LADY: Yes.

  HEPZIBAH: Well, there’s always ideas. I hope I can say honestly that I am at home in ideas of all sorts. For instance, back in the yard I’m the leader of a group. Among the girls. Very interesting religious discussions, I can tell you. Very helpful.

  (As some more iron is heard falling in Judaea, the Euphrates passes.)

  ST. JOSEPH: Can’t you hurry a bit?

  HEPZIBAH: I always say to the girls: Girls, even in faith we are supposed to use our reason. No one is intended to swallow hook, line and sinker, as the saying is. Now take these children that Herod is killing. Why were they born, since they must die so soon? Can anyone answer that? Or put it another way: Why is the little boy in your arms being saved while the others must perish?

  ST. JOSEPH: Is it necessary to stop?

  HEPZIBAH: I was stopping for emphasis. —Mind you, it’s not that I doubt. Honest discussion does not imply doubt necessarily. —What was that noise?

  OUR LADY: I beg of you to make all the haste you can. The noise you hear is that of Herod’s soldiers. My child will be slain while you argue about Faith. I beg of you, Hepzibah, to save him while you can.

  HEPZIBAH: I assure you I’m doing the best I can, and I think I’m moving along smartly. I didn’t mean that noise, anyway; it was a noise ahead. Of course, your child is dearer to you than others, but theologically speaking, there’s no possible reason why you should escape safely into Egypt while the others should be put to the sword, as the Authorized Version has it. When the Messiah comes these things will be made clear, but until then I intend to exercise my reasoning faculty. My theory is this . . .

  OUR LADY: Hepzibah, we shall really have to beat you if you stop so often. Hepzibah, don’t you remember me? Don’t you remember how you fell on your knees in the stable? Don’t you remember my child?

  HEPZIBAH: What? What! Of course!

  OUR LADY: Yes, Hepzibah.

  HEPZIBAH: Let me stop just a moment and look around. No, I don’t dare stop. Why didn’t I recognize you before! Really, my lady, you should have spoken more sharply to me. I didn’t know I could run like this; it’s a pleasure. Lord, what a donkey I was to be arguing about reason while my Lord was in danger.

  (A pyramid flies by.)

  Do you see the lights of the town yet? That’s the Sphinx at the right, madam, yes, 3655 B.C. Well, well, it’s a queer world where the survival of the Lord is dependent up on donkeys, but so it is. Why didn’t you tell me before, my lady?

  ST. JOSEPH: We thought you could carry us forward on your own merit.

  HEPZIBAH: Oh, forgive me, madam; forgive me, sir. You don’t hear any more soldiers now, I warrant you. Please don’t direct me so far—excuse me—to the right, madam. That’s the Nile, and there are crocodiles. My lady, may I ask one question now that we’re safe?

  OUR LADY: Yes, Hepzibah.

  HEPZIBAH: It’s this matter of faith and reason, madam. I’d love to carry back to our group of girls whatever you might say about it . . .

  OUR LADY: Dear Hepzibah, perhaps some day. For the present just do as I do and bear your master on.

  (More pyramids fly by; Memnon sings; the Nile moves dreamily past, and the inn is reached.)

  END OF PLAY

  The Angel That Troubled the Waters

  CHARACTERS

  THE NEWCOMER, an invalid

  THE MISTAKEN INVALID

  THE ANGEL

  SETTING

  A great pool of water.

  The pool: a vast gray hall with a hole in the ceiling open to the sky. Broad stone steps lead up from the water on its four sides. The water is continuously restless and throws blue reflections upon the walls. The sick, the blind and the malformed are lying on the steps. The long stretches of silence and despair are broken from time to time when one or another groans and turns in his rags, or raises a fretful wail or a sudden cry of exasperation at long-continued pain. A door leads out upon the porch where the attendants of the sick are playing at dice, waiting for the call to fling their masters into the water when the angel of healing stirs the pool. Beyond the porch there is a glimpse of the fierce sunlight and the empty streets of an oriental noonday.

  Suddenly the Angel appears upon the top step. His face and robe shine with a color that is both silver and gold, and the wings of blue and green, tipped with rose, shimmer in the tremulous light. He walks slowly down among the shapeless sleepers and stands gazing into the water that already trembles in anticipation of its virtue.

  A new invalid enters.

  THE NEWCOMER: Come, long-expected love. Come, long-expected love. Let the sacred finger and the sacred breath stir up the pool. Here on the lowest step I wait with festering limbs, with my heart in pain. Free me, long-expected love, from this old burden. Since I cannot stay, since I must return into the city, come now, renewal, come, release.

  (Another invalid wakes suddenly out of a nightmare, calling: “The Angel! The Angel has come. I am cured.” He flings himself into the pool, splashing his companions. They come to life and gaze eagerly at the water. They hang over the brink and several slide in. Then a great cry of derision rises: “The fool! Fool! His nightmare again. Beat him! Drive him out into the porch.” The mistaken invalid and his dupes drag themselves out of the water and lie dripping disconsolately upon the steps.)

  THE MISTAKEN INVALID: I dreamt that an angel stood by me and that at last I should be free of this hateful place and its company. Better a mistake and this jeering than an opportunity lost.

  (He sees the Newcomer beside him and turns on him plaintively) Aïe! You have no right to be here, at all events. You are able to walk about. You pass your days in the city. You come here only at great intervals, and it may be that by some unlucky chance you might be the first one to see the sign. You would rush into the water and a cure would be wasted. You are yourself a physician. You have restored my own children. Go back to your work and leave these miracles to us who need them.

  THE NEWCOMER (Ignoring him; under his breath): My work grows faint. Heal me, long-expected love; heal me that I may continue. Renewal, release; let me begin again without this fault that bears me down.

  THE MISTAKEN INVALID: I shall sit here without ever lifting my eyes from the surface of the pool. I shall be the next. Many times, even since I have been here, many times the angel has passed and has stirred the water, and hundr
eds have left the hall leaping and crying out with joy. I shall be the next.

  (The Angel kneels down on the lowest step and meditatively holds his finger poised above the shuddering water.)

  THE ANGEL: Joy and fulfilment, completion, content, rest and release have been promised.

  THE NEWCOMER: Come, long-expected love.

  THE ANGEL (Without turning makes himself apparent to the Newcomer and addresses him): Draw back, physician, this moment is not for you.

  THE NEWCOMER: Angelic visitor, I pray thee, listen to my prayer.

  THE ANGEL: Healing is not for you.

  THE NEWCOMER: Surely, surely, the angels are wise. Surely, O prince, you are not deceived by my apparent wholeness. Your eyes can see the nets in which my wings are caught; the sin into which all my endeavors sink half performed cannot be concealed from you.

  THE ANGEL: I know.

  THE NEWCOMER: It is no shame to boast to an angel of what I might yet do in love’s service were I but freed from this bondage.

  THE MISTAKEN INVALID: Surely the water is stirring strangely today! Surely I shall be whole!

  THE ANGEL: I must make haste. Already the sky is afire with the gathering host, for it is the hour of the new song among us. The earth itself feels the preparation in the skies and attempts its hymns. Children born in this hour spend all their lives in a sharper longing for the perfection that awaits them.

  THE NEWCOMER: Oh, in such an hour was I born, and doubly fearful to me is the flaw in my heart. Must I drag my shame, prince and singer, all my days more bowed than my neighbor?

  THE ANGEL (Stands a moment in silence): Without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In love’s service only the wounded soldiers can serve. Draw back.

  (He swiftly kneels and draws his finger through the water. The pool is presently astir with running ripples. They increase and a divine wind strikes the gay surface. The waves are flung upon the steps. The Mistaken Invalid casts himself into the pool, and the whole company lurches, rolls or hobbles in. The servants rush in from the porch. Turmoil. Finally the no-longer Mistaken Invalid emerges and leaps joyfully up the steps. The rest, coughing and sighing, follow him. The Angel smiles for a moment and disappears.)

  THE HEALED MAN: Look, my hand is new as a child’s. Glory be to God! I have begun again.

  (To the Newcomer) May you be the next, my brother. But come with me first, an hour only, to my home. My son is lost in dark thoughts. I—I do not understand him, and only you have ever lifted his mood. Only an hour . . . my daughter, since her child has died, sits in the shadow. She will not listen to us . . .

  END OF PLAY

  The Marriage We Deplore

  THIS PLAY, appearing here for the first time, is dated “June 10, [19]17,” in author’s hand, when Wilder was a Yale sophomore. In his drama, Wilder always worked most comfortably within self-imposed parameters of idea and structure. Here he plays with drawing room comedy, class structure and a “five-minute/five-person” design. The first two themes reoccur many times throughout his career, notably in The Matchmaker (1954), and in his last novel Theophilus North (1973).

  The Marriage We Deplore

  CHARACTERS

  EVA, an aristocrat, fifty

  CHARLES, her second husband

  JULIA, Eva’s daughter, twenty-five

  GEORGE, Eva’s son, Julia’s brother

  PHYLLIS, George’s wife

  SETTING

  Living room of Mrs. Eva Hibbert-Havens, Boston.

  At the rise of the curtain Eva Hibbert-Havens is seated, dressed for dinner, in a beautiful chair from which she does not rise until the close of the play. She is a stout aristocratic lady, assertive but illogical. In short, a Boston grande dame. She calls to her second husband who passes in the hall:

  EVA: Charles! Come in, please.

  CHARLES (Offstage, reluctantly): I could wait in the den, dear, until they come.

  EVA (Firmly): Well, please sit down just for a minute.

  (Charles Havens comes in. He is an absentminded, slightly apologetic man in a tuxedo.)

  I haven’t told Daughter yet just who the guests are. I told her to dress for dinner quietly and she’d find out later who they were.

  CHARLES (Indifferently): Surely it wouldn’t hurt her to say that her brother is coming to dinner.

  EVA (Severely): Her brother, and her brother’s wife.

  CHARLES (Mildly): Yes, her brother’s wife. Her sister, so to speak.

  EVA: Well, if I had told Daughter that! —And I want her to look especially well tonight. (Forcefully) To contrast with the rouge and tinsel of her “sister.”

  CHARLES (In surprised protest): But George’s wife won’t wear rouge and tinsel.

  EVA: How do we know what George’s wife won’t wear? Where did he find her, I’d like to know? In a station lunchroom, very likely. In a prize shooting gallery.

  CHARLES (Amusedly): In a circus, perhaps.

  EVA (With indignation): I mean that my son, George Hibbert Junior, of the Boston Hibberts, married miles beneath him.

  CHARLES (Absentmindedly): Was that her name?

  EVA: As you say, he may have married a trapeze artiste.

  CHARLES (Prosaically): My dear, you’re always reminding me that you married beneath you when you married me. Why blame George for doing what you have found fairly satisfactory?

  EVA: I blame George because he is a young man with still some prestige to make. When I married you I had been for eight years the widow of the most distinguished citizen of Boston. I could have married someone much lower than my husband’s assistant manager, and still faced the world.

  CHARLES (Gently): My dear, I was not your husband’s assistant manager. I was his foreman.

  EVA: Foreman, never. I used to see you sign his checks for him. I married my husband’s sub-manager; George has married his landlady’s furnace-shaker.

  CHARLES (Shaking his head): He has dragged the name of Hibbert in the coal bin.

  (Enter Daughter in evening dress. A beautiful girl of twenty-five is Julia Hibbert-Havens. She is strong-minded and so has naturally found with such a mother that concealment is the best policy. We know her to be excitingly tricky, so we are able to appreciate that her demureness in the presence of her mother is a trifle exaggerated.)

  JULIA: Well, Mother, who are these secret guests we’re having tonight?

  EVA: Who, indeed!

  CHARLES: It’s your brother George.

  JULIA: And his bride?

  EVA: Yes, his acquirement. He holds an indignation meeting against me for two years because I married your present father, and then he marries a Nobody and breaks the silence by inviting himself to dinner.

  JULIA: Who was she?

  EVA: No one seems to know; a boardinghouse girl; someone says, a waitress in a station lunchroom—

  CHARLES: —You said so yourself.

  EVA: Perhaps the proprietress of a shooting gallery—

  CHARLES: —That was your guess.

  EVA: Don’t interrupt! And Charles heard that she was from a circus.

  CHARLES: I didn’t hear, I guessed.

  EVA: Well, take your choice. Those are the rumors. George has married beneath him. It’s a wonder the church allows it. Every debutante marries her chauffeur; her brother marries her lady’s maid. It is a national danger. If everybody married beneath them where should we be, I’d like to know. It is the peril that lurks for democratic nations. It shows a nationwide admiration for the lower classes that is deplorable. That’s what George said in his terrible letter after I had married a second time. Such names he called me! It was like Forbes-Robertson talking to his mother in Hamlet.*

  CHARLES (Vaguely): Ah . . . is there a situation like that in Hamlet? (He wanders to the bookcase)

  EVA (With alarm): No, there is not . .
. not the slightest.

  JULIA: What does it matter?

  EVA (Anxiously): Do let us be frank with one another. You don’t realize how difficult this is for me. What are you doing, Charles? You’re not listening to me.

  CHARLES: Oh, yes I was. I was seeing if I could find Hamlet.

  EVA: Julia, I want you to burn every copy of Hamlet there is in the house.

  JULIA: It’ll spoil the sets, Mother.

  EVA: There are more important things than preserving sets.

  JULIA: Not in Boston.

  EVA: What was I saying, Charles?

  CHARLES: You wanted us to be frank with one another. My dear, I’ve been frank. I understand perfectly that your son was angry with you when you married me. I wrote him that I did not pretend to be more than a plain ordinary man.

  JULIA: Mother, it’s you that are not being frank.

  EVA (Crying): Haven’t I told you that she was a station restaurant waitress?

  CHARLES (Pained): Dear me! What an affliction!

  JULIA: All the better. Then he’s in a glass house; and won’t dare to throw stones at you anymore.

  EVA: It’s not that I mind. I’d like to give him a good talking to, myself. It’s because I’m in a glass house.

  CHARLES (Gently): My dear, seeing that this doesn’t concern me, may I retire to my den until your son arrives? (He is unnoticed)

  JULIA: Now there’ll be peace in the family. No more mutual recriminations; everybody wears muzzles—in fact, they’ve married muzzles.

  CHARLES: I daresay he’s timorous about coming to see you now.

  EVA (Sharply): Not at all! There’s always you as a precedent.

  CHARLES (Cowed): Dear me! So there is, so there is. There’s the doorbell now.

  EVA: Now don’t anyone be tactless.

  JULIA: Don’t anyone mention boardinghouses or glass houses, or anything that might cause self-consciousness.

  CHARLES: Am I to stay in the room all the time?

  EVA: Yes; they are not to think I have any regrets. —I shall soon find out which rumor was correct.