Plays by Susan Glaspell Part 21

TOM: I know. I know about you.

CLAIRE: I don't know that you do. Perhaps if you really knew about me--you wouldn't go away.

TOM: You're making me suffer, Claire.

CLAIRE: I know I am. I want to. Why shouldn't you suffer? (_now seeing it more clearly than she has ever seen it_) You know what I think about you? You're afraid of suffering, and so you stop this side--in what you persuade yourself is suffering, (_waits, then sends it straight_) You know--how it is--with me and d.i.c.k? (_as she sees him suffer_) Oh, no, I don't want to hurt you! Let it be you! I'll teach you--you needn't scorn it. It's rather wonderful.

TOM: Stop that, Claire! That isn't you.

CLAIRE: Why are you so afraid--of letting me be low--if that is low? You see--(_cannily_) I believe in beauty. I have the faith that can be bad as well as good. And you know why I have the faith? Because sometimes--from my lowest moments--beauty has opened as the sea. From a cave I saw immensity.

My love, you're going away-- Let me tell you how it is with me; I want to touch you--somehow touch you once before I die-- Let me tell you how it is with me.

I do not want to work, I want to be; Do not want to make a rose or make a poem-- Want to lie upon the earth and know. (_closes her eyes_) Stop doing that!--words going into patterns; They do it sometimes when I let come what's there.

Thoughts take pattern--then the pattern is the thing.

But let me tell you how it is with me. (_it flows again_) All that I do or say--it is to what it comes from, A drop lifted from the sea.

I want to lie upon the earth and know.

But--scratch a little dirt and make a flower; Scratch a bit of brain--something like a poem. (_covering her face_) Stop _doing_ that. Help me stop doing that!

TOM: (_and from the place where she had carried him_) Don't talk at all. Lie still and know-- And know that I am knowing.

CLAIRE: Yes; but we are so weak we have to talk; To talk--to touch.

Why can't I rest in knowing I would give my life to reach you?

That has--all there is.

But I must--put my timid hands upon you, Do something about infinity.

Oh, let what will flow into us, And fill us full--and leave us still.

Wring me dry, And let me fill again with life more pure.

To know--to feel, And do nothing with what I feel and know-- That's being good. That's nearer G.o.d.

(_drenched in the feeling that has flowed through her--but surprised--helpless_) Why, I said your thing, didn't I? Opened my life to bring you to me, and what came--is what sends you away.

TOM: No! What came is what holds us together. What came is what saves us from ever going apart. (_brokenly_) My beautiful one. You--you brave flower of all our knowing.

CLAIRE: I am not a flower. I am too torn. If you have anything--help me.

Breathe, Breathe the healing oneness, and let me know in calm. (_with a sob his head rests upon her_)

CLAIRE: (_her hands on his head, but looking far_) Beauty--you pure one thing. Breathe--Let me know in calm. Then--trouble me, trouble me, for other moments--in farther calm. (_slow, motionless, barely articulate_)

TOM: (_as she does not move he lifts his head. And even as he looks at her, she does not move, nor look at him_) Claire--(_his hand out to her, a little afraid_) You went away from me then. You are away from me now.

CLAIRE: Yes, and I could go on. But I will come back, (_it is hard to do. She brings much with her_) That, too, I will give you--my by-myself-ness. That's the uttermost I can give. I never thought--to try to give it. But let us do it--the great sacrilege! Yes! (_excited, she rises; she has his hands, and bring him up beside her_) Let us take the mad chance! Perhaps it's the only way to save--what's there. How do we know? How can we know? Risk. Risk everything. From all that flows into us, let it rise! All that we never thought to use to make a moment--let it flow into what could be! Bring all into life between us--or send all down to death! Oh, do you know what I am doing? Risk, risk everything, why are you so afraid to lose? What holds you from me? Test all. Let it live or let it die. It is our chance--our chance to bear--what's there.

My dear one--I will love you so. With all of me. I am not afraid now--of--all of me. Be generous. Be unafraid. Life is for _life_--though it cuts us from the farthest life. How can I make you know that's true?

All that we're open to--(_hesitates, shudders_) But yes--I will, I will risk the life that waits. Perhaps only he who gives his loneliness--shall find. You never keep by holding, (_gesture of giving_) To the uttermost. And it is gone--or it is there. You do not know and--that makes the moment--(_music has begun--a phonograph downstairs; they do not heed it_) Just as I would cut my wrists--(_holding them out_) Yes, perhaps this lesser thing will tell it--would cut my wrists and let the blood flow out till all is gone if my last drop would make--would make--(_looking at them fascinated_) I want to see it doing that! Let me give my last chance for life to--

(_He s.n.a.t.c.hes her--they are on the brink of their moment; now that there are no words the phonograph from downstairs is louder. It is playing languorously the Barcarole; they become conscious of this--they do not want to be touched by the love song._)

CLAIRE: Don't listen. That's nothing. This isn't that, (_fearing_) I tell you--it isn't that. Yes, I know--that's amorous--enclosing. I know--a little place. This isn't that, (_her arms going around him--all the lure of 'that' while she pleads against it as it comes up to them_) We will come out--to radiance--in far places (_admitting, using_) Oh, then let it be that! Go with it. Give up--the otherness. I will! And in the giving up--perhaps a door--we'd never find by searching. And if it's no more--than all have known, I only say it's worth the allness! (_her arms wrapped round him_) My love--my love--let go your pride in loneliness and let me give you joy!

TOM: (_drenched in her pa.s.sion, but fighting_) It's _you_. (_in anguish_) You rare thing untouched--not--not into this--not back into this--by me--lover of your apartness.

(_She steps back. She sees he cannot. She stands there, before what she wanted more than life, and almost had, and lost. A long moment. Then she runs down the stairs._)

CLAIRE: (_her voice coming up_) Harry! Choke that phonograph! If you want to be lewd--do it yourselves! You tawdry things--you cheap little lewd cowards, (_a door heard opening below_) Harry! If you don't stop that music, I'll kill myself.

(_far down, steps on stairs_)

HARRY: Claire, what _is_ this?

CLAIRE: Stop that phonograph or I'll--

HARRY: Why, of course I'll stop it. What--what is there to get so excited about? Now--now just a minute, dear. It'll take a minute.

(CLAIRE _comes back upstairs, dragging steps, face ghastly. The amorous song still comes up, and louder now that doors are open. She and_ TOM _do not look at one another. Then, on a languorous swell the music comes to a grating stop. They do not speak or move. Quick footsteps_--HARRY _comes up_.)

HARRY: What in the world were you saying, Claire? Certainly you could have asked me more quietly to turn off the Victrola. Though what harm was it doing you--way up here? (_a sharp little sound from_ CLAIRE; _she checks it, her hand over her mouth_. HARRY _looks from her to_ TOM) Well, I think you two would better have had your dinner. Won't you come down now and have some?

CLAIRE: (_only now taking her hand from her mouth_) Harry, tell him to come up here--that insanity man. I--want to ask him something.

HARRY: 'Insanity man!' How absurd. He's a nerve specialist. There's a vast difference.

CLAIRE: Is there? Anyway, ask him to come up here. Want to--ask him something.

TOM: (_speaking with difficulty_) Wouldn't it be better for us to go down there?

CLAIRE: No. So nice up here! Everybody--up here!

HARRY: (_worried_) You'll--be yourself, will you, Claire? (_She checks a laugh, nods_.) I think he can help you.

CLAIRE: Want to ask him to--help me.

HARRY: (_as he is starting down_) He's here as a guest to-night, you know, Claire.

CLAIRE: I suppose a guest can--help one.

TOM: (_when the silence rejects it_) Claire, you must know, it's because it is so much, so--

CLAIRE: Be still. There isn't anything to say.

TOM: (_torn--tortured_) If it only weren't _you_!

CLAIRE: Yes,--so you said. If it weren't. I suppose I wouldn't be so--interested! (_hears them starting up below--keeps looking at the place where they will appear_)

(HARRY _is heard to call_, 'Coming, d.i.c.k?' _and_ d.i.c.k's _voice replies_, 'In a moment or two.' ADELAIDE _comes first_.)

ADELAIDE: (_as her head appears_) Well, these stairs should keep down weight. You missed an awfully good dinner, Claire. And kept Mr Edgeworth from a good dinner.

CLAIRE: Yes. We missed our dinner. (_her eyes do not leave the place where_ DR EMMONS _will come up_)

HARRY: (_as he and_ EMMONS _appear_) Claire, this is--