Plays by Susan Glaspell Part 49

(_he looks away from the hill_) Did you know Grandfather Morton?

HOLDEN: Yes, I knew him. (_speaking of it against his will_) I had a wonderful talk with him once; about Greece--and the cornfields, and life.

MADELINE: I'd like to have been a pioneer! Some ways they had it fierce, but think of the fun they had! A whole big land to open up! A big new life to begin! (_her hands closing in from wideness to a smaller thing_) Why did so much get shut out? Just a little way back--anything might have been. What happened?

HOLDEN: (_speaking with difficulty_) It got--set too soon.

MADELINE: (_all of her mind open, trying to know_) And why did it?

Prosperous, I suppose. That seems to set things--set them in fear. Silas Morton wasn't afraid of Felix Fejevary, the Hungarian revolutionist. He laid this country at that refugee's feet! That's what Uncle Felix says himself--with the left half of his mind. Now--the Hindu revolutionists--! (_pause_) I took a walk late yesterday afternoon.

Night came, and for some reason I thought of how many nights have come--nights the earth has known long before we knew the earth. The moon came up and I thought of how moonlight made this country beautiful before any man knew that moonlight was beautiful. It gave me a feeling of coming from something a long way back. Moving toward--what will be here when I'm not here. Moving. We seem here, now, in America, to have forgotten we're moving. Think it's just _us_--just now. Of course, that would make us afraid, and--ridiculous.

(_Her father comes in_.)

IRA: Your Aunt Isabel--did she go away--and leave you?

MADELINE: She's coming back.

IRA: For you?

MADELINE: She--wants me to go with her. This is Professor Holden, father.

HOLDEN: How do you do, Mr Morton?

IRA: (_nods, not noticing_ HOLDEN_'s offered hand_) How'do. When is she coming back?

MADELINE: Soon.

IRA: And then you're going with her?

MADELINE: I--don't know.

IRA: I say you go with her. You want them all to come down on us? (_to_ HOLDEN) What are you here for?

MADELINE: Aunt Isabel brought Professor Holden, father.

IRA: Oh. Then you--you tell her what to do. You make her do it. (_he goes into the room at left_)

MADELINE: (_sadly, after a silence_) Father's like something touched by an early frost.

HOLDEN: Yes. (_seeing his opening and forcing himself to take it_) But do you know, Madeline, there are other ways of that happening--'touched by an early frost'. I've seen it happen to people I know--people of fine and daring mind. They do a thing that puts them apart--it may be the big, brave thing--but the apartness does something to them. I've seen it many times--so many times--so many times, I fear for you. You do this thing and you'll find yourself with people who in many ways you don't care for at all; find yourself apart from people who in most ways are your own people. You're many-sided, Madeline. (_moves her tennis racket_) I don't know about it's all going to one side. I hate to see you, so young, close a door on so much life. I'm being just as honest with you as I know how. I myself am making compromises to stay within. I don't like it, but there are--reasons for doing it. I can't see you leave that main body without telling you all it is you are leaving. It's not a clean-cut case--the side of the world or the side of the angels. I hate to see you lose the--fullness of life.

MADELINE: (_a slight start, as she realizes the pause. As one recalled from far_) I'm sorry. I was listening to what you were saying--but all the time--something else was happening. Grandfather Morton, big and--oh, terrible. He was here. And we went to that walled-up hole in the ground--(_rising and pointing down at the chalked cell_)--where they keep Fred Jordan on bread and water because he couldn't be a part of nations of men killing each other--and Silas Morton--only he was all that is back of us, tore open that cell--it was his voice tore it open--his voice as he cried, 'G.o.d d.a.m.n you, this is America!' (_sitting down, as if rallying from a tremendous experience_) I'm sorry--it should have happened, while you were speaking. Won't you--go on?

HOLDEN: That's a pretty hard thing to go on against. (_after a moment_) I can't go on.

MADELINE: You were thinking of leaving the college, and then--decided to stay? (_he nods_) And you feel there's more--fullness of life for you inside the college than outside?

HOLDEN: No--not exactly. (_again a pause_) It's very hard for me to talk to you.

MADELINE: (_gently_) Perhaps we needn't do it.

HOLDEN: (_something in him forcing him to say it_) I'm staying for financial reasons.

MADELINE: (_kind, but not going to let the truth get away_) You don't think that--having to stay within--or deciding to, rather, makes you think these things of the--blight of being without?

HOLDEN: I think there is danger to you in--so young, becoming alien to society.

MADELINE: As great as the danger of staying within--and becoming like the thing I'm within?

HOLDEN: You wouldn't become like it.

MADELINE: Why wouldn't I? That's what it does to the rest of you. I don't see it--this fullness of life business. I don't see that Uncle Felix has got it--or even Aunt Isabel, and you--I think that in buying it you're losing it.

HOLDEN: I don't think you know what a cruel thing you are saying.

MADELINE: There must be something pretty rotten about Morton College if you have to sell your soul to stay in it!

HOLDEN: You don't 'sell your soul'. You persuade yourself to wait.

MADELINE: (_unable to look at him, as if feeling shame_) You have had a talk with Uncle Felix since that day in the library you stepped aside for me to pa.s.s.

HOLDEN: Yes; and with my wife's physician. If you sell your soul--it's to love you sell it.

MADELINE: (_low_) That's strange. It's love that--brings life along, and then it's love--holds life back.

HOLDEN: (_and all the time with this effort against hopelessness_) Leaving me out of it, I'd like to see you give yourself a little more chance for detachment. You need a better intellectual equipment if you're going to fight the world you find yourself in. I think you will count for more if you wait, and when you strike, strike more maturely.

MADELINE: Detachment. (_pause_) This is one thing they do at this place.

(_she moves to the open door_) Chain them up to the bars--just like this. (_in the doorway where her two grandfathers once pledged faith with the dreams of a million years, she raises clasped hands as high as they will go_) Eight hours a day--day after day. Just hold your arms up like this one hour then sit down and think about--(_as if tortured by all who have been so tortured, her body begins to give with sobs, arms drop, the last word is a sob_) detachment.

HOLDEN _is standing helplessly by when her father comes in_.

IRA: (_wildly_) Don't cry. No! Not in this house! I can't--Your aunt and uncle will fix it up. The law won't take you this time--and you won't do it again.

MADELINE: Oh, what does _that_ matter--what they do to _me_?

IRA: What are you crying about then?

MADELINE: It's--the _world_. It's--

IRA: The _world_? If that's all you've got to cry about! (_to_ HOLDEN) Tell her that's nothing to cry about. What's the matter with you.

Mad'line? That's crazy--cryin' about the world! What good has ever come to this house through carin' about the world? What good's that college?

Better we had that hill. Why is there no one in this house to-day but me and you? Where's your mother? Where's your brother? The _world_.

HOLDEN: I think your father would like to talk to you. I'll go outside--walk a little, and come back for you with your aunt. You must let us see you through this, Madeline. You couldn't bear the things it would bring you to. I see that now. (_as he pa.s.ses her in the doorway his hand rests an instant on her bent head_) You're worth too much to break.

IRA: (_turning away_) I don't want to talk to you. What good comes of talking? (_In moving, he has stepped near the sack of corn. Takes hold of it_.) But not with Emil Johnson! That's not--what your mother died for.

MADELINE: Father, you must talk to me. What did my mother die for? No one has ever told me about her--except that she was beautiful--not like other people here. I got a feeling of--something from far away.