Plays - Susan Glaspell
HOLDEN: I never saw this country as lovely as it is to-day. Mary is just
drinking it in.
AUNT ISABEL: You don't think the further ride will be too much?
HOLDEN: Oh, no--not in that car.
AUNT ISABEL: Then we'll go on--perhaps as far as Laughing Creek. If you
two decide on a tramp--take that road and we'll pick you up. (_smiling
warmly, she goes out_)
HOLDEN: How good she is.
MADELINE: Yes. That's just the trouble.
HOLDEN: (_with difficulty getting past this_) How about a little tramp?
There'll never be another such day.
MADELINE: I used to tramp with Fred Jordan. This is where he is now.
(_stepping inside the cell_) He doesn't even see out.
HOLDEN: It's all wrong that he should be where he is. But for you to
stay indoors won't help him, Madeline.
MADELINE: It won't help him, but--today--I can't go out.
HOLDEN: I'm sorry, my child. When this sense of wrongs done first comes
down upon one, it does crush.
MADELINE: And later you get used to it and don't care.
HOLDEN: You care. You try not to destroy yourself needlessly. (_he turns
from her look_)
MADELINE: Play safe.
HOLDEN: If it's playing safe it's that one you love more than yourself
be safe. It would be a luxury to--destroy one's self.
MADELINE: That sounds like Uncle Felix. (_seeing she has hurt him, she
goes over and sits across from him at the table_) I'm sorry. I say the
wrong things today.
HOLDEN: I don't know that you do.
MADELINE: But isn't uncle funny? His left mind doesn't know what his
right mind is doing. He has to think of himself as a person of
sentiment--idealism, and--quite a job, at times. Clever--how he gets
away with it. The war must have been a godsend to people who were in
danger of getting on to themselves. But I should think you could fool
all of yourself all the time.
HOLDEN: You don't. (_he is rubbing his hand on the table_)
MADELINE: Grandfather Morton made this table. I suppose he and
Grandfather Fejevary used to sit here and talk--they were great old
pals. (_slowly_ HOLDEN _turns and looks out at the hill_) Yes. How
beautiful the hill must have been--before there was a college there.
(_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, 'God damn 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 pass.
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 passes 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.
Something from long ago. Rare. Why can't Uncle Felix talk about her? Why
can't you? Wouldn't she want me to know her? Tell me about her. It's my
birthday and I need my mother.
IRA: (_as if afraid he is going to do it_) How can you touch--what
you've not touched in nineteen years? Just once--in nineteen years--and
that did no good.
MADELINE: Try. Even though it hurts. Didn't you use to talk to her?
Well, I'm her daughter. Talk to me. What has she to do with Emil
Johnson?
IRA: (_the pent-up thing loosed_) What has she to do with him? She died
so he could live. He lives because she's dead, (_in anguish_) And what
is _he_ alongside her? Yes. Something from far away. Something from long
ago. Rare. How'd you know that? Finding in me--what I didn't know was
there. Then _she_ came--that ignorant Swede--Emil Johnson's
mother--running through the cornfield like a crazy woman--'Miss Morton!
Miss Morton! Come help me! My children are choking!' Diphtheria they
had--the whole of 'em--but out of this house she ran--my Madeline,
leaving you--her own baby--running as fast as she could through the
cornfield after that immigrant woman. She stumbled in the rough
field--fell to her knees. That was the last I saw of her. She choked to
death in that Swede's house. They lived.
MADELINE: (_going to him_) Oh--father, (_voice rich_) But how lovely of
her.
IRA: Lovely? Lovely to leave you without a mother--leave me without her
after I'd had her? Wasn't she worth more than them.
MADELINE: (_proudly_) Yes. She was worth so much that she never stopped
to think how much she was worth.
IRA: Ah, if you'd known her you couldn't take it like that. And now you
cry about the world! That's what the world is--all coming to nothing. My
father used to sit there at the table and talk about the world--my
father and her father. They thought 'twas all for something--that what
you were went on into something more than you. That's the talk I always
heard in this house. But it's just talk. The rare thing that came here
was killed by the common thing that came here. Just happens--and happens
cruel. Look at your brother! Gone--(_snaps his fingers_) like that. I
told him not to go to war. He didn't have to go--they'd been glad enough
to have him stay here on the farm. But no,--he must--make the world safe
for democracy! Well, you see how safe he made it, don't you? Now I'm
alone on the farm and he--buried on some Frenchman's farm. That is, I
hope they buried him--I hope they didn't just--(_tormented_)
MADELINE: Oh, father--of course not. I know they did.
IRA: How do you know? What do you care--once they got him? _He_ talked
about the world--better world--end war. Now he's in his grave--I hope he
is--and look at the front page of the paper! No such thing--war to end
war!
MADELINE: But he thought there was, father. Fred believed that--so what
else could he do?
IRA: He could 'a' minded his own business.
MADELINE: No--oh, no. It was fine of him to give his life to what he
believed should be.
IRA: The light in his eyes as he talked of it, now--eyes gone--and the
world he died for all hate and war. Waste. Waste. Nothin' but waste--the
life of this house. Why, folks to-day'd laugh to hear my father talk. He
gave his best land for ideas to live. Thought was going to make us a
better people. What was his word? (_waits_) Aspiration. (_says it as if
it is a far-off thing_) Well, look at your friend, young Jordan. Kicked
from the college to prison for ideas of a better world. (_laughs_) His
'aspiration' puts him in a hole on bread and water! So--mind your own
business, that's all that's so in this country. (_constantly tormented
anew_) Oh, I told your brother all that--the night I tried to keep him.
Told him about his mother--to show what come of running to other folks.
And he said--standing right there--(_pointing_) eyes all bright, he
said, 'Golly, I think that's great!' And then _he_--walked out of this
house. (_fear takes him_) Madeline! (_she stoops over him, her arm
around him_) Don't you leave me--all alone in this house--where so many
was once. What's Hindus--alongside your own father--and him needing you?
It won't be long. After a little I'll be dead--or crazy--or something.
But not here alone where so many was once.
MADELINE: Oh--father. I don't know what to do.
IRA: Nothing stays at home. Not even the corn stays at home. If only the
wind wouldn't blow! Why can't I have my field to myself? Why can't I
keep what's mine? All these years I've worked to make it better. I
wanted it to be--the most that it could be. My father used to talk about
the Indians--how our land was their land, and how we must be more than
them. He had his own ideas of bein' more--well, what's that come to? The
Indians lived happier than we--wars, strikes, prisons. But I've made the
corn more! This land that was once Indian maize now grows corn--I'd like
to have the Indians see my corn! I'd like to see them side by
side!--their Indian maize, my corn. And how'd I get it? Ah, by
thinkin'--always tryin', changin', carin'. Plant this corn by that corn,
and the pollen blows from corn to corn--the golden dust it blows, in the
sunshine and of nights--blows from corn to corn like a--(_the word
hurts_) gift. No, you don't understand it, but (_proudly_) corn don't
stay what it is! You can make it anything--according to what you do,
'cording to the corn it's alongside. (_changing_) But that's it. I want
it to stay in my field. It goes away. The prevailin' wind takes it on to
the Johnsons--them Swedes that took my Madeline! I hear it! Oh, nights
when I can't help myself--and in the sunshine I can see it--pollen--soft
golden dust to make new life--goin' on to _them_,--and them too ignorant
to know what's makin' their corn better! I want my field to myself.
What'd I work all my life for? Work that's had to take the place o' what
I lost--is that to go to Emil Johnson? No! The wind shall stand still!
I'll make it. I'll find a way. Let me alone and I--I'll think it out.
Let me alone, I say.
(_A mind burned to one idea, with greedy haste he shuts himself in the
room at left_. MADELINE _has been standing there as if mist is parting
and letting her see. And as the vision grows power grows in her. She is
thus flooded with richer life when her_ AUNT _and Professor_ HOLDEN
_come back. Feeling something new, for a moment they do not speak_.)
AUNT ISABEL: Ready, dear? It's time for us to go now.
MADELINE: (_with the quiet of plentitude_) I'm going in with Emil
Johnson.
AUNT ISABEL: Why--Madeline. (_falteringly_) We thought you'd go with us.
MADELINE: No. I have to be--the most I can be. I want the wind to have
something to carry.
AUNT ISABEL: (_after a look at Professor_ HOLDEN, _who is looking
intensely at_ MADELINE) I don't understand.
MADELINE: The world is all a--moving field. (_her hands move, voice too
is of a moving field_) Nothing is to itself. If America thinks
so--America is like father. I don't feel alone any more. The wind has
come through--wind rich from lives now gone. Grandfather Fejevary, gift
from a field far off. Silas Morton. No, not alone any more. And afraid?
I'm not even afraid of being absurd!
AUNT ISABEL: But Madeline--you're leaving your father?
MADELINE: (_after thinking it out_) I'm not leaving--what's greater in
him than he knows.
AUNT ISABEL: You're leaving Morton College?
MADELINE: That runt on a high hill? Yes, I'm leaving grandfather's
college--then maybe I can one day lie under the same sod with him, and
not be ashamed. Though I must tell you (_a little laugh_) under the sod
is my idea of no place to be. I want to be a long time--where the wind
blows.
AUNT ISABEL: (_who is trying not to cry_) I'm afraid it won't blow in
prison, dear.
MADELINE: I don't know. Might be the only place it would blow. (EMIL
_passes the window, hesitates at the door_) I'll be ready in just a
moment, Emil.
(_He waits outside_.)
AUNT ISABEL: Madeline, I didn't tell you--I hoped it wouldn't be
necessary, but your uncle said--if you refused to do it his way, he
could do absolutely nothing for you, not even--bail.
MADELINE: Of course not. I wouldn't expect him to.
AUNT ISABEL: He feels so deeply about these things--America--loyalty, he
said if you didn't come with us it would be final, Madeline.
Even--(_breaks_) between you and me.
MADELINE: I'm sorry, auntie. You know how I love you. (_and her voice
tells it_) But father has been telling me about the corn. It gives
itself away all the time--the best corn a gift to other corn. What you
are--that doesn't stay with you. Then--(_not with assurance, but feeling
her way_) be the most you can be, so life will be more because you were.
(_freed by the truth she has found_) Oh--do that! Why do we three go
apart? Professor Holden, his beautiful trained mind; Aunt Isabel--her
beautiful love, love that could save the world if only you'd--throw it
to the winds. (_moving nearer_ HOLDEN, _hands out to him_) Why
do--(_seeing it is not to be, she turns away. Low, with sorrow for that
great beauty lost_) Oh, have we brought mind, have we brought heart, up
to this place--only to turn them against mind and heart?
HOLDEN: (_unable to bear more_) I think we--must go. (_going to_
MADELINE, _holding out his hand and speaking from his sterile life to
her fullness of life_) Good-bye, Madeline. Good luck.
MADELINE: Good-bye, Professor Holden. (_hesitates_) Luck to you.
(_Shaking his head, stooped, he hurries out_.)
MADELINE: (_after a moment when neither can speak_) Good-bye--auntie
dearest. Thank you--for the birthday present--the cake--everything.
Everything--all the years.
(_There is something_ AUNT ISABEL _would say, but she can only hold
tight to_ MADELINE_'s hands. At last, with a smile that speaks for love,
a little nod, she goes_. EMIL _comes in_.)
EMIL: You better go with them, Madeline. It'd make it better for you.
MADELINE: Oh no, it wouldn't. I'll be with you in an instant, Emil. I
want to--say good-bye to my father.
(_But she waits before that door, a door hard to go through. Alone_,
EMIL _looks around the room. Sees the bag of corn, takes a couple of
ears and is looking at them as_ MADELINE _returns. She remains by the
door, shaken with sobs, turns, as if pulled back to the pain she has
left_.)
EMIL: Gee. This is great corn.
MADELINE: (_turning now to him_) It is, isn't it, Emil?
EMIL: None like it.
MADELINE: And you say--your corn is getting better?
EMIL: Oh, yes--I raise better corn every year now.
MADELINE: (_low_) That's nice. I'll be right out, Emil.
(_He puts the corn back, goes out. From the closet_ MADELINE _takes her
hat and wrap. Putting them on, she sees the tennis racket on the table.
She goes to it, takes it up, holds it a moment, then takes it to the
closet, puts it carefully away, closes the door behind it. A moment she
stands there in the room, as if listening to something. Then she leaves
that house_.)
CURTAIN