Plays - Susan Glaspell
MRS PETERS: (_looking upstairs_) We mustn't--take on.
MRS HALE: I might have known she needed help! I know how things can
be--for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs Peters. We live close
together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things--it's
all just a different kind of the same thing, (_brushes her eyes,
noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for it_) If I was you, I
wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her it _ain't_. Tell her it's
all right. Take this in to prove it to her. She--she may never know
whether it was broke or not.
MRS PETERS: (_takes the bottle, looks about for something to wrap it in;
takes petticoat from the clothes brought from the other room, very
nervously begins winding this around the bottle. In a false voice_) My,
it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us. Wouldn't they just laugh!
Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a--dead canary. As if
that could have anything to do with--with--wouldn't they _laugh_!
(_The men are heard coming down stairs_.)
MRS HALE: (_under her breath_) Maybe they would--maybe they wouldn't.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: No, Peters, it's all perfectly clear except a reason
for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was
some definite thing. Something to show--something to make a story
about--a thing that would connect up with this strange way of doing it--
(_The women's eyes meet for an instant. Enter HALE from outer door_.)
HALE: Well, I've got the team around. Pretty cold out there.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: I'm going to stay here a while by myself, (_to the_
SHERIFF) You can send Frank out for me, can't you? I want to go over
everything. I'm not satisfied that we can't do better.
SHERIFF: Do you want to see what Mrs Peters is going to take in?
(_The_ LAWYER _goes to the table, picks up the apron, laughs_.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY: Oh, I guess they're not very dangerous things the
ladies have picked out. (_Moves a few things about, disturbing the quilt
pieces which cover the box. Steps back_) No, Mrs Peters doesn't need
supervising. For that matter, a sheriff's wife is married to the law.
Ever think of it that way, Mrs Peters?
MRS PETERS: Not--just that way.
SHERIFF: (_chuckling_) Married to the law. (_moves toward the other
room_) I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to
take a look at these windows.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_scoffingly_) Oh, windows!
SHERIFF: We'll be right out, Mr Hale.
(HALE _goes outside. The_ SHERIFF _follows the_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _into
the other room. Then_ MRS HALE _rises, hands tight together, looking
intensely at_ MRS PETERS, _whose eyes make a slow turn, finally meeting_
MRS HALE_'s. A moment_ MRS HALE _holds her, then her own eyes point the
way to where the box is concealed. Suddenly_ MRS PETERS _throws back
quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing. It is
too big. She opens box, starts to take bird out, cannot touch it, goes
to pieces, stands there helpless. Sound of a knob turning in the other
room_. MRS HALE _snatches the box and puts it in the pocket of her big
coat. Enter_ COUNTY ATTORNEY _and_ SHERIFF.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY: (_facetiously_) Well, Henry, at least we found out that
she was not going to quilt it. She was going to--what is it you call it,
ladies?
MRS HALE: (_her hand against her pocket_) We call it--knot it, Mr
Henderson.
(CURTAIN)
THE OUTSIDE
First performed by the Provincetown Players at the Playwrights' Theatre,
December 28, 1917.
CAPTAIN (of 'The Bars' Life-Saving Station)
BRADFORD (a Life-Saver)
TONY (a Portuguese Life-Saver)
MRS PATRICK (who lives in the abandoned Station)
ALLIE MAYO (who works for her)
SCENE: _A room in a house which was once a life-saving station. Since
ceasing to be that it has taken on no other character, except that of a
place which no one cares either to preserve or change. It is painted the
life-saving grey, but has not the life-saving freshness. This is one end
of what was the big boat room, and at the ceiling is seen a part of the
frame work from which the boat once swung. About two thirds of the back
wall is open, because of the big sliding door, of the type of barn door,
and through this open door are seen the sand dunes, and beyond them the
woods. At one point the line where woods and dunes meet stands out
clearly and there are indicated the rude things, vines, bushes, which
form the outer uneven rim of the woods--the only things that grow in the
sand. At another point a sand-hill is menacing the woods. This old
life-saving station is at a point where the sea curves, so through the
open door the sea also is seen. (The station is located on the outside
shore of Cape Cod, at the point, near the tip of the Cape, where it
makes that final curve which forms the Provincetown Harbor.) The dunes
are hills and strange forms of sand on which, in places, grows the stiff
beach grass--struggle; dogged growing against odds. At right of the big
sliding door is a drift of sand and the top of buried beach grass is
seen on this. There is a door left, and at right of big sliding door is
a slanting wall. Door in this is ajar at rise of curtain, and through
this door_ BRADFORD _and_ TONY, _life-savers, are seen bending over a
man's body, attempting to restore respiration. The captain of the
life-savers comes into view outside the big open door, at left; he
appears to have been hurrying, peers in, sees the men, goes quickly to
them._
CAPTAIN: I'll take this now, boys.
BRADFORD: No need for anybody to take it, Capt'n. He was dead when we
picked him up.
CAPTAIN: Dannie Sears was dead when we picked him up. But we brought him
back. I'll go on awhile.
(_The two men who have been bending over the body rise, stretch to
relax, and come into the room._)
BRADFORD: (_pushing back his arms and putting his hands on his chest_)
Work,--tryin to put life in the dead.
CAPTAIN: Where'd you find him, Joe?
BRADFORD: In front of this house. Not forty feet out.
CAPTAIN: What'd you bring him up here for?
(_He speaks in an abstracted way, as if the working part of his mind is
on something else, and in the muffled voice of one bending over._)
BRADFORD: (_with a sheepish little laugh_) Force of habit, I guess. We
brought so many of 'em back up here, (_looks around the room_) And then
it was kind of unfriendly down where he was--the wind spittin' the sea
onto you till he'd have no way of knowin' he was ashore.
TONY: Lucky I was not sooner or later as I walk by from my watch.
BRADFORD: You have accommodating ways, Tony. No sooner or later. I
wouldn't say it of many Portagees. But the sea (_calling it in to the_
CAPTAIN) is friendly as a kitten alongside the women that live _here_.
Allie Mayo--they're _both_ crazy--had that door open (_moving his head
toward the big sliding door_) sweepin' out, and when we come along she
backs off and stands lookin' at us, _lookin_'--Lord, I just wanted to
get him somewhere else. So I kicked this door open with my foot
(_jerking his hand toward the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is seen bending
over the man_) and got him _away. (under his voice_) If he did have any
notion of comin' back to life, he wouldn't a come if he'd seen her.
(_more genially_) I wouldn't.
CAPTAIN: You know who he is, Joe?
BRADFORD: I never saw him before.
CAPTAIN: Mitchell telephoned from High Head that a dory came ashore
there.
BRADFORD: Last night wasn't the _best_ night for a dory. (_to_ TONY,
_boastfully_) Not that I couldn't 'a' stayed in one. Some men can stay
in a dory and some can't. (_going to the inner door_) That boy's dead,
Capt'n.
CAPTAIN: Then I'm not doing him any harm.
BRADFORD: (_going over and shaking the frame where the boat once swung_)
This the first time you ever been in this place, ain't it, Tony?
TONY: I never was here before.
BRADFORD: Well, _I_ was here before. (_a laugh_) And the old
man--(_nodding toward the_ CAPTAIN) he lived here for twenty-seven
years. Lord, the things that happened _here_. There've been dead ones
carried through _that_ door. (_pointing to the outside door_) Lord--the
ones _I've_ carried. I carried in Bill Collins, and Lou Harvey and--huh!
'sall over now. You ain't seen no _wrecks_. Don't ever think you have. I
was here the night the Jennie Snow was out there. (_pointing to the
sea_) There was a _wreck_. We got the boat that stood here (_again
shaking the frame_) down that bank. (_goes to the door and looks out_)
Lord, how'd we ever do it? The sand has put his place on the blink all
right. And then when it gets too God-for-saken for a life-savin'
station, a lady takes it for a summer residence--and then spends the
winter. She's a cheerful one.
TONY: A woman--she makes things pretty. This not like a place where a
woman live. On the floor there is nothing--on the wall there is nothing.
Things--(_trying to express it with his hands_) do not hang on other
things.
BRADFORD: (_imitating_ TONY_'s gesture_) No--things do not hang on other
things. In my opinion the woman's crazy--sittin' over there on the
sand--(_a gesture towards the dunes_) what's she _lookin'_ at? There
ain't nothin' to _see_. And I know the woman that works for her's
crazy--Allie Mayo. She's a Provincetown girl. She was all right once,
but--
(MRS PATRICK _comes in from the hall at the right. She is a 'city
woman', a sophisticated person who has been caught into something as
unlike the old life as the dunes are unlike a meadow. At the moment she
is excited and angry_.)
MRS PATRICK: You have no right here. This isn't the life-saving station
any more. Just because it used to be--I don't see why you should
think--This is my house! And--I want my house to myself!
CAPTAIN: (_putting his head through the door. One arm of the man he is
working with is raised, and the hand reaches through the doorway_) Well
I must say, lady, I would think that any house could be a life-saving
station when the sea had sent a man to it.
MRS PATRICK: (_who has turned away so she cannot see the hand_) I don't
want him here! I--(_defiant, yet choking_) I must have my house to
myself!
CAPTAIN: You'll get your house to yourself when I've made up my mind
there's no more life in this man. A good many lives have been saved in
this house, Mrs Patrick--I believe that's your name--and if there's any
chance of bringing one more back from the dead, the fact that you own
the house ain't goin' to make a damn bit of difference to me!
MRS PATRICK: (_in a thin wild way_) I must have my house to myself.
CAPTAIN: Hell with such a woman!
(_Moves the man he is working with and slams the door shut. As the_
CAPTAIN _says, 'And if there's any chance of bringing one more back from
the dead_', ALLIE MAYO _has appeared outside the wide door which gives
on to the dunes, a bleak woman, who at first seems little more than a
part of the sand before which she stands. But as she listens to this
conflict one suspects in her that peculiar intensity of twisted things
which grow in unfavoring places_.)
MRS PATRICK: I--I don't want them here! I must--
(_But suddenly she retreats, and is gone_.)
BRADFORD: Well, I couldn't say, Allie Mayo, that you work for any too
kind-hearted a lady. What's the matter with the woman? Does she want
folks to die? Appears to break her all up to see somebody trying to save
a life. What d'you work for such a fish for? A crazy fish--that's what I
call the woman. I've seen her--day after day--settin' over there where
the dunes meet the woods, just sittin' there, lookin'. (_suddenly
thinking of it_) I believe she _likes_ to see the sand slippin' down on
the woods. Pleases her to see somethin' gettin' buried, I guess.
(ALLIE MAYO, _who has stepped inside the door and moved half across the
room, toward the corridor at the right, is arrested by this last--stands
a moment as if seeing through something, then slowly on, and out_.)
BRADFORD: Some coffee'd taste good. But coffee, in this house? Oh, no.
It might make somebody feel better. (_opening the door that was slammed
shut_) Want me now, Capt'n?
CAPTAIN: No.
BRADFORD: Oh, that boy's dead, Capt'n.
CAPTAIN: (_snarling_) Dannie Sears was dead, too. Shut that door. I
don't want to hear that woman's voice again, ever.
(_Closing the door and sitting on a bench built into that corner between
the big sliding door and the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is_.)
BRADFORD: They're a cheerful pair of women--livin' in this cheerful
place--a place that life savers had to turn over to the sand--huh! This
Patrick woman used to be all right. She and her husband was summer folks
over in town. They used to picnic over here on the outside. It was Joe
Dyer--he's always talkin' to summer folks--told 'em the government was
goin' to build the new station and sell this one by sealed bids. I heard
them talkin' about it. They was sittin' right down there on the beach,
eatin' their supper. They was goin' to put in a fire-place and they was
goin' to paint it bright colors, and have parties over here--summer folk
notions. Their bid won it--who'd want it?--a buried house you couldn't
move.
TONY: I see no bright colors.
BRADFORD: Don't you? How astonishin'! You must be color blind. And I
guess _we're_ the first party. (_laughs_) I was in Bill Joseph's grocery
store, one day last November, when in she comes--Mrs Patrick, from New
York. 'I've come to take the old life-saving station', says she. 'I'm
going to sleep over there tonight!' Huh! Bill is used to queer ways--he
deals with summer folks, but that got _him_. November--an empty house, a
buried house, you might say, off here on the outside shore--way across
the sand from man or beast. He got it out of her, not by what she said,
but by the way she looked at what he said, that her husband had died,
and she was runnin' off to hide herself, I guess. A person'd feel sorry
for her if she weren't so stand-offish, and so doggon _mean_. But mean
folks have got minds of their own. She slept here that night. Bill had
men hauling things till after dark--bed, stove, coal. And then she
wanted somebody to work for her. 'Somebody', says she, 'that doesn't say
an unnecessary word!' Well, then Bill come to the back of the store, I
said, 'Looks to me as if Allie Mayo was the party she's lookin' for.'
Allie Mayo has got a prejudice against words. Or maybe she likes 'em so
well she's savin' of 'em. She's not spoke an unnecessary word for twenty
years. She's got her reasons. Women whose men go to sea ain't always
talkative.
(_The_ CAPTAIN _comes out. He closes door behind him and stands there
beside it. He looks tired and disappointed. Both look at him. Pause_.)
CAPTAIN: Wonder who he was.
BRADFORD: Young. Guess he's not been much at sea.
CAPTAIN: I hate to leave even the dead in this house. But we can get
right back for him. (_a look around_) The old place used to be more
friendly. (_moves to outer door, hesitates, hating to leave like this_)
Well, Joe, we brought a good many of them back here.
BRADFORD: Dannie Sears is tendin' bar in Boston now.
(_The three men go; as they are going around the drift of sand_ ALLIE
MAYO _comes in carrying a pot of coffee; sees them leaving, puts down
the coffee pot, looks at the door the_ CAPTAIN _has closed, moves toward
it, as if drawn_. MRS PATRICK _follows her in_.)
MRS PATRICK: They've gone?
(MRS MAYO _nods, facing the closed door_.)
MRS PATRICK: And they're leaving--him? (_again the other woman nods_)
Then he's--? (MRS MAYO _just stands there_) They have no right--just
because it used to be their place--! I want my house to myself!
(_Snatches her coat and scarf from a hook and starts through the big
door toward the dunes_.)
ALLIE MAYO: Wait.
(_When she has said it she sinks into that corner seat--as if
overwhelmed by what she has done. The other woman is held_.)
ALLIE MAYO: (_to herself._) If I could say that, I can say more.
(_looking at woman she has arrested, but speaking more to herself_) That
boy in there--his face--uncovered something--(_her open hand on her
chest. But she waits, as if she cannot go on; when she speaks it is in
labored way--slow, monotonous, as if snowed in by silent years_) For
twenty years, I did what you are doing. And I can tell you--it's not the
way. (_her voice has fallen to a whisper; she stops, looking ahead at
something remote and veiled_) We had been married--two years. (_a start,
as of sudden pain. Says it again, as if to make herself say it_)
Married--two years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler. Times hard.
He had to go. A year and a half--it was to be. A year and a half. Two
years we'd been married.
(_She sits silent, moving a little back and forth._)
The day he went away. (_not spoken, but breathed from pain_) The days
after he was gone.
I heard at first. Last letter said farther north--not another chance to
write till on the way home. (_a wait_)
Six months. Another, I did not hear. (_long wait_) Nobody ever heard.
(_after it seems she is held there, and will not go on_) I used to talk
as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim used to tease me about my
talking. But they'd come in to talk to me. They'd say--'You may hear
_yet._' They'd talk about what must have happened. And one day a woman
who'd been my friend all my life said--'Suppose he was to walk _in!_' I
got up and drove her from my kitchen--and from that time till this I've
not said a word I didn't have to say. (_she has become almost wild in
telling this. That passes. In a whisper_) The ice that caught
Jim--caught me. (_a moment as if held in ice. Comes from it. To_ MRS
PATRICK _simply_) It's not the way. (_a sudden change_) You're not the
only woman in the world whose husband is dead!
MRS PATRICK: (_with a cry of the hurt_) Dead? My husband's not _dead_.
ALLIE MAYO: He's _not?_ (_slowly understands_) Oh.
(_The woman in the door is crying. Suddenly picks up her coat which has
fallen to the floor and steps outside._)
ALLIE MAYO: (_almost failing to do it_) Wait.
MRS PATRICK: Wait? Don't you think you've said enough? They told me you
didn't say an unnecessary word!
ALLIE MAYO: I don't.
MRS PATRICK: And you can see, I should think, that you've bungled into
things you know nothing about!
(_As she speaks, and crying under her breath, she pushes the sand by the
door down on the half buried grass--though not as if knowing what she is
doing._)
ALLIE MAYO: (_slowly_) When you keep still for twenty years you
know--things you didn't know you knew. I know why you're doing that.
(_she looks up at her, startled_) Don't bury the only thing that will
grow. Let it grow.
(_The woman outside still crying under her breath turns abruptly and
starts toward the line where dunes and woods meet._)
ALLIE MAYO: I know where you're going! (MRS PATRICK _turns but not as if
she wants to_) What you'll try to do. Over there. (_pointing to the line
of woods_) Bury it. The life in you. Bury it--watching the sand bury the
woods. But I'll tell you something! _They_ fight too. The woods! They
fight for life the way that Captain fought for life in there!
(_Pointing to the closed door_.)
MRS PATRICK: (_with a strange exultation_) And lose the way he lost in
there!
ALLIE MAYO: (_sure, sombre_) They don't lose.
MRS PATRICK: Don't _lose_? (_triumphant_) I have walked on the tops of
buried trees!
ALLIE MAYO: (_slow, sombre, yet large_) And vines will grow over the
sand that covers the trees, and hold it. And other trees will grow over
the buried trees.
MRS PATRICK: I've watched the sand slip down on the vines that reach out
farthest.
ALLIE MAYO: Another vine will reach that spot. (_under her breath,
tenderly_) Strange little things that reach out farthest!
MRS PATRICK: And will be buried soonest!
ALLIE MAYO: And hold the sand for things behind them. They save a wood
that guards a town.
MRS PATRICK: I care nothing about a wood to guard a town. This is the
outside--these dunes where only beach grass grows, this outer shore
where men can't live. The Outside. You who were born here and who die
here have named it that.
ALLIE MAYO: Yes, we named it that, and we had reason. He died here
(_reaches her hand toward the closed door_) and many a one before him.
But many another reached the harbor! (_slowly raises her arm, bends it
to make the form of the Cape. Touches the outside of her bent arm_) The
Outside. But an arm that bends to make a harbor--where men are safe.
MRS PATRICK: I'm outside the harbor--on the dunes, land not life.
ALLIE MAYO: Dunes meet woods and woods hold dunes from a town that's
shore to a harbor.
MRS PATRICK: This is the Outside. Sand (_picking some of it up in her
hand and letting it fall on the beach grass_) Sand that _covers_--hills
of sand that move and cover.
ALLIE MAYO: Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from Provincetown.
Provincetown--where they turn when boats can't live at sea. Did you ever
see the sails come round here when the sky is dark? A line of
them--swift to the harbor--where their children live. Go back!
(_pointing_) Back to your edge of the woods that's the _edge of the
dunes_.
MRS PATRICK: The edge of life. Where life trails off to dwarfed things
not worth a name.
(_Suddenly sits down in the doorway_.)
ALLIE MAYO: Not worth a name. And--meeting the Outside!
(_Big with the sense of the wonder of life_.)
MRS PATRICK: (_lifting sand and letting it drift through her hand_.)
They're what the sand will let them be. They take strange shapes like
shapes of blown sand.
ALLIE MAYO: Meeting the Outside. (_moving nearer; speaking more
personally_) I know why you came here. To this house that had been given
up; on this shore where only savers of life try to live. I know what
holds you on these dunes, and draws you over there. But other things are
true beside the things you want to see.
MRS PATRICK: How do you know they are? Where have you been for twenty
years?
ALLIE MAYO: Outside. Twenty years. That's why I know how brave _they_
are (_indicating the edge of the woods. Suddenly different_) You'll not
find peace there again! Go back and watch them _fight_!
MRS PATRICK: (_swiftly rising_) You're a cruel woman--a hard, insolent
woman! I knew what I was doing! What do you know about it? About me? I
didn't go to the Outside. I was left there. I'm only--trying to get
along. Everything that can hurt me I want buried--buried deep. Spring is
here. This morning I _knew_ it. Spring--coming through the storm--to
take me--take me to hurt me. That's why I couldn't bear--(_she looks at
the closed door_) things that made me know I feel. You haven't felt for
so long you don't know what it means! But I tell you, Spring is here!
And now you'd take _that_ from me--(_looking now toward the edge of the
woods_) the thing that made me know they would be buried in my
heart--those things I can't _live_ and know I feel. You're more cruel
than the sea! 'But other things are true beside the things you want to
see!' Outside. Springs will come when I will not know that it is spring.
(_as if resentful of not more deeply believing what she says_) What
would there be for me but the Outside? What was there for you? What did
you ever find after you lost the thing you wanted?
ALLIE MAYO: I found--what I find now I know. The edge of life--to hold
life behind me--
(_A slight gesture toward_ MRS PATRICK.)
MRS PATRICK: (_stepping back_) You call what you are life? (_laughs_)
Bleak as those ugly things that grow in the sand!
ALLIE MAYO: (_under her breath, as one who speaks tenderly of beauty_)
Ugly!
MRS PATRICK: (_passionately_) I have _known_ life. I have known _life_.
You're like this Cape. A line of land way out to sea--land not life.
ALLIE MAYO: A harbor far at sea. (_raises her arm, curves it in as if
around something she loves_) Land that encloses and gives shelter from
storm.
MRS PATRICK: (_facing the sea, as if affirming what will hold all else
out_) Outside sea. Outer shore. Dunes--land not life.
ALLIE MAYO: Outside sea--outer shore, dark with the wood that once was
ships--dunes, strange land not life--woods, town and harbor. The line!
Stunted straggly line that meets the Outside face to face--and fights
for what itself can never be. Lonely line. Brave growing.
MRS PATRICK: It loses.
ALLIE MAYO: It wins.
MRS PATRICK: The farthest life is buried.
ALLIE MAYO: And life grows over buried life! (_lifted into that; then,
as one who states a simple truth with feeling_) It will. And Springs
will come when you will want to know that it is Spring.
(_The_ CAPTAIN _and_ BRADFORD _appear behind the drift of sand. They
have a stretcher. To get away from them_ MRS PATRICK _steps farther into
the room_; ALLIE MAYO _shrinks into her corner. The men come in, open
the closed door and go in the room where they left the dead man. A
moment later they are seen outside the big open door, bearing the man
away_. MRS PATRICK _watches them from sight_.)
MRS PATRICK: (_bitter, exultant_) Savers of life! (_to_ ALLIE MAYO) You
savers of life! 'Meeting the Outside!' Meeting--(_but she cannot say it
mockingly again; in saying it, something of what it means has broken
through, rises. Herself lost, feeling her way into the wonder of life_)
Meeting the Outside!