ACT ONE
SCENE ONE
The house lights go down. Children’s voices are heard singing “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush,” interspersed with laughter and shouting.
The curtain rises to reveal a high, windy bluff over the Mississippi River. It is called Lover's Leap. On its verge are two old trees whose leafless branches have been grotesquely twisted by the winds. At first the scene has a mellow quality, the sky flooded with deep amber light from the sunset. But as it progresses, it changes to one of stormy violence to form a dramatic contrast between Heavenly’s scene and Hertha’s. The atmospheric change is caused by the approach of the spring storm which breaks at the scene’s culmination.
Dick is discovered alone on the bluff. He is a good-looking boy, say about twenty-three or four, tall and athletic in build, with a fund of restless energy and imagination which prevents him from fitting into the conventional social pattern. Out of ten such men, or maybe a hundred, one becomes an Abraham Lincoln or a Clarence Darrow, and the rest live out their lives in frustrated rebellion. Maybe Dick will be the chosen one or maybe he’ll just be one of the ninety-nine: that will depend upon future accidents of life which his author will not pretend to foresee.
The singing continues from below, then fades out in scattered shouting.
Heavenly enters. The important thing about Heavenly is that she is physically attractive. She has the natural and yet highly-developed charm that is characteristic of girls of pure southern stock. She is frankly sensuous without being coarse, fiery-tempered and yet disarmingly sweet. Her nature is confusing to herself and to all who know her. She wears a white skirt and sweater with a bright-colored scarf.
HEAVENLY: Dick! What are you doing up here?
DICK: Watchin’ the rivuh. She’s risen plenty since mawnin’. See how she’s pushed up Wild Hoss Crick up there no’th o’ Sutters? Ole man Sutter’s gonna go to bed some night in the state o’ Mississippi and wake up in Arkansaw. That is, if he’s lucky. If he isn’t lucky he’s gonna wake up a hell of a lot fu’ther south’n any state in the Union. Now if they’d just put that breakwater ha’f a mile fu’ther—
HEAVENLY [exasperated]: Dick!
DICK: Yeah?
HEAVENLY: Why do you walk off by yourself like this, honey? It looks peculiuh to people.
DICK: Does it?
HEAVENLY: Of cou’se it does!
DICK: I’m sorry. I stuck it out as long’s I could. But those guessin’ games got my goat—lissen to that! I used my five words in one sentence beginnin’ with ‘g’ — guessin’ games got my goat! No, that’s just four.
HEAVENLY: That’s remarkable, honey—you’re a remarkable man, but I wish you’d pay some attention to what I’m sayin!
DICK: What’re you sayin?
HEAVENLY: I’m sayin it looks peculiuh to people when you come up here by yourself and leave me down there.
DICK: Well, why don’t you come up here, too?
HEAVENLY: Because I can’t. It’s impolite, Dick.
DICK: Aw, politeness! Bein’ a damn hypocrite, that’s politeness! —Me, I don’t truck with politeness, I do like I please!
HEAVENLY: Dick, you’re tryin’ to aggravate me!
DICK [laughing]: Sure I’m tryin to aggravate you. Honey, I like to aggravate you.
HEAVENLY: I know you do. You take the greatest delight in getting me aggravated.
DICK: Sure I do. Cause when you get aggravated you’re just as cute as a nine-tailed catawampus— Lookit that nigger down there in a flatboat tryin’ to pull into shore. Bet he don’t make it! Lookit by God! He’s lost an oar!
HEAVENLY: Never mind that nigger. You come on down to the picnic.
DICK: Guessin’ game over yet?
HEAVENLY: An hour ago.
DICK: I hope so. There’s some things a grown man in his right senses can’t put up with an’ one of ‘em’s havin’ some ole maid ask him what she’s thinkin’ of that’s red, white, an’ blue and begins with ‘f’—I felt like sayin’ “Your fanny!”
HEAVENLY: Dick!
DICK [grinning slowly]: She wouldn’t have understood. She would have said, “No, suh! My name is Agnes!” —That’s her now comin’ up the hill with that balmy sky-rider.
HEAVENLY: Shh, Dick!—That’s Miss Peabody an’ Reverend Hooker!
[These two appear from below, a conventional, affable Episcopal clergyman and a coquettish spinster bubbling with animation.]
AGNES: I told her it was strongly reminiscent of something I’d seen in the Atlantic Monthly. Not that I’m accusing you of plagiarism, I said, but when there is such a startling similarity—
DR. HOOKER [ignoring her prattle, heartily]: Well, Richard, my boy, why aren’t you down there participating in some of the big athletic events?
[Everybody speaks simultaneously—confused chatter with a background of singing.]
AGNES: Of course there was nothing I could do about it. Her parents were furious—
HEAVENLY: Hello, Dr. Hooker.
DR. HOOKER: How are you dear? If I remember correctly this young man of yours was quite a power on the high school football team back in—when did you graduate, Richard?
RICHARD: Thirty-two.
DR. HOOKER: Your laurels are still green, my lad, your laurels are still green—glorious sunset, Heavenly, glorious.
AGNES: Dr. Hooker, look at those clouds!
DR. HOOKER: And how does it happen your mother isn’t with us this afternoon?
AGNES: Those clouds, Dr. Hooker.
HEAVENLY: Mother was very skeptical about the weather.
DR. HOOKER: Yes, storm clouds— “Swear not by the inconstant—April! Her moods are various—”
AGNES: Yes, but, Dr. Hooker—
HEAVENLY: I hope the picnic’s a financial success.
AGNES: Yes but—
DR. HOOKER: Oh, indeed, yes. Richard, we’re going to have the cake sale.
AGNES: Yes, but from the purely esthetic point of—
DICK [indifferently]: Yeah?
DR. HOOKER: Purely esthetic, yes!
AGNES: Such a beautiful cumulus formation in all my life!
DR. HOOKER: I presume you’ll wish to make a bid for the young lady’s culinary masterpiece! [He laughs.]
VOICE BELOW: Dr. Hooker!
AGNES: Oh, they’re calling you Dr. Hooker!
DR. HOOKER: Coming! Coming!
AGNES [following him off]: It’s the potato race, they’re going to have the potato race! Wait for me, wait for Dr. Hookuh!
[Exeunt. Dick has turned his back to the others and is still looking out from the bluff.]
HEAVENLY [slipping her arm through his]: Still watching the river?
DICK: Sure. [Dick turns around and moves back up to look at the river.]
HEAVENLY: Can’t I compete with the river?
DICK: Not right now.
HEAVENLY: Why not?
DICK: It’s goin’ somewhere.
HEAVENLY: Oh! So’m I. [She starts off. He grabs her arm.]
DICK: No, you’re a woman. Women never go anywhere unless a man makes ‘em. Don’t you know what’s the real diff’rence between the sexes?
HEAVENLY: Yes, I mean, no. I don’t want to hear any dirty jokes.
DICK: This isn’t dirty, this is scientific. Set down an’ I’ll tell you. The real diff’rence is that a man knows that legs’re made to move on but a woman thinks they’re just for wearin’ silk stockin’s.
HEAVENLY: You’re crazy. I haven’t got any stockings on mine.
DICK: Naw. But as Agnes would say they’re “purely exthetic!” Ornamental—ain’t that what she means?
HEAVENLY: Why shouldn’t they be?
DICK: That’s right. Why shouldn’t they be?
HEAVENLY: You’d be the first to complain if they weren’t.
DICK: Sure— But don’t you get restless sometimes. Don’t that river-wind ever slap you in the face ‘an say, “Git movin’, yuh damn l’il goober digger, git movin’!”?
HEAVENLY: No.
DICK: It does me.
HEAVENLY: You’re gettin’ one of your restless spells?
DICK: I’d like to follow that river down there—find out where she’s goin’.
HEAVENLY: I know where it’s goin’ an’ I’m not anxious to follow. Gulf of Mexico’s the scummiest body of water I ever refused to put my feet in. Crawdads an’ stingarees an’—
DICK: Aw, is ‘at where it’s goin? I thought it was goin’ further’n that. I thought it was goin’ way on out to th’ Caribbean an’ then some. I didn’t think it would stop till it got clear round th’ Straits o’ Magellan!
HEAVENLY: What is this? A geography lesson?
DICK: Naw. It hasn't got a damn thing to do with geography.
HEAVENLY: Oh. You're speaking symbolically about the Gypsy in you or something. Every spring you get restless like this and talk about goin’ off places.
DICK: Time I got started.
HEAVENLY: You mean it’s time you stopped. It’s gettin damned monotonous. —Even way back in grade school you had spells like this. Used to make me play hooky so we could watch the trains coming in.
[Pause. The children are playing another singing game. Their voices float up with a melancholy sweetness.]
DICK: That was fun, huh?
HEAVENLY: Not for me. I was terribly bored.
DICK: Then what did you tag along for?
HEAVENLY: Because I was crazy about you just like I am now. I was always secretly hoping that you’d get romantic and try to kiss me or something, but you never did. You were never interested in anything but trains, trains! I tried everything I could to distract you, even hid behind cotton bales to make you look for me, but it never did any good.
DICK: Was that why you kept hiding from me?
HEAVENLY: I’d been reading The Sheik —I wanted to be pursued an’ captured an’ made a slave to passion!
DICK: On a station platform?
HEAVENLY: Anywhere. I was very romantic in those days.
DICK: Sort of precocious for thirteen.
HEAVENLY: But you weren’t a damn bit. It was two years before you finally kissed me.
DICK: An’ then you didn’t like it.
HEAVENLY: Not the first time. It was an awful anticlimax to what I’d expected. [She kisses him; he suddenly draws her against him with real passion.] —Mmmm. Your technique has improved a little since then. [She wipes the lipstick off his mouth.]
DICK: So’s yours.
HEAVENLY: I couldn’t have been so bad even then. I made you stop looking at trains.
DICK: Yes, you did that.
HEAVENLY: And now I’ve made you stop watchin’ the rivuh—haven’t I?
DICK: Not quite.
HEAVENLY: Liuh!
DICK: I still like to watch things goin’ places.
HEAVENLY: My idea of goin’ places is to make a success of things where you are.
DICK: Sure. Provided you’re in the right place.
[He rises and stretches. The singing has ended. An excited woman’s voice —]
MRS. ASBURY [off-stage]: Ronald! Oh, Ron-ald! [She appears, a dumpy little matron in slacks.] Oh Heavenly! Have you seen my child? Hertha Neilson’s getting ready to tell the children one of her charming little fairy stories, and I don’t want Ronald to miss it.
HEAVENLY: Sorry but I haven’t seen him.
DICK: Is he a short fat kid with buck teeth wearin’ glasses?
MRS. ASBURY [outraged]: Why, no!! —I mean—uh— [She tries to laugh.] That’s not a very flattering description! Which way did he go?
DICK: Down that-away. Tow’d the Devil’s Icebox.
MRS. ASBURY: The Devil's— ? Oh, Heavens! [She goes off shrieking her son’s name.]
HEAVENLY: You should’ve offuhed to help her find him.
DICK: Hell. She needs to run some a’ the lard off that carcass of hers.
HEAVENLY: Dick! —Dick, you know we’ve got to have some kind of social position when we get married, and we can’t without bein’ nice to people like Mrs. Asbury.
DICK: That’s what I’m scahed of.
HEAVENLY: You mean you’re scahed of marriage?
DICK: You remembuh that high-school play we acted in? Honey?
HEAVENLY: Satuhday's Children?
DICK: Yeah, there was one swell line in that play.
HEAVENLY: What's that?
DICK: Marriage is last year's love affair.
HEAVENLY: Oh! You don't want marriage!
DICK: Not the kind that ties ropes around people. [He goes to the edge of the bluff.] Listen to those whistles blowin’. They’re gettin’ out now. Pretty soon they’ll be settlin’ down in their overstuffed chairs t’ look at the evenin’ papers. Gettin’ the news of the day. Who went to Mrs. Smith’s afternoon tea. What happened in Czechoslovakia at eleven A.M. Who’s runnin’ for gov’nor in the state of Arkansas. Ain’t that somethin’ for you, you bastards, you poor beer guzzlers. Tomorrow you’ll wake up at half past six with alarm clocks janglin’ like hell’s own beautiful bells in your ears. The little woman will get her fat shanks out of bed an’ put on the coffee to boil. At a quarter past seven you’ll kiss her good-bye, you’ll give her a cold eggy smack on the kisser. She’ll tell you to remember your overshoes. Or to stop at the West End butcher’s for a pound o’ calves’ liver. Don’t forget, Papa. Papa, for God’s sake don’t forget to bring home that thirty cents worth of calves’ liver. That’s good, that’s sweet of you, Papa. —Bye-bye! [He turns slowly back to Heavenly.] And they call that livin’ down there. I got another word for it, Heavenly, and it don’t commence with an “l”!
[Mrs. Asbury’s voice is heard calling Ronald. Dick continues, mocking.]
“Ronald, oh, Ron-ald!”—don’t fall an’ break your fat little neck! —Christ, Heavenly, I want to get away from that sort of stuff down there. That’s what I mean when I say I want to go places!
HEAVENLY: I know. You talk just as though I didn’t exist.
DICK: Oh, I know you exist.
HEAVENLY: No you don't. You think I’m completely out of the picture. But I’m not. I think I’m pretty much involved in your plans for the future whether you know it or not.
DICK: I haven’t got any plans for the future.
HEAVENLY: Yes, you have. I’ve got some for you.
DICK: Yeah?
HEAVENLY: I was talking to Dad last night. He says Mr. Kramer’s willing to put you on at his office as soon as buying picks up.
DICK: Tell your Dad I’m much obliged but I don’t want a job in Mr. Kramer’s office or anybody else’s. I don’t want a white-collar job.
HEAVENLY: You prefer to work around a drugstore?
DICK: No, I prefer to get the hell out of here.
HEAVENLY: You want to go on the bum?
DICK: I want to do something worthwhile.
HEAVENLY: What is worthwhile in your opinion?
DICK: I don't know. Maybe if I did some traveling I'd find out.
HEAVENLY: All right. Let’s take a round-the-world cruise.
DICK: I’d rather take a cattleboat to South America. [He quickly rationalizes his impulse.] There’s lots of business opportunities down there. I could get into radio or engineering or—
HEAVENLY: Oh. Don’t let me stop you!
DICK: Don’t worry, it’s just a pipe dream.
HEAVENLY: Worry? Not me! I guess you think I’d be sitting at home knitting socks till you came back with a long white beard to reward my patience. No, not me! “Faithful unto death” isn’t the sort of thing I want carved on my tombstone.
[Enter Susan Lamphrey, a fat girl of Heavenly’s age.]
SUSAN: Heavenly, you missed it!
HEAVENLY: Missed what?
SUSAN: The auction! Guess who bought your cake?
HEAVENLY: Who bought it?
SUSAN: Arthur Shannon. Paid eighty dollars for it.
HEAVENLY: You’re foolin’!
SUSAN: I hope to fall dead if I am. I nearly did anow. And he came with that girl who works at the library. Hertha Neilson. I wonder how she felt? —Hello, Richard. Goodness, you are the exclusive Mr. Somebody! I didn’t even know you’d come to the picnic! Oh, what I wanted to ask you—before I forget—I’m givin’ a little lawn party in honor of Arthur Shannon this Saturday evenin’ an’ want you to come, Heavenly—an’ bring along Dick!
HEAVENLY: Thanks. We’ll come.
SUSAN: I’ve got to rush down there an’ help pack things up. Bye-bye! [She rushes off.]
DICK: You can count me out.
HEAVENLY: Dick.
DICK: You know I don’t mix with those kind of people.
HEAVENLY: All right. Don’t put yourself out. I’ll go with Arthur Shannon. He deserves some reward, anyway, for payin’ eighty dollars for that little coconut cake! [Dick turns his back.] Saturday Arthuh will take me to the Lamphrey’s lawn party.
DICK: Is he?
HEAVENLY: Yes. And Sunday evenin’ we’re going to the Country Club for supper. [There is a tense pause.] An’ on the way home he’ll ask me to marry him.
DICK: —Will he?
HEAVENLY: Yes! I know how to work those things.
DICK: Yes. You’re very clever.
HEAVENLY [bursting out]: And you, you can take that river barge down to New Orleans an’ ship out on a cattleboat if you want to. You can go clear down to the Straits of whatever-you-call-it’s far’s I’m concerned! If you’re restless, if you want to get rid of me so bad, don’t think I’m gonna stand in your way! [She turns away, sobbing convulsively.]
DICK [slowly]: You know that’s not true. You can’t make me jealous about that little milk-fed millionaire’s brat. Suckin’ a sugar-tit all his life. I remember him in grade school before he went off to Europe. God, what a sissy! His chauffeur brought him to school an’ called for him afterwards an’ at recess he used to sit in a corner of the play yard readin’ The Wizard of Oz. Remember how we used to serenade him when he drove up to school in his limousine?
Artie, Smartie, went to a party!
What did he go for? To play with his dolly!
HEAVENLY: Oh, you’re disgusting!
DICK: You used to sing it yourself. I guess that’s what gave him the nervous breakdown so he had to quit school an’ be shipped abroad. He was kind of stuck on you even then, wasn’t he? We used to kid you about the way he kept hangin’ around you.
HEAVENLY: With Arthur’s Shannon’s prospects he can afford to have some faults.
DICK: Meaning I can’t?
HEAVENLY: Exactly! Meaning just that. I’ve given up plenty of chances for you. In hopes you'd turn over a new leaf an' amount to something. Now I see that you never will. Arthur Shannon’s going to ask me to marry him, and I’m going to do it.
DICK: You won’t.
HEAVENLY: You just think I won’t.
[He grabs her shoulders.]
Let go of me, damn you!
[She strikes him across the face. He draws back. They stand facing each other in the deepening dusk. —From below them comes the sound of the closing hymns at the church picnic—
Now the day is over
Night is drawing nigh,
Shadows of the evening
Steal across the sky.
The soft poignant quality of the hymn penetrates their mood and softens them both. Heavenly turns away, crying. Dick comes to her and embraces her gently. His voice is very low–]
DICK: Listen Heavenly! Honey, listen! You don’t mean none of those things you just said. Why you couldn’t shake me off anymore than you could your own skin. An’ I couldn’t either. —I’ve had my talk out. I’m always blowin’ off my damn fool head about somethin’. But that’s all over. Understan’? You and me, we’ll get married this summer! Yeah. We’ll have one a them June weddin’s you see written up in sassiety columns with everything white an’ sweet smellin’ an’ candles an’ lilies an’ yards an’ yards of white lace for you to walk down like a queen with that new pipe organ playin’ “I Love You Truly.” An’ me, I’ll take that job of Mr. Kramer’s!
HEAVENLY: Dick!
DICK: Sure . . . See those lights goin’ on down there? One of them’ll be ours! A little one off at the side—
[He laughs gently. The closing hymn ends. There are sounds of general departure. Mrs. Lamphrey appears calling, “Ethel!”]
MRS. LAMPHREY: Heavenly. Have you seen Mrs. Asbury? She’s going home in our car.
HEAVENLY: She’s gone after Ronald. He’s exploring the Devil’s Icebox.
MRS. LAMPHREY: Oh, that boy. Everybody’s leaving; it looks so threatening!
HEAVENLY: Dick. Won’t you hunt them up for Mrs. Lamphrey? I can’t imagine what’s keeping them so long.
MRS. LAMPHREY: Oh, I’d be so much obliged, Mr. Miles. [She turns to Heavenly as Dick goes off.] Richard is such a nice boy. I don’t blame you, Heavenly.
HEAVENLY: For what?
MRS. LAMPHREY: For finding him irresistible. He has that—that sort of—primitive masculinity that’s enough to make a girl lose her head!
HEAVENLY: Oh, I think I’ve kept mine.
MRS. LAMPHREY [archly]: Oh, do you? Good heavens, the storm’s going to break any minute. And here comes Arthur Shannon with that Neilson girl. [Calling.] Arthur, did you ever see such a sky?
[Arthur enters, followed by Hertha. He is a good-looking esthetic young man, about twenty-four. He wears white flannels, a sports coat, and a scarf about his throat. Hertha is thin and dark, about twenty-eight. Without money or social position, she has to depend upon a feverish animation and cleverness to make her place among people. She has an original mind with a distinct gift for creative work. She is probably the most sensitive and intelligent person in Port Tyler, Mississippi. Much of the dialogue following is simultaneous.]
ARTHUR: Marvelous, isn’t it? We’re coming up to get a better view. [To Heavenly.] Hello!
HEAVENLY: Oh, is that my cake Arthur? It was sweet of you to buy it.
MRS. LAMPHREY [to Hertha]: Oh, Miss Neilson, I enjoyed your little story so much. It was charming. Did you make it up yourself? Goodness! What wind! What wind!
HEAVENLY: I would have taken more pains if I thought it was going to bring such a big price.
MRS. LAMPHREY: Heavenly! Hadn’t we better go down? This wind is terrific.
HEAVENLY: What is it Mrs. Lamphrey?
ARTHUR: You won’t forget about our dinner Sunday?
MRS. LAMPHREY: Don’t you think we’d better go down?
HEAVENLY: Oh, no. Yes, Mrs. Lamphrey! I'm coming.
MRS. LAMPHREY [calling back to Hertha]: Oh, Miss Neilson. Would you please remind your mother about those alterations to Susan’s little pink blouse?
[Hertha says nothing. Heavenly and Mrs. Lamphrey exeunt.]
ARTHUR: Tired?
HERTHA: A little.
ARTHUR: It’s your own fault. You would keep on climbing.
HERTHA: I wanted to reach the top.
ARTHUR: Well, now you’re there.
HERTHA [panting]: Not quite. I’m going to save the rest till later. I’m going to wait till it’s just the right color and then I’m going to go up the rest of the way—and then you’ll probably hear me shouting “hello” to God!
ARTHUR: It is nice up here.
HERTHA: Lovely. I hate living on a flat surface. It’s bad for you, Arthur.
ARTHUR: Is it?
HERTHA: Yes, you don’t know how bad it is till you get up on a high place like this and see how your spirit expands.
ARTHUR: Is your spirit expanding?
HERTHA: Enormously, enormously! Don’t you see how it’s filling up the whole sky?
ARTHUR: Oh, is that your spirit?
HERTHA [laughing]: Yes!
ARTHUR: Congratulations! I haven’t seen such a pyrotechnical display since July 14th, at Versailles!
[Dick returns followed by the straggling Asburys.]
RONALD: Aw, hell, Ma—
MRS. ASBURY: What did you say, Ronald?
RONALD: Nothing.
MRS. ASBURY: I’m afraid your father will be very angry when he hears about this. [To Dick.] Oh, Mr. Miles. I’m so grateful to you. —I hope you haven’t lost Heavenly!
DICK: I reckon she’s gone on with the others.
[Exeunt all three.]
HERTHA: We seem to be the sole survivors.
ARTHUR: Yes, thank heavens. I get so bored with those people.
HERTHA: Why do you bother with them?
ARTHUR: Have to. It’s in the line of duty. I’m being groomed for the Planter’s State Bank, so I have to make myself agreeable to depositors.
HERTHA [seating herself on the hillside]: Oh.
ARTHUR [sitting beside her]: Why do you bother with them?
HERTHA: I sort of—belong to them!
ARTHUR: How do you mean?
HERTHA: The Storybook Lady’s a public institution.
ARTHUR: What?
HERTHA: The Storybook Lady—that’s me! Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings, ten o’clock at the Carnegie Public Library. Have you ever heard what happened to the dark-haired princess in the magic tower when the handsome young prince went out to look for adventure? [They both laugh.] Oh, I don’t mind that part of it. I like to make-believe as much as any of the kids. It’s the old women that I can’t stand, the ones like Mrs. Lamphrey who’re so afraid that you’ll forget your mother’s a seamstress and your father’s a night watchman at the lumberyard who gets notoriously drunk every Saturday night! —Oh, they’re very sweet to me, call me darling and send me flowers when I’m sick, but they take every precaution to see that I don’t forget my social limitations— Did you hear Mrs. Lamphrey remind me about Susan’s little pink blouse? Size forty-eight? —Know why she did that? She’s worried you didn’t know that mother took in sewing. She’s worried about you and me—she thinks I’m trying to captivate you or something! [She laughs.] Of course things like that are only amusing, that’s all!
[Pause. Arthur lights a cigarette.]
ARTHUR: You ought to get away from this place.
HERTHA: How could I?
ARTHUR: I don’t know but there must be some way. You’ve got lots of talent and you’re wasting it here.
HERTHA: So are you, wasting yours—at the Planter’s State Bank.
ARTHUR [lightly but with bitterness]: No, I’m not wasting anything. In literature I’m one of those tragic “not quites”!
HERTHA: That’s silly. You’re terribly young still.
ARTHUR: I know my limitations. I haven’t got it in me to be anything but a good amateur, I know that. You see, my poetry, it isn’t a terrific volcanic eruption— No—it’s just a little bonfire of dry leaves and dead branches. [He laughs harshly.] This morning I received an invitation to join the Junior Chamber of Commerce.
HERTHA [pausing] : Of course you refused?
ARTHUR: No. Accepted.
HERTHA: Arthur!
ARTHUR: Why not? Father was tickled pink—slapped me on the back three times and told me I was going places!
HERTHA: Did he tell you what places you were going?
ARTHUR: No. [He laughs.] There’s no necessity for being explicit about such things—going places is just going places.
HERTHA: I see. [Pause.] Sometimes I wonder if anybody’s ever gone anyplace—or do we always just go back to where we started? —I guess there’s something significant about the fact that the world is round and all of the planets are round and all of them are going round and round the sun! [She laughs.] The whole damned universe seems to be laid out on a more or less elliptical plan. [She rises.] But I can’t get used to it, Arthur. I can’t adjust myself to it like you’re doing— [She gropes for words.] —You see I can’t get over the idea that it might be possible for somebody—sometime—somewhere— to follow a straight line upwards and get some place that nobody’s ever been yet! [Pause.]
ARTHUR [looking up at her with a slight smile]: You mean to Paradise, don’t you?
HERTHA: You’re laughing at me. You think it’s foolish.
ARTHUR [slowly]: I know what you mean. But I don’t believe in it. I think it’s just one of those romantic fallacies that everybody gets knocked out of him in the course of time. —Where are you going?
HERTHA: I’m going on up the rest of the way?
ARTHUR: To see God?
HERTHA: Yes. [Arthur laughs.] Don’t you think I’ll find him up there?
ARTHUR: Oh, you might! And then you might just find the other side of the hill!
HERTHA: Coming?
ARTHUR: No! I hate steep places. They make me feel like falling.
HERTHA: I love them. They make me feel like flying!
[She climbs slowly up the hillside, Arthur remaining below. When she reaches the top, she stands there silently, silhouetted between the two dead trees. It has grown almost dark except for the magenta streaks of color in the fading sunset. The wind is beginning to rise, and there is a fitful glimmer of lightning.]
ARTHUR: Well, have you found Him? [Pause.]
HERTHA: Yes!
ARTHUR: What does he have to say?
HERTHA: Oh, he doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t use any words—just a lot of beautiful gestures which I can’t understand.
ARTHUR: What does he look like? The fatherly type?
HERTHA: No! —He’s a very vague sort of person. He reminds me a little bit of an old Irishman who used to get drunk with my father on Saturday nights.
ARTHUR [laughing]: Yes?
HERTHA: An awfully funny old fellow— He never said much but he had a beautiful smile—especially when he was playing pinochle.
[Arthur laughs.]
You should come up and look at the river! It’s marvelous! It’s like a big yellow sea! [Pause.]
[Arthur rises.]
ARTHUR: That wind’s too cold!
HERTHA: I like the taste of it.
ARTHUR: What does it taste like?
HERTHA: The outer edge of space. It’s got the cold flavor of stars in it.
ARTHUR: That’s the pine trees! You’d better come down and get into my trench coat, Miss Neilson.
HERTHA: I want to stay up here. I’m never coming down.
ARTHUR: Do I have to come up there and get you?
HERTHA: Yes, if you want me!
[Arthur joins her above. The wind rises and blows Hertha’s hair loose. They both point at things in the distance, talking and laughing, but the wind drowns their voices. Suddenly Hertha points upwards with a loud cry.]
Wild geese!
[If possible a faint honking should be heard as the geese pass over.]
ARTHUR: Yes.
HERTHA: They’re going up north to the lakes. —Why don’t they take me with them?
ARTHUR: You’re not a wild goose.
HERTHA: But I could be one—I could be anything that flies!
[The wind roars about them.]
ARTHUR: We’d better get down from here before we’re blown down.
HERTHA: Not yet!
ARTHUR: Yes. Right now!
[He jumps to the lower level, catches her waist and lifts her down with him. They descend to a lower level and seat themselves on the rocks. Arthur wraps his coat carefully about her. She looks at him silently—the wind falls.]
HERTHA: Maybe the storm’s blown over.
ARTHUR: No. This is just the traditional hush before it gets started.
HERTHA: If it storms lets stay up here! I love spring storms!
ARTHUR: If you caught your death of cold the kiddies would blame it on me—they’d say that I killed their Storybook Lady.
HERTHA: I’d like to die in a storm!
ARTHUR: Why would you?
HERTHA: I don’t know. I think it’s a good way of dying—Paul Cezanne died from painting in a storm.
ARTHUR: Did he?
HERTHA: Yes. I think that’s the noblest death I ever heard of.
ARTHUR [rising with a laugh]: Hertha! You’re getting morbid—we’d better go back down.
HERTHA: Give me a few more minutes!
ARTHUR: Gosh. [She sits back down.] You sound like Mme. Du Barry at the foot of the guillotine.
HERTHA: Did she say that? Poor thing. I know just how she felt— She had her head chopped off and tomorrow I’ll be back at the Carnegie Public Library!
ARTHUR: You’re terribly dissatisfied with things, aren’t you?
HERTHA: Why wouldn’t I be?
ARTHUR [carefully]: I wonder if it isn’t because—
HERTHA: Because what?
ARTHUR: I knew a girl in London when I was going to school over there and she was terribly dissatisfied with things, too. We had a love affair.
HERTHA: Oh.
ARTHUR: It was her first experience and mine, too. It did us both good. We were both slightly crazy before it happened, and afterwards we were perfectly sane.
HERTHA: Why did you tell me that?
ARTHUR [uncomfortably]: I don’t know exactly.
HERTHA: Did you think that my case corresponded to hers?
ARTHUR: No.
HERTHA: Did you suppose that fornication was the straight line upwards that I’d been trying to find?
ARTHUR: I didn’t think I was putting it quite that crudely.
HERTHA: I’m sorry. You were trying to be very delicate about it.
ARTHUR: It just popped out.
HERTHA: I see
ARTHUR: We talk about things so frankly in Europe. I forgot that your southern puritanism might rise up in arms at anything too boldly stated.
HERTHA: I’m not offended. No I want to thank you for being so honest with me, Arthur. —How did this idyllic affair of yours turn out?
ARTHUR: The way you’d expect. We were both disappointed to find out that the world didn’t burst into a million glittering stars simply because a man and a woman shared the same bed. But we got over that. She was very practical about it. She said it was in the interest of science or something, and the next summer she married a young M.P.
HERTHA: So now you’re in mourning for her?
ARTHUR: No. Not for her.
HERTHA: For somebody else?
ARTHUR: Yes. A funny thing happened to me. I’ve just described one of those vicious circles that you were complaining about. I’ve come back to something that I went away from.
HERTHA: What’s that?
ARTHUR: The girl in the white skirt.
HERTHA: Heavenly Critchfield?
ARTHUR: Yes.
HERTHA: What do you mean?
ARTHUR: I loved her a long time ago. When we were in grade school.
HERTHA: That long ago?
ARTHUR: Yes. It doesn’t sound possible, but it’s true. I was terribly shy and one day she laughed at me. After that I couldn’t go back to school anymore. They had to send me to Europe.
HERTHA: Because she laughed at you?
ARTHUR: Yes. I thought I’d forgotten about it. But now I’m beginning to see she’s been in me all the time, laughing at me—and everything that I’ve done since then has been a sort of desperate effort to— to—
HERTHA: To compensate for her laughing at you?
ARTHUR: Yes, that’s it!
HERTHA: But now that you do understand it, you ought to be able to get away from it.
ARTHUR: That’s the funny thing. I can’t. I don’t think I’ll be able to get away from it until I’ve possessed her.
HERTHA: And made her stop laughing!
ARTHUR: Yes—yes, made her stop laughing.
HERTHA: And to do that you think you will have to possess her?
ARTHUR: Yes. Or somebody else!!
HERTHA: Somebody else.
ARTHUR: Who could make me stop thinking about her.
HERTHA: Do you think that anyone could?
ARTHUR: I don’t know. . . .
HERTHA: Neither do I. . . . [She rises.] When did we start being serious?
ARTHUR: I don’t know.
HERTHA: We shouldn’t be. This isn’t the serious season. It’s the season for green things and frivolity and—
ARTHUR [trying to catch her mood]: And catching colds in the head.
HERTHA: Yes, the modern twist! The whimsical anticlimax! [She jumps up to the second level.]
ARTHUR: Where are you going?
HERTHA [pointing gaily]: You see those two old trees up there? I used to call them the two weird sisters—they look like they’re putting a curse on the town!
[The wind rises again with great force. There is lightning and a rumble of thunder.]
ARTHUR: Hertha. Come down from there! It’s starting to rain—the storm’s breaking!
[She waves to him gaily from the summit.]
HERTHA: Look, Arthur! There’s three of us now! We’re putting a curse on the town. [She laughs wildly.]
[Lightning outlines her figure between the two dead trees. There is a crescendo of wind and thunder—]
CURTAIN