Portrait of a Madonna

SCENE: The living room of a moderate-priced city apartment. The furnishings are old-fashioned and everything is in a state of neglect and disorder. There is a door in the back wall to a bedroom, and on the right to the outside hall.

MISS COLLINS: Richard! (The door bursts open and Miss Collins rushes out, distractedly. She is a middle-aged spinster, very slight and hunched of figure with a desiccated face that is flushed with excitement. Her hair is arranged in curls that would become a young girl and she wears a frilly negligee which might have come from an old hope chest of a period considerably earlier.) No, no, no, no! I don’t care if the whole church hears about it! (She frenziedly snatches up the phone.) Manager, I’ve got to speak to the manager! Hurry, oh, please hurry, there’s a man—! (wildly aside as if to an invisible figure) Lost all respect, absolutely no respect! . . . Mr. Abrams? (in a tense hushed voice) I don’t want any reporters to hear about this but something awful has been going on upstairs. Yes, this is Miss Collins’ apartment on the top floor. I’ve refrained from making any complaint because of my connections with the church. I used to be assistant to the Sunday School superintendent and I once had the primary class. I helped them put on the Christmas pageant. I made the dress for the Virgin and Mother, made robes for the Wise Men. Yes, and now this has happened, I’m not responsible for it, but night after night after night this man has been coming into my apartment and—indulging his senses! Do you understand?

Not once but repeatedly, Mr. Abrams! I don’t know whether he comes in the door or the window or up the fire-escape or whether there’s some secret entrance they know about at the church, but he’s here now, in my bedroom, and I can’t force him to leave, I’ll have to have some assistance! No, he isn’t a thief, Mr. Abrams, he comes of a very fine family in Webb, Mississippi, but this woman has ruined his character, she’s destroyed his respect for ladies! Mr. Abrams? Mr. Abrams! Oh, goodness! (She slams up the receiver and looks distractedly about for a moment; then rushes back into the bedroom.) Richard! (The door slams shut. After a few moments an old porter enters in drab gray cover-alls. He looks about with a sorrowfully humorous curiosity, then timidly calls.)

PORTER: Miss Collins? (The elevator door slams open in hall and the Elevator Boy, wearing a uniform, comes in.)

ELEVATOR BOY: Where is she?

PORTER: Gone in ‘er bedroom.

ELEVATOR BOY: (grinning) She got him in there with her?

PORTER: Sounds like it. (Miss Collins‘ voice can be heard faintly protesting with the mysterious intruder.)

ELEVATOR BOY: What’d Abrams tell yuh to do?

PORTER: Stay here an’ keep a watch on ‘er till they git here.

ELEVATOR BOY: Jesus.

PORTER: Close ‘at door.

ELEVATOR BOY: I gotta leave it open a little so I can hear the buzzer. Ain’t this place a holy sight though?

PORTER: Don’t look like it’s had a good cleaning in fifteen or twenty years. I bet it ain’t either. Abrams’ll bust a blood-vessel when he takes a lookit them walls.

ELEVATOR BOY: How comes it’s in this condition?

PORTER: She wouldn’t let no one in.

ELEVATOR BOY: Not even the paper-hangers?

PORTER: Naw. Not even the plumbers. The plaster washed down in the bathroom underneath hers an’ she admitted her plumbin’ had been stopped up. Mr. Abrams had to let the plumber in with this here pass-key when she went out for a while.

ELEVATOR BOY : Holy Jeez. I wunner if she’s got money stashed around here. A lotta freaks do stick away big sums of money in ole mattresses an’ things.

PORTER: She ain’t. She got a monthly pension check or something she always turned over to Mr. Abrams to dole it out to ‘er. She tole him that Southern ladies was never brought up to manage finanshul affairs. Lately the checks quit comin’.

ELEVATOR BOY: Yeah?

PORTER: The pension give out or somethin’. Abrams says he got a contribution from the church to keep ‘er on here without ‘er knowin’ about it. She’s proud as a peacock’s tail in spite of ‘er awful appearance.

ELEVATOR BOY: Lissen to ‘er in there!

PORTER: What’s she sayin’?

ELEVATOR BOY: Apologizin’ to him! For callin’ the police!

PORTER: She thinks police ‘re comin’?

MISS COLLINS: (from bedroom) Stop it, it’s got to stop!

ELEVATOR BOY: Fightin’ to protect her honor again! What a commotion, no wunner folks are complainin’!

PORTER: (lighting his pipe) This here’ll be the last time.

ELEVATOR BOY: She’s goin’ out, huh?

PORTER: (blowing out the match) Tonight.

ELEVATOR BOY: Where’ll she go?

PORTER: (slowly moving to the old gramophone) She’ll go to the state asylum.

ELEVATOR BOY: Holy G!

PORTER: Remember this ole number? (He puts on a record of “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.”)

ELEVATOR BOY: Naw. When did that come out?

PORTER: Before your time, sonny boy. Machine needs oilin’.

(He takes out small oil-can and applies oil about the crank and other parts of gramophone.)

ELEVATOR BOY: How long is the old girl been here?

PORTER: Abrams says she’s been livin’ here twenty-five, thirty years, since before he got to be manager even.

ELEVATOR BOY: Livin’ alone all that time?

PORTER: She had an old mother died of an operation about fifteen years ago. Since then she ain’t gone out of the place ex-cep’ on Sundays to church or Friday nights to some kind of religious meeting.

ELEVATOR BOY: Got an awful lot of ol’ magazines piled aroun’ here.

PORTER: She used to collect ‘em. She’d go out in back and fish ‘em out of the incinerator.

ELEVATOR BOY: What’n hell for?

PORTER: Mr. Abrams says she used to cut out the Campbell soup kids. Them red-tomato-headed kewpie dolls that go with the soup advertisements. You seen ‘em, ain’tcha?

ELEVATOR BOY: Uh-huh.

PORTER: She made a collection of ‘em. Filled a big lot of scrapbooks with them paper kiddies an’ took ‘em down to the Children’s Hospitals on Xmas Eve an’ Easter Sunday, exactly twicet a year. Sounds better, don’t it? (referring to gramophone, which resumes its faint, wheedling music) Eliminated some a that crankin’ noise . . .

ELEVATOR BOY: I didn’t know that she’d been nuts that long.

PORTER: Who’s nuts an’ who ain’t? If you ask me the world is populated with people that’s just as peculiar as she is.

ELEVATOR BOY: Hell. She don’t have brain one.

PORTER: There’s important people in Europe got less’n she’s got. Tonight they’re takin’ her off’ n’ lockin’ her up. They’d do a lot better to leave ‘er go an’ lock up some a them maniacs over there. She’s harmless; they ain’t. They kill millions of people an’ go scot free!

ELEVATOR BOY: An ole woman like her is disgusting, though, imaginin’ somebody’s raped her.

PORTER: Pitiful, not disgusting. Watch out for them cigarette ashes.

ELEVATOR BOY: What’s uh diff'rence? So much dust you can’t see it. All a this here goes out in the morning, don’t it?

PORTER: Uh-huh.

ELEVATOR BOY: I think I’ll take a couple a those ole records as curiosities for my girl friend. She’s got a portable in ‘er bedroom, she says it’s better with music!

PORTER: Leave ‘em alone. She’s still got ‘er property rights.

ELEVATOR BOY: Aw, she’s got all she wants with them dream-lovers of hers!

PORTER: Hush up! (He makes a warning gesture as Miss Collins enters from bedroom. Her appearance is that of a ravaged woman. She leans exhaustedly in the doorway, hands clasped over her flat, virginal bosom.)

MISS COLLINS: (breathlessly) Oh, Richard—Richard . . .

PORTER: (coughing) Miss—Collins.

ELEVATOR BOY: Hello, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: (just noticing the men) Goodness! You’ve arrived already! Mother didn’t tell me you were here! (Self-consciously she touches her ridiculous corkscrew curls with the faded pink ribbon tied through them. Her manner becomes that of a slightly coquettish but prim little Southern belle.) I must ask you gentlemen to excuse the terrible disorder.

PORTER: That’s all right, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: It’s the maid’s day off. Your No’thern girls receive such excellent domestic training, but in the South it was never considered essential for a girl to have anything but prettiness and charm! (She laughs girlishly.) Please do sit down. Is it too close? Would you like a window open?

PORTER: No, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: (advancing with delicate grace to the sofa) Mother will bring in something cool after while. . . . Oh, my!

(She touches her forehead.)

PORTER: (kindly) Is anything wrong, Miss Collins?

MISS COLLINS: Oh, no, no, thank you, nothing! My head is a little bit heavy. I’m always a little bit—malarial—this time of year! (She sways dizzily as she starts to sink down on the sofa.)

PORTER: (helping her) Careful there, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: (vaguely) Yes, it is, I hadn’t noticed before. (She peers at them near-sightedly with a hesitant smile.) You gentlemen have come from the church?

PORTER: No, ma’am. I’m Nick, the porter, Miss Collins, and this boy here is Frank that runs the elevator.

MISS COLLINS: (stiffening a little) Oh? . . . I don’t understand.

PORTER: (gently) Mr. Abrams just asked me to drop in here an’ see if you was getting along all right.

MISS COLLINS: Oh! Then he must have informed you of what’s been going on in here!

PORTER: He mentioned some kind of—disturbance.

MISS COLLINS: Yes! Isn’t it outrageous? But it mustn’t go any further, you understand. I mean you mustn’t repeat it to other people.

PORTER: No, I wouldn’t say nothing.

MISS COLLINS: Not a word of it, please!

ELEVATOR BOY: Is the man still here, Miss Collins?

MISS COLLINS: Oh, no. No, he’s gone now.

ELEVATOR BOY: How did he go, out the bedroom window, Miss Collins?

MISS COLLINS: (vaguely) Yes. . . .

ELEVATOR BOY: I seen a guy that could do that once. He crawled straight up the side of the building. They called him The Human Fly! Gosh, that’s a wonderful publicity angle,

Miss Collins—"Beautiful Young Society Lady Raped by The Human Fly!”

PORTER: (nudging him sharply) Git back in your cracker box!

MISS COLLINS: Publicity? No! It would be so humiliating! Mr. Abrams surely hasn’t reported it to the papers!

PORTER: No, ma’am. Don’t listen to this smarty pants.

MISS COLLINS: (touching her curls) Will pictures be taken, you think? There’s one of him on the mantel.

ELEVATOR BOY: (going to the mantel) This one here, Miss Collins?

MISS COLLINS: Yes. Of the Sunday School faculty picnic. I had the little kindergardeners that year and he had the older boys. We rode in the cab of a railroad locomotive from Webb to Crystal Springs. (She covers her ears with a girlish grimace and toss of her curls.) Oh, how the steam-whistle blew! Blew! (giggling) Blewwwww! It frightened me so, he put his arm round my shoulders! But she was there, too, though she had no business being. She grabbed his hat and stuck it on the back of her head and they—they rassled for it, they actually rassled together! Everyone said it was shameless! Don’t you think that it was?

PORTER: Yes, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: That’s the picture, the one in the silver frame up there on the mantel. We cooled the watermelon in the springs and afterwards played games. She hid somewhere and he took ages to find her. It got to be dark and he hadn’t found her yet and everyone whispered and giggled about it and finally they came back together—her hangin’ on to his arm like a common little strumpet—and Daisy Belle Huston shrieked out, “Look, everybody, the seat of Evelyn’s skirt!” It was—covered with—grass-stains! Did you ever hear of anything as outrageous? It didn’t faze her, though, she laughed like it was something very, very amusing! Rather triumphant she was!

ELEVATOR BOY: Which one is him, Miss Collins?

MISS COLLINS: The tall one in the blue shirt holding onto one of my curls. He loved to play with them.

ELEVATOR BOY: Quite a Romeo—1910 model, huh?

MISS COLLINS: (vaguely) Do you? It’s nothing, really, but I like the lace on the collar. I said to Mother, “Even if I don’t wear it, Mother, it will be so nice for my hope-chest!”

ELEVATOR BOY: How was he dressed tonight when he climbed into your balcony, Miss Collins?

MISS COLLINS: Pardon?

ELEVATOR BOY: Did he still wear that nifty little stick-candy-striped blue shirt with the celluloid collar?

MISS COLLINS: He hasn’t changed.

ELEVATOR BOY: Oughta be easy to pick him up in that. What color pants did he wear?

MISS COLLINS: (vaguely) I don’t remember.

ELEVATOR BOY: Maybe he didn’t wear any. Shimmied out of ‘em on the way up the wall! You could get him on grounds of indecent exposure, Miss Collins!

PORTER: (grasping his arm) Cut that or git back in your cage! Understand?

ELEVATOR BOY: (snickering) Take it easy. She don’t hear a thing.

PORTER: Well, you keep a decent tongue or get to hell out. Miss Collins here is a lady. You understand that?

ELEVATOR BOY: Okay. She’s Shoiley Temple.

PORTER: She’s a lady!

ELEVATOR BOY: Yeah! (He returns to the gramophone and looks through the records.)

MISS COLLINS: I really shouldn’t have created this disturbance. When the officers come I’ll have to explain that to them. But you can understand my feelings, can’t you?

PORTER: Sure, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: When men take advantage of common white-trash women who smoke in public there is probably some excuse for it, but when it occurs to a lady who is single and always com-pletely above reproach in her moral behavior, there’s really nothing to do but call for police protection! Unless of course the girl is fortunate enough to have a father and brothers who can take care of the matter privately without any scandal.

PORTER: Sure. That’s right, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: Of course it’s bound to cause a great deal of very disagreeable talk. Especially ‘round the church! Are you gentlemen Episcopalian?

PORTER: No, ma’am. Catholic, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: Oh. Well, I suppose you know in England we’re known as the English Catholic church. We have direct Apostolic succession through St. Paul who christened the Early Angles—which is what the original English people were called—and established the English branch of the Catholic church over there. So when you hear ignorant people claim that our church was founded by—by Henry the Eighth—that horrible, lecherous old man who had so many wives—as many as Blue-beard they say! —you can see how ridiculous it is and how thoroughly obnox-ious to anybody who really knows and understands Church History!

PORTER: (comfortingly) Sure, Miss Collins. Everybody knows that.

MISS COLLINS: I wish they did, but they need to be instructed) Before he died, my father was Rector at the Church of St. Michael and St. George at Glorious Hill, Mississippi. . . . I’ve literally grown up right in the very shadow of the Episcopal church. At Pass Christian and Natchez, Biloxi, Gulfport, Port Gibson, Columbus and Glorious Hill! (with gentle, bewildered sadness) But you know I sometimes suspect that there has been some kind of spiritual schism in the modern church. These northern dioceses have completely departed from the good old church traditions. For instance our Rector at the Church of the Holy Communion has never darkened my door. It’s a fashionable church and he’s terribly busy, but even so you’d think he might have time to make a stranger in the congregation feel at home. But he doesn’t though! Nobody seems to have the time any more. . . . (She grows more excited as her mind sinks back into illusion.) I ought not to mention this, but do you know they actually take a malicious de-light over there at the Holy Communion—where I’ve recently transferred my letter—in what’s been going on here at night in this apartment? Yes!! (She laughs wildly and throws up her hands.) They take a malicious deLIGHT in it! ! (She catches her breath and gropes vaguely about her wrapper.)

PORTER: You lookin’ for somethin’, Miss Collins?

MISS COLLINS: My—handkerchief . . . (She is blinking her eyes against tears.)

PORTER: (removing a rag from his pocket) Here. Use this, Miss Collins. It’s just a rag but it’s clean, except along that edge where I wiped off the phonograph handle.

MISS COLLINS: Thanks. You gentlemen are very kind. Mother will bring in something cool after while. . . .

ELEVATOR BOY: (placing a record on machine) This one is got some kind of foreign title. (The record begins to play Tschaikowsky’s “None But the Lonely Heart.”)

MISS COLLINS: (stuffing the rag daintily in her bosom) Excuse me, please. Is the weather nice outside?

PORTER: (huskily) Yes, it’s nice, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: (dreamily) So wa’m for this time of year. I wore my little astrakhan cape to service but had to carry it home, as the weight of it actually seemed oppressive to me. (Her eyes fall shut.) The sidewalks seem so dreadfully long in summer. . . .

ELEVATOR BOY: This ain’t summer, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: (dreamily) I used to think I’d never get to the end of that last block. And that’s the block where all the trees went down in the big tornado. The walk is simply glit-tering with sunlight. (pressing her eyelids) Impossible to shade your face and I do perspire so freely! (She touches her forehead daintily with the rag.) Not a branch, not a leaf to give you a little protection! You simply have to en-dure it. Turn your hideous red face away from all the front-porches and walk as fast as you decently can till you get by them! Oh, dear, dear Savior, sometimes you’re not so lucky and you meet people and have to smile! You can’t avoid them unless you cut across and that’s so ob-vious, you know. . . . People would say you’re peculiar. . . . His house is right in the middle of that awful leafless block, their house, his and hers, and they have an automobile and always get home early and sit on the porch and watch me walking by—Oh, Father in Heaven—with a malicious delight! (She averts her face in remembered torture.) She has such penetrating eyes, they look straight through me. She sees that terrible choking thing in my throat and the pain I have in here—(touching her chest)—and she points it out and laughs and whispers to him, “There she goes with her shiny big red nose, the poor old maid—that loves you!” (She chokes and hides her face in the rag.)

PORTER: Maybe you better forget all that, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: Never, never forget it! Never, never! I left my parasol once—the one with long white fringe that belonged to Mother—I left it behind in the cloak-room at the church so I didn’t have anything to cover my face with when I walked by, and I couldn’t turn back either, with all those people behind me—giggling back of me, poking fun at my clothes! Oh, dear, dear! I had to walk straight forward—past the last elm tree and into that merciless sunlight. Oh! It beat down on me, scorching me! Whips! . . . Oh, Jesus! . . . Over my face and my body! . . . I tried to walk on fast but was dizzy and they kept closer behind me—! I stumbled, I nearly fell, and all of them burst out laughing! My face turned so horribly red, it got so red and wet, I knew how ugly it was in all that merciless glare—not a single shadow to hide in! And then—(Her face contorts with fear.)—their automobile drove up in front of their house, right where I had to pass by it, and she stepped out, in white, so fresh and easy, her stomach round with a baby, the first of the six. Oh, God! . . . And he stood smiling behind her, white and easy and cool, and they stood there waiting for me. Waiting! I had to keep on. What else could I do? I couldn’t turn back, could I? No! I said dear God, strike me dead! He didn’t, though. I put my head way down like I couldn’t see them! You know what she did? She stretched out her hand to stop me! And he—he stepped up straight in front of me, smiling, blocking the walk with his terrible big white body! “Lucretia,” he said, “Lucretia Collins!” I—I tried to speak but I couldn’t, the breath went out of my body! I covered my face and—ran! . . . Ran! . . . Ran! (beating the arm of the sofa) Till I reached the end of the block—and the elm trees—started again. . . . Oh, Merciful Christ in Heaven, how kind they were! (She leans back exhaustedly, her hand relaxed on sofa. She pauses and the music ends.) I said to Mother, “Mother, we’ve got to leave town!” We did after that. And now after all these years he’s finally remembered and come back! Moved away from that house and the woman and come here—I saw him in the back of the church one day. I wasn’t sure—but it was. The night after that was the night that he first broke in—and indulged his senses with me. . . . He doesn’t realize that I’ve changed, that I can’t feel again the way that I used to feel, now that he’s got six children by that Cincinnati girl—three in high-school already! Six! Think of that? Six children! I don’t know what he’ll say when he knows another one’s coming!

He’ll probably blame me for it because a man always does! In spite of the fact that he forced me!

ELEVATOR BOY: (grinning) Did you say—a baby, Miss Collins?

MISS COLLINS: (lowering her eyes but speaking with tenderness and pride) Yes—I’m expecting a child.

ELEVATOR BOY: Jeez! (He claps his hand over his mouth and turns away quickly.)

MISS COLLINS: Even if it’s not legitimate, I think it has a perfect right to its father’s name—don’t you?

PORTER: Yes. Sure, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: A child is innocent and pure. No matter how it’s conceived. And it must not be made to suffer! So I intend to dispose of the little property Cousin Ethel left me and give the child a private education where it won’t come under the evil influence of the Christian church! I want to make sure that it doesn’t grow up in the shadow of the cross and then have to walk along blocks that scorch you with terrible sunlight! (The elevator buzzer sounds from the hall.)

PORTER: Frank! Somebody wants to come up. (The Elevator Boy goes out. The elevator door bangs shut. The Porter clears his throat.) Yes, it’d be better—to go off some place else.

MISS COLLINS: If only I had the courage—but I don’t. I’ve grown so used to it here, and people outside—it’s always so hard to face them!

PORTER: Maybe you won’t—have to face nobody, Miss Collins. (The elevator door clangs open.)

MISS COLLINS: (rising fearfully) Is someone coming—here?

PORTER: You just take it easy, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: If that’s the officers coming for Richard, tell them to go away. I’ve decided not to prosecute Mr. Martin. (Mr. Abrams enters with the Doctor and the Nurse. The Elevator Boy gawks from the doorway. The Doctor is the weary, professional type, the Nurse hard and efficient. Mr. Abrams is a small, kindly person, sincerely troubled by the situation.)

MISS COLLINS: (shrinking back, her voice faltering) I’ve decided not to—prosecute Mr. Martin . . .

DOCTOR: Miss Collins?

MR. ABRAMS: (with attempted heartiness) Yes, this is the lady you wanted to meet, Dr. White.

DOCTOR: Hmmm. (briskly to the Nurse) Go in her bedroom and get a few things together.

NURSE: Yes, sir. (She goes quickly across to the bedroom.)

MISS COLLINS: (fearfully shrinking) Things?

DOCTOR: Yes, Miss Tyler will help you pack up an overnight bag. (smiling mechanically) A strange place always seems more homelike the first few days when we have a few of our little personal articles around us.

MISS COLLINS: A strange—place?

DOCTOR: (carelessly, making a memorandum) Don’t be disturbed, Miss Collins.

MISS COLLINS: I know! (excitedly) You’ve come from the Holy Communion to place me under arrest! On moral charges!

MR. ABRAMS: Oh, no, Miss Collins, you got the wrong idea. This is a doctor who—

DOCTOR: (impatiently) Now, now, you’re just going away for a while till things get straightened out. (He glances at his watch.) Two-twenty-five! Miss Tyler?

NURSE: Coming!

MISS COLLINS: (with slow and sad comprehension) Oh. . . . I’m going away. . . .

MR. ABRAMS: She was always a lady, Doctor, such a perfect lady.

DOCTOR: Yes. No doubt.

MR. ABRAMS: It seems too bad!

MISS COLLINS: Let me—write him a note. A pencil? Please?

MR. ABRAMS: Here, Miss Collins. (She takes the pencil and crouches over the table. The Nurse comes out with a hard, forced smile, carrying a suitcase.)

DOCTOR: Ready, Miss Tyler?

NURSE: All ready, Dr. White. (She goes up to Miss Collins.) Come along, dear, we can tend to that later!

MR. ABRAMS: (sharply) Let her finish the note!

MISS COLLINS: (straightening with a frightened smile) It’s—finished.

NURSE: All right, dear, come along. (She propels her firmly toward the door.)

MISS COLLINS: (turning suddenly back) Oh, Mr. Abrams!

MR. ABRAMS: Yes, Miss Collins?

MISS COLLINS: If he should come again—and find me gone—I’d rather you didn’t tell him—about the baby. . . . I think its better for me to tell him that, (gently smiling) You know how men are, don’t you?

MR. ABRAMS: Yes, Miss Collins.

PORTER: Goodbye, Miss Collins. (The Nurse pulls firmly at her arm. She smiles over her shoulder with a slight apologetic gesture.)

MISS COLLINS: Mother will bring in—something cool—after while . . . (She disappears down the hall with the Nurse. The elevator door clangs shut with the metallic sound of a locked cage. The wires hum.)

MR. ABRAMS: She wrote him a note.

PORTER: What did she write, Mr. Abrams?

MR. ABRAMS: “Dear—Richard. I’m going away for a while. But don’t worry, I’ll be back. I have a secret to tell you. Love—Lucretia.” (He coughs.) We got to clear out this stuff an’ pile it down in the basement till I find out where it goes.

PORTER: (dully) Tonight, Mr. Abrams?

MR. ABRAMS: (roughly to hide his feeling) No, no, not tonight, you old fool. Enough has happened tonight! (then gently)

We can do it tomorrow. Turn out that bedroom light—and close the window. (Music playing softly becomes audible as the men go out slowly, closing the door, and the light fades out.)

CURTAIN