scene five

“an accident of atoms”

At first the stage is pitch black and soundless. Then, distantly, we hear the hollow echo of footsteps on stone. Gradually, against the cyclorama, are projected the Gothic outlines of a university quadrangle. A spot of ghostly lights falls on a heroic statue of an athlete bearing a torch, on the marble pediment of which is chiseled the inscription “Youth.” A small stone bench is beneath it with a graduate’s tasseled cap.

Ben steps into the spot of light—he looks gravely up at the statue and takes a drink from a pint bottle of whiskey. He bows to the statue and offers him the bottle.

ben: Aw, I forgot, You mustn’t break training rules—the coach wouldn’t like it. Beautiful, shining, clean-minded, clean-limbed American youth—I salute you! [He sits on the bench.]

[Distant singing is heard. Ghostly voices become audible: fragments of lectures remembered, the finely distilled wisdom and passion of seers and poets with which the modern young mind is tempered for the world that blows it to pieces.]

voices: —We, the living, exist in a sliding moment of time which is called reality. What is reality? Does anyone know? —Every theoretical model of the universe beginning with Einstein’s, has made the radius of the universe thousands of times greater than that part now visible. —One hundred thousand times ten thousand light years is a billion light years, a distance that would stretch across the whole universe now visible to astronomers. —Ah, but we live in an expanding universe, a universe that exhibits a mysterious passion for growth! —Yes. It would stagger the imagination to conceive of what may ultimately become the full extent of things described by that important little verb “to be.” Indeed it would be impossible for thought to evolve a figure sufficiently huge—

[Ben claps his forehead and leans back against the stone pediment of the statue. There is a sudden crash of brass and roll of drums. Silence. Then a distant choral singing. Pause. Pale blue spectral light appears in the Gothic archway nearby. Into this radiance of recollection steps the lovely, slender figure of a girl in a senior’s robe.]

helen: Ben—

ben: Yes, Helen.

helen: I couldn’t sleep last night. I had pinwheels in my head. I guess I shouldn’t have taken up astronomy this spring. It makes the universe too big and the world too little. It is a little world, isn’t it? It seems to be so terribly tiny and lost in all of that time and space they say it’s surrounded by. And yet— [She delicately touches her temples.] On this little star, as they say, by some miraculous accident of atoms—life was created and consciousness occurred and here I am, Ben Murphy, and there you are— [She stretches out her hands and curves her fingers as though she were clasping his head. Tender wordless singing is heard.] In this dear, funny little head of yours there’s something that holds the image of everything else there is! Holds it until it breaks and then lets it go . . . O Ben, catch me, Ben, I feel dizzy! [She smiles and closes her eyes.] I know a lot more than you do about some things. Perhaps I ought to undertake your instruction. Shall I?

ben [huskily]: Yes.

helen: In kissing, for instance, there’s two kinds of kisses. This kind, pure and simple and satisfactory enough for kids coming home from the movies— But then there’s another—

ben: Which is the other, Helen?

helen: You’d like me to show you?

ben: Yeah.

helen [leaning provocatively against the column]: Hold me close and open your lips when you kiss me!

[The lights fade out in the archway and Helen disappears. Pause. The choral singing swells in rapture and fades.]

the whispering ghostly voices again: Light is not straight but curved. This discovery led to entirely new conceptions of— It being possible, now to determine the weight of an atom— Arrived eventually at the Straits of Magellan! —Silent upon a peak in Darien!¹ —Latitude! Longitude! —East by West! —Island! Indies! Archipelago! Hesperides! —It is blood to remember; it is fire—to stammer back. —It is God—your namelessness. —Windswept guitars on lonely decks forever!²

[A spot captures Jim in the archway wearing a varsity sweater. A steel guitar plays “Song of the Islands” faintly.]

jim: Aw, quit goofing off!

ben: You don’t know Helen?

jim: Sure. She writes lyric verse. The perfume in the poison cup. I tell you, Ben, it’s instinct with the female to feather the nest. Marry her and you’d spend the rest of your life collecting feathers. Is that what you want?

ben: Christ! What do I want?

jim: Adventure, excitement! Look! Soon as we graduate we’re going to ship out on a cargo boat for Cairo—Shanghai—Bombay! We’ll survive shipwrecks and write the vivid details of native uprisings. We’ll be the calm observers of revolutions or maybe foment them ourselves—our lives will be legendary! Which is preferable, such a life as that or a life that is lived behind a pair of white lace curtains with that little bush-league Edna St. Vincent Millay?

ben [frenzied]: I don’t know, I don’t know—I can’t think. There are so many possibilities—

jim: Infinite possibilities! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, you fool! You want to toss ’em all over—for sex and a sonnet!

[The spot on Jim fades. A Glee Club is heard singing Alma Mater.]

commencement speaker: You graduates of the class of 1934 are presented with an unusual challenge. You are being sent out as a stream of revitalizing blood to the world that is dying slowly of spiritual anemia. A world exhausted by recent war, already rearming itself for another. Gripped by unparalleled economic depression for which only the barest experiments are offered for correction. Therefore I say we look to you with an almost frantic appeal—give us new life, you young ones, new courage and new ideas! Build us a brand new faith to revive our spirits!

[Fade out. Applause. A band starts up. A spot comes up on Jim in cap and gown, lighting a pipe in the archway.]

ben: J.T. Faraway Jones came up and congratulated me on my valedictorian address.

jim: Yeah? Isn’t he the president or something of Consolidated Shirtmakers?

ben: Yep. He wants to give me a job in that colossal sweatshop of his.

jim: That’s a mighty solid corporation. You’d better take it.

ben: You’re not serious, are you?

jim: Yep. Perfectly serious. One out of ten guys in our class has got the barest possibility of finding any kind of a job.

ben: How about that cargo boat we were going to ship out on?

jim: What are your capital assets?

ben: Eighty-five cents.

jim: Not quite enough to pay for your passport, sonny. We’ve got to accumulate a little more money than that before we sail into the sunrise. As a matter of fact, I’ve taken a job myself—handling complaints down at the Olympic Light and Gas Company.

ben: Oh. That was a fine speech you made to me when I wanted to marry Helen. Remember? I was sacrificing a life of adventure and excitement for the life of a petty wage earner behind a pair of white lace curtains.

jim: Don’t get me wrong. I’m only taking this job for three or four months.

[The spot on Jim begins to fade.]

ben [bitterly]: Three or four years—five years—six years—seven—eight! You cheat! You phony! You coward! You dirty liar! [He hurls the empty whiskey bottle at Jim’s now vanishing figure. It shatters upon the stone archway. Then hoarsely and brokenly:] “O, Harry—Thou hast robb’d me of my youth!”³

[Distant choral singing is heard. High in the Gothic tower above the quadrangle the bells begin to chime the midnight hour. Ben turns slowly back to the exalted statue of youth. He raises his arms in a baffled, imploring gesture. But the bells ring on, slowly and obliviously. He drops his arms—falls sobbing against the marble pediment of the statue. Footsteps ring along the stone. The singing comes up stronger and clearer. A Youth in military uniform appears. Ben turns to face him. The Youth salutes and starts to pass by.]

Hey!

[The Youth pauses with a smile. Ben continues, extending the tasseled cap.]

Is this yours?

youth: It was. But I have a new one. [He touches the visor of his cap.]

ben [slowly and bitterly]: You have in your body about three gallons of blood. Is that enough to wash the world’s dirty hands?

youth: How do I know? Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. So long. [He smiles brightly and strangely and passes out of sight.]

[The light fades and the music fades.]

blackout

[Mr. E sighs offstage.]

1 John Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman's Homer.”

2 Hart Crane, “The Southern Cross” from The Bridge.

3 Henry IV: Part One, Act V, Scene IV, Hotspur.