Anna Christie Part 10

CHRIS--[Snorts scornfully.] Py yiminy, you go crazy, Ay tank!

ANNA--[With a mournful laugh.] Well, I been thinking I was myself the last few days. [She goes and takes a shawl from a hook near the door and throws it over her shoulders.] Guess I'll take a walk down to the end of the dock for a minute and see what's doing. I love to watch the ships pa.s.sing. Mat'll be along before long, I guess. Tell him where I am, will you?

CHRIS--[Despondently.] All right, Ay tal him. [ANNA goes out the doorway on rear. CHRIS follows her out and stands on the deck outside for a moment looking after her. Then he comes back inside and shuts the door. He stands looking out of the window--mutters--"Dirty die davil, you." Then he goes to the table, sets the cloth straight mechanically, picks up the newspaper ANNA has let fall to the floor and sits down in the rocking-chair. He stares at the paper for a while, then puts it on table, holds his head in his hands and sighs drearily. The noise of a man's heavy footsteps comes from the deck outside and there is a loud knock on the door. CHRIS starts, makes a move as if to get up and go to the door, then thinks better of it and sits still. The knock is repeated--then as no answer comes, the door is flung open and MAT BURKE appears. CHRIS scowls at the intruder and his hand instinctively goes back to the sheath knife on his hip. BURKE is dressed up--wears a cheap blue suit, a striped cotton shirt with a black tie, and black shoes newly shined. His face is beaming with good humor.]

BURKE--[As he sees CHRIS--in a jovial tone of mockery.] Well, G.o.d bless who's here! [He bends down and squeezes his huge form through the narrow doorway.] And how is the world treating you this afternoon, Anna's father?

CHRIS--[Sullenly.] Pooty goot--if it ain't for some fallars.

BURKE--[With a grin.] Meaning me, do you? [He laughs.] Well, if you ain't the funny old crank of a man! [Then soberly.] Where's herself?

[CHRIS sits dumb, scowling, his eyes averted. BURKE is irritated by this silence.] Where's Anna, I'm after asking you?

CHRIS--[Hesitating--then grouchily.] She go down end of dock.

BURKE--I'll be going down to her, then. But first I'm thinking I'll take this chance when we're alone to have a word with you. [He sits down opposite CHRIS at the table and leans over toward him.] And that word is soon said. I'm marrying your Anna before this day is out, and you might as well make up your mind to it whether you like it or no.

CHRIS--[Glaring at him with hatred and forcing a scornful laugh.]

Ho-ho! Dat's easy for say!

BURKE--You mean I won't? [Scornfully.] Is it the like of yourself will stop me, are you thinking?

CHRIS--Yes, Ay stop it, if it come to vorst.

BURKE--[With scornful pity.] G.o.d help you!

CHRIS--But ain't no need for me do dat. Anna--

BURKE--[Smiling confidently.] Is it Anna you think will prevent me?

CHRIS--Yes.

BURKE--And I'm telling you she'll not. She knows I'm loving her, and she loves me the same, and I know it.

CHRIS--Ho-ho! She only have fun. She make big fool of you, dat's all!

BURKE--[Unshaken--pleasantly.] That's a lie in your throat, divil mend you!

CHRIS--No, it ain't lie. She tal me yust before she go out she never marry fallar like you.

BURKE--I'll not believe it. 'Tis a great old liar you are, and a divil to be making a power of trouble if you had your way. But 'tis not trouble I'm looking for, and me sitting down here. [Earnestly.] Let us be talking it out now as man to man. You're her father, and wouldn't it be a shame for us to be at each other's throats like a pair of dogs, and I married with Anna. So out with the truth, man alive. What is it you're holding against me at all?

CHRIS--[A bit placated, in spite of himself, by BURKE'S evident sincerity--but puzzled and suspicious.] Vell--Ay don't vant for Anna gat married. Listen, you fallar. Ay'm a ole man. Ay don't see Anna for fifteen year. She vas all Ay gat in vorld. And now ven she come on first trip--you tank Ay vant her leave me 'lone again?

BURKE--[Heartily.] Let you not be thinking I have no heart at all for the way you'd be feeling.

CHRIS--[Astonished and encouraged--trying to plead persuasively.] Den you do right tang, eh? You ship avay again, leave Anna alone.

[Cajolingly.] Big fallar like you dat's on sea, he don't need vife. He gat new gel in every port, you know dat.

BURKE--[Angry for a second.] G.o.d stiffen you! [Then controlling himself--calmly.] I'll not be giving you the lie on that. But divil take you, there's a time comes to every man, on sea or land, that isn't a born fool, when he's sick of the lot of them cows, and wearing his heart out to meet up with a fine dacent girl, and have a home to call his own and be rearing up children in it. 'Tis small use you're asking me to leave Anna. She's the wan woman of the world for me, and I can't live without her now, I'm thinking.

CHRIS--You forgat all about her in one veek out of port, Ay bet you!

BURKE--You don't know the like I am. Death itself wouldn't make me forget her. So let you not be making talk to me about leaving her. I'll not, and be d.a.m.ned to you! It won't be so bad for you as you'd make out at all. She'll be living here in the States, and her married to me. And you'd be seeing her often so--a sight more often than ever you saw her the fifteen years she was growing up in the West. It's quare you'd be the one to be making great trouble about her leaving you when you never laid eyes on her once in all them years.

CHRIS--[Guiltily.] Ay taught it vas better Anna stay avay, grow up inland where she don't ever know ole davil, sea.

BURKE--[Scornfully.] Is it blaming the sea for your troubles ye are again, G.o.d help you? Well, Anna knows it now. 'Twas in her blood, anyway.

CHRIS--And Ay don't vant she ever know no-good fallar on sea--

BURKE--She knows one now.

CHRIS--[Banging the table with his fist--furiously.] Dat's yust it!

Dat's yust what you are--no-good, sailor fallar! You tank Ay lat her life be made sorry by you like her mo'der's vas by me! No, Ay svear!

She don't marry you if Ay gat kill you first!

BURKE--[Looks at him a moment, in astonishment--then laughing uproariously.] Ho-ho! Glory be to G.o.d, it's bold talk you have for a stumpy runt of a man!

CHRIS--[Threateningly.] Vell--you see!

BURKE--[With grinning defiance.] I'll see, surely! I'll see myself and Anna married this day, I'm telling you! [Then with contemptuous exasperation.] It's quare fool's blather you have about the sea done this and the sea done that. You'd ought to be shamed to be saying the like, and you an old sailor yourself. I'm after hearing a lot of it from you and a lot more that Anna's told me you do be saying to her, and I'm thinking it's a poor weak thing you are, and not a man at all!

CHRIS--[Darkly.] You see if Ay'm man--maybe quicker'n you tank.

BURKE--[Contemptuously.] Yerra, don't be boasting. I'm thinking 'tis out of your wits you've got with fright of the sea. You'd be wishing Anna married to a farmer, she told me. That'd be a swate match, surely!

Would you have a fine girl the like of Anna lying down at nights with a muddy scut stinking of pigs and dung? Or would you have her tied for life to the like of them skinny, shrivelled swabs does be working in cities?

CHRIS--Dat's lie, you fool!

BURKE--'Tis not. 'Tis your own mad notions I'm after telling. But you know the truth in your heart, if great fear of the sea has made you a liar and coward itself. [Pounding the table.] The sea's the only life for a man with guts in him isn't afraid of his own shadow! 'Tis only on the sea he's free, and him roving the face of the world, seeing all things, and not giving a d.a.m.n for saving up money, or stealing from his friends, or any of the black tricks that a landlubber'd waste his life on. 'Twas yourself knew it once, and you a bo'sun for years.

CHRIS--[Sputtering with rage.] You vas crazy fool, Ay tal you!

BURKE--You've swallowed the anchor. The sea give you a clout once knocked you down, and you're not man enough to get up for another, but lie there for the rest of your life howling b.l.o.o.d.y murder. [Proudly.]

Isn't it myself the sea has nearly drowned, and me battered and bate till I was that close to h.e.l.l I could hear the flames roaring, and never a groan out of me till the sea gave up and it seeing the great strength and guts of a man was in me?

CHRIS--[Scornfully.] Yes, you vas h.e.l.l of fallar, hear you tal it!

BURKE--[Angrily.] You'll be calling me a liar once too often, me old bucko! Wasn't the whole story of it and my picture itself in the newspapers of Boston a week back? [Looking CHRIS up and down belittlingly.] Sure I'd like to see you in the best of your youth do the like of what I done in the storm and after. 'Tis a mad lunatic, screeching with fear, you'd be this minute!

CHRIS--Ho-ho! You vas young fool! In ole years when Ay was on windyammer, Ay vas through hundred storms vorse'n dat! Ships vas ships den--and men dat sail on dem vas real men. And now what you gat on steamers? You gat fallars on deck don't know ship from mudscow. [With a meaning glance at BURKE.] And below deck you gat fallars yust know how for shovel coal--might yust as veil vork on coal vagon ash.o.r.e!

BURKE--[Stung--angrily.] Is it casting insults at the men in the stokehole ye are, ye old ape? G.o.d stiffen you! Wan of them is worth any ten stock-fish-swilling Square-heads ever shipped on a windbag!

CHRIS--[His face working with rage, his hand going back to the sheath-knife on his hip.] Irish svine, you!

BURKE--[Tauntingly.] Don't ye like the Irish, ye old babboon? 'Tis that you're needing in your family, I'm telling you--an Irishman and a man of the stokehole--to put guts in it so that you'll not be having grandchildren would be fearful cowards and jacka.s.ses the like of yourself!

CHRIS--[Half rising from his chair--in a voice choked with rage.] You look out!