Dr. Jonathan Part 17

ASHER. You're right there, Timothy

TIMOTHY. But that makes no difference, sir. It's what we can't be reasoning, but the nature in us all--

(He flings his arm toward the open windows.) --like the flowers and the trees in the doctor's garden groping to the light of the sun. Maybe the one'll die for lack of the proper soil, and many is cruelly trampled on, but the rest'll be growing, and none to stop 'em.

ASHER (pacing to the end of the room, and turning). No, I won't listen to it! You--you ask me to yield to them, when you have lost your son, when they're willing to sacrifice--to murder my son on the field of battle?

(He pauses and looks toward the doorway, right. DR. JONATHAN standing there, holding in his hand a yellow envelope. ASHER starts forward.)

A telegram? For me?

DR. JONATHAN. Yes, Asher.

(After giving it to ASHER, DR. JONATHAN takes his stand beside MINNIE, who is at the back of the room, near the bench. He lays a hand on her arm. ASHER tears open the envelope and stares at the telegram, his hands trembling.)

ASHER (exclaiming, in a half whisper). George!

AUGUSTA. Oh Asher, not--not--!

(She reaches for the telegram. He gives it to her. She reads.) "Captain George Pindar severely wounded, condition critical."

TIMOTHY. Please G.o.d he'll be spared to ye!

CURTAIN.

ACT III

SCENE: Same as in Act I, the library of ASHER PINDAR'S house.

TIME: The following day, early afternoon. A storm is raging, with wind and rain and occasional bright flashes of lightning and heavy peals of thunder. ASHER is pacing up and down the room, folding and unfolding his hands behind his back, when AUGUSTA enters, lower right, her knitting in her hand. There is a flash and a peal of thunder.

AUGUSTA. Oh! Asher, did you know that the elm at the end of the Common was struck just now?--that splendid old landmark!

ASHER. All the old landmarks are being struck down, one after another.

AUGUSTA (going up to him and putting her hand on his arm). I've been so nervous all day. Do be careful how you go about during this strike.

Those sullen and angry groups of men on the street this morning--

ASHER. Oh, they wouldn't dare touch me. If we only had a state constabulary we'd soon break that sort of thing up. But the Legislature trembles whenever a labour leader opens his mouth.

AUGUSTA (sitting down and taking up her knitting). If only I could be of some help to you! But it's always been so.

ASHER. You've been a good wife, Augusta!

AUGUSTA. I don't know. I've kept your house, I've seen that you were well fed, but I've been thinking lately how little that is for a woman--for a human being.

ASHER (surprised). Why, Augusta! I can't remember the time when you haven't been busy. You've taken an active part in church work and looked out for the people of the village.

AUGUSTA. Yes, and what has it all amounted to? The poor are ungrateful, they won't go near the church, and today they're buying pianos. Soon there won't be any poor to help.

ASHER. That's so. We'll be the paupers, if this sort of thing keeps on.

AUGUSTA. I've tried to do my duty as a Christian woman, but the world has no use, apparently, for Christians in these times. And whenever you have any really serious trouble, I seem to be the last person you take into your confidence.

ASHER. I don't worry you with business matters.

AUGUSTA. Because you do not regard me as your intellectual equal.

ASHER. A woman has her sphere. You have always filled it admirably.

AUGUSTA. "Adorn" is the word, I believe.

ASHER. To hear you talk, one would think you'd been contaminated by Jonathan. You, of all people!

AUGUSTA. There seems to be no place for a woman like me in these days,--I don't recognize the world I'm living in.

ASHER. You didn't sleep a wink last night, thinking of George.

AUGUSTA. I've given up all hope of ever seeing him again alive.

(Enter DR. JONATHAN, lower right. His calmness is in contrast to the storm, and to the mental states of ASHER and AUGUSTA.)

Why, Jonathan, what are you doing out in this storm?

DR. JONATHAN. I came to see you, Augusta.

AUGUSTA (knitting, trying to hide her perturbation at his appearance).

Did you? You might have waited until the worst was over. You still have to be careful of your health, you know.

DR. JONATHAN (sitting down). There are other things more important than my health. No later news about George, I suppose.

ASHER. Yes. I got another telegram early this morning saying that he is on his way home on a transport.

DR. JONATHAN. On his way home!

ASHER. If he lives to arrive. I'll show you the wire. Apparently they can't make anything out of his condition, but think it's sh.e.l.l shock.

This storm has been raging along the coast ever since nine o'clock, the wires are down, but I did manage to telephone to New York and get hold of Frye, the sh.e.l.l-shock specialist. In case George should land today, he'll meet him.

DR. JONATHAN. Frye is a good man.

ASHER. George is. .h.i.t by a sh.e.l.l and almost killed nearly a month ago, and not a word do I hear of it until I get that message in your house yesterday! Then comes this other telegram this morning. What's to be said about a government capable of such inefficiency? Of course the chances of his landing today are small, but I can't leave for New York until tonight because that same government sends a labour investigator here to pry into my affairs, and make a preliminary report. They're going to decide whether or not I shall keep my property or hand it over to them! And whom do they send? Not a business man, who's had practical experience with labour, but a professor out of some university,--a theorist!

DR. JONATHAN. Awkward people, these professors. But what would you do about it, Asher? Wall up the universities?

ASHER. Their trustees, who are business men, should forbid professors meddling in government and politics. This fellow had the impudence to tell me to my face that my own workmen, whom I am paying, aren't working for me. I'm only supposed to be supplying the capital. We talk about Germany being an autocracy it's nothing to what this country has become!