Plays Part 40

HOLDEN: I don't seem to know what you mean at all.

FEJEVARY: Why, that disgraceful performance this morning. I can settle Madeline all right, (looking at his watch) She should be here by now. But I'm convinced our case before the legislature will be stronger with the Hindus out of here.

HOLDEN: Well, I seem to have missed something-disgraceful performance-the Hindus, Madeline-(stops, bewildered)

FEJEVARY: You mean to say you don't know about the disturbance out here?

HOLDEN: I went right home after the address. Then came up here alone.

FEJEVARY: Upon my word, you do lead a serene life. While you've been sitting here in contemplation I've been to the police court-trying to get my niece out of jail. That's what comes of having radicals around.

HOLDEN: What happened?

FEJEVARY: One of our beloved Hindus made himself obnoxious on the campus. Giving out handbills about freedom for India-howling over deportation. Our American boys wouldn't stand for it. A policeman saw the fuss-came up and started to put the Hindu in his place. Then Madeline rushes in, and it ended in her pounding the policeman with her tennis racket.

HOLDEN: Madeline Morton did that!

FEJEVARY: (sharply) You seem pleased.

HOLDEN: I am-interested.

FEJEVARY: Well, I'm not interested. I'm disgusted. My niece mixing up in a free-for-all fight and getting taken to the police station! It's the first disgrace we've ever had in our family.

HOLDEN: (as one who has been given courage) Wasn't there another disgrace?

FEJEVARY: What do you mean?

HOLDEN: When your father fought his government and was banished from his country.

FEJEVARY: That was not a disgrace!

HOLDEN: (as if in surprise) Wasn't it?

FEJEVARY: See here, Holden, you can't talk to me like that.

HOLDEN: I don't admit you can talk to me as you please and that I can't talk to you. I'm a professor-not a servant.

FEJEVARY: Yes, and you're a d.a.m.ned difficult professor. I certainly have tried to-

HOLDEN: (smiling) Handle me?

FEJEVARY: I ask you this. Do you know any other inst.i.tution where you could sit and talk with the executive head as you have here with me?

HOLDEN: I don't know. Perhaps not.

FEJEVARY: Then be reasonable. No one is entirely free. That's nave. It's rather egotistical to want to be. We're held by our relations to others-by our obligations to the (vaguely)-the ultimate thing. Come now-you admit certain dissatisfactions with yourself, so-why not go with intensity into just the things you teach-and not touch quite so many other things?

HOLDEN: I couldn't teach anything if I didn't feel free to go wherever that thing took me. Thirty years ago I was asked to come to this college precisely because my science was not in isolation, because of my vivid feeling of us as a moment in a long sweep, because of my faith in the greater beauty our further living may unfold.

(HARRY enters.)

HARRY: Excuse me. Miss Morton is here now, Mr Fejevary.

FEJEVARY: (frowns, hesitates) Ask her to come up here in five minutes (After HARRY has gone) I think we've thrown a scare into Madeline. I thought as long as she'd been taken to jail it would be no worse for us to have her stay there awhile. She's been held since one o'clock. That ought to teach her reason.

HOLDEN: Is there a case against her?

FEJEVARY: No, I got it fixed up. Explained that it was just college girl foolishness-wouldn't happen again. One reason I wanted this talk with you first, if I do have any trouble with Madeline I want you to help me.

HOLDEN: Oh, I can't do that.

FEJEVARY: You aren't running out and clubbing the police. Tell her she'll have to think things over and express herself with a little more dignity.

HOLDEN: I ask to be excused from being present while you talk with her.

FEJEVARY: But why not stay in the library-in case I should need you. Just take your books over to the east alcove and go on with what you were doing when I came in.

HOLDEN: (with a faint smile) I fear I can hardly do that. As to Madeline-

FEJEVARY: You don't want to see the girl destroy herself, do you? I confess I've always worried about Madeline. If my sister had lived-But Madeline's mother died, you know, when she was a baby. Her father-well, you and I talked that over just the other day-there's no getting to him. Fred never worried me a bit-just the fine normal boy. But Madeline-(with an effort throwing it off) Oh, it'll be all right, I haven't a doubt. And it'll be all right between you and me, won't it? Caution over a hard strip of the road, then-bigger things ahead.

HOLDEN: (slowly, knowing what it may mean) I shall continue to do all I can toward getting Fred Jordan out of prison. It's a disgrace to America that two years after the war closes he should be kept there-much of the time in solitary confinement-because he couldn't believe in war. It's small-vengeful-it's the Russia of the Czars. I shall do what is in my power to fight the deportation of Gurkul Singh. And certainly I shall leave no stone unturned if you persist in your amazing idea of dismissing the other Hindus from college. For what-I ask you? Dismissed-for what? Because they love liberty enough to give their lives to it! The day you dismiss them, burn our high-sounding manifesto, Mr Fejevary, and admit that Morton College now sells her soul to the-committee on appropriations!

FEJEVARY: Well, you force me to be as specific as you are. If you do these things, I can no longer fight for you.

HOLDEN: Very well then, I go.

FEJEVARY: Go where?

HOLDEN: I don't know-at the moment.

FEJEVARY: I fear you'll find it harder than you know. Meanwhile, what of your family?

HOLDEN: We will have to manage some way.

FEJEVARY: It is not easy for a woman whose health-in fact, whose life-is a matter of the best of care to 'manage some way'. (with real feeling) What is an intellectual position alongside that reality? You'd like, of course, to be just what you want to be-but isn't there something selfish in that satisfaction? I'm talking as a friend now-you must know that. You and I have a good many ties, Holden. I don't believe you know how much Mrs Fejevary thinks of Mrs Holden.

HOLDEN: She has been very, very good to her.

FEJEVARY: And will be. She cares for her. And our children have been growing up together-I love to watch it. Isn't that the reality? Doing for them as best we can, making sacrifices of-of every kind. Don't let some tenuous, remote thing destroy this flesh and blood thing.

HOLDEN: (as one fighting to keep his head above water) Honesty is not a tenuous, remote thing.

FEJEVARY: There's a kind of honesty in selfishness. We can't always have it. Oh, I used to-go through things. But I've struck a pace-one does-and goes ahead.

HOLDEN: Forgive me, but I don't think you've had certain temptations to-selfishness.

FEJEVARY: How do you know what I've had? You have no way of knowing what's in me-what other thing I might have been? You know my heritage; you think that's left nothing? But I find myself here in America. I love those dependent on me. My wife-who's used to a certain manner of living; my children-who are to become part of the America of their time. I've never said this to another human being-I've never looked at myself-but it's pretty arrogant to think you're the only man who has made a sacrifice to fit himself into the age in which he lives. I hear Madeline. This hasn't left me in very good form for talking with her. Please don't go away. Just-