Plays by Susan Glaspell Part 25

ANTHONY: But come and see, Miss Claire.

CLAIRE: It's so much more than--I'd see.

HARRY: Well, I'm going to see. (_looking into it_) I never saw anything like that before! There seems something alive--inside this outer sh.e.l.l.

d.i.c.k: (_he too looking in and he has an artist's manner of a hand up to make the light right_) It's quite new in form. It--says something about form.

HARRY: (_cordially to_ CLAIRE, _who stands apart_) So you've really put it over. Well, well,--congratulations. It's a good deal of novelty, I should say, and I've no doubt you'll have a considerable success with it--people always like something new. I'm mighty glad--after all your work, and I hope it will--set you up.

CLAIRE: (_low--and like a machine_) Will you all--go away?

(ANTHONY _goes--into the other room._)

HARRY: Why--why, yes. But--oh, Claire! Can't you take some pleasure in your work? (_as she stands there very still_) Emmons says you need a good long rest--and I think he's right.

TOM: Can't this help you, Claire? Let this be release. This--breath of the uncaptured.

CLAIRE: (_and though speaking, she remains just as still_) Breath of the uncaptured?

You are a novelty.

Out?

You have been brought in.

A thousand years from now, when you are but a form too long repeated, Perhaps the madness that gave you birth will burst again, And from the prison that is you will leap pent queernesses To make a form that hasn't been-- To make a person new.

And this we call creation, (_very low, her head not coming up_) Go away!

(TOM _goes_; HARRY _hesitates, looking in anxiety at_ CLAIRE. _He starts to go, stops, looks at_ d.i.c.k, _from him to_ CLAIRE. _But goes. A moment later_ d.i.c.k _moves near_ CLAIRE; _stands uncertainly, then puts a hand upon her. She starts, only then knowing he is there._)

CLAIRE: (_a slight shrinking away, but not really reached_) Um, um.

(_He goes_. CLAIRE _steps nearer her creation. She looks into what hasn't been. With her breath, and by a gentle moving of her hands, she fans it to fuller openness. As she does this_ TOM _returns and from outside is looking in at her. Softly he opens the door and comes in. She does not know that he is there. In the way she looks at the flower he looks at her._)

TOM: Claire, (_she lifts her head_) As you stood there, looking into the womb you breathed to life, you were beautiful to me beyond any other beauty. You were life and its reach and its anguish. I can't go away from you. I will never go away from you. It shall all be--as you wish. I can go with you where I could not go alone. If this is delusion, I want that delusion. It's more than any reality I could attain, (_as she does not move_) Speak to me, Claire. You--are glad?

CLAIRE: (_from far_) Speak to you? (_pause_) Do I know who you are?

TOM: I think you do.

CLAIRE: Oh, yes. I love you. That's who you are. (_waits again_) But why are you something--very far away?

TOM: Come nearer.

CLAIRE: Nearer? (_feeling it with her voice_) Nearer. But I think I am going--the other way.

TOM: No, Claire--come to me. Did you understand, dear? I am not going away.

CLAIRE: You're not going away?

TOM: Not without you, Claire. And you and I will be together. Is that--what you wanted?

CLAIRE: Wanted? (_as if wanting is something that harks far back. But the word calls to her pa.s.sion_) Wanted! (_a sob, hands out, she goes to him. But before his arms can take her, she steps back_) Are you trying to pull me down into what I wanted? Are you here to make me stop?

TOM: How can you ask that? I love you because it is not in you to stop.

CLAIRE: And loving me for that--would stop me? Oh, help me see it! It is so important that I see it.

TOM: It is important. It is our lives.

CLAIRE: And more than that. I cannot see it because it is so much more than that.

TOM: Don't try to see all that it is. From peace you'll see a little more.

CLAIRE: Peace? (_troubled as we are when looking at what we cannot see clearly_) What is peace? Peace is what the struggle knows in moments very far apart. Peace--that is not a place to rest. Are you resting?

What are you? You who'd take me from what I am to something else?

TOM: I thought you knew, Claire.

CLAIRE: I know--what you pa.s.s for. But are you beauty? Beauty is that only living pattern--the trying to take pattern. Are you trying?

TOM: Within myself, Claire. I never thought you doubted that.

CLAIRE: Beauty is it. (_she turns to Breath of Life, as if to learn it there, but turns away with a sob_) If I cannot go to you now--I will always be alone.

(TOM _takes her in his arms. She is shaken, then comes to rest._)

TOM: Yes--rest. And then--come into joy. You have so much life for joy.

CLAIRE: (_raising her head, called by promised gladness_) We'll run around together. (_lovingly he nods_) Up hills. All night on hills.

TOM: (_tenderly_) All night on hills.

CLAIRE: We'll go on the sea in a little boat.

TOM: On the sea in a little boat.

CLAIRE: But--there are other boats on other seas, (_drawing back from him, troubled_) There are other boats on other seas.

TOM: (_drawing her back to him_) My dearest--not now, not now.

CLAIRE: (_her arms going round him_) Oh, I would love those hours with you. I want them. I want you! (_they kiss--but deep in her is sobbing_) Reminiscence, (_her hand feeling his arm as we touch what we would remember_) Reminiscence. (_with one of her swift changes steps back from him_) How dare you pa.s.s for what you're not? We are tired, and so we think it's you. Stop with you. Don't get through--to what you're in the way of. Beauty is not something you say about beauty.

TOM: I say little about beauty, Claire.

CLAIRE: Your life says it. By standing far off you pa.s.s for it. Smother it with a life that pa.s.ses for it. But beauty--(_getting it from the flower_) Beauty is the humility breathed from the shame of succeeding.

TOM: But it may all be within one's self, dear.

CLAIRE: (_drawn by this, but held, and desperate because she is held_) When I have wanted you with all my wanting--why must I distrust you now?

When I love you--with all of me, why do I know that only you are worth my hate?

TOM: It's the fear of easy satisfactions. I love you for it.