Plays by Susan Glaspell Part 8

(HATTIE _giggles, is leaving_.)

And let's see, have we got everything? (_takes the one shaker, shakes a little pepper on his hand. Looks in vain for the other shaker_) And tell Mr Demming to bring the salt.

ANTHONY: But Miss Claire will be very angry.

HARRY: I am very angry. Did I choose to eat my breakfast at the other end of a blizzard?

ANTHONY: (_an exclamation of horror at the thermometer_) The temperature is falling. I must report. (_he punches the buzzer, takes up the phone_) Miss Claire? It is Anthony. A terrible thing has happened. Mr Archer--what? Yes, a terrible thing.--Yes, it is about Mr Archer.--No--no, not dead. But here. He is here. Yes, he is well, he seems well, but he is eating his breakfast. Yes, he is having breakfast served out here--for himself, and the other gentlemen are to come too.--Well, he seemed to be annoyed because the heat had been turned off from the house. But the door keeps opening--this stormy wind blowing right over the plants. The temperature has already fallen.--Yes, yes. I thought you would want to come.

(ANTHONY _opens the trap-door and goes below_. HARRY _looks disapprovingly down into this openness at his feet, returns to his breakfast_. ANTHONY _comes up, bearing a box_.)

HARRY: (_turning his face away_) Phew! What a smell.

ANTHONY: Yes. Fertilizer has to smell.

HARRY: Well, it doesn't have to smell up my breakfast!

ANTHONY: (_with a patient sense of order_) The smell belongs here. (_he and the smell go to the inner room_)

(_The outer door opens just enough to admit_ CLAIRE--_is quickly closed.

With_ CLAIRE _in a room another kind of aliveness is there_.)

CLAIRE: What are you doing here?

HARRY: Getting breakfast. (_all the while doing so_)

CLAIRE: I'll not have you in my place!

HARRY: If you take all the heat then you have to take me.

CLAIRE: I'll show you how I have to take you. (_with her hands begins scooping upon him the soil_ ANTHONY _has prepared_)

HARRY: (_jumping up, laughing, pinning down her arms, putting his arms around her_) Claire--be decent. What harm do I do here?

CLAIRE: You pull down the temperature.

HARRY: Not after I'm in.

CLAIRE: And you told Tom and d.i.c.k to come and make it uneven.

HARRY: Tom and d.i.c.k are our guests. We can't eat where it's warm and leave them to eat where it's cold.

CLAIRE: I don't see why not.

HARRY: You only see what you want to see.

CLAIRE: That's not true. I wish it were. No; no, I don't either. (_she is disturbed--that troubled thing which rises from within, from deep, and takes_ CLAIRE. _She turns to the Edge Vine, examines. Regretfully to_ ANTHONY, _who has come in with a plant_) It's turning back, isn't it?

ANTHONY: Can you be sure yet, Miss Claire?

CLAIRE: Oh yes--it's had its chance. It doesn't want to be--what hasn't been.

HARRY: (_who has turned at this note in her voice. Speaks kindly_) Don't take it so seriously, Claire. (CLAIRE _laughs_)

CLAIRE: No, I suppose not. But it _does_ matter--and why should I pretend it doesn't, just because I've failed with it?

HARRY: Well, I don't want to see it get you--it's not important enough for that.

CLAIRE: (_in her brooding way_) Anything is important enough for that--if it's important at all. (_to the vine_) I thought you were out, but you're--going back home.

ANTHONY: But you're doing it this time, Miss Claire. When Breath of Life opens--and we see its heart--

(CLAIRE _looks toward the inner room. Because of intervening plants they do not see what is seen from the front--a plant like caught motion, and of a greater transparency than plants have had. Its leaves, like waves that curl, close around a heart that is not seen. This plant stands by itself in what, because of the arrangement of things about it, is a hidden place. But nothing is between it and the light_.)

CLAIRE: Yes, if the heart has (_a little laugh_) held its own, then Breath of Life is alive in its otherness. But Edge Vine is running back to what it broke out of.

HARRY: Come, have some coffee, Claire.

(ANTHONY _returns to the inner room, the outer door opens_. d.i.c.k _is hurled in_.)

CLAIRE: (_going to the door, as he gasps for breath before closing it_) How dare you make my temperature uneven! (_she shuts the door and leans against it_)

d.i.c.k: Is that what I do?

(_A laugh, a look between them, which is held into significance_.)

HARRY: (_who is not facing them_) Where's the salt?

d.i.c.k: Oh, I fell down in the snow. I must have left the salt where I fell. I'll go back and look for it.

CLAIRE: And change the temperature? We don't need salt.

HARRY: You don't need salt, Claire. But we eat eggs.

CLAIRE: I must tell you I don't like the idea of any food being eaten here, where things have their own way to go. Please eat as little as possible, and as quickly.

HARRY: A hostess calculated to put one at one's ease.

CLAIRE: (_with no ill-nature_) I care nothing about your ease. Or about d.i.c.k's ease.

d.i.c.k: And no doubt that's what makes you so fascinating a hostess.

CLAIRE: Was I a fascinating hostess last night, d.i.c.k? (_softly sings_) 'Oh, night of love--' (_from the Barcorole of 'Tales of Hoffman'_)

HARRY: We've got to have salt.

(_He starts for the door._ CLAIRE _slips in ahead of him, locks it, takes the key. He marches off, right_.)