Plays
what I mean. At least you ought to. (_her ruthless way of not letting
anyone's feelings stand in the way of truth_) Then destroy it for me!
It's hard to do it--with the hands that made it.
DICK: But what's the point in destroying it, Claire?
CLAIRE: (_impatiently_) I've told you. It cannot create.
DICK: But you say you can go on producing it, and it's interesting in
form.
CLAIRE: And you think I'll stop with that? Be shut in--with different
life--that can't creep on? (_after trying to put destroying hands upon
it_) It's hard to--get past what we've done. Our own dead things--block
the way.
TOM: But you're doing it this next time, Claire, (_nodding to the inner
room_.) In there!
CLAIRE: (_turning to that room_) I'm not sure.
TOM: But you told me Breath of Life has already produced itself. Doesn't
that show it has brought life from the life it left?
CLAIRE: But timidly, rather--wistfully. A little homesick. If it is less
sure this time, then it is going back to--Miss Lane. But if the
pattern's clearer now, then it has made friends of life that waits. I'll
know to-morrow.
ELIZABETH: You know, something tells me this is _wrong_.
CLAIRE: The hymn-singing ancestors are tuning up.
ELIZABETH: I don't know what you mean by that, mother but--
CLAIRE: But we will now sing, 'Nearer, my God, to Thee: Nearer to--'
ELIZABETH: (_laughingly breaking in_) Well, I don't care. Of course you
can make fun at me, but something does tell me this is wrong. To do
what--what--
DICK: What God did?
ELIZABETH: Well--yes. Unless you do it to make them better--to _do_ it
just to do it--that doesn't seem right to me.
CLAIRE: (_roughly_) 'Right to you!' And that's all you know of
adventure--and of anguish. Do you know it is you--world of which you're
so true a flower--makes me have to leave? You're there to hold the door
shut! Because you're young and of a gayer world, you think I can't _see_
them--those old men? Do you know why you're so sure of yourself? Because
you can't _feel_. Can't feel--the limitless--out there--a sea just over
the hill. I will not stay with you! (_buries her hands in the earth
around the Edge Vine. But suddenly steps back from it as she had from_
ELIZABETH) And I will not stay with _you! (grasps it as we grasp what we
would kill, is trying to pull it up. They all step forward in horror.
ANTHONY is drawn in by this harm to the plant_)
ANTHONY: Miss Claire! Miss Claire! The work of years!
CLAIRE: May only make a prison! (_struggling with_ HARRY, _who is trying
to stop her_) You think I too will die on the edge? (_she has thrown him
away, is now struggling with the vine_) Why did I make you? To get past
you! (_as she twists it_) Oh yes, I know you have thorns! The Edge Vine
should have thorns, (_with a long tremendous pull for deep roots, she
has it up. As she holds the torn roots_) Oh, I have loved you so! You
took me where I hadn't been.
ELIZABETH: (_who has been looking on with a certain practical horror_)
Well, I'd say it would be better not to go there!
CLAIRE: Now I know what you are for! (_flings her arm back to strike_
ELIZABETH _with the Edge Vine_)
HARRY: (_wresting it from her_) Claire! Are you mad?
CLAIRE: No, I'm not mad. I'm--too sane! (_pointing to_ ELIZABETH--_and
the words come from mighty roots_) To think that object ever moved my
belly and sucked my breast! (ELIZABETH _hides her face as if struck_)
HARRY: (_going to_ ELIZABETH, _turning to_ CLAIRE) This is atrocious!
You're cruel.
(_He leads_ ELIZABETH _to the door and out. After an irresolute moment
in which he looks from_ CLAIRE _to_ TOM, DICK _follows._ ANTHONY _cannot
bear to go. He stoops to take the Edge Vine from the floor._ CLAIRE's
_gesture stops him. He goes into the inner room._)
CLAIRE: (_kicking the Edge Vine out of her way, drawing deep breaths,
smiling_) O-h. How good I feel! Light! (_a movement as if she could
fly_) Read me something, Tom dear. Or say something pleasant--about God.
But be very careful what you say about him! I have a feeling--he's not
far off.
CURTAIN
ACT II
_Late afternoon of the following day._ CLAIRE _is alone in the tower--a
tower which is thought to be round but does not complete the circle. The
back is curved, then jagged lines break from that, and the front is a
queer bulging window--in a curve that leans. The whole structure is as
if given a twist by some terrific force--like something wrong. It is
lighted by an old-fashioned watchman's lantern hanging from the ceiling;
the innumerable pricks and slits in the metal throw a marvellous pattern
on the curved wall--like some masonry that hasn't been.
There are no windows at back, and there is no door save an opening in
the floor. The delicately distorted rail of a spiral staircase winds up
from below._ CLAIRE _is seen through the huge ominous window as if shut
into the tower. She is lying on a seat at the back looking at a book of
drawings. To do this she has left the door of her lantern a little
open--and her own face is clearly seen.
A door is heard opening below; laughing voices,_ CLAIRE _listens, not
pleased._
ADELAIDE: (_voice coming up_) Dear--dear, why do they make such
twisting steps.
HARRY: Take your time, most up now. (HARRY_'s head appears, he looks
back._) Making it all right?
ADELAIDE: I can't tell yet. (_laughingly_) No, I don't think so.
HARRY: (_reaching back a hand for her_) The last lap--is the bad lap.
(ADELAIDE _is up, and occupied with getting her breath._)
HARRY: Since you wouldn't come down, Claire, we thought we'd come up.
ADELAIDE: (_as_ CLAIRE _does not greet her_) I'm sorry to intrude, but I
have to see you, Claire. There are things to be arranged. (CLAIRE
_volunteering nothing about arrangements,_ ADELAIDE _surveys the tower.
An unsympathetic eye goes from the curves to the lines which diverge.
Then she looks from the window_) Well, at least you have a view.
HARRY: This is the first time you've been up here?
ADELAIDE: Yes, in the five years you've had the house I was never asked
up here before.
CLAIRE: (_amiably enough_) You weren't asked up here now.
ADELAIDE: Harry asked me.
CLAIRE: It isn't Harry's tower. But never mind--since you don't like
it--it's all right.
ADELAIDE: (_her eyes again rebuking the irregularities of the tower_)
No, I confess I do not care for it. A round tower should go on being
round.
HARRY: Claire calls this the thwarted tower. She bought the house
because of it. (_going over and sitting by her, his hand on her ankle_)
Didn't you, old girl? She says she'd like to have known the architect.
ADELAIDE: Probably a tiresome person too incompetent to make a perfect
tower.
CLAIRE: Well, now he's disposed of, what next?
ADELAIDE: (_sitting down in a manner of capably opening a conference_)
Next, Elizabeth, and you, Claire. Just what is the matter with
Elizabeth?
CLAIRE: (_whose voice is cool, even, as if herself is not really engaged
by this_) Nothing is the matter with her. She is a tower that is a
tower.
ADELAIDE: Well, is that anything against her?
CLAIRE: She's just like one of her father's portraits. They never
interested me. Nor does she. (_looks at the drawings which do interest
her_)
ADELAIDE: A mother cannot cast off her own child simply because she does
not interest her!
CLAIRE: (_an instant raising cool eyes to_ ADELAIDE) Why can't she?
ADELAIDE: Because it would be monstrous!
CLAIRE: And why can't she be monstrous--if she has to be?
ADELAIDE: You don't have to be. That's where I'm out of patience with
you Claire. You are really a particularly intelligent, competent person,
and it's time for you to call a halt to this nonsense and be the woman
you were meant to be!
CLAIRE: (_holding the book up to see another way_) What inside dope have
you on what I was meant to be?
ADELAIDE: I know what you came from.
CLAIRE: Well, isn't it about time somebody got loose from that? What I
came from made you, so--
ADELAIDE: (_stiffly_) I see.
CLAIRE: So--you being such a tower of strength, why need I too be
imprisoned in what I came from?
ADELAIDE: It isn't being imprisoned. Right there is where you make your
mistake, Claire. Who's in a tower--in an unsuccessful tower? Not I. I go
about in the world--free, busy, happy. Among people, I have no time to
think of myself.
CLAIRE: No.
ADELAIDE: No. My family. The things that interest them; from morning
till night it's--
CLAIRE: Yes, I know you have a large family, Adelaide; five and
Elizabeth makes six.
ADELAIDE: We'll speak of Elizabeth later. But if you would just get out
of yourself and enter into other people's lives--
CLAIRE: Then I would become just like you. And we should all be just
alike in order to assure one another that we're all just right. But
since you and Harry and Elizabeth and ten million other people bolster
each other up, why do you especially need me?
ADELAIDE: (_not unkindly_) We don't need you as much as you need us.
CLAIRE: (_a wry face_) I never liked what I needed.
HARRY: I am convinced I am the worst thing in the world for you, Claire.
CLAIRE: (_with a smile for his tactics, but shaking her head_) I'm
afraid you're not. I don't know--perhaps you are.
ADELAIDE: Well, what is it you want, Claire?
CLAIRE: (_simply_) You wouldn't know if I told you.
ADELAIDE: That's rather arrogant.
HARRY: Yes, take a chance, Claire. I have been known to get an idea--and
Adelaide quite frequently gets one.
CLAIRE: (_the first resentment she has shown_) You two feel very
superior, don't you?
ADELAIDE: I don't think we are the ones who are feeling superior.
CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you are. Very superior to what you think is my feeling
of superiority, comparing my--isolation with your 'heart of humanity'.
Soon we will speak of the beauty of common experiences, of the--Oh, I
could say it all before we come to it.
HARRY: Adelaide came up here to help you, Claire.
CLAIRE: Adelaide came up here to lock me in. Well, she can't do it.
ADELAIDE: (_gently_) But can't you see that one may do that to one's
self?
CLAIRE: (_thinks of this, looks suddenly tired--then smiles_) Well, at
least I've changed the keys.
HARRY: 'Locked in.' Bunkum. Get that our of your head, Claire. Who's
locked in? Nobody that I know of, we're all free Americans. Free as air.
ADELAIDE: I wish you'd come and hear one of Mr Morley's sermons, Claire.
You're very old-fashioned if you think sermons are what they used to be.
CLAIRE: (_with interest_) And do they still sing 'Nearer, my God, to
Thee'?
ADELAIDE: They do, and a noble old hymn it is. It would do you no harm
at all to sing it.
CLAIRE: (_eagerly_) Sing it to me, Adelaide. I'd like to hear you sing
it.
ADELAIDE: It would be sacrilege to sing it to you in this mood.
CLAIRE: (_falling back_) Oh, I don't know. I'm not so sure God would
agree with you. That would be one on you, wouldn't it?
ADELAIDE: It's easy to feel one's self set apart!
CLAIRE: No, it isn't.
ADELAIDE: (_beginning anew_) It's a new age, Claire. Spiritual values--
CLAIRE: Spiritual values! (_in her brooding way_) So you have pulled
that up. (_with cunning_) Don't think I don't know what it is you do.
ADELAIDE: Well, what do I do? I'm sure I have no idea what you're
talking about.
HARRY: (_affectionately, as_ CLAIRE _is looking with intentness at what
he does not see_) What does she do, Claire?
CLAIRE: It's rather clever, what she does. Snatching the phrase--(_a
movement as if pulling something up_) standing it up between her
and--the life that's there. And by saying it enough--'We have life! We
have life! We have life!' Very good come-back at one who would really
be--'Just so! _We_ are that. Right this way, please--'That, I suppose is