Plays
CLAIRE: No, don't touch me--since (_moving_) you're going away
to-morrow? (_he nods_) For--always? (_his head just moves assent_) India
is just another country. But there are undiscovered countries.
TOM: Yes, but we are so feeble we have to reach our country through the
actual country lying nearest. Don't you do that yourself, Claire? Reach
your country through the plants' country?
CLAIRE: My country? You mean--outside?
TOM: No, I don't think it that way.
CLAIRE: Oh, yes, you do.
TOM: Your country is the inside, Claire. The innermost. You are
disturbed because you lie too close upon the heart of life.
CLAIRE: (_restlessly_) I don't know; you can think it one way--or
another. No way says it, and that's good--at least it's not shut up in
saying. (_she is looking at her enclosing hand, as if something is shut
up there_)
TOM: But also, you know, things may be freed by expression. Come from
the unrealized into the fabric of life.
CLAIRE: Yes, but why does the fabric of life have to--freeze into its
pattern? It should (_doing it with her hands_) flow, (_then turning like
an unsatisfied child to him_) But I wanted to talk to you.
TOM: You are talking to me. Tell me about your flower that never was
before--your Breath of Life.
CLAIRE: I'll know to-morrow. You'll not go until I know?
TOM: I'll try to stay.
CLAIRE: It seems to me, if it has--then I have, integrity in--(_smiles,
it is as if the smile lets her say it_) otherness. I don't want to die
on the edge!
TOM: Not you!
CLAIRE: Many do. It's what makes them too smug in allness--those dead
things on the edge, died, distorted--trying to get through. Oh--don't
think I don't see--The Edge Vine! (_a pause, then swiftly_) Do you know
what I mean? Or do you think I'm just a fool, or crazy?
TOM: I think I know what you mean, and you know I don't think you are a
fool, or crazy.
CLAIRE: Stabbed to awareness--no matter where it takes you, isn't that
more than a safe place to stay? (_telling him very simply despite the
pattern of pain in her voice_) Anguish may be a thread--making patterns
that haven't been. A thread--blue and burning.
TOM: (_to take her from what even he fears for her_) But you were
telling me about the flower you breathed to life. What is your Breath of
Life?
CLAIRE: (_an instant playing_) It's a secret. A secret?--it's a trick.
Distilled from the most fragile flowers there are. It's only
air--pausing--playing; except, far in, one stab of red, its quivering
heart--that asks a question. But here's the trick--I bred the air-form
to strength. The strength shut up behind us I've sent--far out.
(_troubled_) I'll know tomorrow. And I have another gift for Breath of
Life; some day--though days of work lie in between--some day I'll give
it reminiscence. Fragrance that is--no one thing in here
but--reminiscent. (_silence, she raises wet eyes_) We need the haunting
beauty from the life we've left. I need that, (_he takes her hands and
breathes her name_) Let me reach my country with you. I'm not a plant.
After all, they don't--accept me. Who does--accept me? Will you?
TOM: My dear--dear, dear, Claire--you move me so! You stand alone in a
clearness that breaks my heart, (_her hands move up his arms. He takes
them to hold them from where they would go--though he can hardly do it_)
But you've asked what you yourself could answer best. We'd only stop in
the country where everyone stops.
CLAIRE: We might come through--to radiance.
TOM: Radiance is an enclosing place.
CLAIRE: Perhaps radiance lighting forms undreamed, (_her reckless
laugh_) I'd be willing to--take a chance, I'd rather lose than never
know.
TOM: No, Claire. Knowing you from underneath, I know you couldn't bear
to lose.
CLAIRE: Wouldn't men say you were a fool!
TOM: They would.
CLAIRE: And perhaps you are. (_he smiles a little_) I feel so desperate,
because if only I could--show you what I am, you might see I could have
without losing. But I'm a stammering thing with you.
TOM: You do show me what you are.
CLAIRE: I've known a few moments that were life. Why don't they help me
now? One was in the air. I was up with Harry--flying--high. It was about
four months before David was born--the doctor was furious--pregnant
women are supposed to keep to earth. We were going fast--I _was_
flying--I had left the earth. And then--within me, movement, for the
first time--stirred to life far in air--movement within. The man unborn,
he too, would fly. And so--I always loved him. He was movement--and
wonder. In his short life were many flights. I never told anyone about
the last one. His little bed was by the window--he wasn't four years
old. It was night, but him not asleep. He saw the morning star--you
know--the morning star. Brighter--stranger--reminiscent--and a promise.
He pointed--'Mother', he asked me, 'what is there--beyond the stars?' A
baby, a sick baby--the morning star. Next night--the finger that pointed
was--(_suddenly bites her own finger_) But, yes, I am glad. He would
always have tried to move and too much would hold him. Wonder would
die--and he'd laugh at soaring, (_looking down, sidewise_) Though I
liked his voice. So I wish you'd stay near me--for I like your voice,
too.
TOM: Claire! That's (_choked_) almost too much.
CLAIRE: (_one of her swift glances--canny, almost practical_) Well, I'm
glad if it is. How can I make it more? (_but what she sees brings its
own change_) I know what it is you're afraid of. It's because I have so
much--yes, why shouldn't I say it?--passion. You feel that in me, don't
you? You think it would swamp everything. But that isn't all there is to
me.
TOM: Oh, I know it! My dearest--why, it's because I know it! You think I
_am_--a fool?
CLAIRE: It's a thing that's--sometimes more than I am. And yet I--I am
more than it is.
TOM: I know. I know about you.
CLAIRE: I don't know that you do. Perhaps if you really knew about
me--you wouldn't go away.
TOM: You're making me suffer, Claire.
CLAIRE: I know I am. I want to. Why shouldn't you suffer? (_now seeing
it more clearly than she has ever seen it_) You know what I think about
you? You're afraid of suffering, and so you stop this side--in what you
persuade yourself is suffering, (_waits, then sends it straight_) You
know--how it is--with me and Dick? (_as she sees him suffer_) Oh, no, I
don't want to hurt you! Let it be you! I'll teach you--you needn't scorn
it. It's rather wonderful.
TOM: Stop that, Claire! That isn't you.
CLAIRE: Why are you so afraid--of letting me be low--if that is low? You
see--(_cannily_) I believe in beauty. I have the faith that can be bad
as well as good. And you know why I have the faith? Because
sometimes--from my lowest moments--beauty has opened as the sea. From a
cave I saw immensity.
My love, you're going away--
Let me tell you how it is with me;
I want to touch you--somehow touch you once before I die--
Let me tell you how it is with me.
I do not want to work,
I want to be;
Do not want to make a rose or make a poem--
Want to lie upon the earth and know. (_closes her eyes_)
Stop doing that!--words going into patterns;
They do it sometimes when I let come what's there.
Thoughts take pattern--then the pattern is the thing.
But let me tell you how it is with me. (_it flows again_)
All that I do or say--it is to what it comes from,
A drop lifted from the sea.
I want to lie upon the earth and know.
But--scratch a little dirt and make a flower;
Scratch a bit of brain--something like a poem. (_covering her face_)
Stop _doing_ that. Help me stop doing that!
TOM: (_and from the place where she had carried him_)
Don't talk at all. Lie still and know--
And know that I am knowing.
CLAIRE:
Yes; but we are so weak we have to talk;
To talk--to touch.
Why can't I rest in knowing I would give my life to reach you?
That has--all there is.
But I must--put my timid hands upon you,
Do something about infinity.
Oh, let what will flow into us,
And fill us full--and leave us still.
Wring me dry,
And let me fill again with life more pure.
To know--to feel,
And do nothing with what I feel and know--
That's being good. That's nearer God.
(_drenched in the feeling that has flowed through her--but
surprised--helpless_) Why, I said your thing, didn't I? Opened my life
to bring you to me, and what came--is what sends you away.
TOM: No! What came is what holds us together. What came is what saves us
from ever going apart. (_brokenly_) My beautiful one. You--you brave
flower of all our knowing.
CLAIRE: I am not a flower. I am too torn. If you have anything--help me.
Breathe, Breathe the healing oneness, and let me know in calm. (_with a
sob his head rests upon her_)
CLAIRE: (_her hands on his head, but looking far_) Beauty--you pure one
thing. Breathe--Let me know in calm. Then--trouble me, trouble me, for
other moments--in farther calm. (_slow, motionless, barely articulate_)
TOM: (_as she does not move he lifts his head. And even as he looks at
her, she does not move, nor look at him_) Claire--(_his hand out to her,
a little afraid_) You went away from me then. You are away from me now.
CLAIRE: Yes, and I could go on. But I will come back, (_it is hard to
do. She brings much with her_) That, too, I will give you--my
by-myself-ness. That's the uttermost I can give. I never thought--to try
to give it. But let us do it--the great sacrilege! Yes! (_excited, she
rises; she has his hands, and bring him up beside her_) Let us take the
mad chance! Perhaps it's the only way to save--what's there. How do we
know? How can we know? Risk. Risk everything. From all that flows into
us, let it rise! All that we never thought to use to make a moment--let
it flow into what could be! Bring all into life between us--or send all
down to death! Oh, do you know what I am doing? Risk, risk everything,
why are you so afraid to lose? What holds you from me? Test all. Let it
live or let it die. It is our chance--our chance to bear--what's there.
My dear one--I will love you so. With all of me. I am not afraid
now--of--all of me. Be generous. Be unafraid. Life is for _life_--though
it cuts us from the farthest life. How can I make you know that's true?
All that we're open to--(_hesitates, shudders_) But yes--I will, I will
risk the life that waits. Perhaps only he who gives his
loneliness--shall find. You never keep by holding, (_gesture of giving_)
To the uttermost. And it is gone--or it is there. You do not know
and--that makes the moment--(_music has begun--a phonograph downstairs;
they do not heed it_) Just as I would cut my wrists--(_holding them
out_) Yes, perhaps this lesser thing will tell it--would cut my wrists
and let the blood flow out till all is gone if my last drop would
make--would make--(_looking at them fascinated_) I want to see it doing
that! Let me give my last chance for life to--
(_He snatches her--they are on the brink of their moment; now that there
are no words the phonograph from downstairs is louder. It is playing
languorously the Barcarole; they become conscious of this--they do not
want to be touched by the love song._)
CLAIRE: Don't listen. That's nothing. This isn't that, (_fearing_) I
tell you--it isn't that. Yes, I know--that's amorous--enclosing. I
know--a little place. This isn't that, (_her arms going around him--all
the lure of 'that' while she pleads against it as it comes up to them_)
We will come out--to radiance--in far places (_admitting, using_) Oh,
then let it be that! Go with it. Give up--the otherness. I will! And in
the giving up--perhaps a door--we'd never find by searching. And if it's
no more--than all have known, I only say it's worth the allness! (_her