Plays
be safe. It would be a luxury to--destroy one's self.
MADELINE: That sounds like Uncle Felix. (_seeing she has hurt him, she
goes over and sits across from him at the table_) I'm sorry. I say the
wrong things today.
HOLDEN: I don't know that you do.
MADELINE: But isn't uncle funny? His left mind doesn't know what his
right mind is doing. He has to think of himself as a person of
sentiment--idealism, and--quite a job, at times. Clever--how he gets
away with it. The war must have been a godsend to people who were in
danger of getting on to themselves. But I should think you could fool
all of yourself all the time.
HOLDEN: You don't. (_he is rubbing his hand on the table_)
MADELINE: Grandfather Morton made this table. I suppose he and
Grandfather Fejevary used to sit here and talk--they were great old
pals. (_slowly_ HOLDEN _turns and looks out at the hill_) Yes. How
beautiful the hill must have been--before there was a college there.
(_he looks away from the hill_) Did you know Grandfather Morton?
HOLDEN: Yes, I knew him. (_speaking of it against his will_) I had a
wonderful talk with him once; about Greece--and the cornfields, and
life.
MADELINE: I'd like to have been a pioneer! Some ways they had it fierce,
but think of the fun they had! A whole big land to open up! A big new
life to begin! (_her hands closing in from wideness to a smaller thing_)
Why did so much get shut out? Just a little way back--anything might
have been. What happened?
HOLDEN: (_speaking with difficulty_) It got--set too soon.
MADELINE: (_all of her mind open, trying to know_) And why did it?
Prosperous, I suppose. That seems to set things--set them in fear. Silas
Morton wasn't afraid of Felix Fejevary, the Hungarian revolutionist. He
laid this country at that refugee's feet! That's what Uncle Felix says
himself--with the left half of his mind. Now--the Hindu
revolutionists--! (_pause_) I took a walk late yesterday afternoon.
Night came, and for some reason I thought of how many nights have
come--nights the earth has known long before we knew the earth. The moon
came up and I thought of how moonlight made this country beautiful
before any man knew that moonlight was beautiful. It gave me a feeling
of coming from something a long way back. Moving toward--what will be
here when I'm not here. Moving. We seem here, now, in America, to have
forgotten we're moving. Think it's just _us_--just now. Of course, that
would make us afraid, and--ridiculous.
(_Her father comes in_.)
IRA: Your Aunt Isabel--did she go away--and leave you?
MADELINE: She's coming back.
IRA: For you?
MADELINE: She--wants me to go with her. This is Professor Holden,
father.
HOLDEN: How do you do, Mr Morton?
IRA: (_nods, not noticing_ HOLDEN_'s offered hand_) How'do. When is she
coming back?
MADELINE: Soon.
IRA: And then you're going with her?
MADELINE: I--don't know.
IRA: I say you go with her. You want them all to come down on us? (_to_
HOLDEN) What are you here for?
MADELINE: Aunt Isabel brought Professor Holden, father.
IRA: Oh. Then you--you tell her what to do. You make her do it. (_he
goes into the room at left_)
MADELINE: (_sadly, after a silence_) Father's like something touched by
an early frost.
HOLDEN: Yes. (_seeing his opening and forcing himself to take it_) But
do you know, Madeline, there are other ways of that happening--'touched
by an early frost'. I've seen it happen to people I know--people of fine
and daring mind. They do a thing that puts them apart--it may be the
big, brave thing--but the apartness does something to them. I've seen it
many times--so many times--so many times, I fear for you. You do this
thing and you'll find yourself with people who in many ways you don't
care for at all; find yourself apart from people who in most ways are
your own people. You're many-sided, Madeline. (_moves her tennis
racket_) I don't know about it's all going to one side. I hate to see
you, so young, close a door on so much life. I'm being just as honest
with you as I know how. I myself am making compromises to stay within. I
don't like it, but there are--reasons for doing it. I can't see you
leave that main body without telling you all it is you are leaving. It's
not a clean-cut case--the side of the world or the side of the angels. I
hate to see you lose the--fullness of life.
MADELINE: (_a slight start, as she realizes the pause. As one recalled
from far_) I'm sorry. I was listening to what you were saying--but all
the time--something else was happening. Grandfather Morton, big and--oh,
terrible. He was here. And we went to that walled-up hole in the
ground--(_rising and pointing down at the chalked cell_)--where they
keep Fred Jordan on bread and water because he couldn't be a part of
nations of men killing each other--and Silas Morton--only he was all
that is back of us, tore open that cell--it was his voice tore it
open--his voice as he cried, 'God damn you, this is America!' (_sitting
down, as if rallying from a tremendous experience_) I'm sorry--it should
have happened, while you were speaking. Won't you--go on?
HOLDEN: That's a pretty hard thing to go on against. (_after a moment_)
I can't go on.
MADELINE: You were thinking of leaving the college, and then--decided to
stay? (_he nods_) And you feel there's more--fullness of life for you
inside the college than outside?
HOLDEN: No--not exactly. (_again a pause_) It's very hard for me to talk
to you.
MADELINE: (_gently_) Perhaps we needn't do it.
HOLDEN: (_something in him forcing him to say it_) I'm staying for
financial reasons.
MADELINE: (_kind, but not going to let the truth get away_) You don't
think that--having to stay within--or deciding to, rather, makes you
think these things of the--blight of being without?
HOLDEN: I think there is danger to you in--so young, becoming alien to
society.
MADELINE: As great as the danger of staying within--and becoming like
the thing I'm within?
HOLDEN: You wouldn't become like it.
MADELINE: Why wouldn't I? That's what it does to the rest of you. I
don't see it--this fullness of life business. I don't see that Uncle
Felix has got it--or even Aunt Isabel, and you--I think that in buying
it you're losing it.
HOLDEN: I don't think you know what a cruel thing you are saying.
MADELINE: There must be something pretty rotten about Morton College if
you have to sell your soul to stay in it!
HOLDEN: You don't 'sell your soul'. You persuade yourself to wait.
MADELINE: (_unable to look at him, as if feeling shame_) You have had a
talk with Uncle Felix since that day in the library you stepped aside
for me to pass.
HOLDEN: Yes; and with my wife's physician. If you sell your soul--it's
to love you sell it.
MADELINE: (_low_) That's strange. It's love that--brings life along, and
then it's love--holds life back.
HOLDEN: (_and all the time with this effort against hopelessness_)
Leaving me out of it, I'd like to see you give yourself a little more
chance for detachment. You need a better intellectual equipment if
you're going to fight the world you find yourself in. I think you will
count for more if you wait, and when you strike, strike more maturely.
MADELINE: Detachment. (_pause_) This is one thing they do at this place.
(_she moves to the open door_) Chain them up to the bars--just like
this. (_in the doorway where her two grandfathers once pledged faith
with the dreams of a million years, she raises clasped hands as high as
they will go_) Eight hours a day--day after day. Just hold your arms up
like this one hour then sit down and think about--(_as if tortured by
all who have been so tortured, her body begins to give with sobs, arms
drop, the last word is a sob_) detachment.
HOLDEN _is standing helplessly by when her father comes in_.
IRA: (_wildly_) Don't cry. No! Not in this house! I can't--Your aunt and
uncle will fix it up. The law won't take you this time--and you won't do
it again.
MADELINE: Oh, what does _that_ matter--what they do to _me_?
IRA: What are you crying about then?
MADELINE: It's--the _world_. It's--
IRA: The _world_? If that's all you've got to cry about! (_to_ HOLDEN)
Tell her that's nothing to cry about. What's the matter with you.
Mad'line? That's crazy--cryin' about the world! What good has ever come
to this house through carin' about the world? What good's that college?
Better we had that hill. Why is there no one in this house to-day but me
and you? Where's your mother? Where's your brother? The _world_.
HOLDEN: I think your father would like to talk to you. I'll go
outside--walk a little, and come back for you with your aunt. You must
let us see you through this, Madeline. You couldn't bear the things it
would bring you to. I see that now. (_as he passes her in the doorway
his hand rests an instant on her bent head_) You're worth too much to
break.
IRA: (_turning away_) I don't want to talk to you. What good comes of
talking? (_In moving, he has stepped near the sack of corn. Takes hold
of it_.) But not with Emil Johnson! That's not--what your mother died
for.
MADELINE: Father, you must talk to me. What did my mother die for? No
one has ever told me about her--except that she was beautiful--not like
other people here. I got a feeling of--something from far away.
Something from long ago. Rare. Why can't Uncle Felix talk about her? Why
can't you? Wouldn't she want me to know her? Tell me about her. It's my
birthday and I need my mother.
IRA: (_as if afraid he is going to do it_) How can you touch--what
you've not touched in nineteen years? Just once--in nineteen years--and
that did no good.
MADELINE: Try. Even though it hurts. Didn't you use to talk to her?
Well, I'm her daughter. Talk to me. What has she to do with Emil
Johnson?
IRA: (_the pent-up thing loosed_) What has she to do with him? She died
so he could live. He lives because she's dead, (_in anguish_) And what
is _he_ alongside her? Yes. Something from far away. Something from long
ago. Rare. How'd you know that? Finding in me--what I didn't know was
there. Then _she_ came--that ignorant Swede--Emil Johnson's
mother--running through the cornfield like a crazy woman--'Miss Morton!
Miss Morton! Come help me! My children are choking!' Diphtheria they
had--the whole of 'em--but out of this house she ran--my Madeline,
leaving you--her own baby--running as fast as she could through the
cornfield after that immigrant woman. She stumbled in the rough
field--fell to her knees. That was the last I saw of her. She choked to
death in that Swede's house. They lived.
MADELINE: (_going to him_) Oh--father, (_voice rich_) But how lovely of
her.
IRA: Lovely? Lovely to leave you without a mother--leave me without her
after I'd had her? Wasn't she worth more than them.
MADELINE: (_proudly_) Yes. She was worth so much that she never stopped
to think how much she was worth.
IRA: Ah, if you'd known her you couldn't take it like that. And now you
cry about the world! That's what the world is--all coming to nothing. My
father used to sit there at the table and talk about the world--my
father and her father. They thought 'twas all for something--that what
you were went on into something more than you. That's the talk I always
heard in this house. But it's just talk. The rare thing that came here
was killed by the common thing that came here. Just happens--and happens
cruel. Look at your brother! Gone--(_snaps his fingers_) like that. I
told him not to go to war. He didn't have to go--they'd been glad enough
to have him stay here on the farm. But no,--he must--make the world safe
for democracy! Well, you see how safe he made it, don't you? Now I'm
alone on the farm and he--buried on some Frenchman's farm. That is, I