Long Day's Journey into Night (Yale Nota Bene) (13 page)

Never mind, dear. I’m on to you.

She comes to him.

You want to be petted and spoiled and made a fuss over, isn’t that it? You’re still such a baby.

She puts her arm around him and hugs him. He remains rigid and unyielding. Her voice begins to tremble.

But please don’t carry it too far, dear. Don’t say horrible things. I know it’s foolish to take them seriously but I can’t help it. You’ve got me—so frightened.

She breaks and hides her face on his shoulder, sobbing. Edmund is moved in spite of himself. He pats her shoulder with an awkward tenderness.

Don’t, mother.

His eyes meet his father’s.

Huskily—clutching at hopeless hope.

Maybe if you asked your mother now what you said you were going to—

He fumbles with his watch.

By God, look at the time! I’ll have to shake a leg.

He hurries away through the front parlor. Mary lifts her head. Her manner is again one of detached motherly solicitude. She seems to have forgotten the tears which are still in her eyes.

How do you feel, dear?

She feels his forehead.

Your head is a little hot, but that’s just from going out in the sun. You look ever so much better than you did this morning.

Taking his hand.

Come and sit down. You musn’t stand on your feet so much. You must learn to husband your strength.

She gets him to sit and she sits sideways on the arm of his chair, an arm around his shoulder, so he cannot meet her eyes.

Starts to blurt out the appeal he now feels is quite hopeless.

Listen, Mama—

Interrupting quickly.

Now, now! Don’t talk. Lean back and rest.

Persuasively.

You know, I think it would be much better for you if you stayed home this afternoon and let me take care of you. It’s such a tiring trip uptown in the dirty old trolley on a hot day like this. I’m sure you’d be much better off here with me.

Dully.

You forget I have an appointment with Hardy.

Trying again to get his appeal started.

Listen, Mama—

Quickly.

You can telephone and say you don’t feel well enough.

Excitedly.

It’s simply a waste of time and money seeing him. He’ll only tell you some lie. He’ll pretend he’s found something serious the matter because that’s his bread and butter.

She gives a hard sneering little laugh.

The old idiot! All he knows about medicine is to look solemn and preach will power!

Trying to catch her eyes.

Mama! Please listen! I want to ask you something! You— You’re only just started. You can still stop. You’ve got the will power! We’ll all help you. I’ll do anything! Won’t you, Mama?

Stammers pleadingly.

Please don’t—talk about things you don’t understand!

Dully

All right, I give up. I knew it was no use.

In blank denial now.

Anyway, I don’t know what you’re referring to. But I do know you should be the last one—Right after I returned from the sanatorium, you began to be ill. The doctor there had warned me I must have peace at home with nothing to upset me, and all I’ve done is worry about you.

Then distractedly.

But that’s no excuse! I’m only trying to explain. It’s not an excuse!

She hugs him to her—pleadingly.

Promise me, dear, you won’t believe I made you an excuse.

Bitterly.

What else can I believe?

Slowly takes her arm away—her manner remote and objective again.

Yes, I suppose you can’t help suspecting that.

Ashamed but still bitter.

What do you expect?

Nothing, I don’t blame you. How could you believe me—when I can’t believe myself? I’ve become such a liar. I never lied about anything once upon a time. Now I have to lie, especially to myself. But how can you understand, when I don’t myself. I’ve never understood anything about it, except that one day long ago I found I could no longer call my soul my own.

She pauses—then lowering her voice to a strange tone of whispered confidence.

But some day, dear, I will find it again—some day when you’re all well, and I see you healthy and happy and successful, and I don’t have to feel guilty any more—some day when the Blessed Virgin Mary forgives me and gives me back the faith in Her love and pity I used to have in my convent days, and I can pray to Her again—when She sees no one in the world can believe in me even for a moment any more, then She will believe in me, and with Her help it will be so easy. I will hear myself scream with agony, and at the same time I will laugh because I will be so sure of myself.

Then as Edmund remains hopelessly silent, she adds sadly.

Of course, you can’t believe that, either.

She rises from the arm of his chair and goes to stare out the windows at right with her back to him—casually.

Now I think of it, you might as well go uptown. I forgot I’m taking a drive. I have to go to the drugstore. You would hardly want to go there with me. You’d be so ashamed.

Brokenly.

Mama! Don’t!

I suppose you’ll divide that ten dollars your father gave you with Jamie. You always divide with each other, don’t you? Like good sports. Well, I know what he’ll do with his share. Get drunk someplace where he can be with the only kind of woman he understands or likes.

She turns to him, pleading frightenedly.

Edmund! Promise me you won’t drink! It’s so dangerous! You know Doctor Hardy told you—

Bitterly.

I thought he was an old idiot. Anyway, by tonight, what will you care?

Pitifully.

Edmund!

Jamie’s voice is heard from the front hall,
“Come on, Kid, let’s beat it.”

Mary’s manner at once becomes detached again.

Go on, Edmund. Jamie’s waiting.

She goes to the front-parlor doorway.

There comes your father downstairs, too.

Tyrone’s voice calls,
“Come on, Edmund.”

Jumping up from his chair.

I’m coming.

He stops beside her—without looking at her.

Goodbye, Mama.

Kisses him with detached affection.

Goodbye, dear. If you’re coming home for dinner, try not to be late. And tell your father. You know what Bridget is.

He turns and hurries away. Tyrone calls from the hall,
“Goodbye, Mary,”
and then Jamie,
“Goodbye, Mama.”

She calls back.

Goodbye.

The front screen door is heard closing after them. She comes and stands by the table, one hand drumming on it, the other fluttering up to pat her hair. She stares about the room with frightened, forsaken eyes and whispers to herself.

It’s so lonely here.

Then her face hardens into bitter self-contempt.

You’re lying to yourself again. You wanted to get rid of them. Their contempt and disgust aren’t pleasant company. You’re glad they’re gone.

She gives a little despairing laugh.

Then Mother of God, why do I feel so lonely?

SCENE

The same. It is around half past six in the evening. Dusk is gathering in the living room, an early dusk due to the fog which has rolled in from the Sound and is like a white curtain drawn down outside the windows. From a lighthouse beyond the harbor’s mouth, a foghorn is heard at regular intervals, moaning like a mournful whale in labor, and from the harbor itself, intermittently, comes the warning ringing of bells on yachts at anchor.

The tray with the bottle of whiskey, glasses, and pitcher of ice water is on the table, as it was in the pre-luncheon scene of the previous act.

Mary and the second girl, Cathleen, are discovered. The latter is standing at left of table. She holds an empty whiskey glass in her hand as if she’d forgotten she had it. She shows the effects of drink. Her stupid, good-humored face wears a pleased and flattered simper.

Mary is paler than before and her eyes shine with unnatural brilliance. The strange detachment in her manner has intensified. She has hidden deeper within herself and found refuge and release in a dream where present reality is but an appearance to be accepted and dismissed unfeelingly—even with a hard cynicism—or entirely ignored. There is at times an uncanny gay, free youthfulness in her manner, as if in spirit she were released to become again, simply and without self-consciousness, the naive, happy, chattering schoolgirl of her convent days. She wears the dress into which she had changed for her drive to town, a simple, fairly expensive affair, which would be extremely becoming if it were not for the careless, almost slovenly way she wears it. Her hair is no longer fastidiously in place. It has a slightly disheveled, lopsided look. She talks to Cathleen with a confiding familiarity, as if the second girl were an old, intimate friend. As the curtain rises, she is standing by the screen door looking out. A moan of the foghorn is heard.

Amused—girlishly.

That foghorn! Isn’t it awful, Cathleen?

Talks more familiarly than usual but never with intentional impertinence because she sincerely likes her mistress.

It is indeed, Ma’am. It’s like a banshee.

Goes on as if she hadn’t heard. In nearly all the following dialogue there is the feeling that she has Cathleen with her merely as an excuse to keep talking.

I don’t mind it tonight. Last night it drove me crazy. I lay awake worrying until I couldn’t stand it any more.

Bad cess to it. I was scared out of my wits riding back from town. I thought that ugly monkey, Smythe, would drive us in a ditch or against a tree. You couldn’t see your hand in front of you. I’m glad you had me sit in back with you, Ma’am. If I’d been in front with that monkey— He can’t keep his dirty hands to himself. Give him half a chance and he’s pinching me on the leg or you-know-where—asking your pardon, Ma’am, but it’s true.

Dreamily.

It wasn’t the fog I minded, Cathleen. I really love fog.

They say it’s good for the complexion.

It hides you from the world and the world from you. You feel that everything has changed, and nothing is what it seemed to be. No one can find or touch you any more.

I wouldn’t care so much if Smythe was a fine, handsome man like some chauffeurs I’ve seen—I mean, if it was all in fun, for I’m a decent girl. But for a shriveled runt like Smythe—! I’ve told him, you must think I’m hard up that I’d notice a monkey like you. I’ve warned him, one day I’ll give a clout that’ll knock him into next week. And so I will!

It’s the foghorn I hate. It won’t let you alone. It keeps reminding you, and warning you, and calling you back.

She smiles strangely.

But it can’t tonight. It’s just an ugly sound. It doesn’t remind me of anything.

She gives a teasing, girlish laugh.

Except, perhaps, Mr. Tyrone’s snores. I’ve always had such fun teasing him about it. He has snored ever since I can remember, especially when he’s had too much to drink, and yet he’s like a child, he hates to admit it.

She laughs, coming to the table.

Well, I suppose I snore at times, too, and I don’t like to admit it. So I have no right to make fun of him, have I?

She sits in the rocker at right of table.

Ah, sure, everybody healthy snores. It’s a sign of sanity, they say.

Then, worriedly.

What time is it, Ma’am? I ought to go back in the kitchen. The damp is in Bridget’s rheumatism and she’s like a raging divil. She’ll bite my head off.

She puts her glass on the table and makes a movement toward the back parlor.

With a flash of apprehension.

No, don’t go, Cathleen. I don’t want to be alone, yet.