Long Day's Journey into Night (Yale Nota Bene) (17 page)

Oh, James, I’m so frightened!

She gets up and throws her arms around him and hides her face on his shoulder—sobbingly.

I know he’s going to die!

Don’t say that! It’s not true! They promised me in six months he’d be cured.

You don’t believe that! I can tell when you’re acting! And it will be my fault. I should never have borne him. It would have been better for his sake. I could never hurt him then. He wouldn’t have had to know his mother was a dope fiend—and hate her!

His voice quivering.

Hush, Mary, for the love of God! He loves you. He knows it was a curse put on you without your knowing or willing it. He’s proud you’re his mother!

Abruptly as he hears the pantry door opening.

Hush, now! Here comes Cathleen. You don’t want her to see you crying.

She turns quickly away from him to the windows at right, hastily wiping her eyes. A moment later Cathleen appears in the back-parlor doorway. She is uncertain in her walk and grinning woozily.

Starts guiltily when she sees Tyrone—with dignity.

Dinner is served, Sir.

Raising her voice unnecessarily.

Dinner is served, Ma’am.

She forgets her dignity and addresses Tyrone with good-natured familiarity.

So you’re here, are you? Well, well. Won’t Bridget be in a rage! I told her the Madame said you wouldn’t be home.

Then reading accusation in his eye.

Don’t be looking at me that way. If I’ve a drop taken, I didn’t steal it. I was invited.

She turns with huffy dignity and disappears through the back parlor.

Sighs—then summoning his actor’s heartiness.

Come along, dear. Let’s have our dinner. I’m hungry as a hunter.

Comes to him—her face is composed in plaster again and her tone is remote.

I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, James. I couldn’t possibly eat anything. My hands pain me dreadfully. I think the best thing for me is to go to bed and rest. Good night, dear.

She kisses him mechanically and turns toward the front parlor.

Harshly.

Up to take more of that God-damned poison, is that it? You’ll be like a mad ghost before the night’s over!

Starts to walk away—blankly.

I don’t know what you’re talking about, James. You say such mean, bitter things when you’ve drunk too much. You’re as bad as Jamie or Edmund.

She moves off through the front parlor. He stands a second as if not knowing what to do. He is a sad, bewildered, broken old man. He walks wearily off through the back parlor toward the dining room.

SCENE

The same. It is around midnight. The lamp in the front hall has been turned out, so that now no light shines through the front parlor. In the living room only the reading lamp on the table is lighted. Outside the windows the wall of fog appears denser than ever. As the curtain rises, the foghorn is heard, followed by the ships’ bells from the harbor.

Tyrone is seated at the table. He wears his pince-nez, and is playing solitaire. He has taken off his coat and has on an old brown dressing gown. The whiskey bottle on the tray is three-quarters empty. There is a fresh full bottle on the table, which he has brought from the cellar so there will be an ample reserve at hand. He is drunk and shows it by the owlish, deliberate manner in which he peers at each card to make certain of its identity, and then plays it as if he wasn’t certain of his aim. His eyes have a misted, oily look and his mouth is slack. But despite all the whiskey in him, he has not escaped, and he looks as he appeared at the close of the preceding act, a sad, defeated old man, possessed by hopeless resignation.

As the curtain rises, he finishes a game and sweeps the cards together. He shuffles them clumsily, dropping a couple on the floor. He retrieves them with difficulty, and starts to shuffle again, when he hears someone entering the front door. He peers over his pince-nez through the front parlor.

His voice thick.

Who’s that? Is it you, Edmund?

Edmund’s voice answers curtly,
“Yes.”
Then he evidently collides with something in the dark hall and can be heard cursing. A moment later the hall lamp is turned on. Tyrone frowns and calls.

Turn that light out before you come in.

But Edmund doesn’t. He comes in through the front parlor. He is drunk now, too, but like his father he carries it well, and gives little physical sign of it except in his eyes and a chip-on-the-shoulder aggressiveness in his manner. Tyrone speaks, at first with a warm, relieved welcome.

I’m glad you’ve come, lad. I’ve been damned lonely.

Then resentfully.

You’re a fine one to run away and leave me to sit alone here all night when you know—

With sharp irritation.

I told you to turn out that light! We’re not giving a ball. There’s no reason to have the house ablaze with electricity at this time of night, burning up money!

Angrily.

Ablaze with electricity! One bulb! Hell, everyone keeps a light on in the front hall until they go to bed.

He rubs his knee.

I damned near busted my knee on the hat stand.

The light from here shows in the hall. You could see your way well enough if you were sober.

If
I
was sober? I like that!

I don’t give a damn what other people do. If they want to be wasteful fools, for the sake of show, let them be!

One bulb! Christ, don’t be such a cheap skate! I’ve proved by figures if you left the light bulb on all night it wouldn’t be as much as one drink!

To hell with your figures! The proof is in the bills I have to pay!

Sits down opposite his father—contemptuously.

Yes, facts don’t mean a thing, do they? What you want to believe, that’s the only truth!

Derisively.

Shakespeare was an Irish Catholic, for example.

Stubbornly.

So he was. The proof is in his plays.

Well he wasn’t, and there’s no proof of it in his plays, except to you!

Jeeringly.

The Duke of Wellington, there was another good Irish Catholic!

I never said he was a good one. He was a renegade but a Catholic just the same.

Well, he wasn’t. You just want to believe no one but an Irish Catholic general could beat Napoleon.

I’m not going to argue with you. I asked you to turn out that light in the hall.

I heard you, and as far as I’m concerned it stays on.

None of your damned insolence! Are you going to obey me or not?

Not! If you want to be a crazy miser put it out yourself!

With threatening anger.

Listen to me! I’ve put up with a lot from you because from the mad things you’ve done at times I’ve thought you weren’t quite right in your head. I’ve excused you and never lifted my hand to you. But there’s a straw that breaks the camel’s back. You’ll obey me and put out that light or, big as you are, I’ll give you a thrashing that’ll teach you— !

Suddenly he remembers Edmund’s illness and instantly becomes guilty and shamefaced.

Forgive me, lad. I forgot— You shouldn’t goad me into losing my temper.

Ashamed himself now.

Forget it, Papa. I apologize, too. I had no right being nasty about nothing. I am a bit soused, I guess. I’ll put out the damned light.

He starts to get up.

No, stay where you are. Let it burn.

He stands up abruptly—and a bit drunkenly—and begins turning on the three bulbs in the chandelier, with a childish, bitterly dramatic self-pity.

We’ll have them all on! Let them burn! To hell with them! The poor-house is the end of the road, and it might as well be sooner as later!

He finishes turning on the lights.

Has watched this proceeding with an awakened sense of humor—now he grins
,
teasing affectionately.

That’s a grand curtain.

He laughs.

You’re a wonder, Papa.

Sits down sheepishly—grumbles pathetically.

That’s right, laugh at the old fool! The poor old ham! But the final curtain will be in the poorhouse just the same, and that’s not comedy!

Then as Edmund is still grinning, he changes the subject.

Well, well, let’s not argue. You’ve got brains in that head of yours, though you do your best to deny them. You’ll live to learn the value of a dollar. You’re not like your damned tramp of a brother. I’ve given up hope he’ll ever get sense. Where is he, by the way?

How would I know?

I thought you’d gone back uptown to meet him.

No. I walked out to the beach. I haven’t seen him since this afternoon.

Well, if you split the money I gave you with him, like a fool—

Sure I did. He’s always staked me when he had anything.

Then it doesn’t take a soothsayer to tell he’s probably in the whorehouse.

What of it if he is? Why not?

Contemptuously.

Why not, indeed. It’s the fit place for him. If he’s ever had a loftier dream than whores and whiskey, he’s never shown it.

Oh, for Pete’s sake, Papa! If you’re going to start that stuff, I’ll beat it.

He starts to get up.

Placatingly.

All right, all right, I’ll stop. God knows, I don’t like the subject either. Will you join me in a drink?

Ah! Now you’re talking!

Passes the bottle to him—mechanically.

I’m wrong to treat you. You’ve had enough already.

Pouring a big drink—a bit drunkenly.

Enough is
not
as good as a feast.

He hands back the bottle.

It’s too much in your condition.

Forget my condition!

He raises his glass.

Here’s how.

Drink hearty.

They drink.

If you walked all the way to the beach you must be damp and chilled.

Oh, I dropped in at the Inn on the way out and back.

It’s not a night I’d pick for a long walk.

I loved the fog. It was what I needed.

He sounds more tipsy and looks it.

You should have more sense than to risk—

To hell with sense! We’re all crazy. What do we want with sense?

He quotes from Dowson sardonically.

“They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.”

Staring before him.

The fog was where I wanted to be. Halfway down the path you can’t see this house. You’d never know it was here. Or any of the other places down the avenue. I couldn’t see but a few feet ahead. I didn’t meet a soul. Everything looked and sounded unreal. Nothing was what it is. That’s what I wanted—to be alone with myself in another world where truth is untrue and life can hide from itself. Out beyond the harbor, where the road runs along the beach, I even lost the feeling of being on land. The fog and the sea seemed part of each other. It was like walking on the bottom of the sea. As if I had drowned long ago. As if I was a ghost belonging to the fog, and the fog was the ghost of the sea. It felt damned peaceful to be nothing more than a ghost within a ghost.