Long Day's Journey into Night (Yale Nota Bene) (19 page)

Hurriedly.

We’ll play our game. Pretend not to notice and she’ll soon go up again.

Staring through the front parlor
—
with relief.

I don’t see her. She must have started down and then turned back.

Thank God.

Yes. It’s pretty horrible to see her the way she must be now.

With bitter misery.

The hardest thing to take is the blank wall she builds around her. Or it’s more like a bank of fog in which she hides and loses herself. Deliberately, that’s the hell of it! You know something in her does it deliberately—to get beyond our reach, to be rid of us, to forget we’re alive! It’s as if, in spite of loving us, she hated us!

Remonstrates gently.

Now, now, lad. It’s not her. It’s the damned poison.

Bitterly.

She takes it to get that effect. At least, I know she did this time!

Abruptly.

My play, isn’t it? Here.

He plays a card.

Plays mechanically—gently reproachful.

She’s been terribly frightened about your illness, for all her pretending. Don’t be too hard on her, lad. Remember she’s not responsible. Once that cursed poison gets a hold on anyone—

His face grows hard and he stares at his father with bitter accusation.

It never should have gotten a hold on her! I know damned well she’s not to blame! And I know who is! You are! Your damned stinginess! If you’d spent money for a decent doctor when she was so sick after I was born, she’d never have known morphine existed! Instead you put her in the hands of a hotel quack who wouldn’t admit his ignorance and took the easiest way out, not giving a damn what happened to her afterwards! All because his fee was cheap! Another one of your bargains!

Stung
—
angrily.

Be quiet! How dare you talk of something you know nothing about!

Trying to control his temper.

You must try to see my side of it, too, lad. How was I to know he was that kind of a doctor? He had a good reputation—

Among the souses in the hotel bar, I suppose!

That’s a lie! I asked the hotel proprietor to recommend the best—

Yes! At the same time crying poorhouse and making it plain you wanted a cheap one! I know your system! By God, I ought to after this afternoon!

Guiltily defensive.

What about this afternoon?

Never mind now. We’re talking about Mama! I’m saying no matter how you excuse yourself you know damned well your stinginess is to blame—

And I say you’re a liar! Shut your mouth right now, or—

Ignoring this.

After you found out she’d been made a morphine addict, why didn’t you send her to a cure then, at the start, while she still had a chance? No, that would have meant spending some money! I’ll bet you told her all she had to do was use a little will power! That’s what you still believe in your heart, in spite of what doctors, who really know something about it, have told you!

You lie again! I know better than that now! But how was I to know then? What did I know of morphine? It was years before I discovered what was wrong. I thought she’d never got over her sickness, that’s all. Why didn’t I send her to a cure, you say?

Bitterly.

Haven’t I? I’ve spent thousands upon thousands in cures! A waste. What good have they done her? She always started again.

Because you’ve never given her anything that would help her want to stay off it! No home except this summer dump in a place she hates and you’ve refused even to spend money to make this look decent, while you keep buying more property, and playing sucker for every con man with a gold mine, or a silver mine, or any kind of get-rich-quick swindle! You’ve dragged her around on the road, season after season, on one-night stands, with no one she could talk to, waiting night after night in dirty hotel rooms for you to come back with a bun on after the bars closed! Christ, is it any wonder she didn’t want to be cured. Jesus, when I think of it I hate your guts!

Strickenly.

Edmund!

Then in a rage.

How dare you talk to your father like that, you insolent young cub! After all I’ve done for you.

We’ll come to that, what you’re doing for me!

Looking guilty again—ignores this.

Will you stop repeating your mother’s crazy accusations, which she never makes unless it’s the poison talking? I never dragged her on the road against her will. Naturally, I wanted her with me. I loved her. And she came because she loved me and wanted to be with me. That’s the truth, no matter what she says when she’s not herself. And she needn’t have been lonely. There was always the members of my company to talk to, if she’d wanted. She had her children, too, and I insisted, in spite of the expense, on having a nurse to travel with her.

Bitterly.

Yes, your one generosity, and that because you were jealous of her paying too much attention to us, and wanted us out of your way! It was another mistake, too! If she’d had to take care of me all by herself, and had that to occupy her mind, maybe she’d have been able—

Goaded into vindictiveness.

Or for that matter, if you insist on judging things by what she says when she’s not in her right mind, if you hadn’t been born she’d never—

He stops ashamed.

Suddenly spent and miserable.

Sure. I know that’s what she feels, Papa.

Protests penitently.

She doesn’t! She loves you as dearly as ever mother loved a son! I only said that because you put me in such a God-damned rage, raking up the past, and saying you hate me—

Dully.

I didn’t mean it, Papa.

He suddenly smiles—kidding a bit drunkenly.

I’m like Mama, I can’t help liking you, in spite of everything.

Grins a bit drunkenly in return.

I might say the same of you. You’re no great shakes as a son. It’s a case of “A poor thing but mine own.”

They both chuckle with real, if alcoholic, affection. Tyrone changes the subject.

What’s happened to our game? Whose play is it?

Yours, I guess.

Tyrone plays a card which Edmund takes and the game gets forgotten again.

You mustn’t let yourself be too downhearted, lad, by the bad news you had today. Both the doctors promised me, if you obey orders at this place you’re going, you’ll be cured in six months, or a year at most.

His face hard again.

Don’t kid me. You don’t believe that.

Too vehemently.

Of course I believe it! Why shouldn’t I believe it when both Hardy and the specialist—?

You think I’m going to die.

That’s a lie! You’re crazy!

More bitterly.

So why waste money? That’s why you’re sending me to a state farm—

In guilty confusion.

What state farm? It’s the Hilltown Sanatorium, that’s all I know, and both doctors said it was the best place for you.

Scathingly.

For the money! That is, for nothing, or practically nothing. Don’t lie, Papa! You know damned well Hilltown Sanatorium is a state institution! Jamie suspected you’d cry poorhouse to Hardy and he wormed the truth out of him.

Furiously.

That drunken loafer! I’ll kick him out in the gutter! He’s poisoned your mind against me ever since you were old enough to listen!

You can’t deny it’s the truth about the state farm, can you?

It’s not true the way you look at it! What if it is run by the state? That’s nothing against it. The state has the money to make a better place than any private sanatorium. And why shouldn’t I take advantage of it? It’s my right—and yours. We’re residents. I’m a property owner. I help to support it. I’m taxed to death—

With bitter irony.

Yes, on property valued at a quarter of a million.

Lies! It’s all mortgaged!

Hardy and the specialist know what you’re worth. I wonder what they thought of you when they heard you moaning poorhouse and showing you wanted to wish me on charity!

It’s a lie! All I told them was I couldn’t afford any millionaire’s sanatorium because I was land poor. That’s the truth!

And then you went to the Club to meet McGuire and let him stick you with another bum piece of property!

As Tyrone starts to deny.

Don’t lie about it! We met McGuire in the hotel bar after he left you. Jamie kidded him about hooking you, and he winked and laughed!

Lying feebly.

He’s a liar if he said—

Don’t lie about it!

With gathering intensity.

God, Papa, ever since I went to sea and was on my own, and found out what hard work for little pay was, and what it felt like to be broke, and starve, and camp on park benches because I had no place to sleep, I’ve tried to be fair to you because I knew what you’d been up against as a kid. I’ve tried to make allowances. Christ, you have to make allowances in this damned family or go nuts! I have tried to make allowances for myself when I remember all the rotten stuff I’ve pulled! I’ve tried to feel like Mama that you can’t help being what you are where money is concerned. But God Almighty, this last stunt of yours is too much! It makes me want to puke! Not because of the rotten way you’re treating me. To hell with that! I’ve treated you rottenly, in my way, more than once. But to think when it’s a question of your son having consumption, you can show yourself up before the whole town as such a stinking old tightwad! Don’t you know Hardy will talk and the whole damned town will know! Jesus, Papa, haven’t you any pride or shame?

Bursting with rage.

And don’t think I’ll let you get away with it! I won’t go to any damned state farm just to save you a few lousy dollars to buy more bum property with! You stinking old miser—!

He chokes huskily, his voice trembling with rage, and then is shaken by a fit of coughing.

Has shrunk back in his chair under this attack, his guilty contrition greater than his anger. He stammers.

Be quiet! Don’t say that to me! You’re drunk! I won’t mind you. Stop coughing, lad. You’ve got yourself worked up over nothing. Who said you had to go to this Hilltown place? You can go anywhere you like. I don’t give a damn what it costs. All I care about is

to have you get well. Don’t call me a stinking miser, just because I don’t want doctors to think I’m a millionaire they can swindle.

Edmund has stopped coughing. He looks sick and weak. His father stares at him frightenedly.

You look weak, lad. You’d better take a bracer.

Grabs the bottle and pours his glass brimfull
—
weakly.

Thanks.

He gulps down the whiskey.

Pours himself a big drink, which empties the bottle, and drinks it. His head bows and he stares dully at the cards on the table—vaguely.

Whose play is it?

He goes on dully, without resentment.

A stinking old miser. Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe I can’t help being, although all my life since I had anything I’ve thrown money over the bar to buy drinks for everyone in the house, or loaned money to sponges I knew would never pay it back—