Long Day's Journey into Night (Yale Nota Bene) (3 page)

In the right wall, rear, is a screen door leading out on the porch which extends halfway around the house. Farther forward, a series of three windows looks over the front lawn to the harbor and the avenue that runs along the water front. A small wicker table and an ordinary oak desk are against the wall, flanking the windows.

In the left wall, a similar series of windows looks out on the grounds in back of the house. Beneath them is a wicker couch with cushions, its head toward rear. Farther back is a large, glassed-in bookcase with sets of Dumas, Victor Hugo, Charles Lever, three sets of Shakespeare, The World’s Best Literature in fifty large volumes, Hume’s History of England, Thiers’ History of the Consulate and Empire, Smollett’s History of England, Gibbon’s Roman Empire and miscellaneous volumes of old plays, poetry, and several histories of Ireland. The astonishing thing about these sets is that all the volumes have the look of having been read and reread.

The hardwood floor is nearly covered by a rug, inoffensive in design and color. At center is a round table with a green shaded reading lamp, the cord plugged in one of the four sockets in the chandelier above. Around the table within reading-light range are four chairs, three of them wicker armchairs, the fourth (at right front of table) a varnished oak rocker with leather bottom.

It is around 8.30. Sunshine comes through the windows at right.

As the curtain rises, the family have just finished breakfast.
MARY TYRONE
and her husband enter together from the back parlor, coming from the dining room.

Mary is fifty-four, about medium height. She still has a young, graceful figure, a trifle plump, but showing little evidence of middle-aged waist and hips, although she is not tightly corseted. Her face is distinctly Irish in type. It must once have been extremely pretty, and is still striking. It does not match her healthy figure but is thin and pale with the bone structure prominent. Her nose is long and straight, her mouth wide with full, sensitive lips. She uses no rouge or any sort of make-up. Her high forehead is framed by thick, pure white hair. Accentuated by her pallor and white hair, her dark brown eyes appear black. They are unusually large and beautiful, with black brows and long curling lashes.

What strikes one immediately is her extreme nervousness. Her hands are never still. They were once beautiful hands, with long, tapering fingers, but rheumatism has knotted the joints and warped the fingers, so that now they have an ugly crippled look. One avoids looking at them, the more so because one is conscious she is sensitive about their appearance and humiliated by her inability to control the nervousness which draws attention to them.

She is dressed simply but with a sure sense of what becomes her. Her hair is arranged with fastidious care. Her voice is soft and attractive. When she is merry, there is a touch of Irish lilt in it.

Her most appealing quality is the simple, unaffected charm of a shy convent-girl youthfulness she has never lost—an innate unworldly innocence.

JAMES TYRONE
is sixty-five but looks ten years younger. About five feet eight, broad-shouldered and deep-chested, he seems taller and slenderer because of his bearing, which has a soldierly quality of head up, chest out, stomach in, shoulders squared. His face has begun to break down but he is still remarkably good looking—a big, finely shaped head, a handsome profile, deep-set light-brown eyes. His grey hair is thin with a bald spot like a monk’s tonsure.

The stamp of his profession is unmistakably on him. Not that he indulges in any of the deliberate temperamental posturings of the stage star. He is by nature and preference a simple, unpretentious man, whose inclinations are still close to his humble beginnings and his Irish farmer forebears. But the actor shows in all his unconscious habits of speech, movement and gesture. These have the quality of belonging to a studied technique. His voice is remarkably fine, resonant and flexible, and he takes great pride in it.

His clothes, assuredly, do not costume any romantic part. He wears a threadbare, ready-made, grey sack suit and shineless black shoes, a collar-less shirt with a thick white handkerchief knotted loosely around his throat. There is nothing picturesquely careless about this get-up. It is commonplace shabby. He believes in wearing his clothes to the limit of usefulness, is dressed now for gardening, and doesn’t give a damn how he looks.

He has never been really sick a day in his life. He has no nerves. There is a lot of stolid, earthy peasant in him, mixed with streaks of sentimental melancholy and rare flashes of intuitive sensibility.

Tyrone’s arm is around his wife’s waist as they appear from the back parlor. Entering the living room he gives her a playful hug.

You’re a fine armful now, Mary, with those twenty pounds you’ve gained.

Smiles affectionately.
I’ve gotten too fat, you mean, dear. I really ought to reduce.

None of that, my lady! You’re just right. We’ll have no talk of reducing. Is that why you ate so little breakfast?

So little? I thought I ate a lot.

You didn’t. Not as much as I’d like to see, anyway.

Teasingly.
Oh you! You expect everyone to eat the enormous breakfast you do. No one else in the world could without dying of indigestion.
She comes forward to stand by the right of table.

Following her.
I hope I’m not as big a glutton as that sounds.
With hearty satisfaction.
But thank God, I’ve kept my appetite and I’ve the digestion of a young man of twenty, if I am sixty-five.

You surely have, James. No one could deny that.

She laughs and sits in the wicker armchair at right rear of table. He comes around in back of her and selects a cigar from a box on the table and cuts off the end with a little clipper. From the dining room Jamie’s and Edmund’s voices are heard. Mary turns her head that way.

Why did the boys stay in the dining room, I wonder? Cathleen must be waiting to clear the table.

Jokingly but with an undercurrent of resentment.

It’s a secret confab they don’t want me to hear, I suppose. I’ll bet they’re cooking up some new scheme to touch the Old Man.
She is silent on this, keeping her head turned toward their voices. Her hands appear on the table top, moving restlessly. He lights his cigar and sits down in the rocker at right of table, which is his chair, and puffs contentedly.

There’s nothing like the first after-breakfast cigar, if it’s a good one, and this new lot have the right mellow flavor. They’re a great bargain, too. I got them dead cheap. It was McGuire put me on to them.

A trifle acidly.

I hope he didn’t put you on to any new piece of property at the same time. His real estate bargains don’t work out so well.

Defensively.

I wouldn’t say that, Mary. After all, he was the one who advised me to buy that place on Chestnut Street and I made a quick turnover on it for a fine profit.

Smiles now with teasing affection.

I know. The famous one stroke of good luck. I’m sure McGuire never dreamed—

Then she pats his hand.

Never mind, James. I know it’s a waste of breath trying to convince you you’re not a cunning real estate speculator.

Huffily.

I’ve no such idea. But land is land, and it’s safer than the stocks and bonds of Wall Street swindlers.

Then placatingly.

But let’s not argue about business this early in the morning.

A pause. The boys’ voices are again heard and one of them has a fit of coughing. Mary listens worriedly. Her fingers play nervously on the table top.

James, it’s Edmund you ought to scold for not eating enough. He hardly touched anything except coffee. He needs to eat to keep up his strength. I keep telling him that but he says he simply has no appetite. Of course, there’s nothing takes away your appetite like a bad summer cold.

Yes, it’s only natural. So don’t let yourself get worried—

Quickly.

Oh, I’m not. I know he’ll be all right in a few days if he takes care of himself.

As if she wanted to dismiss the subject but can’t.

But it does seem a shame he should have to be sick right now.

Yes, it is bad luck.

He gives her a quick, worried look.

But you musn’t let it upset you, Mary. Remember, you’ve got to take care of yourself, too.

Quickly.

I’m not upset. There’s nothing to be upset about. What makes you think I’m upset?

Why, nothing, except you’ve seemed a bit high-strung the past few days.

Forcing a smile.

I have? Nonsense, dear. It’s your imagination.

With sudden tenseness.

You really must not watch me all the time, James. I mean, it makes me self-conscious.

Putting a hand over one of her nervously playing ones.

Now, now, Mary. That’s your imagination. If I’ve watched you it was to admire how fat and beautiful you looked.

His voice is suddenly moved by deep feeling.

I can’t tell you the deep happiness it gives me, darling, to see you as you’ve been since you came back to us, your dear old self again.

He leans over and kisses her cheek impulsively—then turning back adds with a constrained air.

So keep up the good work, Mary.

Has turned her head away.

I will, dear.

She gets up restlessly and goes to the windows at right.

Thank heavens, the fog is gone.

She turns back.

I do feel out of sorts this morning. I wasn’t able to get much sleep with that awful foghorn going all night long.

Yes, it’s like having a sick whale in the back yard. It kept me awake, too.

Affectionately amused.

Did it? You had a strange way of showing your restlessness. You were snoring so hard I couldn’t tell which was the foghorn!

She comes to him, laughing, and pats his cheek playfully.

Ten foghorns couldn’t disturb you. You haven’t a nerve in you. You’ve never had.

His vanity piqued—testily.

Nonsense. You always exaggerate about my snoring.

I couldn’t. If you could only hear yourself once—

A burst of laughter comes from the dining room. She turns her head, smiling.

What’s the joke, I wonder?

Grumpily.

It’s on me. I’ll bet that much. It’s always on the Old Man.

Teasingly.

Yes, it’s terrible the way we all pick on you, isn’t it? You’re so abused!

She laughs—then with a pleased, relieved air.

Well, no matter what the joke is about, it’s a relief to hear Edmund laugh. He’s been so down in the mouth lately.

Ignoring this
—
resentfully.

Some joke of Jamie’s, I’ll wager. He’s forever making sneering fun of somebody, that one.

Now don’t start in on poor Jamie, dear.

Without conviction.

He’ll turn out all right in the end, you wait and see.

He’d better start soon, then. He’s nearly thirty-four.

Ignoring this.

Good heavens, are they going to stay in the dining room all day?

She goes to the back parlor doorway and calls.

Jamie! Edmund! Come in the living room and give Cathleen a chance to clear the table.

Edmund calls back, “We’re coming, Mama.” She goes back to the table.

Grumbling.

You’d find excuses for him no matter what he did.

Sitting down beside him, pats his hand.

Shush.

Their sons
JAMES, JR.,
and
EDMUND
enter together from the back parlor. They are both grinning, still chuckling over what had caused their laughter, and as they come forward they glance at their father and their grins grow broader.