Long Day's Journey into Night (Yale Nota Bene) (4 page)

Jamie, the elder, is thirty-three. He has his father’s broad-shouldered, deep-chested physique, is an inch taller and weighs less, but appears shorter and stouter because he lacks Tyrone’s bearing and graceful carriage. He also lacks his father’s vitality. The signs of premature disintegration are on him. His face is still good looking, despite marks of dissipation, but it has never been handsome like Tyrone’s, although Jamie resembles him rather than his mother. He has fine brown eyes, their color midway between his father’s lighter and his mother’s darker ones. His hair is thinning and already there is indication of a bald spot like Tyrone’s. His nose is unlike that of any other member of the family, pronouncedly aquiline. Combined with his habitual expression of cynicism it gives his countenance a Mephistophelian cast. But on the rare occasions when he smiles without sneering, his personality possesses the remnant of a humorous, romantic, irresponsible Irish charm—that of the beguiling ne’er-do-well, with a strain of the sentimentally poetic, attractive to women and popular with men.

He is dressed in an old sack suit, not as shabby as Tyrone’s, and wears a collar and tie. His fair skin is sunburned a reddish, freckled tan.

Edmund is ten years younger than his brother, a couple of inches taller, thin and wiry. Where Jamie takes after his father, with little resemblance to his mother, Edmund looks like both his parents, but is more like his mother. Her big, dark eyes are the dominant feature in his long, narrow Irish face. His mouth has the same quality of hypersensitiveness hers possesses. His high forehead is hers accentuated, with dark brown hair, sunbleached to red at the ends, brushed straight back from it. But his nose is his father’s and his face in profile recalls Tyrone’s. Edmund’s hands are noticeably like his mother’s, with the same exceptionally long fingers. They even have to a minor degree the same nervousness. It is in the quality of extreme nervous sensibility that the likeness of Edmund to his mother is most marked.

He is plainly in bad health. Much thinner than he should be, his eyes appear feverish and his cheeks are sunken. His skin, in spite of being sunburned a deep brown, has a parched sallowness. He wears a shirt, collar and tie, no coat, old flannel trousers, brown sneakers.

Turns smilingly to them, in a merry tone that is a bit forced.

I’ve been teasing your father about his snoring.

To Tyrone.

I’ll leave it to the boys, James. They must have heard you. No, not you, Jamie. I could hear you down the hall almost as bad as your father. You’re like him. As soon as your head touches the pillow you’re off and ten foghorns couldn’t wake you.

She stops abruptly, catching Jamie’s eyes regarding her with an uneasy, probing look. Her smile vanishes and her manner becomes self-conscious.

Why are you staring, Jamie?

Her hands flutter up to her hair.

Is my hair coming down? It’s hard for me to do it up properly now. My eyes are getting so bad and I never can find my glasses.

Looks away guiltily.

Your hair’s all right, Mama. I was only thinking how well you look.

Heartily.

Just what I’ve been telling her, Jamie. She’s so fat and sassy, there’ll soon be no holding her.

Yes, you certainly look grand, Mama.

She is reassured and smiles at him lovingly. He winks with a kidding grin.

I’ll back you up about Papa’s snoring. Gosh, what a racket!

I heard him, too.

He quotes, putting on a ham-actor manner.

“The Moor, I know his trumpet.”

His mother and brother laugh.

Scathingly.

If it takes my snoring to make you remember Shakespeare instead of the dope sheet on the ponies, I hope I’ll keep on with it.

Now, James! You mustn’t be so touchy.

Jamie shrugs his shoulders and sits down in the chair on her right.

Irritably.

Yes, for Pete’s sake, Papa! The first thing after breakfast! Give it a rest, can’t you?

He slumps down in the chair at left of table next to his brother. His father ignores him.

Reprovingly.

Your father wasn’t finding fault with you. You don’t have to always take Jamie’s part. You’d think you were the one ten years older.

Boredly.

What’s all the fuss about? Let’s forget it.

Contemptuously.

Yes, forget! Forget everything and face nothing! It’s a convenient philosophy if you’ve no ambition in life except to—

James, do be quiet.

She puts an arm around his shoulder—coaxingly.

You must have gotten out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.

To the boys, changing the subject.

What were you two grinning about like Cheshire cats when you came in? What was the joke?

With a painful effort to be a good sport.

Yes, let us in on it, lads. I told your mother I knew damned well it would be one on me, but never mind that, I’m used to it.

Dryly.

Don’t look at me. This is the Kid’s story.

Grins.

I meant to tell you last night, Papa, and forgot it. Yesterday when I went for a walk I dropped in at the Inn—

Worriedly.

You shouldn’t drink now, Edmund.

Ignoring this.

And who do you think I met there, with a beautiful bun on, but Shaughnessy, the tenant on that farm of yours.

Smiling.

That dreadful man! But he is funny.

Scowling.

He’s not so funny when you’re his landlord. He’s a wily Shanty Mick, that one. He could hide behind a corkscrew. What’s he complaining about now, Edmund—for I’m damned sure he’s complaining. I suppose he wants his rent lowered. I let him have the place for almost nothing, just to keep someone on it, and he never pays that till I threaten to evict him.

No, he didn’t beef about anything. He was so pleased with life he even bought a drink, and that’s practically unheard of. He was delighted because he’d had a fight with your friend, Harker, the Standard Oil millionaire, and won a glorious victory.

With amused dismay.

Oh, Lord! James, you’ll really have to do something—

Bad luck to Shaughnessy, anyway!

Maliciously.

I’ll bet the next time you see Harker at the Club and give him the old respectful bow, he won’t see you.

Yes. Harker will think you’re no gentleman for harboring a tenant who isn’t humble in the presence of a king of America.

Never mind the Socialist gabble. I don’t care to listen—

Tactfully.

Go on with your story, Edmund.

Grins at his father provocatively.

Well, you remember, Papa, the ice pond on Harker’s estate is right next to the farm, and you remember Shaughnessy keeps pigs. Well, it seems there’s a break in the fence and the pigs have been bathing in the millionaire’s ice pond, and Harker’s foreman told him he was sure Shaughnessy had broken the fence on purpose to give his pigs a free wallow.

Shocked and amused.

Good heavens!

Sourly, but with a trace of admiration.

I’m sure he did, too, the dirty scallywag. It’s like him.

So Harker came in person to rebuke Shaughnessy.

He chuckles.

A very bonehead play! If I needed any further proof that our ruling plutocrats, especially the ones who inherited their boodle, are not mental giants, that would clinch it.

With appreciation, before he thinks.

Yes, he’d be no match for Shaughnessy.

Then he growls.

Keep your damned anarchist remarks to yourself. I won’t have them in my house.

But he is full of eager anticipation.

What happened?

Harker had as much chance as I would with Jack Johnson. Shaughnessy got a few drinks under his belt and was waiting at the gate to welcome him. He told me he never gave Harker a chance to open his mouth. He began by shouting that he was no slave Standard Oil could trample on. He was a King of Ireland, if he had his rights, and scum was scum to him, no matter how much money it had stolen from the poor.

Oh, Lord!

But she can’t help laughing.

Then he accused Harker of making his foreman break down the fence to entice the pigs into the ice pond in order to destroy them. The poor pigs, Shaughnessy yelled, had caught their death of cold. Many of them were dying of pneumonia, and several others had been taken down with cholera from drinking the poisoned water. He told Harker he was hiring a lawyer to sue him for damages. And he wound up by saying that he had to put up with poison ivy, ticks, potato bugs, snakes and skunks on his farm, but he was an honest man who drew the line somewhere, and he’d be damned if he’d stand for a Standard Oil thief trespassing. So would Harker kindly remove his dirty feet from the premises before he sicked the dog on him. And Harker did!

He and Jamie laugh.

Shocked but giggling.

Heavens, what a terrible tongue that man has!

Admiringly before he thinks.

The damned old scoundrel! By God, you can’t beat him!

He laughs—then stops abruptly and scowls.

The dirty blackguard! He’ll get me in serious trouble yet. I hope you told him I’d be mad as hell—

I told him you’d be tickled to death over the great Irish victory, and so you are. Stop faking, Papa.

Well, I’m not tickled to death.

Teasingly.

You are, too, James. You’re simply delighted!

No, Mary, a joke is a joke, but—

I told Shaughnessy he should have reminded Harker that a Standard Oil millionaire ought to welcome the flavor of hog in his ice water as an appropriate touch.

The devil you did!

Frowning.

Keep your damned Socialist anarchist sentiments out of my affairs!

Shaughnessy almost wept because he hadn’t thought of that one, but he said he’d include it in a letter he’s writing to Harker, along with a few other insults he’d overlooked.

He and Jamie laugh.

What are you laughing at? There’s nothing funny—A fine son you are to help that blackguard get me into a lawsuit!

Now, James, don’t lose your temper.

Turns on Jamie.

And you’re worse than he is, encouraging him. I suppose you’re regretting you weren’t there to prompt Shaughnessy with a few nastier insults. You’ve a fine talent for that, if for nothing else.

James! There’s no reason to scold Jamie.

Jamie is about to make some sneering remark to his father, but he shrugs his shoulders.

With sudden nervous exasperation.

Oh, for God’s sake, Papa! If you’re starting that stuff again, I’ll beat it.

He jumps up.

I left my book upstairs, anyway.

He goes to the front parlor, saying disgustedly,

God, Papa, I should think you’d get sick of hearing yourself—

He disappears. Tyrone looks after him angrily.

You mustn’t mind Edmund, James. Remember he isn’t well.

Edmund can be heard coughing as he goes upstairs. She adds nervously.