Part 4

DICK: It's all rather mysterious, isn't it?

HARRY: And Claire doesn't make it any less so.

CLAIRE: Can I make life any less mysterious?

HARRY: If you know what you are doing, why can't you tell Dick?

DICK: Never mind. After all, why should I be told? (_he turns away_)

(_At that she wants to tell him. Helpless, as one who cannot get across a stream, starts uncertainly_.)

CLAIRE: I want to give fragrance to Breath of Life (_faces the room beyond the wall of glass_)--the flower I have created that is outside what flowers have been. What has gone out should bring fragrance from what it has left. But no definite fragrance, no limiting enclosing thing. I call the fragrance I am trying to create Reminiscence. (_her hand on the pot of the wistful little flower she has just given pollen_) Reminiscent of the rose, the violet, arbutus--but a new thing--itself. Breath of Life may be lonely out in what hasn't been. Perhaps some day I can give it reminiscence.

DICK: I see, Claire.

CLAIRE: I wonder if you do.

HARRY: Now, Claire, you're going to be gay to-day, aren't you? These are Tom's last couple of days with us.

CLAIRE: That doesn't make me especially gay.

HARRY: Well, you want him to remember you as yourself, don't you?

CLAIRE: I would like him to. Oh--I would like him to!

HARRY: Then be amusing. That's really you, isn't it, Dick?

DICK: Not quite all of her--I should say.

CLAIRE: (_gaily_) Careful, Dick. Aren't you indiscreet? Harry will be suspecting that I am your latest strumpet.

HARRY: Claire! What language you use! A person knowing you only by certain moments could never be made to believe you are a refined woman.

CLAIRE: True, isn't it, Dick?

HARRY: It would be a good deal of a lark to let them listen in at times--then tell them that here is the flower of New England!

CLAIRE: Well, if this is the flower of New England, then the half has never been told.

DICK: About New England?

CLAIRE: I thought I meant that. Perhaps I meant--about me.

HARRY: (_going on with his own entertainment_) Explain that this is what came of the men who made the laws that made New England, that here is the flower of those gentlemen of culture who--

DICK: Moulded the American mind!

CLAIRE: Oh! (_it is pain_)

HARRY: Now what's the matter?

CLAIRE: I want to get away from them!

HARRY: Rest easy, little one--you do.

CLAIRE: I'm not so sure--that I do. But it can be done! We need not be held in forms moulded for us. There is outness--and otherness.

HARRY: Now, Claire--I didn't mean to start anything serious.

CLAIRE: No; you never mean to do that. I want to break it up! I tell you, I want to break it up! If it were all in pieces, we'd be (_a little laugh_) shocked to aliveness (_to_ DICK)--wouldn't we? There would be strange new comings together--mad new comings together, and we would know what it is to be born, and then we might know--that we are. Smash it. (_her hand is near an egg_) As you'd smash an egg. (_she pushes the egg over the edge of the table and leans over and looks, as over a precipice_)

HARRY: (_with a sigh_) Well, all you've smashed is the egg, and all that amounts to is that now Tom gets no egg. So that's that.

CLAIRE: (_with difficulty, drawing herself back from the fascination of the precipice_) You think I can't smash anything? You think life can't break up, and go outside what it was? Because you've gone dead in the form in which you found yourself, you think that's all there is to the whole adventure? And that is called sanity. And made a virtue--to lock one in. You never worked with things that grow! Things that take a sporting chance--go mad--that sanity mayn't lock them in--from life untouched--from life--that waits, (_she turns toward the inner room_) Breath of Life. (_she goes in there_)

HARRY: Oh, I wish Claire wouldn't be strange like that, (_helplessly_) What is it? What's the matter?

DICK: It's merely the excess of a particularly rich temperament.

HARRY: But it's growing on her. I sometimes wonder if all this (_indicating the place around him_) is a good thing. It would be all right if she'd just do what she did in the beginning--make the flowers as good as possible of their kind. That's an awfully nice thing for a woman to do--raise flowers. But there's something about this--changing things into other things--putting things together and making queer new things--this--

DICK: Creating?

HARRY: Give it any name you want it to have--it's unsettling for a woman. They say Claire's a shark at it, but what's the good of it, if it gets her? What is the good of it, anyway? Suppose we can produce new things. Lord--look at the one ones we've got. (_looks outside; turns back_) Heavens, what a noise the wind does make around this place, (_but now it is not all the wind, but_ TOM EDGEWORTHY, _who is trying to let himself in at the locked door, their backs are to him_) I want my _egg_. You can't eat an egg without salt. I must say I don't get Claire lately. I'd like to have Charlie Emmons see her--he's fixed up a lot of people shot to pieces in the war. Claire needs something to tone her nerves _up_. You think it would irritate her?

DICK: She'd probably get no little entertainment out of it.

HARRY: Yes, dog-gone her, she would. (TOM _now takes more heroic measures to make himself heard at the door_) Funny--how the wind can fool you. Now by not looking around I could imagine--why, I could imagine anything. Funny, isn't it, about imagination? And Claire says I haven't got any!

DICK: It would make an amusing drawing--what the wind makes you think is there. (_first makes forms with his hands, then levelling the soil prepared by_ ANTHONY, _traces lines with his finger_) Yes, really--quite jolly.

(TOM, _after a moment of peering in at them, smiles, goes away._)

HARRY: You're another one of the queer ducks, aren't you? Come now--give me the dirt. Have you queer ones really got anything--or do you just put it over on us that you have?

DICK: (_smiles, draws on_) Not saying anything, eh? Well, I guess you're wise there. If you keep mum--how are we going to prove there's nothing there?

DICK: I don't keep mum. I draw.

HARRY: Lines that don't make anything--how can they tell you anything? Well, all I ask is, don't make Claire queer. Claire's a first water good sport--really, so don't encourage her to be queer.

DICK: Trouble is, if you're queer enough to be amusing, it might--open the door to queerness.

HARRY: Now don't say things like that to Claire.

DICK: I don't have to.

HARRY: Then _you_ think she's queer, do you? Queer as you are, you think she's queer. I would like to have Dr Emmons come out. (_after a moment of silently watching_ DICK, _who is having a good time with his drawing_) You know, frankly, I doubt if you're a good influence for Claire. (DICK _lifts his head ever so slightly_) Oh, I don't worry a bit about--things a husband might worry about. I suppose an intellectual woman--and for all Claire's hate of her ancestors, she's got the bug herself. Why, she has times of boring into things until she doesn't know you're there. What do you think I caught her doing the other day? Reading Latin. Well--a woman that reads Latin needn't worry a husband much.

DICK: They said a good deal in Latin.

HARRY: But I was saying, I suppose a woman who lives a good deal in her mind never does have much--well, what you might call passion, (_uses the word as if it shouldn't be used. Brows knitted, is looking ahead, does not see_ DICK_'s face. Turning to him with a laugh_) I suppose you know pretty much all there is to know about women?

DICK: Perhaps one or two details have escaped me.

HARRY: Well, for that matter, you might know all there is to know about women and not know much about Claire. But now about (_does not want to say passion again_)--oh, feeling--Claire has a certain--well, a certain--

DICK: Irony?

HARRY: Which is really more--more--

DICK: More fetching, perhaps.

HARRY: Yes! Than the thing itself. But of course--you wouldn't have much of a thing that you have irony about.

DICK: Oh--wouldn't you! I mean--a man might.

HARRY: I'd like to talk to Edgeworth about Claire. But it's not easy to talk to Tom about Claire--or to Claire about Tom.

DICK: (_alert_) They're very old friends, aren't they?

HARRY: Why--yes, they are. Though they've not been together much of late years, Edgeworthy always going to the ends of the earth to--meditate about something. I must say I don't get it. If you have a place--that's the place for you to be. And he did have a place--best kind of family connections, and it was a very good business his father left him. Publishing business--in good shape, too, when old Edgeworthy died. I wouldn't call Tom a great success in life--but Claire does listen to what he says.

DICK: Yes, I've noticed that.

HARRY: So, I'd like to get him to tell her to quit this queer business of making things grow that never grew before.

DICK: But are you sure that's what he would tell her? Isn't he in the same business himself?

HARRY: Why, he doesn't raise anything.

(TOM _is again at the door_.)

DICK: Anyway, I think he might have some idea that we can't very well reach each other.

HARRY: Damn nonsense. What have we got intelligence for?

DICK: To let each other alone, I suppose. Only we haven't enough to do it.

(TOM _is now knocking on the door with a revolver_. HARRY _half turns, decides to be too intelligent to turn_.)

HARRY: Don't tell me I'm getting nerves. But the way some of you people talk is enough to make even an aviator jumpy. Can't reach each other! Then we're fools. If I'm here and you're there, why can't we reach each other?

DICK: Because I am I and you are you.

HARRY: No wonder your drawing's queer. A man who can't reach another man--(TOM _here reaches them by pointing the revolver in the air and firing it_. DICK _digs his hand into the dirt_. HARRY _jumps to one side, fearfully looks around_. TOM, _with a pleased smile to see he at last has their attention, moves the handle to indicate he would be glad to come in_.)

HARRY: Why--it's Tom! What the--? (_going to the door_) He's locked out. And Claire's got the key. (_goes to the inner door, tries it_) And she's locked in! (_trying to see her in there_) Claire! Claire! (_returning to the outer door_) Claire's got the key--and I can't get to Claire. (_makes a futile attempt at getting the door open without a key, goes back to inner door--peers, pounds_) Claire! Are you there? Didn't you hear the revolver? Has she gone down the cellar? (_tries the trap-door_) Bolted! Well, I love the way she keeps people locked out!

DICK: And in.

HARRY: (_getting angry, shouting at the trap-door_) Didn't you hear the revolver? (_going to_ TOM) Awfully sorry, old man, but--(_in astonishment to_ DICK) He can't hear me. (TOM, _knocking with the revolver to get their attention, makes a gesture of inquiry with it_) No--no--no! Is he asking if he shall shoot himself? (_shaking his head violently_) Oh, no--no! Um--_um_!

DICK: Hardly seems a man would shoot himself because he can't get to his breakfast.

HARRY: I'm coming to believe people would do anything! (TOM _is making another inquiry with the revolver_) No! not here. Don't shoot yourself. (_trying hard to get the word through_) _Shoot_ yourself. I mean--don't, (_petulantly to_ DICK) It's ridiculous that you can't make a man understand you when he looks right at you like that. (_turning back to_ TOM) Read my lips. Lips. I'm saying--Oh damn. Where is Claire? All right--I'll explain it with motions. We wanted the salt ... (_going over it to himself_) and Claire wouldn't let us go out for it on account of the temperature. Salt. Temperature. (_takes his egg-cup to the door, violent motion of shaking in salt_) But--no (_shakes his head_) No salt. (_he then takes the thermometer, a flower pot, holds them up to_ TOM) On account of the temperature. Tem-per-a--(TOM _is not getting it_) Oh--well, what can you do when a man don't _get_ a thing? (TOM _seems to be preparing the revolver for action_. HARRY _pounds on the inner door_) Claire! Do you want Tom to shoot himself?

(_As he looks in there, the trap-door lifts, and CLAIRE comes half-way up._)

CLAIRE: Why, what is Tom doing out there, with a revolver?

HARRY: He is about to shoot himself because you've locked him out from his breakfast.

CLAIRE: He must know more interesting ways of destroying himself. (_bowing to_ TOM) Good morning. (_from his side of the glass_ TOM _bows and smiles back_) Isn't it strange--our being in here--and he being out there?

HARRY: Claire, have you no ideas of hospitality? Let him in!

CLAIRE: In? Perhaps that isn't hospitality.

HARRY: Well, whatever hospitality is, what is out there is snow--and wind--and our guest--who was asked to come here for his breakfast. To think a man has to _such_ things.

CLAIRE: I'm going to let him in. Though I like his looks out there. (_she takes the key from her pocket_)

HARRY: Thank heaven the door's coming open. Somebody can go for salt, and we can have our eggs.

CLAIRE: And open the door again--to let the salt in? No. If you insist on salt, tell Tom now to go back and get it. It's a stormy morning and there'll be just one opening of the door.

HARRY: How can we tell him what we can't make him hear? And why does he think we're holding this conversation instead of letting him in?

CLAIRE: It would be interesting to know. I wonder if he'll tell us?

HARRY: Claire! Is this any time to wonder anything?

CLAIRE: Give up the idea of salt for your egg and I'll let him in. (_holds up the key to _TOM_ to indicate that for her part she is quite ready to let him in_)

HARRY: I want my egg!

CLAIRE: Then ask him to bring the salt. It's quite simple.

(HARRY _goes through another pantomime with the egg-cup and the missing shaker._ CLAIRE, _still standing half-way down cellar, sneezes._ HARRY, _growing all the while less amiable, explains with thermometer and flower-pot that there can only be one opening of the door._ TOM _looks interested, but unenlightened. But suddenly he smiles, nods, vanishes._)

HARRY: Well, thank heaven (_exhausted_) that's over.

CLAIRE: (_sitting on the top step_) It was all so queer. He locked out on his side of the door. You locked in on yours. Looking right at each other and--

HARRY: (_in mockery_) And me trying to tell him to kindly fetch the salt!

CLAIRE: Yes.

HARRY: (_to_ DICK) Well, I didn't do so bad a job, did I? Quite an idea, explaining our situation with the thermometer and the flower-pot. That was really an apology for keeping him out there. Heaven knows--some explanation was in order, (_he is watching, and sees_ TOM _coming_) Now there he is, Claire. And probably pretty well fed up with the weather.

(CLAIRE _goes to the door, stops before it. She and_ TOM _look at each other through the glass. Then she lets him in._)

TOM: And now I am in. For a time it seemed I was not to be in. But after I got the idea that you were keeping me out there to see if I could get the idea--it would be too humiliating for a wall of glass to keep one from understanding. (_taking it from his pocket_) So there's the other thermometer. Where do you want it? (CLAIRE _takes it_)

CLAIRE: And where's the pepper?

TOM: (_putting it on the table_) And here's the pepper.

HARRY: Pepper?

TOM: When Claire sneezed I knew--

CLAIRE: Yes, I knew if I sneezed you would bring the pepper.

TOM: Funny how one always remembers the salt, but the pepper gets overlooked in preparations. And what is an egg without pepper?

HARRY: (_nastily_) There's your egg, Edgeworth. (_pointing to it on the floor_) Claire decided it would be a good idea to smash everything, so she began with your egg.

TOM: (_looking at his egg_) The idea of smashing everything is really more intriguing than an egg.

HARRY: Nice that you feel that way about it.

CLAIRE: (_giving_ TOM _his coffee_) You want to hear something amusing? I married Harry because I thought he would smash something.

HARRY: Well, that was an error in judgment.

CLAIRE: I'm such a naive trusting person (HARRY _laughs_--CLAIRE _gives him a surprised look, continues simply_). Such a guileless soul that I thought flying would do something to a man. But it didn't take us out. We just took it in.

TOM: It's only our own spirit can take us out.

HARRY: Whatever you mean by out.

CLAIRE: (_after looking intently at_ TOM, _and considering it_) But our own spirit is not something on the loose. Mine isn't. It has something to do with what I do. To fly. To be free in air. To look from above on the world of all my days. Be where man has never been! Yes--wouldn't you think the spirit could get the idea? The earth grows smaller. I am leaving. What are they--running around down there? Why do they run around down there? Houses? Houses are funny lines and down-going slants--houses are vanishing slants. I am alone. Can I breathe this rarer air? Shall I go higher? Shall I go too high? I am loose. I am out. But no; man flew, and returned to earth the man who left it.

HARRY: And jolly well likely not to have returned at all if he'd had those flighty notions while operating a machine.

CLAIRE: Oh, Harry! (_not lightly asked_) Can't you see it would be better not to have returned than to return the man who left it?

HARRY: I have some regard for human life.

CLAIRE: Why, no--I am the one who has the regard for human life, (_more lightly_) That was why I swiftly divorced my stick-in-the-mud artist and married--the man of flight. But I merely passed from a stick-in-the-mud artist to a--

DICK: Stick-in-the-air aviator?

HARRY: Speaking of your stick-in-the-mud artist, as you romantically call your first blunder, isn't his daughter--and yours--due here to-day?

CLAIRE: I knew something was disturbing me. Elizabeth. A daughter is being delivered unto me this morning. I have a feeling it will be more painful than the original delivery. She has been, as they quaintly say, educated; prepared for her place in life.

HARRY: And fortunately Claire has a sister who is willing to give her young niece that place.

CLAIRE: The idea of giving anyone a place in life.

HARRY: Yes! The very idea!

CLAIRE: Yes! (_as often, the mocking thing gives true expression to what lies sombrely in her_) The war. There was another gorgeous chance.

HARRY: Chance for what? I call you, Claire. I ask you to say what you mean.

CLAIRE: I don't know--precisely. If I did--there'd be no use saying it. (_at_ HARRY's _impatient exclamation she turns to_ TOM)

TOM: (_nodding_) The only thing left worth saying is the thing we can't say.

HARRY: Help!

CLAIRE: Yes. But the war didn't help. Oh, it was a stunning chance! But fast as we could--scuttled right back to the trim little thing we'd been shocked out of.

HARRY: You bet we did--showing our good sense.

CLAIRE: Showing our incapacity--for madness.

HARRY: Oh, come now, Claire--snap out of it. You're not really trying to say that capacity for madness is a good thing to have?

CLAIRE: (_in simple surprise_) Why yes, of course.

DICK: But I should say the war did leave enough madness to give you a gleam of hope.

CLAIRE: Not the madness that--breaks through. And it was--a stunning chance! Mankind massed to kill. We have failed. We are through. We will destroy. Break this up--it can't go farther. In the air above--in the sea below--it is to kill! All we had thought we were--we aren't. We were shut in with what wasn't so. Is there one ounce of energy has not gone to this killing? Is there one love not torn in two? Throw it in! Now? Ready? Break up. Push. Harder. Break up. And then--and then--But we didn't say--'And then--' The spirit didn't take the tip.

HARRY: Claire! Come now (_looking to the others for help_)--let's talk of something else.

CLAIRE: Plants do it. The big leap--it's called. Explode their species--because something in them knows they've gone as far as they can go. Something in them knows they're shut in to just that. So--go mad--that life may not be prisoned. Break themselves up into crazy things--into lesser things, and from the pieces--may come one sliver of life with vitality to find the future. How beautiful. How brave.

TOM: (_as if he would call her from too far--or would let her know he has gone with her_) Claire!

CLAIRE: (_her eyes turning to him_) Why should we mind lying under the earth? We who have no such initiative--no proud madness? Why think it death to lie under life so flexible--so ruthless and ever-renewing?

ANTHONY: (_from the door of the inner room_) Miss Claire?

CLAIRE: (_after an instant_) Yes? (_she goes with him, as they disappear his voice heard_,'show me now ... want those violets bedded')

HARRY: Oh, this has got to _stop_. I've got to--put a stop to it some way. Why, Claire used to be the best sport a man ever played around with. I can't stand it to see her getting hysterical.

TOM: That was not hysterical.

HARRY: What was it then--I want to know?

TOM: It was--a look.

HARRY: Oh, I might have known I'd get no help from either of you. Even you, Edgeworthy--much as she thinks of you--and fine sort as I've no doubt you are, you're doing Claire no good--encouraging her in these queer ways.

TOM: I couldn't change Claire if I would.

HARRY: And wouldn't if you could.

TOM: No. But you don't have to worry about me. I'm going away in a day or two. And I shall not be back.

HARRY: Trouble with you is, it makes little difference whether you're here or away. Just the fact of your existence does encourage Claire in this--this way she's going.

TOM: (_with a smile_) But you wouldn't ask me to go so far as to stop my existence? Though I would do that for Claire--if it were the way to help her.

HARRY: By Jove, you say that as if you meant it.

TOM: Do you think I would say anything about Claire I didn't mean?

HARRY: You think a lot of her, don't you? (TOM _nods_) You don't mean (_a laugh letting him say it_)--that you're--in love with Claire!

TOM: In love? Oh, that's much too easy. Certainly I do love Claire.

HARRY: Well, you're a cool one!

TOM: Let her be herself. Can't you see she's troubled?

HARRY: Well, what is there to trouble Claire? Now I ask you. It seems to me she has everything.