Part 3
Let me read you something, Ed. [_She takes The People and reads very simply._] “We are living now. We shall not be living long. No one can tell us we shall live again. This is our little while. This is our chance. And we take it like a child who comes from a dark room to which he must return--comes for one sunny afternoon to a lovely hillside, and finding a hole, crawls in there till after the sun is set. I want that child to know the sun is shining upon flowers in the grass. I want him to know it before he has to go back to the room that is dark. I wish I had pipes to call him to the hilltop of beautiful distances. I myself could see farther if he were seeing at all. Perhaps I can tell _you_: you who have dreamed and dreaming know, and knowing care. Move! Move from the things that hold you. If you move, others will move. Come! Now. Before the sun goes down.” [_Very quietly._] You wrote that, Ed.
ED
Yes, I wrote it; and do you want to know why I wrote it? I wrote it because I was sore at Oscar and wanted to write something to make him feel ashamed of himself.
[_While SARA is reading, THE WOMAN has appeared at the door, has moved a few steps into the room as if drawn by the words she is hearing. Behind her are seen THE BOY from Georgia, THE MAN from the Cape._
THE WOMAN
[_Moving forward._] I don’t believe that’s true! I don’t believe that’s true! Maybe you think that’s why you wrote it, but it’s not the reason. You wrote it because it’s the living truth, and it moved in you and you had to say it.
ED
[_Rising._] Who are you?
THE WOMAN
I am one of the people. I have lived a long way off. I heard that call and--I had to come.
THE BOY
[_Blithely._] I’ve come too. I’m from Georgia. I read it, and I didn’t want to stay at school any longer. I said, “I want something different and bigger--something more like this.” I heard about your not being able to sell your paper on the newsstands just because lots of people don’t want anything different and bigger, and I said to myself, “I’ll sell the paper! I’ll go and sell it on the streets!” And I got so excited about it that I didn’t even wait for the dance. There was a dance that night, and I had my girl too.
THE WOMAN
He didn’t even wait for the dance.
OSCAR
The idealists are calling upon the intellectuals, and “calling” them.
ED
[_To THE MAN._] And what did you leave, my friend?
THE MAN
[_Heavily._] My oyster bed. I’m from the Cape. I had a chance to go in on an oyster bed. I read what you wrote--a woman who had stopped in an automobile left it, and I said to myself, “I’m nothing but an oyster myself. Guess I’ll come to life.”
ED
But--what did you come here for?
THE MAN
Well--for the rest of it.
ED
The rest of what?
THE MAN
The rest of what you’ve got.
THE BOY
Yes--that’s it; we’ve come for the rest of what you’ve got.
OSCAR
This is awkward for Ed.
THE WOMAN
Give it to us.
ED
What?
THE WOMAN
The rest of it.
ED
[_An instant’s pause._] I haven’t got anything more to give.
THE BOY
But you made us think you had. You led us to believe you had.
THE WOMAN
And you have. If you hadn’t more to give, you couldn’t have given that.
OSCAR
Very awkward.
THE WOMAN
You said--“I call to _you_. You who have dreamed, and dreaming know, and knowing care.” Well, three of us are here. From the South and the East and the West we’ve come because you made us want something we didn’t have, made us want it so much we had to move the way we thought was toward it--before the sun goes down.
THE BOY
We thought people here had life--something different and bigger.
OSCAR
Perhaps we’d better go. Poor Ed.
ED
I wish you’d shut up, Oscar.
THE WOMAN
I know you will give it to us.
ED
Give _what_ to you?
THE WOMAN
What you have for the people. [_OSCAR coughs._] What you made us know we need.
OSCAR
You shouldn’t have called personally. You should have sent in your needs by mail.
ED
Oscar, try and act as if you had a soul.
THE WOMAN
I think he really has. [_A look at OSCAR--then, warmly._] At least he has a heart. It’s only that he feels he must be witty. But you--you’re not going to let us just go away again, are you? He gave up his oyster bed, and this boy didn’t even wait for the dance, and me--I gave up my tombstone.
ED
Your--?
THE WOMAN
Yes--tombstone. It had always been a saying in our family--“He won’t even have a stone to mark his grave.” They said it so much that I thought it meant something. I sew--plain sewing, but I’ve often said to myself--“Well, at least I’ll have a stone to mark my grave.” And then, there was a man who had been making speeches to the miners--I live in a town in Idaho--and he had your magazine, and he left it in the store, and the storekeeper said to me, when I went there for thread--“Here, you like to read. Don’t you want this? I wish you’d take it away, because if some folks in this town see it, they’ll think I’m not all I should be.” He meant the cover.
ARTIST
[_Brightening._] That was my cover.
THE WOMAN
[_After a smile at THE ARTIST._] So I took it home, and when my work was done that night, I read your wonderful words. They’re like a spring--if you’ve lived in a dry country, you’ll know what I mean. And they made me know that my tombstone was as dead as--well, [_With a little laugh_] as dead as a tombstone. So I had to have something to take its place.
SARA
[_Rising and going to THE WOMAN._] Talk to him. Tell him about it. Come, Oscar!
THE BOY
As long as there seems to be so much uncertainty about this, perhaps I’d better telegraph father. You see, the folks don’t know where I am. I just came.
THE WOMAN
He didn’t even stay for the dance.
THE BOY
I’ll be glad to sell the papers. [_Seeing a pile of them on the table._] Here, shall I take these?--and I’ll stop people on the street and tell _why_ I’m selling them.
OSCAR
No, you can’t do that. You’d be arrested.
THE WOMAN
Let him sell them. What’s the difference about the law, if you have the right idea?
OSCAR
The right idea has given us trouble enough already.
THE MAN
There’s something sure about an oyster bed.
OSCAR
You come with me and have a drink. Something sure about that too.
THE WOMAN
He could have had a drink at home.
SARA
[_To ARTIST._] Coming, Joe? [_To THE BOY._] It was corking of you to want to help us. We must talk about--
[_All go out except THE WOMAN and THE EDITOR. A Pause._
THE WOMAN
I am sorry for you.
ED
Why?
THE WOMAN
[_Feeling her way and sadly._] Because you have the brain to say those things, and not the spirit to believe them. I couldn’t say them, and yet I’ve got something you haven’t got. [_With more sureness._] Because I know the thing you said was true.
ED
Will you sit down?
THE WOMAN
No--I’ll go. [_Stands there uncertainly._] I don’t know why I should be disappointed. I suppose it’s not fair to ask you to be as big as the truth you saw. Why should I expect you would be?
ED
I’m sorry. I suppose now you’ll regret your tombstone.
THE WOMAN
No--it was wonderful to ride across this country and see all the people. The train moving along seemed to make something move in me. I had thoughts not like any thoughts I’d ever had before--your words like a spring breaking through the dry country of my mind. I thought of how you call your paper “A Journal of The Social Revolution,” and I said to myself--This is the Social Revolution! Knowing that your tombstone doesn’t matter! _Seeing_--that’s the Social Revolution.
ED
Seeing--?
THE WOMAN
[_As if it is passing before her._] A plain, dark trees off at the edge, against the trees a little house and a big barn. A flat piece of land fenced in. Stubble, furrows. Horses waiting to get in at the barn; cows standing around a pump. A tile yard, a water tank, one straight street of a little town. The country so still it seems dead. The trees like--hopes that have been given up. The grave yards--on hills--they come so fast. I noticed them first because of my tombstone, but I got to thinking about the people--the people who spent their whole lives right near the places where they are now. There’s something in the thought of them--like the cows standing around the pump. So still, so patient, it--kind of hurts. And their pleasures:--a flat field fenced in. Your great words carried me to other great words. I thought of Lincoln, and what he said of a few of the dead. I said it over and over. I said things and didn’t know the meaning of them ’till after I had said them. I said--“The truth--the truth--the truth that opens from our lives as water opens from the rocks.” Then I knew what that truth was. [_Pause, with an intensity peculiarly simple._] “Let us here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.” I mean--all of them. [_A gesture, wide, loving._] Let life become what it may become!--so beautiful that everything that is back of us is worth everything it cost.
[_Enter TOM._
TOM
I’ve got--[_Feeling something unusual._] Sorry to butt in, but I can still get that job on _The Evening World_. If this paper is going to stop, I’ve got to know it.
ED
Stop! This paper can’t stop!
TOM
Can’t stop! Last I heard, it couldn’t do anything else.
ED
That was--long ago.
TOM
Oh--you’ve got something to go on with?
ED
Yes, something to go on with.
TOM
I see. [_Looks at woman, as if he doesn’t see, glances at her suit-case._] I’m glad. But--I’ve got to be sure. This--is the truth?
ED
The truth. The truth that opens from our lives as water opens from the rocks.
[_TOM backs up._
THE WOMAN
[_Turning a shining face to THE PRINTER._] Nobody really _needs_ a tombstone!
(CURTAIN)
* * * * *
CLOSE THE BOOK
A COMEDY IN ONE ACT
* * * * *
First Performed by the Provincetown Players, New York, Nov. 2, 1917
ORIGINAL CAST
JHANSI EDITH UNGER PEYTON ROOT, _an Instructor in the University_ JAMES LIGHT MRS. ROOT, PEYTON’S _Mother_ SUSAN GLASPELL MRS. PEYTON, _His Grandmother_ CLARA SAVAGE UNCLE GEORGE PEYTON, _President of the Board of Regents_ JUSTUS SHEFFIELD BESSIE ROOT ALICE MACDOUGAL STATE SENATOR BYRD DAVID CARB MRS. STATE SENATOR BYRD ESTHER PINCH
CLOSE THE BOOK
SCENE: _The library in the ROOT home, the library of middle-western people who are an important family in their community, a university town, and who think of themselves as people of culture. It is a room which shows pride of family: on the rear wall are two large family portraits--one a Revolutionary soldier, the other a man of a later period. On the low book-cases, to both sides of door rear, and on the mantel, right, are miniatures and other old pictures. There is old furniture--mahogany recently done over: an easy chair near the fireplace, a divan left. A Winged Victory presides over one of the book-cases, a Burne Jones is hung. It is a warmly lighted, cheerful room--books and flowers about. At the rear is a door opening on the hall, at the left a door into another room. There is a corner window at the right. JHANSI and PEYTON are seated on the divan. MRS. ROOT is just going into the hall. She seems perturbed. JHANSI is dressed as a non-conformist, but attractively. PEYTON is a rather helpless young man, with a sense of humor that is itself rather helpless._
MRS. ROOT
I’ll see, Peyton, if your grandmother isn’t ready to come down.
[_She leaves them._
JHANSI
[_Springing up._] It’s absurd that I should be here!
PEYTON
I know, Jhansi, but just this once--as long as it means so much to mother, and doesn’t really hurt us.
JHANSI
But it does hurt me, Peyton. These walls stifle me. You come of people who have been walled in all their lives. It doesn’t cage you. But me--I am a gypsy! Sometimes I feel them right behind me--all those wanderers, people who were never caught; feel them behind me pushing me away from all this!
PEYTON
But not pushing you away from me, dear. You love me, Jhansi, in spite of my family?
JHANSI
If I didn’t love you do you think I could endure to come to this dreadful place? [_A look about the comfortable room_]--and meet these dreadful people? Forgive me for alluding to your home and family, Peyton, but I must not lose my honesty, you know.
PEYTON
No, dear; I don’t think you are losing it. And perhaps I’d better not lose mine either. There’s one thing I haven’t mentioned yet. [_Hesitates._] Mr. Peyton is coming to dinner tonight.
JHANSI
Mr. Peyton. _What_ Peyton?
PEYTON
Yes--that one.
JHANSI
And you ask me--standing for the things I do in this university--to sit down to dinner with the president of the board of regents!
PEYTON
Mother’d asked him before I knew it.
JHANSI
[_With scorn._] Your uncle!
PEYTON
He’s not my uncle--he’s mother’s. And you see it’s partly on account of grandmother just getting back from California. He’s grandmother’s brother-in-law, you know. I suppose she doesn’t realize what it means to have to sit down to dinner with him--she’s done it so much. And then mother thought it would be nice for you to meet him.
JHANSI
Nice!
PEYTON
He’s pleasant at dinner.
JHANSI
Pleasant!
PEYTON
Mother’s a little worried about my position in the university.
JHANSI
It would be wonderful for you to lose your position in the university.
PEYTON
Yes--wonderful.
JHANSI
And then you and I could walk forth free!
PEYTON
Free--but broke.
JHANSI
Peyton, you disappoint me. Just the fact that that man is coming to dinner changes you.
PEYTON
Oh, no. But you are fortunately situated, Jhansi, having no people. It’s easier to be free when there’s nobody who minds.
JHANSI
I am going!
PEYTON
Oh come now, dearest, you can’t go when you’re expected for dinner. Nobody’s that free.
JHANSI
Dinner! A dinner to celebrate our engagement! It’s humiliating, Peyton. I should take you by the hand and you and I should walk together down the open road.
PEYTON
We will, Jhansi; we will--in time.
JHANSI
We should go now.
PEYTON
Think so? Mother’s going to have turkey.
JHANSI
Better a dinner of berries and nuts--!
PEYTON
We’ll have berries--cranberries, and nuts, too.
JHANSI
Where is my coat?
PEYTON
[_Seizing her and kissing her._] Some day, serene and unhampered, we’ll take to the open road--a road with berries and nuts.
[_GRANDMOTHER PEYTON and MRS. ROOT are at the door._
MRS. ROOT
Mother, this is Peyton’s friend Miss Mason. One of our important students.
GRANDMOTHER
[_In her brittle way._] Yes? I never was a very important student myself. I didn’t like to study. Because my family were professors, I suppose.
MRS. ROOT
Peyton’s grandmother is a descendant of Gustave Phelps--one of the famous teachers of pioneer days.
JHANSI
[_Her head going up._] I am a descendant of people who never taught anybody anything!
PEYTON
Jhansi and I were just going to finish an article on Free Speech which must get to the Torch this evening.
GRANDMOTHER
[_Moving toward the big chair near the fire._] Free Speech? How amusing.
PEYTON
You may be less amused some day, grandmother.
[_JHANSI and PEYTON go into the other room._
GRANDMOTHER
That may be a free speech. I wouldn’t call it a pleasant one.
MRS. ROOT
[_Sinking to the divan._] Oh, he was speaking of the open road again--berries and nuts--!
GRANDMOTHER
[_Beginning to knit._] Berries and nuts? Well, it sounds quite innocuous to me. Some of our young people are less simple in their tastes.
MRS. ROOT
[_In great distress._] Mother, how would you like to see your grandson become a gypsy?
GRANDMOTHER
Peyton a gypsy? You mean in a carnival?
MRS. ROOT
No, not in a carnival! In _life_.
GRANDMOTHER
But he isn’t dark enough.
MRS. ROOT
And is _that_ the only thing against it! I had thought you would be a help to me, mother.
GRANDMOTHER
Well, my dear Clara, I have no doubt I will be a help to you--in time. This idea of Peyton becoming a gypsy is too startling for me to be a help instantly. In the first place, could he be? You can’t be anything you take it into your head to be--even if it is undesirable. And then, why should he be? Doesn’t he still teach English right here in the university?
MRS. ROOT
I don’t know how much longer he’ll teach it. He said the other day that American literature was a toddy with the _stick_ left out. Saying that of the very thing he’s paid to teach! It got in the papers and was denounced in an editorial on “Untrue Americans.” Peyton--a descendant of John Peyton of Valley Forge! [_Indicates the Revolutionary portrait_]--denounced in an article on Untrue Americans! And in one of those awful columns--those silly columns--they said maybe the stick hadn’t been left out of his toddy. But it isn’t that. Peyton doesn’t drink--to speak of. It’s this girl. _She’s_ the stick. And I tell you people don’t like it, mother. It’s not what we pay our professors _for_. Peyton used to be perfectly satisfied with civilization. But now he talks about society. Makes light remarks.
GRANDMOTHER
I should say that was going out of his way to be disagreeable. What business has a professor of English to say anything about society? It’s not in his department.
MRS. ROOT
I told Peyton he should be more systematic.
GRANDMOTHER
How did this gypsy get here?
MRS. ROOT
She was brought up by a family named Mason. But it seems she was a gypsy child, who got lost or something, and those Masons took her in. I’m sure it was very good of them, and it’s too bad they weren’t able to make her more of a Christian. She is coming to have a following in the university! There are people who seem to think that because you’re outside society you have some superior information about it.
GRANDMOTHER
Well, don’t you think you’re needlessly disturbed? In my day, a young man would be likely enough to fall in love with a good-looking gypsy, not very likely to marry her.
MRS. ROOT
Times have changed, mother. They marry them now. [_Both sigh._] Of course, it’s very commendable of them.
GRANDMOTHER
[_Grimly._] Oh, quite--commendable.
MRS. ROOT
I was brought up in university circles. I’m interested in _ideas_. But sometimes I think there are too _many_ ideas.
GRANDMOTHER
An embarrassment of riches. So you have set out to civilize the young woman?
MRS. ROOT
I’d rather have her sit at my table than have my son leave some morning in a covered wagon!
GRANDMOTHER
I wonder how it is about gypsies. About the children. I wonder if it’s as it is with the negroes.
MRS. ROOT
_Mother!_
GRANDMOTHER
It would be startling, wouldn’t it?--if one of them should turn out to be a real gypsy and take to this open road.
MRS. ROOT
[_Covering her face._] Oh!
GRANDMOTHER
Quite likely they’d do it by motor.
MRS. ROOT
[_Rising._] Mother!--how can you say such dreadful things--and just when I have this _trying_ dinner. Oh, I wish Bessie would come! [_Goes to the window._] She is a comfort to me.
GRANDMOTHER
Where is Bessie?
MRS. ROOT
She’s away in the motor. [_Again shudders._] Bessie feels dreadfully about her brother. She is trying to do something. She said it would be a surprise--a happy surprise. [_Someone heard in the hall._] Perhaps this is Bessie. [_Enter MR. PEYTON._] Oh, it’s Uncle George.
UNCLE GEORGE
Early I know. Came to have a little visit with Elizabeth. [_Goes to GRANDMOTHER and shakes hands._] How are you, young woman?
GRANDMOTHER
My nerves seem to be stronger than the nerves I see around me. And how are you, George?
UNCLE GEORGE
Oh, I’m _well_.
GRANDMOTHER
But--?
UNCLE GEORGE
Responsibilities.
GRANDMOTHER
The bank?
UNCLE GEORGE
I’d rather run ten banks than a tenth of a university. You can control money.
MRS. ROOT
I’m sorry, Uncle George, that Peyton should be adding to your worries.
UNCLE GEORGE
What’s the matter with Peyton?
GRANDMOTHER
Wild oats.
UNCLE GEORGE
Well, I wish he’d sow them in less intellectual fields.
MRS. ROOT
I am prepared to speak freely with you, Uncle George. The matter with Peyton is this girl. Well, they’re going to be married. Yes [_Answering his gesture of protest_] and I think it’s a good thing. She won’t be in a position to say so much about freedom after she is married.
UNCLE GEORGE
But they say she’s a gypsy.
MRS. ROOT
She won’t be a gypsy after she’s Peyton’s wife. She’ll be a married woman.
UNCLE GEORGE
Yes, but in the meantime we will have swallowed a gypsy.
GRANDMOTHER
And I was just wondering how it would be about the children.
MRS. ROOT
Mother, please don’t be indelicate again.
[_Pause._
GRANDMOTHER
Well, if there’s nothing else we may speak of, let’s talk about free speech. They’re writing a paper on it in there.
UNCLE GEORGE
I don’t know what this university is coming to! An institution of learning! It isn’t that I don’t believe in free speech. Every true American believes in free speech, but--
[_Slight Pause._
GRANDMOTHER
[_With Emphasis._] Certainly.
UNCLE GEORGE
Ask them to come out here with their paper on free speech. I’ll be glad to give them the benefit of my experience.
MRS. ROOT
Yes, it will be delightful to all be together.
[_She goes to get PEYTON and JHANSI._
GRANDMOTHER
This girl doesn’t look to me like one who is thirsting for the benefit of another person’s experience.
UNCLE GEORGE
She’s a bad influence. She’s leading our young people to criticise the society their fathers have builded up.
GRANDMOTHER
There’s a great deal of ingratitude in the world.
[_MRS. ROOT returns, followed by the two young people._
MRS. ROOT
I told Uncle George you were eager to bring him and Jhansi together. Jhansi, this is Mr. Peyton, who looks after the affairs of the university for you students. Of course you’ve heard about Miss Mason, Uncle George, one of our--cleverest students.
UNCLE GEORGE
Yes, we were speaking of Miss Mason’s cleverness just the other day--in board meeting.
JHANSI
And just the other day--at the student assembly--we were speaking of how you look after the affairs of the university for us.
GRANDMOTHER
I hope you both spoke affectionately.
UNCLE GEORGE
Well, Peyton, very busy I take it. You’re adding to your duties, aren’t you?
PEYTON
Not that I know of.
UNCLE GEORGE
Your grandmother said something about a high falutin paper on free speech.
PEYTON
I suppose that’s an inherited tendency. You know one of my ancestors signed a paper on free speech. It had a high falutin name: “The Declaration of Independence”!
MRS. ROOT
I wish Bessie would come!
UNCLE GEORGE
Do you think much about your ancestors, Peyton?
PEYTON