Index     1     2-I     2-II     3

ACT TWO
SCENE I

SCENE: The same.

Time: Midsummer—late afternoon.

At Rise: KENNETH is at a bridge table working out a chess problem. He hears voices and footsteps approaching. Gets up, unhurried, and looks off into garden. Sees BORIS and LEONIE approaching. As they come in he strolls off—they do not see him. LEONIE'S arms are full of flowers. She is looking for KENNETH. COUNT MIRSKY follows her in.

COUNT MIRSKY, a Russian, is very good-looking, mongoloid about the eyes. His English is beautiful, with a slight and attractive accent. He is tense, jittery—a mass of jangled nerves—his fingers tremble as he lights one cigarette after another. He is very pale—his pallor accentuated by a dark scarf he wears around his neck.

BORIS—[Stopping center.] It appears he is not here either.

LEONIE—He? Who? [Crossing to table behind sofa to put some flowers in vase.]

BORIS—When you're in the garden with me you think—perhaps he is in the house. When you are in the house you think perhaps he is in the garden.

LEONIE—Boris, darling, you have the odd habit of referring to mysterious characters without giving me any hint who they are. Is that Russian symbolism? There will be a long silence; then you will say: He would not approve, or they can't hear us. It's a bit mystifying.

BORIS—[Crossing to stand near her.] You know who I mean.

LEONIE—[Going to table right to put flowers in vase.] Really, you flatter me. I'm not a mystic, you know, Boris. I'm a simple extrovert. When you say "he," why can't it refer to someone definite—and if possible to someone I know.

BORIS—[Crossing to back of table, facing her across it.] You know him, all right.

LEONIE—There you go again! Really, Boris!

BORIS—[Moving closer to her around table.] You've been divorced now for several weeks. You're free. We were only waiting for you to be free—

LEONIE—[Moving away, sitting in chair, right.] Now that I am free you want to coerce me. It's a bit unreasonable, don't you think? [BORIS walks to end of window-seat and sits. Enter KENNETH, door back.]

KENNETH—[Strolling across stage toward LEONIE.] Hello, Leonie. Count Mirsky—

LEONIE—Kenneth—I haven't seen you all day.

KENNETH—I've been in my room slaving away at a scientific paper.

LEONIE—My house hums with creative activity. I love it. It gives me a sense of vicarious importance. What's your paper on?

KENNETH—Shadow-neurosis.

LEONIE—Shadow-neurosis. How marvelous! What does it mean?

KENNETH—[Looking at BORIS.] It is a sensation of non-existence.

LEONIE—Is it common?

KENNETH—Quite. The victim knows that he exists and yet he feels that he does not!

LEONIE—In a curious way I can imagine a sensation like that—do you know I actually can. Isn't it amusing?

BORIS—The doctor is so eloquent. Once he describes a sensation it becomes very easy to feel it.

LEONIE—That's an entrancing gift. Why are you so antagonistic to Kenneth? He wants to help you but you won't let him. I asked him here to help you.

KENNETH—[To BORIS.] Your skepticism about this particular disease is interesting, Count Mirsky, because, as it happens, you suffer from it.

BORIS—[Bearing down on KENNETH.] Has it ever occurred to you that you are a wasted novelist?

KENNETH—Though I have not mentioned you in my article I have described you.

LEONIE—[Rising and crossing left to table behind sofa.] You should be flattered, Boris.

BORIS—I am!

LEONIE—Another case history! I've been reading some of Kenneth's scientific text-books. Most fascinating form of biography. Who was that wonderful fellow who did such odd things—Mr. X.? You'd never think you could get so interested in anonymous people. I'd have given anything to meet Mr. X.—though I must say I'd feel a bit nervous about having him in the house.

KENNETH—How is your book getting along, Count Mirsky?

BORIS—Very well. Oh—so—

KENNETH—Far along in it?

BORIS—Quite.

LEONIE—I'm crazy to see it. He's dedicating it to me but he hasn't let me see a word of it!

KENNETH—For a very good reason.

LEONIE—What do you mean?

KENNETH—Because there is no book. There never has been a book.

LEONIE—[She lets flowers drop.] Kenneth!

KENNETH—Isn't that true, Count Mirsky?

BORIS—It is not!

KENNETH—Then why don't you let us see a bit of it?

LEONIE—Oh, do! At least the dedication page.

KENNETH—A chapter—

BORIS—Because it isn't finished yet.

LEONIE—Well, it doesn't have to be finished. We know the end, don't we? The end belongs to the world.

KENNETH—Let us see it, Count.

BORIS—I can't.

KENNETH—What are you calling the book?

BORIS—I haven't decided yet.

KENNETH—May I suggest a title to you—?

LEONIE—Oh, do! What shall we call it, Kenneth?

KENNETH—"The Memoirs of a Boy Who Wanted to Murder His Father."

LEONIE—What!

BORIS—[Gripping arms of chair.] I am not a hysterical woman, Doctor—and I'm not your patient!

LEONIE—But Kenneth—Boris worshipped his father.

KENNETH—No, he hated him. He hated him when he was alive and he hates him still. He grew up under the overwhelming shadow of this world-genius whom, in spite of an immense desire to emulate and even to surpass—he felt he could never emulate and never surpass—nor even equal—Did you worship your father, Count Mirsky?

BORIS—It's true! I hated him!

LEONIE—Boris!

BORIS—I hated him!

KENNETH—Now you can let us see the book, can't you—now that we know the point of view—just a bit of it?

LEONIE—I'm more crazy than ever to see it now. I can tell you a little secret now, Boris. I was afraid—I was rather afraid—that your book would be a little like one of those statues of an ancestor in a frock-coat. Now it sounds really exciting. You hated him. But how perfectly marvelous! I can't wait to see it now. Do run up to your study and bring it down, Boris—do!

BORIS—No.

LEONIE—That's very unpleasant of you.

BORIS—You might as well know it then. There isn't any book. There never will be. Not by me.

LEONIE—But I don't understand—every day—in your room working—all these months!

BORIS—[Facing her.] One wants privacy! Possibly you can't realize that. You who always have to have a house full of people.

LEONIE—[Goes back to flowers at table.] Boris!

KENNETH—[Rising.] Why don't you write the book anyway, Count Mirsky? There is a vogue these days for vituperative biography.

BORIS—I am not interested in the vogue.

KENNETH—We are quite used nowadays to children who dislike their fathers. The public—

BORIS—To titillate the public would not compensate me for forcing myself to recall the atmosphere of saintly sadism in which my childhood was spent—I can still smell that living room, I can still smell those stinking, sexless pilgrims who used to come from all over the world to get my saintly father's blessing. I used to sit with my mother in a room no bigger than a closet to get away from the odor of that nauseating humanitarianism. There was no privacy in the Villa Mirskovitch. Oh, no—it was a Mecca—do you understand—a Mecca!

KENNETH—Yes, I think I understand.

BORIS—Well, I have been paying the haloed one back. I have been getting privacy at his expense at last.

LEONIE—Why have you never told me before that you felt this way about your father?

BORIS—I never said anything about him. It was you who did the talking. You always raved about the great man with that characteristic American enthusiasm for what you don't know.

LEONIE—Nevertheless, the world recognizes your father as a great man. The books are there to prove it. There they are. You can't write books like that without greatness—no matter what you say. You are a petulant child. Your father was a great man.

BORIS—It makes no difference how great he was—those pilgrims stank! [LEONIE turns away.]

KENNETH—I suggest that to write that book, even if no one ever sees the manuscript but you, might amuse you—a kind of revenge which, when you were a boy, you were in no position to take.

BORIS—Are you trying to cure me, Doctor? Please don't trouble. I don't need your particular species of professionalism. I do not need any help from you. [He goes to door back, turns to LEONIE. LEONIE looks bewilderedly at KENNETH. BORIS goes out.]

LEONIE—How did you know? You're uncanny!

KENNETH—All in the day's work.

LEONIE—Why is it I always get myself involved with men weaker than myself? I certainly am no tower of strength.

KENNETH—Possibly not—but you are generous and impulsive. You have a tendency to accept people at the best of their own valuation.

LEONIE—I want to help them. I do help them. After they get used to my help, after they get to count on my help, I get impatient with them. Why, I ask myself, can't people help themselves?

KENNETH—And very natural.

LEONIE—I seem to attract people like that!

KENNETH—Leonie—you are the last woman on earth Count Mirsky should marry. He would only transfer his hatred of his father to you.

LEONIE—I don't think I understand you, Kenneth—really I don't—and I do so want to understand things.

KENNETH—Well—your charm, your gaiety, your position, your wealth, your beauty—these would oppress him. Again, he cannot be himself.—Or, if he is himself, it is to reveal his nonentity, his inferiority—again the secondary role—Leonie Frothingham's husband—the son of Count Mirsky—the husband of Leonie Frothingham. Again the shadow—again, eternally and always—nonexistence. Poor fellow. [Pause.]

LEONIE—I'm so grateful to you, Kenneth.

KENNETH—Nonsense. You mustn't be grateful to me because I—exercise my profession.

LEONIE—I want to express my gratitude—in some tangible form. I've been thinking of nothing else lately. I can't sleep for thinking of it.

KENNETH—Well, if it gives you insomnia, you'd better tell me about it.

LEONIE—I want to make it possible for you to realize your ambition.

KENNETH—Ambition? What ambition?

LEONIE—Ah! You've forgotten, haven't you? But you let it slip out one day—you pump me professionally—but I do the same to you—non-professionally.

KENNETH—You terrify me!

LEONIE—That night last winter when we went to dinner in that little restaurant where you go with your doctor friends . . . you told me your dream.

KENNETH—My censor must have been napping.

LEONIE—He was. Or she was. What sex is your censor?

KENNETH—That's none of your business.

LEONIE—I'm sorry.

KENNETH—Which of my dreams was I so reckless as to reveal to you?

LEONIE—To have a sanatorium of your own one day—so you can carry out your own ideas of curing patients.

KENNETH—Oh, that! Out of the question.

LEONIE—Why?

KENNETH—To do it on the scale I visualize, would cost more than I'm ever likely to save out of my practice.

LEONIE—I'll give you the sanatorium. I've never given anyone anything like that before. What fun!

KENNETH—Will I find it all wrapped up in silver foil on Christmas morning?

LEONIE—Yes. You will! You will! We'll have a suite in it for Mr. X.—for all your anonymous friends—we'll entertain the whole alphabet!

KENNETH—You see, Leonie!

LEONIE—What do you mean? I thought you'd be—

KENNETH—Of course, it's terribly generous of you. I'm deeply touched. But . . .

LEONIE—But . . . ?

KENNETH—I'm a stranger to you.

LEONIE—Kenneth!

KENNETH—Outside of my professional relation—such as I have with scores of patients—little more than that.

LEONIE—I thought—

KENNETH—And yet you are willing to back me in a venture that would cost a sizeable fortune—just on that. Leonie! Leonie!

LEONIE—It would be the best investment I've ever made. Paula's always telling me I have no social consciousness. Well, this would be.—It would keep me from feeling so useless. I do feel useless, Kenneth. Please!

KENNETH—I'm sorry. I couldn't hear of it. Of course, it's out of the question.

LEONIE—It isn't. I can afford it. Why shouldn't I? It would be helping so many people—you have no right to refuse. It's selfish of you to refuse.

KENNETH—I distrust impulsive altruism. You will forgive me, Leonie, but it may often do harm.

LEONIE—How do you mean, Kenneth?

KENNETH—I gather you are about to endow a radical magazine for the boys—

LEONIE—Will and Dennis! I thought it would be nice to give them something to do!

KENNETH—Yes. You are prepared to back them in a publication which, if it attained any influence, would undermine the system which makes you and people like you possible.

LEONIE—But it never occurred to me anyone would read it.

KENNETH—There is a deplorably high literacy in this country. Unfortunately it is much easier to learn to read than it is to learn to think.

LEONIE—Well, if you don't think it's a good idea, Kenneth, I won't do it. But this sanatorium is different.

KENNETH—Why?

LEONIE—Because, if you must know it, it would be helping you—and that means everything in the world to me. There, I've said it. It's true! Kenneth—are you terrified?

KENNETH—You adorable child!

LEONIE—It's extraordinary, Kenneth—but you are the first strong man who's ever come into my life—[Enter PAULA, DENNIS, WILL, door back.] Oh, I'm very glad to see you! Will! Hullo, Dennis. You all know Dr. Rice. Mr. Dexter, Mr. McCarthy. Sit down, everybody. Well, children, how is New York? [DENNIS crosses down front of them to chair left by sofa and sits.]

WILL—Stifling, thank you.

LEONIE—Any luck yet?

WILL—I am available, but New York is dead to its chief opportunity.

LEONIE—Then you can stay here for a bit. You can both stay here.

DENNIS—That was all right when we were in college, Mrs. Frothingham. Can't do it now.

LEONIE—Oh, you're working. I'm so glad!

DENNIS—I beg your pardon. Did you say working?

LEONIE—Well, then! I don't see why you can't stay here and take a holiday.

WILL—From what?

LEONIE—Since none of you are doing anything in town, you might as well stay here and do nothing and be comfortable.

DENNIS—Yes, but it's an ethical question. When we're in New York doing nothing, we belong to the most respectable vested group going! The unemployed. As such we have a status, position, authority. But if we stay here doing nothing—what are we? Low-down parasites.

KENNETH—No jobs about anywhere, eh?

WILL—Extinct commodity.

DENNIS—I did pretty well last week.

LEONIE—Really?

DENNIS—I was rejected by seven newspapers—including the Bronx Home News and the Yonkers Herald—six magazines and trade papers—a total of twenty-eight rejections in all, representing a net gain over the previous week of seven solid rejections. I submit to you, gentlemen, that's progress—pass the cigars, Will.

LEONIE—Couldn't you stay here and be rejected by mail?

DENNIS—Doesn't give you that same feeling somehow—that good, rich, dark-brown sensation of not being wanted!

LEONIE—You know, Kenneth, in a curious way, Dennis reminds me a bit of Mr. X.

DENNIS—And who's X.?

LEONIE—A sporting acquaintance.

DENNIS—There's one thing I'd like to ask Dr. Rice. . . . Do you mind?

KENNETH—At your service.

DENNIS—[Turning chair and facing KENNETH upstage.] In the psychoanalytic hierarchy Freud is the god, isn't he?

KENNETH—Of one sect, yes.

DENNIS—Well, the original sect—

KENNETH—Yes. . . .

DENNIS—Now, every psychoanalyst has to have himself analyzed. That's true, isn't it, Doctor?

KENNETH—Generally speaking—yes.

DENNIS—As I understand it, the highest prices go to those nearest the Master himself.

KENNETH—This boy is irreverent . . .

DENNIS—I know whereof I speak. I prepared an article on the subject for Fortune.

WILL—Rejection number three hundred.

DENNIS—I am afraid, Will, that you are a success worshipper!

LEONIE—Dennis is an enfant terrible, and he exhausts himself keeping it up!

DENNIS—I have examined the racket with a microscopic patience and this I find to be true: at the top of the hierarchy is the Great Pan Sexualist of Vienna. To be an orthodox and accepted Freudian, you must have been analyzed by another of the same. Now, what I am burning to know is this: Who analyzed Sig Freud himself? Whom does he tell his repressions to? Why, the poor guy must be as lonely as hell!

LEONIE—What would you do with him, Kenneth? He has no repressions whatever!

KENNETH—He needs some badly.

LEONIE—I wonder what Dennis would confess to his psychoanalyst that he isn't always shouting to the world?

DENNIS—I'd make the psychoanalyst talk. [To KENNETH. Beckoning.] Tell me, Doctor, what did you dream last night?

KENNETH—[Behind his cupped hand.] Not in public.

DENNIS—[Rises and crosses straight right.] You see—he's repressed! I tell you these psychoanalysts are repressed. They've got nobody to talk to! I'm going swimming. It's pathetic! [He goes out.]

LEONIE—I'm going too. He makes me laugh. How about you, Kenneth?

KENNETH—Oh, I'll watch.

LEONIE—[To others.] Come along with us. There's plenty of time for a swim before dinner. [KENNETH starts out with LEONIE—stops on the way.]

KENNETH—I suppose you and your Irish friend edited the comic paper at college?

WILL—No, we edited the serious paper.

KENNETH—Just the same it must have been very funny. [He goes out after LEONIE.]

WILL—Don't think that feller likes me much.

PAULA—You're psychic.

WILL—Well, for the matter of that I'm not crazy about him either.

PAULA—Don't bother about him. Concentrate on me!

WILL—How are you, darling?

PAULA—Missed you.

WILL—[Pulls her to sofa and sits with her. PAULA left end sofa.] And I you. Pretty lousy in town without you.

PAULA—Oh, poor darling!

WILL—Although my star is rising. I did some book-reviews for the New York Times and the New Masses.

PAULA—What a gamut!

WILL—I made, in fact, a total of eleven dollars. The student most likely to succeed in the first four months since graduation has made eleven dollars.

PAULA—Wonderful!

WILL—My classmates were certainly clairvoyant. As a matter of fact, I shouldn't have told you. Now I'll be tortured thinking you're after me for my money.

PAULA—You'll never know!

WILL—[Putting arm around her shoulders and drawing her to him.] What've you been doing?

PAULA—Lying in the sun mostly.

WILL—Poor little Ritz girl.

PAULA—Wondering what you do every night.

WILL—Forty-second Street Library mostly. Great fun! Voluptuary atmosphere!

PAULA—Is your life altogether so austere?

WILL—Well, frankly, no. Not altogether.

PAULA—Cad!

WILL—What do you expect?

PAULA—Loyalty.

WILL—I am loyal. But you go around all day job-hunting. You find you're not wanted. It's reassuring after that to find a shoulder to lean on, sort of haven where you are wanted. Even the public library closes at ten. You have to go somewhere. If I'm ever Mayor of New York, I'll have the public libraries kept open all night . . . the flop-houses of the intellectuals!

PAULA—Is it anyone special . . . ?

WILL—Just a generalized shoulder.

PAULA—Well, you're going to have a special one from now on—mine! You know, the way you're avoiding the issue is all nonsense.

WILL—You mean my gallant fight against you?

PAULA—I've decided that you are conventional and bourgeois. You're money-ridden.

WILL—Eleven dollars. They say a big income makes you conservative.

PAULA—I don't mean your money. I mean—my money. It's childish to let an artificial barrier like that stand between us. It's also childish to ignore it.

WILL—[Rising.] I don't ignore it. That's what worries me. I count on it. Already I find myself counting on it. I can't help it. Sitting and waiting in an office for some bigwig who won't see me or for some underling who won't see me I think: "Why the Hell should I wait all day for this stuffed shirt?" I don't wait. Is it because of you I feel in a special category? Do I count on your money? Is that why I don't wait as long as the other fellow? There's one consolation: the other fellow doesn't get the job either. But the point is disquieting!

PAULA—What a Puritan you are!

WILL—[Sitting beside her again.] Will I become an appendage to you—like your mother's men?

PAULA—You're bound to—money or no money.

WILL—[Taking her into his arms.] I suppose I might as well go on the larger dole—

PAULA—What?

WILL—Once you are paid merely for existing—you are on the dole. I rather hoped, you know—

PAULA—What?

WILL—It's extraordinary the difference in one's thinking when you're in college and when you're out—

PAULA—How do you mean?

WILL—Well, when I was in college, my interest in the—"movement"—was really impersonal. I imagined myself giving my energies to the poor and the downtrodden in my spare time. I didn't really believe I'd be one of the poor and downtrodden myself. In my heart of hearts I was sure I'd break through the iron law of Dennis's statistics and land a job somewhere. But I can't—and it's given a tremendous jolt to my self-esteem.

PAULA—But you'll come through. I'm sure of it. I wish you could learn to look at my money as a means rather than an end.

WILL—I'd rather use my own.

PAULA—You're proud.

WILL—I am.

PAULA—It's humiliating but I'm afraid I've got to ask you to marry me, Will.

WILL—It's humiliating but considering my feelings I see no way out of accepting you.

PAULA—You submit?

WILL—[Kisses her hand.] I submit.

PAULA—After a hard campaign—victory!

WILL—You are a darling.

PAULA—[Getting up and crossing to center.] I can't tell you what a relief it'll be to get away from this house.

WILL—Why?

PAULA—I don't know. It's getting very complicated.

WILL—Leonie?

PAULA—And Boris. And Dr. Rice. Funny thing how that man . . .

WILL—What?

PAULA—Makes you insecure somehow.

WILL—Supposed to do just the opposite.

PAULA—He answers every question—and yet he's secretive. I've never met a man who—who—

WILL—Who what?

PAULA—Really, I can't stand Dr. Rice.

WILL—I believe he fascinates you.

PAULA—He does. I don't deny that. And I can't tell you how I resent it. Isn't it silly? [The old lady WYLER in a wheel chair is propelled in by a nurse. The old lady is much wasted since the preceding summer; she is touched with mortality.] Granny!

MRS. WYLER—Paula! How are you, my dear?

PAULA—I came up to see you before, but you were asleep.

MRS. WYLER—Nurse told me. [Exit NURSE, door left.]

PAULA—You remember Will?

WILL—How do you do, Mrs. Wyler?

MRS. WYLER—Of course. How do you do, young man?

PAULA—Well, this is quite an adventure for you, isn't it, Granny?

MRS. WYLER—You're the boy who was always so curious about my youth.

WILL—Yes.

MRS. WYLER—I've forgotten most of it. Now I just live from day to day. The past is just this morning. [A moment's pause.] And I don't always remember that very well. Aren't there insects who live only one day? The morning is their youth and the afternoon their middle age. . . .

PAULA—You don't seem yourself today. Not as cheerful as usual.

MRS. WYLER—Can't I have my moods, Paula? I am pleased to be reflective today. People are always sending me funny books to read. I've been reading one and it depressed me.

PAULA—Well, I'll tell you something to cheer you up, Granny—Will and I are going to be married.

MRS. WYLER—Have you told your mother?

PAULA—Not yet. It's a secret. [Enter KENNETH.]

KENNETH—Well, Mrs. Wyler! Wanderlust today?

MRS. WYLER—Yes! Wanderlust!

KENNETH—Paula, if you're not swimming, what about our walk, and our daily argument?

MRS. WYLER—What argument?

KENNETH—Paula is interested in my subject. She hovers between skepticism and fascination.

PAULA—No chance to hover today, Kenneth. Will's improving his tennis. Sorry.

KENNETH—So am I.

MRS. WYLER—I've a surprise for you, Paula.

PAULA—What?

MRS. WYLER—Your father's coming.

PAULA—No!

MRS. WYLER—Yes.

PAULA—But how—! How do you know?

MRS. WYLER—Because I've sent for him, and he wired me he's coming. He's driving from Blue Hill. He should be here now.

PAULA—That's too—! Oh, Granny, that's marvelous! Will, let's drive out to meet him, shall we? Does Mother know?

MRS. WYLER—I only had Sam's wire an hour ago.

PAULA—Granny, you're an angel.

MRS. WYLER—Not quite yet. Don't hurry me, child.

PAULA—Come on, Will. [Exit PAULA and WILL.]

MRS. WYLER—I can see you are interested in Paula. You are, aren't you, Dr. Rice?

KENNETH—Yes. She's an extraordinary child. Adores her father, doesn't she?

MRS. WYLER—How would you cure that, Doctor?

KENNETH—It's quite healthy.

MRS. WYLER—Really? I was hoping for something juicy in the way of interpretation.

KENNETH—Sorry!

MRS. WYLER—What an interesting profession yours is, Dr. Rice.

KENNETH—Why particularly?

MRS. WYLER—Your province is the soul. Strange region.

KENNETH—People's souls, I find are, on the whole, infinitely more interesting than their bodies. I have been a general practitioner and I know.

MRS. WYLER—These young people—don't they frighten you?

KENNETH—Frighten!

MRS. WYLER—They are so radical—prepared to throw everything overboard—every tradition—

KENNETH—Paula's friends have nothing to lose, any change would be—in the nature of velvet for them.

MRS. WYLER—What do you think of Will?

KENNETH—I'm afraid I've formed no strongly defined opinion on Will.

MRS. WYLER—Oh, I see—That is a comment in itself.

KENNETH—He's nondescript.

MRS. WYLER—Do you mean to point that out to Paula?

KENNETH—I don't think so. That won't be necessary.

MRS. WYLER—Why not?

KENNETH—Blood will tell.

MRS. WYLER—That's very gracious of you, Doctor. [Pause.] And what do you think of Leonie?

KENNETH—Very endearing—and very impulsive.

MRS. WYLER—For example—I mean of the latter—

KENNETH—She offered to build me a sanatorium—a fully equipped modern sanatorium.

MRS. WYLER—Did she? Convenient for you.

KENNETH—Except that I refused.

MRS. WYLER—Wasn't that quixotic?

KENNETH—Not necessarily. [PAULA and SAM enter, door back.]

PAULA—Here he is!

MRS. WYLER—Sam!

SAM—Louise!

PAULA—He wouldn't come if I'd ask him. He said so shamelessly. You know Dr. Rice?

SAM—Of course.

KENNETH—Excuse me. [KENNETH goes out.]

SAM—Well, Louise!

MRS. WYLER—Hello, Sam. [SAM kisses her.]

SAM—How's she behaving?

PAULA—Incorrigible. Dr. Prentiss tells her to rest in her room. You see how she obeys him. She'll obey you though.

SAM—Well, I'll sneak her away from Dr. Prentiss and take her abroad.

MRS. WYLER—I want to go to Ethiopia. Run along, dear. I want to talk to Sam.

PAULA—Keep him here, Granny. Pretend you're not feeling well.

MRS. WYLER—I'll try. [Exit PAULA door back.] Well, Sam—

SAM—I got your wire last night. Here I am.

MRS. WYLER—It's nice of you.

SAM—Oh, now, Louise. You know you're the love of my life.

MRS. WYLER—Yes, Sam, I know—but how is Selena?

SAM—Flourishing.

MRS. WYLER—You're all right then?

SAM—Unbelievably.

MRS. WYLER—I knew you would be.

SAM—And you?

MRS. WYLER—I'm dying, Sam.

SAM—Not you—

MRS. WYLER—Don't contradict me. Besides, I'm rather looking forward to it.

SAM—Is Dr. Prentiss—?

MRS. WYLER—Dr. Prentiss soft-soaps me. I let him. It relieves his mind. But that's why I've sent for you.

SAM—You know, my dear—

MRS. WYLER—Yes, Sam. I know I can count on you. I'm dying. And I'm dying alone. I have to talk to somebody. You're the only one.

SAM—Is anything worrying you?

MRS. WYLER—Plenty.

SAM—What, dear?

MRS. WYLER—The future. Not my own. That's fixed or soon will be. But Leonie's—Paula's—

SAM—Aren't they all right?

MRS. WYLER—I am surrounded by aliens. The house is full of strangers. That Russian upstairs; this doctor.

SAM—Rice? Are you worried about him?

MRS. WYLER—What is he after? What does he want? He told me Leonie offered to build him a sanatorium—

SAM—Did he accept it?

MRS. WYLER—No. He refused. But something tells me he will allow himself to be persuaded.

SAM—I don't think Rice is a bad feller really. Seems pretty sensible. Are you worried about this boy—Dexter, and Paula?

MRS. WYLER—Not in the same way. I like the boy. But Paula—I'm worried about what the money'll do to her. We know what it's done to Leonie. You know, Sam, in spite of all her romantic dreams Leonie has a kind of integrity. But I often wonder if she's ever been really happy.

SAM—Oh, now, Louise, this pessimism's unlike you—

MRS. WYLER—This money we've built our lives on—it used to symbolize security—but there's no security in it any more.

SAM—Paula'll be all right. I count on Paula.

MRS. WYLER—In the long run. But that may be too late. One can't let go of everything, Sam. It isn't in nature. That's why I've asked you to come. I want you to remain as executor under my will.

SAM—Well, I only resigned because—since I'm no longer married to Leonie—

MRS. WYLER—What has that got to do with it?

SAM—All right.

MRS. WYLER—Promise?

SAM—Certainly.

MRS. WYLER—I feel something dark ahead, a terror—

SAM—Now, now, you've been brooding.

MRS. WYLER—Outside of you—Will is the soundest person I'll leave behind me, the healthiest—but in him too I feel a recklesness that's just kept in—I see a vista of the unknown—to us the unknown was the West, land—physical hardship—but he's hard and bitter underneath his jocularity—he isn't sure, he says, what he is—Once he is sure, what will he do?—I want you to watch him, Sam, for Paula's sake.

SAM—I will.

MRS. WYLER—They're all strange and dark. . . . And this doctor. A soul doctor. We didn't have such things—I am sure that behind all this is a profound and healing truth. But sometimes truths may be perverted, and this particular doctor—how are we to know where his knowledge ends and his pretension begins? Now that I am dying, for the first time in my life I know fear. Death seems easy and simple, Sam—a self-indulgence—but can I afford it? [She smiles up at him. He squeezes her hand.]

SAM—Everything will be all right. Trust me.

MRS. WYLER—I do. [A pause.] You'll stay the night?

SAM—Of course.

MRS. WYLER—Now I feel better.

SAM—That's right. [Pause.]

MRS. WYLER—I'd like to live till autumn.

SAM—Of course you will. Many autumns.

MRS. WYLER—Heaven forbid. But this autumn. The color—the leaves turn. [Looking out window. SAM looks too.] The expression seems strange. What do they turn to?

SAM—[Softly, helping her mood.] Their mother. The earth.

MRS. WYLER—I'm happy now. I'm at peace.

SAM—[Puts arm around her and draws her to him.] That's better.

MRS. WYLER—[Smiling up at him.] It's very clever of me to have sent for you, Sam. I'm pleased with myself. Now, Sam, let 'em do their worst—

Curtain

Index     1     2-I     2-II     3