Latest / Bernice / Bernice-Susan Glaspell

Transcript

Bernice-Susan Glaspell · Bernice

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Act one of Bernice by Susan glasspil This is a
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Liberox recording. All Librox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: For more information of a volunteer, please visit liberox dot org.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Cast Mister Allen, the Niece's father reaped by Beeswax Candle.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: Amby hid by Javier County.
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: Craig Norris, Bernice's husband, read by Laurie Wilson.
• 0:28
  Speaker 5: Laura Missus Kirby, Craig's sister read by rush.
• 0:33
  Speaker 6: Me Margaret Pearce, Bernice's friend read by Stunning.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Stage directions read by Inkel. Scene the living room of
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Bernice's house in the country. You feel yourself in the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: house of a woman you would like to know, woman
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: of su and beautiful instincts, who lives simply at the
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: spectator's right stairs. Go up from the living room. Back
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of this right rear adore to the front of the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: stairs is a narrow passage as of a hall, leading
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: to the kitchen. On the other side of the room
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: is a tea table before the fireplace, and before it
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: is a low rounded chair, as if awaiting the one
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: who will come to serve tea. Toward the rear of
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: this left wall, is a door. This door is closed
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: from the back of the room. French windows lead directly
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: out of doors. On each side of this door is
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a window, thus opening almost the entire wall to the
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: october woods. There are comfortable seats under the windows books about.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: It is late afternoon and the sun glows through the
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: flaming leaves. As the curtain is drawn. The father is
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: seen sitting at a long table at the side of
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the stairway, playing solitaire. At the back of the cards,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: open books are propped against the wall, and papers on
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: which he has been writing. Abby, a middle aged servant,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: is attending to the open fire father holding up a
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: card he is about to place ten minutes.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Since the train whistled. That'll be here in five minut now, yes, sir,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: it will be hard for Craig to come in this house.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Abbe Oh, yes, Bernice made this house.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Father, looking around everything is Bernice?
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Change something?
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: Abby?
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: You put something in a different place.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: He takes a pillow from the seat under the window,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: hold it irresolutely a moment, put it on the floor
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: at the side of the fireplace. The other side he
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: moves a high vase from the window, then helplessly, yeah, well,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: You can't get the nice out of this room the
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: tea table. Come, Abby, quick, we'll take this out of.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: The room together. Abby reluctant, They move it to the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: passageway leading out from the living room. The father comes
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: back and sees the chair now without its table. He
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: goes as if to move it, but cannot do.
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: This.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Look's old and broken. As he faces the closed door.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I wish they'd left the niece up stairs, Abbey, in
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: her own room. Now there so near the living room,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: right off the living room.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Hastily goes back to his cards, but in an instant
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: he brushes them together and pulls the open book toward him.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: In papers, but he only rests his hand on the book.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: The'llney b. Craig and his sister on this train, Abbey.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: No, that's all I know.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: But Margaret Peers will be here soon, as soon as
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: she can get here. Margaret will come within an hour, probably,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Do you think so, sir? I think so. That train
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: from the west got to the junction at three of
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: a feeling. Margaret won't wait for the five o'clock train
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: to get here. She'll get a car.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Abby goes to the door and looks out.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: It would save a little time, and she doesn't know that, Bennie. Yes,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Margaret will get here the quickest way. She always came
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: to Benice when Beernice needed her.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: She doesn't need anyone now.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: No, but yes, in a way she does. She needs
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: someone to be here to do what she can't go
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: on doing. Margaret will see to that when she knows.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Margaret sees everything, you think, so, sir, No, yes she does.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Benice knew that Margaret sees things. I've heard Benice say.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Abby turns from him.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Now missus Kirby, Craig's sister Laura. She's a sensible woman.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: She'll be a help to you, Abby in arranging things.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: But see things. No, how different people are, they're all different, Abby.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: I don't think Benice cared much for Laura, though she
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: didn't mind her. She just laugh about Laura, about her
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: being so sure everything. It was nice, Abby, the way
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Bernice would just laugh about things. She had.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: No malice, Abby, strangely intense.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: No, she didn't have, did.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: She, Oh No, Abbe malice wasn't in her. It was
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: just that a good many things, well, the things that
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: are important to most people, weren't so important to Bernice.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: There was another set of things were important. People caught
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: her detached, But I don't know. Maybe they're detached, Abby.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's Laura Kirby, the sensible woman who's detached. Bernice
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: would have laughed at that, the practical person who's detached.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: And Benice, you know what I mean, Abby.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: I think I do.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Knowing her to you did she seem detached?
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Abby, tenderly thinking it out.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: She was laughing and thoughtful and gay. But all it's
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: a little of what she is now.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Abby faces the closed door, off by herself with that intensity.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: The present moment does not account for.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: You can't expect to understand the person who is off
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: by herself, now, can you?
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: I understood, Denise, except there were things outside what I understood.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: And we should take what we had, shouldn't we and
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: not try to reach into to where we didn't go?
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I suppose that's true.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: Abby.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Father buries his face.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Oh I wish my little girl hadn't died. What am
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I going to do?
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: Abby?
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: How can I stay here? And how can I go away?
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: We should die in our proper order. I should have
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: gone before my door. Anything else makes confusion there's not
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: going to be anybody to laugh at me now, Abby,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: I'll miss the way Bernice laughed at me. I laughed
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: that took me in, And yes, took me in. She
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: laughed at my spending the whole time of the war
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: studying Sanskrit. Well, why shouldn't I? What can the old
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: do about war? I had my vision of life. If
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: that had been followed, there have been no war. But
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: in a world that won't have visions, why not study
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: sanscrit while such a world as being made over to another?
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Such world?
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Father, listening, you hear someone, Abby, Abby, after listening, and you.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Abby, why you were with us when Benice was born.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: Yes, I was in the room the night she was born.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: The night she died, I thought of the night she
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: was born.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: That was how long ago, Abbe?
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: Thirty five years ago?
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Was Bernice thirty five years old? She was, Abby, my
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: little girl. Well, life moves by. We hardly know it's moving. Why, Abbe,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Your whole life has been lived around.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Bernice, Abby nodds will.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Be now as if things had fallen apart, and it
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: was the main thing in your life doing things for her.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: Yes, it was the main thing in my life, doing
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: what she wanted. I couldn't do anything else, now, could.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: I father a little surprised at her agitation, but not
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: thinking about it.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Why no, Now someone is coming, Abby, you hear them coming?
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: I think so.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: She goes to the door. Yes, Abby opens the door
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: and Laura and Craig come in. Craig holds back as
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: if to enter this house is something he can scarcely
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: make himself do. He does not look around the room.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Laura to the father, taking his hand.
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: This is so hard for you, mister Allen.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I cannot tell you, Laura, turning to Abby. Abby father
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: going to Craig, who is still at the door.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Well, Craig, the.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Father holds out his hand. Craig takes it.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know what we're going to do without her.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Laura coming to the rescue with the practical.
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: And where are you going to put us?
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Abby?
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: I have the rooms right.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Upstairs, Craig is if he cannot do this up the stairs.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: She is down here, sir.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: She indicates the closed door, then takes laura bag and
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: they start upstairs. Craig does not move Laura on the stairway.
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: Aren't you coming up? Craig to get clean and dressed
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: a little.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: In a minute or.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Two, he sits down on the edge of a chair
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: near the door. The father and husband sit there silent.
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: Bernie Sir hadn't been sick long, had she?
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: No, it was very sudden, you know. She had had
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: trouble occasionally in the past year. Doctor Willis had said
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: she might have to go to the hospital. Thus, that
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: seemed like that, So Abby and I weren't really alarmed.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Of course, we sent for Willis, but he was in Boston.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Young Stewart had the grip, so there was no doctor
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: here till afterwards.
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: And how long was Brunie sick?
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: He speaks with difficulty.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: She spoke feeling badly on Tuesday. She was lying down
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: most of that day. Wednesday she didn't get up at
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: all Wednesday, and she died late Wednesday night. Happy and
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: I were here all alone.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: Did she say, did she leave? Well, we can talk.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Of that later, father, changing to something not so hard
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: to speak of.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: You landed last week.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: Yes, I was held in New York by things.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: To do a glance at the father.
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: Of course, if I had had any idea, of course,
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: But Bernice wrote me she was fine, She.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Seemed so, she was well and seemed very happy here
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: this fall. You know how she loves to tramp the
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: woods in the fall. She was counting on you all
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: coming home. She'd done over your room upstairs, and hers too.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: They both looked so nice and fresh, and she was
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: just starting to do some things to Margaret's room. Margaret
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: was coming here next month for a rest. She's been
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: working very hard.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: Are you expecting Margaret now?
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, Wednesday evening, Bernice seemed to want Margaret to come.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: She thought maybe Margaret could get away now, and that
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: it would do her good too. She had been worrying
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: about her, thinking she was working too hard. Margaret's been
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: in Chicago, you know, working on some labor things. I
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: never know just what it is she is doing. Bernice
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: seemed to want to see her. I wonder if Bernice
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: herself felt it was more than we knew anyhow. She
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: wanted us to send for Margaret.
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: But you didn't send for me until until it was over.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: No, you see, we didn't know, Haby, and I didn't
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: have any idea. I spoke of sending for you when
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: we set the telegram for Margaret, but Benice said you'd
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: be here soon anyway, And she didn't want to hurry
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: you away from New York.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Father, as if not understanding it himself and trying to
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: find an explanation.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: I suppose you were doing something that she knew about
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: and didn't want to interrupt.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Craig half looks at.
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: Him, and Margaret answered that she was coming.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, we heard from her Thursday morning that she had started.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: She could get here today. We didn't know where to
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: reach it, telling her it was too late now for
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: the visit with Bernice. I just can't believe it. Think
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: of what you and I are talking about. Bernice out
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: of life. She was so of of it. Didn't you
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: feel that, Craig about Bernice, Yes.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: Sir, she seems so secured. It never seemed anything could
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: destroy Bernice.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: When I think she won't come down those stairs.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: Again, I can't think of things that way now.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: No, no, of course not.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: He does not know what to say, so gathers together
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: his cards, then books.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: I'll just I was just going in my room. I've
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: been getting on fine with my sanscrit Craig. That's good,
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: and now the war is over and some of the
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: people are fussed around about it influenced as little as
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: I and I have my Sanskrit. You know, the niece
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: used to laugh at me, Craig. She the way she
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: used to laugh at us lovingly seems to me. I'll
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: miss that most of all.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: He goes into his room through the doors of the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: rear of the stairway. Alone in the room, Craig tries
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: to look around. He cannot. He has taken a step
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: toward the closed door when he hears Abby's step on
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the stairs. Craig impetuously going to her, his hands out.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: Ah, hebby, you were good to her.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Craig takes her hands, holds them tight, then changing.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: Why didn't you telegraph me when she was taken sick?
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: Do you think there was anything in New York? I
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: wouldn't have left. Bernice knew that if she needed me.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: She never seemed to need me. I never felt she
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: couldn't get along without me.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Craig taking a few stumbling steps toward the room where Beernice's.
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: Oh, I wish I could have a talk with her.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Mister Norris.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Her tone holds him.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: There is something I must tell you.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: Uh message she left message?
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: No? Yes, perhaps before you go in there, I must
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: tell you.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: They are arrested by the sound of a stopping car.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Either moves in a moment, Margaret Piers hurries in Margaret
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: after looking at.
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: Them, she's worse. Where is she?
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Margaret starts towards the stairs. No there, Abby pointing, Craig
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: stepping between Margaret and the closed door.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: She's dead, Margaret dead.
• 16:55
  Speaker 6: Oh no, no, Bernice.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Margaret waits imploringly.
• 17:02
  Speaker 6: But that couldn't be.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: I know, I know what you mean, Margaret.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: It seems Margaret is about to fall. Craig brings a
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: chair without taking a step. She sinks to it, facing
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: the closed door. Abby turns and goes out toward the kitchen.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Margaret a slight, quick turn of her head to him.
• 17:24
  Speaker 6: I don't believe it.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: It's true, Margaret.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Margaret like flood from her heart.
• 17:31
  Speaker 6: But burned me. She was life.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I know what you mean, Margaret. After much has gone
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: on in her and I wasn't here, No, nor I Margaret,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: a moment later, just having taken this in.
• 17:53
  Speaker 6: Why weren't you here?
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: I didn't know she was sick.
• 17:58
  Speaker 6: Your boat got in a week ago.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: Yes, I was detained in New.
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: York, detained by May Fredericks.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Margaret, Bernice wouldn't want you to talk that way to me. Now,
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: No why she knew it. Bernice knew I was staying
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: out on Long Island with them. While I was attended
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: to some things about my work. I had a beautiful
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: letter from Bernice. She was perfectly all right about everything,
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: and I was anxious now to get home to her.
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: I was getting ready to start the very day I
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: got the telegram that it was like this. You mean
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: you think I didn't make Bernice happy, Margaret.
• 18:48
  Speaker 6: I don't think you had the power to make her
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: very unhappy.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: That's a cruel thing to say, Margaret. Bernice wouldn't say
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: that to.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Me, Margaret, a while looking straight ahead at the closed door.
• 19:03
  Speaker 6: No, she understood me and was indulgent, Margaret.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: Did did you ever feel you didn't really get to Bernice?
• 19:17
  Speaker 6: Get to her? So far as I had power, she
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: never held me back. Life broke through her, a life
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: deeper than anything that could happen to her.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: Yes, that's it is something you could destroy, a life
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: in her deeper than anything that could be done to her.
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: That that makes a difference, Margaret. I never had Bernice.
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: Oh, wasn't it wonderful to you that beneath what you
• 19:52
  Speaker 6: had was a life too full, too rich to be had.
• 19:57
  Speaker 6: I should think that would flow over your life and
• 19:59
  Speaker 6: give it beauty.
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: I suppose a man's feeling is different. He has to
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: feel that he moves completely moves. Yes, could destroy, not
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: that he would, but has the power to reshape.
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: The Craig reshape Bernie's. Oh, I came to see her,
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: not to sit here talking to you.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: I loved her, Margaret. I valued her even though her
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: life wasn't made by my life, and she loved me.
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: You think she didn't.
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: No, Craig, I don't think she didn't. I know she did.
• 20:45
  Speaker 6: I was thinking of those things in her, even greater
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: than loving those things in her, even loving never.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: God, Yes, I know, Margaret.
• 20:58
  Speaker 6: I want to see Bernice.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Margaret crying, She goes blindly toward the closed door and
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: to Benice a second time. Left alone in the room,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Craig now looks at those various things with which he
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and Benice have lived. When he can no longer do this,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: he goes to the passageway at the front of the
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: staircase hebbe. After a moment's wait, Abby comes slowly in.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: When miss Margaret came, you were about to tell me something.
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: My wife uh left the message for me.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: Yes, no, I don't know. She killed herself.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Craig falling back.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: What are you saying?
• 21:43
  Speaker 6: She did it?
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Herself? Took her life? Now, I've told you.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: You know now, Craig roughly taking hold of her.
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: Oh, what's this you're saying? What's this lie?
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: You're trying to Craig letting go of her in horror, imploring.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: Oh happy, tell me it isn't true.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: It's true. I'm telling you it's true. She didn't want
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: to live any longer, so she took something and her life.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: That's all. That's all I can tell you. Nobody know.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: It's not her father, nobody. I thought you ought to
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: tell you. Now I've told you. Let me go, I've
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: told you why.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: She breaks from him and rushes out. Craig does not move.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Margaret comes from Benice, without looking at Craig, opens the
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: door to go outside. Craig scarcely able to call to her. Margaret,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Margaret not turning, I'll be back, so.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: You can't go away, leaving me alone with this. I
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: tell you, I can't stand it. You're going to the
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: woods to think of Bernice. Well, I'll tell you what
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: they You never knew Bernice. You thought she didn't love me,
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: You'll think I didn't matter. But Bernice killed herself because
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: she loved me.
• 23:04
  Speaker 6: So what are you saying.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: Abby just told me. No. One knows, not her father,
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: only Abby.
• 23:18
  Speaker 6: It is not true.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Sabbe was with her. Oh, Margaret, she loved me
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: like that and you killed her. No, Oh, don't say that.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: I didn't know, Margaret.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: After trying to take it in.
• 23:37
  Speaker 6: I knew Bernice. She was life. She came from the
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: whole of life. You are asking me to believe that
• 23:45
  Speaker 6: because of some little thing in her own life.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: But it wasn't a little thing. That's what we didn't know.
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: I was everything to Bernice, more than all that life
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: we felt.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Someone is heard about.
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: I think Laura's coming down. Laura mustn't know. I had
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: to have you know, nobody else, not Laura.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Laura on the stairs.
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: Oh Margaret, you have come.
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: I was just going out.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: As Laura comes nearer.
• 24:20
  Speaker 6: I'm going to take a walk.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: She goes out, Laura looking after.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: Her, take a walk.
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: She always does some strange thing.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Craig is sunk to a chair, his back to Laura.
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: Why should she rush away like this as if it
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: were so much harder for her to stay in this
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: house than for anyone else.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Craig bowed, covers his face with his hands.
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: Has she been trying to make you feel badly, Craig?
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: She goes up to him and puts her hand on
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: his bent shoulder.
• 24:54
  Speaker 7: Don't let her do that. It isn't true. It isn't
• 24:59
  Speaker 7: as if Bernice were like most women. There was something
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: aloof in Bernice. You saw it in her eyes, even
• 25:11
  Speaker 7: in her smile. Oh, I thought she was wonderful too.
• 25:16
  Speaker 7: Only it isn't as if Bernice.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: If you think she didn't love me, you're wrong.
• 25:24
  Speaker 7: Oh, Craig, love you of course, only thinks that might
• 25:31
  Speaker 7: have hurt another woman.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: How do we know who's hurt, who isn't, Who loves,
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: who doesn't love? Don't talk, Laura.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: She stands there beside him. The father coming in. At first,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: he is only Laura.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: I must have dropped the tin of.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Diamonds father seeing Craig.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Of course, of course I try not to think of it.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: My little girl, she loved life so always, from the
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: time she was a baby. She did rejoice so in
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: the world.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: He stands looking at the closed door. Abby comes in,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: looks at Craig hesitates, then slowly crosses the room and
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: takes the traveling bag he brought in when he came.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Another look at his bowed head, then self bowed starts
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: up the stairs curtain. End of Act one, Act two
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: of Bernese by Susan Glassbell. This is a Liberox recording.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: All Libervox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: information not a volunteer, please visit librok dot org. Scene
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: as an act one save that it is evening now.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: The reading lamp is lighted and candles. Laura sitting before
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: they are knitting. Abby standing at the foot of the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: stairs as if Laura had called her. She came down.
• 27:06
  Speaker 7: But he took the tray, did he? Abby?
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: He let me leave it? And how did he seem?
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: I didn't see his face and he didn't say anything.
• 27:19
  Speaker 7: He wasn't like that until Margaret Peers came. How long
• 27:23
  Speaker 7: was missus not as sick? Abby?
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: As she asks this, The outer door opens and Margaret
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: comes in.
• 27:30
  Speaker 7: Been out looking at the stars. Margaret earned the right
• 27:34
  Speaker 7: up here in the hills.
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: I I didn't see them.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: She looks at Abby, who is looking at her, happy,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: turns away from Margaret's look.
• 27:45
  Speaker 7: I was asking you how long was missus not as sick? Abby?
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Two days?
• 27:52
  Speaker 7: And just what did the doctor say was the matter?
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: Doctor wasn't here.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: She steals a glance at Margaret, who is all the
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: while looking at her.
• 28:02
  Speaker 7: I know, But afterwards, what was his opinion?
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Attacks like she had had before, only worse ulcers in
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: the stomach. He thought it was, It's.
• 28:15
  Speaker 7: A great pity you couldn't get a doctor. That's the
• 28:19
  Speaker 7: worst of living way up here by oneself. Missus Norris
• 28:24
  Speaker 7: had seemed well, hadn't she?
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: Yes, except once in a while the doctor had said
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: that she ought to go to the hospital to find out.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Margaret to Laura, too bad.
• 28:37
  Speaker 6: Craig wasn't here.
• 28:39
  Speaker 7: Yes, he was detained in New York.
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: Yes, I know, Abby.
• 28:46
  Speaker 7: I wish you would go up and ask mister Norris
• 28:49
  Speaker 7: if he would like some more coffee and see how
• 28:53
  Speaker 7: he seems.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Laura to Margaret resentfully.
• 28:58
  Speaker 7: We don't understand why Craig should be quite like this.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Abby does not move until Laura looks at her in surprise.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Then she turns to go.
• 29:08
  Speaker 7: No, I'll go myself, Abby, I want to see how
• 29:12
  Speaker 7: he is.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: She goes up and Abby comes back without looking at Margaret.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: She's turning toward the kitchen, Abby reluctantly. Abby comes back
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: at first, not looking up. Then she raises her eyes.
• 29:28
  Speaker 6: Yes, he told me.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Abby does not speak or move.
• 29:32
  Speaker 6: Had she seemed unhappy? Abby?
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: Oh? No, I hadn't noticed anything.
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: Abby. Don't shut me out like this. She wouldn't shut
• 29:43
  Speaker 6: me out. Bernice loved me.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: I know I know she didn't, but there's nothing for
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: me to tell him, Miss Margaret, and it's hard for
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: me to talk about. I'd love her too. I lived
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: with her whole life long. First the baby I took
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: care of and played with you, then all the changing,
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: with the different years. Than this, A move her hands
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: towards the closed door.
• 30:08
  Speaker 6: Yes, then this that said, Abbey, This takes away from
• 30:15
  Speaker 6: all that. Abby. Do you understand it? If you do,
• 30:21
  Speaker 6: won't you help me?
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: I don't understand it.
• 30:25
  Speaker 6: It's something so outside all the rest. That's why I
• 30:31
  Speaker 6: can't accept it. Something in me just won't take it
• 30:34
  Speaker 6: in because it isn't right. I knew her, I know
• 30:40
  Speaker 6: I knew her, and this why then I didn't know her?
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: Can't you help me?
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: I don't see how, Miss Margaret.
• 30:50
  Speaker 6: But if you would tell me things. You know, little things,
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: even though they meant nothing to you, they might mean
• 30:57
  Speaker 6: something to me, Abby, because you loved her. Don't you
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: want what she was to go on living in our hearts?
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: I do, I do. But she pull home living in
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: my heart without my understanding what she did.
• 31:12
  Speaker 6: But differently, I'll tell you what I mean. Everything about
• 31:17
  Speaker 6: her has always been herself. That was one of the
• 31:22
  Speaker 6: rare things about her and herself. Oh, it's something you
• 31:26
  Speaker 6: don't want to lose. It's been the beauty in my life,
• 31:31
  Speaker 6: in my busy, practical life, Bernice. What she was like
• 31:38
  Speaker 6: a breath that blew over my life and made it something.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: I know just what you mean, miss Margaret.
• 31:47
  Speaker 6: It's inconceivable that she should cut off her own life.
• 31:51
  Speaker 6: In her lived all the life that was behind her.
• 31:55
  Speaker 6: You felt that in her so wonderfully she felt it
• 31:59
  Speaker 6: in her. But her eyes couldn't have been like that,
• 32:03
  Speaker 6: could they? Could they? Abby? It wouldn't seem so she
• 32:10
  Speaker 6: wouldn't destroy so much? Why she never destroyed anything? A flower,
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: a caterpillar. Don't you see what I mean? Abby? This
• 32:20
  Speaker 6: denies so much? And then is it true that all
• 32:24
  Speaker 6: this time she wasn't happy? Why she seemed happy as
• 32:29
  Speaker 6: trees grow. Did mister Norris make her unhappy? Oh, don't
• 32:34
  Speaker 6: think you shouldn't talk about it. Don't act as if
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: I shouldn't ask. It's too big for those little scruples, Abby.
• 32:43
  Speaker 6: I can't let Bernice's life go out in darkness. So
• 32:47
  Speaker 6: tell me just what happened.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Each little thing Margaret has taken hold of, Abby, Abby
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: has turned away.
• 32:55
  Speaker 6: When did you first know she had taken something? Just
• 32:59
  Speaker 6: what did she say? Say to you about it? I
• 33:02
  Speaker 6: want to know each little thing. I have a right
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: to know.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: A step is heard above Abby, as if saved.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: Missus Scaraby is coming down now.
• 33:13
  Speaker 6: I want to talk to you, Abby. After the others
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: have gone to bed.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Laura comes down. Abby passes her at the foot of
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: the stairs and goes through to the kitchen.
• 33:22
  Speaker 7: Margaret, what is to be gained in making people feel
• 33:26
  Speaker 7: worse than they need? Rag upstairs? He's so broken, strange
• 33:33
  Speaker 7: and even Abby as she passed me. Now you seem
• 33:37
  Speaker 7: to do this to them, and why.
• 33:40
  Speaker 6: I don't do it to them? I'm not very happy myself.
• 33:45
  Speaker 7: Of course not none of us can be that. But
• 33:51
  Speaker 7: I believe we.
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: Should try to bear things with courage.
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: That comes easily from the person who's bearing a little.
• 33:59
  Speaker 7: You think it means nothing to me that my brother
• 34:02
  Speaker 7: has lost his wife.
• 34:04
  Speaker 6: Your brother has lost his wife. That's all you see
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: in it.
• 34:10
  Speaker 7: I don't see why you seem so wild, so resentful. Margaret.
• 34:15
  Speaker 7: That should soften us.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: She takes her old place before the fire.
• 34:21
  Speaker 6: Well, I can tell you this doesn't soften me.
• 34:25
  Speaker 7: I see that you feel hard toward Craig. But Bernice didn't.
• 34:31
  Speaker 7: You think he should have come right home. But you
• 34:34
  Speaker 7: must be just enough to admit he didn't have any
• 34:38
  Speaker 7: idea Bernice was going to be taken suddenly sick, who
• 34:43
  Speaker 7: had been out of the country for three months. Naturally,
• 34:47
  Speaker 7: there were things connected with his writing to see.
• 34:50
  Speaker 6: About connected with his writing, Laura, don't lie about life
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: with death in the next room. If you want to
• 35:01
  Speaker 6: talk at a time like this, have the decency to
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: be honest. Try to see the truth about living. Craig
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: stayed in New York with May Fredericks, and he doesn't
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: pretend anything else. Stayed there with May Fredericks, continuing an
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: affair that has been going on for the past year.
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: And before it was May Fredericks, it was this one,
• 35:23
  Speaker 6: and that one. Well, all right, that may be all right.
• 35:29
  Speaker 6: I'm not condemning Craig for his affairs. I'm condemning you
• 35:33
  Speaker 6: for the front you're trying to put up.
• 35:35
  Speaker 7: I certainly am not trying to put up any front.
• 35:39
  Speaker 7: It's merely that there seems nothing to be gained in
• 35:43
  Speaker 7: speaking of certain things. If Craig was really unfaithful, I
• 35:49
  Speaker 7: do condemn him for that. I haven't your liberal ideas.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Slight pause, She takes up her knitting.
• 35:58
  Speaker 7: It's unfortunate. Nice hadn't the power to hold Craig.
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: Hadn't the power to hold Craig.
• 36:07
  Speaker 7: She didn't want to. I suppose your scarffing means well,
• 36:12
  Speaker 7: she should have wanted to. It's what a wife should
• 36:16
  Speaker 7: want to do.
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: Oh, Laura, Bernice will never say one more word for
• 36:22
  Speaker 6: herself in there alone. Still she will not do one
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: new thing to throw a light back on other things.
• 36:34
  Speaker 6: That's death, a leaving of one's life, leaving it with us.
• 36:42
  Speaker 6: I cannot talk to you about what Bernice should have been.
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: What she was came true and deep.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: From Margaret, throwing out her hands, was giving up, saying it,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: taking it up again.
• 36:55
  Speaker 6: It's true there was something in her Craig did not
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: control something he couldn't mess up. There was something in
• 37:03
  Speaker 6: her he might have drawn from and become bigger than
• 37:05
  Speaker 6: he was. But he's vain. He has to be bowing
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: someone over all the time to show that he has power.
• 37:13
  Speaker 7: I don't agree with you that Craig is especially vain.
• 37:18
  Speaker 7: He's a man. He does want to affect, yes, dominate
• 37:23
  Speaker 7: the woman he loves. And if Bernice didn't give him
• 37:28
  Speaker 7: that feeling of supremacy, there's no use trying to talk
• 37:34
  Speaker 7: with you of personal things. Certainly, I don't want to
• 37:37
  Speaker 7: quarrel tonight. That would not be the thing. How is
• 37:42
  Speaker 7: your work going? I don't quite know what you're doing now,
• 37:46
  Speaker 7: but trying to get someone out of prison?
• 37:48
  Speaker 6: I suppose, yes, I am trying to get out of
• 37:52
  Speaker 6: prison all those people who are imprisoned for ideas I see.
• 37:58
  Speaker 6: I doubt if you see.
• 37:59
  Speaker 7: Laura, well, I don't say I sympathize, but I see no.
• 38:06
  Speaker 6: For if you did see, you would have to sympathize.
• 38:10
  Speaker 6: If you did see, you would be ashamed. You would
• 38:12
  Speaker 6: have to hang your head for this thing of locking
• 38:16
  Speaker 6: any man up because of what his mind sees. If
• 38:19
  Speaker 6: thinking is not to become whatever thinking may become, then
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: why are we here at all?
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: She stops and thinks of it.
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: Why does Bernice her death make that so simple to night?
• 38:34
  Speaker 6: Because she was herself. She had the gift for being herself,
• 38:39
  Speaker 6: and she wanted each one to have the chance to
• 38:41
  Speaker 6: be himself. Anything else hurt her, as it hurt her
• 38:46
  Speaker 6: to see a dog tied or a child at a
• 38:49
  Speaker 6: narrow window.
• 38:51
  Speaker 7: I don't think Bernice was a good wife for a writer.
• 38:55
  Speaker 6: She would have been a wonderful wife for a real writer.
• 38:59
  Speaker 8: Oh, I know she didn't value Craig's work, and that's
• 39:03
  Speaker 8: another thing. And I suppose you don't value it either.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: She looks at Margaret, who does not speak.
• 39:10
  Speaker 8: Fortunately, there are many thousands of people in this country
• 39:15
  Speaker 8: who do value it. And I suppose you think what
• 39:19
  Speaker 8: I do of little value too. I suppose you scoughed
• 39:22
  Speaker 8: those things who we do to put cripples back in life.
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: No, Laura, I don't scoff at anything that can be
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: done for cripples. Since men have been crippled, cripples must
• 39:34
  Speaker 6: be helped. I only say, don't cripple minds, strong free
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: minds that might go, we know not where, might go
• 39:43
  Speaker 6: into places where the light of a mind has never.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Been Margaret Rising, think of it.
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: Think of that chance of making life even greater than death.
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: If you have any respect for life, any reverence, you
• 39:58
  Speaker 6: have to leave the mind for I do not scoff
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: at you, but you are not a serious person. You
• 40:06
  Speaker 6: have no faith, no hope, no self respect.
• 40:10
  Speaker 7: Laura Rising, You tell me I have no self respect.
• 40:15
  Speaker 9: You who have not cared what people thought of you,
• 40:18
  Speaker 9: who have not had the sense of fitness, the taste
• 40:21
  Speaker 9: to hold the place you were born to. You tell
• 40:24
  Speaker 9: me against whom no word was ever spoken, that I
• 40:28
  Speaker 9: have no self respect.
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: You have a blameless reputation. Laura, you have no self respect.
• 40:36
  Speaker 6: If you had any respect for your own mind, you
• 40:38
  Speaker 6: could not be willing to limit the mind of any other.
• 40:42
  Speaker 6: If you had any respect for your own spiritual life,
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: you could not be willing to push yourself into the
• 40:47
  Speaker 6: spiritual life of another. No, you could not.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: As one seeing far, I.
• 40:56
  Speaker 6: See it as I never saw it. Oh, I wish
• 40:59
  Speaker 6: I could talk to Bernice. Something is down. I could
• 41:05
  Speaker 6: see things as I never saw.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Them, Laura, gathering up the things she had been working with.
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: I will go before I'm insulted further.
• 41:15
  Speaker 6: There's nothing insulting in trying to find the truth.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Margaret impassively reaching out her hands to Laura as she
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: is indignantly going.
• 41:24
  Speaker 6: Oh, Laura, we die so soon. We live so in
• 41:29
  Speaker 6: the dark, we never become what we might be. I
• 41:34
  Speaker 6: should think we could help each.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Other more, Laura, after being a moment held.
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: It would have to be done more sympathetically.
• 41:43
  Speaker 6: I didn't mean to be unsympathetic.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Margaret, watching Laura go up the stairs.
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: I suppose that's the trouble with me.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: She stands the moment, thinking of this. Then there's something
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: she wants to say. She knows then that she is
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: alone and in this room. Slowly she turns and faces
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: the closed door, stands so quite still, realizing, suddenly turns
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: to the stairway, goes up a few steps. Craig Margaret listens,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: then goes up another step and calls a little louder, Craig,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Laura from above.
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: Please don't disturb Craig.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: Margaret.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Margaret hesitates, turns to go down. A door opens above it.
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: Did someone call me?
• 42:29
  Speaker 6: I did, Craig. I'm down here alone, lonely.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Craig is if glad to do so, I'll come down, Craig.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: After coming, I wanted to come down. I thought Laura
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: was down here. I can't pretend not tonight.
• 42:50
  Speaker 6: No, I can't. I wanted so to talk to Brittanye,
• 42:55
  Speaker 6: and when I couldn't, I called to you.
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: I was glad to hear my name. It's too much alone.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: He and Margaret stand there hesitatingly, as if they are
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: not able to do it. Settle down in this room
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: and talk. Craig takes out a cigarette case in the
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: subdued voice of one whose feeling is somewhere else.
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: You want a cigarette, Margaret.
• 43:18
  Speaker 6: No, I don't believe so.
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: Oh, I remember you don't like these, Bernice.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Must have some of the He opens a chest on
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: the mantel takes from it a beautiful little box. Margaret
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: as she sees this box, oh, Margaret, turning away.
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: Thank you, Craig.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: But of course, Craig holds the box for a moment,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: then slowly replaces it. He looks around the room, then helplessly.
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: I don't know what I'm going to do.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: He sits down before the fire. Margaret also sits. The
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: door at the other side of the room opens, and
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: the father comes in from his room.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: He was going to bed now, I thought i'd go
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: in here first.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Father slowly goes in where Benice's little, while Craig and
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Margaret sit there silent, and I.
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: Don't know what he's going to do. Poor old man
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: Bernice was certainly good to him, keeping him happy in
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: that life he made for himself away from life. It's
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: queer about him, Margaret. Somehow he just didn't go on
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: did He made a fight in his youth and stopped there.
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: He's one of the wrecks of the Darwinian theory, spit
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: himself fighting for it and let it go into that.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Craig running his hand through his hair.
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: Oh well, I suppose we're all wrecks of something. Oh
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: what are you a wreck of Margaret? You're a wreck
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: of free speech. I'm talking like a fool. I'll be
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: glad when he goes to.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: Bed, Craig.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: Looking upstairs, I guess Laura's gone to bed.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Craig, after looking into the fire, Well.
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: Heernice isn't leaving any children to be without her. I
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: suppose now it's just as well we lost our boy
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: before we ever had him. But she would have made
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: a wonderful mother, wouldn't she Margaret. Oh, yes, you ever
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: wish you had children? Margaret? Yes, well why don't you have?
• 45:37
  Speaker 6: Why? I don't just know, Craig. Life seems to get
• 45:42
  Speaker 6: filled up so quickly.
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: Yes, and before we know it, it's all over, or
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: as good as over. Funny, how your mind jumps around.
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: Just then I thought of my mother, how she used
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: to say, how he's gray.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: His voice breaks, He buries his face in his hands.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Margaret reaches over and puts a hand on his shoulder.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: The door opens and the father comes out. He stands
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: looking at them.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, of course, I'm glad you are here, Margaret. But
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: my little girl looks very peaceful. Craig, she had a
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: happy life.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Craig moves, turning a little away. Margaret makes a move
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: as if to shield him, but does not do this.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, she had a happy life, didn't she, Margaret?
• 46:39
  Speaker 6: I always thought so.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes, she did, in her own way, a calm way,
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: but very full of her own kind of happiness.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Father.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: After reflection, Benice was good to me. I suppose she
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: might have liked me to have done some more things,
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: but she wanted me to do what came naturally to me.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: I suppose that's why we always felt so comfortable with her.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: She was never trying to make us some outside thing. Well,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: you know, Margaret, I can see her now as a baby.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: She was such a nice baby. She used to reach out.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Her hands, doing this himself.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: Well, I suppose they all do. I'm going to bed
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: after starting. I'm glad you're here with Craig. Margaret Benice
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: would like this, You two who know all about her.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: Well, no.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: Nobody knew all about the nice but you two who
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: were closest to her, here now, as as close as
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: you can be. I'm going to be it.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Good night, Margaret, crying good night, Craig. After the father
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: had closed his door with.
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: Violence, reached out her hands. And what did she get?
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Craig roughly grasping Margaret's wrists.
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: I killed Bernice. There's no use in saying I didn't.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: I did, only Craig letting go of her.
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: Don't blame me tonight, Margaret. I couldn't stand it.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Tonight, Craig, with another abrupt change.
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: Am I a fool? Why did I never know Bernice
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: loved me like this? Why wouldn't I know it? We
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: don't know anything about each other, do we, Margaret? Nothing?
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: We never get.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Anywhere, Craig shivering.
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: I'm cold. I would have there is anything to drink
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: in the house. There must be something.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: He goes out into the kitchen. After a moment, there
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: is a sound of running water. He comes in with
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: a bottle of whiskey, a picture of water.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: I don't see the glasses. Things seem to have been moved.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Craig looks at Margaret as expecting she will go and
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: get them. She does not. He goes out again from
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: the kitchen.
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: Margaret, have you any idea where the glasses are?
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: No, Craig, I don't know.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: Margaret, after hearing him moving things around.
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: There is an abbey somewhere there.
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: No, she isn't here. She seems to have gone outdoors.
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: She left the door open too. No wonder twas cold.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Craig calling at an outer door.
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: Happy.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Sound of the door closing again, the sound of dishes
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: being moved.
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: Well, I don't know where they can have put Margaret.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: Cover and her face.
• 50:01
  Speaker 6: Don't look for things, Bring anything, Craig. There must be
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: something there.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: Craig coming in with cups.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: Things have been moved around. I stumbled over things that
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: didn't used to be there. You'll have a little Margaret,
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: it we need something I don't.
• 50:25
  Speaker 6: Oh, I don't care.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: He pours the drinks and drinks his Craig abruptly shoving
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: his cup away.
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: Margaret, I loved Bernice. I suppose you don't believe that.
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: And I thought Bernice knew I loved her in spite
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: of other things. What do you think it is? Is
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: the matter with me? Margaret?
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: That I Craig saying it as if AW miss things.
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: You can tell me. I'd be glad to feel someone new. Only, Oh,
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: don't leave me alone while you're telling me.
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: I'm afraid I have nothing to tell you, Craig. I
• 51:11
  Speaker 6: thought I knew Bernice, and now I did know Bernice.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Margaret gropingly.
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: I feel something we don't get to and Bernice can't
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: help us.
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: I think she would expect us to find our way.
• 51:30
  Speaker 6: She could always find her way. She had not meant
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: to leave us here. Bernice was so kind, she was kind,
• 51:41
  Speaker 6: such a sensitive kindness, the kindness that divine feeling, and
• 51:46
  Speaker 6: was there ahead to meet it. This is the very
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: thing she would not.
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: Do, Margaret. I wish I could tell you about me
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: and Bernice. I loved her, she loved me, But there
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: was something in her that had almost nothing to do
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: with our love. Yes, well that isn't right, Margaret. You
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: want to feel that you have the woman you love, Yes, completely, Yes,
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: every bit of her.
• 52:26
  Speaker 6: So you turn to woman whom you could have. Yes,
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: but you had all of them simply because there was
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: less to have. You want no baffling sense of something
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: beyond you.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: He looks at her approachfully.
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: You wanted me to help you find the truth. I
• 52:46
  Speaker 6: don't believe you can stand truth, Craig. It's hard tonight,
• 52:52
  Speaker 6: but perhaps it is tonight or not at all. It's
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: a strange thing. This is done a light trying to
• 53:00
  Speaker 6: find its way through.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: A fog in her mind. The light tries to do this, Craig.
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: Why do you write the things you do?
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: Margaret? Is this any time to talk of work?
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: It seems to be to night. It is all part
• 53:17
  Speaker 6: of the same thing. Laura and I were talking of work,
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: quarreling about it. You were talking of Bernice's father. The
• 53:26
  Speaker 6: light just goes there, that poor saddled man. Why didn't
• 53:32
  Speaker 6: he go on? You said he was a wreck of
• 53:35
  Speaker 6: the Darwinian theory, then me a wreck of free speech.
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: Oh, I didn't mean you were, Margaret, but I might be.
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: I can see that we give ourselves in fighting for
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: a thing that seems important, and in that fight we
• 53:53
  Speaker 6: get out of the flow of life. We had meant
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: it to deepen the flow, but we get caught. I
• 54:00
  Speaker 6: know people like that, people who get at home in
• 54:04
  Speaker 6: their fight and stay there and are left there when
• 54:09
  Speaker 6: the fight's over, like this old man. How many knights
• 54:14
  Speaker 6: Bernice and I have sat in this room and talked
• 54:17
  Speaker 6: of things, And I had thought if you had been
• 54:22
  Speaker 6: good to her, she would be in this room now.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: After a look at him, I'm sorry, but can I.
• 54:29
  Speaker 6: Help feeling it?
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: I didn't know, No, you didn't know.
• 54:37
  Speaker 6: We don't know when you think what a writer might
• 54:41
  Speaker 6: do for life for we don't know. You write so well, Craig,
• 54:48
  Speaker 6: But what of it?
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: What is it? Is?
• 54:53
  Speaker 6: The matter with you? With all you American writers, most
• 54:57
  Speaker 6: all of you. A well put up light, but it
• 55:01
  Speaker 6: doesn't penetrate anything. It never makes the fog part just
• 55:08
  Speaker 6: shows itself off a well put up light. It would
• 55:13
  Speaker 6: be better if we didn't have you at all. Can't
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: you see that? It would lights which only light themselves
• 55:21
  Speaker 6: keep us from having light from knowing what the darkness
• 55:24
  Speaker 6: is after thinking, Craig, as you write these things, are
• 55:29
  Speaker 6: there never times when you sit there dumb and know
• 55:33
  Speaker 6: that you are glib and empty.
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: Did you ever try to write, Margaret?
• 55:38
  Speaker 6: No.
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: I suppose you think it's very simple to be real.
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: I suppose you think we could do it if we
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: just wanted to do it. Try it, you try?
• 55:53
  Speaker 6: So you do this just to cover the fact that
• 55:55
  Speaker 6: you can't do anything. Your skill a mask for your
• 55:59
  Speaker 6: lack of power.
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: I should think you'd want to be good to me tonight, Margaret,
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: be good.
• 56:06
  Speaker 6: To you, keep you from seeing. That's the way we're
• 56:10
  Speaker 6: good to each other. There's only one thing I could
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: do for you tonight, Craig. You don't want that, so
• 56:16
  Speaker 6: moves as if to rise.
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: No, don't go away. My brain won't keep still either.
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: What I think is just as bad as what you say. Well,
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: why do you think it is? I miss things and
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: never get anywhere.
• 56:34
  Speaker 6: I don't know, And it's true of all of us.
• 56:39
  Speaker 6: Of me too. I do things that to me seem important,
• 56:44
  Speaker 6: and yet I just do them. I don't get to
• 56:47
  Speaker 6: the thing I'm doing them for, to life itself. I
• 56:53
  Speaker 6: don't simply and profoundly get to life. Bernice did, yes,
• 57:01
  Speaker 6: and yet you had to shy away from Bernice into
• 57:07
  Speaker 6: a smaller world that could be all your world. No, Craig,
• 57:11
  Speaker 6: you haven't power. It's true, And for one hour in
• 57:14
  Speaker 6: our lives, let's try to those love affairs of yours.
• 57:18
  Speaker 6: They're like your false writing to keep yourself from knowing
• 57:22
  Speaker 6: you haven't power. Did you ever see a child try
• 57:26
  Speaker 6: to do a thing, fail, then turn to something he
• 57:30
  Speaker 6: could do and make a great show of doing that.
• 57:34
  Speaker 6: That's what most of our lives are like.
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: Well, why haven't I power? If you are going to
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: be any good to me?
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: Tell me that, Margaret, shaking her head, I.
• 57:45
  Speaker 6: Can't tell you that I haven't any light that goes there.
• 57:51
  Speaker 6: But isn't it true? Isn't your life this long attempt
• 57:54
  Speaker 6: to appear effective to persuade yourself that you are something.
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: What a way to spend the little time there is
• 58:01
  Speaker 6: for a living?
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: I fancy it's the way most lives are spent.
• 58:07
  Speaker 6: That only makes it infinitely.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: Said Craig, as if he can stay in this no longer.
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: As to writing, Margaret, the things that interest you wouldn't
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: interest most.
• 58:17
  Speaker 6: People wouldn't interest most people, Oh, Craig, don't slide away
• 58:25
  Speaker 6: from that one honest moment, say you haven't got it.
• 58:30
  Speaker 6: Don't say they wouldn't want it. Why if now, in
• 58:34
  Speaker 6: this our day, our troubled day of many shadows, came
• 58:39
  Speaker 6: a light, a light to reach those never lighted places,
• 58:43
  Speaker 6: wouldn't want it? I wish someone could try them. No, Craig,
• 58:49
  Speaker 6: they all have their times of suspecting. Their lives are
• 58:51
  Speaker 6: going by in a fog. They're pitifully anxious for a
• 58:55
  Speaker 6: little light. Why they continue to look to writers? You know, Craig,
• 59:03
  Speaker 6: what living makes of us. It's a rim, a bounded circle.
• 59:08
  Speaker 6: And yet we know have our times of suspecting that
• 59:13
  Speaker 6: if we could.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: Break through that, Margaret seeing, Oh, it's like.
• 59:20
  Speaker 6: Living in the mountains, those high, vast places of Colorado,
• 59:26
  Speaker 6: and a little house with shaded windows, you'd suspect what
• 59:30
  Speaker 6: was there? A little sunshine through the cracks, mountain smells,
• 59:36
  Speaker 6: and at times the house would shake, and you'd wonder
• 59:41
  Speaker 6: and be fretted in your little room. And if some
• 59:45
  Speaker 6: day you could put up the shade and see where
• 59:50
  Speaker 6: you were, life would never be so small a thing again.
• 59:56
  Speaker 6: Bernice could do that. Her own life did not bound. No,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 6: that was what heard your vanity.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I'm trying to be honest. I honestly
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: don't know.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 6: No, we don't know. That's why, Oh, Craig, it would
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 6: be so wonderful to be a writer. Something that gets
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 6: a little farther than others can get, gets at least
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 6: the edge of.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: The shadow, Margaret after her own moment on the edge
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: of the shadow.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 6: If you ever felt the shock of reality and got
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 6: that back in you, you wouldn't be thinking of whom
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 6: it would interest.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: But Craig, this a movement toward the closed room.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 6: Doesn't this give you that shock of reality? What of you?
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: Doesn't it give it to you? You're speaking as if
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: this hadn't happened. Leave it out what Bernice did because
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: of me? You're talking to my having no power?
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 6: What of this?
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: Had I no power?
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: After her look at him?
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: Oh yes, I know I used it terribly, plenty of
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: years from my heart to break over that. But can
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: you say I didn't have it?
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 6: I do leave it out. It isn't right. There should
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: be anything in Bernice, not Bernice, and she had a
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 6: great rightness, rightness without effort, that rare, rare thing.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: You say, it isn't right. And so you leave it out,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: and then you talk about the shock of reality.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 6: I don't say it isn't fat. I say it isn't
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 6: in the rightness.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: And the rightness is that for you to say? Is rightness?
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: What you think? What you can see? No, you didn't know, Bernice.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: You didn't know she loved me that way? And I
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: didn't know, but she did. How could I have had
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: that and not known? But I did have it. I
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: did have it. You say, life broke through her, the
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: whole of life. But Bernice didn't want the whole of life.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: She wanted me.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: He goes to the door, bows against it, all sorrow
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: and need.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: I want to talk to her, not you, I want
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: her now knowing.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: He opens that door and goes in to Bernice. Margaret
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: stands motionless, searching and as if something is coming to
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: her from the rightness, and she speaks. It is a
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: denial from that inner affirmation. No, I say no, Margaret,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: feeling someone behind her. Swiftly turning, she sees Abby outside,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: looking through the not quite drawn curtains of the door.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: She goes to the door and draws Abby in.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 6: Yes, I am here, and I say no.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: She is hold of her drawing her in as she
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: says it.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 6: You understand, I say, no, I don't believe it what
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 6: you told me. I don't believe it.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Abby. At first it is horror, then strange relief, as
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: if nothing could be so bad as this has been. Well,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: I'm glad, you know, Margaret very slowly, knowing now it
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: is fact. She has come to glad.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: I know what.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: It isn't true that she didn't do it, didn't do it,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: did not take her own life. No, of course she didn't.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Margaret, still very slowly, as if much more was coming
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: than she can take in.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 6: Then why did you say she did?
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: Because she said, they must look at me, look at me.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: But you knew her, you know the strength of her.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: If she told you the way she told me, you'd
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: have done it too, you.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Would, Margaret, saying it word by itself.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: I.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 6: Cannot understand one word. You are saying. Something is wrong
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 6: with you.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: Margaret, changing and roughly taking hold of Abby.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 6: Tell me quick the truth.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: That's the night about eight o'clock, about an hour after
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: she told me to telegraph you, she said, why, Abby,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: I believe I'm going to die? I said no, but
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: she said I think so, I said, we sent for
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: mister Norris. She said no, and not to frighten her father.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: I didn't think she was going to die. All the
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: time I was trying to get the doctor. There were
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: two hours when she was quiet, quiet, not likening quiet
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: I ever knew thinking. You could see thinking in her eyes,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: stronger than sickness. Then after ten she called me to her.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: She took my hands. She said, Ahby, you've lived with
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: me all my life. Yes, I said, you love me?
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: Yes, I said, will you do something for me? You
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: know I well, I told her, Abby, she said, looking
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: right at me, all of her looking right at me.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: If I die, I want you to tell my husband
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: I kill myself.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: Margaret falls back.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, I did that too, and I thought it was
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: her mind, but I looked at her. Oh, her mind
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: was there. It was terrible, how it was all there,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: she said, And then she the sob.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: She's been holding back almost ki Abby from saying this.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: Held out her hands to me, Oh, ahbe, do this
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: last thing for me, after all there has been. I
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: have had right to do it. If my life is going,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: let me have this much from it. And the still
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: I could and couldn't. Did you shrump down? Her face,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: and she said, I want to rest before pain comes again.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: Promis me so I can rest. And I promised, and
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: you would have to.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 6: You don't know what you're telling me. You don't know
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 6: what you're doing. You do this now after she can
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 6: do nothing.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: Margaret holding out her hands.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 6: Abby, tell me it isn't true.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: It's true.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 6: You are telling me her life was hate.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: Margaret stops half turns to the room where Craig is
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: with Bernice.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 6: You are telling me she covered hate with with the
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 6: beauty that was like nothing else. Abby. You are telling
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 6: me that as Bernice left life, she held out her
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 6: hands and asked you to take this back for her.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: Thinks, we can't do There's no use trying.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: She turns to go.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 6: You can't leave me like this.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: You shouldn't have tried to know that. If you have
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: got to know things, you have got to take them.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: Craig comes out. Abby goes, go.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: In there, Margaret, there's something wonderful there.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Margaret turned from him, her face buried in her hands.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 6: Oh no, no, no, I can never go in there.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 6: I I never was in there.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: But other words are lost in her wild sobbing. He
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: stands regarding her in wonder, but not losing what he
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: himself has found. Curtain end of Act two, Act three
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: of Bunnie by Susan Glaspell. This is a liberotical. All
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Librock's recordings are in the public domain. Moreformation not a volunteer,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: please visit librox dot org. Scene the same as an
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: AX one and two. It is early afternoon of the
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: next day. The door leading outdoors is a little open.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: When the curtain is drawn. Craig is seen outside, just
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: passing the window as one who is walking back and
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: forth and thinking. In the room A Laura and the father.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: The father sitting at the table by the stairs. Laura
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: standing watches Craig pass the door. She has in her
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: hand a paper on which are sir memoranda. After watching Craig,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: she sighs, looks at her notes, sits down.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 7: I am sorry to be troubling you, mister Allen. Certainly
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 7: you should not be asked to discuss these matters about arrangements.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 7: But really you and I seem the only people who
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 7: are capable of going on with things. I must say,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 7: I don't know what to make of everyone else. They
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 7: all seem to be trying to keep away from one.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 7: I think that's a little unnecessary. Of course, I know
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 7: what grief does, and I'm sure I have every consideration
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 7: for that. But really, I'm sorry Craig keeps his own
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 7: sister out when I'm here to help him. And Abby
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 7: why she seems to have lost her head just when
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 7: it's so important that she look after things? And as
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 7: to Margaret Pierce, she certainly is worse than useless. I
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 7: don't see what she came for if she didn't want
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 7: to be helpful.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: Margaret and Bernie very dear friends.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 7: Laura, is that any reason for not being helpful in
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 7: Bernice's household at a time like this?
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: Really, I do like control, Laura, after looking at her notes.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 7: Then the minister will come here at three, mister Allan,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 7: Why that will be alone more than an hour? Think
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 7: of things having been neglected like this?
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: Asked Craig. Having turned in his walk, she again, passing
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: the door.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 7: Craig.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: He steps to the door.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 7: Her minister, mister Howie will come here, Craig at three?
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 7: What for? Craig?
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 6: What for?
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: I don't see why he comes here? Why Bernice scarcely
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: knew him to her father? Did Bernice know him well?
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Whether she knew him.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 7: But it is not a personal matter, Craig.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: I think it is very personal.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 7: You mean to say you are not going to have
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 7: any service.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: I haven't thought anything about it, Oh, Laura, how can
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: I think of such things now?
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 6: Well?
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 7: I will think of them for you, dear.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 4: Don't bring him here.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: He can go.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: There if he wants to. Where we have to go,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: not here in her own house. The very last thing.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: I'm afraid it will seem strange, Craig strange.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: Do I care if it seems strange? Pernice seems strange too.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: But she wasn't strange.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: She was wonderful, putting out his hand impatiently.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: Oh no, Laura, there's so much else to think of now.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: He steps out of the door and stands there, his
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: back to the room.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: I wonder could we go somewhere else, into my room? Perhaps?
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: I'm afraid we are keeping Craig out of here, and
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: I think he wants to be here near Bernice. We
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: will be undisturbed in my room.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: He gets up and goes to the door of his room.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: Laura turns to follow outside. Craig passes from sight.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 7: I think it's too bad. Things have to be made
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 7: so complicated.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: Father after opening the door.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, Margaret is in here, Margaret.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: From the other room.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 6: I was just going out.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: I just came in here too, Margaret enters.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 6: I just went in there. I didn't think about it
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 6: being your room.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: What that was quite all right, Margaret, I'm only sorry
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: to disturb you.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 6: No, that doesn't matter. I wasn't doing anything.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 7: There is a good deal to do.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: She follows the father into his room. Margaret walks across
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: the room, walks back, stands still, head bent, hands pressing
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: her temples. Abby comes part way down the stairs, sees
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: Margaret stands still as if not to be heard, turns
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: to go back upstairs. Margaret, hearing her, looking up Abby,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: Abby comes slowly down.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 6: Where is he, mister Norris? Where is he?
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: I don't know he was here a little while ago.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: Perhaps you went out, Abbey, indicating the door. I have
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: to tell him, Abby, after an incredulous moment, tell him
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: what she made me tell you.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 6: Of course, I have to tell him. You think I
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 6: can leave that on him? And the things I said
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 6: to him, they were not just, and.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: You'd rather be just don't leave it as she wanted it.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 6: Oh, but Abby, what she wanted.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: Margaret holds up her hands as if to shut something
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: from her eyes.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 6: No, you can't put that on anyone. I couldn't live
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 6: feeling I had left on him what shouldn't be there.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: But she wouldn't tell him.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 6: Now I must tell him now, or I won't tell him,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 6: and I must go away. I can't stay. I can't
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 6: stay here.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: But what will they think you're leaving? You mean before
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: we've taken her away?
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 6: Oh, I don't know. How can I plan it out?
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 6: I'm going as soon as I can tell him. All night,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 6: all day, I've been trying to tell him, and when
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 6: I get near him, I run away. Why did you
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 6: tell me?
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: Why did you know what you weren't to know? But
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: if you have some way of knowing what you aren't told,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: you think you have the right to do your thing
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: with that and do what she did what I did.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: Do you know what it took out of me to
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: do this?
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: There's nothing left of me.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: Margaret was a laugh, right on the verge of being
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: not herself.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 6: No, you're a wreck, another wreck. It's your Darwinian theory,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 6: your free speech.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: I was afraid of you. I don't want you to come.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: I knew you'd get two things.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: Abby goes to the door and looks out.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 6: He is out there.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, Margaret tries to go, moves just a little, and
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: you'll go to him and what to four?
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 6: Because I can't live leaving that on him, having him
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 6: think when I know he didn't. I can't leave that
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 6: on him.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: One more hour, Abby standing in the door to block
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: her going.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: And when you take that from him, well do you
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: give it to him?
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: They stare at one another. Margaret falls back.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 6: Don't ask me to see so many things, Abby, I
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 6: can only see this thing I've grown afraid of.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: Seeing, Abby, after looking at her, seeing something of her suffering,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: Miss Margaret.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: Why did you do what you did last night? How
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: did you know?
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 6: I don't know, but you knew. No, I didn't know.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 6: I didn't know. It didn't come from me, It came
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 6: from the rightness A laugh.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: If you could get that without being told, why don't
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: you get more without being told?
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: Margaret gives her a startled look, for.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: You will never be told.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 6: You know more?
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: No, I know it stops with what you got from
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: me last night. But I knew her. I thought, maybe
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: as you have some way of knowing what you aren't
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: told you could see into this.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 6: See I've lost my scene. It was through her, I saw,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 6: it was through Bernice I could see. And now it's a.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: Dark Margaret, slowly turning toward the closed room.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 6: Oh, how still death.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: Is the two womeners have caught into this stillness, Abby,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: looking from the door. He turned this way, Abby, swiftly
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: turning back to Margaret.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: But you couldn't tell him.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 6: No, I can't, Yes, I must. I tell you. There's
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 6: something in me. Can't stand it to see anyone go
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 6: down under a thing you shouldn't have to bear. Why
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 6: that feeling has made my life? Do you think I've
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 6: wanted to do the kind of work I do? Don't
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 6: you think I'd like to be doing happier things. But
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 6: there's something in my blood drives me too what's right?
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: And something in my blood drives me towards right. And
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: I went against it, went against my whole life so
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: she could rest. I did it because I loved her.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: But she didn't love her, Oh Abby, not as you
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: love right. If you loved her, don't you want to
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: protect her now that she lae standing there? Oh, miss Margaret,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: It was right at the very end of her life.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: Maybe when we are going to tie things we borne
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: all our lives are things we can't bear any longer.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: Just don't count that last tower, Margaret.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: After a moment of being swayed by.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 6: This, yet you counted it, Abbie. You did what she
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 6: said because of the strength of her. You told me
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 6: last night. Her mind was there, terrible, the way it
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 6: was right there. She hadn't left her life.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: Well, if she hadn't left her life, if all those
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: years with him there was something she hid, and if
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: she seemed to feel well, she didn't feel she did
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: it well, didn't she? And almost to the last, sha'n't
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: we hide it now?
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 10: For her?
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 6: You and me?
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: Lot?
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: There isn't she safe with us?
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: Abby? Going nearer, Margaret, perhaps if you would go in
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: there now? Oh no, no, Abby, And a last deeply
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: emotional appeal, Miss Margaret.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 3: Didn't she do a good deal for you?
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 6: Do a good deal for me? Yes?
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, she did for me.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: I have something more on account of her, aren't you?
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: Yes, I think you are too. I can see myself
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: as it have been. If my life hadn't been.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: Lived around her, Abby thinks, shakes her head, it would.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 3: Be left to what feels and nose it feels, and
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: you said it was through Bernice you could see. Well,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 3: let's forget what we don't want to know on account
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 3: of what we are that we wouldn't have been. Let's
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: put it out of our minds. One ugly thing in
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: a whole, beautiful life.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: Let it go.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: Let all the rest live.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: They can see Craig outside.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 3: Oh, do this for her, make yourself do it. Let
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: that be what's dead, and let all the rest live.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: You were her friend, not his. Craig turns to the house,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: but when about to come in, turns away, covering his face.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: Margaret taking hold of Abby.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 6: You see, he thinks she loved him, and he killed her.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 6: He might do what he thinks she did.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: Abby falling back, Craig comes in, stands by the door.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: Margaret has drawn Abbey over near the stairway. He sees them,
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: but gives no heed to them, immersed in what he
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: is living through. While he stands there, Margaret does not move.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: He turns toward the room where Bernice's When he moves,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: Margaret goes a little toward him. His back is to her.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: Abby moves to step between Craig and Margaret. Margaret puts
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: her aside. But when Craig comes to the closed door
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: and stands there an instant before it, not opening it,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: Margaret too stops as if she cannot come nearer him.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: It is only after he has opened the door and
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: closed it behind him that she goes to it. She
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: puts out her hands, but she does not even touch
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: the door, and when she cannot do this, she covers
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: her face and head bent, stands there before the closed door.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: Laura and the father come out from the room where
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: they have been as the nder. Abby slowly goes out
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: toward the kitchen. Laura, after looking at Margaret, who has
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: not moved.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 7: We are going in an hour. Margaret going taking Bernice
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 7: to the cemetery, oh.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: Ali.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: After a look which shows her disapproval, Laura goes out
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: following Abby, father sitting I can't believe that, Margaret.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 6: No.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: Margaret sits in the window seat by which she has
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: been standing, as if she is just realizing what they
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: have said.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 6: You say, we are taking Berniece away from here in
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 6: an hour.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 11: Yes, think of it, Margaret, I just can't take it in. No,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 11: there is something I want to tell you, Margaret.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: Margaret gives him a quick look, then turns away as
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: if afraid.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: I've been wanting to tell you, but it's hard to
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: talk of such things before we take Bernice away, before
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: you see her the last time. I want you to
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: know that night, that night Bernice died the very last.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: Abby was afraid then, and it called to me. Abby
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: and I were in there, and Abby went out about
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: the telephone call we had in for the doctor. I
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: was all alone, and there a few minutes right at
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: the last Beernice said one last word, Margaret, your name,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: she called to me. No, I wouldn't say she called
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: to you, just said your name, the way we say
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: things to ourselves, say them without knowing we were going
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: to say them. She didn't really say it, she breathed.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: It seemed to come from her whole life.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 6: Oh then, it wasn't as if she had left me.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 6: It wasn't as if anything was in between.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 2: Why know, Margaret, what an idea? Why I don't think
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: you ever were as close to be nice as when
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: she said your name and died.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: Margaret's head goes down. She is crying. Craig comes out, carefully,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: closing the door behind him, partly crosses the room, looks
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: uncertainly the outer door, as if to go outside again.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: Sit down, Craig.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: Craig does this.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: Let's not try to keep away from each other. Now,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: we're all going through the same thing in a our
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: different ways.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: A pause. Margaret raises her head. She has turned a
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: little away from the other two.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: I was so glad when you came, Margaret. I didn't
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: want Benice to slip away from us. In an hour,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: we take her away from here, out of this house.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: She loved I don't want her to slip away from us.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: She loved you, so, Margaret, didn't.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 4: She, Craig, Yes, she did love Margaret.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, Margaret sees.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: Things she'd say father wistfully.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: She had great beauty, didn't she, Margaret? I always thought so,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, I was thinking last night. Malice was not
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: in Beernice. I never knew her to do a really
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: unfriendly thing to any one.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: Again in that wistful way, you know, Margaret.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: I thought you would say things like this and better
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: than I can say them, to to keep my little
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: girl for us. All I suppose I'm a foolish old man,
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: but I seemed to want them said.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: Pause. Margaret seems to try to speak, but does not.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: I think it was gentle of Beernice to be amused
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: by things she perhaps couldn't admire in us. She loved me.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: I suppose she might have liked a father who amounted
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: to more, but she always seemed to take pleasure in me,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: affectionate amusement. Didn't you feel that in Benice?
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 4: Craig, yes, that was one thing. A surfers for other things.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: He speaks out of pain, but out of pain which
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: wants if it can, to speak.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 4: But only a surface. All of Bernice went into her
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 4: love for me. Those big, impersonal things, they were not
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 4: a part. Oh of Bernice loved me.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: His voice breaks. He goes to the door, starts out,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: suddenly steps back with a quick rough turn to her.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 4: That's so, Margaret, I can see.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 6: What do you mean, Craig?
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: Of course the nice loved you.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: I know that Craig goes outside father looking after him.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: I I hope I didn't say, Craig away you and
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: he would rather not talk. Perhaps that is better. I
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: seem to want to gather up things that will keep
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: the nie. It's so easy for the dead to slip
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: from us. But I mustn't bother you.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 6: Oh you aren't. I I'm sorry, I'm not doing more.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 6: I'm pulled down.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: I know, Margaret, I can see that. Another time, you
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: and I will talk of Bernice. I didn't mean she
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: didn't love Craig, of course.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 10: Not.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: Only I did feel that much as went into her loving,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: there was more than went into her loving. Yes, I
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: think it wasn't that she wanted it that way, you know, Margaret.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: I felt something very wistful at Bernice.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: Margaret looks at him, nod in this calm.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: Now I feel the wistfulness there was in her other calm. Yes,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 2: as if she wanted to give us more. Oh, she
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: gave more than anyone else could have given, but not
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: all she was and she would like to have given
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: us or she was. She wanted to give what couldn't
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: be given. You know what I mean, Margaret, Yes, I
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: do know, and so wistfulness. I see it now.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: Father, after thinking, I.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: Think Bernice feared she was not a very good wife.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: From Craig, Margaret gives him a startled look.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: Little thing she'd say, I don't know, perhaps I'm wrong.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: After a move of Margaret, you were going.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: To say something, Margaret, No, was just thinking of what
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: you said, Craig, didn't dominate Denise. I don't know whose
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: fault it was. I don't know that it was anyone's fault,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: just the way things were. He said it no kindness.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: He just didn't have it in him, as I haven't
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 2: had certain things in me.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: Abby comes in.
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 3: People are coming. They all doing other neighbors.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: Oh they're coming already. Oh, there to wait in the
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: south room until a little later. I'll speak to them.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: They go out. Margaret has a moment alone. Then Craig
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: comes in from outside.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 4: People are beginning to come. I suppose they'll come in
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 4: here soon. I I don't want them to.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: Laura enters with boxes of flowers.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 4: Oh, Laura, please, Bernice loved flowers well, Craig, would you
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 4: take them around the other way or keep them till
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 4: later or something. I don't want them here.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: Laura goes out.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 4: I don't want things to be different, not now, in
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 4: the last hour. It's still Bernice's house.
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: Craig, after watching her a moment.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 4: Margaret, I'm afraid I shouldn't have told you. It's doing
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 4: too much to you. Surely, no matter what you feel
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 4: about to me, this what I told you, is it
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 4: going to keep you away from Bernice.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 6: Now, Craig, what you told me isn't going to do that.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 4: I shouldn't have told you. But there are things too
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 4: much to be alone with. Yet we are alone with them.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: He is seated, looking out toward the woods, very slowly,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: with deep feeling.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 4: It is a different world. Life will never be.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: That old thing again, Margaret, rising, Craig.
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 6: He looks at her, Craig, I must tell you.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: She does not go on, Craig, after waiting an instant
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: looks away.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 4: I know we can't say things when we get right
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 4: to life. We can't say things.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 6: But I must say them. I have to tell you
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 6: life need not be a different thing.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 4: Need not you think I want that old thing back, pretending, fumbling,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 4: always trying to seem something, to feel myself something. No,
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 4: that's a strange thing for you to say, Margaret, that
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 4: I can go back to my make believe now that
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 4: I've got to life.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: This as if he cannot speak of it, this.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 4: Even more than it makes me want to die, It
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 4: makes me want to Oh, Margaret, if I could have
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 4: Bernice now, knowing and yet I never had her until now.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 4: This has given Bernice to.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: Me, Margaret, As if his words are alike to he
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: is almost afraid to use.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 6: This has given Bernice here.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 4: I was thinking walking out there, I was thinking, if
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 4: I knew only what I knew when I came here,
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 4: that Bernice was dead. I wonder if I could have
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 4: got past that failure, failure, crag of never having had her,
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 4: that she had lived and loved me, loved me, you see,
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 4: lived and loved me and died without my ever having
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 4: had her. What would there have been to go on living?
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 7: For?
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 4: Why should such a person go on living?
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 6: Oh?
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 4: Of course it is another world. This comes crashing through
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 4: my make believe and Bernice's world. Get to me, don't
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 4: you see, Margaret?
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 6: Perhaps I do.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: She looks at the closed door, looks back to him, waits,
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: waits again, and it grows in her.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 6: Perhaps I do.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: Marbert turns and very slowly goes to the closed door,
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: opens it goes in. At the other side of the room,
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: Abby comes in with a floral piece.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 4: No happy, I just told my sister, I don't want
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 4: this room to be differ.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: Craig, looking around, it is different?
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 4: What have you done to it?
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: He sees the pillar crowded in at the side of
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: the fireplace, restores it to its place in the window,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: and this was here. She returns the vase to its place.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 4: Of course it was, But it is it right yet?
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: Craig, After considering why the t table, Abby turns toward
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: the kitchen.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 4: What did you put it out there for? I remember
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 4: now I stumbled against it last night?
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: They bring it in?
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 4: Why? Yes, Abby, the ta table was always here before
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 4: the fire.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: And she hesitates, but Craig follows her eyes to the chair. Yes,
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: he too hesitates, then gives the chair its old place
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: before the table, as if awaiting the one who will
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: come and pour tea. A moment they stand looking at it.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: Then Craig looks around.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 4: The room and what if it is still wrong? Abby?
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 3: And ifault? There were all of his branches in the.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: Face, Abby, indicating the one she has returned to its place.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 3: The right and yellow branches from outside.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: He goes out with feeling which she cannot quite control.
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: Abby does a few little things at the tea table,
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: relating one thing to another until it is as it
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: used to be. Margaret comes out from the room where
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: she's been with Benice, leaving the door wide open behind her,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: with a quiet of profound wonder in a feeling that
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: creates the great stillness. She goes to Abby.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 6: Oh, Abby, yes, I know. Now I want you to know.
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 6: Only there are things not for words, feeling not for words,
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 6: as a throbbing thing that flies and sings, not for
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 6: the hand.
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: She starts to close the hand and closes it.
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 6: But Abby, there is nothing to hide, There is no
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 6: shameful thing. What you saw in her eyes as you
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 6: brooded over life and leaving it. What made you afraid
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 6: was her, seeing her sing into the shadowed places of
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 6: the life she was leaving, And then a gift to
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 6: the spirit, a gift sent back through the dark, preposterous, profound.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 6: Oh love her, Abby, She's worth more love than we
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 6: have power to give.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: Craig has come back with some branches from the trees.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: He stands outside the door a moment, taking out a
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: few he does not want. Margaret hears him and turns,
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: then turns back power.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 6: Oh how strange.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: Craig comes in, and Margaret and Abby watch him as
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: he puts the bright leaves in the vase. The father
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: comes in.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 2: The man who's in charge says, we will have to
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 2: be ready.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: Now to father, seeing what has been done to the room.
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 10: Oh you have given the room back to the nice,
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 10: given everything back to Bernice, berniee Insight, the tenderness of insight,
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 10: and the.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: Curate Margaret to the father and Sonny. With tears in
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: her voice, she was wistful and held out her hands,
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: Margaret doing this.
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 6: With if she was not afraid to send back. She
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 6: loved you, Craig.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 4: I know that, Margaret. I know now how much.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: And more than that, Margaret, her voice electric.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 6: Oh, in all the world since first life moved, has
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 6: there been any beauty like the beauty of perceiving love? No,
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 6: not for words.
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: She closes her hand and closes it in a slight
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: gesture of freeing what she would not harm. Curtain end
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: of Act three, end of Beneath by Susan Glaspow