(ALICE has gone to the ladder. She climbs several rungs, scrutinizes books on a high shelf, reaches for one—it is a brick—and slowly dismounts.)
You have only to decide to use your abilities and a vast terrain of fulfillment will open up before you. Even if you are a woman. Yes, I think you are not best suited for family life. You must use that keen mind of yours. Put it to use without fear of intimidating men.
(ALICE stands behind him, holding the brick over his head. FATHER looks around, smiles, holds out his hand. She puts the brick in it.)
What a heavy tome. I’d forgot. Volume Three. Would you care to borrow it.
(ALICE shakes her head.)
It’s not without interest. And I know you like to read books that are too difficult for you. Like your brothers you were reading at three.
ALICE
Father what did I tell you.
FATHER
That you’re unhappy. Or that you don’t want to borrow the book.
ALICE
Listen to me Father. Despair is my normal state.
FATHER
That’s what artists say. Maybe you are an artist.
ALICE
An artist is someone who finishes something.
FATHER
My poor child. All that talent. Our talent, the family’s talent. What can I do. You truly want my, my permission.
ALICE
You know what I want.
FATHER
But you’re not trying to want something else.
ALICE
Aren’t you impressed Father by how unhappy I am.
FATHER
Make an effort. See things differently. With more distance.
ALICE
Distance.
(ALICE starts to move to the rear of the stage.)
FATHER
I will tell you a secret Daughter.
ALICE
Secret.
FATHER
Nothing that actually occurs is of the slightest importance.
(ALICE stops, surprised.)
ALICE
Nothing?
(FATHER turns his back to audience, unscrews his right leg, then turns back, brandishing it. Or: he takes a hammer and brings it down on his right leg—thunk—showing it to be wood.)
FATHER
You see this wooden contraption that serves me for a leg. I used to wonder what it would be like to have two real adult legs, I was a child when, then, but now I don’t. I’m so far inside the way my life turned out I can’t see the edge.
(Lights start to dim. FATHER hastily reaches in desk drawer, takes out miner’s lamp, and affixes it to his forehead. Blackout, except for roving beam of light from FATHER’S head.)
Alice?
ALICE
Father.
FATHER
Oh don’t. I can’t bear it. Where are you. I can’t see you.
ALICE
Here Father. You read stories to me. You carried me on your shoulders.
FATHER
Yes. Have I been a bad father. I told you to think for yourself. Not a bad father. I didn’t tell you to play with your dolls and leave the books to your brothers. I didn’t put my hand under your dress and ask you not to tell your mother.
(Beam from lamp finds ALICE in a swing in rear of stage, pushed by M I: M II standing by. Lights up.)
I asked you questions, showed an interest.
ALICE
Here Father. Waiting for your answer.
FATHER
To what question.
ALICE
May I kill myself Father.
FATHER
Why do you ask me. Could I stop you if you’ve really set your mind to it. Your willful mind.
(Lights start to dim in front half of stage.)
ALICE
Yes. Perhaps. Probably not.
(Only rear of stage—ALICE on the swing—is illuminated.)
FATHER’S voice
I gave you life. I must be for life.
ALICE
My mother gave me life.
FATHER’S voice
Would it help if I were your mother.
(Lights up. FATHER is now wearing a dress.)
Ask me again. Ask your mother.
ALICE
Father may I kill myself.
FATHER
Your mother who bore you says no.
ALICE
And my father.
FATHER
Your father says you must do what you want.
ALICE
(Dreamily) Want to. Want to …
(She is swaying on the swing, not being pushed.)
FATHER
I ask only one thing. Do it gently. So as not to distress those you leave behind …
ALICE
Is there a hole I can fall into. Do I have to go to sleep first.
(Music up. She flings herself backward, falling into the arms of M I and M II. Blackout.)
SCENE 4
ALICE’s bedroom, a different angle (preferably reverse angle) from the set as presented in Scene 2. ALICE asleep, under normal amount of bedding. HARRY sitting by the bed, holding her hand; he is in his late forties, obese, and wears a caftan. NURSE near the door.
NURSE
She’ll wake up soon. She was too excited about your visit.
HARRY
My poor duck.
(ALICE wakes. NURSE tiptoes out.)
ALICE
Oh. How long have you been here. You should have awakened me.
HARRY
I just—
ALICE
Was I sleeping with my mouth open. Did I drool on the pillow.
HARRY
Just arrived only—
ALICE
The pillow is wet. (Takes his hand, pulling him toward her) Feel it, feel the pillow. I was drooling, I was disgusting.
(HARRY stands.)
HARRY
This is too pitiable. Nurse!
ALICE
No, no please Harry, don’t please.
HARRY
You’ll stop being hysterical. You’ll stop making me feel wretched. (Sits) You promise.
ALICE
I promise.
HARRY
You’ll be the malicious amusing brilliant little sister that your unworthy brother loves so devotedly.
ALICE
Promise. Look.
(She puts on a red crocheted nightcap. HARRY laughs.)
HARRY
And what has my dear rabbit been thinking, safe and protected in her lair, while her owl was out in the world suffering the slings arrows et cetera.
ALICE
Harry what’s your idea finally why I am like this. And don’t tell me because I’m so sensitive.
HARRY
But I’m not. (Warmly) I think it’s because you’re so intelligent.
ALICE
I don’t think I’m intelligent at all, that’s the truth. If you want the truth.
HARRY
Ah mouse. You wrong yourself. Perhaps you’re the most intelligent of us all.
ALICE
Don’t mock me. Don’t mouse me.
HARRY
I’m not.
ALICE
HARRY
I’m not dear heart.
ALICE
You know you don’t think I’m more intelligent than you are Harry.
HARRY
What is intelligence but a form, the form, of intensity. And, yes dear heart, I’m not your match in the extraordinary intensity of your will and your personality. That would create enormous practical problems of life, if you chose to live in what is called, in a permanent fit of overvaluation, the real world. Your disastrous, your tragic—
ALICE
Tragic.
HARRY
“Her tragic health was in a manner the only solution for her of the problem of life—as it suppressed the lament of equality, reciprocity, etc.”
ALICE
What a
terrible thing to say. Why should equality, reciprocity be more of a problem for me than for you. Tell me. Are you saying this of me.
HARRY
Not yet. It’s what I will say of you two years after you have died, at the age of forty-three—
ALICE
Don’t tell me.
HARRY
Of course not.
(He leans forward to caress her cheek.)
ALICE
No no I don’t mind. I find I am more curious than I thought. Well let’s have it all. Do I, I mean will I, tenses are strangely potent aren’t they, commit suicide.
HARRY
You don’t take your life.
ALICE
After all that talk. I should be ashamed of myself.
HARRY
(Smiling tenderly) Yes.
ALICE
So I didn’t commit suicide. And I’ll have, I gather from your discreet silence, a real illness. Much preferable to this tiresome neurasthenia. I never quite saw myself as Elizabeth Barrett, being unable to envisage for myself either the literary gift or the ardent rescuer. (Pauses) Cancer.
HARRY
Alas.
ALICE
There is agony I’ve been told.
HARRY
Don’t brood my dear. It is not possible that your admirable spirit, your heroism, will fail you.
ALICE
Did Father also think my tragic health, as you call it, a good solution.
HARRY
Will call it.
ALICE
Did he. A good solution. Did he.
(She knocks over the lamp on her night table.)
HARRY
How can I know my dear. Father is dead. I never detected in him our bleakness of vision.
(He rings bell.)
You know what a congenital optimist Father was. It is we who see things with such shadows.
(M I and M II enter. Sweep up lamp. Put one mattress on ALICE. Exit.)
ALICE
I’m not really tired.
HARRY
Shall I call your sainted nurse.
ALICE
No no, don’t begin to go. You promised me. Have you brought some chapters of the new book. Will you tell me some gossip. Will you—
(He reaches out to stroke her forehead.)
HARRY
But take your laudanum.
ALICE
Yes. It makes me dream.
(He offers her the bottle and a spoon. She swallows the medicine.)
Harry answer me this truthfully.
HARRY
Of course dear heart, aren’t you my precious turtle.
ALICE
Harry did you ever use, I think they say eat, but isn’t it smoke, opium. Now don’t lie. Tell me.
HARRY
Of course not.
Never. Not even wanted to. Harry! Harry. Look at me. Look at your Alice.
HARRY
(Laughs) Well I did envisage it. But no. Never. I’m not, like our Wim, one for experimenting with the mind.
ALICE
I would, if I could.
HARRY
Why.
ALICE
Dead fish have to swim.
HARRY
I see no dead fish, I see a limpid stream, a spontaneous irrigator of which the snags of doubt have never interrupted nor made turbid the easily flowing current.
ALICE
You quote me. Yes dear brother you quote me. I don’t know whether to be embarrassed or flattered.
HARRY
Have I ever ceased to tell you how much I admire your eloquence.
ALICE
My resignation.
HARRY
But how you have struggled dear heart. What you call resignation I call a newfound victory: that you, even you, can allow that agitated spirit some rest.
ALICE
Resignation. Defeat.
HARRY
No.
ALICE
Exhaustion. “Long ceaseless strain and tension have worn out all aspiration save the one for Rest! The shaping period is past and one is fitted to every limitation through the long custom of surrender.”
HARRY
Dear heart!
ALICE
I can’t help it. Now I’m quoting myself. Oh.
(HARRY looks about anxiously.)
Oh. Oh.
(M I and M II enter swiftly. Another mattress.)
HARRY
Be calm dear heart.
ALICE
How sick one gets of being good and how much, oh, I would respect myself if I could burst out and make everyone wretched for twenty-four hours.
HARRY
Only twenty-four hours.
ALICE
Ah you are a man, while my thoughts women’s thoughts are diminutive. You’re right. Twenty-four years. (Laughs) Twenty-four lifetimes.
HARRY
Try it. Maybe you’re not as good as you think. Maybe you make us wretched quite regularly.
ALICE
Yes perhaps I’m not good. Just stupid. Now Father is gone and we live here rather than there though I live in a room and I see you when you’re so kind as to visit me and I’m dependent for mental stimulation on Nurse, well, is it any wonder I’m getting stupid. I have these grand thoughts, moments when my mind is flooded by a luminous wave that fills me with the sense of potency of vitality of understanding, and I feel I’ve pierced the mystery of the universe, and then it’s time for an emetic or to have my hair brushed or a sheet changed. Or these mattresses … . I think I’ve reached some singular peak from which all is clear and it turns out to be just one of the countless ways in which I “go off” as Father always called it.
HARRY
Let me remove one of the mattresses. I can do it myself.
ALICE
Don’t breathe so hard, you need more exercise. Listen I’ve botched it. Now the question is how to end.
HARRY
I told you what the end was. We’re not going to talk about it anymore.
ALICE
I can talk about what I like. It can have a different ending. Perhaps I shall have a narrow escape. Perhaps everything will change at the last minute.
HARRY
You’re insisting.
(Gets up.)
Don’t.
ALICE
I told you about the conversation with Father. I was twenty.
HARRY
Many times.
ALICE
I’m not asking you for permission Harry. You’ve given me so much.
HARRY
I would never have answered as he did.
(Sits.)