A Delicate Balance

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A Delicate Balance Page 10

by Edward Albee


  HARRY

  (Puts his hand out, grabs TOBIAS’, shakes it hard)

  Thanks, old man.

  TOBIAS (Softly; sadly)

  Please? Stay?

  (Pause)

  HARRY (Nods)

  See you at the club. Well? Edna?

  (They start out)

  AGNES (After them)

  Drive carefully, now. It’s Sunday.

  EDNA’S AND HARRY’S VOICES

  All right. Goodbye. Thank you.

  (The four in the room together. JULIA and CLAIRE have sat down; AGNES moves to TOBIAS, puts her arm around him)

  AGNES (Sigh)

  Well. Here we all are. You all right, my darling?

  TOBIAS (Clears his throat)

  Sure.

  AGNES

  (Still with her arm around him)

  Your daughter has taken to drinking in the morning, I hope you’ll notice.

  TOBIAS (Unconcerned)

  Oh?

  (Moves away from her)

  I had one here … somewhere, one with Harry. Oh, there it is.

  AGNES

  Well, I would seem to have three early-morning drinkers now. I hope it won’t become a club. We’d have to get a license, would we not?

  TOBIAS

  Just think of it as very late at night.

  AGNES

  All right, I will.

  (Silence)

  TOBIAS

  I tried.

  (Pause)

  I was honest.

  (Silence)

  Didn’t I?

  (Pause)

  Wasn’t I?

  JULIA (Pause)

  You were very honest, Father. And you tried.

  TOBIAS

  Didn’t I try, Claire? Wasn’t I honest?

  CLAIRE (Comfort; rue)

  Sure you were. You tried.

  TOBIAS

  I’m sorry. I apologize.

  AGNES (To fill a silence)

  What I find most astonishing—aside from my belief that I will, one day … lose my mind—but when? Never, I begin to think, as the years go by, or that I’ll not know if it happens, or maybe even has—what I find most astonishing, I think, is the wonder of daylight, of the sun. All the centuries, millenniums—all the history—I wonder if that’s why we sleep at night, because the darkness still … frightens us? They say we sleep to let the demons out—to let the mind go raving mad, our dreams and nightmares all our logic gone awry, the dark side of our reason. And when the daylight comes again … comes order with it.

  (Sad chuckle)

  Poor Edna and Harry.

  (Sigh)

  Well, they’re safely gone … and we’ll all forget … quite soon.

  (Pause)

  Come now; we can begin the day.

  CURTAIN

 

 

 


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