by Edward Albee
STEVIE
(After him) I would have. (Uncertain) I think I would have.
MARTIN
(Pause) So, anyway; it was this place.
STEVIE
(Reconcentrating) A pig? Really?
MARTIN
Well, everyone had … you know …
STEVIE
… someone, or something.
MARTIN
Yes.
STEVIE
(Lightbulb) And was Clarissa Atherton there?
MARTIN
Who? Yes! That’s where I got the card, and …
STEVIE
And what is she fucking? Who?
MARTIN
(Matter of fact) A dog, I think.
(STEVIE finds a vase, crashes it to the floor)
STEVIE
A dog you think.
MARTIN
Why would she lie? Why would anyone there lie?
STEVIE
Damned if I know.
MARTIN
(Sighs) And so I went there, and …
STEVIE
(There is chaos behind the civility, of course) Did you all take your … friends with you—your pigs, your dogs, your goats, your …
MARTIN
No. We weren’t there to talk about them; we were there about ourselves, our … our problems, as they called them.
STEVIE
The livestock was all happy, you mean.
MARTIN
Well, no; there was this one … goose, I think it was … (STEVIE finds a vase, crashes it to the floor) Shall we go outside?
STEVIE
(Hands on hips) Get on with it.
MARTIN
(So calm) All right; there was this one goose …
STEVIE
Not geese! Not pigs! Not dogs! Goats! The subject is goats!
MARTIN
The subject is a goat; the subject is Sylvia. (He sees STEVIE looking for something to throw) No! Don’t; please! Just listen! Sit and listen!
STEVIE
(Has a small bowl in her hands; sits) All right. I’m listening.
MARTIN
I said, most of the people there were having problems, were … ashamed, or—what is the word?—conflicted … were … needed to talk about it while … while I went there, I guess, to find out why they were all there.
STEVIE
(As if the language were unfamiliar) Pardon?
MARTIN
I didn’t understand why they were there—why they were all so … unhappy; what was wrong with … with … being in love … like that. (STEVIE gently separates hands, letting bowl fall between her legs, break) There’s so much I have to explain.
STEVIE
(Deep, quiet irony) Oh?
MARTIN
(Rises, moves a little away) You must promise to be still. Sit there and please listen, and then maybe when I’ve finished you … just listen; please.
STEVIE
(Sad smile) How could I not?
MARTIN
I went there … because I couldn’t come to you with it.
STEVIE
Oh?
MARTIN
Well … think about it.
STEVIE
(Does) I suppose you’re right.
MARTIN
And most of them had a problem, had a long history. The man with the pig was a farmboy, and he and his brothers, when they were kids, just … did it … naturally; it was what they did … with the pigs. (Knits brow) Or piglets, perhaps; that wasn’t clear.
STEVIE
Naturally; of course.
MARTIN
Are you agreeing?
STEVIE
No. Just get on with it.
MARTIN
It was what they did. Maybe it was better than …
STEVIE
… than with each other, or their sisters, or their grandmothers? You’ve got to be kidding!
MARTIN
No one got hurt.
STEVIE
HUNH!!
MARTIN
We’ll talk about that.
STEVIE
You bet we will!
MARTIN
(Sighs) Most of them had a reason, the man with the pig more a matter of … habit than anything else, I guess … comfort, familiarity.
STEVIE
(Eyes heavenward) Jesus!
MARTIN
Though he was off it … “cured,” as he put it, which I found odd.
STEVIE
Of course.
MARTIN
I mean … if he was happy …
(STEVIE knocks over the small side table where she is sitting, never taking her eyes off MARTIN)
STEVIE
(Ironic) Ooops!
MARTIN
When he was doing it, I mean. Must you? Though I suppose he wasn’t … no longer was happy.
STEVIE
(Feigned surprise) You mean you didn’t ask him?
MARTIN
No; no, I didn’t. The lady with the German Shepherd …
STEVIE
Clarissa?
MARTIN
No; another one. The lady with the Shepherd, it turned out she had been raped by her father and her brother when she was twelve, or so … continually raped, one watching the other, she told us …
STEVIE
… and so she took up with a dog?!
MARTIN
(No opinion) Yes; it would seem. The man with the goose was … hideously ugly—I could barely look at him—and I suppose he thought he could never … you know.
STEVIE
(Cool) Do I?
MARTIN
Try and imagine.
STEVIE
(Calm; sad) I doubt I can.
MARTIN
Try: so ugly, no woman—no man—would even think of … “doing it” with you—ever.
STEVIE
One in the hand, et cetera. But … a goose!?
MARTIN
(Sad smile) Not everyone is satisfied that way … one in the hand. No matter. And I was unhappy there, for they were all unhappy.
STEVIE
My goodness.
MARTIN
And I didn’t know why.
STEVIE
(Considers it) Really? I think we’ve hit upon why I’m going to kill you.
MARTIN
(Onward) There’s something else I want you to understand.
STEVIE
(Sarcasm) Oh? Something else?
MARTIN
It’s something I told Ross.
STEVIE
Not him again.
MARTIN
He is my best friend.
STEVIE
(Actress-y) Oh? And I thought I was!
MARTIN
(Undeterred; calm) I told him that in all our time together—yours and mine—all our marriage—I’ve never been unfaithful.
STEVIE
(A beat; fake astonishment) Hunh!!
MARTIN
(Onward) Never in all our years. Oh, early on, one of your friends would grope me in the kitchen at a party, or …
STEVIE
I love my friends; they have taste.
MARTIN
Never unfaithful; never once. I’ve never even wanted to. We’re so good together, you and I.
STEVIE
A perfect fit, eh?
MARTIN
(Sincere) Yes!
STEVIE
You’d never imagine that a marriage could be so perfect.
MARTIN
Yes! I mean no; I hadn’t.
STEVIE
(Advertisement) Great sex, good cook, even does windows.
MARTIN
Be serious!
STEVIE
No! It’s too serious for that. (Afterthought) Fuck you, by the way.
MARTIN
Never once! People looked at me, said “What’s the matter with you?!” “Don’t you have any … you know, lust?” And “Sure,” I said, “I’ve got plenty. All for Stevie.”
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sp; STEVIE
(Shakes her head; sing-song) La-di-da; la-di-fuckin’-da!
MARTIN
(Rage) Listen to me!
STEVIE
(Army drill) Yes, Sir! (Softer) Yes, Sir.
MARTIN
All the men I knew were “having affairs” … seeing other women, and laughing about it—at the club, on the train. I felt … well, I almost felt like a misfit. “What’s the matter with you, Martin!? You mean you’re only doing it with your wife!? What kind of man are you?!”
STEVIE
You men must be fun together.
MARTIN
Odd man out. I only wanted you.
STEVIE
(Pause; quietly) And I have something to tell you.
MARTIN
(Anticipating, with dread) Oh, no! Don’t tell me that you’ve been with …
STEVIE
(Hands up; shakes her head) Hush. In all our marriage I’ve never even wanted anyone but you.
MARTIN
(Deeply sad) Oh, Stevie.
STEVIE
My mother told me—we really were good friends; I’m sorry you never knew her.
MARTIN
I am, too.
STEVIE
We talked together like sisters, by God; we talked the night away, two “girls” talking; we were that good friends, but she sure knew how to be a “parent” when she needed to, when she wanted to keep me very … level. And she said to me—I never told you this—“Be sure you marry someone you’re in love with—deeply and wholly in love with—but be careful who you fall in love with, because you might marry him.” (MARTIN chuckles, quietly, ruefully) “Your father and I have the best marriage anyone could possibly have,” she said to me, over and over. “Be sure you do, too.”
MARTIN
Stevie, I …
STEVIE
“Be careful who you marry,” she said to me. And I was. I fell in love with you? No … I rose into love with you and have—what—cherished? you, all these years, been proud of all you’ve done, been happy with our … funny son, been … well, happy. I guess that’s the word. No, I don’t guess; I know. (Begins to cry) I’ve been happy. (More) Look at me, Mother; I’ve married the man I loved (more) and I’ve been … so … happy.
MARTIN
(Moves to her; touches her) Oh, Stevie …
STEVIE
(Huge; swipes objects off the coffee table) GET YOUR GOAT-FUCKING HANDS OFF ME!!! (Retreats to wall, arms wide, sobbing greatly)
MARTIN
(Reacts as if he’s touched a hot stove) All right! No more!
STEVIE
Yes! More! Finish it! Vomit it all up! Puke it out all over me. I’ll never be less ready. So … do it! DO IT!! I’ve laid it all out for you; I’m naked on the table; take all your knives! Cut me! Scar me forever!
MARTIN
(Thinks a moment) Before or after I vomit on you? (Gently; hands up to appease) Sorry; sorry.
STEVIE
(A shaking voice) Women in deep woe often mix their metaphors.
MARTIN
(Pacifying) Yes; yes.
STEVIE
Get on with it! (Afterthought) Very good, by the way.
MARTIN
(Rue) Thanks.
STEVIE
… and hopelessly inappropriate.
MARTIN
Yes; sorry.
STEVIE
(Casually overturns a chair) Get on with it, I said.
MARTIN
Are you going to do that with all the furniture?
STEVIE
(Looks around) I think so. You may have to help me with some of it.
MARTIN
Truce! Truce!
STEVIE
(Takes a painting, breaks it over something) NO! NO TRUCE! All of it! Now!
MARTIN
That was my mother’s painting.
STEVIE
It still is! (Prompting) You found us our lovely country place.
MARTIN
(Girds) And the day I found it—I called you. You remember: I told you I’d put a hold on it.
STEVIE
I’ll never forget.
MARTIN
And I was driving out of the town, back to the highway, and I stopped at the top of a hill …
STEVIE
Crest.
MARTIN
What!? Who are you!?
STEVIE
You stopped at the crest of a hill—on it, actually.
MARTIN
Yes. And I stopped, and the view was … wonderful. Not spectacular, but wonderful—fall, the leaves turning …
STEVIE
(Staring at him) A regular bucolic.
MARTIN
Yes; a regular bucolic. I stopped and got us things—vegetables and things. You remember.
STEVIE
(Denial) No; I don’t.
MARTIN
(Realizing, going on) No matter. And it was then that I saw her.
STEVIE
(Grotesque incomprehension) Who!?
MARTIN
(Deeply sad) Oh, Stevie …
STEVIE
(Heavy irony) Who!? Who could you have seen!?
MARTIN
(Dogged) I’m going on with this. You asked. I’m going to get it all out.
STEVIE
(Eyes hard on him) Serves me right, I guess.
MARTIN
And I closed the trunk of the car, with all that I’d gotten—(pause) … and it was then that I saw her. And she was looking at me with … with those eyes.
STEVIE
(Staring at him) Oh, those eyes! (Afterthought) THEM eyes!
MARTIN
(Slow; deliberate) And what I felt was … it was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. It was so … amazing. There she was.
STEVIE
(Grotesque enthusiasm) Who!? Who!?
MARTIN
Don’t. She was looking at me with those eyes of hers and … I melted, I think. I think that’s what I did: I melted.
STEVIE
(Hideous enthusiasm) You melted!!
MARTIN
(Waves her off) I’d never seen such an expression. It was pure … and trusting and … and innocent; so … so guileless.
STEVIE
(Sardonic echo) Guileless; innocent; pure. You’ve never seen children, or anything? You never saw Billy when he was a kid?
MARTIN
(Pleading) Of course I did. Don’t mock me.
STEVIE
(Shooting harsh chuckle) Don’t mock me.
MARTIN
I … I went over to where she was—to the fence where she was, and I knelt there, eye level …
STEVIE
(Quiet loathing) Goat level.
MARTIN
(Angry; didactic) I will finish this! You asked for it, and you’re going to get it! So … shut your tragic mouth! (STEVIE does a sharp intake of breath, puts her fingers over her mouth) All right. Listen to me. It was as if an alien came out of whatever it was, and it … took me with it, and it was … an ecstasy and a purity, and a … love of a … (dogmatic) un-i-mag-in-able kind, and it relates to nothing whatever, to nothing that can be related to! Don’t you see!? Don’t you see the … don’t you see the “thing” that happened to me? What nobody understands? Why I can’t feel what I’m supposed to!? Because it relates to nothing? It can’t have happened! It did, but it can’t have! (STEVIE shakes her head) What are you doing?
STEVIE
(Removes fingers) Being tragic. I bet a psychiatrist would love all this.
MARTIN
I knelt there, eye level, and there was a … a what!? … an understanding so intense, so natural …
STEVIE
There are some things you can remember, eh?
MARTIN
(Closes his eyes, reopens them) … an understanding so …
STEVIE
(Awful, high-pitched little voice) I can’t remember why I come into rooms, where I put the thing for the razor …
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nbsp; MARTIN
(Refusing to be drawn in) … an understanding so natural, so intense that I will never forget it, as intense as the night you and I finally came at the same time. What was it … a month after we began? (Where is she, emotionally?) Stevie? It wasn’t happening … but it was!
STEVIE
(Shaking her head; oddly objective) How much do you hate me?
MARTIN
(Hopeless) I love you. (Pause) And I love her. (Pause) And there it is.
(STEVIE howls three times, slowly, deliberately; a combination of rage and hurt)
STEVIE
(Then; calmly) Go on.
MARTIN
(Apologetic) I have to do it.
STEVIE
Yes? (MARTIN nods) Right.
MARTIN
(Starting again) And there was a connection there—a communication—that, well … an epiphany, I guess comes closest, and I knew what was going to happen.
STEVIE
(Mildly interested in the fact) I think I’m going to be sick.
MARTIN
Please don’t. (Back to it) Epiphany! And when it happens there’s no retreating, no holding back. I put my hands through the wires of the fence and she came toward me, slipped her face between my hands, brought her nose to mine at the wires and … and nuzzled.
STEVIE
I am a grown woman; a grown married woman. (As if she’s never heard the word before) Nuzzled; nuzzled.
MARTIN
Her breath … her breath was … so sweet, warm and … (Hears something; stops)
STEVIE
Go on. Tell the grown-up married woman …
MARTIN
(Warning hand up) I hear Billy.
