The Penguin Arthur Miller

by Arthur Miller

  J.B. is shocked. In a moment he turns and goes to the rack, starts getting into his coat. David crosses quickly to him.

  John, what the hell! He takes J.B.’S arm.

  J.B.: You unnerve me, Dave! You unnerve me! A man acts a certain way when he’s going to be a father, and by Jesus I want him to act that way.

  SHORY: Another moviegoer! Why should he worry about something he can’t change?

  DAVID: I’ve got a million things to think of, John. I want to ask you.

  J.B.: What?

  DAVID—hangs J.B.’S coat up: I want to get a buy on a new Buick; maybe you can help me swindle that dealer you know in Burley. I’m taking Hester to California in about a month. Sit down.

  J.B., suddenly pointing at him: That’s what unnerves me! You don’t seem to realize what’s happening. You can’t take a month-old baby in a car to California.

  DAVID, a blank, shocked look: Well, I meant . . .

  J.B., laughs, slaps his back relieved at this obvious truth: The trouble with you is, you don’t realize that she didn’t swell up because she swallowed an olive! Gus and he laugh; David tries to. You’re a poppa, boy! You’re the guy he’s going to call Pop!

  There is a commotion of footsteps upstairs. David goes quickly to the landing. Belle hurries down. She is sniffling, sobbing.

  DAVID: What happened?

  Belle touches his shoulder kindly but brushes right past him to the fireplace where she picks up a wood basket.

  David continues going to her. What happened, Belle!

  BELLE, standing with the wood: She’s having it, she’s having it. She hurries to the landing, David behind her.

  DAVID: What does the doctor say? Belle! How is she? He catches her arm.

  BELLE: I don’t know. She shouldn’t have fallen that time. She shouldn’t have fallen, Davey. Oh dear . . .

  She bursts into a sob and rushes upstairs. David stands gaping upward. But Gus is staring at David. After a long moment . . .

  GUS, quietly: Hester fell down?

  DAVID, turns slowly to him after an instant of his own: What?

  GUS: Hester had a fall?

  DAVID: Yeh, some time ago.

  GUS: You had her to the doctor?

  DAVID: Yeh.

  GUS: He told you the baby would be possibly dead? Pause.

  DAVID: What’re you talking about?

  GUS, quavering: I think you know what I’m talking about.

  David is speechless. Walks to a chair and sits on the arm as though, at the price of terrible awkwardness, to simulate ease. Always glancing at Gus, he gets up unaccountably, and in a broken, uncontrolled voice . . .

  DAVID: What are you talking about?

  GUS: I understand why you were so sure about the mink. But I sign no mortgage on the shop. I do not bet on dead children.

  David is horrified at the revelation. He stands rigidly, his fists clenched. He might sit down or spring at Gus or weep.

  J.B.: He couldn’t think a thing like that. He . . .

  He looks to David for reinforcement, but David is standing there hurt and silent and self-horrified. J.B. goes to David.

  Dave, you wouldn’t want a thing like that. He shakes him. Dave!

  DAVID, glaring at Gus: I’d cut my throat!

  He walks downstage from J.B., looking at Gus. His movements are wayward, restless, like one caught in a strange cul-de-sac. Gus is silent.

  Why do you look at me that way? Glances at J.B. then slowly back to Gus. Why do you look that way? I’m only telling you what happened. A person has to look at facts, doesn’t he? I heard something at the door and I opened it . . . and there she was lying on the step. A fact is a fact, isn’t it? They don’t reply. Bursting out: Well, for Jesus’ sake, if you . . . !

  GUS, a shout: What fact! She fell! So the baby is dead because she fell? Is this a fact?!!

  DAVID, moves away from Gus’s direction, in high tension: I didn’t say dead. It doesn’t have to be dead to be . . . to . . . Breaks off.

  GUS: To be what?

  Pause.

  DAVID: To be a curse on us. It can come wrong . . . A fall can make them that way. The doctor told me. Gus looks unconvinced. The trouble with you is that you think I got a special angel watching over me.

  SHORY, pointing at Gus: He said it that time, brother!

  GUS, to Shory too: A man needs a special angel to have a live child?

  DAVID, furiously: Who said he was going to be dead?!

  GUS: What are you excited about? Takes his arm. Take it easy, sit . . .

  DAVID, freeing his arm: Stop humoring me, will you? Dan Dibble’ll have my new mink here tonight. I got all the papers ready . . . Goes to a drawer, takes out papers. All you do is sign and . . .

  GUS—suddenly he rushes to David, pulls the papers out of his hand, throws them down: Are you mad! He frightens David into immobility. There is no catastrophe upstairs, there is no guarantee up there for your mink. He grasps David’s arm, pleadingly. Dave . . .

  DAVID: If you say that again I’m going to throw you out of this house!

  J.B., nervously: Oh, come on now, come on now.

  From above a scream of pain is heard. David freezes. Gus looks up.

  GUS, to David: Don’t say that again.

  David thrusts his hands into his pockets as though they might reveal him too. Under great tension he attempts to speak reasonably. His voice leaps occasionally, he clears his throat. Gus never takes his eyes off him. David walks from J.B. unwillingly.

  DAVID: I’m a lucky man, John. Everything I’ve ever gotten came . . . straight out of the blue. There’s nothing mad about it. It’s facts. When I couldn’t have Hester unless Old Man Falk got out of the way, he was killed just like it was specially for me. When I couldn’t fix the Marmon . . . a man walks in from the middle of the night . . . and fixes it for me. I buy a lousy little gas station . . . they build a highway in front of it. That’s lucky. You pay for that.

  SHORY: Damn right you do.

  GUS: Where is such a law?

  DAVID: I don’t know. Observes a silence. He walks to the windows. Of all the people I’ve heard of I’m the only one who’s never paid. Well . . . I think the holiday’s over. Turns toward upstairs, with great sorrow: I think we’re about due to join up with the rest of you. I’ll have almost sixty thousand dollars when I market my mink . . . but it won’t be money I got without paying for it. And that’s why I put everything in them. That’s why I’m sure. Because from here on in we’re paid for. I saw it in black and white when she fell. With a heartbroken tone: God help me, we’re paid for now. I’m not afraid of my luck anymore, and I’m going to play it for everything it’s worth.

  GUS: David, you break my heart. This is from Europe this idea. This is from Asia, from the rotten places, not America.

  DAVID: No?

  GUS: Here you are not a worm, a louse in the earth; here you are a man. A man deserves everything here!

  SHORY: Since when?

  GUS, strongly to Shory: Since forever!

  SHORY: Then I must have been born before that.

  GUS, angrily now: I beg your pardon, he is not you and do me a favor and stop trying to make him like you.

  DAVID: He’s not making me anything.

  GUS: He won’t be happy until he does, I can tell you! Indicating Shory: This kind of people never are.

  SHORY: What kind of people?

  GUS: Your kind! His life he can make golden, if he wants.

  SHORY: Unless the walls blow out.

  GUS: If he don’t go chasing after whores his walls won’t blow out. Quietly: And I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean nothing personal.

  J.B., goes to David: I’ll lend you the money for the mink, Dave.

  GUS: Are you mad?

  J.B.: I can see what he means, Gus. Looks at D
avid. It takes a great kind of man to prepare himself that way. A man does have to pay. It’s just the way it happens, senseless. He glances upstairs, then to David: It’s true. It always happens senseless.

  J.B.: I’ll back you, Dave.

  DAVID: I’d like to pay him tonight if I can . . .

  They all turn to look up as Belle appears, slowly descending the stairs. They do not hear her until she is a little way down. Her usual expression of wide-eyed bewilderment is on her face, but now she is tense, and descends looking at David. She half sniffs, half sobs into her kerchief. She stops on the stairs. David rises. She half laughs, half snivels in a quiet ecstasy of excitement, and weakly motions him upstairs. He comes toward her questioningly, to the landing.

  BELLE: Go . . . Go up.

  DAVID: What. What . . . ?

  BELLE, suddenly bursts out and rushes down and flings her arms about him: Oh, Davey, Davey.

  DAVID, ripping her free, he roars in her face: What happened?! With a sob of grief in his voice, he grips her. Belle! The cry of a baby is suddenly heard from above. The sound almost throws David back, away from the stairs. He stands stock still, hard as a rock, looking upward, his mouth fallen open.

  BELLE, still half-sobbing: It’s a boy. A perfect baby boy!

  She now breaks into full sobs and rushes up the stairs. Everything is still a moment, David stares at nothing. The cry sounds again. He looks upward again as though to let it sink in. J.B. goes to him, hand extended.

  J.B., filled with joy, and gravely: Dave.

  David dumbly shakes his hand, a weak smile on his face.

  A boy, a boy, Dave! Just what you wanted!

  A strange short laugh leaps from David. An easier but still tense laugh comes. Pat goes to him and shakes his hand.

  PAT: Dave, a new generation!

  GUS, smilingly: Well? You see? Laughs. A good man gets what a good man makes. Hits David jovially. Wake up now! Good luck!

  Gus tosses a quarter to Shory.

  GUS: It’s the first time you’ve been right since I knew you.

  J.B.: Come out of the ether. Take a look at him, Dave.

  David rushes out. They stand astonished for a moment.

  What do you suppose come over him?

  GUS: What else could come over him? . . . he’s ashamed.

  Gus hurries out the door. The others remain in silence. Then one by one they look upstairs toward the sound of the baby’s crying.

  SLOW CURTAIN

  SCENE II

  Before the curtain rises thunder is heard.

  It is one month later. The living room. Night.

  The room is empty and in darkness. A bolt of lightning illuminates it through the windows, then darkness again. Now the door to the outside opens and Hester enters. She is very tense but her motions are minute, as though she were mentally absorbed and had entirely forgotten her surroundings. Without removing her coat or galoshes she comes to the center of the room and stands there staring. Then she goes to a window and looks out. A flash of lightning makes her back a step from the window; and without further hesitation she goes to the phone, switching on a nearby light.

  HESTER—she watches the window as she waits: Hello? Gus? Where have you been, I’ve been ringing you for an hour. She listens. Well, look, could you come over here? Right now, I mean. It would not be interfering, Gus, I want to talk to you. He’s outside. Gus, you’ve got to come here—his mink are going to die. She keeps glancing at the window. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’ll probably see it any minute. Dan Dibble called before. . . . He’s lost over thirty of his already. . . . They use the same fish. . . . I want you here when he notices. She turns suddenly toward the door. He’s coming in. You hurry over now. . . . Please!

  She hangs up, and starts for the door, but as though to compose herself she stops, and starts toward a chair when she realizes she still has her coat and galoshes on. She is kicking off the galoshes when David enters. He looks up at her, and with a slight glance upstairs . . .

  DAVID: Everything all right?

  HESTER: Why?

  DAVID: I thought I heard a call or a scream.

  HESTER: No, there was no scream.

  DAVID: I guess it was the lightning. Is he all right? Of the baby.

  HESTER: There’s no gate there, you can go up and see.

  DAVID: How can I go to him with my hands so bloody? She turns from him. He starts for the door.

  HESTER: I thought you were through feeding.

  DAVID: I am. I’m just grinding some for tomorrow.

  HESTER: Are they all right?

  DAVID: I never saw them so strung up. I think it’s the hail banging on the cages. There is a momentary hiatus as he silently asks for leave to go. I just wondered if he was all right. He takes a step.

  HESTER, suddenly: Don’t go out again, Davey. Please. You told me yourself, they ought to be left alone when they’re whelping.

  DAVID: I’ve got to be there, Hess, I’ve just got to. I . . . He goes to her. I promise you, after they whelp we’ll go away, we’ll travel . . . I’m going to make a queen’s life for you.

  HESTER: Don’t go out.

  DAVID: I’ll be in right away . . .

  HESTER, grasps his arms: I don’t want them to be so important, Davey!

  DAVID: But everything we’ve got is in them. You know that.

  HESTER: I’m not afraid of being poor . . .

  DAVID: That’s ’cause you never were—and you’ll never be. You’re going to have a life like a . . .

  HESTER: Why do you keep saying that? I don’t want it, I don’t need it! I don’t care what happens out there! And I don’t want you to care. Do you hear what I say, I don’t want you to care!

  A bolt of lightning floods suddenly through the windows. David starts. Then hurries to the door.

  HESTER, frightened now: Davey! David stops, does not turn. You can’t stop the lightning, can you? He does not turn still. She goes closer to him, pleading: I know how hard you worked, but it won’t be the first year’s work that ever went for nothing in the world. It happens that way, doesn’t it?

  DAVID—he turns to her slowly. Now his emotions seem to flood him: Not when a man doesn’t make any mistakes. I kept them alive all year. Not even one got sick. I didn’t make a mistake. And now this storm comes, just when I need it calm, just tonight . . .

  HESTER: You talk as though the sun were shining everywhere else but here, as though the sky is making thunder just to knock you down.

  DAVID—he looks at her long as though she had reached into him: Yeh, that’s the way I talk. He seems about to sob: Bear with me, Hess—only a little while. He moves to go.

  HESTER: Davey . . . the house is gray. Like the old paint was creeping back on the walls. When will we sit and talk again? When will you pick up the baby . . . ?

  DAVID, comes alive: I did, Hess . . .

  HESTER: You never did. And why is that?

  DAVID: When you were out of the house . . .

  HESTER: Never, not since he’s been born. Can’t you tell me why? David turns and opens the door. Her fear raises her voice. Can’t you tell me why? He starts out. Davey, tell me why! He goes out. She calls out the door: Davey, I don’t understand! Come back here!

  In a moment, she comes away, closing the door. Her hands are lightly clasped to her throat. She comes to a halt in the room; now she turns on a lamp. She suddenly hears something behind her, turns, and takes a step toward the door as Gus quietly enters.

  HESTER, relieved: Oh, Gus!

  GUS, glancing toward the door: Is he coming right back?

  HESTER: He goes in and out, I don’t know. You’ll stay here tonight, won’t you?

  GUS: The first thing to do is sit down.

  As he leads her to the couch—she is near tears.

  HESTER: I kept calling you and calling
you.

  GUS, taking off his coat: Now get hold of yourself; there’s nothing to do till he finds out. I’m sorry, I was in Burley all afternoon, I just got home. What did Dibble tell you? He returns to her.

  HESTER: Just that he was losing animals, and he thought it was silkworm in the feed. They share the same carload.

  GUS: Ah. David notices nothing? A gesture toward outside with his head.

  HESTER: He just says they’re strung up, but that’s the lightning. It takes time for them to digest.

  GUS: Well then, we’ll wait and see. He goes to the window, looks out. This storm is going to wipe out the bridges. It’s terrible.

  HESTER: What am I going to do, Gus? He worked all year on those animals.

  GUS: We will do what we have to, Hester, that’s what we will do. He turns to her, taking out an envelope. Actually, I was coming over tonight anyway . . . To say goodbye.

  HESTER: Goodbye!

  GUS: In here I explain. He places the envelope on the mantel. When I am gone, give it to him. I can’t argue with him no more.

  HESTER: You mean you’re moving away?

  GUS: I am going to Chicago. There is an excellent position for me. Double what I can make here.

  HESTER: But why are you going?

  GUS: I told you, I can make double . . .

  HESTER, gets up: Don’t treat me like a baby, why are you going? Slight pause.

  GUS: Well . . . Actually, I am lonely. Laughs slightly. There is plenty of girls here, but no wifes, Hester. Thirty-seven years is a long time for a man to wash his own underwear.

  HESTER, touched: You and your red-headed girls!

  GUS: I was always a romantic man. You know that, don’t you? Truly.

  HESTER: But to give up a business and go traipsing off just for . . . ?

  GUS: Why not? What made me give up Detroit to come here?

  HESTER: Really, Gus?

  GUS: Certainly. Moving is very necessary for me. Pause. I’m leaving tomorrow night.

  HESTER: But why? I suppose I should understand, but I can’t. Pause. Gus looks directly at her. It doesn’t make sense. Insistently: Gus?

  GUS—pause. For a long time he keeps her in his eye: Because I have no courage to stay here. Pause. I was talking today with a doctor in Burley. I believe David . . . is possibly losing his mind.