The Penguin Arthur Miller

by Arthur Miller

CHRIS: I’m going to ask her to marry me. Slight pause.

  KELLER, nods: Well, that’s only your business, Chris.

  CHRIS: You know it’s not only my business.

  KELLER: What do you want me to do? You’re old enough to know your own mind.

  CHRIS, asking, annoyed: Then it’s all right, I’ll go ahead with it?

  KELLER: Well, you want to be sure Mother isn’t going to . . .

  CHRIS: Then it isn’t just my business.

  KELLER: I’m just sayin’. . . .

  CHRIS: Sometimes you infuriate me, you know that? Isn’t it your business, too, if I tell this to Mother and she throws a fit about it? You have such a talent for ignoring things.

  KELLER: I ignore what I gotta ignore. The girl is Larry’s girl . . .

  CHRIS: She’s not Larry’s girl.

  KELLER: From Mother’s point of view he is not dead and you have no right to take his girl. Slight pause. Now you can go on from there if you know where to go, but I’m tellin’ you I don’t know where to go. See? I don’t know. Now what can I do for you?

  CHRIS: I don’t know why it is, but every time I reach out for something I want, I have to pull back because other people will suffer. My whole bloody life, time after time after time.

  KELLER: You’re a considerate fella, there’s nothing wrong in that.

  CHRIS: To hell with that.

  KELLER: Did you ask Annie yet?

  CHRIS: I wanted to get this settled first.

  KELLER: How do you know she’ll marry you? Maybe she feels the same way Mother does?

  CHRIS: Well, if she does, then that’s the end of it. From her letters I think she’s forgotten him. I’ll find out. And then we’ll thrash it out with Mother? Right? Dad, don’t avoid me.

  KELLER: The trouble is, you don’t see enough women. You never did.

  CHRIS: So what? I’m not fast with women.

  KELLER: I don’t see why it has to be Annie. . . .

  CHRIS: Because it is.

  KELLER: That’s a good answer, but it don’t answer anything. You haven’t seen her since you went to war. It’s five years.

  CHRIS: I can’t help it. I know her best. I was brought up next door to her. These years when I think of someone for my wife, I think of Annie. What do you want, a diagram?

  KELLER: I don’t want a diagram . . . I . . . I’m . . . She thinks he’s coming back, Chris. You marry that girl and you’re pronouncing him dead. Now what’s going to happen to Mother? Do you know? I don’t! Pause.

  CHRIS: All right, then, Dad.

  KELLER, thinking Chris has retreated: Give it some more thought.

  CHRIS: I’ve given it three years of thought. I’d hoped that if I waited, Mother would forget Larry and then we’d have a regular wedding and everything happy. But if that can’t happen here, then I’ll have to get out.

  KELLER: What the hell is this?

  CHRIS: I’ll get out. I’ll get married and live someplace else. Maybe in New York.

  KELLER: Are you crazy?

  CHRIS: I’ve been a good son too long, a good sucker. I’m through with it.

  KELLER: You’ve got a business here, what the hell is this?

  CHRIS: The business! The business doesn’t inspire me.

  KELLER: Must you be inspired?

  CHRIS: Yes. I like it an hour a day. If I have to grub for money all day long at least at evening I want it beautiful. I want a family, I want some kids, I want to build something I can give myself to. Annie is in the middle of that. Now . . . where do I find it?

  KELLER: You mean . . . Goes to him. Tell me something, you mean you’d leave the business?

  CHRIS: Yes. On this I would.

  KELLER—pause: Well . . . you don’t want to think like that.

  CHRIS: Then help me stay here.

  KELLER: All right, but . . . but don’t think like that. Because what the hell did I work for? That’s only for you, Chris, the whole shootin’-match is for you!

  CHRIS: I know that, Dad. Just you help me stay here.

  KELLER, puts a fist up to Chris’s jaw: But don’t think that way, you hear me?

  CHRIS: I am thinking that way.

  KELLER, lowering his hand: I don’t understand you, do I?

  CHRIS: No, you don’t. I’m a pretty tough guy.

  KELLER: Yeah. I can see that. Mother appears on porch. She is in her early fifties, a woman of uncontrolled inspirations, and an overwhelming capacity for love.

  MOTHER: Joe?

  CHRIS, going toward porch: Hello, Mom.

  MOTHER, indicating house behind her. To Keller: Did you take a bag from under the sink?

  KELLER: Yeah, I put it in the pail.

  MOTHER: Well, get it out of the pail. That’s my potatoes. Chris bursts out laughing—goes up into alley.

  KELLER, laughing: I thought it was garbage.

  MOTHER: Will you do me a favor, Joe? Don’t be helpful.

  KELLER: I can afford another bag of potatoes.

  MOTHER: Minnie scoured that pail in boiling water last night. It’s cleaner than your teeth.

  KELLER: And I don’t understand why, after I worked forty years and I got a maid, why I have to take out the garbage.

  MOTHER: If you would make up your mind that every bag in the kitchen isn’t full of garbage you wouldn’t be throwing out my vegetables. Last time it was the onions. Chris comes on, hands her bag.

  KELLER: I don’t like garbage in the house.

  MOTHER: Then don’t eat. She goes into the kitchen with bag.

  CHRIS: That settles you for today.

  KELLER: Yeah, I’m in last place again. I don’t know, once upon a time I used to think that when I got money again I would have a maid and my wife would take it easy. Now I got money, and I got a maid, and my wife is workin’ for the maid. He sits in one of the chairs. Mother comes out on last line. She carries a pot of stringbeans.

  MOTHER: It’s her day off, what are you crabbing about?

  CHRIS, to Mother: Isn’t Annie finished eating?

  MOTHER, looking around preoccupiedly at yard: She’ll be right out. Moves. That wind did some job on this place. Of the tree: So much for that, thank God.

  KELLER, indicating chair beside him: Sit down, take it easy.

  MOTHER—she presses her hand to top of her head: I’ve got such a funny pain on the top of my head.

  CHRIS: Can I get you an aspirin?

  MOTHER, picks a few petals off ground, stands there smelling them in her hand, then sprinkles them over plants: No more roses. It’s so funny . . . everything decides to happen at the same time. This month is his birthday; his tree blows down, Annie comes. Everything that happened seems to be coming back. I was just down the cellar, and what do I stumble over? His baseball glove. I haven’t seen it in a century.

  CHRIS: Don’t you think Annie looks well?

  MOTHER: Fine. There’s no question about it. She’s a beauty . . . I still don’t know what brought her here. Not that I’m not glad to see her, but . . .

  CHRIS: I just thought we’d all like to see each other again. Mother just looks at him, nodding ever so slightly—almost as though admitting something. And I wanted to see her myself.

  MOTHER—her nods halt. To Keller: The only thing is I think her nose got longer. But I’ll always love that girl. She’s one that didn’t jump into bed with somebody else as soon as it happened with her fella.

  KELLER, as though that were impossible for Annie: Oh, what’re you . . . ?

  MOTHER: Never mind. Most of them didn’t wait till the telegrams were opened. I’m just glad she came, so you can see I’m not completely out of my mind. Sits, and rapidly breaks stringbeans in the pot.

  CHRIS: Just because she isn’t married doesn’t mean she’s been mourning Larry.

  MOTHER, with an undercur
rent of observation: Why then isn’t she?

  CHRIS, a little flustered: Well . . . it could’ve been any number of things.

  MOTHER, directly at him: Like what, for instance?

  CHRIS, embarrassed, but standing his ground: I don’t know. Whatever it is. Can I get you an aspirin? Mother puts her hand to her head.

  MOTHER—she gets up and goes aimlessly toward the trees on rising: It’s not like a headache.

  KELLER: You don’t sleep, that’s why. She’s wearing out more bedroom slippers than shoes.

  MOTHER: I had a terrible night. She stops moving. I never had a night like that.

  CHRIS, looks at Keller: What was it, Mom? Did you dream?

  MOTHER: More, more than a dream.

  CHRIS, hesitantly: About Larry?

  MOTHER: I was fast asleep, and . . . Raising her arm over the audience: Remember the way he used to fly low past the house when he was in training? When we used to see his face in the cockpit going by? That’s the way I saw him. Only high up. Way, way up, where the clouds are. He was so real I could reach out and touch him. And suddenly he started to fall. And crying, crying to me . . . Mom, Mom! I could hear him like he was in the room. Mom! . . . it was his voice! If I could touch him I knew I could stop him, if I could only . . . Breaks off, allowing her outstretched hand to fall. I woke up and it was so funny . . . The wind . . . it was like the roaring of his engine. I came out here . . . I must’ve still been half asleep. I could hear that roaring like he was going by. The tree snapped right in front of me . . . and I like . . . came awake. She is looking at tree. She suddenly realizes something, turns with a reprimanding finger shaking slightly at Keller. See? We should never have planted that tree. I said so in the first place; it was too soon to plant a tree for him.

  CHRIS, alarmed: Too soon!

  MOTHER, angering: We rushed into it. Everybody was in such a hurry to bury him. I said not to plant it yet. To Keller: I told you to . . . !

  CHRIS: Mother, Mother! She looks into his face. The wind blew it down. What significance has that got? What are you talking about? Mother, please . . . Don’t go through it all again, will you? It’s no good, it doesn’t accomplish anything. I’ve been thinking, y’know?—maybe we ought to put our minds to forgetting him?

  MOTHER: That’s the third time you’ve said that this week.

  CHRIS: Because it’s not right; we never took up our lives again. We’re like at a railroad station waiting for a train that never comes in.

  MOTHER, presses top of her head: Get me an aspirin, heh?

  CHRIS: Sure, and let’s break out of this, heh, Mom? I thought the four of us might go out to dinner a couple of nights, maybe go dancing out at the shore.

  MOTHER: Fine. To Keller: We can do it tonight.

  KELLER: Swell with me!

  CHRIS: Sure, let’s have some fun. To Mother: You’ll start with this aspirin. He goes up and into house with new spirit. Her smile vanishes.

  MOTHER, with an accusing undertone: Why did he invite her here?

  KELLER: Why does that bother you?

  MOTHER: She’s been in New York three and a half years, why all of a sudden . . . ?

  KELLER: Well, maybe . . . maybe he just wanted to see her . . .

  MOTHER: Nobody comes seven hundred miles “just to see.”

  KELLER: What do you mean? He lived next door to the girl all his life, why shouldn’t he want to see her again? Mother looks at him critically. Don’t look at me like that, he didn’t tell me any more than he told you.

  MOTHER, a warning and a question: He’s not going to marry her.

  KELLER: How do you know he’s even thinking of it?

  MOTHER: It’s got that about it.

  KELLER, sharply watching her reaction: Well? So what?

  MOTHER, alarmed: What’s going on here, Joe?

  KELLER: Now listen, kid . . .

  MOTHER, avoiding contact with him: She’s not his girl, Joe; she knows she’s not.

  KELLER: You can’t read her mind.

  MOTHER: Then why is she still single? New York is full of men, why isn’t she married? Pause. Probably a hundred people told her she’s foolish, but she’s waited.

  KELLER: How do you know why she waited?

  MOTHER: She knows what I know, that’s why. She’s faithful as a rock. In my worst moments, I think of her waiting, and I know again that I’m right.

  KELLER: Look, it’s a nice day. What are we arguing for?

  MOTHER, warningly: Nobody in this house dast take her faith away, Joe. Strangers might. But not his father, not his brother.

  KELLER, exasperated: What do you want me to do? What do you want?

  MOTHER: I want you to act like he’s coming back. Both of you. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you since Chris invited her. I won’t stand for any nonsense.

  KELLER: But, Kate . . .

  MOTHER: Because if he’s not coming back, then I’ll kill myself! Laugh. Laugh at me. She points to tree. But why did that happen the very night she came back? Laugh, but there are meanings in such things. She goes to sleep in his room and his memorial breaks in pieces. Look at it; look. She sits on bench at his left. Joe . . .

  KELLER: Calm yourself.

  MOTHER: Believe with me, Joe. I can’t stand all alone.

  KELLER: Calm yourself.

  MOTHER: Only last week a man turned up in Detroit, missing longer than Larry. You read it yourself.

  KELLER: All right, all right, calm yourself.

  MOTHER: You above all have got to believe, you . . .

  KELLER, rises: Why me above all?

  MOTHER: . . . Just don’t stop believing . . .

  KELLER: What does that mean, me above all? Bert comes rushing on from left.

  BERT: Mr. Keller! Say, Mr. Keller . . . Pointing up driveway: Tommy just said it again!

  KELLER, not remembering any of it: Said what? . . . Who? . . .

  BERT: The dirty word.

  KELLER: Oh. Well . . .

  BERT: Gee, aren’t you going to arrest him? I warned him.

  MOTHER, with suddenness: Stop that, Bert. Go home. Bert backs up, as she advances. There’s no jail here.

  KELLER, as though to say, “Oh-what-the-hell-let-him-believe-there-is”: Kate . . .

  MOTHER, turning on Keller, furiously: There’s no jail here! I want you to stop that jail business! He turns, shamed, but peeved.

  BERT, past her to Keller: He’s right across the street . . .

  MOTHER: Go home, Bert.

  Bert turns around and goes up driveway. She is shaken. Her speech is bitten off, extremely urgent.

  I want you to stop that, Joe. That whole jail business!

  KELLER, alarmed, therefore angered: Look at you, look at you shaking.

  MOTHER trying to control herself, moving about clasping her hands: I can’t help it.

  KELLER: What have I got to hide? What the hell is the matter with you, Kate?

  MOTHER: I didn’t say you had anything to hide, I’m just telling you to stop it! Now stop it!

  As Ann and Chris appear on porch. Ann is twenty-six, gentle but despite herself capable of holding fast to what she knows. Chris opens door for her.

  ANN: Hya, Joe! She leads off a general laugh that is not self-conscious because they know one another too well.

  CHRIS, bringing Ann down, with an outstretched, chivalric arm: Take a breath of that air, kid. You never get air like that in New York.

  MOTHER, genuinely overcome with it: Annie, where did you get that dress!

  ANN: I couldn’t resist. I’m taking it right off before I ruin it. Swings around. How’s that for three weeks’ salary?

  MOTHER, to Keller: Isn’t she the most . . . ? To Ann: It’s gorgeous, simply gor . . .

  CHRIS, to Mother: No kidding, now, isn’t she the prettiest gal you ever
saw?

  MOTHER, caught short by his obvious admiration, she finds herself reaching out for a glass of water and aspirin in his hand, and . . . : You gained a little weight, didn’t you, darling? She gulps pill and drinks.

  ANN: It comes and goes.

  KELLER: Look how nice her legs turned out!

  ANN—she runs to fence, left: Boy, the poplars got thick, didn’t they?

  KELLER, moves upstage to settee and sits: Well, it’s three years, Annie. We’re gettin’ old, kid.

  MOTHER: How does Mom like New York? Ann keeps looking through trees.

  ANN, a little hurt: Why’d they take our hammock away?

  KELLER: Oh, no, it broke. Couple of years ago.

  MOTHER: What broke? He had one of his light lunches and flopped into it.

  ANN—she laughs and turns back toward Jim’s yard. . . . : Oh, excuse me! Jim has come to fence and is looking over it. He is smoking a cigar. As she cries out, he comes on around on stage.

  JIM: How do you do. To Chris: She looks very intelligent!

  CHRIS: Ann, this is Jim . . . Doctor Bayliss.

  ANN, shaking Jim’s hand: Oh sure, he writes a lot about you.

  JIM: Don’t believe it. He likes everybody. In the Battalion he was known as Mother McKeller.

  ANN: I can believe it . . . You know—? To Mother: It’s so strange seeing him come out of that yard. To Chris: I guess I never grew up. It almost seems that Mom and Pop are in there now. And you and my brother doing Algebra, and Larry trying to copy my home-work. Gosh, those dear dead days beyond recall.

  JIM: Well, I hope that doesn’t mean you want me to move out?

  SUE, calling from off left: Jim, come in here! Mr. Hubbard is on the phone!

  JIM: I told you I don’t want . . .

  SUE, commandingly sweet: Please, dear! Please!!

  JIM, resigned: All right, Susie. . . . Trailing off: All right, all right. . . . To Ann: I’ve only met you, Ann, but if I may offer you a piece of advice—When you marry, never—even in your mind—never count your husband’s money.

  SUE, from off: Jim?!

  JIM: At once! Turns and goes left. At once. He exits left.

  MOTHER—Ann is looking at her. She speaks meaningfully: I told her to take up the guitar. It’d be a common interest for them. They laugh. Well, he loves the guitar!