The Eighth Day

by Thornton Wilder

  “Put your elbows up, as though you were fixing the back of your hair.”

  “The reason she doesn’t mention Papa is that she wants him all to herself. She doesn’t even want us to have ‘our Papa.’ I think she doesn’t go into the street because she doesn’t want to meet Mrs. Lansing. She’s afraid that Mrs. Lansing may have her own ‘our Papa.’ I’ll tell you something I never told anybody before. Early in the trial somebody left a letter in our mailbox. There was nobody’s name signed to it. On the envelope it said, ‘For Mrs. Ashley.’ Almost no letters came to our house; Papa and Mama never got any letters from their relations. I took the letter in to Mama, but during the trial Mama wasn’t interested in anything except that. She told me to open it and tell her what it said. . . . ? It was all about God punishing sin and people going to hell, and it said that Papa had been meeting Mrs. Lansing for years in the Farmer’s Hotel at Fort Barry. I lied to Mama. I said it was about a church bazaar. Three or four more letters came. I burned them up. . . . ? They were just ugly foolishness. Papa didn’t go to Fort Barry more than once a year and he usually came back on the afternoon train. And Mrs. Lansing only went to Fort Barry on Sunday, with the children, so that they could go to their Catholic church. . . . ? But I think Mrs. Lansing did love Papa. I hope she did and I hope he knew it. You couldn’t tell whether Papa loved Mrs. Lansing or not, because he had a way of liking every woman in this town. Didn’t he?”

  “Yes, he did. Stand up straight.”

  “I wouldn’t be shocked if Papa and Mrs. Lansing did love each other. Mrs. Lansing’s a very different kind of person. She doesn’t feel indifferent to anybody. . . . ? Mama didn’t see any of those letters, but maybe she knew that Mrs. Lansing felt deeply about Papa. Mama’s not the kind who would be angry or jealous, but maybe she didn’t go out in the street because of that. One night, late, Mama told me to get dressed and go for a walk with her, and, Miss Doubkov, we stopped for a long time in front of the Lansing house, just looking. I felt that Mama wished she could know—and yet didn’t want to know—the ‘Papa’ that maybe Mrs. Lansing carried in her heart.”

  “Walk to the door and back—slowly.”

  “I’m to blame for a lot, Miss Doubkov. I’m the oldest. I should have changed things. I should have made Mama talk about Papa. I should have helped Sophie more. I should have come into town as though nothing had happened. I don’t know what was the matter with me. What was the matter with me, Miss Doubkov? I was an idiot. I should have loved everybody more.—Where’s Roger? What’s he doing?—It’s all too late now. Oh, Papa, Papa, Papa, Papa!”

  “Don’t spoil that silk, Lily.”

  “That’s why I’m going to Chicago: so that I can learn to sing—so that I can do one thing right in this world.”

  “You can get dressed now.”

  After supper at “The Elms,” Mrs. Ashley was busier than usual about the kitchen. Her daughters watched her in bewilderment. She removed all the preserves from the shelves and carried them down to the basement. Bread, cakes, and pies she carried into the dining room and locked in the sideboard.

  “Why are you taking everything out of the kitchen, Mama?” asked Sophia.

  “I think it’s a good idea tonight.”

  Lily knew. She drew Sophia out of the room. “You must get some food for Mr. Malcolm, Sophie. He’s your patient and he’s starving.”

  When Sophie returned to the kitchen, her mother was locking the back door and the cellar door.

  “I don’t want you girls to come down here tonight.”

  After midnight Mr. Malcolm groped his way downstairs to the kitchen, where he lit his candle. The icebox was empty; the shelves were bare. The door leading to the cellar—those barrels of apples—was locked. As though in derision a small saucer of chicken feed stood on the table. It was all that Sophie had been able to find. He probed every cupboard and drawer, weeping with rage and frustration. Finally he scooped a handful of the chicken feed into his mouth. He heard a noise behind him and turned quickly. Mrs. Ashley, lamp in hand, stood watching him. She was wearing a thick bathrobe cut from some horse blanket.

  “Mrs. Ashley, I’m starving.”

  “Oh!—Then you’re better?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Have you recovered from your illness?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Mr. Malcolm, if you’re well enough to leave the house by seven-thirty and no later, I shall give you something to eat.”

  She made sandwiches. She fried eggs. She placed a jug of milk beside him. She sat down, her elbows on the table, her face in her hands. She watched him eat. Her eyes kept returning to the fingers of his left hand.

  “Mrs. Ashley, I love your daughter.”

  Mrs. Ashley made no reply.

  “Ma’am, your daughter could rise right up to the top of the entertainment business. She could be what they call a star in a very short time. I know that. My idea was that we could put together an act and show it to one of these agents.”

  “Has my daughter told you that she’s interested in these plans?”

  “Ma’am, she doesn’t even answer me when I talk to her. I swear to you. I don’t understand her. She acts as though she didn’t hear me. But, Mrs. Ashley, I love her. I love her.” He beat his fists on the table. He sobbed, “I’d kill myself before I’d do anything to harm her.”

  “Don’t raise your voice, Mr. Malcolm. Go on eating what’s before you.”

  He looked at her, outraged, but went on eating. She loathed him.

  “Has my daughter told you that she’s fond of you?”

  “You don’t listen to me. I told you. I swear to you, on the soul of my dead mother, she hasn’t said one word to me about anything like that. Not one word. —I’ve got friends who could teach her things. She’d learn fast. She’s a very intelligent girl. But what’s she going to learn in Coaltown? You can’t keep her down in Coaltown forever. She’s meant for big things.”

  “You’re a married man, Mr. Malcolm.”

  His face turned scarlet. When he had recovered himself he said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about that. But even if I were free I couldn’t marry her. She’s not a Catholic.” He leaned across the table. “But I’m not what you think I am, Mrs. Ashley. I’m a serious man. I’m a very serious man. I’m going to get to the top, too. I’ve started. I’ve sung at the Elks’ convention! I’m going to be big. Did you ever hear of Elmore Darcy? Or Terry McCool? He’s great. He was in The Sultan of Swat. That’s where I’m going. And your daughter! Did you ever hear of Mitzi Karsch in Bijou? Where have you been? Well, you’ve heard of Bella Myerson? Who have you heard of?”

  “Don’t raise your voice, Mr. Malcolm.”

  Mr. Malcolm raised his voice and stood up. He shouted “You’ve heard of Madame Modjeska in Maria Stuart, haven’t you? She’s Polish, like me. These people are stars. Do you understand that—like stars in the sky? If there weren’t stars in the sky we’d all be like goats with our heads down. Your daughter’s a star and I think I am. There are only fifteen or twenty alive in the world at any one time. They’re chosen. They’ve got a big load on their shoulders. People like that don’t live like other people. Why should they? They don’t care who’s married and who isn’t. They’re only interested in one thing—doing their job better and better: being perfect. You’re stifling your daughter down here. You ought to be glad I came.”

  She rose. “You’ve promised me that you will leave the house by seven-thirty in the morning. I will knock on your door at a quarter before seven.”

  She held up the lamp and indicated that he should follow her. When they parted at the door of her room, he whispered with brutal directness: “Your daughter’s a big artist, Mrs. Ashley. Did you ever hear about art? You’re a boardinghouse keeper in Coaltown, Illinois. Think it over. The sooner your daughter changes her name and gets out of here the better.”

  Mrs. Ashley did not flinch.

  Ladislas Malcolm found a note under his door. Miss Lily Scolastica Ashley wished
him a pleasant journey. She was thinking seriously of going to Chicago. He might write her, care of Miss Olga Doubkov, Coaltown, sending her any suggestions as to how she might continue her studies. She sent her regards.

  During the following days Lily gave no sign of regretting his departure, but she had changed. The last vestige of that air of moving in a dream had vanished. She was more than usually considerate toward her mother, but remote. She brushed aside requests to sing in the evening. Her mother did not again mention a trip to the bank, nor did she mention that she had seen a ring on Mr. Malcolm’s hand.

  Three weeks later Lily left Coaltown on the midnight train—the same train that had borne her father and his guards. The handbag she carried was the same one with which Beata Kellerman had left her home, surreptitiously—also in June—twenty-one years before.

  Autumn is very beautiful in Coaltown. The children return to school, exhausted by the aimless freedom of the long summer. Their mothers are rendered uneasy by the quiet; they even have some unoccupied hours and complain of headaches. The trees are clothed in heathen splendor. The days draw in. For many months the miners will live mainly by artificial light. The holidays of autumn are dreaded. George Lansing has left town, but on Halloween his troop of Mohicans will uproot the Mayor’s gateposts and wrench the hands of the town clock. The stouthearted members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union are manfully fighting to have the saloons closed on Election Day. Philosophy quickens briefly in the mind of even the most self-sufficient householder as he stands, once again, over his pile of burning leaves. The first snowfall opens wide the eyes of the townspeople; white casts a more than usual spell in Coaltown.

  Sophia and Constance did not return to school. A few adults were now nodding to Sophia on the street, but the boys and girls were still vindictive. The boys were still trying to trip her up. The younger girls had not yet tired of pretending that Sophia, like her wicked father, would shoot them dead. They crowded close about her and then, like panic-stricken doves, fled in all directions. Parents are often heard to complain that their children do not follow their example.

  With Lily’s departure the work became more burdensome. The weight of routine bore most heavily on Constance in the fall of 1904 and the following spring when she celebrated her twelfth birthday. February and March are the comfortless months. Constance was the only member of the family to indulge in tears and fits of temper. She longed to go to school, to church, to walk in the town. Sophia gave her charge of the ducks, her mother offered her an absorbing occupation remembered from her own girlhood in Hoboken, New Jersey: the care of the grape arbor and the making of the “spring wine”; but Constance found no interest in animals or plants. She wanted to see people—hundreds of people. It was Miss Doubkov who finally came to her rescue in July: “Beata, I think you’re very wise in not exposing Constance to the rudeness of the children in town, but I feel that she needs exercise. When I was her age—in Russia—my sister and I spent whole days hunting mushrooms and picking berries. If Constance gave you her promise not to go into the center of town, why not let her go into the woods three or four times a week?”

  It was wonderful. On alternate days Constance rose an hour earlier and began her scrubbing, mopping, and sweeping. At eleven she slipped out of town by the path behind the depot. She never told her mother that within three weeks she was a welcome visitor in many farmhouses. She sat in kitchens and listened, she helped her neighbors hang out the wash and listened. She sat a while with bedridden grandfathers and grandmothers. She loved to watch people’s faces, particularly their eyes. She had never known shyness. She joined mowers under the trees during their lunch hour. She came upon an encampment of gypsies. At “The Elms” her tears and outbursts of anger ceased.

  No Ashley had ever been seriously ill. One morning in October Sophia got out of bed, put on her hat, went downstairs, and started walking to the railway station in her nightgown. She fainted on the main street and was brought back and put to bed. Porky ran to call Dr. Gillies. Mrs. Ashley was waiting for the doctor when he came down the stairs. Her face was more stricken than on the day when her husband’s conviction had been read in court. Her hoarseness had returned.

  “What . . . ? what does it seem to be, Doctor?”

  “Well, Mrs. Ashley, I don’t like it. Sophie being Sophie, I don’t like it. I think I’ve seen it coming on. She’s all tuckered out, Mrs. Ashley.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now this afternoon I’m going to drive her out to the Bell Farm. Every one of the Bells loves Sophie. They’ve taken patients of mine before. I don’t think they’ll charge to board Sophie.”

  Mrs. Ashley put her hand on the newel post to steady herself. “This afternoon . . . ??”

  “Now, Sophie don’t want to go. She’s angry at me. She doesn’t know who’ll do the shopping. She thinks the house’ll fall down, if she isn’t here. I’ve given her something so she’ll rest. I’ll send Mrs. Hauserman over.”

  “I’ll do the shopping, Dr. Gillies.”

  “She’ll be glad to hear that. I told her firmly that her father would want her to get two weeks’ rest at the Bell Farm. For the first week I don’t want her to have any callers—not even yourself or Connie. But I think it’d be a good idea if you wrote her once a day. Tell her that ‘The Elms’ is running along pretty well, but that everybody misses her.—I think we’ve caught it in time, Mrs. Ashley.”

  “Caught . . . ? caught what, Dr. Gillies?”

  “For the first ten minutes she didn’t recognize me. Old carthorses break down, Mrs. Ashley. They can’t carry loads of gravel forever. I’d like to ask Roger to come back and see us. Suggest it to him when you write.—The Bells have loved Sophie ever since she walked out and asked them for some hog fat to make soap out of. They’re fond of Roger, too, him having worked there all those summers.—So I’ll be back at three.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  As he left the house, Dr. Gillies said to himself, “Some people go forward and some go back.”

  Beata Ashley went into the flower-pot room and sat down. She tried to rise several times. Waves of self-reproach swept over her. The next morning she dressed for her shopping trip into town. She descended the front steps; she reached her gate. She could go no further. She could not bring herself to face the handshakes, the greetings, the stares . . . ? from the citizens of Coaltown who had so often broken into gales of laughter in the courtroom . . . ? those jurymen, those jurymen’s wives. She returned into the house. She drew up a list of things needed and Mrs. Swenson did the shopping. Nor was she able to fulfill her intention of writing every day. Her letters were lame. She could think of nothing to say.

  While Sophia was at the Bell Farm she received a letter from her brother telling her that he was returning to Coaltown for Christmas. He wrote of this plan also to his mother and sent her, for “fun,” a sheaf of the articles he had published in the Chicago papers under the name of “Trent.”

  One night in November of that year Beata Ashley was awakened by a noise at her window—a rattling and rustling and a faint tapping. Her first thought was that a rain had changed to hail, but it was a clear starlight night. She sat up in bed; she put one foot on the floor and listened. For a moment her heart stopped beating. Small pieces of gravel were being thrown into her open window. She stepped into her slippers and threw her wrapper about her. She stood against the wall looking down through the window at the croquet ground below. As she watched, a man’s figure turned and hurried away toward the front of the house.

  She descended the stairs. Finally she opened the front door. There was no one there. She went into the kitchen and lit a lamp. She warmed some milk and drank it slowly.

  Just so, under the cover of night, John Ashley would return. Just so, he would announce his presence. She climbed the stairs to her room. She removed her slippers. She walked back and forth.

  There was no gravel on the floor.

  II. ILLINOIS TO CHILE

  1902–1905

>   A young man with a beard like cornsilk sat nightly from eleven to two in a café, Aux Marins, on the New Orleans waterfront. No habitual drunkards frequented Aux Marins; no altercations ever arose there. It was a place of long conversations, conducted in an undertone, about shipping and cargoes and crews. If a stranger came in the door, voices were raised slightly and the conversations turned upon politics, weather, women, and gambling. The café was watched by the police, and Jean Lamazou—Jean-le-Borgne—and his habitual customers were on the lookout for informers. They watched the young man with the silky beard. He gave little attention to what went on around him, and made no effort to enter into conversation with others. He spoke little (that little was in the French of France), but his greetings were open and friendly. He read newspapers and he studied pages torn from a Spanish in Fifty Lessons (“See, sain-yore, tain-go do-see pay-sos”). By the third week Jean-le-Borgne lost his distrust of this stranger; they were soon playing cards together for very small stakes. The young man let it be known that he was James Tolland, a Canadian. He was waiting to be joined by a friend from the north who owned a sugar plantation in Cuba.

  John Ashley was a man of faith. He did not know that he was a man of faith. He would have been quick to deny that he was a man of religious faith, but religions are merely the garments of faith—and very ill cut they often are, especially in Coaltown, Illinois.

  Like most men of faith John Ashley was—so to speak—invisible. You brushed shoulders with a man of faith in the crowd yesterday; a woman of faith sold you a pair of gloves. Their principal characteristics do not tend to render them conspicuous. Only from time to time one or other of them is propelled by circumstance into becoming visible—blindingly visible. They tend their flocks in Domrémy; they pursue an obscure law practice in New Salem, Illinois. They are not afraid; they are not self-regarding; they are constantly nourished by astonishment and wonder at life itself. They are not interesting. They lack those traits—our bosom companions—that so strongly engage our interest: aggression, the dominating will, envy, destructiveness and self-destructiveness. No pathos hovers about them. Try as hard as you like, you cannot see them as the subjects of tragedy. (It has often been attempted; when the emotion subsides the audience finds that its tears have been shed, unprofitably, for itself.) They have little sense of humor, which draws so heavily on a consciousness of superiority and on an aloofness from the predicaments of others. In general they are inarticulate, especially in matters of faith. The intellectual qualifications for faith—as we shall see when we consider Ashley’s faith in connection with his mathematical gift and his talent as a gambler—are developed and fortified by a ranging observation and a retentive memory. Faith founded schools; it is not dependent on them. A high authority has told us that we are more likely to find faith in an old woman on her knees scrubbing the floors of a public building than in a bishop on his throne. We have described these men and women in negative terms—fearless, not self-referent, uninteresting, humorless, so often unlearned. Wherein lies their value?