The Family Reunion

by T. S. Eliot

  Says he doesn’t know this part of the country

  And stopped to take his bearings. We’ve got him at the Arms—

  Mr. John, I mean. By a bit of luck

  Dr. Owen was there, and looked him over;

  Says there’s nothing wrong but some nasty cuts

  And a bad concussion; says he’ll come round

  In the morning, most likely, but he mustn’t be moved.

  But Dr. Owen was anxious that you should have a look at him.

  WARBURTON

  Quite right, quite right. I'll go and have a look at him.

  We must explain to your mother . . .

  AMY’S VOICE

  Harry! Harry!

  Who’s there with you? Is it Arthur or John?

  [Enter AMY, followed severally by VIOLET, IVY, GERALD, AGATHA, and CHARLES]

  Winchell! what are you here for?

  WINCHELL

  I’m sorry, my Lady, but I’ve just told the doctor,

  It’s really nothing but a minor accident.

  WARBURTON

  It’s John has had the accident, Lady Monchensey;

  And Winchell tells me Dr. Owen has seen him

  And says it’s nothing but a slight concussion,

  But he mustn’t be moved tonight. I’d trust Owen

  On a matter like this. You can trust Owen.

  We'll bring him up tomorrow; and a few days’ rest,

  I’ve no doubt, will be all that he needs.

  AMY

  Accident? What sort of an accident?

  WINCHELL

  Coming along in the fog, my Lady,

  And he must have been in rather a hurry.

  There was a lorry drawn up where it shouldn’t be,

  Outside of the village, on the West Road.

  AMY

  Where is he?

  WINCHELL

  At the Arms, my Lady;

  Of course, he hasn’t come round yet.

  Dr. Owen was there, by a bit of luck.

  GERALD

  I’ll go down and see him, Amy, and come back and report to you.

  AMY

  I must see for myself. Order the car at once.

  WARBURTON

  I forbid it, Lady Monchensey.

  As your doctor, I forbid you to leave the house tonight.

  There is nothing you could do, and out in this weather

  At this time of night, I would not answer for the consequences.

  I am going myself. I will come back and report to you.

  AMY

  I must see for myself. I do not believe you.

  CHARLES

  Much better leave it to Warburton, Amy.

  Extremely fortunate for us that he’s here.

  We must put ourselves under Warburton's orders.

  WARBURTON

  I repeat, Lady Monchensey, that you must not go out.

  If you do, I must decline to continue to treat you.

  You are only delaying me. I shall return at once.

  AMY

  Well, I suppose you are right. But can I trust you?

  WARBURTON

  You have trusted me a good many years. Lady Monchensey;

  This is not the time to begin to doubt me.

  Come, Winchell. We can put your bicycle

  On the back of my car.

  [Exeunt WARBURTON and WINCHELL.]

  VIOLET

  Well, Harry,

  I think that you might have had something to say.

  Aren’t you sorry for your brother? Aren’t you aware

  Of what is going on? and what it means to your mother?

  HARRY

  Oh, of course I’m sorry. But from what Winchell says

  I don’t think the matter can be very serious.

  A minor trouble like a concussion

  Cannot make very much difference to John.

  A brief vacation from the kind of consciousness

  That John enjoys, can’t make very much difference

  To him or to anyone else. If he was ever really conscious,

  I should be glad for him to have a breathing spell:

  But John’s ordinary day isn’t much more than breathing.

  IVY

  Really, Harry! how can you be so callous?

  I always thought you were so fond of John.

  VIOLET

  And if you don’t care what happens to John,

  You might show some consideration to your mother.

  AMY

  I do not know very much:

  And as I get older, I am coming to think

  How little I have ever known.

  But I think your remarks are much more inappropriate

  Than Harry’s.

  HARRY

  It’s only when they see nothing

  That people can always show the suitable emotions—

  And so far as they feel at all, their emotions are suitable.

  They don’t understand what it is to be awake,

  To be living on several planes at once

  Though one cannot speak with several voices at once.

  I have all of the rightminded feeling about John

  That you consider appropriate. Only, that’s not the language

  That I choose to be talking. I will not talk yours.

  AMY

  You looked like your father

  When you said that.

  HARRY

  I think, mother,

  I shall make you lie down. You must be very tired.

  [Exeunt HARRY and AMY.]

  VIOLET

  I really do not understand Harry’s behaviour.

  AGATHA

  I think it is as well to leave Harry to establish

  If he can, some communication with his mother.

  VIOLET

  I do not seem to be very popular tonight.

  CHARLES

  Well, there’s no sort of use in any of us going—

  On a night like this—it’s a good three miles;

  There’s nothing we could do that Warburton can’t.

  If he’s worse than Winchell said, then he’ll let us know at once.

  GERALD

  I am really more afraid of the shock for Amy;

  But I think that Warburton understands that.

  IVY

  You are quite right, Gerald, the one thing that matters

  Is not to let her see that anyone is worried.

  We must carry on as if nothing had happened,

  And have the cake and presents.

  GERALD

  But I’m worried about Arthur:

  He’s much more apt than John to get into trouble.

  CHARLES

  Oh, but Arthur’s a brilliant driver.

  After all the experience he’s had at Brooklands,

  He’s not likely to get into trouble.

  GERALD

  A brilliant driver, but more reckless.

  IVY

  Yet I remember, when they were boys,

  Arthur was always the more adventurous

  But John was the one that had the accidents,

  Somehow, just because he was the slow one.

  He was always the one to fall off the pony,

  Or out of a tree—and always on his head.

  VIOLET

  But a year ago, Arthur took me out in his car,

  And I told him I would never go out with him again.

  Not that I wanted to go with him at all—

  Though of course he meant well—but 1 think an open car

  Is so undignified: you’re blown about so,

  And you feel so conspicuous, lolling back

  And so near the street, and everyone staring;

  And the pace he went at was simply terrifying.

  I said I would rather walk: and I did.

  GERALD

  Walk? where to?

  VIOLET

  He started out to take me to Cheltenham;

  But I stopped him somewhere in Chiswick, I think. />
  Anyway, the district was unfamiliar

  And I had the greatest trouble in getting home.

  I am sure he meant well, But I do think he is reckless.

  GERALD

  I wonder how much Amy knows about Arthur?

  CHARLES

  More than she cares to mention, I imagine.

  [Enter HARRY.]

  HARRY

  Mother is asleep, I think: it’s strange how the old

  Can drop off to sleep in the middle of calamity

  Like children, or like hardened campaigners. She looked

  Very much as she must have looked when she was a child.

  You’ve been holding a meeting—the usual family inquest

  On the characters of all the junior members?

  Or engaged in predicting the minor event,

  Engaged in foreseeing the minor disaster?

  You go on trying to think of each thing separately,

  Making small things important, so that everything

  May be unimportant, a slight deviation

  From some imaginary course that life ought to take,

  That you call normal. What you call the normal

  Is merely the unreal and the unimportant.

  I was like that in a way, so long as I could think

  Even of my own life as an isolated ruin,

  A casual bit of waste in an orderly universe.

  But it begins to seem just part of some huge disaster,

  Some monstrous mistake and aberration

  Of all men, of the world, which I cannot put in order.

  If you only knew the years that I have had to live

  Since I came home, a few hours ago, to Wishwood.

  VIOLET

  I will make no observation on what you say, Harry;

  My comments are not always welcome in this family.

  [Enter DENMAN.]

  DENMAN

  Excuse me, Miss Ivy. There’s a trunk call for you.

  IVY

  A trunk call? for me? why, who can want me?

  DENMAN

  He wouldn’t give his name, Miss; but it’s Mr. Arthur.

  IVY

  Arthur! Oh, dear, I’m afraid he's had an accident.

  [Exeunt IVY and DENMAN.]

  VIOLET

  When it’s Ivy that he’s asking for, I expect the worst.

  AGATHA

  Whatever you have learned, Harry, you must remember

  That there is always more: we cannot rest in being

  The impatient spectators of malice or stupidity.

  We must try to penetrate the other private worlds

  Of make-believe and fear. To rest in our own suffering

  Is evasion of suffering. We must learn to suffer more.

  VIOLET

  Agatha’s remarks are invariably pointed.

  HARRY

  Do you think that I believe what I said just now?

  That was only what I should like to believe.

  I was talking in abstractions: and you answered in abstractions.

  I have a private puzzle. Were they simply outside,

  I might escape somewhere, perhaps. Were they simply inside

  I could cheat them perhaps with the aid of Dr. Warburton—

  Or any other doctor, who would be another Warburton,

  If you decided to set another doctor on me.

  But this is too real for your words to alter.

  Oh, there must be another way of talking

  That would get us somewhere. You don’t understand me.

  You can’t understand me. It’s not being alone

  That is the horror, to be alone with the horror.

  What matters is the filthiness. I can clean my skin,

  Purify my life, void my mind,

  But always the filthiness, that lies a little deeper . . .

  [Enter IVY.]

  IVY

  Where is there an evening paper?

  GERALD

  Why, what’s the matter?

  IVY

  Somebody, look for Arthur in the evening paper.

  That was Arthur, ringing up from London:

  The connection was so bad, I could hardly hear him,

  And his voice was very queer. It seems that Arthur too

  Has had an accident. I don’t think he’s hurt,

  But he says that he hasn’t got the use of his car,

  And he missed the last train, so he’s coming up tomorrow;

  And he said there was something about it in the paper,

  But it’s all a mistake. And not to tell his mother.

  VIOLET

  What’s the use of asking for an evening paper?

  You know as well as I do, at this distance from London

  Nobody’s likely to have this evening’s paper.

  CHARLES

  Stop, I think I bought a lunch edition

  Before I left St. Pancras. If I did, it’s in my overcoat.

  I’ll see if it’s there. There might be something in that.

  [Exit.]

  GERALD

  Well, I said that Arthur was every bit as likely

  To have an accident as John. And it wasn’t John’s fault,

  I don’t believe. John is unlucky,

  But Arthur is definitely reckless.

  VIOLET

  I think these racing cars ought to be prohibited.

  [Re-enter CHARLES, with a newspaper.]

  CHARLES

  Yes, there is a paragraph . . . I’m glad to say

  It’s not very conspicuous . . .

  GERALD

  There’ll have been more in the later editions.

  You’d better read it to us.

  CHARLES [reads]

  ‘Peer's Brother in Motor Smash’

  ‘The Hon. Arthur Gerald Charles Piper, younger brother of Lord Monchensey, who ran into and demolished a roundsman’s cart in Ebury Street early on the morning of January 1st, was fined £50 and costs today, and forbidden to drive a car for the next twelve months.

  While trying to extricate his car from the collision, Mr. Piper reversed into a shop-window. When challenged, Mr. Piper said: “I thought it was all open country about here”—’

  GERALD

  Where?

  CHARLES

  In Ebury Street. ‘The police stated that at the time of the accident Mr. Piper was being pursued by a patrol, and was travelling at the rate of 66 miles an hour. When asked why he did not stop when signalled by the police car, he said: “I thought you were having a game with me.”’

  GERALD

  This is what the Communists make capital out of.

  CHARLES

  There’s a little more. ‘The Piper family . . .’ no, we needn’t read that.

  VIOLET

  This is just what I expected. But if Agatha

  Is going to moralise about it, I shall scream.

  GERALD

  It’s going to be awkward, explaining this to Amy.

  IVY

  Poor Arthur! I’m sure that you’re being much too hard on him.

  CHARLES

  In my time, these affairs were kept out of the papers;

  But nowadays, there’s no such thing as privacy.

  CHORUS

  In an old house there is always listening, and more is heard than is spoken.

  And what is spoken remains in the room, waiting for the future to hear it.

  And whatever happens began in the past, and presses hard on the future.

  The agony in the curtained bedroom, whether of birth or of dying,

  Gathers in to itself all the voices of the past, and projects them into the future.

  The treble voices on the lawn

  The mowing of hay in summer

  The dogs and the old pony

  The stumble and the wail of little pain

  The chopping of wood in autumn

  And the singing in the kitchen

  And the steps at night in the corridor

  The
moment of sudden loathing

  And the season of stifled sorrow

  The whisper, the transparent deception

  The keeping up of appearances

  The making the best of a bad job

  All twined and tangled together, all are recorded.

  There is no avoiding these things

  And we know nothing of exorcism

  And whether in Argos or England

  There are certain inflexible laws

  Unalterable, in the nature of music.

  There is nothing at all to be done about it,

  There is nothing to do about anything,

  And now it is nearly time for the news

  We must listen to the weather report

  And the international catastrophes.

  [Exeunt CHORUS.]

  Scene II

  HARRY, AGATHA

  HARRY

  John will recover, be what he always was;