HALE: Aye.
ELIZABETH,
her breath knocked out:
Why—! The girl is murder! She must be ripped out of the world!
CHEEVER,
pointing at Elizabeth:
You’ve heard that, sir! Ripped out of the world! Herrick, you heard it!
PROCTOR,
suddenly snatching the warrant out of Cheever’s hands:
Out with you.
CHEEVER: Proctor, you dare not touch the warrant.
PROCTOR,
ripping the warrant:
Out with you!
CHEEVER: You’ve ripped the Deputy Governor’s warrant, man!
PROCTOR: Damn the Deputy Governor! Out of my house!
HALE: Now, Proctor, Proctor!
PROCTOR: Get y’gone with them! You are a broken minister.
HALE: Proctor, if she is innocent, the court—
PROCTOR: If
she
is innocent! Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers? I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem—vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant’s vengeance! I’ll not give my wife to vengeance!
ELIZABETH: I’ll go, John—
PROCTOR: You will not go!
HERRICK: I have nine men outside. You cannot keep her. The law binds me, John, I cannot budge.
PROCTOR,
to Hale, ready to break him:
Will you see her taken?
HALE: Proctor, the court is just—
PROCTOR: Pontius Pilate! God will not let you wash your hands of this!
ELIZABETH: John—I think I must go with them.
He cannot bear to look at her.
Mary, there is bread enough for the morning; you will bake, in the afternoon. Help Mr. Proctor as you were his daughter—you owe me that, and much more.
She is fighting her weeping.
To
Proctor:
When the children wake, speak nothing of witchcraft—it will frighten them.
She cannot go on.
PROCTOR: I will bring you home. I will bring you soon.
ELIZABETH: Oh, John, bring me soon!
PROCTOR: I will fall like an ocean on that court! Fear nothing, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH,
with great fear:
I will fear nothing.
She looks about the room, as though to fix it in her mind.
Tell the children I have gone to visit someone sick.
She walks out the door, Herrick and Cheever behind her. For a moment, Proctor watches from the doorway. The clank of chain is heard.
PROCTOR: Herrick! Herrick, don’t chain her!
He rushes out the door. From outside:
Damn you, man, you will not chain her! Off with them! I’ll not have it! I will not have her chained!
There are other men’s voices against his. Hale, in a fever of guilt and uncertainty, turns from the door to avoid the sight; Mary Warren bursts into tears and sits weeping. Giles Corey calls to Hale.
GILES: And yet silent, minister? It is fraud,. you know it is fraud! What keeps you, man?
Proctor is half braced, half pushed into the room by two deputies and Herrick.
PROCTOR: I’ll pay you, Herrick, I will surely pay you!
HERRICK,
panting:
In God’s name, John, I cannot help myself. I must chain them all. Now let you keep inside this house till I am gone!
He goes out with his deputies.
Proctor stands there, gulping air. Horses and a wagon creaking are heard.
HALE,
in great uncertainty:
Mr. Proctor—
PROCTOR: Out of my sight!
HALE: Charity, Proctor, charity. What I have heard in her favor, I will not fear to testify in court. God help me, I cannot judge her guilty or Innocent—I know not. Only this consider: the world goes mad, and it profit nothing you should lay the cause to the vengeance of a little girl.
PROCTOR: You are a coward! Though you be ordained in God’s own tears, you are a coward now!
HALE: Proctor, I cannot think God be provoked so grandly by such a petty cause. The jails are packed—our greatest judges sit in Salem now—and hangin’s promised. Man, we must look to cause proportionate. Were there murder done, perhaps, and never brought to light? Abomination? Some secret blasphemy that stinks to Heaven? Think on cause, man, and let you help me to discover it. For there’s your way, believe it, there is your only way, when such confusion strikes upon the world.
He goes
to
Giles and Francis.
Let you counsel among yourselves; think on your village and what may have drawn from heaven such thundering wrath upon you all. I shall pray God open up our eyes.
Hale goes out.
FRANCIS,
struck by Hale’s mood:
I never heard no murder done in Salem.
PROCTOR—
he has been reached by Hale’s words:
Leave me, Francis, leave me.
GILES,
shaken:
John—tell me, are we lost?
PROCTOR: Go home now, Giles. We’ll speak on it tomorrow.
GILES: Let you think on it. We’ll come early, eh?
PROCTOR: Aye. Go now, Giles.
GILES: Good night, then.
Giles Corey and Francis Nurse go out. After a moment:
MARY WARREN,
in a fearful squeak of a voice:
Mr. Proctor, very likely they’ll let her come home once they’re given proper evidence.
PROCTOR: You’re coming to the court with me, Mary. You will tell it in the court.
MARY WARREN: I cannot charge murder on Abigail.
PROCTOR,
moving menacingly toward her:
You will tell the court how that poppet come here and who stuck the needle in.
MARY WARREN: She’ll kill me for sayin’ that!
Proctor continues toward her.
Abby’ll charge lechery on you, Mr. Proctor!
PROCTOR,
halting:
She’s told you!
MARY WARREN: I have known it, sir. She’ll ruin you with it, I know she will.
PROCTOR,
hesitating, and with deep hatred of himself:
Good. Then her saintliness is done with.
Mary backs from him.
We will slide together into our pit; you will tell the court what you know.
MARY WARREN, in terror: I cannot, they’ll turn on me—
Proctor strides and catches her, and she is repeating, “I cannot, I cannot!”
PROCTOR: My wife will never die for me! I will bring your guts into your mouth but that goodness will not die for me!
MARY WARREN,
struggling to escape him:
I cannot do it, I cannot!
PROCTOR,
grasping her by the throat as though he would strangle her:
Make your peace with it! Now Hell and Heaven grapple on our backs, and all our old pretense is ripped away—make your peace!
He throws her to the floor, where she sobs, “I cannot, I cannot ...” And now, half to himself, staring, and turning to the open door:
Peace. It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now.
He walks as though toward a great horror, facing the open sky.
Aye, naked! And the wind, God’s icy wind, will blow!
And she is over and over again sobbing, “I cannot, I cannot,
I
cannot,” as
ACT THREE
The vestry room of the Salem meeting house, now serving as the anteroom of the General Court.
As the curtain rises, the room is empty, but for sunlight pouring through two high windows in the back wall. The room is solemn, even forbidding. Heavy beams jut out, boards of random widths make up the walls. At the right are two doors leading into the meeting house proper, where the court is being held. At the left another door leads outside.
There is a plain bench at the left, and another at the right. In the center a rather long meeting table, with stools and a considerable armchair snugged up to it.
Through the partitioning wall at the right we hear a prosecutor’s voice, Judge Hathorne‘s, asking a question; then a woman’s voice, Martha Corey’s, replying.
HATHORNE’S VOICE: Now, Martha Corey, there is abundant evidence in our hands to show that you have given yourself to the reading of fortunes. Do you deny it?
MARTHA COREY’S VOICE: I am innocent to a witch. I know not what a witch is.
HATHORNE’S VOICE: How do you know, then, that you are not a witch?
MARTHA COREY’S VOICE: If I were, I would know it.
HATHORNE’S VOICE: Why do you hurt these children?
MARTHA COREY’S VOICE: I do not hurt them. I scorn it!
GILES’ VOICE,
roaring:
I have evidence for the court!
Voices of townspeople rise in excitement.
DANFORTH’S VOICE: You will keep your seat!
GILES’ VOICE: Thomas Putnam is reaching out for land!
DANFORTH’S VOICE: Remove that man, Marshal!
GILES’ VOICE: You’re hearing lies, lies!
A roaring goes up from the people.
HATHORNE’S VOICE: Arrest him, Excellency!
GILES’ VOICE: I have evidence. Why will you not hear my evidence?
The door opens and Giles is half carried into the vestry room by Herrick. Francis Nurse enters, trailing anxiously behind Giles.
GILES: Hands off, damn you, let me go!
HERRICK: Giles, Giles!
GILES: Out of my way, Herrick! I bring evidence—
HERRICK : You cannot go in there, Giles; it’s a court!
Enter Hale from the court.
HALE: Pray be calm a moment.
GILES: You, Mr. Hale, go in there and demand I speak.
HALE: A moment, sir, a moment.
GILES: They’ll be hangin’ my wife!
Judge Hathorne enters. He is in his sixties, a bitter, remorseless Salem judge.
HATHORNE: How do you dare come roarin’ into this court! Are you gone daft, Corey?
GILES: You’re not a Boston judge yet, Hathorne. You’ll not call me daft!
Enter Deputy Governor Danforth and, behind him, Ezekiel Cheever
and
Parris. On his appearance, silence falls. Danforth is a grave man in his sixties, of some humor and sophistication that do not, however, interfere with an exact loyalty to his position and his cause. He comes down to Giles, who awaits his wrath.
DANFORTH,
looking directly at Giles:
Who is this man?
PARRIS: Giles Corey, sir, and a more contentious—
GILES,
to Parris:
I am asked the question, and I am old enough to answer it!
To Danforth, who impresses him and to whom he smiles through his strain:
My name is Corey, sir, Giles Corey. I have six hundred acres, and timber in addition. It is my wife you be condemning now.
He indicates the courtroom.
DANFORTH: And how do you imagine to help her cause with such contemptuous riot? Now be gone. Your old age alone keeps you out of jail for this.
GILES,
beginning to plead:
They be tellin’ lies about my wife, sir, I—
DANFORTH: Do you take it upon yourself to determine what this court shall believe and what it shall set aside?
GILES: Your Excellency, we mean no disrespect for—
DANFORTH: Disrespect indeed! It is disruption, Mister. This is the highest court of the supreme government of this province, do you know it?
GILES,
beginning to weep:
Your Excellency, I only said she were readin’ books, sir, and they come and take her out of my house for—
DANFORTH,
mystified:
Books! What books?
GILES,
through helpless sobs:
It is my third wife, sir; I never had no wife that be so taken with books, and I thought to find the cause of it, d’y’see, but it were no witch I blamed her for.
He is openly weeping.
I have broke charity with the woman, I have broke charity with her.
He covers his face, ashamed. Danforth is respectfully silent.
HALE: Excellency, he claims hard evidence for his wife’s defense. I think that in all justice you must—
DANFORTH: Then let him submit his evidence in proper affidavit. You are certainly aware of our procedure here, Mr. Hale. To
Herrick:
Clear this room.
HERRICK: Come now, Giles. He
gently pushes Corey out.
FRANCIS: We are desperate, sir; we come here three days now and cannot be heard.
DANFORTH: Who is this man?
FRANCIS: Francis Nurse, Your Excellency.
HALE: His wife’s Rebecca that were condemned this morning.
DANFORTH: Indeed! I am amazed to find you in such uproar. I have only good report of your character, Mr. Nurse.
HATHORNE: I think they must both be arrested in contempt, sir.
DANFORTH,
to Francis:
Let you write your plea, and in due time I will—
FRANCIS: Excellency, we have proof for your eyes; God forbid you shut them to it. The girls, sir, the girls are frauds.
DANFORTH: What’s that?
FRANCIS: We have proof of it, sir. They are all deceiving you.
Danforth is shocked, but studying Francis.
HATHORNE: This is contempt, sir, contempt!
DANFORTH: Peace, Judge Hathorne. Do you know who I am, Mr. Nurse?
FRANCIS: I surely do, sir, and I think you must be a wise judge to be what you are.
DANFORTH: And do you know that near to four hundred are in the jails from Marblehead to Lynn, and upon my signature?
FRANCIS: I—
DANFORTH: And seventy-two condemned to hang by that signature?
FRANCIS: Excellency, I never thought to say it to such a weighty judge, but you are deceived.
Enter Giles Corey from left. All turn to see as he beckons in Mary Warren with Proctor. Mary is keeping her eyes to the ground; Proctor has her elbow as though she were near collapse.
PARRIS,
on seeing her, in shock:
Mary Warren!
He goes directly to bend close to her face.
What are you about here?