PERKINS: Please, dovey, not tonight. I’m tired. I wanted to talk about . . . the plans.
MRS. PERKINS: What plans?
PERKINS: I was thinking . . . if we’re very careful, we could take a vacation maybe . . . in a year or two . . . and go to Europe, you know, like Switzerland or Italy . . . [
Looks at her hopefully, sees no reaction, adds
] . . . It’s where they have mountains, you know.
MRS. PERKINS: Well?
PERKINS: Well, and lakes. And snow high up on the peaks. And sunsets.
MRS. PERKINS: And what would we do?
PERKINS: Oh . . . well . . . just rest, I guess. And look around, sort of. You know, at the swans and the sail-boats. Just the two of us.
MRS. SHLY: Uh-huh. Just the
two
of you.
MRS. PERKINS: Yes, you were always a great one for making up ways of wasting good money, George Perkins. And me slaving and skimping and saving every little penny. Swans, indeed! Well, before you go thinking of any swans, you’d better get us a new Frigidaire, that’s all I’ve got to say.
MRS. SHLY: And a mayonnaise mixer. And a ’lectric washing machine. And it’s about time to be thinking of a new car, too. The old one’s a sight. And . . .
PERKINS: Look, you don’t understand. I don’t want anything that we need.
MRS. PERKINS: What?
PERKINS: I want something I don’t need at all.
MRS. PERKINS: George Perkins! Have you been drinking?
PERKINS: Rosie, I . . .
MRS. SHLY: [
Resolutely
] Now I’ve had just about enough of this nonsense! Now you come down to earth, George Perkins. There’s something bigger to think about. Rosie has a surprise for you. A pretty surprise. Tell him, Rosie.
MRS. PERKINS: I just found it out today, Georgie. You’ll be glad to hear it.
MRS. SHLY: He’ll be tickled pink. Go on.
MRS. PERKINS: Well, I . . . I’ve been to the doctor’s this morning. We have a baby coming.
[
Silence. The two women look, with bright smiles, at
PERKINS
’ face, a face that distorts slowly before their eyes into an expression of stunned horror
]
PERKINS: [
In a choked voice
] Another one?
MRS. PERKINS: [
Brightly
] Uh-huh. A brand-new little baby. [
He stares at her silently
] Well? [
He stares without moving
] Well, what’s the matter with you? [
He does not move
] Aren’t you glad?
PERKINS: [
In a slow, heavy voice
] You’re not going to have it.
MRS. PERKINS: Mama! What’s he saying?
PERKINS: [
In a dull, persistent monotone
] You know what I’m saying. You can’t have it. You won’t.
MRS. SHLY: Have you gone plumb outta your mind? Are you thinking of . . . of . . .
PERKINS: [
Dully
] Yes.
MRS. PERKINS: Mama!!
MRS. SHLY: [
Ferociously
] D’you know who you’re talking to? It’s my daughter you’re talking to, not a street woman! To come right out with a thing like that . . . to his own wife . . . to his own . . .
MRS. PERKINS: What’s happened to you?
PERKINS: Rosie, I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s not even dangerous nowadays and . . .
MRS. PERKINS: Make him stop, Mama!
MRS. SHLY: Where did you pick that up? Decent people don’t even know about such things! You hear about it maybe with gangsters and actresses. But in a respectable married home!
MRS. PERKINS: What’s happened to you today?
PERKINS: It’s not today, Rosie. It’s for a long, long time back. . . . But I’m set with the firm now. I can take good care of you and the children. But the rest—Rosie, I can’t throw it away for good.
MRS. PERKINS: What are you talking about? What better use can you find for your extra money than to take care of a baby?
PERKINS: That’s just it. Take care of it. The hospital and the doctors. The strained vegetables—at two bits the can. The school and the measles. All over again. And nothing else.
MRS. PERKINS: So that’s how you feel about your duties! There’s nothing holier than to raise a family. There’s no better blessing. Haven’t I spent my life making a home for you? Don’t you have everything every decent man struggles for? What else do you want?
PERKINS: Rosie, it’s not that I don’t like what I’ve got. I like it fine. Only . . . Well, it’s like this bathrobe of mine. I’m glad I have it, it’s warm and comfortable, and I like it, just the same as I like the rest of it. Just like that. And no more. There should be more.
MRS. PERKINS: Well, I like that! The swell bathrobe I picked out for your birthday! Well, if you didn’t like it, why didn’t you exchange it?
PERKINS: Oh, Rosie, it’s not that! It’s only that a man can’t live his whole life for a bathrobe. Or for things that he feels the same way about. Things that do nothing to him—inside, I mean. There should be something that he’s afraid of—afraid and happy. Like going to church—only not in a church. Something he can look up to. Something—high, Rosie . . . that’s it,
high.
MRS. PERKINS: Well, if it’s culture you want, didn’t I subscribe to the Book-of-the-Month Club?
PERKINS: Oh, I know I can’t explain it! All I ask is, don’t let’s have that baby, Rosie. That would be the end of it all for me. I’ll be an old man, if I give those things up. I don’t want to be old. Not yet. God, not yet! Just leave me a few years, Rosie!
MRS. PERKINS: [
Breaking down into tears
] Never, never, never did I think I’d live to hear this!
MRS. SHLY: [
Rushing to her
] Rosie, sweetheart! Don’t cry like that, baby! [
Whirling upon
PERKINS] See what you’ve done? Now don’t let me hear another word out of that filthy mouth of yours! Do you want to kill your wife? Take the Chinese, for instance. They go in for abortions, that’s why all the Chinks have rickets. PERKINS: Now, Mother, who ever told you that?
MRS. SHLY: Well, I suppose I don’t know what I’m talking about? I suppose the big businessman is the only one to tell us what’s what?
PERKINS: I didn’t mean . . . I only meant that . . .
MRS. PERKINS: [
Through her sobs
] You leave Mama alone, George.
PERKINS: [
Desperately
] But I didn’t . . .
MRS. SHLY: I understand. I understand perfectly, George Perkins. An old mother, these days, is no good for anything but to shut up and wait for the graveyard!
PERKINS: [
Resolutely
] Mother, I wish you’d stop trying to . . . [
Bravely
] . . . to make trouble.
MRS. SHLY: So? So that’s it? So I’m making trouble? So I’m a burden to you, am I? Well, I’m glad you came out with it, Mr. Perkins! And here I’ve been, poor fool that I am, slaving in this house like if it was my own! That’s the gratitude I get. Well, I won’t stand for it another minute. Not one minute. [
Rushes out Left, slamming the door
]
MRS. PERKINS: [
With consternation
] George! . . . George, if you don’t apologize, Mama will leave us!
PERKINS: [
With sudden, desperate courage
] Well, let her go.
MRS. PERKINS: [
Stares at him incredulously, then:
] So it’s come to that? So that’s what it does to you, your big promotion? Coming home, picking a fight with everybody, throwing his wife’s old mother out into the gutter! If you think I’m going to stand for . . .
PERKINS: Listen, I’ve stood about as much of her as I’m going to stand. She’d better go. It was coming to this, sooner or later.
MRS. PERKINS: You just listen to me, George Perkins! If you don’t apologize to Mama, if you don’t apologize to her before tomorrow morning, I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live!
PERKINS: [
Wearily
] How many times have I heard that before?
[MRS. PERKINS
runs to door Left and exits, slamming the door.
PERKINS
sits wearily, without moving. An old-fashioned clock strikes nine. He rises slowly, turns out the lights, pulls the shade down over the glass entrance door. The room is dim but for one lamp burning by the fireplace. He leans against the mantelpiece, his head on his arm, slumped wearily. The doorbell rings. It is a quick, nervous, somehow furtive sound.
PERKINS
starts, looks at the entrance door, surprised, hesitates, then crosses to door and opens it. Before we can see the visitor, his voice a stunned explosion:
] Oh, my God!! [PERKINS
steps aside.
KAY GONDA
stands on the threshold. She wears an exquisitely plain black suit, very modern, austerely severe; a black hat, black shoes, stockings, bag, and gloves. The sole and startling contrast to her clothes is the pale, luminous gold of her hair and the whiteness of her face. It is a strange face with eyes that make one uncomfortable. She is tall and very slender. Her movements are slow, her steps light, soundless. There is a feeling of unreality about her, the feeling of a being that does not belong on this earth. She looks more like a ghost than a woman
]
KAY GONDA: Please keep quiet. And let me in.
PERKINS: [
Stuttering foolishly
] You . . . you are . . .
KAY GONDA: Kay Gonda. [
She enters and closes the door behind her
]
PERKINS: W-why . . .
KAY GONDA: Are you George Perkins?
PERKINS: [
Foolishly
] Yes, ma’am. George Perkins. George S. Perkins. . . . Only how . . .
KAY GONDA: I am in trouble. Have you heard about it?
PERKINS: Y-yes . . . oh my God! . . . Yes. . . .
KAY GONDA: I have to hide. For the night. It is dangerous. Can you let me stay here?
PERKINS:
Here?
KAY GONDA: Yes. For one night.
PERKINS: But how . . . that is . . . why did you . . .
KAY GONDA: [
Opens her bag and shows him the letter
] I read your letter. And I thought that no one would look for me here. And I thought you would want to help me.
PERKINS: I . . . Miss Gonda, you’ll excuse me, please, you know it’s enough to make a fellow . . . I mean, if I don’t seem to make sense or . . . I mean, if you need help, you can stay here the rest of your life, Miss Gonda.
KAY GONDA: [
Calmly
] Thank you. [
She throws her bag on a table, takes off her hat and gloves, indifferently, as if she were quite at home. He keeps staring at her
]
PERKINS: You mean . . . they’re really after you?
KAY GONDA: The police. [
Adds
] For murder.
PERKINS: I won’t let them get you. If there’s anything I can . . . [
He stops short. Steps are heard approaching, behind the door Left
]
MRS. PERKINS’ VOICE: [
Offstage
] George!
PERKINS: Yes . . . dovey?
MRS. PERKINS’ VOICE: Who was that who rang the bell?
PERKINS: No . . . no one, dovey. Somebody had the wrong address. [
He listens to the steps moving away, then whispers
:] That was my wife. We’d better keep quiet. She’s all right. Only . . . she wouldn’t understand.
KAY GONDA: It will be dangerous for you, if they find me here.
PERKINS: I don’t care. [
She smiles slowly. He points to the room helplessly
] Just make yourself at home. You can sleep right here, on the davenport, and I’ll stay outside and watch to see that no one . . .
KAY GONDA: No. I don’t want to sleep. Stay here. You and I, we have so much to talk about.
PERKINS: Oh, yes. Sure . . . that is . . . about what, Miss Gonda?
[
She sits down without answering. He sits down on the edge of a chair, gathering his bathrobe, miserably uncomfortable. She looks at him expectantly, a silent question in her eyes. He blinks, clears his throat, says resolutely
:]
Pretty cold night, this is.
KAY GONDA: Yes.
PERKINS: That’s California for you . . . the Golden West . . . Sunshine all day, but cold as the . . . but very cold at night.
KAY GONDA: Give me a cigarette.
[
He leaps to his feet, produces a package of cigarettes, strikes three matches before he can light one. She leans back, the lighted cigarette between her fingers
]
PERKINS: [
He mutters helplessly
] I . . . I smoke this kind. Easier on your throat, they are. [
He looks at her miserably. He has so much to tell her. He fumbles for words. He ends with:
] Now Joe Tucker—that’s a friend of mine—Joe Tucker, he smokes cigars. But I never took to them, never did.
KAY GONDA: You have many friends?
PERKINS: Yes, sure. Sure I have. Can’t complain.
KAY GONDA: You like them?
PERKINS: Yes, I like them fine.
KAY GONDA: And they like you? They approve of you, and they bow to you on the street?
PERKINS: Why . . . I guess so.
KAY GONDA: How old are you, George Perkins?
PERKINS: I’ll be forty-three this coming June.
KAY GONDA: It will be hard to lose your job and to find yourself in the street. In a dark, lonely street, where you’ll see your friends passing by and looking past you, as if you did not exist. Where you will want to scream and tell them of the great things you know, but no one will hear and no one will answer. It will be hard, won’t it?
PERKINS: [
Bewildered
] Why . . . When should that happen?
KAY GONDA: [
Calmly
] When they find me here.
PERKINS: [
Resolutely
] Don’t worry about that. No one will find you here. Not that I’m afraid for myself. Suppose they learn I helped you? Who wouldn’t? Who’d hold that against me? Why should they?
KAY GONDA: Because they hate me. And they hate all those who take my side.
PERKINS: Why should they hate you?
KAY GONDA: [
Calmly
] I am a murderess, George Perkins.