a quick look, then turns away, as if afraid._] I’ve been wanting to
tell you--but it’s hard to talk of such things. But before we--take
Bernice away, before you--see her the last time--I want you to know.
That night--the night Bernice died--at the very last, Abbie was afraid
then--and had called to me. Abbie and I were in there and--Abbie went
out, about the telephone call we had in for the doctor. I was all alone
in there a few minutes--right at the last. Bernice said one last word,
Margaret. Your name.
MARGARET
She called to me?
FATHER
No, I wouldn’t say she called to you. Just said your name. The way we
say things to ourselves--say them without knowing we were going to say
them. She didn’t really say it. She breathed it. It seemed to come from
her whole life.
MARGARET
O-h. Then it wasn’t as if she had left me? It wasn’t as if anything was
in between--
FATHER
Why no, Margaret. What an idea. Why I don’t think you ever were as
close to Bernice as when she said your name and died.
[_MARGARET’S head goes down; she is crying. CRAIG comes out,
carefully closing the door behind him. Partly crosses the room,
looks uncertainly at the outer door as if to go outside again._
FATHER
Sit down, Craig. [_CRAIG does this._] Let’s not try to keep away from
each other now. We’re all going through the same thing--in our--our
different ways. [_A pause. MARGARET raises her head; she is turned
a little away from the other two._] I was so glad when you came,
Margaret. I don’t want Bernice to slip away from us. In an hour
we--take her away from here--out of this house she loved. I don’t want
her to slip away from us. She loved you so, Margaret. Didn’t she, Craig?
CRAIG
Yes. She did love Margaret.
FATHER
Oh, yes. “Margaret sees things,” she’d say. [_Wistfully._] She had
great beauty--didn’t she, Margaret?
MARGARET
I always thought so.
FATHER
Oh, yes. I was thinking last night--malice was not in Bernice. I never
knew her to do a--really unfriendly thing to any one. [_Again in that
wistful way._] You know, Margaret, I had thought you would say things
like this--and better than I can say them, to--to keep my little girl
for us all. I suppose I’m a foolish old man but I seem to want them
said. [_Pause. MARGARET seems to try to speak, but does not._] I think
it was gentle of Bernice to be amused by things she--perhaps couldn’t
admire in us she loved. Me. I suppose she might have liked a father
who amounted to more--but she always seemed to take pleasure in me.
Affectionate amusement. Didn’t you feel that in Bernice, Craig?
CRAIG
Yes--that was one thing. A surface for other things. [_He speaks out
of pain, but out of pain which wants, if it can, to speak._] But only
a surface. [_With passion._] _All_ of Bernice went into her love
for me. Those big impersonal things--they were not apart. _All_ of
Bernice--loved me. [_His voice breaks, he goes to the door, starts out.
Suddenly steps back--with a quick rough turn to her._] Isn’t that so,
Margaret?
MARGARET
I can see--what you mean, Craig.
FATHER
Why of course Bernice loved you. I know that.
[_Craig goes outside._
[_Looking after him._] I hope I didn’t send Craig away. You and
he would rather not talk. Perhaps that is better. I seem to want
to--gather up things that will keep Bernice. It’s so easy for the dead
to slip from us. But I mustn’t bother you.
MARGARET
Oh, you aren’t! I--I’m sorry I’m not--doing more. I’m pulled down.
FATHER
I know, Margaret. I can see that. Another time you and I will talk
of Bernice. I didn’t mean she didn’t love Craig. Of course not. Only
[_Hesitatingly_] I did feel that much as went into her loving--there
was more than went into her loving.
MARGARET
Yes.
FATHER
I think it wasn’t that she--wanted it that way. You know, Margaret,
I felt something--very wistful in Bernice. [_MARGARET looks at him,
nods._] In this calm now--I feel the wistfulness there was in her other
calm.
MARGARET
Yes.
FATHER
As if she wanted to give us more. Oh--she gave more than any one else
could have given. But not _all_ she was. And she would like to have
given us--all she was. She wanted to give--what couldn’t be given.
[_Pause._] You know what I mean, Margaret?
MARGARET
Yes, I do know.
FATHER
And so--wistfulness. I see it now. [_After thinking._] I think Bernice
feared she was not a very good wife for Craig. [_MARGARET gives him
a startled look._] Little things she’d say. I don’t know--perhaps I’m
wrong. [_After a move of MARGARET’S._] You were going to say something,
Margaret.
MARGARET
No. I was just thinking of what you said.
FATHER
Craig didn’t dominate Bernice. I don’t know whose fault it was. I don’t
know that it was anyone’s fault. Just the way things were. He--I say
it in all kindness, he just didn’t--have it in him. [_Slowly._] As I
haven’t had certain things in me.
[_ABBIE comes in._
ABBIE
People are coming. The Aldrichs--other neighbors.
FATHER
Oh--they are coming? [_With pain._] Already? Oh. They are to wait in
the south room--till a little later. I’ll speak to them.
[_They go out; MARGARET has a moment alone. Then CRAIG comes in from
outside._
CRAIG
People are beginning to come. I suppose they’ll come in here soon. I--I
don’t want them to.
[_LAURA enters with boxes of flowers._
Oh--Laura, _please_. Bernice _loved_ flowers.
LAURA
Well--_Craig_.
CRAIG
Would you take them around the other way? Or keep them till later--or
something. I don’t _want_ them here!
[_LAURA goes out._
CRAIG
I don’t want things to be different. Not now--in the last hour. It’s
still Bernice’s house. [_After watching her a moment._] Margaret,
I’m afraid I shouldn’t have told you. It’s doing too much to you.
Surely--no matter what you feel about me--this--what I told you--isn’t
going to keep you away from Bernice?
MARGARET
No, Craig. What you told me--isn’t going to do that.
CRAIG
I shouldn’t have told you. But there are things--too much to be alone
with. And yet--we are alone with them. [_He is seated, looking out
toward the woods. Very slowly--with deep feeling._] It is a different
world. Life will never be--that old thing again.
MARGARET
[_Rising._] Craig! [_He looks at her._] Craig, I must tell you--
[_She does not go on._
CRAIG
[_After waiting an instant, looks away._] I know. We can’t say things.
When we get right _to_ life--we can’t say things.
MARGARET
But I must say them. I have to tell you--life need not be a different
thing.
CRAIG
_Need_ not? You think I want that old thing back? Pretending. Fumbling.
Always trying to seem something--to feel myself something. No. That’s
a strange thing for you to say, Margaret--that I can go back to my
make-believe, now that I’ve got _to_ life. This--[_As if he cannot
speak of it_] _this_--even more than it makes me want to die it makes
me want to--Oh, Margaret, if I could have Bernice now--_knowing_. And
yet--I never had her until now. This--has given Bernice to me.
MARGARET
[_As if his words are a light she is almost afraid to use._] This--has
given Bernice to you?
CRAIG
I was thinking--walking out there I was thinking, if I knew only--what
I knew when I came here--that Bernice was dead--I wonder if I could
have got past that failure.
MARGARET
Failure, Craig?
CRAIG
Of never having had her. That she had lived, and loved me--loved me,
you see--lived and loved me and died without my ever having had her.
What would there have been to go on living for? Why should such a
person go on living? Now--of course it is another world. This comes
crashing through my make-believe--and Bernice’s world get to me. Don’t
you _see_, Margaret?
MARGARET
Perhaps--I do. [_She looks at the closed door; looks back to him.
Waits._] O-h. [_Waits again, and it grows in her._] Perhaps I do.
[_Turns and very slowly goes to the closed door, opens it, goes in.
At the other side of the room ABBIE comes in with a floral piece._
CRAIG
_No_, Abbie. I just told my sister--I don’t want this room to be
different. [_Looking around._] It is different. What have you done to
it?
[_He sees the pillow crowded in at the side of the fireplace.
Restores it to its place in the window._
ABBIE
And this was here.
[_She returns the vase to its place._
CRAIG
Of course it was. But it isn’t right yet. [_After considering._]
Why--the tea table! [_ABBIE turns toward the kitchen._] What did you
put it out there for? I remember now--I stumbled against it last
night. [_They bring it in._] Why, yes, Abbie, the tea-table was always
here--before the fire.
ABBIE
And--
[_She hesitates, but CRAIG follows her eyes to the chair._
CRAIG
Yes. [_He too hesitates; then gives the chair its old place before the
table, as if awaiting the one who will come and pour tea. A moment they
stand looking at it. Then CRAIG looks around the room._] And what if it
is still wrong, Abbie?
ABBIE
In the fall there were always branches in that vase. [_Indicating the
one she has returned to its place._] The red and yellow branches from
outside.
CRAIG
Yes.
[_He goes out. With feeling which she cannot quite control ABBIE does
a few little things at the tea-table, relating one thing to another
until it is as it used to be. MARGARET comes out from the room
where she has been with Bernice, leaving the door wide open behind
her. With the quiet of profound wonder; in a feeling that creates
the great stillness, she goes to ABBIE._
MARGARET
Oh--Abbie. Yes--I know now. I want you to know. Only--there are things
not for words. Feeling--not for words. As a throbbing thing that flies
and sings--not for the hand. [_She starts to close her hand, uncloses
it._] But, Abbie--there is nothing to hide. There is no shameful thing.
What you saw in her eyes as she brooded over life in leaving it--what
made you afraid--was _her_ seeing--her seeing into the shadowed places
of the life she was leaving. And then--a gift to the spirit. A gift
sent back through the dark. Preposterous. Profound. Oh--love her Abbie!
She’s worth more love than we have power to give! [_CRAIG has come back
with some branches from the trees; he stands outside the door a moment,
taking out a few he does not want. MARGARET hears him and turns. Then
turns back._] Power. Oh, how _strange_.
[_CRAIG comes in, and MARGARET and ABBIE watch him as he puts the
bright leaves in the vase. The FATHER comes in._
FATHER
The man who is in charge says we will have to be ready now to--[_Seeing
what has been done to the room._] Oh, you have given the room back to
Bernice!
MARGARET
Given everything back to Bernice. Bernice. Insight. The tenderness of
insight. And the courage. [_To the FATHER, and suddenly with tears in
her voice._] She _was_ wistful. And held out her hands [_Doing this_]
with gifts she was not afraid to send back. [_Very simply._] She loved
you, Craig.
CRAIG
I know that, Margaret. I know now how much.
MARGARET
[_Low._] And more than that. [_Her voice electric._] Oh, in all the
world--since first life _moved_--has there been any beauty like the
beauty of perceiving love?... No. Not for words.
[_She closes her hand, uncloses it in a slight gesture of freeing
what she would not harm._
(CURTAIN)
* * * * *
SUPPRESSED DESIRES
A COMEDY IN TWO SCENES
(In Collaboration with George Cram Cook)
First Performed by the Provincetown Players, at the Wharf Theatre,
Provincetown, Mass., August, 1914
* * * * *
ORIGINAL CAST
HENRIETTA BREWSTER SUSAN GLASPELL
STEPHEN BREWSTER GEORGE CRAM COOK
MABEL MARY PYNE
SUPPRESSED DESIRES
SCENE I: _A studio apartment in an upper story, Washington Square
South. Through an immense north window in the back wall appear tree
tops and the upper part of the Washington Arch. Beyond it you look up
Fifth Avenue. Near the window is a big table, loaded at one end with
serious-looking books and austere scientific periodicals. At the other
end are architect’s drawings, blue prints, dividing compasses, square,
ruler, etc. At the left is a door leading to the rest of the apartment;
at the right the outer door. A breakfast table is set for three, but
only two are seated at it--HENRIETTA and STEPHEN BREWSTER. As the
curtains withdraw STEVE pushes back his coffee cup and sits dejected._
HENRIETTA
It isn’t the coffee, Steve dear. There’s nothing the matter with the
coffee. There’s something the matter with _you_.
STEVE
[_Doggedly._] There may be something the matter with my stomach.
HENRIETTA
[_Scornfully._] Your stomach! The trouble is not with your stomach but
in your subconscious mind.
STEVE
Subconscious piffle!
[_Takes morning paper and tries to read._
HENRIETTA
Steve, you never used to be so disagreeable. You certainly have got
some sort of a complex. You’re all inhibited. You’re no longer open to
new ideas. You won’t listen to a word about psychoanalysis.
STEVE
A word! I’ve listened to volumes!
HENRIETTA
You’ve ceased to be creative in architecture--your work isn’t going
well. You’re not sleeping well--
STEVE
How can I sleep, Henrietta, when you’re always waking me up to find out
what I’m dreaming?
HENRIETTA
But dreams are so important, Steve. If you’d tell yours to Dr. Russell
he’d find out exactly what’s wrong with you.
STEVE
There’s nothing wrong with me.
HENRIETTA
You don’t even talk as well as you used to.
STEVE
Talk? I can’t say a thing without you looking at me in that dark
fashion you have when you’re on the trail of a complex.
HENRIETTA
This very irritability indicates that you’re suffering from some
suppressed desire.
STEVE
I’m suffering from a suppressed desire for a little peace.
HENRIETTA
Dr. Russell is doing simply wonderful things with nervous cases. Won’t
you go to him, Steve?
STEVE
[_Slamming down his newspaper._] No, Henrietta, I won’t!
HENRIETTA
But, Stephen--!
STEVE
Tst! I hear Mabel coming. Let’s not be at each other’s throats the
first day of her visit.
[_He takes out cigarettes. MABEL comes in from door left, the side
opposite STEVE, so that he is facing her. She is wearing a rather
fussy negligee in contrast to HENRIETTA, who wears “radical”
clothes. MABEL is what is called plump._
MABEL
Good morning.
HENRIETTA
Oh, here you are, little sister.
STEVE
Good morning, Mabel.
[_MABEL nods to him and turns, her face lighting up, to HENRIETTA._
HENRIETTA
[_Giving MABEL a hug as she leans against her._] It’s so good to have
you here. I was going to let you sleep, thinking you’d be tired after
the long trip. Sit down. There’ll be fresh toast in a minute and
[_Rising_] will you have--
MABEL
Oh, I ought to have told you, Henrietta. Don’t get anything for me. I’m
not eating breakfast.
HENRIETTA
[_At first in mere surprise._] Not eating breakfast?
[_She sits down, then leans toward MABEL who is seated now, and
scrutinizes her._
STEVE
[_Half to himself._] The psychoanalytical look!
HENRIETTA
Mabel, why are you not eating breakfast?
MABEL
[_A little startled._] Why, no particular reason. I just don’t care
much for breakfast, and they say it keeps down--[_A hand on her
hip--the gesture of one who is “reducing”_] that is, it’s a good thing
to go without it.
HENRIETTA
Don’t you sleep well? Did you sleep well last night?
MABEL
Oh, yes, I slept all right. Yes, I slept fine last night, only
[_Laughing_] I did have the funniest dream!
STEVE
S-h! S-t!
HENRIETTA
[_Moving closer._] And what did you dream, Mabel?
STEVE
Look-a-here, Mabel, I feel it’s my duty to put you on. Don’t tell
Henrietta your dreams. If you do she’ll find out that you have an
underground desire to kill your father and marry your mother--
HENRIETTA
Don’t be absurd, Stephen Brewster. [_Sweetly to MABEL._] What was your
dream, dear?
MABEL
[_Laughing._] Well, I dreamed I was a hen.
HENRIETTA
A hen?
MABEL
Yes; and I was pushing along through a crowd as fast as I could, but
being a hen I couldn’t walk very fast--it was like having a tight
skirt, you know; and there was some sort of creature in a blue cap--you
know how mixed up dreams are--and it kept shouting after me, “Step,
Hen! Step, Hen!” until I got all excited and just couldn’t move at all.
HENRIETTA
[_Resting chin in palm and peering._] You say you became much excited?
MABEL
[_Laughing._] Oh, yes; I was in a terrible state.
HENRIETTA
[_Leaning back, murmurs._] This is significant.
STEVE
She dreams she’s a hen. She is told to step lively. She becomes
violently agitated. What can it mean?
HENRIETTA
[_Turning impatiently from him._] Mabel, do you know anything about
psychoanalysis?
MABEL
[_Feebly._] Oh--not much. No--I--[_Brightening._] It’s something about
the war, isn’t it?
STEVE
Not that kind of war.
MABEL
[_Abashed._] I thought it might be the name of a new explosive.
STEVE
It _is_.
MABEL
[_Apologetically to HENRIETTA, who is frowning._] You see, Henrietta,
I--we do not live in touch with intellectual things, as you do. Bob
being a dentist--somehow our friends--
STEVE
[_Softly._] Oh, to be a dentist!
[_Goes to window and stands looking out._
HENRIETTA
Don’t you see anything more of that editorial writer--what was his name?
MABEL
Lyman Eggleston?
HENRIETTA
Yes, Eggleston. He was in touch with things. Don’t you see him?
MABEL
Yes, I see him once in a while. Bob doesn’t like him very well.
HENRIETTA
Your husband does not like Lyman Eggleston? [_Mysteriously._] Mabel,
are you perfectly happy with your husband?
STEVE
[_Sharply._] Oh, come now, Henrietta--that’s going a little strong!
HENRIETTA
Are you perfectly happy with him, Mabel?
[_STEVE goes to work-table._
MABEL
Why--yes--I guess so. Why--of course I am!
HENRIETTA
Are you happy? Or do you only think you are? Or do you only think you
_ought_ to be?
MABEL
Why, Henrietta, I don’t know what you mean!
STEVE
[_Seizes stack of books and magazines and dumps them on the breakfast
table._] This is what she means, Mabel. Psychoanalysis. My work-table
groans with it. Books by Freud, the new Messiah; books by Jung, the new
St. Paul; the Psychoanalytical Review--back numbers two-fifty per.
MABEL
But what’s it all about?
STEVE
All about your sub-un-non-conscious mind and desires you know not of.
They may be doing you a great deal of harm. You may go crazy with them.
Oh, yes! People are doing it right and left. Your dreaming you’re a
hen--
[_Shakes his head darkly._
HENRIETTA
Any fool can ridicule anything.
MABEL
[_Hastily, to avert a quarrel._] But what do you say it is, Henrietta?
STEVE
[_Looking at his watch._] Oh, if Henrietta’s going to start that!
[_During HENRIETTA’S next speech settles himself at work-table and
sharpens a lead pencil._
HENRIETTA
It’s like this, Mabel. You want something. You think you can’t have
it. You think it’s wrong. So you try to think you don’t want it. Your
mind protects you--avoids pain--by refusing to think the forbidden
thing. But it’s there just the same. It stays there shut up in your
unconscious mind, and it festers.
STEVE
Sort of an ingrowing mental toenail.
HENRIETTA
Precisely. The forbidden impulse is there full of energy which has
simply got to do something. It breaks into your consciousness in
disguise, masks itself in dreams, makes all sorts of trouble. In
extreme cases it drives you insane.
MABEL
[_With a gesture of horror._] Oh!
HENRIETTA
[_Reassuring._] But psychoanalysis has found out how to save us from
that. It brings into consciousness the suppressed desire that was
making all the trouble. Psychoanalysis is simply the latest scientific
method of preventing and curing insanity.
STEVE
[_From his table._] It is also the latest scientific method of
separating families.
HENRIETTA
[_Mildly._] Families that ought to be separated.
STEVE
The Dwights, for instance. You must have met them, Mabel, when you were
here before. Helen was living, apparently, in peace and happiness with
good old Joe. Well--she went to this psychoanalyzer--she was “psyched,”
and biff!--bang!--home she comes with an unsuppressed desire to leave
her husband.
[_He starts work, drawing lines on a drawing board with a T-square._
MABEL
How terrible! Yes, I remember Helen Dwight. But--but did she have such
a desire?
STEVE
First she’d known of it.
MABEL
And she _left_ him?
HENRIETTA
[_Coolly._] Yes, she did.
MABEL
Wasn’t he kind to her?
HENRIETTA
Why yes, good enough.
MABEL
Wasn’t he kind to her.
HENRIETTA
Oh, yes--kind to her.
MABEL
And she left her good kind husband--!
HENRIETTA
Oh, Mabel! “Left her good, kind husband!” How naïve--forgive me, dear,
but how bourgeoise you are! She came to know herself. And she had the
courage!
MABEL
I may be very naïve and--bourgeoise--but I don’t see the good of a new
science that breaks up homes.
[_STEVE applauds._
STEVE
In enlightening Mabel, we mustn’t neglect to mention the case of Art
Holden’s private secretary, Mary Snow, who has just been informed of
her suppressed desire for her employer.
MABEL
Why, I think it is terrible, Henrietta! It would be better if we didn’t
know such things about ourselves.
HENRIETTA
No, Mabel, that is the old way.
MABEL
But--but her employer? Is he married?
STEVE
[_Grunts._] Wife and four children.
MABEL
Well, then, what good does it do the girl to be told she has a desire
for him? There’s nothing can be done about it.
HENRIETTA
Old institutions will have to be reshaped so that something can be
done in such cases. It happens, Mabel, that this suppressed desire was
on the point of landing Mary Snow in the insane asylum. Are you so
tight-minded that you’d rather have her in the insane asylum than break
the conventions?
MABEL
But--but have people always had these awful suppressed desires?
HENRIETTA
Always.
STEVE
But they’ve just been discovered.
HENRIETTA
The harm they do has just been discovered. And free, sane people must
face the fact that they have to be dealt with.
MABEL
[_Stoutly._] I don’t believe they have them in Chicago.
HENRIETTA
[_Business of giving MABEL up._] People “have them” wherever the living
Libido--the center of the soul’s energy--is in conflict with petrified
moral codes. That means everywhere in civilization. Psychoanalysis--
STEVE
Good God! I’ve got the roof in the cellar!
HENRIETTA
The roof in the cellar!
STEVE
[_Holding plan at arm’s length._] That’s what psychoanalysis does!
HENRIETTA
That’s what psychoanalysis could _un_-do. Is it any wonder I’m
concerned about Steve? He dreamed the other night that the walls of
his room melted away and he found himself alone in a forest. Don’t
you see how significant it is for an architect to have _walls_ slip
away from him? It symbolizes his loss of grip in his work. There’s some
suppressed desire--
STEVE
[_Hurling his ruined plan viciously to the floor._] Suppressed hell!
HENRIETTA
You speak more truly than you know. It is through suppressions that
hells are formed in us.
MABEL
[_Looking at STEVE, who is tearing his hair._] Don’t you think it would
be a good thing, Henrietta, if we went somewhere else? [_They rise
and begin to pick up the dishes. MABEL drops a plate which breaks.
HENRIETTA draws up short and looks at her--the psychoanalytic look._]
I’m sorry, Henrietta. One of the Spode plates, too. [_Surprised and
resentful as HENRIETTA continues to peer at her._] Don’t take it so to
heart, Henrietta.
HENRIETTA
I can’t help taking it to heart.
MABEL
I’ll get you another. [_Pause. More sharply as HENRIETTA does not
answer._] I said I’ll get you another plate, Henrietta.
HENRIETTA
It’s not the plate.
MABEL
For heaven’s sake, what is it then?
HENRIETTA
It’s the significant little false movement that made you drop it.
MABEL
Well, I suppose everyone makes a false movement once in a while.
HENRIETTA
Yes, Mabel, but these false movements all mean something.
MABEL
[_About to cry._] I don’t think that’s very nice! It was just because I
happened to think of that Mabel Snow you were talking about--
HENRIETTA
_Mabel_ Snow!
MABEL
Snow--Snow--well, what was her name, then?
HENRIETTA
Her name is Mary. You substituted _your own_ name for hers.
MABEL
Well, _Mary_ Snow, then; _Mary_ Snow. I never heard her name but once.
I don’t see anything to make such a fuss about.
HENRIETTA
[_Gently._] Mabel dear--mistakes like that in names--
MABEL
[_Desperately._] They don’t mean something, too, do they?
HENRIETTA
[_Gently._] I am sorry, dear, but they do.
MABEL
But I’m always doing that!
HENRIETTA
[_After a start of horror._] My poor little sister, tell me about it.
MABEL
About what?
HENRIETTA
About your not being happy. About your longing for another sort of life.
MABEL
But I _don’t_.
HENRIETTA
Ah, I understand these things, dear. You feel Bob is limiting you to a
life in which you do not feel free--
MABEL
Henrietta! When did I ever say such a thing?
HENRIETTA
You said you are not in touch with things intellectual. You showed your
feeling that it is Bob’s profession--that has engendered a resentment
which has colored your whole life with him.
MABEL
Why--Henri_et_ta!