joins the two poles of the heavens. [_ELOISE pulls away her hand as one
who fears an electric shock._] Look at this slow shadow and what you
see is the spin of the earth on its axis. It is not so much the measure
of time as time itself made visible.
ELOISE
[_Knitting her brows to get this: escaping to an impetuous
generality._] Ian, which do you think is the more wonderful--space _or_
time?
IAN
[_Again sighting over his east and west lines. Good-humoredly._] Both
are a little large for our approbation.
ELOISE
[_Sitting on the steps and putting up the other braid._] Do you know,
Ian, that’s the one thing about them I don’t quite like. You can’t get
very intimate with them, can you? They make you so humble. That’s one
nice thing about a clock. A clock is sometimes wrong.
IAN
Don’t you want to live in a first-hand relation to truth?
ELOISE
Yes; yes, I do--generally.
IAN
I have a feeling as of having touched vast forces. To work directly
with worlds--it lifts me out of that little routine of our lives which
is itself a clock.
ELOISE
[_Catching his exultation._] Let us _be_ like this! Let us have done
with clocks!
IAN
Eloise, how wonderful! Can the clocks and live by the sun-dial? Live by
the non-automatic sun-dial--as a pledge that we ourselves refuse to be
automatons!
ELOISE
Like Alice Knight. [_She takes clock from dial and puts it face
downward on the ground._] I shall never again have anything to do with
a clock!
IAN
Eloise! How corking of you! I didn’t think you had it in you. [_Raising
his right hand._] Do you solemnly swear to live by the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth?
ELOISE
[_Her hand upon the sun-dial._] I swear.
IAN
Bring them!
ELOISE
Bring--?
IAN
The clocks! Bring them! [_Seizes the spade over by the house; begins to
dig a grave behind the sun-dial._] Bring every one! We will bury the
clocks before the sun-dial--an offering, a living sacrifice. I tell you
this is _great_, Eloise. What is a clock? Something agreed upon and
arbitrarily imposed upon us. Standard time. Not true time. Symbolizing
the whole standardization of our lives. Clocks! Why, it is clockiness
that makes America mechanical and mean! Clock-minded! A clock is a
little machine that shuts us out from the wonder of time. [_A large
gesture with the shovel._] Who thinks of spinning worlds when looking
at a clock? How _dare_ clocks do this to us? But the sun-dial--because
there was creation, because there are worlds outside our world, because
space is rhythm and time is flow that shadow falls precisely there
and not elsewhere! Bring them, Eloise! I am digging the graves of the
clocks!
[_ELOISE swept up by this ecstasy, yet frightened at what it is
bringing her to, hesitates, then runs to house. IAN digs with
rhythmic vigor. A moment later ELOISE is seen peering down at him
from window, in her arms a cuckoo clock. It begins to cuckoo,
startling ELOISE._
IAN
That damned cuckoo!
[_A moment later ELOISE comes out, bearing cuckoo clock and an
old-fashioned clock. IAN’S back is to her; she has to pass the
alarm clock, lying where she left it, prone on the ground. She
hesitates, then carefully holding the other two clocks in one
arm, she stealthily goes rear and puts the alarm clock behind the
sunflowers. Then advances with the other two._
IAN
[_While digging._] Into these graves go all that is clock-like in our
own minds. All that a clock world has made of us lies buried here!
[_ELOISE stands rather appalled at the idea of so much of herself
going into a grave. Puts the old-fashioned clock carefully on the
ground. Gingerly fits the cuckoo clock into the completed grave.
With an exclamation of horror lifts it out of the grave. Listens to
its tick. Puts her ear to the sun-dial; listens vainly._
ELOISE
The sun-dial doesn’t tick, does it, Ian?
IAN
Why should it tick?
ELOISE
Do you know, Ian, I [_Timidly_] I like to hear the ticking of a clock.
[_No reply. ELOISE holds up the cuckoo clock._] This was a wedding
present.
IAN
No wonder marriage fails.
[_He moves to take it from her._
ELOISE
I wonder if we hadn’t better leave the cuckoo until tomorrow.
IAN
Flaming worlds! A cuckoo!
ELOISE
Eddy and Alice gave us the cuckoo. You know they’re coming back. I
asked them for dinner. They might not understand our burying their
clock.
IAN
Their failure to understand need not limit our lives.
[_Puts the cuckoo clock in its grave and begins to cover it._
ELOISE
[_As the earth goes on._] I liked the cuckoo! I liked to see him
popping out!
IAN
[_Kindly._] You will grow, Eloise. You will go out to large things now
that you have done with small ones.
ELOISE
I hope so. It will be hard on me if I don’t.
[_IAN reaches for the other clock._
ELOISE
[_Snatching it._] Oh, Ian, I don’t think I ought to bury this one. It’s
the clock my grandmother started housekeeping with!
IAN
[_Firmly taking clock._] And see what it did to her. Meticulous old
woman!
[_Puts it in its grave._
ELOISE
You were glad enough to get her pies and buckwheat cakes.
IAN
She had all the small virtues. But a standardized mind. [_Trampling
down the grave._] She lacked scope. And now--a little grave for little
clocks. [_Takes out his watch, puts it in the grave._] Your watch,
Eloise.
ELOISE
[_Holding to her wrist watch._] I thought I’d keep my watch, Ian.
[_Hastily._] For an ornament, you know.
IAN
We are going to let truth be your ornament, Eloise.
ELOISE
Nobody sees truth. [_With a fresh outburst._] This watch was my
graduation present!
IAN
Symbolizing all the standardized arbitrary things you were taught!
Commemorating the clock-like way your mind was made to run. Free
yourself of that watch, Eloise. [_ELOISE reluctantly frees herself. IAN
briskly covers the watches. Moves to the unfilled grave._] Is there
nothing for this grave? [_ELOISE shakes her head._] Sure--the alarm
clock!
ELOISE
[_Running to the sunflowers and spreading out her skirts before them._]
Oh, Ian, _not_ the alarm clock! How would we ever go to Boston? The
train doesn’t run by the sun.
IAN
Then the train is wrong.
ELOISE
But, Ian, if the train is wrong we have to be wrong to catch the train.
IAN
_That’s_ civilization. [_Stands resolutely by the grave._] The alarm
clock, Eloise. The grave awaits it.
ELOISE
[_Taking it up, her arms folded around it._] I wanted to go to Boston
and buy a hat!
IAN
The sun will fall upon your dear head and give you life.
ELOISE
[_About to cry._] But no style! It ticks so loud and sure!
IAN
All false things are loud and sure.
ELOISE
I need a tick! I am afraid of tickless time!
[_Holding the clock in both hands she places it against her left ear._
IAN
[_Spade still in his right hand, he places his left arm around her
reassuringly._] You will grow, Eloise. You are growing.
[_He takes the clock as he is saying this. She turns her head
backward following the departing clock with surprised and helpless
eyes. Disconsolately watches him bury it._
ELOISE
[_An inspiration._] Ian! Couldn’t you fix the sun-dial to be set and go
off?
IAN
[_Pained._] “Set and go off?” [_Pause; regards the sun._] _Sine sole
sileo._
ELOISE
What did you say, Ian?
IAN
I said: _Sine sole sileo_.
ELOISE
Well, I don’t know what you say when you say that.
IAN
It’s a Latin motto I’ve just thought of for the sun-dial. It means,
“Without sun, I am silent.” Silence is a great virtue. [_Having
finished the grave, he looks around, making sure there are no more
clocks. Joyously._] Now we are freed! Eloise, think what life is going
to be! Done with approximations. Done with machine thinking. In a world
content with false time, we are true.
ELOISE
[_Sitting on the steps._] Yes, it’s beautiful. I want to be true. It’s
just that it’s a little hard to be true in a false world. For instance,
tomorrow I have an appointment with the dentist. If I come on sun-time
I suppose I’ll be twenty minutes--
IAN
[_Eagerly. Going to the sun-dial and pointing._] If you will just let
me explain this table--[_ELOISE shrinks back. IAN gives it up._] Oh,
well, tell him you are living by the truth.
ELOISE
I’m afraid he’ll charge me for it. And when we ask people for dinner
at seven, they’ll get here at twenty minutes of seven. Or will it be
twenty minutes _after_ seven?
IAN
[_Smoothing down graves._] It will be a part of eternal time.
ELOISE
Yes,--_that’s_ true. Only the roast isn’t so eternal. Why do they have
clocks wrong?
IAN
Oh, Eloise, I’ve explained it so many times. You--living in
Provincetown, three hundred miles to the eastward, are living by the
mean solar time of Philadelphia. [_Venomously._] Do you _want_ to live
by the mean solar time of Philadelphia?
ELOISE
Certainly _not_. [_An idea._] Then has Philadelphia got the right time?
IAN
It’s right six miles this side of Philadelphia.
ELOISE
We might move to Philadelphia.
[_Enter through gate, MRS. STUBBS, a Provincetown “native.”_
MRS. STUBBS
Now, Mr. Joyce, this sun clock,--is it running?
IAN
It doesn’t “run,” Mrs. Stubbs. It is acted upon.
MRS. STUBBS
Oh. Well, is it being acted upon?
IAN
As surely as the sun shines.
MRS. STUBBS
[_Looking at the sun._] And it is shining today, isn’t it? Well, will
you tell me the time? My clock has stopped and I want to set it.
IAN
[_Happily._] You hear, Eloise? Her clock has stopped.
MRS. STUBBS
Yes, I forgot to wind it.
ELOISE
[_Grieved to think of any one living in such a world._] _Wind_ it!
IAN
Do you not see, Mrs. Stubbs, where the shadow falls? [_She comes up the
steps._] From its millions of spinn--You’re in the way of the sun, Mrs.
Stubbs. [_She steps aside._] Its millions of spinning miles the sun
casts that shadow and here we know that it is eight minutes past six.
MRS. STUBBS
Now, ain’t that wonderful? Dear, dear, I wish Mr. Stubbs could make a
sun clock. But he’s not handy around the house. Past six. Well, I must
hurry back. They work tonight at the cold storage but Mr. Stubbs gets
home for his supper at half past six.
[_Starts away, reaching the gate._
ELOISE
[_Running to her._] Oh, Mrs. Stubbs! Don’t get his supper by sun time.
It wouldn’t be ready. It--[_With a hesitant look at IAN_] might get
cold. [_MRS. STUBBS stares._] You see, Mr. Stubbs is coming home by the
mean solar time of Philadelphia.
MRS. STUBBS
[_Loyal to MR. STUBBS._] Who said he was?
ELOISE
[_In distress._] Oh, it’s all so false! And arbitrary!
[_To IAN._] But I think Mrs. Stubbs had better be false and arbitrary
too. Mr. Stubbs might rather have his supper than the truth.
MRS. STUBBS
[_Advancing a little._] What is this about my being false?
And--arbitrary?
ELOISE
You see, you have to be, Mrs. Stubbs. We don’t blame you. How can you
live by the truth if Mr. Stubbs doesn’t work by it?
MRS. STUBBS
This is the first word I ever heard said against Johnnie Stubbs’ way of
freezin’ fish.
ELOISE
Oh, Mrs. Stubbs, if it were _merely_ his way of freezing fish!
IAN
Since you are not trying to establish a direct relation with truth, set
your clock at five minutes of six. The clocks, as would be clear to you
if you would establish a first-hand relation with this diagram, Eloise,
are slow.
MRS. STUBBS
You mean your sun clock’s wrong.
IAN
All other clocks are wrong.
ELOISE
You live by the mean solar time of Philadelphia.
MRS. STUBBS
I do no such thing!
ELOISE
Yes, you do, Mrs. Stubbs. You see the sun can’t be both here and in
Philadelphia at the same time. Now could it? So we have to pretend to
be where it is in Philadelphia.
MRS. STUBBS
Who said we did?
ELOISE
Well, [_After a look at IAN_] the Government.
MRS. STUBBS
_Them_ congressmen!
ELOISE
But Mr. Joyce and I--You’re standing on a grave, Mrs. Stubbs. [_MRS.
STUBBS jumps._] The grave of my grandmother’s clock. [_In reply to MRS.
STUBBS look of amazement._] Oh, yes! That clock has done harm enough.
Mrs. Stubbs, think what time is--and then consider my grandmother’s
clock! Tick, tick! Tick, tick! Messing up eternity like that!
MRS. STUBBS
[_After failing to think of anything adequate._] I must get Mr. Stubbs
his supper!
[_Frightened exit._
IAN
[_Standing near house door._] Eloise, how I love you when feeling lifts
you out of routine! Do you know, dearest, you are very sensitive in
the way you feel feeling? Sometimes I think that to feel feeling is
greater than to feel. You’re like the dial. Your sensitiveness is the
style--the gnomon--to cast the shadow of the feeling all around you and
mark what has been felt.
[_They embrace. EDDY and ALICE open the gate._
EDDY
Ahem! [_He comes down._] Ahem! We seem to have come ahead of time.
ELOISE
Oh, Eddy! Alice! [_Moving toward EDDY but not passing the dial._] We
are living by sun time now. You haven’t arrived for twenty minutes.
EDDY
We haven’t arrived for twenty minutes? [_Feeling of himself._] Why do I
seem to be here?
ALICE
[_Approaching dial._] So this is the famous sun-dial? How very
interesting it is!
ELOISE
It’s more than that.
ALICE
Yes, it’s really beautiful, isn’t it?
ELOISE
It’s more than that.
EDDY
Is it?
ELOISE
It’s a symbol. It means that Ian and I are done with approximations
arbitrarily and falsely imposed upon us.
EDDY
Well, I should think you would be. Who’s been doing that to you?
ELOISE
Don’t step on the graves, please, Alice.
ALICE
[_Starting back in horror._] Graves?
ELOISE
[_Pointing down._] The lies we inherited lie buried there.
EDDY
Well, I should think that might make quite a graveyard. So the sun-dial
is built on lies.
ELOISE
Indeed it is not!
ALICE
Does it keep time?
IAN
It doesn’t “keep” time. It gives it.
EDDY
[_Comparing with his watch._] Well, it gives it wrong. It’s twenty
minutes fast.
[_IAN and ELOISE smile at one another in a superior way._
ALICE
You couldn’t expect a home-made clock to be perfectly accurate. I think
it’s doing very well to come within twenty minutes of the true time.
IAN
It _is_ true time.
ELOISE
You think it’s twenty minutes fast because your puny, meticulous little
watch is twenty minutes slow.
ALICE
Why is it, Eddy? [_Comparing watches across the sun-dial._] No, Eddy’s
watch is right by mine.
IAN
And neither of you is right by the truth.
ELOISE
[_Pityingly._] Don’t you know that you are running by the mean solar
time of Philadelphia?
EDDY
Well, isn’t everybody else running that way?
ELOISE
Does that make it right?
EDDY
I get you. You are going to cast off standard time and live by solar
time.
ELOISE
Lies for truth.
EDDY
But how are you going to connect up with other people?
IAN
We can allow for their mistakes.
ELOISE
We will connect with other people in so far as other people are capable
of connecting with the truth!
EDDY
I’m afraid you’ll be awful lonesome sometimes.
ALICE
But, Eloise, do you mean to say that you are going to insist on being
right when other people are wrong?
ELOISE
I insist upon it.
ALICE
What a life!
EDDY
Come now, what difference does it make if we’re wrong if we’re all
wrong together?
IAN
That idea has made a clock of the human mind.
[_Enter ANNIE._
ANNIE
Mrs. Joyce, can’t I have my clock back now? I don’t know when to start
dinner.
IAN
[_Consulting dial._] By true time, Annie, it is twenty minutes past six.
ELOISE
[_Confidentially._] By false time, it is six.
ANNIE
I have to have my kitchen clock back.
[_She looks around for it._
IAN
We are done with clocks, Annie.
ANNIE
You mean I’m _not_ to have it back?
ELOISE
It lies buried there.
ANNIE
_Buried?_ My clock buried? It’s not _dead_!
IAN
It’s dead to us, Annie.
ANNIE
[_After looking at the grave._] Do I get a new clock?
ELOISE
We are going to establish a first-hand relation with truth.
ANNIE
You can’t cook without a clock.
IAN
A superstition. And anyway--have you not the sun?
ANNIE
[_After regarding the sun._] I’d rather have a clock than the sun.
[_Returns to her clockless kitchen._
IAN
That’s what clocks have made of the human mind.
EDDY
[_Coming to IAN._] Of course, this is all a joke.
IAN
The attempt to reach truth has always been thought a joke.
EDDY
But this isn’t any new truth! Why re-reach it?
IAN
I’m reaching it myself. I’m getting the impact--as of a fresh truth.
ALICE
But hasn’t it all been worked out for us?
IAN
And we take it never knowing--never _feeling_--what it is we take.
ELOISE
And that has made us the mechanical things we are!
ANNIE
[_Frantically rushes in, peeling an onion._] Starting the sauce for the
spaghetti. Fry onions in butter three minutes.
[_Wildly regards sun-dial--traces curved line of diagram with knife.
Looks despairingly at the sun. Tears back into house._
IAN
You get no sense of wonder in looking at a clock.
ALICE
Yes, do you know, I do. I’ve always thought that clocks were perfectly
wonderful. I never could understand how they could run like that.
ELOISE
I suppose you know they run wrong?
EDDY
What do you mean “run wrong?”
ELOISE
Why, you are running by the mean solar time of Philadelphia! And yet
here you are in Provincetown where the sun is a very different matter.
You have no direct relation with the sun.
EDDY
That doesn’t seem to worry me much.
IAN
No, it wouldn’t worry you, Eddy. You’re too perfect a product of a
standardized world.
[_EDDY bows acknowledgment._
ANNIE
[_Rushing out to look at dial._] Add meat, brown seven minutes.
[_Measures seven minutes between thumb and finger, holds up this
fragment of time made visible and carries it carefully into the
house._
EDDY
That girl’ll get heart disease.
IAN
Let her establish a first-hand relation to heat. If she’d take a look
at the food instead of the clock--!
EDDY
Trouble is we have to establish a first-hand relation with the
spaghetti. [_EDDY now comes down and regards the sun-dial. Moralizes._]
If other people have got the wrong dope, you’ve got to have the wrong
dope or be an off ox.
IAN
Perfect product of a standardized nation!
EDDY
[_Pointing with his stick._] What’s this standardized snake?
IAN
That’s my diagram correcting the sun.
EDDY
Does one correct the sun?
ELOISE
[_From behind the dial._] Ian! Correcting the _sun_!
IAN
You see there are only four days in the year when the apparent time is
the same as the average time.
ELOISE
[_In growing alarm._] Do you mean to tell me the sun is not right with
_itself_?
IAN
I’ve tried to explain it to you, Eloise, but you said you could get the
feeling of it without understanding it. This curve [_Pointing_] marks
the variation. Here today, you see, the shadow is “right” as you call
it--that is, average. It will be right again here in September and
again on December twenty-first.
ALICE
My birthday!
ELOISE
Ian, you mean to say the sun only tells the right _sun_-time four days
in the year?
IAN
It always tells the “right” sun-time, but here the said right sun-time
is fifteen minutes behind its own average, and here it is sixteen
minutes ahead. This scale here across the bottom shows you the number
of minutes to add or subtract.
ELOISE
[_With bitterness._] Add! Subtract! Then you and your sun are false!
IAN
No, Eloise, not false. Merely intricate. Merely not regular. Machines
are regular.
ELOISE
You got me to bury the clocks and live by the sun--and now you tell me
you have to _fix up_ the sun.
IAN
It was you who said bury the clocks.
ELOISE
I suppose you have to do something to the North star too!
IAN
Yes, the North star is not true north.
[_He starts to point out its error, sighting over the style of the
dial._
ELOISE
What _is_ true? What _is_ true?
IAN
[_With vision._] The mind of man.
ELOISE
I think I’d better have a clock. [_A new gust._] You told me I was to
live by the sun and now--after the clocks are in their graves--what I
am to live by is _that snake_.
[_She points at diagram._
IAN
You are a victim of misplaced confidence, Eloise. Sometimes when one
feels things without understanding them, one feels the wrong thing.
But there’s nothing to worry about. The sun and I can take care of the
sun’s irregularities.
EDDY
Take heart, Eloise. It’s a standardized sun.
IAN
It’s not a blindly accepted sun!
ANNIE
[_Who comes as one not to be put aside._] What’ll I do when it rains?
IAN
You’ll use your mind.
ANNIE
To tell time by? [_Looking to ELOISE._] I think I’d better find another
place.
ALICE
[_Coming forward, regarding this as a really serious matter._] No,
don’t do that, Annie.
ELOISE
[_Tearfully._] You don’t _know_ the _wonders_ of your own mind!
ANNIE
No, ma’m. [_After a look at the sun, becomes terrified._] It’s going
down!
EDDY
Yes, it goes down.
ANNIE
How’ll we tell time when it’s dark?
IAN
_Sine sole sileo._
ANNIE
Is that saying how we’ll know when it’s time to go to bed?
IAN
The doves know when to go to bed.
ANNIE
The doves don’t go to the pictures.
ELOISE
[_Hysterically._] You’ll grow, Annie!
ANNIE
I’d rather have a clock!
[_Exit._
IAN
She’d rather have a clock than grow.
ALICE
Now why can’t one do both?
IAN
One doesn’t--that’s the answer. One merely has the clock. I’d rather be
a fool than a machine.
EDDY
I never definitely elected to be either.
IAN
One can be both without electing either.
ELOISE
I want to hear the ticking of a clock!
EDDY
It’s a nice thing to hear. The ticking of a clock means the minds of
many men. As long as the mind of man has to--fix up the facts of nature
in order to create ideal time I feel it’s a little more substantial to
have the minds of many men.
ALICE
As I’ve told you before, Eloise, you can’t do better than accept the
things that have been all worked out for you.
IAN
You hear them, Eloise? You see where this defense of clocks is leading?
ELOISE
Ian, I’m terribly worried--and a little hurt--about the sun. [_As one
beginning a dirge._] The sun has failed me. The North star is false.
IAN
[_Going to her._] I am here, dearest.
ELOISE
Sometimes you seem so much like space. I am running by the sun--that
wobbly sun [_Looking at it_] and everyone else is running by
Philadelphia. I want a little clock to tick to me!
IAN
You will grow, dearest.
ELOISE
There’s no use growing. The things you grow to are wrong. [_Pressing
her hands to her head._] I need a tick in time!
IAN
[_Striding savagely from her._] Very well, then; dig up the clocks.
EDDY
Now you’re? talking!
[_ELOISE springs up._
IAN
Dig up the clocks! And we spend our lives nineteen minutes and twenty
seconds apart!
[_ELOISE is arrested, appalled. Dreadful pause._
ELOISE
You mean we’d never get together?
IAN
Time would lie between us. I refuse to be re-caught into a clock world.
It was you, Eloise, who proposed we give up the clocks and live in this
first-hand relation to truth.
ELOISE
I didn’t know I was proposing a first-hand relation with that snake!
IAN
It’s not a snake! It’s a little piece of the long winding road to
truth. It’s the discarding of error, the adjustment of fact. And I did
it myself. And it puts me _on_ that road. Oh, I know [_To EDDY and
ALICE_] how you can laugh if you yourself feel no need to _feel_ truth.
And you, Eloise, if you don’t want to feel time--return to your mean
little clock. What is a clock? A clock is the soulless--
[_The alarm clock enters a protest. Smothered sound of the alarm
going off underground. ELOISE screams._
ELOISE
The alarm clock! It’s going off!
ALICE
Buried alive!
ELOISE
Oh, no--oh, no! How terrible! Ian, how terrible!
[_She runs to him. Alarm clock, being intermittent, goes off again._
IAN
Eloise, if you listen to the voice of that clock--!
EDDY
How bravely it tries to function in its grave!
ALICE
The death struggle--the last gasp!
[_With another scream ELOISE snatches spade, begins to dig; alarm
clock gives another little gasp; spade is too slow for her: in her
desperation goes to it with her hands. Gets it and, as she holds it
aloft, the alarm clock rings its triumph._
ELOISE
[_Holding it to her ear._] It’s ticking! It ticks! It ticks! Oh, it’s
good to hear the ticking of a clock!
[_As he hears this, IAN, after a moment of terrible silence, goes and
unscrews the plate of the sun-dial. All watch him, afraid to speak.
He takes it off, holds it above the grave from which the alarm
clock has been rescued._
ELOISE
Ian! What are you doing? [_He does not answer, but puts the sun-dial in
the alarm clock’s grave._] Ian! No! No! Not that! Not your beautiful
sun-dial! Oh, no! Not that!
[_IAN, having finished the burial of the sun-dial, sees the alarm
clock and puts it on the pedestal from which the sun-dial has been
taken._
IAN
We bow down, as of old, to the mechanical. We will have no other god
but it.
[_He then sits on the step, sunk in gloom. ANNIE appears, in her hand
a panful of water._
ANNIE