arrange a dining room warming. It’s no use telephoning to him; he’ll
just promise to fix the radiator and then go back to his chair and
fall asleep. I’ll go down and drag him up by the throat. (_He goes out
through the hall door, and is heard to open the outer door and speak
to someone._) How are you, Mr. Morris? Walk right in! The madam’s
waiting for you.
LIONEL (_off stage_)
Ah, thank you, Mr. Johnson, thank you.
(_Enter_ LIONEL. _He is a handsome, slender young man, very pale, with
brown hair brushed straight back._)
LIONEL (_lifting both of_ MRS. JOHNSON’S _hands to his lips_)
Ah, Miss White! Dear Comrade White!
(_This hand-kissing and dearing business leads the audience to think
that_ MR. LIONEL MORRIS _is the villain of the play, a destroyer of
homes, a desperate character. As a matter of fact, he is nothing of
the sort. He is quite harmless, being a sociable young man of limited
education who likes to take part in those radical movements which
attract women. He writes obscene poetry and paints pictures and makes
sculptures that would be disgusting if they were not so funny. He is a
rather interesting hybrid, being part donkey and part tame cat._)
HELEN
Dear Comrade Lionel! See where I put your “Emancipation of Woman.”
(_She leads him to the purple statue._)
LIONEL
Ah! I never can interest myself in any of my work that is more than a
day old. A poem or a picture that I have made bores me when the first
flush of creation has passed. I feel toward it as I suppose a father
felt toward his children, in those mediæval days when one had children.
(_He touches the outstretched hand of the statue._) But, dear Comrade
White! Why do you make my “Emancipation of Woman” live with a Hiroshige
colour print? A Toyokune I can endure, but a Hiroshige absolutely
spoils the melody of her composition. Better the soft lyrical wall for
a background, or perhaps a simple hanging of passionate black satin. Do
you mind if I take this abomination down?
HELEN
Surely, surely; you are always so right about everything! Do change
anything and everything that will make it more comfortable for your
wonderful statue. She has meant so much to me since she came....
LIONEL
I know, dear comrade.
(_He has moved the pianola bench to the wall and is standing on it
taking down the Japanese print when_ MAXWELL _and_ JOHN RYAN _come
in_. RYAN _is a janitor, and looks like a janitor. He is in his shirt
sleeves and wears a battered black derby. He is smoking--no, not a
short clay pipe!--a cigarette. He takes off his hat when he sees_ MRS.
JOHNSON, _but instantly replaces it_.)
MAXWELL (_as he leads_ RYAN _to the dining room_)
Come in here, Ryan. Did you bring your monkey wrench with you?
(RYAN _mutters something unintelligible. They go out into the dining
room, from which come occasional murmurs of conversation and sounds of
hammering._)
LIONEL (_from the pianola bench_)
Do you know, I am not at all glad to see that man.
HELEN
Who? Max?
LIONEL
No, indeed! That dreadful janitor! Do you know, Miss White--that
janitor--
HELEN
Don’t talk so loud! Max doesn’t like me to be called “Miss White.” You
know he’s funny and old-fashioned, and though he’s willing for me to
be a Feminist and to give money to the cause and everything, it makes
him positively rage to hear me called “Miss White.” I tell him that
a woman doesn’t give up her soul and her name and everything like a
chattel mortgage just because she’s married, but he says that I’ve got
to be called “Mrs. Johnson” because I’m no more Miss White than he is.
LIONEL (_getting down from the bench and putting
the colour print on the pianola_)
Ah, well, he’ll wake up one of these days and learn what Feminism
really is. Even the business men must wake up some time. There was
a broker that marched beside me in the suffrage parade this year--a
broker or a pawnbroker, I never know which is which.
HELEN
But what about Ryan? Why don’t you like him?
LIONEL
That janitor! Do you know, he is simply a degenerate!
HELEN
A degenerate? Like Lombroso?
LIONEL
No. Worse than that. He actually has nine children! Last week when I
went around with Comrade May Robinson Dannenberg and Comrade Rebecca
Idleheimer selling “Plain Facts about a Great Evil” and working
up enthusiasm for the suffrage rally at the Church of the Social
Revolution, I made a special effort to interest the janitors and their
wives. We went into every basement from here to 125th Street, and we
saw some things that made my heart bleed. And in the basement of this
very house I saw this man Ryan rocking a cradle and drinking beer out
of a tin pail. His wife was cooking something disgusting on the gas
stove and nursing a baby with her left hand. Comrade May Robinson
Dannenberg was treated with absolute discourtesy by them; in fact, the
woman told her to “go to hell”!
HELEN
But then, those people, you know, they never do anything or read
anything or anything. They are just like animals.
LIONEL
Yes, but you and I have got to keep them from being animals! That’s
what Social Consciousness means. I won’t say duty--I hate the
word--but it’s your right to change the lives of those people and you
absolutely must exercise that right, just as you absolutely must vote.
There is that woman--a woman, the creature of all our dreaming--(_He
points to the statue._)--who might be out among the fields and the
trees and the brooks and the birds and all the great and beautiful
things of life, a sentient, social being; and what is she? What do we
find her doing? Having a baby in a coalhole!
HELEN
I see what you mean. That dreadful janitor! I know; I tried to get her
to come to my class in the Ferrer School, and she said she had too much
work to do.
LIONEL
Exactly! Too much work to do! The thing that has crushed the souls and
spirits and hearts of women throughout the generations! But we must
stop all this. You must stop it. You must speak to the man--to Ryan--
HELEN
I speak to Ryan? What shall I say to him? He won’t come to the Ferrer
School.
LIONEL
The Ferrer School must come to him! You must go to him and say: “Ryan,
woman is no longer your bond slave! You must have no more babies. You
are killing your wife with soul-deadening drudgery. No janitor should
have children; no janitor should have a wife. You must put Mrs. Ryan
in a model tenement somewhere, and let her lead a normal, intellectual
life. Society will care for the children. There are plenty of places
where they can go and be studied by scientists and develop, perhaps,
into useful members of the community. You will do your work as before,
but you must keep Mrs. Ryan away from this drudgery somewhere where she
can really live her life.” Will you do this?
HELEN
Why, yes, I suppose I ought to.... (_She picks up her cloak which has
been lying on a chair and puts it on, with_ LIONEL’S _assistance_.)
It’s time we started, isn’t it? But wait a minute! Max!
MAXWELL (_coming in from the dining room_)
Going? I hope you have a good time.
HELEN
Yes, we’re going, but, Max, I want you to do something for me. You
know Ryan better than I do and you can talk to him. Mr. Morris says
that he’s been abusing his wife, and he thinks we ought to get him to
put her into a model tenement where she can develop her soul. He’s been
overworking her and all that sort of thing, so you talk to him about
it, will you? Mr. Morris knows a place where she can go, and we can put
the children somewhere, and he can go on with his work, and it will be
better for everybody. So you talk to him about it, will you?
MAXWELL
Ryan? Abusing Mrs. Ryan? Good heavens, I had no idea of this. Of course
I’ll talk to him about it. I’ll put a stop to that, Nellie. Good-bye.
Enjoy yourself. And you talk over that plan of ours with Mr. Morris and
decide whether you want a bungalow or an automobile.
HELEN _and_ MAXWELL
Good-bye.
(_They go out._ RYAN _comes in from the dining room_.)
RYAN
I guess that radiator’ll be all right now, Mr. Johnson. There was a lot
of air in the pipe and the valve was rusted tight, so I had a little
trouble loosening it up.
(_He starts out._)
MAXWELL (_frowning and looking at the floor_)
Wait a minute, Ryan. I want to talk to you about something. (RYAN
_comes toward him and stands waiting_.) Ryan, I hear--don’t you
think--er--will you have a cigar?
RYAN
Why, yes, thanks.
(MAXWELL _goes into the dining room and brings out a humidor. He places
it by the lamp on the table and opens it. Both men take cigars and
light them._)
MAXWELL
Ryan, what I want to talk to you about is the way in which you--it’s
about what I hear about the way you--Sit down, sit down!
(_He sits on the chaise-longue and_ RYAN, _looking somewhat puzzled,
sits on a chair on the other side of the table_.)
RYAN
What was it you want to see me about, Mr. Johnson? Any complaint?
MAXWELL
Oh, no, not at all! Or, rather, yes, I have a complaint. It’s rather a
hard thing. I must say I’m surprised to hear about the way you treat
your wife.
RYAN (_rising from his chair_)
What are you trying to give me? You mind--
MAXWELL
Now, that’s all right, Ryan; I’m not trying to start anything. I’ve
lived in this apartment for five years and you know me. But they’ve
been telling me that you don’t treat your wife right, and I thought I’d
tell you about it.
RYAN
Anybody that told you that, Mr. Johnson, is a liar, I don’t care if
it’s man, woman or child.
MAXWELL
Now, Ryan, will you just listen to me for a minute? This thing was sort
of put up to me, and I’ve got to do it. Probably these people are all
wrong. Just sit down and talk to me a minute. Have a drink?
RYAN (_sulkily, sitting down again_)
Yes, thanks. (MAXWELL _brings in from the dining room a bottle, a
siphon and two glasses_.) Ain’t you got any ice?
MAXWELL
Oh, yes, that’s right.
(_He goes into the dining room again and comes back with a plate of
cracked ice. Meanwhile_ RYAN _pockets several cigars and pours a
generous portion of whiskey into the glasses_. MAXWELL _sits down
again, and as the men talk they drink, refilling their glasses from
time to time_.)
RYAN
Now just what did these fresh guys say about me, Mr. Johnson? You know
there’s such a thing as a libel law in these here United States.
MAXWELL
Well, I’ll tell you, Ryan. I don’t know whether there’s anything in it
or not, and these people may have it all wrong, but they said that you
were treating Mrs. Ryan very badly.
RYAN
I beat her up, I suppose?
MAXWELL
No, they didn’t say anything like that. It’s this way, Ryan: These
people are making a sort of special study of people that work hard for
a living, and they say--I don’t know whether they’re right or not--that
you’re not treating Mrs. Ryan right to make her work so hard and have
so many children and all that sort of thing.
RYAN
Mr. Johnson, if any man but you was talking to me like that, I’d
knock his block off, the big boob! Why, whose business is it how many
children I have? What do they expect she’s going to do? Lie on a couch
an’ have me bring her ice cream all day long? I been married thirteen
years next month, an’ if anybody wants to know how I treat my wife I
refer them to her, I do.
MAXWELL
Well, Ryan, as I said, I’m inclined to think that these people that
were talking to me were a bit hasty. But see here; listen to me a
minute. These people want to do you a good turn. You’ll admit, I
suppose, that it isn’t the finest life in the world for Mrs. Ryan to
be staying down there in the basement all day and all night washing
clothes and cooking meals and tending to the children. She’s sick every
now and then, isn’t she?
RYAN
Now and then.
MAXWELL
Well, the idea is this: These people are what they call
philanthropists--that is, they’re trying to make the world better, to
make people happier. Now, they’ve built a very nice tenement house;
it’s called a model tenement; it’s almost as good an apartment house
to live in as this one. What they say is, that you can put Mrs. Ryan
there, in a nice suite of rooms, with hot and cold water and a bathroom
and electric light and everything for very little money--say five
dollars a week. You can come there to sleep nights and you can get your
breakfast and supper there with her in what they call the community
dining room. You see, they do all the cooking for you and charge you
just what the food costs for the meals. Your wife won’t have any more
cooking to do, and they’ll give you better meals in that dining room
than you’ve ever had before, believe me.
RYAN
I see. What about the washing?
MAXWELL
Well, they have a big laundry in the place and do all your washing for
you for about half what a regular laundry would cost you. That sounds
like a pretty good thing, doesn’t it?
RYAN
A pretty good thing, and I suppose there’s nursemaids and governesses
for all the children, too, hey?
MAXWELL
Why, as a matter of fact there are--but not exactly in the way you
mean. You see, they run a sort of a boarding school, too, the people
that run this model tenement do, and they take care of all the children
there--keep ’em night and day, feed ’em and dress ’em and teach ’em
trades and all that sort of thing. They let them come to see you on
Sunday, but you’re relieved of all responsibility and your wife of all
the trouble.
RYAN
I see. But what’s to become of my job when I’m going off to this here
model tenement to sleep nights? Don’t you know that a janitor has to
sleep in the building he’s taking care of?
MAXWELL
Well, you’re not in love with your job, are you? You’d be willing to
do some other work where there was a chance of advancement and better
pay, wouldn’t you?
RYAN
Sure I would. Where am I going to get it?
MAXWELL
Why, as to that, I guess Mr. Morris or I could get you a job somewhere.
You’re a big husky fellow and pretty steady, I know. I could get you a
job in the shipping department of a factory I am interested in, if you
wanted it.
RYAN
What would the hours be?
MAXWELL (_laughing_)
Why, you’re going pretty fast, Ryan. I don’t know just what the hours
would be yet, but I suppose they’d be from half past eight to six or
something like that. That’s easier than your hours now, isn’t it?
RYAN
Much easier. Now, what has all this got to do with my wife having too
many children?
MAXWELL
Why, these people think that Mrs. Ryan has had too many children. Some
of these people are doctors, and they say it’s bad for a woman’s
health to have so many children.
RYAN
I see. Well, what would you like to have me do about it?
MAXWELL
About the model tenement?
RYAN
No, about my wife having any more children.
MAXWELL
Well, you know--you see I’m not--what they think is-- Oh, damn it, I
don’t know about this part of the thing, Ryan. It’s out of my line.
I’m not a philanthropist. I’m just talking for these people because
they know I know you. About that question you’ll have to talk to Mrs.
Dannenberg or Mr. Morris.
RYAN
Mr. Morris--he’s the little guy that was standing on a chair when I
came in to-night, ain’t he?
MAXWELL
Yes.
RYAN
Is he a doctor?
MAXWELL
No, I don’t think he is.
RYAN
He came into my place the other day selling some sort of a little
doctor book.
MAXWELL
I know; he does that because he’s a philanthropist.
RYAN
Do people make a living by being philanthropists?
MAXWELL
No--well, as a matter of fact, many people do make a pretty fat living
out of it, but Mr. Morris doesn’t. He’s a sculptor--a man that makes
statues, you know.
RYAN
Oh, I know what a sculptor is, all right. What statues did Mr. Morris
make?
MAXWELL
Why, he made that statue over in the corner, for one thing.
(RYAN _goes over and examines the purple statue_.)
RYAN
Do you like this statue, Mr. Johnson?
MAXWELL (_laughing_)
I’m not a judge of such things, Ryan. But people who know about art say
that it’s very good indeed.
RYAN
Is it a good likeness?
MAXWELL
It’s not supposed to be a portrait; it’s a sort of a fancy statue. It
represents the “Emancipation of Woman”--woman freed, you know.
RYAN
Freed from what?
MAXWELL
Why, from overwork, and excessive child-bearing and all that sort of
thing, you know.
RYAN
Well, that lady’s freed from child-bearing, all right. She’s perfectly
safe on that score. (_He goes back to his chair and pours out another
drink._) But now let’s get back to your friends’ proposition. I’m to
get a day job and come home nights--is that right?
MAXWELL
That’s right.
RYAN
The children are taken off my wife’s hands, and she doesn’t have to do
any more cooking or washing or anything, hey?
MAXWELL
That’s it, Ryan.
RYAN
And the place we’d live would be pretty much like this apartment, would
it?
MAXWELL
Just as comfortable, at any rate.
RYAN
My wife would have no work to do; I’d work in the daytime and come home
nights--there’d be no kids to take care of--it would be pretty much
like the life that you and your wife have, wouldn’t it, Mr. Johnson?
MAXWELL
Ah--why, yes, Ryan, pretty much the same. What do you think of the
proposition?
RYAN
Well, I’ll tell you. Of course I wouldn’t like to have the children
go away--though they are a lot of trouble--but I suppose they’d be
better taken care of than we could do, so, if that was all there was
to it, I’d say go ahead. And it’d be all right for me, too, if I was a
bachelor. But it’s on account of my wife that I feel I’ve got to say,
“Excuse me!”
MAXWELL
Why, you don’t begrudge your wife a little rest, do you, Ryan?
RYAN
Would I begrudge the old woman a little rest? Yes, by God, I would,
if a little rest meant having nothing to do all day except sit around
and talk to her friends and run around town. It’s just on that account
that I say nix to your whole proposition. Now you think I’m a slave
driver, I suppose. Well, I ain’t, Mr. Johnson, but I’ve lived with a
woman thirteen years, and what I’m telling you I didn’t get out of no
books--it’s facts!
Listen, Mr. Johnson. What you want us to do is to live just the sort
of life that you and your wife live--no children to take care of, no
washing nor cooking nor nothing. Well, what I say is, excuse me! That
may be all right for you and your wife--she don’t need no housework nor
children nor nothing to keep her busy. Her time is full of all sorts
of useful things--I know that. (MAXWELL _stirs uneasily and looks at
the floor_.) But with Annie, my wife, it’s a different proposition
altogether. She’s one of them women--and there’s a lot more of them
than you think--that can’t stand living in a nice regular apartment
with nothing to do. I know because we tried it when we was first
married. It’s like what the old fellow said: “Satan finds some mischief
still for idle hands to do”!
MAXWELL
True enough! And--
RYAN
Listen, Mr. Johnson. When we was first married, Annie was one of these
here idle hands they tell of. She was an idle hand for three years, and
Satan, as the old fellow said, certainly found some mischief for her to
do. Not anything real bad--there’s no real harm in Annie--but it was
mischief all right. For the first three years we was living in a nice
apartment in Brooklyn. I wasn’t a janitor, then; I was driving a truck.
I was out all day and I got home every night at six or seven o’clock.
All Annie has to do is to get my breakfast and supper and keep the
place clean. Does she do it? Sure she does, for the first four or five
weeks! Then she gets to making friends with other women in the building
and going out to matinees and vaudeville and all that sort of thing.
That’s all right--I can afford it--I don’t care if she has a good time;
but then what does she do? I give her two dollars in the morning to
go out and buy a good supper for me when I come home. I come home and
she ain’t in yet, and the lady in the next flat gives me the groceries
that she’s sent home. And what is they? A little chipped beef and a box
of Saratoga chips and some baker’s bread. About fifty-cent’s worth.
When she gets home I ask her where she’s been. Why, Mrs. Eindorfer has
took her to a spiritualist meeting, and she’s spent the rest of that
money to look into a glass ball or have her fortune told or some such
foolishness.
Now this goes on for nearly three years. It ain’t all spiritualists’
meetings; it’s all sorts of things. She makes all sorts of friends,
women and men, too; I had to beat a couple of ’em up. The flat wasn’t
kept up; I run into debt; my meals wasn’t cooked right or on time, and
Annie was half sick all the time just from running around entertaining
herself. I ain’t blaming her. She wasn’t to blame. And what was to
blame? The apartment house was to blame. When Peter was born, after
we’d been married three years, and I gave up trucking and moved out
of that apartment house and got a job as janitor, everything was all
right. And everything’s been all right ever since.
MAXWELL (_thoughtfully_)
And the apartment house was to blame?
RYAN
Believe me, Mr. Johnson, the only part of an apartment house to live in
is the basement, where you can have a regular home. I been a janitor
for ten years, and I seen these apartment houses do queer things
to families. They don’t seem to have no children when they live in
apartment houses, that’s one thing. And there ain’t no coal to bring
up and the washing goes out, and there ain’t nothing for them to do
but just make fools of themselves. And sometimes there’s a good many
divorces been caused by these here apartment houses. And there’d be a
good many more divorces if a lot of husbands knew what went on when
they was downtown at business.
Understand me, Mr. Johnson. I don’t mean you and your wife at all. You
ain’t that sort of people, but what I do say is for my wife, and for
a lot of women with more education and more money than she’s got, the
only sort of life is doing housework and taking care of children all
day long. So Annie and me will stay down in the basement, much obliged
to you, unless we go out of New York to live in a little house in the
country sometime. And Annie’ll have just as much work to do there.
She’s one of them women that wasn’t meant to be idle. And now I guess
I’ll go downstairs.
(_He rises and goes toward the door._ MAXWELL _sits silent for a moment
and then rises a little unsteadily. He holds out his hand to_ RYAN _for
a second and then drops it and starts_.)
MAXWELL
Ryan, I--er--why, I guess you’re right, after all. I’ll tell my friends
what you said.
RYAN
All right. No hard feelings, I hope.
MAXWELL
Not at all; that’s all right. Good night, Ryan.
RYAN
Good night, Mr. Johnson.
(_He goes out._)
MAXWELL
There’s a man that’s master in his own home, at any rate. (_He lights
a cigar and walks around the room with his hands in his trousers
pockets, coming to a halt in front of the purple statue. He looks at
it reflectively._) Satan finds some mischief still--(_A pause_)--for
idle hands to do. For idle hands to do. For idle hands to do. For idle
hands--
(_The doorbell is rung violently._ MAXWELL _starts and runs out into
the hall. He returns with_ HELEN, _who is very much out of breath.
As she runs into the room the combs drop from her hair, which falls
over her face and shoulders. She throws herself on the chaise-longue._
MAXWELL _sits beside her and tries to push her hair back from her
face_.)
Nellie! What’s the matter?
(HELEN _sobs without answering_.)
HELEN
It’s those nasty Martins and that nasty policeman and that nasty Lionel
Morris.
(_The bell rings again._ MAXWELL _goes to the door and admits_ LIONEL.)
LIONEL
Oh, I’m awfully glad you got back all right, Miss White. I jumped into
a taxi as soon as that brute of a policeman came, and then I met all
the rest of the crowd at the studio and everybody said, “Where’s Miss
White?” So I came right up here to find out if you’d got home.
MAXWELL
For God’s sake, will somebody tell me what’s happened?
LIONEL (_sitting on the pianola bench_)
Why, you see--
HELEN
Be still. You see, Max, we were all at the Mortons’ studio, and Adrian
Wolfe made a speech about those nasty striking miners in California
or wherever it is that everybody is wearing mourning for and parading
and all that and this--and Mr. Morris said: “Let’s walk up to Union
Square and hold an open air meeting to protest.” So we went up there
and I made a speech and there was a crowd and I saw a policeman there,
but I thought it would be all right, and then Mr. Morris made a speech
and he said something about trampling on a bloodstained flag, and the
policeman told him to stop, and he called the policeman a myrmidon,
and some more policemen came and broke up the meeting, and he ran away
and wouldn’t help me; and I ran down into the subway, and I don’t see
how he dares show his face in here!
MAXWELL
I’ll talk to him presently, but quiet down a little. You’d better go in
your room and fix up your hair.