THE MOTHER: I prefer to think that isn’t true. No soul is wholly criminal, and the wickedest murderers have moments when they lay down their arms.
MARTHA: I have such moments, too. But I would not have lowered my head to a brother whom I did not know and who meant nothing to me.
THE MOTHER: To whom then would you lower your head?
[MARTHA lowers her head.]
MARTHA: To you.
[A short silence.]
THE MOTHER [quietly]: Too late, Martha. I can do nothing more for you. [Half averting her eyes.] Oh, why did he keep silence? Silence is fatal. But speaking is as dangerous; the little he said hurried it on. [Turns toward her daughter.] Are you crying, Martha? No, you wouldn’t know how to cry. Can you remember the time when I used to kiss you?
MARTHA: No, mother.
THE MOTHER: I understand. It was so long ago, and I forgot so soon to hold out my arms to you. But I never ceased loving you. [She gently thrusts aside MARTHA, who gradually makes way for her.] I know it now; now that your brother’s coming has brought to life again that intolerable love which I now must kill—together with myself.
[The doorway is free for her to pass.]
MARTHA [burying her face in her hands]: But what, oh, what can mean more to you than your daughter’s grief?
THE MOTHER: Weariness, perhaps … and my longing for rest.
[She goes out. MARTHA makes no effort to detain her. Once her mother has left she runs to the door, slams it to, and presses herself against it. She breaks into loud, fierce cries.]
MARTHA: No, no! What concern of mine was it to look after my brother? None whatever! And yet now I’m an outcast in my own home, there is no place for me to lay my head, my own mother will have none of me. No, it wasn’t my duty to look after him—oh, the unfairness of it all, the injustice done to innocence! For he—he now has what he wanted, while I am left lonely, far from the sea I longed for. Oh, how I hate him! All my life was spent waiting for this great wave that was to lift me up and sweep me far away, and now I know it will never come again. I am doomed to stay here with all those other countries, other nations, on my left hand and my right, before me and behind; all those plains and mountains that are barriers to the salt winds blowing from the sea, and whose chatterings and grumblings drown its low, unceasing summons. [In a lower tone] There are places to which, far as they may be from the sea, the evening wind brings sometimes a smell of seaweed. It tells of moist seabeaches, loud with the cries of seagulls, or of golden sands bathed in a sunset glow that has no limit. But the sea winds fail long before they reach this place. Never, never shall I have what’s due to me. I may press my ear to the earth but I shall not hear the crash of icy breakers, or the measured breathing of a happy sea. I am too far from all I love, and my exile is beyond remedy. I hate him, yes, I hate him for having got what he wanted! My only home is in this gloomy, shut-in country where the sky has no horizons; for my hunger I have nothing but the sour Moravian sloes, for my thirst only the blood that I have shed. That is the price one must pay for a mother’s love!
There is no love for me, so let her die. Let every door be shut against me; all I wish is to be left in peace with my anger, my very rightful anger. For I have no intention of rolling my eyes heavenward or pleading for forgiveness before I die. In that southern land, guarded by the sea, to which one can escape, where one can breathe freely, press one’s body to another’s body, roll in the waves—to that sea-guarded land the gods have no access. But here one’s gaze is cramped on every side, everything is planned to make one look up in humble supplication. I hate this narrow world in which we are reduced to gazing up at God.
But I have not been given my rights and I am smarting from the injustice done me; I will not bend my knee. I have been cheated of my place on earth, cast away by my mother, left alone with my crimes, and I shall leave this world without being reconciled. [A knock at the door.] Who’s there?
MARIA: A traveler.
MARTHA: We’re not taking any guests now.
MARIA: But my husband’s here. I have come to see him.
[MARIA enters.]
MARTHA [staring at her]: Your husband. Who’s that?
MARIA: He came here yesterday evening and he promised to call for me this morning. I can’t understand why he didn’t come.
MARTHA: He said his wife was abroad.
MARIA: He had special reasons for that. But we’d arranged to meet this morning.
MARTHA [who has kept her eyes fixed on MARIA]: That may be difficult. Your husband’s gone.
MARIA: Gone? I don’t follow. Didn’t he take a room here?
MARTHA: Yes, but he left it during the night.
MARIA: Really, I can’t believe that. I know his reasons for wanting to stay in this house. But the way you speak alarms me. Please tell me frankly whatever you have to tell.
MARTHA: I have nothing to tell you, except that your husband is no longer here.
MARIA: I simply cannot understand; he would not have gone away without me. Did he say that he was going for good, or that he’d come back?
MARTHA: He has left us for good.
MARIA: Please listen. I can’t bear to be kept in suspense any longer. Since yesterday I’ve been waiting, waiting, in this strange land, and now my anxiety has brought me to this house. I will not go away before I have seen my husband or been told where I can find him.
MARTHA: Your husband’s whereabouts is your concern, not mine.
MARIA: You are wrong. You, too, are concerned in this, and closely. I don’t know if my husband will approve of my telling you this, but I’m sick and tired of this futile game of make-believe. The man who came here yesterday is the brother you’d heard nothing of for years and years.
MARTHA: That’s no news to me.
MARIA [violently]: Then—what can have happened? If everything has been cleared up, how is it Jan’s not here? Did you not welcome him home, you and your mother, and weren’t you full of joy at his return?
MARTHA: My brother is no longer here—because he is dead.
[MARIA gives a start and stares at MARTHA for some moments without speaking. Then she takes a step toward her, smiling.]
MARIA: Ah, you’re joking, of course. Jan’s often told me that when you were little you loved mystifying people. You and I are almost sisters and—
MARTHA: Don’t touch me. Stay where you are. There is nothing in common between us. [Pauses.] I can assure you I’m not joking; your husband died last night. So there’s no reason for you to stay here any longer.
MARIA: But you’re mad, stark staring mad! People don’t die like that—when one’s arranged to meet them, from one moment to the other, all of a sudden. I can’t believe you. Let me see him and then I may believe what I can’t even imagine.
MARTHA: That impossible. He’s at the bottom of the river. [MARIA stretches her hand toward her.] Don’t touch me! Stay there. I repeat; he is at the bottom of the river. My mother and I carried him to the river last night, after putting him to sleep. He didn’t suffer, but he is dead sure enough, and it was we, his mother and I, who killed him.
MARIA [shrinking away]: It must be I who am mad. I’m hearing words that have never before been said on this earth. I knew that no good would come to me here, but this is sheer craziness and I will not share in it. At the very moment when your words strike death into my heart, it seems to me that you are talking of some other man, not of the man who shared my nights, and all this is a tale of long ago, in which my love never had a part.
MARTHA: It’s not for me to convince you; only to tell you the truth. A truth which you will have to recognize before long.
MARIA [in a sort of reverie]: But why, why did you do it?
MARTHA: What right have you to question me?
MARIA [passionately]: What right?… My love for him.
MARTHA: What does that word mean?
MARIA: It means—it means all that at this moment is tearing, gnawing at my heart; it means this rush of frenzy that makes my fingers itch for murder. It means all my past joys, and this wild, sudden grief you have brought me. Yes, you crazy woman, if it wasn’t that I’ve steeled my heart against believing, you’d learn the meaning of that word, when you felt my nails scoring your cheeks.
MARTHA: Again, you are using language I cannot understand. Words like love and joy and grief are meaningless to me.
MARIA [making a
