MARIA (She is on the verge of breakdown.) But what could have made you do it ? Why, why ?
MARTHA What gives you the right to question me ?
MARIA What gives me the right…? Love gives me the right, if nothing else.
MARTHA What does that mean?
MARIA It means this. It means that something is eating into me, some kind of madness that could turn my hands to murder. Only one small thing my obstinate refusal to believe a word of this -lies between you and the moment when my nails tear at your face. You must be mad. If you weren’t, you’d know yourself what love meant.
MARTHA I can’t understand you. Joy, love, sorrow. It’s like another language. It means nothing to me.
MARIA (with a great effort) Look, let’s stop this. Playing with words won’t do us any good. If we are playing. Tell me what I want to know. As clearly as you can, and before I go out of my mind.
MARTHA I’ve been as clear as I can. Already. We killed your husband last night. We were after his money. We’ve done it several times before.
MARIA So. You were criminals. His mother and his sister. Both of you. Criminals.
MARTHA That’s right.
MARIA (Still with the same effort.) And did you know at the time that you were killing your own brother?
MARTHA If you must know, there was in fact a slight misunderstanding. Nothing out of the ordinary. It’s the kind of thing that happens. Even you should know that.
MARIA (turning to the table, her face sunk in her hands, and in a deadened voice) Oh, my God, I knew it would end like this.
In blood. It was all a mad farce and this is our reward, our punishment for ever getting mixed up in it. I should have known. The sky itself was threatening. (She stands by the table, and speaks without looking at Martha.) All he wanted was to come home again, to make himself known to you, and to bring you both happiness. He was looking for the right words. But before he found them you had to kill him. (She starts to cry.) You two. You must be inhuman. Couldn’t you tell? Couldn’t you see the kind of man he was? A son who came back. An extraordinary man, a man of warmth and of spirit. He could have been your pride and joy, as he was mine. But you had to kill him. You had to be his enemy. And you still are. You stand there as cold as ice, talking calmly of something that should make you want to run out into the street, screaming like an animal in pain!
MARTHA Don’t judge anything until you know it all. While we have been speaking my mother will have found her son. The water will be rolling them together. They’ll be taken from the river and buried side by side. But I can’t see why I should scream like an animal, even knowing that. I have a different idea of the human heart, and to tell you the truth, your tears disgust me.
MARIA (turning to face her, in an outburst of hatred) They are the tears of a joy you’ve destroyed. And you should be pleased to see them. Because when they stop, I shall be quite capable of killing you without a moment’s thought.
MARTHA Perhaps you will. It’s of no concern to me. I’ve made my decision. I’ve seen enough and heard enough to make me want to take my own life. But I’ll keep well away from them. Their
dark and dismal longing has no place for me. Don’t you see?
Their re-discovered love has made them unfaithful. To both of us, forever. Luckily, I have my room. The last taste of happiness. To die there on my own.
MARIA Why tell me? Why should I care? Die if you want to, and take the world with you! The man I loved has left me alone, and I can’t face the memory of all that I have lost.
(Martha comes up behind her, and speaks over her shoulder.)
MARTHA Let’s keep things in proportion. You’ve lost your husband, and I’ve lost my mother. So we stand even. But he only left you once. Think of all those years when you had him to yourself, And you were never rejected. I was. By my own mother. And now she’s dead. So that makes twice.
MARIA All he wanted to do was to share his happiness with you. That’s what he was thinking of, up there in that room, while you were down here getting ready to kill him.
MARTHA (with a sudden note of desperation) I am even with your husband, too! I have known his despair. I thought, like him, that I had a home. I believed that crime was its foundation, that crime had bound us both together, my mother and myself, in a bond that would never be broken. She was my companion. She had killed at the same time as me. And I was wrong. Crime’s just another form of loneliness, even if you’re one in a thousand. I’ve lived alone and killed alone, and now I must die alone.
(Maria turns to face her. She is still crying.)
MARTHA (taking a step backwards, in her hard voice) I told you not to touch me! All the violence in my blood floods to my brain at the thought of a human hand forcing its warmth on me before I die. It makes me shudder to think that I shall never escape from the grasp of human kindness.
(They are face to face, and very close to each other.)
MARIA Never fear. You can die as you wish. I don’t care. I can’t even see you any more. Neither you nor your mother will ever be more to me than shadows. I can’t feel hatred for you. I no longer have the will to love or to despise anyone. (She buries her face in her hands.) To be quite honest, I’ve hardly had the time to feel any pain, or to make a fight against it. The horror of it all has crushed me flat.
MARTHA But you still have the strength to cry. Even after this. So there is something left to do. My task isn’t over. Before I die I must cure you of hope.
MARIA (staring at her in terror) Leave me alone! Go away, and leave me alone!
MARTHA Don’t worry. I’ll be going soon. Your love and your tears are more than I can take, and it’ll be a great relief to be rid of them forever. But I refuse to die while you still believe that you are right and I am wrong, that love is never futile, and that all of this is some kind of accident, a ghastly mistake. It isn’t. It’s simply the final revelation of how things really are, and you must come to terms with it.
MARIA With what?
MARTHA With reality. With an arrangement that guarantees that no one person ever knows another.
MARIA (almost frantic) What does it matter? What does any of it matter? I don’t care! I can’t take any more. My heart is broken in two. What do you want? What can you hope to find? There is nothing left which interests me. Nothing, do you hear? You’ve killed the man I loved.
MARTHA (violently) That’s enough of him! I won’t hear another word. I despise him. How can he matter to you now? He’s left you forever and the doors have closed behind him. He has his home, and much good may it do him. The fool! He’s found what he was looking for. Reality has us all firmly in its grip. It’s time you understood that this waits for all of us. None of us, in life or in death, finds any peace. There is no land where we can feel at home. (With a scornful laugh) Take a look around you! Could this be it? This dark, sullen clay that swallows us up as food for sightless worms?
MARIA (in tears) Oh, my God! How can you talk like that? I can’t stand it. Nor would he. The land he was looking for, his own land… it was never like that.
MARTHA (who has reached the door, turning round sharply) Well he was a fool, and he has his reward. And you’ll soon have yours.
(With the same laugh)
We’ve all been fooled. We hear the summons, we obey the call. It might be love, it might be the sea. And all for what? What good does it do us? The whole thing’s ridiculous. Laughable. Your husband knows that now. He has his answer. There’s only one home for all of us. And that’s unspeakable. But we all end up there, lined up together. (With hatred in her voice) The same answer waits for you. And when you understand that, if you have any strength left you’ll look back with longing on a day when you suffered that inconsequential deprivation that we call loneliness. Can’t you see? Injustice is decreed. For all of us. And by its side your sorrow is trivial. Insignificant. Listen to me. I’ll give you some advice. Take it, in place of your husband. I owe you something. I killed him. You have a god. Pray to him. Ask him to turn you into stone. It’s the only true happiness. And he knows it. That’s why he keeps it for himself. So do what he does. Turn yourself into stone. Be deaf to all cries. There isn’t
