[MARIA has risen to her feet. The two women now are face to face, standing very near each other.]
MARIA: Have no fear. I shall do nothing to prevent your dying as you wish. For with this hideous pain that grips my body like a vise, I feel a sort of blindness falling on my eyes and everything around me is growing dim. Neither you nor your mother will ever be more to me than vague, fleeting faces that came and went in the course of a tragedy which can never end. For you, Martha, I have no hatred and no pity. I have lost the power of loving or hating anybody. [Suddenly she buries her face in her hands.] But then—I have hardly had time to suffer or to rebel. My calamity was … too big for me.
MARTHA [who has taken some steps toward the door, comes back toward MARIA]: But still not big enough; it has left you eyes to weep with. And I see that something remains for me to do before leaving you for ever. I have yet to drive you to despair.
MARIA [gazing at her, horror-stricken]: Oh, please leave me alone! Go away, and let me be!
MARTHA: Yes, I am going, and it will be a relief for me, as well. Your love and your tears are odious to me. But before I go to die, I must rid you of the illusion that you are right, that love isn’t futile, and that what has happened was an accident. On the contrary, it’s now that we are in the normal order of things, and I must convince you of it.
MARIA: What do you mean by that?
MARTHA: That in the normal order of things no one is ever recognized.
MARIA [distractedly]: Oh, what do I care? I only know that my heart is torn to shreds, and nothing, nothing matters to it except the man you killed.
MARTHA [savagely]: Be silent! I will not have you speak of that man; I loathe him. And he is nothing to you now. He has gone down into the bitter house of eternal exile. The fool! Well, he has got what he wanted; he is with the woman he crossed the sea to find. So all of us are served now, as we should be, in the order of things. But fix this in your mind; neither for him nor for us, neither in life nor in death, is there any peace or homeland. [With a scornful laugh] For you’ll agree one can hardly call it a home, that place of clotted darkness underground, to which we go from here to feed blind animals.
MARIA [weeping]: I can’t, oh, no, I can’t bear to hear you talk like that. And I know he, too, wouldn’t have borne it. It was to find another homeland that he crossed the sea.
MARTHA [who has walked to the door, swings round on her]: His folly has received its wages. And soon you will receive yours. [Laughing as before] We’re cheated, I tell you. Cheated! What do they serve, those blind impulses that surge up in us, the yearnings that rack our souls? Why cry out for the sea, or for love? What futility! Your husband knows now what the answer is: that charnel house where in the end we shall lie huddled together, side by side. [Vindictively] A time will come when you, too, know it, and then, could you remember anything, you would recall as a delightful memory this day which seems to you the beginning of the cruelest of exiles. Try to realize that no grief of yours can ever equal the injustice done to man.
And now—before I go, let me give a word of advice; I owe it to you, since I killed your husband. Pray your God to harden you to stone. It’s the happiness. He has assigned Himself, and the one true happiness. Do as He does, be deaf to all appeals, and turn your heart to stone while there still is time. But if you feel you lack the courage to enter into this hard, blind peace—then come and join us in our common house. Good-by, my sister. As you see, it’s all quite simple. You have a choice between the mindless happiness of stones and the slimy bed in which we are awaiting you.
[She goes out. MARIA, who has been listening in horrified amazement, sways, stretching out her arms in front of her.]
MARIA [her voice rising to a scream]: Oh, God, I cannot live in this desert! It is on You that I must call, and I shall find the words to say. [She sinks on her knees.] I place myself in your hands. Have pity, turn toward me. Hear me and raise me from the dust, O Heavenly Father! Have pity on those who love each other and are parted.
[The door opens. The OLD MANSERVANT is standing on the threshold.]
THE OLD MANSERVANT [in a clear, firm tone]: What’s all this noise? Did you call me?
MARIA [gazing at him]: Oh!… I don’t know. But help me, help me, for I need help. Be kind and say that you will help me.
THE OLD MANSERVANT [in the same tone]: No.
CURTAIN
The End
