MARTHA: It’s not possible you can talk like that, without any thought for your daughter, without the least stirring of revolt!
THE MOTHER: Hard as it is on you, it is possible. I have no thought for anything; still less any feeling of revolt. No doubt this is my punishment, and for all murderers a time comes when, like me, they are dried up within, sterile, with nothing left to live for. That’s why society gets rid of them; they’re good for nothing.
MARTHA: I can’t bear to hear you talking like that, about crime and punishment; it’s … despicable!
THE MOTHER: I’m not troubling to pick my words; I’ve ceased to have any preference. But it’s true that by one act I have ruined everything. I have lost my freedom and my hell has begun.
MARTHA [going up to her mother; fiercely]: You never spoke like that before. During all these years you’ve stood beside me, and your hands never flinched from gripping the legs of those who were to die. A lot you thought of hell or freedom in those days! It never occurred to you that you had no right to live, and you went on—doing as you did. What change can your son have brought to that?
THE MOTHER: I went on with it; that’s true. But what I lived through then, I lived through by dint of habit, which is not so very different from death. An experience of grief was enough to change all that, and my son’s coming has brought that change. [MARTHA makes a gesture and seems about to speak.] Oh, I know, Martha, that doesn’t make sense. What has a criminal to do with grief? But I’d have you notice that my grief is not the wild grief that mothers feel; I haven’t raised my voice as yet. It’s no more than the pain of feeling love rekindle in my heart; and yet it’s too much for me. I know that this pain, too, doesn’t make sense. [In a changed tone.] But then this world we live in doesn’t make sense, and I have a right to judge it, since I’ve tested all it has to offer, from creation to destruction.
[She walks resolutely toward the door. MARTHA slips in front of her and bars the way.]
MARTHA: No, mother, you shall not leave me. Don’t forget that it was I who stayed beside you, and he went away. For a whole lifetime I have been with you, and he left you in silence. That must come into the reckoning. That must be paid for. And it’s your duty to come back to me.
THE MOTHER [gently]: That’s true enough, Martha. But he, my son, was killed by me.
[MARTHA has half turned away and seems to be gazing at the door.]
MARTHA [after a short silence, with rising emotion]: All that life can give a man was given him. He left this country. He came to know far horizons, the sea, free beings. But I stayed here, eating my heart out in the shadows, small and insignificant, buried alive in a gloomy valley in the heart of Europe. Buried alive! No one has ever kissed my mouth and no one, not even you, has seen me naked. Mother, I swear to you, that must be paid for. And now, when at last I am to get what’s due to me, you cannot, must not desert me on the vain pretext that a man is dead. Do try to understand that for a man who has lived his life death is a little thing. We can forget my brother and your son. What has happened to him has no importance; he had nothing more to get from life. But for me it’s different, and you are defrauding me of everything, cheating me of the pleasures he enjoyed. Why must that man deprive me of my mother’s love as well and drag you down with him into the icy darkness of the river? [They gaze silently at each other; MARTHA lowers her eyes. She speaks now in a very low voice.] I ask so little, so very little of life. Mother, there are words I never could bring myself to use, but—don’t you think it would be soothing if we started our life again just as it used to be, you and I together?
THE MOTHER: Did you recognize him?
MARTHA: No, I didn’t. I had not the slightest recollection of what he looked like, and everything happened as it was bound to happen. You said it yourself; this world doesn’t make sense. But you weren’t altogether wrong in asking me that question. For I know now that if I’d recognized him, it would have made no difference.
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.
