(quickly; he says nothing)
All right. What do you know?
STEVENS
Nothing. I don’t want to know it. All I ——
TEMPLE
Say that again.
STEVENS
Say what again?
TEMPLE
What is it you think you know?
STEVENS
Nothing. I ——
TEMPLE
All right. Why do you think there is something I haven’t told yet?
STEVENS
You came back. All the way from California ——
TEMPLE
Not enough. Try again.
STEVENS
You were there.
(with her face averted, Temple reaches her hand to the table, fumbles until she finds the cigarette box, takes a cigarette and with the same hand fumbles until she finds the lighter, draws them back to her lap)
At the trial. Every day. All day, from the time court opened ——
TEMPLE
(still not looking at him, supremely casual, puts the cigarette into her mouth, talking around it, the cigarette bobbing)
The bereaved mother ——
STEVENS
Yes, the bereaved mother ——
TEMPLE
(the cigarette bobbing: still not looking at him)
— herself watching the accomplishment of her revenge; the tigress over the body of her slain cub ——
STEVENS
— who should have been too immersed in grief to have thought of revenge — to have borne the very sight of her child’s murderer . . .
TEMPLE
(not looking at him)
Methinks she doth protest too much?
Stevens doesn’t answer. She snaps the lighter on, lights the cigarette, puts the lighter back on the table. Leaning, Stevens pushes the ashtray along the table until she can reach it. Now she looks at him.
TEMPLE
Thanks. Now let grandmamma teach you how to suck an egg. It doesn’t matter what I know, what you think I know, what might have happened. Because we won’t even need it. All we need is an affidavit. That she is crazy. Has been for years.
STEVENS
I thought of that too. Only it’s too late. That should have been done about five months ago. The trial is over now. She has been convicted and sentenced. In the eyes of the law, she is already dead. In the eyes of the law, Nancy Mannigoe doesn’t even exist. Even if there wasn’t a better reason than that. The best reason of all.
TEMPLE
(smoking)
Yes?
STEVENS
We haven’t got one.
TEMPLE
(smoking)
Yes?
(she sits back in the chair, smoking rapidly, looking at Stevens. Her voice is gentle, patient, only a little too rapid, like the smoking)
That’s right. Try to listen. Really try. I am the affidavit; what else are we doing here at ten o’clock at night barely a day from her execution? What else did I — as you put it — come all the way back from California for, not to mention a — as you have probably put that too — faked coincidence to save — as I would put it I suppose — my face? All we need now is to decide just how much of what to put in the affidavit. Do try; maybe you had better have a drink after all.
STEVENS
Later, maybe. I’m dizzy enough right now with just perjury and contempt of court.
TEMPLE
What perjury?
STEVENS
Not venal then, worse: inept. After my client is not only convicted but sentenced, I turn up with the prosecution’s chief witness offering evidence to set the whole trial aside —
TEMPLE
Tell them I forgot this. Or tell them I changed my mind. Tell them the district attorney bribed me to keep my mouth shut ——
STEVENS
(peremptory yet quiet)
Temple.
She puffs rapidly at the cigarette, removes it from her mouth.
TEMPLE
Or better still; won’t it be obvious? a woman whose child was smothered in its crib, wanting vengeance, capable of anything to get the vengeance; then when she has it, realising she can’t go through with it, can’t sacrifice a human life for it, even a nigger whore’s?
STEVENS
Stop it. One at a time. At least, let’s talk about the same thing.
TEMPLE
What else are we talking about except saving a condemned client whose trained lawyer has already admitted that he has failed?
STEVENS
Then you really don’t want her to die. You did invent the coincidence.
TEMPLE
Didn’t I just say so? At least, let’s for God’s sake stop that, can’t we?
STEVENS
Done. So Temple Drake will have to save her.
TEMPLE
Mrs. Gowan Stevens will.
STEVENS
Temple Drake.
She stares at him, smoking, deliberately now. Deliberately she removes the cigarette and, still watching him, reaches and snubs it out in the ashtray.
All right. Tell me again. Maybe I’ll even understand this time, let alone listen. We produce — turn up with — a sworn affidavit that this murderess was crazy when she committed the crime.
TEMPLE
You did listen, didn’t you? Who knows ——
STEVENS
Based on what?
TEMPLE
— What?
STEVENS
The affidavit. Based on what?
(she stares at him)
On what proof?
TEMPLE
Proof?
STEVENS
Proof. What will be in the affidavit? What are we going to affirm now that for some reason, any reason, we — you — we didn’t see fit to bring up or anyway didn’t bring up until after she ——
TEMPLE
How do I know? You’re the lawyer. What do you want in it? What do such affidavits have in them, need to have in them, to make them work, make them sure to work? Don’t you have samples in your law books — reports, whatever you call them — that you can copy and have me swear to? Good ones, certain ones? At least, while we’re committing whatever this is, pick out a good one, such a good one that nobody, not even an untrained lawyer, can punch holes in it. . . .
Her voice ceases. She stares at him, while he continues to look steadily back at her, saying nothing, just looking at her, until at last she draws a loud harsh breath; her voice is harsh too.
What do you want then? What more do you want?
STEVENS
Temple Drake.
TEMPLE
(quick, harsh, immediate)
No. Mrs. Gowan Stevens.
STEVENS
(implacable and calm)
Temple Drake. The truth.
TEMPLE
Truth? We’re trying to save a condemned murderess whose lawyer has already admitted that he has failed. What has truth got to do with that?
(rapid, harsh)
We? I, I, the mother of the baby she murdered; not you, Gavin Stevens, the lawyer, but I, Mrs. Gowan Stevens, the mother. Can’t you get it through your head that I will do anything, anything?
STEVENS
Except one. Which is all. We’re not concerned with death. That’s nothing: any handful of petty facts and sworn documents can cope with that. That’s all finished now; we can forget it. What we are trying to deal with now is injustice. Only truth can cope with that. Or love.
TEMPLE
(harshly)
Love. Oh, God. Love.
STEVENS
Call it pity then. Or courage. Or simple honour, honesty, or a simple desire for the right to sleep at night.
TEMPLE
You prate of sleep, to me, who learned six years ago how not even to realise any more that I didn’t mind not sleeping at night?
STEVENS
Yet you invented the coincidence.
TEMPLE
Will you for Christ’s sake stop? Will you . . . All right. Then if her dying is nothing, what do you want? What in God’s name do you want?
STEVENS
I told you. Truth.
TEMPLE
And I told you that what you keep on harping at as truth has nothing to do with this. When you go before the —— What do you call this next collection of trained lawyers? supreme court? — what you will need will be facts, papers, documents, sworn to, incontrovertible, that no other lawyer trained or untrained either can punch holes in, find any flaw in.
STEVENS
We’re not going to the supreme court.
(she stares at him)
That’s all finished. If that could have been done, would have sufficed, I would have thought of that, attended to that, four months ago. We’re going to the Governor. Tonight.
TEMPLE
The Governor?
STEVENS
Perhaps he won’t save her either. He probably won’t.
TEMPLE
Then why ask him? Why?
STEVENS
I’ve told you. Truth.
TEMPLE
(in quiet amazement)
For no more than that. For no better reason than that. Just to get it told, breathed aloud, into words, sound. Just to be heard by, told to, someone, anyone, any stranger none of whose business it is, can possibly be, simply because he is capable of hearing, comprehending it. Why blink your own rhetoric? Why don’t you go on and tell me it’s for the good of my soul — if I have one?
STEVENS
I did. I said, so you can sleep at night.
TEMPLE
And I told you I forgot six years ago even what it was to miss the sleep.
She stares at him. He doesn’t answer, looking at her. Still watching him, she reaches her hand to the table, toward the cigarette box, then stops, is motionless, her hand suspended, staring at him.
There is something else, then. We’re even going to get the true one this time. All right. Shoot.
He doesn’t answer, makes no sign, watching her. A moment, then she turns her head and looks toward the sofa and the sleeping child. Still looking at the child, she rises and crosses to the sofa and stands looking down at the child; her voice is quiet.
So it was a plant, after all; I just didn’t seem to know for who.
(she looks down at the child)
I threw my remaining child at you. Now you threw him back.
STEVENS
But I didn’t wake him.
TEMPLE
Then I’ve got you, lawyer. What would be better for his peace and sleep than to hang his sister’s murderer?
STEVENS
No matter by what means, in what lie?
TEMPLE
Nor whose.
STEVENS
Yet you invented the coincidence.
TEMPLE
Mrs. Gowan Stevens did.
STEVENS
Temple Drake did. Mrs. Gowan Stevens is not even fighting in this class. This is Temple Drake’s.
TEMPLE
Temple Drake is dead.
STEVENS
The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
She comes back to the table, takes a cigarette from the box, puts it in her mouth and reaches for the lighter. He leans as though to hand it to her, but she has already found it, snaps it on and lights the cigarette, talking through the smoke.
TEMPLE
Listen. How much do you know?
STEVENS
Nothing.
TEMPLE
Swear.
STEVENS
Would you believe me?
TEMPLE
No. But swear anyway.
STEVENS
All right. I swear.
TEMPLE
(crushes cigarette into tray)
Then listen. Listen carefully.
(she stands, tense, rigid, facing him, staring at him)
Temple
