And moved the chip again, when even the ants must have thought there couldn’t be another one within her reach: when they finally explained to her that to say she was not guilty, had nothing to do with truth but only with law, and this time she said it right, Not Guilty, and so then the jury could tell her she lied and everything was all correct again and, as everybody thought, even safe, since now she wouldn’t be asked to say anything at all any more. Only, they were wrong; the jury said Guilty and the judge said Hang and now everybody was already picking up his hat to go home, when she picked up that chip too: the judge said, ‘And may God have mercy on your soul,’ and Nancy answered: ‘Yes, Lord.’
(she turns suddenly, almost briskly, speaking so briskly that her momentum carries her on past the instant when she sees and recognises Gowan sitting where she had thought all the time that the Governor was sitting and listening to her)
And that is all, this time. And so now you can tell us. I know you’re not going to save her, but now you can say so. It won’t be difficult. Just one word ——
(she stops, arrested, utterly motionless, but even then she is first to recover)
Oh God.
(Gowan rises quickly, Temple whirls to Stevens)
Why is it you must always believe in plants? Do you have to? Is it because you have to? Because you are a lawyer? No, I’m wrong. I’m sorry; I was the one that started us hiding gimmicks on each other, wasn’t it?
(quickly: turning to Gowan)
Of course; you didn’t take the sleeping pill at all. Which means you didn’t even need to come here for the Governor to hide you behind the door or under the desk or wherever it was he was trying to tell me you were hiding and listening, because after all the Governor of a Southern state has got to try to act like he regrets having to aberrate from being a gentleman ——
STEVENS
(to Temple)
Stop it.
GOWAN
Maybe we both didn’t start hiding soon enough — by about eight years — not in desk drawers either, but in two abandoned mine shafts, one in Siberia and the other at the South Pole, maybe.
TEMPLE
All right. I didn’t mean hiding. I’m sorry.
GOWAN
Don’t be. Just draw on your eight years’ interest for that.
(to Stevens)
All right, all right; tell me to shut up too.
(to no one directly)
In fact, this may be the time for me to start saying sorry for the next eight-year term. Just give me a little time. Eight years of gratitude might be a habit a little hard to break. So here goes.
(to Temple)
I’m sorry. Forget it.
TEMPLE
I would have told you.
GOWAN
You did. Forget it. You see how easy it is? You could have been doing that yourself for eight years: every time I would say ‘Say sorry, please,’ all you would need would be to answer: ‘I did. Forget it.’
(to Stevens)
I guess that’s all, isn’t it? We can go home now.
(he starts to come around the desk)
TEMPLE
Wait.
(Gowan stops; they look at each other)
Where are you going?
GOWAN
I said home, didn’t I? To pick up Bucky and carry him back to his own bed again.
(they look at one another)
You’re not even going to ask me where he is now?
(answers himself)
Where we always leave our children when the clutch ——
STEVENS
(to Gowan)
Maybe I will say shut up this time.
GOWAN
Only let me finish first. I was going to say, ‘with our handiest kinfolks.’
(to Temple)
I carried him to Maggie’s.
STEVENS
(moving)
I think we can all go now. Come on.
GOWAN
So do I.
(he comes on around the desk, and stops again; to Temple)
Make up your mind. Do you want to ride with me, or Gavin?
STEVENS
(to Gowan)
Go on. You can pick up Bucky.
GOWAN
Right.
(he turns, starts toward the steps front, where Temple and Stevens entered, then stops)
That’s right. I’m probably still supposed to use the spy’s entrance.
(he turns back, starts around the desk again, toward the door at rear, sees Temple’s gloves and bag on the desk, and takes them up and holds them out to her: roughly almost)
Here. This is what they call evidence; don’t forget these.
(Temple takes the bag and gloves)
Gowan goes on toward the door at rear.
TEMPLE
(after him)
Did you have a hat and coat?
(he doesn’t answer. He goes on, exits)
Oh, God. Again.
STEVENS
(touches her arm)
Come on.
TEMPLE
(not moving yet)
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ——
STEVENS
(speaking her thought, finishing the sentence)
— he will wreck the car again against the wrong tree, in the wrong place, and you will have to forgive him again, for the next eight years until he can wreck the car again in the wrong place, against the wrong tree ——
TEMPLE
I was driving it too. I was driving some of the time too.
STEVENS
(gently)
Then let that comfort you.
(he takes her arm again, turns her toward the stairs)
Come on. It’s late.
TEMPLE
(holds back)
Wait. He said, No.
STEVENS
Yes.
TEMPLE
Did he say why?
STEVENS
Yes. He can’t.
TEMPLE
Can’t? The Governor of a state, with all the legal power to pardon or at least reprieve, can’t?
STEVENS
That’s just law. If it was only law, I could have pleaded insanity for her at any time, without bringing you here at two o’clock in the morning ——
TEMPLE
And the other parent too; don’t forget that. I don’t know yet how you did it. . . . Yes, Gowan was here first; he was just pretending to be asleep when I carried Bucky in and put him in his bed; yes, that was what you called that leaking valve, when we stopped at the filling station to change the wheel: to let him get ahead of us ——
STEVENS
All right. He wasn’t even talking about justice. He was talking about a child, a little boy ——
TEMPLE
That’s right. Make it good: the same little boy to hold whose normal and natural home together, the murderess, the nigger, the dope-fiend whore, didn’t hesitate to cast the last gambit — and maybe that’s the wrong word too, isn’t it? — she knew and had: her own debased and worthless life. Oh yes, I know that answer too; that was brought out here tonight too: that a little child shall not suffer in order to come unto Me. So good can come out of evil.
STEVENS
It not only can, it must.
TEMPLE
So touché, then. Because what kind of natural and normal home can that little boy have where his father may at any time tell him he has no father?
STEVENS
Haven’t you been answering that question every day for six years? Didn’t Nancy answer it for you when she told you how you had fought back, not for yourself, but for that little boy? Not to show the father that he was wrong, nor even to prove to the little boy that the father was wrong, but to let the little boy learn with his own eyes that nothing, not even that, which could possibly enter that house, could ever harm him?
TEMPLE
But I quit. Nancy told you that too.
STEVENS
She doesn’t think so now. Isn’t that what she’s going to prove Friday morning?
TEMPLE
Friday. The black day. The day you never start on a journey. Except that Nancy’s journey didn’t start at daylight or sun-up or whenever it is polite and tactful to hang people, day after tomorrow. Her journey started that morning eight years ago when I got on the train at the University ——
(she stops: a moment; then quietly)
Oh God, that was Friday too; that baseball game was Friday ——
(rapidly)
You see? Don’t you see? It’s nowhere near enough yet. Of course he wouldn’t save her. If he did that, it would be over: Gowan could just throw me out, which he may do yet, or I could throw Gowan out, which I could have done until it got too late now, too late forever now, or the judge could have thrown us both out and given Bucky to an orphanage, and it would be all over. But now it can go on, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, forever and forever and forever ——
STEVENS
(gently tries to start her)
Come on.
TEMPLE
(holding back)
Tell me exactly what he did say. Not tonight: it couldn’t have been tonight — or did he say it over the telephone, and we didn’t even need ——
STEVENS
He said it a week ago ——
TEMPLE
Yes, about the same time when you sent the wire. What did he say?
STEVENS
(quotes)
‘Who am I, to have the brazen temerity and hardihood to set the puny appanage of my office in the balance against that simple undeviable aim? Who am I, to render null and abrogate the purchase she made with that poor crazed lost and worthless life?’
TEMPLE
(wildly)
And good too — good and mellow too. So it was not even in hopes of saving her life, that I came here at two o’clock in the morning. It wasn’t even to be told that he had already decided not to save her. It was not even to confess to my husband, but to do it in the hearing of two strangers, something which I had spent eight years trying to expiate so that my husband wouldn’t have to know about it.
