4. YOU’RE NOT THE DOMESTIC TYPE
TYPE:
The sensitive young man with a predilection for virtuous married women. Charmingly impetuous.
SUBJECT:
A virtuous married woman.
APPARATUS:
1 Living room
1 Chaise-longue
REMARKS:
Love, maternal instinct and pity are all emotions that should be employed in this lesson, but the most important factor of all is spirituality. Never for one moment allow her to doubt your spiritual sincerity.
YOU’RE NOT THE DOMESTIC TYPE
The doorbell rings just as she is settling down to a nap, and there is no one else in the house to answer it. She opens the door a little reluctantly.
“Oh, it’s you, Arthur,” she says in relief. “Come in. I thought it might be someone special.”
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” say, smiling as you enter the living room. Smile nicely; youthfully. “I won’t go away, at any rate. Not unless you’re very hard and cruel. I worked too hard to get here.”
“It’s all right,” she says, sitting down and patting her hair in back. “I was going to lie down and try to sleep, out of sheer boredom. There’s nothing I really have to do. But you should be at work. Why aren’t you?”
“I didn’t feel like working.” Frown and look at her defiantly. “Good Lord, why should a man work all the time? I hate the bloody office anyway, and you know it.”
She shakes her head at you, but smiles. “I ought to scold you. But I know too well how you feel.”
“Why don’t you lie down even if I am here? Go on over to the chaise-longue; I’ll tuck your feet up.”
“Gracious!” she cries. “You’ll have me spoiled if you’re too attentive. Bob hasn’t your touching respect for my age.”
Thump the chair as you bend over to arrange the quilt. “Alice, that isn’t funny. It never was funny. At any rate, you mustn’t tell Bob how nice I am to you, or his dislike of me will overflow all bounds. That would be a nuisance. I’d have to visit you in the afternoons all the time, and they wouldn’t like that at the damned office.”
“No, and you wouldn’t ever get to see my new dinner dress.”
Sit down on the edge of the chair. “And I’d have to stay away on week-ends; I’d have to start playing golf, and I hate it. It’s much nicer to come here and talk.”
She laughs. “Yes, I know you think so. You’d rather talk than do anything else, wouldn’t you?”
“Wouldn’t you?” you counter. “But this sub rosa arrangement might have its advantages. If I had to be furtive you might be forced to take me seriously.”
“You’re a silly little boy,” she says, looking worried.
“Of course I am. I only wish you said it oftener. If you would only promise me to say every morning and every evening ‘What a silly boy Arthur is,’ I’d feel better about going home so often.”
“It wouldn’t be a difficult promise to make,” she says thoughtfully. “Perhaps I do it anyway. You’re awfully silly sometimes.”
“Good! At any rate, that would mean that you would say my name twice a day.”
“Heavens!”
“It did sound sentimental, didn’t it? Well, forget it. You know, I am serious about Bob: I wish he’d dislike me a little more actively.”
She sits up and speaks with decision. “Arthur! You know well enough that Bob doesn’t dislike you at all.”
“Is that it?” you ask, sorrowfully. “Then it’s his maddening indifference that I can’t forgive him. I won’t forgive him, anyway, so you might as well give up.”
“If it would make you feel any better, he said just the other evening, ‘Why doesn’t that kid get to work? He’s been hanging around here a lot longer than he would if I were his father.’”
“Yes,” you answer, “that helps. That helps. I feel almost kindly toward him now. I’m glad you told me.”
“You know well enough you like Bob!”
Shake your head. “It’s just another of my worries. I do like Bob. I love Bob. He’s such a child.”
She giggles. “Well, I wish he could hear you.”
“Yes, isn’t it funny? We go around feeling paternal about each other and you lie there and laugh at both of us. Let’s not talk about him any more. I’m not a sub rosa visitor yet; I haven’t any right to talk. Where’s Betty?”
“I sent her out to the Park for the afternoon.” She looks out of the window. “We’ve had such wretched weather until today. She’ll be heartbroken when she finds out you were here. Now that the family’s all discussed and taken care of, tell me how you are. Have you been doing anything wicked lately? Tell me some gossip about the younger generation.”
“What do I know about the younger generation? I haven’t been playing around. It’s queer restless weather. I’ve been trying to write. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed this air. There’s something in it. Even you must have noticed. It isn’t exactly wild. Spiritually provocative, I think—whatever that means.”
“Why shouldn’t I have noticed it?” she asks.
“You!” you cry bitterly. “A sublimely wise person like you? Alice dearest, why should you have noticed it? Or if you did, why should you admit it?”
She raised her eyebrows, somewhat surprised. “You sound angry,” is all she says. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I’m in a bad temper.”
“You really are,” she says wonderingly. “I’ve never seen you like this. Won’t you tell me what’s the matter?”
“Oh, for God’s sake! Why won’t you get angry? Why won’t you tell me to get out?”
“Arthur, what is the matter?” She speaks gently.
“I wish you’d get angry, just once. I’d like to fight and fight with you. I’d like to make you cry. I could, too, if I only knew how to begin.”
She looks at you in silence. Then go on—“Sit up, Alice! Sit up and slap me. Stop looking so damned comfortable. You don’t really feel comfortable.”
“But I do,” she protests. “I’m sorry, but I do.” It is funny, but she doesn’t laugh.
“No you aren’t. You’re sure enough of yourself; you’re secure, but you don’t like all this any more than I do.”
“All what?”
“All—all that you don’t like. Why can’t you tell me? I keep hoping you will, but you never do. Why can’t you tell me? I tell you everything. You have every bit of me. You make me tell you everything and then you never give anything back.”
“Arthur!” she cries, hurt.
“I can’t help it.” Lean closer to her startled face. “There’s just one thing I really want. Just one. The one thing I’ll never get from you.”
“What is it, dear?”
“I want you to tell me the truth. To look at me and say, ‘Arthur, I don’t really like this at all. I hate this house. I hate being smooth and perfect. I hate my mother for what she did to me, making me like this—’”
“Don’t!” she cries.
“‘And I hate my daughter for what I am making of her. I hate her when she looks like her father—’”
“No! No!”
“‘And I want to die when I realize that I am getting more and more like all of them, all the time.’ Go on, Alice. Say it.”
She shakes her head slowly, and weeps. “I can’t.”
“Say it!” you repeat. “I—Alice, I made you cry, didn’t I? Never mind. Say it.”
“No. The one thing you can never——” she cries convulsively.
“What is it, dearest?”
“You said it yourself,” she sobs. “The one thing you can never have. I won’t. I can’t.”
“Stop crying, dearest. Please. I can’t hear you when you talk like that. Darling, darling, I’m so sorry I made you cry. I’m so glad. Kiss me. You must, darling. It’s the only other thing to do. Alice, you know it is. Kiss me. If you won’t talk.... We must, dear.”
“Yes,” she says.
Take her in your arms.