BURKE—[Protestingly.] I wasn't meaning it that way at all and well you know it. You've no call to be raising this rumpus with me. [Pointing to CHRIS.] 'Tis him you've a right—
ANNA—I'm coming to him. But you—you did mean it that way, too. You sounded—yust like all the rest. [Hysterically.] But, damn it, shut up! Let me talk for a change!
BURKE—'Tis quare, rough talk, that—for a dacent girl the like of you!
ANNA—[With a hard laugh.] Decent? Who told you I was? [CHRIS is sitting with bowed shoulders, his head in his hands. She leans over in exasperation and shakes him violently by the shoulder.] Don't go to sleep, Old Man! Listen here, I'm talking to you now!
CHRIS—[Straightening up and looking about as if he were seeking a way to escape—with frightened foreboding in his voice.] Ay don't vant for hear it. You vas going out of head, Ay tank, Anna.
ANNA—[Violently.] Well, living with you is enough to drive anyone off their nut. Your bunk about the farm being so fine! Didn't I write you year after year how rotten it was and what a dirty slave them cousins made of me? What'd you care? Nothing! Not even enough to come out and see me! That crazy bull about wanting to keep me away from the sea don't go down with me! You yust didn't want to be bothered with me! You're like all the rest of 'em!
CHRIS—[Feebly.] Anna! It ain't so—
ANNA—[Not heeding his interruption—revengefully.] But one thing I never wrote you. It was one of them cousins that you think is such nice people—the youngest son—Paul—that started me wrong. [Loudly.] It wasn't none of my fault. I hated him worse 'n hell and he knew it. But he was big and strong—[Pointing to Burke]—like you!
BURKE—[Half springing to his feet—his fists clenched,] God blarst it! [He sinks slowly back in his chair again, the knuckles showing white on his clenched hands, his face tense with the effort to suppress his grief and rage.]
CHRIS—[In a cry of horrified pain.] Anna!