The Crucible (20 page)

PROCTOR : No, no. I have signed it. You have seen me. It is done! You have no need for this.

PARRIS: Proctor, the village must have proof that—

PROCTOR : Damn the village! I confess to God, and God has seen my name on this! It is enough!

DANFORTH: No, sir, it is—

PROCTOR : You came to save my soul, did you not? Here! I have confessed myself; it is enough!

DANFORTH: You have not con—

PROCTOR: I have confessed myself! Is there no good penitence but it be public? God does not need my name nailed upon the church! God sees my name; God knows how black my sins are! It is enough!

DANFORTH: Mr. Proctor—

PROCTOR: You will not use me! I am no Sarah Good or Tituba, I am John Proctor! You will not use me! It is no part of salvation that you should use me!

DANFORTH: I do not wish to—

PROCTOR: I have three children—how may I teach them to walk like men in the world, and I sold my friends?

DANFORTH: You have not sold your friends—

PROCTOR: Beguile me not! I blacken all of them when this is nailed to the church the very day they hang for silence!

DANFORTH: Mr. Proctor, I must have good and legal proof that you—

PROCTOR: You are the high court, your word is good enough! Tell them I confessed myself; say Proctor broke his knees and wept like a woman; say what you will, but my name cannot—

DANFORTH,
with suspicion:
It is the same, is it not? If I report it or you sign to it?

PROCTOR—
he
knows it is insane: No, it is not the same! What others say and what I sign to is not the same!

DANFORTH: Why? Do you mean to deny this confession when you are free?

PROCTOR: I mean to deny nothing!

DANFORTH: Then explain to me, Mr. Proctor, why you will not let—

PROCTOR,
with a cry of his whole soul:
Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!

DANFORTH,
pointing at the confession in Proctor’s hand:
Is that document a lie? If it is a lie I will not accept it! What say you? I will not deal in lies, Mister!
Proctor is motionless.
You will give me your honest confession in my hand, or I cannot keep you from the rope.
Proctor does not reply.
Which way do you go, Mister?

DANFORTH: Marshal!

PARRIS,
hysterically, as though the tearing paper were his life:
Proctor, Proctor!

HALE: Man, you will hang! You cannot!

PROCTOR,
his eyes full of tears:
I can. And there’s your first marvel, that I can. You have made your magic now, for now I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. Not enough to weave a banner with, but white enough to keep it from such dogs.
Elizabeth, in a burst of terror, rushes to him and weeps against his hand.
Give them no tear! Tears pleasure them! Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it!
He has lifted her, and kisses her now with great passion.

REBECCA: Let you fear nothing! Another judgment waits us all!

DANFORTH: Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for these, weeps for corruption!
He sweeps out past them. Herrick starts to lead Rebecca, who almost collapses, but Proctor catches her, and she glances up at him apologetically.

REBECCA: I’ve had no breakfast.

HERRICK: Come, man.

PARRIS,
in deadly fear, to Elizabeth:
Go to him, Goody Proctor! There is yet time!

PARRIS: Go to him!
He rushes out the door, as though to hold back his fate.
Proctor! Proctor!

HALE: Woman, plead with him!
He starts to rush out the door, and then goes back to her.
Woman! It is pride, it is vanity.
She avoids his eyes, and moves to the window. He drops to his knees.

Be his helper! What profit him to bleed? Shall the dust praise him? Shall the worms declare his truth? Go to him, take his shame away!

ELIZABETH,
supporting herself against collapse, grips the bars of the window, and with a cry:
He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!

 

THE CURTAIN FALLS

ECHOES DOWN THE CORRIDOR

Not long after the fever died, Parris was voted from office, walked out on the highroad, and was never heard of again.

The legend has it that Abigail turned up later as a prostitute in Boston.

Twenty years after the last execution, the government awarded compensation to the victims still living, and to the families of the dead. However, it is evident that some people still were unwilling to admit their total guilt, and also that the factionalism was still alive, for some beneficiaries were actually not victims at all, but informers.

Elizabeth Proctor married again, four years after Proctor’s death.

In solemn meeting, the congregation rescinded the excommunications—this in March 1712. But they did so upon orders of the government. The jury, however, wrote a statement praying forgiveness of all who had suffered.

Certain farms which had belonged to the victims were left to ruin, and for more than a century no one would buy them or live on them.

To all intents and purposes, the power of theocracy in Massachusetts was broken.

 

ACT Two, SCENE
2

Proctor enters with lantern, glowing behind him, then halts, holding lantern raised. Abigail appears with a wrap over
her
nightgown, her hair down. A moment of questioning silence.

 

PROCTOR,
searching:
I must speak with you, Abigail.
She does not move, staring at him.
Will you sit?

ABIGAIL: How do you come?

PROCTOR: Friendly.

ABIGAIL,
glancing about:
I don’t like the woods at night. Pray you, stand closer.
He comes closer to her.
I knew it must be you. When I heard the pebbles on the window, before I opened up my eyes I
knew. Sits on log.
I thought you would come a good time sooner.

PROCTOR: I had thought to come many times.

ABIGAIL: Why didn’t you? I am so alone in the world now.

PROCTOR,
as a fact, not bitterly:
Are you! I’ve heard that people ride a hundred mile to see your face these days.

ABIGAIL: Aye, my face. Can you see my face?

PROCTOR,
holds the lantern to her face:
Then you’re troubled?

ABIGAIL: Have you come to mock me?

PROCTOR,
sets lantern on ground. Sits next to her:
No, no, but I hear only that you go to the tavern every night, and play shovelboard with the Deputy Governor, and they give you cider.

ABIGAIL: I have once or twice played the shovelboard. But I have no joy in it.

PROCTOR: This is a surprise, Abby. I’d thought to find you gayer than this. I’m told a troop of boys go step for step with you wherever you walk these days.

ABIGAIL: Aye, they do. But I have only lewd looks from the boys.

PROCTOR: And you like that not?

ABIGAIL: I cannot bear lewd looks no more, John. My spirit’s changed entirely. I ought be given Godly looks when I suffer for them as I do.

PROCTOR: Oh? How do you suffer, Abby?

ABIGAIL,
pulls up dress:
Why, look at my leg. I’m holes all over from their damned needles and pins.
Touching her stomach:
The jab your wife gave me’s not healed yet, y’know.

PROCTOR,
seeing her madness now:
Oh, it isn’t.

ABIGAIL: I think sometimes she pricks it open again while I sleep.

PROCTOR: Ah?

ABIGAIL: And George Jacobs—
sliding up her sleeve
—he comes again and again and raps me with his stick—the same spot every night all this week. Look at the lump I have.

PROCTOR: Abby—George Jacobs is in the jail all this month.

ABIGAIL: Thank God he is, and bless the day he hangs and lets me sleep in peace again! Oh, John, the world’s so full of hypocrites!
Astonished, outraged:
They pray in jail! I’m told they all pray in jail!

PROCTOR: They may not pray?

ABIGAIL: And torture me in my bed while sacred words are comin’ from their mouths? Oh, it will need God Himself to cleanse this town properly!

PROCTOR: Abby—you mean to cry out still others?

ABIGAIL: If I live, if I am not murdered, I surely will, until the last hypocrite is dead.

PROCTOR: Then there is no good?

ABIGAIL: Aye, there is one.
You
are good.

PROCTOR: Am I! How am I good?

ABIGAIL: Why, you taught me goodness, therefore you are good. It were a fire you walked me through, and all my ignorance was burned away. It were a fire, John, we lay in fire. And from that night no woman dare call me wicked any more but I knew my answer. I used to weep for my sins when the wind lifted up my skirts; and blushed for shame because some old Rebecca called me loose. And then you burned my ignorance away. As bare as some December tree I saw them all—walking like saints to church, running to feed the sick, and hypocrites in their hearts! And God gave me strength to call them liars, and God made men to listen to me, and by God I will scrub the world clean for the love of Him! Oh, John, I will make you such a wife when the world is white again!
She kisses his hand.
You will be amazed to see me every day, a light of heaven in your house, a—
He rises, backs away, amazed.
Why are you cold?

PROCTOR: My wife goes to trial in the morning, Abigail.

ABIGAIL,
distantly:
Your wife?

PROCTOR: Surely you knew of it?

ABIGAIL: I do remember it now. How—how—Is she well?

PROCTOR: As well as she may be, thirty-six days in that place.

ABIGAIL: You said you came friendly.

PROCTOR: She will not be condemned, Abby.

ABIGAIL: You brought me from my bed to speak of her?

PROCTOR: I come to tell you, Abby, what I will do tomorrow in the court. I would not take you by surprise, but give you all good time to think on what to do to save yourself.

ABIGAIL: Save myself!

PROCTOR: If you do not free my wife tomorrow, I am set and bound to ruin you, Abby.

ABIGAIL,
her voice small
—
astonished:
How—ruin me?

PROCTOR: I have rocky proof in documents that you knew that poppet were none of my wife’s; and that you yourself bade Mary Warren stab that needle into it.

ABIGAIL—a
wildness stirs in her, a child is standing here who is unutterably frustrated, denied her wish, but she is still grasping for her wits:
I bade Mary Warren—?

PROCTOR: You know what you do, you are not so mad!

ABIGAIL: Oh, hypocrites! Have you won him, too? John, why do you let them send you?

PROCTOR: I warn you, Abby!

ABIGAIL: They send you! They steal your honesty and—

PROCTOR: I have found my honesty!

ABIGAIL: No, this is your wife pleading, your sniveling, envious wife! This is Rebecca’s voice, Martha Corey’s voice. You were no hypocrite!

PROCTOR: I will prove you for the fraud you are!

ABIGAIL: And if they ask you why Abigail would ever do so murderous a deed, what will you tell them?

PROCTOR: I will tell them why.

ABIGAIL: What will you tell? You will confess to fornication? In the court?

PROCTOR: If you will have it so, so I will tell it!
She utters a disbelieving laugh. I say I will! She laughs louder, now with more assurance he will never do it. He shakes her roughly.
If you can still hear, hear this! Can you hear!
She is trembling, staring up at him as though he were out of his mind.
You will tell the court you are blind to spirits; you cannot see them any more, and you will never cry witchery again, or I will make you famous for the whore you are!