The Crucible (6 page)

So it is not surprising to find that so many accusations against people are in the handwriting of Thomas Putnam, or that his name is so often found as a witness corroborating the supernatural testimony, or that his daughter led the crying-out at the most opportune junctures of the trials, especially when—But we’ll speak of that when we come to it.

 

PUTNAM—at
the moment he is intent upon getting Parris, for whom he has only contempt, to move toward the abyss:
Mr. Parris, I have taken your part in all contention here, and I would continue; but I cannot if you hold back in this. There are hurtful, vengeful spirits layin’ hands on these children.

PARRIS: But, Thomas, you cannot—

PUTNAM: Ann! Tell Mr. Parris what you have done.

MRS. PUTNAM: Reverend Parris, I have laid seven babies unbaptized in the earth. Believe me, sir, you never saw more hearty babies born. And yet, each would wither in my arms the very night of their birth. I have spoke nothin’, but my heart has clamored intimations. And now, this year, my Ruth, my only- I see her turning strange. A secret child she has become this year, and shrivels like a sucking mouth were pullin’ on her life too. And so I thought to send her to your Tituba-

PARRIS: To Tituba! What may Tituba—?

MRS. PUTNAM: Tituba knows how to speak to the dead, Mr. Parris.

PARRIS: Goody Ann, it is a formidable sin to conjure up the dead!

MRS. PUTNAM: I take it on my soul, but who else may surely tell us what person murdered my babies?

PARRIS,
horrified:
Woman!

MRS. PUTNAM: They were murdered, Mr. Parris! And mark this proof! Mark it! Last night my Ruth were ever so close to their little spirits; I know it, sir. For how else is she struck dumb now except some power of darkness would stop her mouth? It is a marvelous sign, Mr. Parris!

PUTNAM: Don’t you understand it, sir? There is a murdering witch among us, bound to keep herself in the dark.
Parris turns to Betty, a frantic terror rising in him.
Let your enemies make of it what they will, you cannot blink it more.

PARRIS, to
Abigail:
Then you were conjuring spirits last night.

ABIGAIL,
whispering:
Not I, sir-Tituba and Ruth.

PARRIS
turns now, with new fear, and goes to Betty, looks down at her, and then, gazing off:
Oh, Abigail, what proper payment for my charity! Now I am undone.

PUTNAM: You are not undone! Let you take hold here. Wait for no one to charge you—declare it yourself. You have discovered witchcraft-

PARRIS: In my house? In my house, Thomas? They will topple me with this! They will make of it a-

MERCY: Your pardons. I only thought to see how Betty is.

PUTNAM: Why aren’t you home? Who’s with Ruth?

MERCY: Her grandma come. She’s improved a little, I think-she give a powerful sneeze before.

MRS. PUTNAM: Ah, there’s a sign of life!

MERCY: I’d fear no more, Goody Putnam. It were a grand sneeze; another like it will shake her wits together, I’m sure.
She goes to the bed to look.

PARRIS: Will you leave me now, Thomas? I would pray a while alone.

ABIGAIL: Uncle, you’ve prayed since midnight. Why do you not go down and—

PARRIS: No-no.
To Putnam:
I have no answer for that crowd. I’ll wait till Mr. Hale arrives.
To get Mrs. Putnam to leave:
If you will, Goody Ann ...

PUTNAM: Now look you, sir. Let you strike out against the Devil, and the village will bless you for it! Come down, speak to them-pray with them. They’re thirsting for your word, Mister ! Surely you’ll pray with them.

PARRIS,
swayed:
I’ll lead them in a psalm, but let you say nothing of witchcraft yet. I will not discuss it. The cause is yet unknown. I have had enough contention since I came; I want no more.

MRS. PUTNAM: Mercy, you go home to Ruth, d’y’hear?

MERCY: Aye, mum.

PARRIS,
to Abigail:
If she starts for the window, cry for me at once.

ABIGAIL: I will, uncle.

PARRIS,
to Putnam:
There is a terrible power in her arms today.
He goes out with Putnam.

ABIGAIL,
with hushed trepidation:
How is Ruth sick?

MERCY: It’s weirdish, I know not-she seems to walk like a dead one since last night.

ABIGAIL,
turns at once and goes to Betty, and now, with fear in her voice:
Betty?
Betty doesn’t move. She shakes her.
Now stop this! Betty! Sit up now!

MERCY: Have you tried beatin’ her? I gave Ruth a good one and it waked her for a minute. Here, let me have her.

ABIGAIL,
holding Mercy back:
No, he’ll be comin’ up. Listen, now; if they be questioning us, tell them we danced-I told him as much already.

MERCY: Aye. And what more?

ABIGAIL: He knows Tituba conjured Ruth’s sisters to come out of the grave.

MERCY: And what more?

ABIGAIL: He saw you naked.

MERCY,
clapping her hands together with a frightened laugh:
Oh, Jesus!

MARY WARREN: What’ll we do? The village is out! I just come from the farm; the whole country’s talkin’ witchcraft! They’ll be callin’ us witches, Abby!

MERCY,
pointing and looking at Mary Warren:
She means to tell, I know it.

MARY WARREN : Abby, we’ve got to tell. Witchery’s a hangin’ error, a hangin’ like they done in Boston two year ago! We must tell the truth, Abby! You’ll only be whipped for dancin’, and the other things!

ABIGAIL: Oh,
we’ll
be whipped!

MARY WARREN: I never done none of it, Abby. I only looked!

MERCY,
moving menacingly toward Mary:
Oh, you’re a great one for lookin’, aren’t you, Mary Warren? What a grand peeping courage you have!

ABIGAIL: Betty? She goes to Betty. Now, Betty, dear, wake up now. It’s Abigail.
She sits Betty up and furiously shakes her.
I’ll beat you, Betty!
Betty whimpers.
My, you seem improving. I talked to your papa and I told him everything. So there’s nothing to-

BETTY,
darts off the bed, frightened of Abigail, and flattens herself against the wall:
I want my mama!

ABIGAIL,
with alarm, as she cautiously approaches Betty:
What ails you, Betty? Your mama’s dead and buried.

BETTY : I’ll fly to Mama. Let me fly!
She raises her arms as though to fly, and streaks for the window, gets one leg out.

ABIGAIL,
pulling her away from the window:
I told him everything ; he knows now, he knows everything we—

BETTY: You drank blood, Abby! You didn’t tell him that!

ABIGAIL: Betty, you never say that again! You will never-

BETTY: You did, you did! You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!

ABIGAIL,
smashes her across the face:
Shut it! Now shut it!

BETTY,
collapsing on the bed:
Mama, Mama!
She dissolves into sobs.

ABIGAIL: Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sisters. And that is all. And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents’ heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!
She goes to Betty and roughly sits her up.
Now, you-sit up and stop this!

MARY WARREN,
with hysterical fright:
What’s got her?
Abigail stares in fright at Betty.
Abby, she’s going to die! It’s a sin to conjure, and we-

ABIGAIL,
starting for Mary:
I say shut it, Mary Warren!

 

Proctor was a farmer in his middle thirties. He need not have been a partisan of any faction in the town, but there is evidence to suggest that he had a sharp and biting way with hypocrites. He was the kind of man—powerful of body, even-tempered, and not easily led—who cannot refuse support to partisans without drawing their deepest resentment. In Proctor’s presence a fool felt his foolishness instantly-and a Proctor is always marked for calumny therefore.

But as we shall see, the steady manner he displays does not spring from an untroubled soul. He is a sinner, a sinner not only against the moral fashion of the time, but against his own vision of decent conduct. These people had no ritual for the washing away of sins. It is another trait we inherited from them, and it has helped to discipline us as well as to breed hypocrisy among us. Proctor, respected and even feared in Salem, has come to regard himself as a kind of fraud. But no hint of this has yet appeared on the surface, and as he enters from the crowded parlor below it is a man in his prime we see, with a quiet confidence and an unexpressed, hidden force. Mary Warren, his servant, can barely speak for embarrassment and fear.

 

MARY WARREN: Oh! I’m just going home, Mr. Proctor.

PROCTOR : Be you foolish, Mary Warren? Be you deaf? I forbid you leave the house, did I not? Why shall I pay you? I am looking for you more often than my cows!

MARY WARREN: I only come to see the great doings in the world.

PROCTOR: I’ll show you a great doin’ on your arse one of these days. Now get you home; my wife is waitin’ with your work!
Trying to retain a shred of dignity, she goes slowly out.

MERCY LEWIS,
both afraid of him and strangely titillated:
I’d best be off. I have my Ruth to watch. Good morning, Mr. Proctor.

ABIGAIL: Gah! I’d almost forgot how strong you are, John Proctor!

PROCTOR, looking at Abigail now, the faintest suggestion of a knowing smile on his face: What’s this mischief here?

ABIGAIL,
with a nervous laugh:
Oh, she’s only gone silly somehow.

PROCTOR: The road past my house is a pilgrimage to Salem all morning. The town’s mumbling witchcraft.

ABIGAIL: Oh, posh!
Winningly she comes a little closer, with a confidential, wicked air.
We were dancin’ in the woods last night, and my uncle leaped in on us. She took fright, is all.

PROCTOR, his smile widening: Ah, you’re wicked yet, aren’t y‘!
A trill of expectant laughter escapes her, and she dares come closer, feverishly looking into his eyes.
You’ll be clapped in the stocks before you’re twenty.

ABIGAIL: Give me a word, John. A soft word.
Her concentrated desire destroys his smile.

PROCTOR: No, no, Abby. That’s done with.

ABIGAIL,
tauntingly:
You come five mile to see a silly girl fly? I know you better.

PROCTOR,
setting her firmly out of his path:
I come to see what mischief your uncle’s brewin’ now.
With final emphasis:
Put it out of mind, Abby.

ABIGAIL,
grasping his hand before he can release her:
John-I am waitin’ for you every night.

PROCTOR: Abby, I never give you hope to wait for me.

ABIGAIL,
now beginning to anger-she can’t believe it:
I have something better than hope, I think!

PROCTOR: Abby, you’ll put it out of mind. I’ll not be comin’ for you more.

ABIGAIL: You’re surely sportin’ with me.

PROCTOR: You know me better.

ABIGAIL: I know how you clutched my back behind your house and sweated like a stallion whenever I come near! Or did I dream that? It’s she put me out, you cannot pretend it were you. I saw your face when she put me out, and you loved me then and you do now!

PROCTOR: Abby, that’s a wild thing to say—

ABIGAIL: A wild thing may say wild things. But not so wild, I think. I have seen you since she put me out; I have seen you nights.

PROCTOR: I have hardly stepped off my farm this sevenmonth.

ABIGAIL: I have a sense for heat, John, and yours has drawn me to my window, and I have seen you looking up, burning in your loneliness. Do you tell me you’ve never looked up at my window?

PROCTOR: I may have looked up.

ABIGAIL,
now softening:
And you must. You are no wintry man. I know you, John. I
know
you.
She is weeping.
I cannot sleep for dreamin’; I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the house as though I’d find you comin’ through some door.
She clutches him desperately.

PROCTOR,
gently pressing her from him, with great sympathy but firmly:
Child—

ABIGAIL,
with a flash of anger:
How do you call me child!

PROCTOR: Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind. We never touched, Abby.

ABIGAIL: Aye, but we did.

PROCTOR: Aye, but we did not.

ABIGAIL,
with a bitter anger:
Oh, I marvel how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be—

PROCTOR,
angered
—
at himself as well:
You’ll speak nothin’ of Elizabeth!