Part 43 (1/2)
FEJEVARY: Listen, Madeline-plain, straight truth. If you go out there and get in trouble a second time, I can't make it right for you.
MADELINE: You needn't!
FEJEVARY: You don't know what it means. These things are not child's play-not today. You could get twenty years in prison for things you'll say if you rush out there now. (she laughs) You laugh because you're ignorant. Do you know that in America today there are women in our prisons for saying no more than you've said here to me!
MADELINE: Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself!
FEJEVARY: I? Ashamed of myself?
MADELINE: Yes! Aren't you an American? (a whistle) Isn't that a policeman's whistle? Are they coming back? Are they hanging around here to-(pulling away from her uncle as he turns to look, she jumps up in the deep sill and throws open the window. Calling down) Here-Officer-You-Let that boy alone!
FEJEVARY: (going left, calling sharply) Holden. Professor Holden-here-quick!
VOICE: (coming up from below, outside) Who says so?
MADELINE: I say so!
VOICE: And who are you talking for?
MADELINE: I am talking for Morton College!
FEJEVARY: (returning-followed, reluctantly, by HOLDEN) Indeed you are not. Close that window or you'll be expelled from Morton College.
(Sounds of a growing crowd outside.)
VOICE: Didn't I see you at the station?
MADELINE: Sure you saw me at the station. And you'll see me there again, if you come bullying around here. You're not what this place is for! (her uncle comes up behind, right, and tries to close the window-she holds it out) My grandfather gave this hill to Morton College-a place where anybody-from any land-can come and say what he believes to be true! Why, you poor simp-this is America! Beat it from here! Atna! Don't let him take hold of you like that! He has no right to-Oh, let me down there!
(Springs down, would go off right, her uncle spreads out his arms to block that pa.s.sage. She turns to go the other way.)
FEJEVARY: Holden! Bring her to her senses. Stand there. (HOLDEN has not moved from the place he entered, left, and so blocks the doorway) Don't let her pa.s.s.
(Shouts of derision outside.)
MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here-with that going on out there? (Moves nearer HOLDEN, stands there before him, taut, looking him straight in the eye. After a moment, slowly, as one compelled, he steps aside for her to pa.s.s. Sound of her running footsteps. The two men's eyes meet. A door slams.)
(CURTAIN)
ACT IV
SCENE: At the MORTON place, the same room in which SILAS MORTON told his friend FELIX FEJEVARY of his plan for the hill. The room has not altogether changed since that day in 1879. The table around which they dreamed for the race is in its old place. One of the old chairs is there, the other two are modern chairs. In a corner is the rocker in which GRANDMOTHER MORTON sat. This is early afternoon, a week after the events of Act II.
MADELINE is sitting at the table, in her hand a torn, wrinkled piece of brown paper-peering at writing almost too fine to read. After a moment her hand goes out to a beautiful dish on the table-an old dish of coloured Hungarian gla.s.s. She is about to take something from this, but instead lets her hand rest an instant on the dish itself Then turns and through the open door looks out at the hill, sitting where her GRANDFATHER MORTON sat when he looked out at the hill.
Her father, IRA MORTON, appears outside, walking past the window, left. He enters, carrying a grain sack, partly filled. He seems hardly aware of MADELINE, but taking a chair near the door, turned from her, opens the sack and takes out a couple of ears of corn. As he is bent over them, examining in a shrewd, greedy way, MADELINE looks at that lean, tormented, rather desperate profile, the look of one confirming a thing she fears. Then takes up her piece of paper.
MADELINE: Do you remember Fred Jordan, father? Friend of our Fred-and of mine?
IRA: (not wanting to take his mind from the corn) No. I don't remember him. (his voice has that timbre of one not related to others)