the Friars’ Club—any place I want to go, I can walk. Except to Paul Sears’ place. He probably lives in some swell apartment, or maybe a country place in Great Neck or Jamaica.
| Edna |
A successful man like he wouldn’t live in Jamaica. |
| Fred |
Well, some place. I don’t know much about New York; I only been there once before, with Carl Williams. He’s the fella that made the speech last night. It was the first time he’s been away from home in the evening since he was married. He’s got a wife and baby now. |
| Edna |
So impulsively. Oh, I’m dying to have a baby! She catches herself. Heavens! I didn’t mean to say that. I love them so. |
| Fred |
It’s nothing against a woman to like babies. Carl’s wife certainly likes hers. She’s made him a nice home, too. He didn’t have to buy hardly anything in the way of furniture; her grandmother gave her a bedroom suit and she bought some herself with money she saved while she was working at Berger’s. |
| Edna |
She must be a good deal like myself. I could almost start housekeeping with the things I’ve got. I suppose I’m silly and old-fashioned, but I always thought a girl should bring her husband something besides herself. I even wouldn’t mind going on working after I was married, till my husband established himself. |
| Fred |
The girl I marry won’t never have to work. I don’t believe God ever meant for a woman to endure a life of druggery. |
| Edna |
Oh, Mr. Stevens, if only all men felt the same way! |
| Fred |
A look at his watch. My, it’s nine twenty-six already. |
| Edna |
It’s been a shorter trip than usual, for some reason. |
| Fred |
Trying to peer out the window. I wonder where we’re at now? |
| Edna |
Also peering. Pretty near Yonkers, I guess. |
| Fred |
If we was on the other side we could see the Hudson River. |
| Edna |
My, but it’s dark! |
| Fred |
There’s a moon out. |
| Edna |
Yes, I love it. |
| Fred |
June—moon. |
| Edna |
What? |
| Fred |
I just said June moon. |
| Edna |
It isn’t June. It’s October. |
| Fred |
I know, but June and moon go together. They rhyme. I’m always thinking of words that rhyme, even when I ain’t working. |
| Edna |
That’d be a catchy name, “June Moon.” For a song, I mean. |
| Fred |
Yes, you could get other words to go with it. Spoon, and croon, and soon. Marry soon, or something. |
| Edna |
And macaroon. |
| Fred |
Yeah. I wish I had some. I’m hungry. |
| Edna |
I am, too, kind of. After a pause. Some day when that song is published and people are singing it everywhere, I’ll say to my friends, “I knew the man that wrote that. We were riding on a train and he looked out and saw the moon, and he thought of this song, and then the train got to New York and he never saw poor little me again.” |
| Fred |
You won’t be telling the truth, because I’m going to see you again. |
| Edna |
You say that now. But you’ll forget all about me. |
| Fred |
No, I won’t. Are you going right home when we get in? |
| Edna |
Why—I intended to. She sits up, expectantly. |
| Fred |
I thought I’d go and get something to eat some place, only I wouldn’t know where to go if I didn’t have somebody with me that knowed where to go. |
| Edna |
I can tell you a place where I go once in a while, the Little Venice. Though most of the time I stay home and cook my own dinner, just because I love to cook. |
| Fred |
It’ll be a little late to cook tonight. I was wondering if you wouldn’t go along to this place, and maybe we could eat together. |
| Edna |
I’d love to. |
| Fred |
It ain’t a very expensive place, is it? |
| Edna |
Oh, no. The last time I went, there was two of us and we had hot roast beef sandwiches, and peas, and coffee, and it only came to a dollar-twenty. |
| Fred |
With vast relief. All right. I guess we can each afford sixty cents. |
|
That winds up the Prologue. |
Act I
The scene is one of those Riverside Drive apartments, in a place called New York City. It is up in the neighborhood of One Hundred and Sixteenth Street, and once it was pretty good. It’s a bit run down now, and since people began moving to the East Side the neighborhood has become somewhat déclassé—not more so, however, than Paul Sears, the tenant of this particular apartment.
We see the living-room, if you can call it living. There is a piano, because Paul Sears is a composer. The rest of the furniture is what you might imagine, or worse.
Paul, a commonplace-looking man in his middle thirties, is at the piano when the curtain rises. He is in his shirt sleeves and is alternately hitting a few discouraged keys and making probably meaningless notations on the music sheet in front of him. He lacks one finger of being a two-fingered piano player. He is laboriously going over the same phrase again and again. And if you had never even heard it once, it would be too often.
Lucille, his wife, comes on from the rear rooms of the apartment. A spare but still attractive woman, on whom three years of marriage with Paul Sears have left their mark. She looks around for something. Finds it. It turns out to be a copy of the Graphic. She drops listlessly into a chair and starts to read. Paul continues torturing the piano.
| Lucille |
Addressing herself more than Paul, as she scans her paper. What do you know about that! Myra Vale’s engaged! |
| Paul |
I read it. Automobile man. Probably drives a truck. |
| Lucille |
If he does, at least she’ll have something to go places in. |
| Paul |
I got Myra her first job; I introduced her to Dillingham. |
| Lucille |
Yes, you did! She was in Nanette with Eileen and me before you ever saw her. |
| Paul |
Belligerently. Who says so? |
| Lucille |
Ask the doorman down |
