Do you think you can tell your story more clearly? We’ll give you ten minutes, (to the others) Is that all right, ten minutes? (the actors reluctantly give assent)

SCOTT: All right, ten minutes, and I’m going to time this.

FATHER: All right. You see, there was a fellow working as my assistant—quite poor, very loyal, devoted to her (pointing to Mother). Nothing underhand, you must believe that. He was a good, simple person … like her. Neither thought for a moment they were doing anything wrong.

STEPDAUGHTER: So he thought it for them.

FATHER: Not true! What I did, I did for her—yes, for me too, I admit it. It got to a point where I couldn’t say a thing without one of them shooting the other a secret look—they seemed to be asking each other how to react to what I said, how to avoid irritating me. This made me angrier. I was always angry.

JEREMY: So why didn’t you fire the poor bastard?

FATHER: I did, finally. But then I had to watch this unhappy woman moping around the house, like a stray dog looking for a place to lie down.

MOTHER: That’s true.

FATHER: (suddenly, turning as if to stop her) And is it also true about the boy?

MOTHER: He tore my own son from my arms, when he was only a baby.

FATHER: But not out of cruelty. I only wanted him to grow up strong and healthy, in touch with the earth.

STEPDAUGHTER: (pointing to the Son, jeering) And what a magnificent success you’ve achieved.

FATHER: Is it my fault he turned out this way? I took him to a wet nurse in the country because his mother didn’t seem strong enough. Also a peasant woman, like her. Simple women attract me—maybe that’s wrong, but I’ve always felt the need for a kind of sound moral cleanliness, (the Stepdaughter breaks out in raucous laughter) Please make her stop that. It’s awful.

JEREMY: Do shut up, will you? How can I follow the story if you make that awful racket? I’m sorry, sir, do go on. (After Jeremy rebukes her, the Stepdaughter assumes her usual position … absorbed and distant, half smiling. Jeremy again checks out the scene from the auditorium.)

FATHER: I couldn’t bear to have this woman near me. (pointing to the Mother) Not because she had upset me, and not because she suffocated me, but because I felt so terribly sorry for her.

MOTHER: And so he sent me away.

FATHER: (defensive) You were well provided for. Yes, I sent her away to the other man, so she could be free of me.

MOTHER: So you could be free.

FATHER: Yes, that’s partly true. But I did it more for her, I swear it. (folds his arms, then turns suddenly to the Mother) I kept a close eye on you, didn’t I? Until one day that fellow suddenly took her away to another city, resenting my interest in them. Until then I watched this new little family grow up; first this girl, then the others. I felt very tender toward them. She’ll tell you that, (points to the Stepdaughter)

STEPDAUGHTER: Oh yes indeed. I was a cute little thing, you know, with hair down to my waist and frilly little underwear. He used to watch me coming out of school. He came to see how I was filling out.

FATHER: That’s a lie! A vicious lie!

STEPDAUGHTER: It’s the truth.

FATHER: Vicious! Vicious! (he continues) After she’d gone, my home was empty. She’d been a heavy weight on me, but her presence filled the house. I wandered through the empty rooms like a damned soul. This boy here (to the Son) was raised and educated away from home. When he came back—I don’t know—he didn’t seem mine any more, without a mother to link us together. Anyway, he grew away from me; we had no connection through love or anything.