(A path in town a few weeks later. On the stage apron, before the closed curtain- VINNIE, rushing past with a basket, is stopped by a heavily veiled SUE. EMILY chases ineffectually after.)
SUE (Shakes a newspaper at her)
What is this about giving Mrs. Todd our property? The patrimony of the children’s generation?
EMILY Sue, Sue, if we met with our deserts we would receive nothing. It’s avarice to hoard. You are past correction, Vinnie.
VINNIE (Desperate, guilty, looks around for help – there’s none)
I’m sure that’s impossible!
(SUE puts the paper in front of her nose)
SUE It says so right here under “Property Transfers”. Property transfers have to be publicized, Vinnie.
VINNIE (Helplessly)
But it can’t be. Mrs. Todd said – she lied to me.
EMILY She dropped so low in my regard I heard her hit the ground. Accused thou wert! Partake the infamy!
SUE She lied to you? Well of course she lied to you, Vinnie! That woman’s black with sin! She’s brought a sword into this family!
EMILY Poverty be justifying for so foul a thing. I can defeat the rest but you defeat me, Susan.
VINNIE I thought – not a transfer exactly – just we can’t have any building.
(More firmly, knowing she’ll be agreed with)
No building on the meadow.
SUE (Very satisfied)
I thought Mr. Hills was handling your business, Vinnie. I thought you agreed you needed Mr. Hills.
EMILY Oh, Susie, this is dangerous! Think flowers cry for dew? No, they cry for sunlight, though it scorches them, scathes them! They are through with peace!
VINNIE (Very meek)
None of us want building. I thought we were all agreed.
SUE And of course you can’t read documents without your glasses. A clever hussy could get you to sign anything.
EMILY Oh, Sue, Sue! For a beam from your brown eyes I would give a pearl. We’re of injury too innocent to know when it is passed.
VINNIE (Sniffily)
I don’t have glasses. My health has always been perfect.
SUE Why then it’s a case of fraud. It’s a case for the police. We’re going straight to Mr. Hills!
(Commandeers VINNIE)
EMILY I’m nothing but a hard heart of stone, Susie, and if mine is stony, yours is stone upon stone for you never yield. Are we going to ossify, Susie? Then how will it be? A lie is vocal when we die.
(SUE sweeps unseeing past her, puts her arm through VINNIE’ s and bears her away.)
(MABEL and VINNIE, both black-clothed, taking tea in the Homestead parlor. EMILY cavorts, playing hopscotch games they cannot see.)
EMILY If recollecting were forgetting Then I remember not. If forgetting, recollecting How near I had forgot. Heart! We will forget him! You and I, tonight! You may forget the warmth he gave I will forget the light.
(Mimes rolling dice)
We lose because we win – gamblers toss your dice again!
VINNIE Mabel, I do wish – we all wish –
(Gasp of distaste)
That you not wear black. It’s so undignified, don’t you see? Don’t you see it opens the family up to talk and scandal?
EMILY Oh Vinnie, never improve! You are so perfect now!
MABEL I do only what He wished. Don’t you see my life must be devoted to that now? To him, of course, and to Emily. If he lived we were to marry and go West – you see I wear his ring – but now I can only tend his grave. His grave, and his memory. And Emily’s memory, of course.
VINNIE (Tapping her foot helplessly)
But it’s undignified! What must people think!
EMILY How happy is the little stone That rambles in the road alone And doesn’t care about careers And exigencies never fears!
(Shakes her head)
The mind lives on the heart like any parasite, dear Vinnie!. If full of meat the mind is fat!
MABEL (Takes a paper from her purse)
And that’s not all he wished. Remember?
VINNIE (Shuddering with distaste)
I don’t know what you want me to remember. I don’t wish to read my brother’s private correspondence. After a death, dear Mabel, such things are to be burned.
(Will not touch the paper)
EMILY (Arms akimbo, head shaking)
Oh, Vinnie! Bats think foxes have no eyes.
MABEL But they do burn! His words burn in me and so should they in you! Don’t you remember what he said?
EMILY (All ears)
Momentousness ripens in a human soul impregnable as light! A single screw of flesh is all that pins the soul.
VINNIE Things are so changed, Mabel! Everything is changed! We are authoresses now, public persons, don’t you see, in this new world! Did you get the fresh poems I sent you? I found them in the linen closet! Who knows how many more there might not be in this big house? And –
(Awkward change of subject)
How is the new volume coming?
MABEL It’s difficult to concentrate on anything when I have so much sorrow!
(Gasps; threatens tears.)
When – my Master’s wishes go unfulfilled.
EMILY To die before one fears to die may be a boon. Folks knock at the grass and the grass lets them in. With ghosts so attentive, what cause have we to complain? Still, we are children, and children fear the dark.
VINNIE But Mr. Hills is my business manager and says I can do nothing without his oversight. Don’t you see, Mabel? When you have a position in the town you are not free.
EMILY (Miming)
I never hear of prisons but I tug childish at my bars only to fail again!
MABEL But a deed need not be recorded. It would be a secret, Vinnie, don’t you see? Then no one would know.
VINNIE (Stunned into giving her real objection)
It need not? Sue would be so angry if she found out–
EMILY Night is my favorite day. That’s why I love silence so. The infinite’s a sudden guest.
MABEL I know the rages of the Black Moghul! To think she still stalks the sod while my King molders beneath it, his wishes forgotten! How can one endure! No, no, Vinnie, the Black Moghul must never know.
(Leans closer confidingly)
It will be our little secret.
EMILY (Dancing)
Surgeons must be very careful When they take the knife Underneath their fine incisions Stirs the culprit – life!
VINNIE Well, it’s the patrimony – she’d find out. They all would know.
MABEL But what about that tiny strip of meadow just in front of my house? Merely a little strip, Vinnie! Fifty-three feet by six hundred! And landscaped already – planted already to my – and my Master’s – choice. Nothing would be different.
EMILY We are orchard sprung! I raised robins in that garden! If I helped one fainting robin I shall not have lived in vain. My flowers were disobedient. To be a flower is a profound responsibility.
(Sighs)
One clover, one bee and revery! Revery alone will do if bees are few.
VINNIE Nothing would be different?
EMILY Silver scruples! The grass does not appear afraid. Perhaps its well our senses aren’t at home. Vinnie, your riches taught me poverty. Earth is short and anguish absolute.
MABEL (She’s a hard worker)
Nothing! No money changes hands! Who would ever know?
EMILY Back your morals with a mastiff and manners may prevail! Suspense – the gnat that mangles men! Suspense is hostiler than death!
VINNIE You know I’d like to sign. Emily needs you to work on her book.
MABEL Oh, that’s a gift of love! An honor! A privilege to perform these little tasks for the sainted singer of Amherst! Would you care to walk the property before you sign?
VINNIE Oh, no. I walked there just last night. I often go when the moon is full.
(Hesitatingly, full of embarrassment)
I have faith that Emily is there.
EMILY Faith’s a fine invention when gentlemen can see. But microscopes are prudent – in an emergency.
MABEL (Uncomprehending)
Emily’s buried in the churchyard, Vinnie.
EMILY (Passes her hands frantically in front of their unseeing eyes)
There are no dead. The grave’s our moan for them! A soul escaped the house unseen! Hands the grave has grimed place in our own, denying they have died. It’s not that dying hurts us so but living hurts us more. Unable are the loved to die, for love is deity.
VINNIE Her spirit, Mabel. Of course that is what I mean. Oh, how she loved that meadow! She used to say the sunshine was a sacrament and the breeze communion wine!
EMILY (Crosses herself)
In the name of the Bee and the Butterfly and the Breeze – Amen!
(Clutches her chest)
What shall I do? It whimpers so, this hound within the heart! If sinew tore and soul seesaw, lift the flesh door and give the poltroon oxygen!
(Threatens) Vinnie, an imperial thunderbolt will scalp your naked soul!
MABEL Yes, certainly. We will treasure its honor intact – for her.
EMILY (Asking the audience) I lost a world the other day – has anybody found? You’ll know it by the row of stars around its forehead bound.
VINNIE (Postponing the fearsome moment)
I don’t have my spectacles.
EMILY We grow accustomed to the dark when light is put away. Spiders sew at night without a light and conscience reads without its glasses on revelations’ wall.
MABEL That’s fine, Vinnie. We will need a witness at any rate.
VINNIE A witness? Shall I call Maggie?
MABEL A lawyer of course, Miss Lavinia! What did you think?
EMILY A lawyer! To extricate suffering humanity from its hopeless ditch?
VINNIE But Mr. Hills –
MABEL (Finger to her lips, shakes her head complicitly)
Mr. Spaulding! Mr. Spaulding!
(A proper Victorian gentleman enters the room and doffs his hat)
MR. SPAULDING Oh, Miss Dickinson, it is such an honor to attend you!
MABEL Mr. Spaulding is from Northampton.
MR. SPAULDING Greetings to you, good ladies.
EMILY And marrow of the day to you. The sun took down his yellow whip and drove the fog away.
MR. SPAULDING (He looks around with relish)
To tread the selfsame boards of the Belle of Amherst is such a privilege, as God’s my witness!
EMILY If belles are kangaroos, good Sir! Charm invests a face imperfectly beheld.
VINNIE (Softening)
You’re an admirer, Sir?
MR. SPAULDING Yes, indeed. How I should like, how I would do my utmost in your service if I could discreetly touch any item, anything – on which she laid her hand.
EMILY Utmost is relative. None see God and live. Alas, my body’s as unnecessary to me now as boots to birds. My every scar’s a gem. Are you a gem collector, sir?
VINNIE This is her tea set here. She won prizes for her Indian bread – Father would eat no other. I wish Maggie could duplicate it.
MR. SPAULDING (Picks up a teacup -– studies it and is overcome)
Oh. Oh.
(He declaims)
Because I would not stop for death He kindly stopped for me. The carriage contained –
VINNIE But just ourselves
MABEL And immortality. Such delicate insights!
MR. SPAULDING Who could plumb the secrets of that heart?
EMILY Sir, thoughts we will not show are more intimate than persons that we know.
MABEL (She thrusts the paper at Mr. Spaulding.)
Miss Dickinson would like this deed of transfer properly witnessed.
EMILY Madness is divinest sense to the discerning eye. Much sense – Seems starkest madness. Assent and you are sane. Demur – You’re straightway dangerous and handled with a chain.
VINNIE (Panicked)
For just the meadow, now! The little strip of meadow!
MR.SPAULDING Six hundred by twenty-two hundred feet, is what it says here. A transfer of land you understand.
VINNIE (Ruffled)
Of course I understand! My signature goes where?
MR. SPAULDING (Produces a tablet and helps her with her signature.)
If you’ll just dot that there – there you go. Right as rain. Now if I may just peep into the Poet’s conservatory? Where she cherished her blooms in our cold hard winters!
EMILY We are a vivacious climate, kind sir. Curiosity is a Garden in the brain. The goodwill of a flower is minted holiness.
MR. SPAULDING (Looking thirstily about)
She loved too well, they say. And that was why she never left her home.
EMILY This dirty little heart inside its freckled shrine – not with a club was it broken but with a whip. So small you couldn’t see it.
VINNIE (Very excited)
We each bore up under terrible disappointment. We clung only each other. Such cold winters! So hard!
(She is getting worked up about MR SPAULDING)
The conservatory has fallen into sad disuse I’m sorry to admit. You see, neither Maggie nor I can spare the time –
MR. SPAULDING And we’re none of us getting younger, are we?
EMILY Vinnie runs all day with her tongue abroad, like a summer dog. She has always been the pert one, gifted with Poetry of Motion. Oh, Vinnie! I have a strong surmise that moments we have not known are tenderest to you!
(SPAULDING pockets tablet and paper and offers VINNIE an arm)
MR. SPAULDING I’m so fond of literary ghosts!
EMILY My art had patrons – once a queen and once a butterfly. My splendors will entertain the centuries when I am dishonored grass whom none but beetles know.
VINNIE This way, Mr. Spaulding.
MR. SPAULDING (His hand on hers along his arm)
Please call me Timothy. I’d like to think of us as friends.
MABEL (Watching them wryly)
Well, I’ve got a great deal to do if I’m to get the latest volume to the printers before I go to Japan. Mustn’t tarry.
(Bustles out. They all leave EMILY alone)
EMILY She speeds as petals of a rose offended by the wind. Frigid and sweet her parting face – frigid and fleet my feet. Penury and home – who was she to withhold from me?
(To the audience)
Endow the living with the tears you squander on the dead! Twice have I stood a beggar before the door of God! I stunned myself with bolts of melody. The rumor of delirium was a hope so juicy ripening I almost bathed my tongue, but… We outgrow love like other things and put it in the drawer. Eden’s not so lonesome as New England.
(Clutches her chest)
A pain so utter swallows memory up. They shut me in the cold and they themselves were warm. You forgot but I remembered – I recalled enough for two. We tell a hurt to cool it. It is good that we are dreaming – it would hurt awake. I dropped this world like a bundle.
(Declaims)
Softness suffuses the story Silences the teller’s eye The children have no further questions Only the sea reply. Dominion lasts until obtained – possession just as long. But everlasting are the lips known only to the dew These are the brides of permanence, supplanting me and you.
(A day later. Coffin laid out in the Evergreen library, mourners filing past. MABEL, dressed in black, peeking in the window, dodging out of sight when she thinks she might be seen. Cries bitterly. EMILY rears up out of the audience)
EMILY
The things that never can come back are these
(Counts them out on fingers)
Hope, childhood,
(Gasps)
And the dead… I heard a fly buzz when I died The stillness in the room Was like the stillness in the air Between the heaves of storm. With blue uncertain, stumbling buzz Between the light and me And then the windows failed and then I could not see to see!
(Mimes blindness, falling backward)
MABEL
O! To touch again the dear body which I know and love so utterly! Austin I pray you are out once more in the sweet, summer sunshine, light-hearted and blithe as a boy! The whole town weeps for you! Yet I am the only mourner.
EMILY
It’s a solemn thing within the soul to feel itself get ripe.
(To the audience)
I can wade grief Whole pools of it I’m used to that Power is only pain. Futile the winds to a heart in port Done with the compass Done with the chart Rowing in Eden Ah, the Sea! Might I moor tonight in thee!
(A brilliantly sunny day a few years later. A new house has been added between the two previous houses – back of the stage. We see only its porch where MABEL sits at an old-fashioned typewriter, wearing a green eyeshade, attended by DAVID. A couple sits in each of the houses – VINNIE and MAGGIE at the Homestead, AUSTIN and SUE at the Evergreens.MABEL and DAVID are reading letters. EMILY dances down the meadow)
DAVID
Here’s a letter from Emily to appeal to you, May-bill. “Dearest of all Uncles – would you like to try a duel? Or is that too quiet to suit you? At any rate I shall kill you – you can take chloroform if you like and I will put you beyond the reach of pain in a twinkling.”
MABEL
She was just nineteen when she wrote that!
DAVID
It’s as funny as Twain, so it is.
EMILY
Fame is a bee – it has a song – it has a sting – it has a wing!
(Pretends to fly away)
Butterflies’ aesthetics are far superior to mine.
MABEL
Emily had a seeker’s heart. She sees the other world somehow. Listen to this one – “Won’t you please state the name of the boy that turned the faintest – I’d like to get such facts to set down in my journal. I don’t think deaths or murders can ever come amiss in a young woman’s journal.”
(Peals of laughter)
DAVID
It is an extraordinary thing you have done to share this rare genius with the world, my sweet.
MABEL
I feel we have climbed to a cloud, pulled it away and revealed a new star!
(They clasp hands)
EMILY
Blame is just as dear as praise, and praise as mere as blame – as foreign from my thought as firmament from fin. Renown perceives itself and thus degrades the flower.
VINNIE
(reading the newspaper to MAGGIE)
Listen to this! It says Emily is at the forefront of American singers! It says – Can’t you stop cleaning for a moment?
MAGGIE
(Scrubbing the grate)
Miss Emily used to say she preferred a house of pestilence to a house of cleaning.
(They both laugh uproariously)
MAGGIE
(Wiping her eyes)
Oh, I miss her! So I do! I’d rather have her than a pile of books! But spring cleaning waits for none but Death.
(EMILY pats her head)
EMILY
Housekeeping is a prickly art when winter becomes an infinite “alas.” The moderate drinker of delight does not deserve the spring.
VINNIE
“The work of Emily Dickinson make a distinctive addition to the literature of the world.”
(MAGGIE leans back on her heels and sighs approvingly. Meanwhile, back at the Evergreens – )
AUSTIN
(Accepting a teacup)
I’d no idea she had so many poems in passably conventional form. “Poetry torn up by the roots,” said Mr. Higginson and Mr. Niles told us her defects “outshone” her abilities. He called her lacking in “poetical qualities”.
EMILY
Poets’ thought undressed needs no umbrella. If the top of my head is taken off, then I know it’s poetry.
SUE
(Swishing around the room in anger)
I should have been told! It’s so humiliating to be kept in the dark! Two volumes of poetry and a book of letters! Vinnie says I refused to arrange the poems! Emily knows it isn’t true!
AUSTIN
Vinnie did ask you first.
SUE
I thought I had more time! Everyone’s in such a rush!
(Sighs)
And I have so many obligations.
EMILY
(Ornamenting SUE with an invisible jewel)
I chose this star from out the night’s wide number, Sue! It’s all I have to bring today – this and my heart beside- and all the bees and all the fields and all the meadows wide! Be what you have ever been – infinity.
(Tries to grab her as she flashes past)
Oh, Sue, Sue, the realm of You!
(Her hands are empty)
Absence is condensed presence.
AUSTIN
If only Vinnie had taste! She paid for the publication. She rushes into print even items of small consequence with crudities of workmanship.
EMILY
(Tartly)
Publication is the auction of the mind of man! We do not call the surgeon to commend the bone, but to set it!
SUE
I always said Emily had a crystal soul. It’s just that I’ve been ill so much latterly. There has been sorrow and
(Meaningfully)
– our disgrace.
(AUSTIN shields himself with his newspaper)
EMILY
Dreams a subtle dower, make us rich an hour! Opinion is a flitting thing but Truth outlasts the sun. If we cannot own them both then possess the oldest one. Oh, Sue, I had rather be loved than be a king on earth or a lord in heaven!
SUE
When I sent one of Emily’s poems to the Springfield Republican, Lavinia told everyone I violated her copyright!
VINNIE
(Reading loudly)
“They are barbed things, these poems; they strike and remain, unlike snowball poems that break and melt and are gone, leaving you cold.”
EMILY
The incredible never surprises because it is the incredible.
VINNIE
(Reads)
“Illuminating Inner Life of a Recluse”
EMILY
No prison be when liberty’s locked in. The police cannot suppress the mob within the heart.
SUE
I have a chest of poems and letters that she gave me! I will publish my own reminiscences when I choose and in my time!
AUSTIN
(lowering his paper exasperatedly)
Dear, Emily sent you letters but that does not convey copyright, which belongs, by will, to her legal heir.
SUE
But an heir so foolish with her tempers and her vagaries! Vinnie isn’t sensible enough to “inherit” anything. She has as much knowledge of business as a Maltese pussycat.
EMILY
Constancy with proviso, constancy abhors!
AUSTIN
(He coughs)
Vinnie is whimsical, wayward and exasperating. Do write your memories, Susan, or what have we left? Those belong to you of course. Please do not mention –
Emily’s sickness.
(Increased coughing, grabbing at SUE’s sleeve)
People say Emily kept to her home because she was ill.
(He falls into a coughing fit. SUE turns away her head but EMILY is alarmed.)
EMILY Sue, Sue! Ward death away with your homeopathic glances!
SUE
Of course I shall! I shall write. I shall at least do that!
EMILY
Ah, well. Life’s the hinge of death. Fame is the one that does not stay. Its occupant must die – insolvent thing – a “lightning in the germ”. Electrical the embryo but we demand the flame.
(Clomps away, chanting)
Could live – did live Could die – did die.
(As she leaves, light follows her and darkens the Evergreens. EMILY wanders to the Homestead and peers in through the window.)
VINNIE
Mrs. Todd wants half my copyright but she shan’t have it.
MAGGIE
(Shaking a collection of papers)
She keeps sending contracts over here. All of them she writes herself.
VINNIE
And I keep burning them! Throw them on the fire, Maggie! Just because she straightened out the poems! Why, any clark could have done it! I’d have done it if I could have stayed in school!
(Rustles her shawl angrily)
But you knew Father. He couldn’t bear to have us gone.
MAGGIE
He would eat no bread but Emily’s.
EMILY
Father was quite a hand at giving medicine, especially if it was undesirable to the patient. He put the belt around my life – I heard the buckle snap.
(Confiding)
My parents addressed an Eclipse every morning and called it Father.
VINNIE
And then Mother – poor Mother –
MAGGIE
There, there, then, Miss Vinnie. Have yourself a nice cup of tea.
VINNIE
That hussy can’t take my property! Those poems and letters are mine! They don’t belong to Sue. They’re not Austin’s to give away – they’re not anybody’s but mine! Mr. Hills says every poem Emily sent belongs to me by law, even ones I’ve never seen. Mabel’s just making copies, anyone with an educated hand can do that!
(Troubled because she’s basically unfamiliar with the magnitude of her sister’s work but feels a paranoid fear of theft)
I don’t think she gives half of them back. Wanting money. Wanting everything not hers.
EMILY
My gifts were given me by the Gods when I was just a little girl. My difference made me bold.
(Croons to the flowers)
Only a bee will miss it, only a butterfly. Only a bird will wonder, only a breeze will sigh. Ah little rose how easy for such as thee to die!
MAGGIE
And hasn’t she all the glory now, Her Busyness?
(Gestures to MABEL’s house)
That fine house and two men dancing attendance? I’d say she’s had reward enough.
VINNIE
It’s more men than that! Some say every man in town buzzes round her hive!
(They snigger. MABEL puts down her work, walks to the porch railing and starts to sing a florid version of, “Where the Bee Sucks, There Suck I”. DAVID listens reverentially. MAGGIE closes up the shutters)
MAGGIE
Miss Emily used to say if that woman didn’t stop singing, she’d start weeping!
EMILY
I said that about Vinnie!
(Shakes her head)
Hug her, Maggie! Hold her to your bosom!
(But MAGGIE clatters the tea tray, whisking crumbs. VINNIE tears paper into strips, officiously making spills. EMILY begins to dance)
EMILY
God is indeed a jealous God if He cannot bear to see that we had rather not with him but with each other play!
(Laughs.)
I convinced Vinnie her dying cat was immortal and would find heaven. Did that assist you, Vinnie?
(AUSTIN’s coughing heard, then SUE.)
SUE Help! Maggie! Ned, Mattie! Someone come quick!
(Excited, ineffective running about)
EMILY (Rushes to the Evergreens to cradle AUSTIN in her arms)
Death won’t hurt now Dollie’s here. A dimple in the tomb makes that ferocious room a home. My life closed twice before its close, but dying’s a wild night and a new road. Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell.
(She strokes his forehead)
Heaven – how dim it sounds! Perhaps you’re going too – who knows? I’d harass God to let you in.
(Whispers in AUSTIN’s ear)
T’is life’s award to die. A deathblow’s a lifeblow to some.
(AUSTIN in the Homestead parlor, nervously pacing, fire poking, wearing a mourning band. MABEL hurries in, attired in spring-like colors. Neither pays attention to EMILY, seated atop the bookcase)
AUSTIN You are a dazzling beacon of purity, my darling; so sick am I of mourning black!
MABEL
My King!
(They embrace.)
EMILY (pretends to pray)
Of God we ask one favor That we may be forgiven For the crime from us is hidden Within a magic prison. Reprimand us for the happiness That competes with heaven.
(AUSTIN attempts to undress MABEL but she pushes him back and slows him down by sitting on his lap.)
MABEL
Now that I have my little strip of land, my darling, I must have a house to hold up my head against your three evil wishers.
(Pulling at his tie)
I will need a bank loan, dearest.
AUSTIN
That can be arranged.
(He is not to be deterred. She is soon unclothed and he kisses her all over.)
MABEL
And did you write that wee, wee note I asked you to put in my box?
EMILY (Admiringly)
Great hungers feed themselves, while little hungers ail in vain.
AUSTIN (Exasperated)
I know I promised you a written history of my marriage to be your shield, my darling, but surely things are better as they are? I do not wish to involve others unpleasantly or risk the slightest injustice. Believe me. Believe me.
MABEL
I dodge heart-breaking discourtesies to come to you, but what of that? And what about your will, my darling? How protect my strip of meadow I have already planted?
EMILY (Mimes shooting MABEL)
Aim once, shoot once, kill once.
AUSTIN (MABEL has effectively shut him down)
Sweetest, I have writ my desire to leave my patrimony to you and placed it in Vinnie’s hands. She is pledged to surrender it to you. She has told me she will promise to your face if that’s what you require. Trust me, it is better so. You are my wife before God, and so I swear.
EMILY
Tasting the honey and the sting should have ceased with Eden. Pang is the past of peace. It’s not dying hurts us so but living hurts us more.
MABEL
Does God hear prayers, I wonder? He allows my enemies to flourish and so do you. You met Susan’s train, or so I heard.
EMILY (Puts up her dukes)
Fisticuffs at home create a climate of escape. Do men gather grapes of thorns? Sue’s a dream, dear lady. Losing her is sweeter than all other hearts to gain. Sue is – imagination.
(Her hands release an invisible dove)
AUSTIN
Darling, it couldn’t be avoided. I had the carriage.
EMILY
If one can’t have carriages, what’s patrimony for? This is a checkered life.
(Jumps down from the bookcase, waves her hands in front of their unseeing eyes; gives up her attempts to contact them. Discouraged.)
I didn’t bring my body so they don’t know that I’m here.
MABEL Oh, the carriage! And you shower those absurdly graceless children with favors.
AUSTIN (Rising angrily, dumps MABEL to the floor)
You’ve made a mistake.
It always seemed so strange to me that two such proud people, so stiff, so apt to be pert, could love so well.
EMILY
It seemed strange to everybody. Sweet the secret swamp – until we meet a snake.
MABEL
Could hate so well, you mean. She trapped you, don’t forget.
(Paces)
EMILY
Ah, Susie! Sue! The wife cannot be forgotten! I suppose “Enough” is so vast a sweetness it never occurs.
(She pulls on AUSTIN’s jacket – he ignores her.)
Icebergs italicize the sea.
MABEL (Embracing AUSTIN)
I feel in myself divine possibilities that can only be realized through you. It is in the great foundation of things that we should be mated.
AUSTIN
(Resumes his lovemaking)
We are mated!
EMILY
Oh, the Earth was made for lovers! The bride, the bridegroom, the two and then the one Adam and Eve, his consort, the moon and then the sun!
(Confides)
Each expiring secret leaves an heir.
MABEL (Unplacatable till she says what’s on her mind)
But still your Great Black Moghul parades her bigoted spite throughout the town! As if she owns the place! Much pain was unnecessarily given to me by your reluctance to step in and relieve it in the one place that caused it all! I have never admitted a thought that could be disloyal to my master, but oh, how gladly I will see you do what you can in this line!
EMILY (To the audience)
I had thought how dull my life must seem to the bride and the plighted maiden, whose days are fed with gold and who gather pearls each evening. But to the forgotten wife that life must seem dearer than all the others in the world. You rend me, Susie, even now, even now that I am yielded up.
AUSTIN
We have so much to be grateful for, my darling! With Susan gone to Boston we can meet without impediment.
MABEL
You rule and compel things, which I cannot. That makes your outward life so much more bearable than mine. You won’t feel it necessary to write to her, I hope?
AUSTIN
If there’s business to conduct. I don’t wish to offend or wound.
MABEL (Standing up angrily)
I am offended! I am wounded! I feel their hatred and persecution every moment, as well as the negative disgust. I feel it will ultimately be my death. Why doesn’t God punish her? I feel He has deserted me!
(Poses in her underwear. She feels her own irresistibility)
EMILY Gorgeous nothing! When I think of the hearts scuttled and sunk – is it safe to leave the Golden Rule out overnight? With burglary so frequent hereabouts?
AUSTIN (Embracing MABEL)
My angel wife! There’s nothing else. You transform, transmute, translate everything. You have made me yours. If you could only feel the overpowering, overmastering strength of my love. (He attempts a kiss)
MABEL
I feel her attacking me in Boston even now, right in the heart of the Ladies’ Clubs where I had hoped to speak.
AUSTIN
Why make yourself conspicuous? I thought you’d have plenty to occupy yourself with the new property.
EMILY
When a lover is an owner how different is he! Ah, the sweets of pillage! Love – thou art veiled – so few behold thee. Nicknamed by God; Eternity.
MABEL
I need a fortress, a stronghold against my hurts but I so loathe housekeeping! I have capabilities that can grow into accomplishment. I mean to do something worthwhile.
EMILY (Extravagantly gesturing)
Shame need not crouch in such an earth as ours. Shame, stand erect – the universe is yours.
(Our eye is caught by a figure on the other side of the door who seems to be listening to the pair. It is DAVID TODD.)
AUSTIN Vinnie requires assistance arranging Emily’s poems in a book, and Sue’s too busy. Her letters could elucidate as well. You’ve published things-
MABEL (Modestly)
I’ve been lucky.
EMILY Luck’s not chance – it’s toil. Fortune has an expensive smile. Austin used to be a believer but he mistook venoms for balms. We have all the witchcraft we need around us every day.
MABEL I should love to explicate Emily to others! Even though I saw your sister or the first time only in her casket I felt I understood her comets of thought.
EMILY Had I known the first was last I would have kept it longer Had I known the last was first I would have drunk it stronger!
AUSTIN That’s settled, then. Ask Maggie for the trunk of scribbled papers.
(MABEL finally surrenders. They kiss with increasing intensity)
MABEL (Breathily)
Would you like a witness? Just this once?
AUSTIN A witness?
MABEL David.
(He steps silently into the room and stands, arms behind him, observing.)
You say that he’s your dearest friend.
EMILY A committee? Lifetime is for two, never for committee.
AUSTIN Of course I love David.
(MABEL undresses AUSTIN. They fall together while DAVID watches aloofly.)
EMILY (Nosing past the lovers, intrigued)
How invaluable is ignorance! Such economical ecstasy! Ignorance our cuirass is. I declare it would have starved a gnat to live so small as I!
(Addresses the audience as lights go down on parlor)
I could suffice for him I knew He could suffice for me. We hesitating fractions Surveyed infinity. “Would I be whole” he sudden broached! Face to face with nature forced is Face to face with God. The moon herself adjusts her tides In answer to the sun. Could I do else with mine?
(Directly accusing the audience)
You left me boundaries of pain capacious as the sea!
(Lights down on EMILY, up on the library of the other house where SUE stands at the mantel playing with her jewelry. AUSTIN enters.)
SUE (Coldly)
Did you see Mrs. Todd?
AUSTIN (Very superior)
I told you that I would.
SUE
A woman coveting two men! And you pretend to such discrimination! The imagination beggars!
AUSTIN
Evil to her who evil thinks. Unlike “civic beggars” both of mind and body I recognize value when I see it, and a scientifically trained astronomer with a cultivated, operatically trained lady for his wife greatly enhances the prestige of our little town.
SUE
Yet you – and the Trustees – seem to value David Todd more when he’s out of town or in some other hemisphere altogether, chasing an eclipse! Poor little dud David! He doesn’t realize he’s been eclipsed at home!
AUSTIN (Consults an extravagant gold watch)
The Trustees of the College are none of your concern.
SUE
And now you want to give Mrs. Todd our property, or so I hear!
AUSTIN
Not your property. Mine and my sisters’; a mere slip of land so the Todds can build a house. The Trustees can’t afford to reward David Todd appropriate to his needs, so I’m helping out.
SUE
But Emily won’t sign.
AUSTIN (Sighs)
I fear our Poetess knows nothing of business. Nor, I should say, do you. Have you been dosing yourself again?
SUE (Turns away)
You used to say Emily saw things just as they are! You know I’ve been ill. Your public shamelessness sickens me – and it’s sickening the children.
AUSTIN Ned was surely sickened by your attempts to destroy him in the womb!
SUE (Gasps)
Untrue! Your cousin Zebina had the falling sickness his whole life long! While Emily –
AUSTIN Do not dare to speak of Emily’s illness! Do you deny your morbid fear of childbirth has poisoned our relations?
SUE You promised me the sacrifice of a marriage blanc! I have your oath written out! Did you forget? “I will ask nothing of you, take nothing from you are not happier in giving me.” I can quote it exactly.
AUSTIN You entrapped me! You are the spoiler of my life! Did you forget a wife’s duty and a man’s requirements? I went to our wedding as to my own execution!
SUE (So upset she is tearing the wallpaper in strips from the walls)
You pursued my sister, made her love you and then abandoned her! You broke her heart! I said no a thousand times. Why, oh, why did you have to marry me!
(MAGGIEbursts into the room)
MAGGIE
It’s Emily! Her breathing is that ragged I fear she’s dying!
(They rush to the other house where they gather around a figure lying on the sofa, face turned away, younger sister VINNIE in attendance. We hear the horrible breathing on the sound track. But EMILY, dressed only in a flesh colored leotard, her hair down, watches them with interest from her cross-legged position atop a bookcase. The breathing sound fades.)
EMILY
My cocoon is tightening I’m feeling for the air A dim capacity for wings demeans the dress I wear. This is not death for I stood up And all the dead lie down.
AUSTIN (Sobbing)
Sorry for how I teased you, dear sister! Sorry for everything!
EMILY (Suddenly amazingly youthful again, she is beginning to feel her own body, discovering she can dance, jumps down and advances to address the audience. Her relatives remain absorbed by The Thing on the sofa)
The whole of it came not at once. Was murder by degrees! A thrust – and then for Life a chance – The bliss to cauterize.
SUE
Oh, Emily, don’t leave us! I’m sorry for my temper, for all the times I was self-absorbed, for all the scintillation you elected not to share!
EMILY (Dancing round SUE)
Susan is a stranger yet; Those who know her, know her less The nearer her they get. To own a Susan of my own Is of itself a Bliss Whatever real I forfeit, Lord, Continue me in this!
(Sister VINNIE kneels, sobbing)
VINNIE Emily, don’t leave me all alone! First father, then mother, then you!
SUE (Angrily to AUSTIN)
You won’t need her signature – now!
EMILY (Dancing)
I felt a funeral in my brain And mourners to and fro Kept treading, treading, till it seemed That sense was breaking through! And then I heard them lift a box And creak across my soul – A plank in reason broke And I dropped down Hit a world and Finished knowing then. (Spins around) I feel barefoot all over!
(SUE, AUSTIN and VINNIE rise and face the audience, realizing that death is irreparable)
SUE Exultation is the going of an inland soul to sea. Past the houses – past the headlands, into deep eternity.
AUSTIN Like eyes that looked on wastes So looked the face I looked upon –
(Birds shriek morning. Hat in hand, holding a basket, MABEL stands outside The Homestead, gaudily and fussily dressed in her spring best, attempting to pay a call – MAGGIE, a classically hardworking Irish domestic leans against the door)
MABEL (Loudly)
You have received me so generously in your home; please allow me the satisfaction of this slight return. Please accept my hand painted panel of Indian pipes, which I hear is your favorite flower.
(MAGGIE, listening, does not open the door – EMILY standing at her writing table, considers a pad of paper)
EMILY
Tudor never was a beggar.
(Mockingly)
“Please accept this adder’s tongue.”
MABEL (Trying again, producing a trophy from her basket)
I painted this jug myself with lovely trumpet vines.
EMILY (Collapsing into her chair)
Summer’s delight is deterred by retrospect. Any gift but spring seems counterfeit, yet I always was attached to mud. We do not thank the Rainbow, though its trophy is a snare.
(Sits down and begins to write)
O Sue! Your absence insanes me so! I want to think of you every hour of every day. You have taught me more than Shakespeare. I have dared to do strange things – bold things – and have asked no advice from any. I heed beautiful tempters and do not think that I am wrong. An experience bitter, but sweet, and the sweet did so beguile me…nobody thinks of the joy, nobody guesses it. Now there is nothing old but things are budding and springing and singing…Take all away from me but leave me Ecstasy! I enclose my heart – sunburnt and half broken. Oh, the myrrh’s and mochas of the mind! A life that’s tied too tight escapes!
(Confidentially to the audience)
The most pathetic thing I do Is pretend I hear from you I make believe until my heart Almost believes it too But when I break it with the news You knew it was not true. I wish I had not broken it and so would you.
MABEL (Loudly interrupting, talking determinedly through the door, holding out a book)
If I may quote dear, dear Emily, my beloved Austin’s cherished sister, “A book is a bequest of wings”. Please accept this copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets From the Portuguese – (A hand reaches out the door, snatches the book and slams the door.)
MAGGIE (heavy Irish accent)
This is a house of sickness, so it is, you interfering madam!
EMILY What Nature forgets, the Circus will remind her. Oh, Egypt! Oh, entangled Antony! Why should we censure Othello when the Lover says, “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me?”
(MAGGIE silently hands her the book)
EMILY (scornfully recites)
What soft, cherubic creatures These Gentlewomen are! I would as soon assault a plush Or violate a star! Such Dimity convictions A horror so refined Of freckled human nature – Of deity – ashamed. Redemption, brittle lady Be so ashamed of thee.
(Tears up and throws away a page, begins again)
I’ve dropped my brain, my soul is numb. “Dear beguiling villain –“
(Throws that one away and starts again)
She dealt her pretty words like blades How glittering they shone. And every one unbared a nerve And wantoned with a bone.
(Lights up on the EVERGREENS where SUE stands before the fireplace mantel, holding a wineglass, extravagantly dressed in low-cut gown and jewelry; speaking to people we don’t see. Party noises.)
SUE I was roused about half past four by such strange sounds – wild snortings and huffings. Running to the window, who should I see but our coach horse Tom tearing over the grounds – as fine a warhorse as I ever expect to see! I shall never forget the picture – the moon just over the elms with one star fainting in its light – the east pink with dawn – fresh and dewy as only early morning can be and that great splendid animal exulting in it all, swishing through the wet grass triumphing in his freedom. For a moment it seemed enough to just be Tom. Alas, he was forced to make a most ignoble retreat.
(She sighs.)
He did no harm, I’m sorry to say.
(Consults her watch.)
I can’t imagine what’s keeping Austin. He’ll eat another cold dinner.
(Drinks, waves a hand)
Or he’s over at the Homestead where decent ladies daren’t go. Those girls have no idea of morality whatever – why, when I went last week I found Emily reclining in Judge Lord’s arms!
(Voices swell with excitement and clatter. Lights out on SUE and up on the HOMESTEAD parlor where the lovers dress.)
MABEL If people only realized that the more they try to keep lovers apart, the more they brood and think upon each other! Thoughts that are flames of conflagration greater even when than when they’re together. There would be less of these absurd separations.
AUSTIN If you knew Sue –
MABEL I thought I knew her. I wish she loved me. She fascinates me.
AUSTIN Well, she doesn’t fascinate me, and by her own choice. Believe me, I suffer every wound you receive from my family. I will straighten out the matter or smash the machine – I had rather be under the wreck than under what I am. There would be broken heads, certainly, but I would take a chance of coming out on top.
(He ushers MABEL out the door. Light goes up on EMILY writing at her table.)
EMILY Dear friend, it is strange that I miss you at night so much when I was never with you – but love invokes you soon as my eyes are shut and I wake warm with the want sleep had almost filled. Should I curb you, say the “Nay” and spoil the child? You know you are happiest when I withhold. Don’t you understand that NO is the wildest word in language? The Stile is God’s my sweet one – for your great sake – not mine – I will not let you cross. But what I am is all yours and when it is right I will lift the bars and lay you in the moss. Oh, my too beloved, save me from the idolatry that would crush us both. T’is a stern winter in my pearl jail.
(Tosses a crumpled page – speaks to herself)
Tell him the page I didn’t write! I am afraid to own a body! I am afraid to own a soul!
(Recites a poem)
A bone has obligations A being has the same A marrowless assembly Is culpabler than shame! (Writes as she speaks) I cannot live with you The sexton keeps the key. They’d judge us. I cannot die with you for I must await The other’s gaze shut down. How you sought; I could not. You saturated sight when I had no more eyes. Were you saved and I condemned My self were hell to me. So we must meet apart – you there – I here With just a door ajar, There oceans are, and prayer And that white sustenance Despair.
(enter EMILY‘s brother AUSTIN, tall, sedate, black-clothed midlife male with somewhat wild hair. He sweeps off his wet hat.)
EMILY Brother! This is the season reindeer love! What brings out you on a night like this when thunder gossips low, and water wrecks the sky?
(Very dramatic, gesturing)
A massacre of suns have been by evening’s sabers slain!
AUSTIN (Pushes past, impatient at her foolishness. He doesn’t want to play.) Is everyone in bed?
EMILY Yes of course. I have taken off my crown of thorns and donned my evening diadem. (Sighs explosively) Ah! To die divinely once a twilight!
AUSTIN I must needs interview, dear Sister. I require the parlor.
(He looks and acts guilty.)
EMILY Brother, how can we receive those who talk of hallowed things and embarrass my dog! The only one I meet is God.
AUSTIN No, no, no. Off to bed with you, Emily. It’s just that Sue can’t attend to…Mrs. Todd.
(Falsely jovial)
You remember Mrs. Todd. She’s indisposed.
EMILY Brother, you become improbable. Mrs. Todd is indisposed?
AUSTIN No, Sue.
EMILY (Anxiously pulling at his sleeve)
Is my Domingo ill? It’s easier to look behind at pain than to see it coming.
AUSTIN Sue chooses to be ill. She chooses to be black as death. Please don’t wait up for us. We won’t disturb you.
EMILY Life is death we’re lengthy at. All right, then, Brother. Impossibility exhilarates! I will take up my lantern, and go in search of deathless me. Keep a gas light burning, Brother, to light the danger up.
(AUSTIN brushes away her hand – EMILY dives behind the door to her conservatory – but eavesdrops. AUSTIN opens the front door, ushers a heavily veiled but elegantly clothed and youthful lady inside, into the parlor, closes the door behind them. Shoots the bolt home.)
EMILY (Listening behind the door)
They might not need me – yet they might! I’ll let my heart be just in sight. A smile as small as mine might be precisely their necessity. Ah, night’s possibility! I don’t mind locks as long as I can pick ‘em.
(In the parlor AUSTIN builds up the fire, as MABEL unwinds her many veils, which he eagerly receives. They face one another. )
AUSTIN Rubicon!
MABEL Rubicon indeed.
(They scrabble desperately at one another’s clothing, half undressing.)
EMILY (Listens, shaking her head)
Here’s a candy scrape! Love is hungry and must graze! Good to hide and hear ‘em hunt but better to be found.
(Spot follows her as she prepares her plants for the evening.)
AUSTIN I am famished for you.
MABEL I trust you as I trust God.
EMILY (Singing)
Title divine is mine! Wife without the sign! Garnet to garnet, gold to gold, Born, bridalled, shrouded in a day Is this the way?
(She holds a blossom to her cheek.)
My red, red, Persian ladies! Flowers are so enticing I fear that they are sins. I would rather have your moment’s blossom than a bee’s eternity.
AUSTIN (To MABEL)
I love you! Why should I and why shouldn’t I? Who made and who rules the human heart? Where is the wrong in preferring sunlight to shadow?
MABEL You reached out your hand in darkness, almost without knowing, and met another, warm and tender and you clasped it. It shall never be withdrawn.
AUSTIN I am overwhelmed, overjoyed. Intoxicated. We were made to give joy to each other.
(They make love. Light goes up onEMILY)
EMILY The bane is love. To lack it is a woe, to own it is a wound.
(She looks toward the parlor)
In all the circumference of expression the words of Adam and Eve never were surpassed: “I was afraid and hid myself.”
In her inimitable style, Emily comments on her relatives’ struggle over her estate following her death. Based on family letters, trial documents and the letters & poems of Emily Dickinson.
CHARACTERS
EMILY DICKINSON – a spryly girlish middle-aged woman with red hair AUSTIN DICKINSON – her slightly older brother, very tall and dignified but with hair and subtly tailored clothing that suggest a wilder inner spirit and a conviction of personal aristocracy MABEL LOOMIS TODD – a very pretty woman in her late twenties accustomed to showing herself to advantage, drawing all eyes and getting what she wants SUE GILBERT DICKINSON – a woman Emily’s exact age but more commandingly matronly as Austin’s wife she is the major local hostess accustomed to luxe décor, rich and fashionable clothing, valuable jewelry, elegant parties, avant garde discussions of progressive ideas and competently ordering fleets of servants. MAGGIE MAHER – Middle-aged Irish maid, very devoted to the Dickinsons, especially the Sisters LAVINIA “VINNIE” DICKINSON – slightly younger than Emily, a tad foolish and very fond of cats, she is easily led until she gets her back up DAVID TODD – a proud lover, a well-dressed ladies’ man, an astronomer and inventor who simply can’t advance in the world because he can’t leave other men’s wives alone MR SPAULDING – The lawyer from Northampton. A clueless booby. JUDGE – Elderly male MR. HAMMOND – Prosecutor – hard driving mature male MR HAMLIN – Defense – silky voiced mature male MATTIE DICKINSON – Young woman; Sue and Austin’s daughter – pining for a youth lost in family squabbles, the very last descendant of an increasingly embattled family (should be played by the actress who plays SUE) MILLICENT TODD – Young woman; an upstart with a good education determined to prove her mother’s not a whore (should be played by the actress who played MABEL)
SETTING: AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 1880’s and 1930’s.
SCENE BREAKDOWN: Scene 1 – Massachusetts in the 1880’s. The stage is divided into two “houses”, represented at right by The EVERGREENS (open to show Library) and at Left by the HOMESTEAD (open to show Parlor.) A strip of flowery meadow runs down the center. Both buildings are in tiptop condition. Action takes place back and forth between The HOMESTEAD and The EVERGREENS. Scene 2 – Same year, same place, a spring morning a few days later. Back and forth between the houses. Action commences at The Homestead where MABEL attempts to pay a call. Scene 3 – A few weeks later, beginning at the Homestead. Scene 4 – Austin & Mabel at the Homestead Scene 5 – A brilliantly sunny day a few years later. A fresh-painted new house has been added between the two previous houses – at the back of the stage. Scene 6 – Same places following AUSTIN’s death. Scene 7 – Mabel & Vinnie at The Homestead Scene 8 – A path in town a few weeks later Scene 9 – Massachusetts courtroom in the 1890’s. Scene 10 – The Homestead and the Evergreens in the 1930’s.
Scene 1 (At the front of the stage, lights go up on a red haired woman wearing worn black boots and a gauze aproned petticoat over black modern dance full-figure leotard. She stands stiffly at the center of the stage, clutching opposite hands in formal recitation pose.)
EMILY (Introducing herself; a recital pose)
This is my letter to the world that never wrote to me.
(Clears her throat, nervous at first, confidence increasing)
I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you Nobody too? Then there’s a pair of us. Don’t tell! They’d advertise, you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public! Like a frog! Telling one’s name – the livelong day To an admiring bog!
(She attempts some awkward dance steps.)
They shut me up in prose when I was just a girl, so I cannot dance upon my toes. But had I ballet knowledge, I’d pirouette to blanch a troupe!
(Ring on bell followed by knocking. EMILY rushes to answer door.)
What fortitude the Soul contains that it can so endure the accent of a coming foot, the opening of a door!
Alysse Aallyn 