The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume I

  SIMPSON (Sullenly): The boats are tied and we cannot untie them.

  GULLIVER: Yes, those thongs the nobles keep . . . (His eyes are looking off speculatively)

  SIMPSON: They’re twisted and untwisted with hooks of iron.

  GULLIVER: Iron?

  SIMPSON: Aye, they’re the only pieces of metal on the island. The nobles keep them.

  GULLIVER: Very wise! Some fool might think of journeying out there . . . for knowledge and science. —Understand, young man, I’ll not leave this island. Give me this day here; then bring the wine and the long sleep. Why should a man trouble his head raising domes? Fly kites, jump through hoops, beget children and sleep.

  SIMPSON (After a pause, grumbling unintelligibly): These things you call secrets . . .

  GULLIVER: I cannot understand you, sir.

  SIMPSON: These things you call the secrets of the arch and the . . . batless—old men keep these secrets to themselves, that’s certain.

  GULLIVER (Sternly): Cease, Mr. Simpson, to talk of things you know nothing about.

  SIMPSON: How would a young man learn them?

  GULLIVER: You are asking dangerous questions, Mr. Simpson. —Let me bid you again to go down on your knees and thank your Maker that you do not live in a country where older men would urge you and struggle with you and encourage you to enrich yourself with all learning and skill.

  SIMPSON: I don’t believe you.

  GULLIVER: —A young man would learn them by crossing that water and finding his way into a world that does not spend all its time in games and dances.

  SIMPSON (Mumbles): I do not believe you. (Suddenly loud) All old men are wicked.

  GULLIVER (Simply): I am the only old man you have ever seen.

  SIMPSON (Approaching Gulliver, the beginning of violence): Then tell me—

  GULLIVER: What?

  SIMPSON: The secrets: the arch and the batless.

  GULLIVER (Backing away): I do not know them.

  SIMPSON (Seizing Gulliver’s throat): Tell me them! Wicked old man, tell me them!

  GULLIVER (Forced to his knees): I am not a builder. I am a doctor and a seaman.

  SIMPSON (As they struggle): I will not let you go before you tell me—

  (Gulliver faints. Pause. Simpson leans over him and calls:)

  Old man! Old man!

  (Enter Belinda carrying a tray and more fruit. She starts back in consternation.)

  BELINDA (Whispering): Is he dead? . . . Have you killed him?

  SIMPSON (Sullenly): No . . . he has died of his old age.

  (Belinda puts her ear to Gulliver’s mouth.)

  BELINDA: I think he is still breathing. It is a swound.

  (Both are on their knees gazing at Gulliver.)

  Now I do not think he is ugly at all. I think he is a friend.

  SIMPSON (Moves away in inner turmoil): I do not understand a word he says. He should not have come here.

  BELINDA (As before): What a strange thing wrinkles are. (Unconsciously she strokes her face . . . softly) I could ask him questions all day. —Mr. Simpson, let him go back to his own people.

  SIMPSON (Harshly): How could he do that?

  (Belinda slowly draws from her apron pocket a hook of iron. Simpson draws back in horror.)

  BELINDA (Lowering her voice): This is the hook that was lost last year. It was on Lady Sibyl’s dressing table. I think she put it there for me to find it. I think she has hidden it to spite the Duke of Cornwall. (She holds it out toward Simpson) Unlock the boat and let the man go.

  SIMPSON: No!

  BELINDA (Gazes at Gulliver. Pause. Low, with energy): Go with him! . . . He is not strong enough to sail the boat alone. Go.

  SIMPSON: Do not speak to me! No, I will not go . . . among other men . . . I do not know anything. He does not know that we commoners cannot read. Every—over there—would see that I am a booby.

  BELINDA: Mr. Simpson! Look at him. Come close and look at him! He would be your friend . . . I think some old people are good.

  SIMPSON: No, I will not go.

  BELINDA: He is waking up. Go away and think; but take the hook.

  (Simpson takes the hook and goes off.)

  GULLIVER (Opens his eyes. Pause. Sees Belinda): Oh! You are here . . . Where is the young man?

  BELINDA: He is nearby . . . Will you tell me your name again?

  GULLIVER: Captain Gulliver.

  BELINDA: Captain Gulliver. If you came to your home again what would you do first?

  GULLIVER: Mistress Jenkins, I would go up the steep street—you have never seen a steep street!—I think it would be at sunset . . . I would knock at the door . . . My wife or one of my children would come to the door . . . (Pause) . . . Soon we would sit down at the table, and give thanks to God . . . and eat . . .

  BELINDA (Laughing, scandalized): Captain Gulliver, you would sit down with your wife!!

  GULLIVER: DO not husband and wives—

  BELINDA: No—!! (She laughs) Sit down! No man has ever eaten with a woman—! The men eat all by themselves. The nobles in one place. The commoners in another. And the boys when they are six by themselves.

  GULLIVER: And if I lived on this happy island, when would I see my daughter? (She does not answer) You remember your father?

  BELINDA: Yes.

  GULLIVER: You saw him often? You loved him?

  BELINDA: But . . . men live . . . over there . . .

  GULLIVER: The childhood of the race . . . You have slipped five—ten thousand years . . .

  (Simpson has returned, and half hidden, is listening.)

  In a thousand years, Mistress Jenkins, gradually on this island things will change. A man will have one wife and only one wife. I think when your father died at twenty-nine he was just beginning to understand (Gulliver points to his forehead) what the joys of being your father could be—but it was too late. (Gulliver clasps Belinda by her shoulders, sadly) You all die here just before a new world of mind and heart is open to you.

  [(The music and sounds of celebration have increased, as if approaching. Simpson breaks from his hiding place and rushes to Gulliver with the iron hook. Simpson pulls at Gulliver’s arm and points toward the sea. Gulliver grasps the situation immediately, starts to go with Simpson, but looks back at Belinda. She remains motionless, staring straight ahead, and does not meet his glance. Simpson drags Gulliver off.

  Music is louder. Belinda gazes front; intense, conflicted.

  Pause.

  Simpson reappears running. He takes both of Belinda’s hands in his. They look at each other. A decision passes between them. Belinda casts one glance back over her shoulder at all she has ever known; and they run off to join Gulliver.

  Music increases.

  Two Boy Guards, fifteen, rush in with ropes to bind Gulliver for his ceremonial death. The Duke enters behind. They look about, see that Gulliver, Simpson and Belinda are gone. The Duke is the first to realize the implication of this absence. He stands upstage center as the Guards roughly search everywhere. Convinced that the man they were after has escaped, they turn to the Duke.

  Music takes on a wild, threatening sound.

  The Duke has been gazing out toward a horizon, perhaps seeing the boat moving off, perhaps contemplating his own soon wasted mortality. The Boy Guards gaze intently at him as the lights fade.)]

  END OF PLAY

  This play became available through the research and editing of F. J. O’Neil of manuscripts in the Thornton Wilder Collection at Yale University.

  The author’s manuscript existed in a partial typescript, which contained Wilder’s handwritten corrections interleaved with several handwritten pages of clearly indicated revised material. The author’s manuscript ended with Gulliver’s speech to Belinda, spoken while Simpson listens hidden from their view. To conclude the play for production, I felt it would be helpful to take into account Wilder’s most plausible intention: that Swift’s Gulliver, only borrowed for this adventure, be returned safely to London and his place in English literature. r />
  What then of Simpson and Belinda? Belinda had earlier insisted to Simpson that Gulliver was not strong enough to make the trip alone. Her plea that Simpson accompany Gulliver in the escape strongly suggests that Wilder intended Simpson and Gulliver to leave the island together. Simpson had been sent off with the tool that unlocks the boats. Further, there is the duke’s threat that Simpson will be put to the press if he fails in his guard duties. Will Belinda stay behind to face the wrath of the duke? Gulliver has developed a strong paternal feeling for her and, in addition, she and Simpson are commoners, both of age, both bright and interested and curious by nature: a matched set to be saved on Gulliver’s “ark.”

  And the duke? Wilder often placed characters in a position where, experiencing an epiphany, they catch a glimpse of what lies ahead. Youth seems constructed for just such a moment. The twenty-eight-year-old duke, himself within a year of his enforced demise, returns as he must, accompanied by his callow bullyish guards. Might Wilder perhaps have wanted us to wonder what the duke feels about the defeat of his will and authority in the light of what he will not be able to avoid in a year’s time? Those questions hang in the added final tableau.

  F. J. O’Neil

  April 1997

  The Rivers Under the Earth

  (? Middle Age)

  CHARACTERS

  MRS. CARTER, mother, thirty-eight

  TOM, her son, sixteen

  FRANCESCA, her daughter, seventeen

  MR. CARTER, their father, forty-three

  SETTING

  A few years ago. A point of land near a lake in southern Wisconsin.

  At both sides of the stage are boxes of various sizes, but none very large—orange boxes, canned goods boxes, covered with burlap or bits of rug. These are rocks. The action of this play takes place in the dark, but I wish it to be played in bright light. Mrs. Carter, very attractive and looking less than her thirty-eight years, enters tentatively feeling her way in the dark. She is followed by her son, Tom, sixteen.

  MRS. CARTER: Take my hand, Tom. I don’t know where you children inherited your ability to see in the dark.

  (Tom passes her and starts slowly leading her forward.)

  TOM: It isn’t dark at all. All these stars reflected in the lake. —There’s a sort of path here, Mother. The rocks are at the side of it.

  MRS. CARTER (Stopping): Fireflies. All those fireflies. (Pause) I don’t know why it is that when I see fireflies I think of horses—no, of an old horse named Billy that we used to have when we were children.

  TOM: Fireflies—and a horse!!

  MRS. CARTER (Still standing and smiling): There are many associations like that one can’t explain.—Why does your father dislike the color green? Why do I always make a mistake when I add a six and a seven? Why have I an ever so faint tiny prejudice against people whose name begins with B—Blodgetts and Burnses and Binghams and even dear old Mrs. Becket.

  (Tom leads her a step forward.)

  TOM: I haven’t got any quirks like that.

  MRS. CARTER (Stopping again): Why have we never been able to make you eat rice?

  TOM: Ugh!—I just don’t like it!

  MRS. CARTER: Why does your sister hate to sit in the backseat of automobiles?

  TOM: Oh, Francesca’s crazy, anyway.

  MRS. CARTER: Oh, no she isn’t. She’s the most reasonable and logical of us all.

  TOM: Why does Francesca hate to come here?

  MRS. CARTER: What?

  TOM: She hates to come out on this point of land. She told me once—but then she was sorry she told me. She told me that every now and then she dreamed that she was on this point of land, and that when she dreamed it, it was a nightmare and she woke up crying or screaming or something.

  MRS. CARTER (Thoughtful): You mustn’t tease her about it.

  Promise me you won’t tease her about it.

  TOM: All right.

  MRS. CARTER: Now take my elbow and lead me to a rock that I can remember at the very tip of the point. (As they progress) No—all those quirks, as you call them, are like wrecks at the bottom of the sea. They mark the place where there was once a naval battle—or a storm. Why did my dear father always become angry whenever anybody mentioned . . .

  —Thank you, Tom. Here it is! I used to come and sit here when I was a girl. There aren’t any snakes are there?

  TOM (Competent): One: snakes don’t like this kind of pine needles; two: snakes in America don’t come out at night.

  MRS. CARTER: You’re such a pleasure, Tom; you know everything. What I mean is: you know everything comforting. —Now you go back and do whatever it is you were doing.

  (Tom stands irresolute in the middle of the stage, looking up.)

  TOM: When do you want me to come and lead you back?

  MRS. CARTER: Forget me, Tom. I can find my way back now.

  (Girl’s voice off: “T-o-o-m! . . . Tom C-a-a-arter.”)

  TOM (Warningly, to his mother): Hsh!

  (The voice, passing in the distance: “T-o-o-m!”)

  TOM: Polly Springer’s always wanting something. Golly, those girls are helpless. They can’t even stick a marshmallow on a fork . . . The moon will rise over there . . . You came to this very place?

  MRS. CARTER: In those days we knew everyone in all the houses around the lake. Many times I’d come and spend the night with the Wilsons . . . or the Kimballs. (She indicates first the right, then the left) And I’d slip away from them, and come here; and think . . . We were told that this point had been some sort of Indian ceremonial campground . . . and a burial place, I suppose. Your father used to find arrowheads here.

  TOM: What did you used to think about?

  MRS. CARTER: Oh, what do young girls think about? . . . I remember once . . . I made a vow: never to marry. Yes. I was going to be a doctor. And at the same time I was going to be a singer. But I wasn’t going to sing in concerts . . . for money. I was going to sing to my patients in the wards just before they turned out the lights for the night. That’s the kind of thing young girls think about.

  (Tom has been taking this in very gravely, his eyes on the distance. He says abruptly:)

  TOM: But you did get married. And you almost never sing anymore. —I brought your guitar.

  MRS. CARTER: What!?

  TOM: Yes. I knew they’d ask you to sing later—around the bonfire.

  MRS. CARTER: Why, Tom, you little devil. They would never have thought of it. Now don’t you go putting the idea into their heads.

  TOM: I didn’t. I heard them talking about it. I canoed back across the lake and got your guitar . . . You don’t hate to sing.

  MRS. CARTER: Oh, I’ll sing, if anybody asks me to. It’s not important enough to make any discussion about.

  (Silence. Tom lies down in the path facing the sky, his head on his folded arms.)

  TOM: Right up there . . . in the Milky Way . . . There’s something called a Coal Hole.

  MRS. CARTER: What?

  TOM: A Coal Hole. It’s sort of a deep empty stocking. If Father gave me a Jaguar; and I started driving five thousand miles a minute—starting from up there—it’d take me hundreds of millions of years to get halfway through it.—Lake water has a completely different sound of slapping—or lapping—than water at the seashore, hasn’t it? I like it best.

  (He shuts his eyes. Girls’ voices, giggling and talking excitedly, are heard near the entrance. Tom sits up energetically and calls:)

  TOM: Mildred! Constance! —Is that you, Constance?

  VOICE: Ye-e-s!

  TOM: Get me a hamburger! Be a sweetie!

  VOICE (Sweetly): Get it yourself, deeeer bo-oo-y.

  TOM (Lying down again; darkly): The slaves are getting uppish at the end of the summer.

  MRS. CARTER: Would these be the same trees that were here twenty years ago?

  TOM: Yes. Red pines grow fast the first five years, then they settle down and grow about a foot a year. (He turns to lie on his stomach, leaning on his elbow. He explains simply and casual
ly) This is really a sand dune here. Until recently there was a great big lake over all this area. When the lake shrunk, there were these dunes. Ordinarily, it takes about five thousand years for the first grasses to get their roots in and to make enough humus for small bushes to grow. Then it takes about 10,000 years for the bushes to make enough humus for the white pines. Then come the red pines. Probably it was faster here because of these rocks. They prevented the top sand from being blown away every few days. That’s why the trees are so much bigger here, and over at the Cavanaughs, and around the boat club . . . Rocks.

  FRANCESCA’S VOICE (Off): Mo-o-ther!

  MRS. CARTER: Yes, dear, here I am.

  (Enter Francesca, seventeen, with a scarf.)

  FRANCESCA: Father said you’d probably be here.

  TOM (Rolling to one side): Don’t step on me, you galoot!

  FRANCESCA: Oh, you’re here. —Goodness, a regular jungle.—Father said you’re to put this shawl on. He’s bringing a blanket.

  MRS. CARTER: I’m too warm as it is. Well, give it to me. Thank you, dear.

  FRANCESCA: What are you doing out here?

  TOM (Bitingly): We’re talking about you. (Imitating a teacher) “I was just saying to Mrs. Carter: I don’t know what’s to become of Francesca. In all my ninety years of teaching I’ve never known such a problem child.”

  FRANCESCA (Airily; leaving): Tz-tz-tz.

  TOM (Urgently): Be a sweet little flower box and get me a hamburger.

  FRANCESCA: Mother, don’t you let Tom have another. Everybody’s laughing at him. James Wilson says he had eight.—If you want to make a howling pig of yourself, you can just get up and fetch your own. (Leaning over him maliciously) Of course, I don’t know what Miss What’s-Her-Name will think of you—gorging yourself like that.—Mother, Tom has been making a perfect fool of himself over a new girl—a cousin of the Richardsons. Anybody can see she’s a perfect nothing, but there’s Tom: “Violet, you didn’t get any peach ice cream. Violet . . .”

  TOM (Covering her speech): Quack-quack-quack. Honk-honk-honk.

  FRANCESCA: Violet this and Violet that. (Louder) He even started a fight over her.

  TOM (Rising and starting off): Quack-quack-quack! I’ll be back. Honk-honk-honk.