[(Tom leaves.)]
MRS. CARTER: When you’re by yourself, Francesca, you’re of course much older than Tom. But when you’re with Tom, you’re younger—and much younger. I wish someone could explain that to me.
FRANCESCA: Well, as far as I’m concerned, he’s been an eight-year-old for years. And always will be.
MRS. CARTER: To get to know the best of Tom, you must learn to (She puts her hand on her lips) hold your tongue. It’s always a pleasure to be silent with Tom. You try it someday.
FRANCESCA: Why should I hold my tongue with him?
MRS. CARTER: Have you noticed how your father holds his tongue with you?
FRANCESCA: I don’t talk all the time when I’m with Father.
MRS. CARTER: No. But when you do, you talk so well.
FRANCESCA (Softened; with wonder): Do I? (Kneeling before her mother) Do I, really?
MRS. CARTER: I shouldn’t have to tell you that.
FRANCESCA: Thank you.
(Enter Mr. Carter, forty-three, lawyer, with a blanket.)
MR. CARTER: Mary?
MRS. CARTER: Here I am, Fred.
MR. CARTER: Try this rock. It’s drier. (He puts the blanket on a rock) Can you see?
MRS. CARTER (Crossing): Yes. —What’s this about a fight Tom had?
FRANCESCA: He’s in a terrible mood tonight. First, that fight with the MacDougal boy—I wasn’t there. Just some craziness or other.
MRS. CARTER: Do you know anything about it, Fred?
MR. CARTER: Yes. I’ll tell you about it later.
FRANCESCA: But that’s not really what upset him. A very funny thing happened. Before supper we were all lying around the dock and somebody said that you were going to sing tonight at the bonfire. And that boy from Milwaukee said: “Mrs. Carter sing! She’s too old!” (Francesca thinks this is very funny. Gales of laughter) He’d mixed you up with Mrs. Cavanaugh!! And Paul or Herb said: “She isn’t old. She isn’t any older than . . .” their own mothers. And the boy from Milwaukee said: “Sure, she’s old. She’s nice and all that, but she oughtn’t to be allowed to sing.” He thought Mrs. Cavanaugh was you!! (More laughter) But you should have seen Tom’s face!
MRS. CARTER: What?
FRANCESCA: Tom’s face. You’d have thought he was seeing a ghost. And the boy from Milwaukee said: “Why, she’s got all those gray hairs.” (Gales of laughter) You remember how at breakfast a few days ago you said you’d found some more gray hairs?
MRS. CARTER: Yes.
FRANCESCA: And Tom was believing all this was about you. Well, I thought he’d either . . . jump on the boy and kill him, or go away and . . . maybe throw up.
MR. CARTER: What did he do?
MRS. CARTER: He canoed back across the lake to get my guitar.
MR. CARTER: Francesca, I want to talk to your mother alone a moment.
FRANCESCA (Touch of pique): All right . . . but kindly don’t . . . mention . . . me.
(She goes out; very queenly. Pause.)
MR. CARTER: Well, what do you think about that? . . . I suppose in the code, a boy can’t strike another boy for calling his mother an old woman . . . Tom learns about old age.
MRS. CARTER: What was this other story about a fight?
MR. CARTER: Very odd. Very odd. Tom is not a bulldog type. There’s a new girl here—a cousin of the Richardsons. I don’t know her name.
MRS. CARTER: Violet.
MR. CARTER: Yes, Violet Richardson. It looks as though Tom had taken a sudden fancy to her. She doesn’t seem interesting to me—neither pretty nor individual. Anyway, he was sitting beside her—and the MacDougal boy—the bigger one—Ben—came up and began pulling at her arm . . . to get her to go over where some of them were dancing. Suddenly Tom got up in an awful rage. Told him to let her alone. She was talking to him. Not to stick his nose in where he wasn’t wanted. It all flared up in a second: two furious roosters; two stags fighting over a doe. The MacDougal boy backed down. I think he went home. It was all over in a second, too—but it was real . . . it was very real and hot.
(Slight pause.)
MRS. CARTER: And I thought this was going to be just one more dull picnic!
(Mr. Carter lights a pipe and goes to sit on the rock where his wife had been sitting.)
Fred, Tom just told me that Francesca hated to come here—that she had bad dreams about it? Did you ever know that?
MR. CARTER: What? —Here, this point of land!
MRS. CARTER: Can you think of any reason for it?
MR. CARTER: No!
MRS. CARTER: I’ll give you a hint: a robin redbreast.
MR. CARTER: What are you getting at?
MRS. CARTER: A dead robin? . . . The children were about six and seven. We had told them there had been an Indian graveyard here. They had found a dead robin in the woods, and they set out to bury it . . . I came on: such solemn hymn singing and preaching and praying . . . That night Francesca was deathly ill—
MR. CARTER: Do I remember!! It was one of the most shattering experiences in my life!!
MRS. CARTER: Dr. Macintosh kept asking us what she had eaten, and I—stupidly, stupidly—failed to connect convulsions and hysterics with the burial of Robin Red Breast. Francesca had learned about death . . . You sat soothing her and reading aloud to her until the sun rose.
MR. CARTER: And ever since she dislikes the color red.
MRS. CARTER: And the same experience had no effect on Tom, whatever. Yet we always think of Tom as the sensitive one and Francesca as the sensible one.
MR. CARTER: I guess, growing up is one long walk among perils—among yawning abysses . . .
(Silence.)
Well, since you’re talking about old times—I’m going to interrogate you. We’ve just heard that Tom had a fight. A fight over a girl named Violet. Does the name Violet bring back anything to you?
MRS. CARTER: No . . . No, why?
MR. CARTER: The color?
MRS. CARTER: No.
MR. CARTER: Think a minute.
(She shakes her head.)
A dress you wore?
MRS. CARTER: Fred, you wouldn’t remember that! Your sister brought me back from Italy that beautiful silk. I had a dress made from it.
MR. CARTER: Go on.
MRS. CARTER: Then I bought various things to match it . . . beads . . .
MR. CARTER: I called it “your violet year” . . . perfume! . . .
MRS. CARTER: Absurd . . . just before the war . . . 1940 and ’41. (Pause) What are you implying? Tom wouldn’t have known anything about that!
MR. CARTER (Dismissing it unhesitatingly): Of course not. He would have been only two. (With teasing, flirtatious intention) It was myself I was thinking of. He is infatuated with a Violet, just as I was.
MRS. CARTER: Now, go away . . . to think wives wear . . . you’re in the way, Fred.
MR. CARTER (With a low laugh): Well, I’ve had my troubles on that rock, too.
(Tom appears at the entrance, carrying a guitar.)
TOM: I could have found my way here by the smell of Father’s pipe. (He stops, closes his eyes and smells it) Christmas is coming. You’ll need some more of that tobacco. (He gropes) I know its name. No, don’t help me . . . ah! “Bonny Prince Charlie.” (He puts the guitar on his mother’s lap)
MRS. CARTER: What’s this? Oh—my guitar. Maybe they won’t call for me.
MR. CARTER (Starting off): Are you sure you’re warm enough? —Tom, do you remember coming out here with Francesca when you were six and holding a funeral over a robin redbreast?
TOM (Lightly): No, did I? Did I, really? —Why?
MRS. CARTER: We were just wondering, Tom.
(Exit Mr. Carter.
Tom gets down on his knees preparatory to lying down again.)
TOM: I helped the squad that was picking up the trash. I rolled the ice cream cans to the truck. I showed Polly Springer how to put a marshmallow on a fork. —I’ve done my duty. I can rest.
(Silence.)
Mother, make one c
hord on the guitar.
(She does a slow arpeggiated chord. Silence.)
TOM: One note of music out of doors is worth ten thousand in a building. (He again turns over on his stomach, raises himself on his elbows) Mother, I’m going to be the doctor that you planned to be.
MRS. CARTER: Oh!—Not an astronomer? Or a physicist?
TOM: No. That’s all too far away. I’m going to be a research doctor.
MRS. CARTER (Not hurrying): Well, you don’t have to decide now.
TOM (Decisively): I’ve decided.—Last month I thought maybe I’d be one of those new physicists. I’d find something that could stop every atomic bomb . . . I think others’ll get there before me . . . Besides, that’s not hard enough. Any Joe will be able to find that one of these days. I want something harder . . . something nearer. For instance—
(Voice offstage: “MRS. CAAAR-TER.” Nearer: “MRS. CAAAR-TER!”)
MRS. CARTER (Raising her voice): Ye-es. Here I am.
VOICE: The bonfire’s starting. They want you to come and sing.
MRS. CARTER: Is that you, Gladys? Tell them to start singing. I’ll come soon.
VOICE: All-riiight.
MRS. CARTER: You were saying you wanted to do something harder.
TOM: Harder and nearer. (Beating the ground) There’s no reason people have got to grow old so fast. I guess everybody’s got to grow old some day. But I’ll bet you we can discover lots of things that will put it off. I’ll bet you that three hundred years from now people will think that we were just stupid about, well, about growing old so soon . . . I haven’t any crazy idea about people living forever; but . . . it’s funny: I don’t mind getting old, but I don’t like it to happen to other people. Anyway, that’s decided. (He puts his head in his arms and closes his eyes as though going to sleep) It’s great to have something decided. (Pause) Mother, what was the name of that nurse I had when I was real young, the southern one?
MRS. CARTER: Miss . . . Miss Forbes.
TOM: What was her first name?
MRS. CARTER: Let me think a minute . . . Maude? No. (Trouvé) Madeleine!
TOM: Do you remember any teacher I had back then that was named . . . Violet?
MRS. CARTER: . . . N-n-n-o.
TOM (Dreamily): There must have been somebody . . . I remember . . . it was like floating . . . and the smell of violets. Golly, I go crazy when I smell them. I’ll tell you why I was so polite to old Mrs. Morris—you remember? She had perfume of violets on her. Why don’t you ever wear that, Mother? Don’t you like it?
MRS. CARTER (Caught): Why, it . . . never occurred to me.
TOM: That’s an idea for a Christmas present, maybe.
(Voices: “MRS. CAAAR-TER!”)
MRS. CARTER: Here they come.
(Enter Mr. Carter)
MR. CARTER: Do you feel like singing or not? They’re making a fuss about you down there.
MRS. CARTER: Why not?
(Enter Francesca, running.)
FRANCESCA: Mother, they’re stamping their feet and—
MRS. CARTER: I’m coming. —I . . . (She starts tuning the guitar. Going out) What’ll I do, Tom? I’ll do . . .
([They are] out. Silence.)
FRANCESCA: The fireflies . . . the moon.
(Mr. Carter takes the blanket from the rock, carries it across the stage and wraps it around the rock he formerly sat on; then, sitting on the floor, leans his back against it.)
Your pipe smells so wonderful in the open air. (She starts quietly laughing) Papa, I’ll tell you a secret. Years ago—when I went away to summer camp—do you know what I did? I went into your study, and I stole some of that tobacco. I put it in an envelope. And in the tent after lights out, I’d take it out and smell it . . . Why do they call it “Bonny Prince Charlie”? (Pause; dreamily) I like the name of Charlie . . . I’ve never known a stupid boy named Charles. Isn’t that funny? They all have something about them that’s interesting. (She starts laughing again) But I’ll tell you something else: all Freds are terrible. Really terrible. You’re the only Fred (Laughing and scarcely audible) that I can stand.
MR. CARTER: Look at the moonlight just hitting the top of the boat club. (She turns on her knees and draws in her breath, rapt. Mr. Carter drawing his fingers over the ground) When I was a boy I found all sorts of things here. I made a collection and got a prize for it. Arrowheads and ax heads . . . I used to come out here and think—on this very rock.
FRANCESCA (Glowing): Did you?—What did you think about?
MR. CARTER: That someday maybe I’d have a family. That someday maybe I’d go into politics.
FRANCESCA: And now you’re senator!
MR. CARTER: Tom’s not interested in this place as a human place. He’s always talking about it as a place before there were any human beings here. But even as boy, I used to think all that must have gone on here. —Initiations—
FRANCESCA: What?
MR. CARTER: Initiations into the tribe. And councils about those awful whiteskins. And buryings. (Pause) On this very rock I decided to become a lawyer.
FRANCESCA (Moving a few feet toward him on her knees): Papa, why was I so mean to Mother?
MR. CARTER: Mean?
FRANCESCA (Bent head, slowly): Yes, I was. When I was telling that story about the boy from Milwaukee . . . mistaking Mother for an old woman, like Mrs. Cavanaugh. I knew I was mean while I was doing it. (She sobs) And why am I mean about Tom? I am. I am. (Sinking lower on her heels) I’m terrible. I’m unforgivable. —But why?
MR. CARTER: Are you mean about yourself? (She stares at him) Yes, now you’re being mean toward yourself! —Could you imagine building a house on this point?
FRANCESCA: No . . .
MR. CARTER: Because you’d have to cut down so many trees?
FRANCESCA (Slight pause): No . . . I could do it without cutting down the best trees.
MR. CARTER: Why couldn’t you imagine building here?
FRANCESCA (Lightly): I wouldn’t.
MR. CARTER: No reason?
FRANCESCA (Affectionately): Why do you keep asking me when you can see that I don’t want to answer.
MR. CARTER: Oh, I beg your pardon.
FRANCESCA (In a loud whisper): I don’t like this point. I’ve never liked it.
MR. CARTER (Walking back and forth, right to left): Well, isn’t that funny—people feeling so differently about things.
[(Mr. Carter holds out his hand and Francesca moves closer and takes his hand. They both look into the distance, lost in their thoughts and feelings, 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 place of The Rivers Under the Earth in Wilder’s schema of short plays is ambiguous. In its first draft it was entitled Children. That title was dropped in later drafts. Students of Wilder have speculated that he finally meant the play to represent middle age, since Childhood was the title given to one of the three “Plays for Bleecker Street,” produced in 1962 at Circle in the Square in New York City.
Wilder had written in his journal1: “I planned [Rivers] to arrive at a culmination illustrating—so recurrent in me—the relations between a daughter and a father.” I added the final stage direction (in brackets) to illustrate this idea in a concluding tableau. The author’s manuscript had ended with the line:
MR. CARTER (Walking back and forth, right to left): Well, isn’t that funny—people feeling so differently about things.
F. J. O’Neil
April 1997
1 The Journals of Thornton Wilder 1939–1961, entry 749, page 265, selected and edited by Donald Gallup, Yale University Press, 1985.
THE TWO WORLDS OF THORNTON WILDER
by John Gassner
This was previously published as the introduction to The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act, Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1963.
IN RECOMMENDING a volume of sh
ort plays by Thornton Wilder published as long ago as 1931, it is tempting to lean on his subsequently achieved reputation as the author of Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, two of the outstanding American plays of the century, and on the fame of several novels since the publication of The Bridge of San Luis Rey in 1927 that contain some of the best writing to be found in contemporary American fiction. But the author of these works is interesting to us not as a reputation but as a living artist, and the pleasure derived from the plays in the present volume is sure to be instant and self-sufficient. I trust it is not a momentary judgment of mine that The Long Christmas Dinner is the most beautiful one-act play in English prose; at this writing its only rival in my affections is Synge’s radically different masterpiece Riders to the Sea.
If Pullman Car Hiawatha is bound to suffer by comparison with Our Town, it is questionable whether the comparison should be allowed to carry any weight. Since Wilder did not compose the shorter and earlier play as a mere preparatory exercise, it has its own distinct substance and style. The presence of an omniscient Stage Manager in both Pullman Car Hiawatha and Our Town leaves large areas of difference after the technical resemblance has been duly noted. A third experiment in imaginative theatre, The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden, is a deservedly well-known and frequently performed tour de force. And even the conventional realistic dramatic structure of the remaining plays, Queens of France, an affecting genre painting of social pretensions in old New Orleans, and Love and How to Cure It, a non-stagy glance at stage folk, has unique features gratifying to those who know how to read dramatic literature. [Editor’s note: The edition to which this introduction originally appeared did not include Such Things Only Happen in Books.]
Still, it is within the frame of Wilder’s total endeavor as playwright and novelist that these short pieces stand out most meaningfully. And, conversely, these little master-works help to define their author, concerning whom opinions have been frequently divided and rarely cogent despite the attention paid to his writings and the regard in which he is held on two continents. In this collection of early plays we find (not unexpectedly in the case of so disciplined and self-aware an artist) the configurations of a talent that combines sensitivity with a strong awareness of form and embraces both the commonplaces of life and the life of the imagination, which fluctuates between fantasy and philosophy, skepticism and mysticism, playfulness and sobriety. We see him poised between “life” and “theatre,” and this not merely as a beguiling technician but as an observer of reality who does not hesitate to throw off the shackles of realistic play construction in order to come closer to reality.