KATE [SLOWLY]: Folded her napkin.
(She contemplates the wild head in her thighs, and moves her fingertips over it, with such a tenderness, and something like a fear of its strangeness, that her own eyes close; she whispers, bending to it:)
My Helen—folded her napkin—
(And still erect, with only her head in surrender, KATE for the first time that we see loses her protracted war with grief; but she will not let a sound escape her, only the grimace of tears comes, and sobs that shake her in a grip of silence. But HELEN feels them, and her hand comes up in its own wondering, to interrogate her mother’s face, until KATE buries her lips in the child’s palm.
Upstairs, ANNIE enters her room, closes the door, and stands back against it; the lights, growing on her with their special color, commence to fade on KATE and HELEN. Then ANNIE goes wearily to her suitcase, and lifts it to take it toward the bed. But it knocks an object to the floor, and she turns back to regard it. A new voice comes in a cultured murmur, hesitant as with the effort of remembering a text:)
MAN’S VOICE: This—soul—
(ANNIE puts the suitcase down, and kneels to the object: it is the battered Perkins report, and she stands with it in her hand, letting memory try to speak:)
This—blind, deaf, mute—woman—
(ANNIE sits on her bed, opens the book, and finding the passage, brings it up an inch from her eyes to read, her face and lips following the overhead words, the voice quite factual now:)
Can nothing be done to disinter this human soul? The whole neighborhood would rush to save this woman if she were buried alive by the caving in of a pit, and labor with zeal until she were dug out. Now if there were one who had as much patience as zeal, he might awaken her to a consciousness of her immortal—
(When the boy’s voice comes, ANNIE closes her eyes, in pain.)
BOY’S VOICE: Annie? Annie, you there?
ANNIE: Hush.
BOY’S VOICE: Annie, what’s that noise?
(ANNIE tries not to answer; her own voice is drawn out of her, unwilling.)
ANNIE: Just a cot, Jimmie.
BOY’S VOICE: Where they pushin’ it?
ANNIE: To the deadhouse.
BOY’S VOICE: Annie. Does it hurt, to be dead?
(ANNIE escapes by opening her eyes, her hand works restlessly over her cheek; she retreats into the book again, but the cracked old crones interrupt, whispering. ANNIE slowly lowers the book.)
FIRST CRONE’S VOICE: There is schools.
SECOND CRONE’S VOICE: There is schools outside—
THIRD CRONE’S VOICE:—schools where they teach blind ones, worse’n you—
FIRST CRONE’S VOICE: To read—
SECOND CRONE’S VOICE: To read and write—
THIRD CRONE’S VOICE: There is schools outside where they—
FIRST CRONE’S VOICE: There is schools—
(Silence. ANNIE sits with her eyes shining, her hand almost in a caress over the book. Then:)
BOY’S VOICE: You ain’t goin’ to school, are you, Annie?
ANNIE [WHISPERING]: When I grow up.
BOY’S VOICE: You ain’t either, Annie. You’re goin’ to stay here take care of me.
ANNIE: I’m goin’ to school when I grow up.
BOY’S VOICE: You said we’ll be together, forever and ever and ever—
ANNIE [FIERCE]: I’m goin’ to school when I grow up!
DOCTOR’S VOICE [SLOWLY]: Little girl. Little girl, I must tell you. Your brother will be going on a journey, soon.
(ANNIE sits rigid, in silence. Then the boy’s voice pierces it, a shriek of terror.)
BOY’S VOICE: Annie!
(It goes into ANNIE like a sword, she doubles onto it; the book falls to the floor. It takes her a racked moment to find herself and what she was engaged in here; when she sees the suitcase she remembers, and lifts it once again toward the bed. But the voices are with her, as she halts with suitcase in hand.)
FIRST CRONE’S VOICE: Goodbye, Annie.
DOCTOR’S VOICE: Write me when you learn how.
SECOND CRONE’S VOICE: Don’t tell anyone you came from here. Don’t tell anyone—
THIRD CRONE’S VOICE: Yeah, don’t tell anyone you came from—
FIRST CRONE’S VOICE: Yeah, don’t tell anyone—
SECOND CRONE’S VOICE: Don’t tell any—
(The echoing voices fade. After a moment ANNIE lays the suitcase on the bed; and the last voice comes faintly, from far away.)
BOY’S VOICE: Annie. It hurts, to be dead. Forever.
(ANNIE falls to her knees by the bed, stifling her mouth in it. When at last she rolls blindly away from it, her palm comes down on the open report; she opens her eyes, regards it dully, and then, still on her knees, takes in the print.)
MAN’S VOICE [FACTUAL]:—might awaken her to a consciousness of her immortal nature. The chance is small indeed; but with a smaller chance they would have dug desperately for her in the pit; and is the life of the soul of less import than that of the body?
(ANNIE gets to her feet. She drops the book on the bed, and pauses over her suitcase; after a moment she unclasps and opens it. Standing before it, she comes to her decision; she at once turns to the bureau, and taking her things out of its drawers, commences to throw them into the open suitcase.
In the darkness down left a hand strikes a match, and lights a hanging oil lamp. It is KELLER’S hand, and his voice accompanies it, very angry; the lights rising here before they fade on ANNIE show KELLER and KATE inside a suggestion of a garden house, with a bay-window seat towards center and a door at back.)
KELLER: Katie, I will not have it! Now you did not see when that girl after supper tonight went to look for Helen in her room—
KATE: No.
KELLER: The child practically climbed out of her window to escape from her! What kind of teacher is she? I thought I had seen her at her worse this morning, shouting at me, but I come home to find the entire house disorganized by her—Helen won’t stay one second in the same room, won’t come to the table with her, won’t let herself be bathed or undressed or put to bed by her, or even by Viney now, and the end result is that you have to do more for the child than before we hired this girl’s services! From the moment she stepped off the train she’s been nothing but a burden, incompetent, impertinent, ineffectual, immodest—
KATE: She folded her napkin, Captain.
KELLER: What?
KATE: Not ineffectual. Helen did fold her napkin.
KELLER: What in heaven’s name is so extraordinary about folding a napkin?
KATE [WITH SOME HUMOR]: Well. It’s more than you did, Captain.
KELLER: Katie. I did not bring you all the way out here to the garden house to be frivolous. Now, how does Miss Sullivan propose to teach a deaf-blind pupil who won’t let her even touch her?
KATE [A PAUSE]: I don’t know.
KELLER: The fact is, today she scuttled any chance she ever had of getting along with the child. If you can see any point or purpose to her staying on here longer, it’s more than—
KATE: What do you wish me to do?
KELLER: I want you to give her notice.
KATE: I can’t.
KELLER: Then if you won’t, I must. I simply will not—
(He is interrupted by a knock at the back door. KELLER after a glance at KATE moves to open the door; ANNIE in her smoked glasses is standing outside. KELLER contemplates her, heavily.)
Miss Sullivan.
ANNIE: Captain Keller.
(She is nervous, keyed up to seizing the bull by the horns again, and she assumes a cheeriness which is not unshaky.)
Viney said I’d find you both over here in the garden house. I thought we should—have a talk?
KELLER [RELUCTANTLY]: Yes, I— Well, come in.
(ANNIE enters, and is interested in this room; she rounds on her heel, anxiously, studying it. KELLER turns the matter over to KATE, sotto voce.)
Katie.
KATE [TURNING IT BACK, COURTEO
USLY]: Captain.
(KELLER clears his throat, makes ready.)
KELLER: I, ah—wanted first to make my position clear to Mrs. Keller, in private. I have decided I—am not satisfied—in fact, am deeply dissatisfied—with the manner in which—
ANNIE [INTENT]: Excuse me, is this little house ever in use?
KELLER [WITH PATIENCE]: In the hunting season. If you will give me your attention, Miss Sullivan.
(ANNIE turns her smoked glasses upon him; they hold his unwilling stare.)
I have tried to make allowances for you because you come from a part of the country where people are—women, I should say—come from who—well, for whom—
(It begins to elude him.)
—allowances must—be made. I have decided, nevertheless, to—that is, decided I—
(Vexedly)
Miss Sullivan, I find it difficult to talk through those glasses.
ANNIE [EAGERLY, REMOVING THEM]: Oh, of course.
KELLER [DOURLY]: Why do you wear them, the sun has been down for an hour.
ANNIE [PLEASANTLY, AT THE LAMP]: Any kind of light hurts my eyes.
(A silence; KELLER ponders her, heavily.)
KELLER: Put them on. Miss Sullivan, I have decided to—give you another chance.
ANNIE [CHEERFULLY]: To do what?
KELLER: To—remain in our employ.
(ANNIE’S eyes widen.)
But on two conditions. I am not accustomed to rudeness in servants or women, and that is the first. If you are to stay, there must be a radical change of manner.
ANNIE [A PAUSE]: Whose?
KELLER [EXPLODING]: Yours, young lady, isn’t it obvious? And the second is that you persuade me there’s the slightest hope of your teaching a child who flees from you now like the plague, to anyone else she can find in this house.
ANNIE [A PAUSE]: There isn’t.
(KATE stops sewing, and fixes her eyes upon ANNIE.)
KATE: What, Miss Annie?
ANNIE: It’s hopeless here. I can’t teach a child who runs away.
KELLER [NONPLUSSED]: Then—do I understand you—propose—
ANNIE: Well, if we all agree it’s hopeless, the next question is what—
KATE: Miss Annie.
(She is leaning toward ANNIE, in deadly earnest; it commands both ANNIE and KELLER.)
I am not agreed. I think perhaps you—underestimate Helen.
ANNIE: I think everybody else here does.
KATE: She did fold her napkin. She learns, she learns, do you know she began talking when she was six months old? She could say “water.” Not really—“wahwah.” “Wahwah,” but she meant water, she knew what it meant, and only six months old, I never saw a child so—bright, or outgoing—
(Her voice is unsteady, but she gets it level.)
It’s still in her, somewhere, isn’t it? You should have seen her before her illness, such a good-tempered child—
ANNIE [AGREEABLY]: She’s changed.
(A pause, KATE not letting her eyes go; her appeal at last is unconditional, and very quiet.)
KATE: Miss Annie, put up with it. And with us.
KELLER: Us!
KATE: Please? Like the lost lamb in the parable, I love her all the more.
ANNIE: Mrs. Keller, I don’t think Helen’s worst handicap is deafness or blindness. I think it’s your love. And pity.
KELLER: Now what does that mean?
ANNIE: All of you here are so sorry for her you’ve kept her—like a pet, why, even a dog you housebreak. No wonder she won’t let me come near her. It’s useless for me to try to teach her language or anything else here. I might as well—
KATE [CUTS IN]: Miss Annie, before you came we spoke of putting her in an asylum.
(ANNIE turns back to regard her. A pause.)
ANNIE: What kind of asylum?
KELLER: For mental defectives.
KATE: I visited there. I can’t tell you what I saw, people like—animals, with—rats, in the halls, and—
(She shakes her head on her vision.)
What else are we to do, if you give up?
ANNIE: Give up?
KATE: You said it was hopeless.
ANNIE: Here. Give up, why, I only today saw what has to be done, to begin!
(She glances from KATE to KELLER, who stare, waiting; and she makes it as plain and simple as her nervousness permits.)
I—want complete charge of her.
KELLER: You already have that. It has resulted in—
ANNIE: No, I mean day and night. She has to be dependent on me.
KATE: For what?
ANNIE: Everything. The food she eats, the clothes she wears, fresh—
(She is amused at herself, though very serious.)
—air, yes, the air she breathes, whatever her body needs is a—primer, to teach her out of. It’s the only way, the one who lets her have it should be her teacher.
(She considers them in turn; they digest it, KELLER frowning, KATE perplexed.)
Not anyone who loves her, you have so many feelings they fall over each other like feet, you won’t use your chances and you won’t use your chances and you won’t let me.
KATE: But if she runs from you—to us—
ANNIE: Yes, that’s the point. I’ll have to live with her somewhere else.
KELLER: What!
ANNIE: Till she learns to depend on and listen to me.
KATE [NOT WITHOUT ALARM]: For how long?
ANNIE: As long as it takes.
(A pause. She takes a breath.)
I packed half my things already.
KELLER: Miss—Sullivan!
(But when ANNIE attends upon him he is speechless, and she is merely earnest.)
ANNIE: Captain Keller, it meets both your conditions. It’s the one way I can get back in touch with Helen, and I don’t see how I can be rude to you again if you’re not around to interfere with me.
KELLER [RED-FACED]: And what is your intention if I say no? Pack the other half, for home, and abandon your charge to—to—
ANNIE: The asylum?
(She waits, appraises KELLER’S glare and KATE’S uncertainty, and decides to use her weapons.)
I grew up in such an asylum. The state almshouse.
(KATE’S head comes up on this, and KELLER stares hard; ANNIE’S tone is cheerful enough, albeit level as gunfire.)
Rats—why my brother Jimmie and I used to play with the rats because we didn’t have toys. Maybe you’d like to know what Helen will find there, not on visiting days? One ward was full of the—old women, crippled, blind, most of them dying, but even if what they had was catching there was nowhere else to move them, and that’s where they put us. There were younger ones across the hall, prostitutes mostly, with T.B., and epileptic fits, and a couple of the kind who—keep after other girls, especially young ones, and some insane. Some just had the D.T.’s. The youngest were in another ward to have babies they didn’t want, they started at thirteen, fourteen. They’d leave afterwards, but the babies stayed and we played with them, too, though a lot of them had—sores all over from diseases you’re not supposed to talk about, but not many of them lived. The first year we had eighty, seventy died. The room Jimmie and I played in was the deadhouse, where they kept the bodies till they could dig—
KATE [CLOSES HER EYES]: Oh, my dear—
ANNIE:—the graves.
(She is immune to KATE’S compassion.)
No, it made me strong. But I don’t think you need send Helen there. She’s strong enough.
(She waits again; but when neither offers her a word, she simply concludes.)
No, I have no conditions, Captain Keller.
KATE [NOT LOOKING UP]: Miss Annie.
ANNIE: Yes.
KATE [A PAUSE]: Where would you—take Helen?
ANNIE: Ohh—
(Brightly)
Italy?
KELLER [WHEELING]: What?
ANNIE: Can’t have everything, how would this garden house do? Furnish it, bring Helen here after a lon
g ride so she won’t recognize it, and you can see her every day. If she doesn’t know. Well?
KATE [A SIGH OF RELIEF]: Is that all?
ANNIE: That’s all.
KATE: Captain.
(KELLER turns his head; and KATE’S request is quiet but firm.)
With your permission?
KELLER [TEETH IN CIGAR]: Why must she depend on you for the food she eats?
ANNIE [A PAUSE]: I want control of it.
KELLER: Why?
ANNIE: It’s a way to reach her.
KELLER [STARES]: You intend to starve her into letting you touch her?
ANNIE: She won’t starve, she’ll learn. All’s fair in love and war, Captain Keller, you never cut supplies?
KELLER: This is hardly a war!
ANNIE: Well, it’s not love. A siege is a siege.
KELLER [HEAVILY]: Miss Sullivan. Do you like the child?
ANNIE [STRAIGHT IN HIS EYES]: Do you?
(A long pause.)
KATE: You could have a servant here—
ANNIE [AMUSED]: I’ll have enough work without looking after a servant! But that boy Percy could sleep here, run errands—
KATE [ALSO AMUSED]: We can let Percy sleep here, I think, Captain?
ANNIE [EAGERLY]: And some old furniture, all our own—
KATE [ALSO EAGER]: Captain? Do you think that walnut bedstead in the barn would be too—
KELLER: I have not yet consented to Percy! Or to the house, or to the proposal! Or to Miss Sullivan’s—staying on when I—
(But he erupts in an irate surrender.)
Very well, I consent to everything!
(He shakes the cigar at ANNIE.)
For two weeks. I’ll give you two weeks in this place, and it will be a miracle if you get the child to tolerate you.
KATE: Two weeks? Miss Annie, can you accomplish anything in two weeks?
KELLER: Anything or not, two weeks, then the child comes back to us. Make up your mind, Miss Sullivan, yes or no?
ANNIE: Two weeks. For only one miracle?
(She nods at him, nervously.)
I’ll get her to tolerate me.
(KELLER marches out, and slams the door. KATE on her feet regards ANNIE, who is facing the door.)
KATE [THEN]: You can’t think as little of love as you said.
(ANNIE glances questioning.)
Or you wouldn’t stay.
ANNIE [A PAUSE]: I didn’t come here for love. I came for money!