ANNIE: “I, feel, every, day, more, and, more, in—”
(She pauses, and turns the pages of a dictionary open before her; her finger descends the words to a full stop. She elevates her eyebrows, then copies the word.)
“—adequate.”
(In the main house JAMES pushes up, and goes to the front doorway, after KATE.)
JAMES: Kate?
(KATE turns her glance. JAMES is rather weary.)
I’m sorry. Open my mouth, like that fairy tale, frogs jump out.
KATE: No. It has been better. For everyone.
(She starts away, up center.)
ANNIE [WRITING]: “If, only, there, were, someone, to, help, me, I, need, a, teacher, as, much, as, Helen—”
JAMES: Kate.
(KATE halts, waits.)
What does he want from me?
KATE: That’s not the question. Stand up to the world, Jimmie, that comes first.
JAMES [A PAUSE, WRYLY]: But the world is him.
KATE: Yes. And no one can do it for you.
JAMES: Kate.
(His voice is humble.)
At least we— Could you—be my friend?
KATE: I am.
(KATE turns to wander, up back of the garden house. ANNIE’S murmur comes at once; the lights begin to die on the main house.)
ANNIE: “—my, mind, is, undisciplined, full, of, skips, and, jumps, and—”
(She halts, rereads, frowns.)
Hm.
(ANNIE puts her nose again in the dictionary, flips back to an earlier page, and fingers down the words; KATE presently comes down toward the bay window with a trayful of food.)
Disinter—disinterested—disjoin—dis—
(She backtracks, indignant.)
Disinterested, disjoin— Where’s disipline?
(She goes a page or two back, searching with her finger, muttering.)
What a dictionary, have to know how to spell it before you can look up how to spell it, disciple, discipline! Diskipline.
(She corrects the word in her letter.)
Undisciplined.
(But her eyes are bothering her, she closes them in exhaustion and gently fingers the eyelids. KATE watches her through the window.)
KATE: What are you doing to your eyes?
(ANNIE glances around; she puts her smoked glasses on, and gets up to come over, assuming a cheerful energy.)
ANNIE: It’s worse on my vanity! I’m learning to spell. It’s like a surprise party, the most unexpected characters turn up.
KATE: You’re not to overwork your eyes, Miss Annie.
ANNIE: Well.
(She takes the tray, sets it on her chair, and carries chair and tray to HELEN.)
Whatever I spell to Helen I’d better spell right.
KATE [ALMOST WISTFUL]: How—serene she is.
ANNIE: She learned this stitch yesterday. Now I can’t get her to stop!
(She disentangles one foot from the wool chain, and sets the chair before HELEN. HELEN at its contact with her knee feels the plate, promptly sets her crocheting down, and tucks the napkin in at her neck, but ANNIE withholds the spoon; when HELEN finds it missing, she folds her hands in her lap, and quietly waits. ANNIE twinkles at KATE with mock devoutness.)
Such a little lady, she’d sooner starve than eat with her fingers.
(She gives HELEN the spoon, and HELEN begins to eat, neatly.)
KATE: You’ve taught her so much, these two weeks. I would never have—
ANNIE: Not enough.
(She is suddenly gloomy, shakes her head.)
Obedience isn’t enough. Well, she learned two nouns this morning, key and water, brings her up to eighteen nouns and three verbs.
KATE [HESITANT]: But—not—
ANNIE: No. Not that they mean things. It’s still a finger-game, no meaning.
(She turns to KATE, abruptly.)
Mrs. Keller—
(But she defers it; she comes back, to sit in the bay and lift her hand.)
Shall we play our finger-game?
KATE: How will she learn it?
ANNIE: It will come.
(She spells a word; KATE does not respond.)
KATE: How?
ANNIE [A PAUSE]: How does a bird learn to fly?
(She spells again.)
We’re born to use words, like wings, it has to come.
KATE: How?
ANNIE [ANOTHER PAUSE, WEARILY]: All right. I don’t know how.
(She pushes up her glasses, to rub her eyes.)
I’ve done everything I could think of. Whatever she’s learned here—keeping herself clean, knitting, stringing beads, meals, setting-up exercises each morning, we climb trees, hunt eggs, yesterday a chick was born in her hands—all of it I spell, everything we do, we never stop spelling. I go to bed with—writer’s cramp from talking so much!
KATE: I worry about you, Miss Annie. You must rest.
ANNIE: Now? She spells back in her sleep, her fingers make letters when she doesn’t know! In her bones those five fingers know, that hand aches to—speak out, and something in her mind is asleep, how do I—nudge that awake? That’s the one question.
KATE: With no answer.
ANNIE [LONG PAUSE]: Except keep at it. Like this.
(She again begins spelling—I, need—and KATE’S brows gather, following the words.)
KATE: More—time?
(She glances at ANNIE, who looks her in the eyes, silent.)
Here?
ANNIE: Spell it.
(KATE spells a word—no—shaking her head; ANNIE spells two words—why, not—back, with an impatient question in her eyes; and KATE moves her head in pain to answer it.)
KATE: Because I can’t—
ANNIE: Spell it! If she ever learns, you’ll have a lot to tell each other, start now.
(KATE painstakingly spells in air. In the midst of this the rear door opens, and KELLER enters with the setter BELLE in tow.)
KELLER: Miss Sullivan? On my way to the office, I brought Helen a playmate—
ANNIE: Outside please, Captain Keller.
KELLER: My dear child, the two weeks are up today, surely you don’t object to—
ANNIE [RISING]: They’re not up till six o’clock.
KELLER [INDULGENT]: Oh, now. What difference can a fraction of one day—
ANNIE: An agreement is an agreement. Now you’ve been very good, I’m sure you can keep it up for a few more hours.
(She escorts KELLER by the arm over the threshold; he obeys, leaving BELLE.)
KELLER: Miss Sullivan, you are a tyrant.
ANNIE: Likewise, I’m sure. You can stand there, and close the door if she comes.
KATE: I don’t think you know how eager we are to have her back in our arms—
ANNIE: I do know, it’s my main worry.
KELLER: It’s like expecting a new child in the house. Well, she is, so—composed, so—
(Gently.)
Attractive. You’ve done wonders for her, Miss Sullivan.
ANNIE [NOT A QUESTION]: Have I.
KELLER: If there’s anything you want from us in repayment tell us, it will be a privilege to—
ANNIE: I just told Mrs. Keller. I want more time.
KATE: Miss Annie—
ANNIE: Another week.
(HELEN lifts her head, and begins to sniff.)
KELLER: We miss the child. I miss her, I’m glad to say, that’s a different debt I owe you—
ANNIE: Pay it to Helen. Give her another week.
KATE [GENTLY]: Doesn’t she miss us?
KELLER: Of course she does. What a wrench this unexplainable—exile must be to her, can you say it’s not?
ANNIE: No. But I—
(HELEN is off the stool, to grope about the room; when she encounters BELLE, she throws her arms around the dog’s neck in delight.)
KATE: Doesn’t she need affection too, Miss Annie?
ANNIE [WAVERING]: She—never shows me she needs it, she won’t have any—caressing or—
KATE: But you’re
not her mother.
KELLER: And what would another week accomplish? We are more than satisfied, you’ve done more than we ever thought possible, taught her constructive—
ANNIE: I can’t promise anything. All I can—
KELLER [NO BREAK]:—things to do, to behave like—even look like—a human child, so manageable, contented, cleaner, more—
ANNIE [WITHERING]: Cleaner.
KELLER: Well. We say cleanliness is next to godliness, Miss—
ANNIE: Cleanliness is next to nothing, she has to learn that everything has its name! That words can be her eyes, to everything in the world outside her, and inside too, what is she without words? With them she can think, have ideas, be reached, there’s not a thought or fact in the world that can’t be hers. You publish a newspaper, Captain Keller, do I have to tell you what words are? And she has them already—
KELLER: Miss Sullivan.
ANNIE:—eighteen nouns and three verbs, they’re in her fingers now, I need only time to push one of them into her mind! One, and everything under the sun will follow. Don’t you see what she’s learned here is only clearing the way for that? I can’t risk her unlearning it, give me more time alone with her, another week to—
KELLER: Look.
(He points, and ANNIE turns. HELEN is playing with BELLE’S claws; she makes letters with her fingers, shows them to BELLE, waits with her palm, then manipulates the dog’s claws.)
What is she spelling?
(A silence.)
KATE: Water?
(ANNIE nods.)
KELLER: Teaching a dog to spell.
(A pause.)
The dog doesn’t know what she means, any more than she knows what you mean, Miss Sullivan. I think you ask too much, of her and yourself. God may not have meant Helen to have the—eyes you speak of.
ANNIE [TONELESS]: I mean her to.
KELLER [CURIOUSLY]: What is it to you?
(ANNIE’S head comes slowly up.)
You make us see how we indulge her for our sake. Is the opposite true, for you?
ANNIE [THEN]: Half a week?
KELLER: An agreement is an agreement.
ANNIE: Mrs. Keller?
KATE [SIMPLY]: I want her back.
(A wait; ANNIE then lets her hands drop in surrender, and nods.)
KELLER: I’ll send Viney over to help you pack.
ANNIE: Not until six o’clock. I have her till six o’clock.
KELLER [CONSENTING]: Six o’clock. Come, Katie.
(KATE leaving the window joins him around back, while KELLER closes the door; they are shut out.
Only the garden house is daylit now, and the light on it is narrowing down. ANNIE stands watching HELEN work BELLE’S claws. Then she settles beside them on her knees, and stops HELEN’S hand.)
ANNIE [GENTLY]: No.
(She shakes her head, with HELEN’S hand to her face, then spells.)
Dog. D, o, g. Dog.
(She touches HELEN’S hand to BELLE. HELEN dutifully pats the dog’s head, and resumes spelling to its paw.)
Not water.
(ANNIE rolls to her feet, brings a tumbler of water back from the tray, and kneels with it, to seize HELEN’S hand and spell.)
Here. Water. Water.
(She thrusts HELEN’S hand into the tumbler. HELEN lifts her hand out dripping, wipes it daintily on BELLE’S hide, and taking the tumbler from ANNIE, endeavors to thrust BELLE’S paw into it. ANNIE sits watching, wearily.)
I don’t know how to tell you. Not a soul in the world knows how to tell you. Helen, Helen.
(She bends in compassion to touch her lips to HELEN’S temple, and instantly HELEN pauses, her hands off the dog, her head slightly averted. The lights are still narrowing, and BELLE slinks off. After a moment ANNIE sits back.)
Yes, what’s it to me? They’re satisfied. Give them back their child and dog, both housebroken, everyone’s satisfied. But me, and you.
(HELEN’S hand comes out into the light, groping.)
Reach. Reach!
(ANNIE extending her own hand grips HELEN’S; the two hands are clasped, tense in the light, the rest of the room changing in shadow.)
I wanted to teach you—oh, everything the earth is full of, Helen, everything on it that’s ours for a wink and it’s gone, and what we are on it, the—light we bring to it and leave behind in—words, why, you can see five thousand years back in a light of words, everything we feel, think, know—and share, in words, so not a soul is in darkness, or done with, even in the grave. And I know, I know, one word and I can—put the world in your hand—and whatever it is to me, I won’t take less! How, how, how, do I tell you that this—
(She spells.)
—means a word, and the word means this thing, wool?
(She thrusts the wool at HELEN’S hand; HELEN sits, puzzled. ANNIE puts the crocheting aside.)
Or this—s, t, o, o, l—means this thing, stool?
(She claps HELEN’S palm to the stool. HELEN waits, uncomprehending. ANNIE snatches up her napkin, spells:)
Napkin!
(She forces it on HELEN’S hand, waits, discards it, lifts a fold of the child’s dress, spells:)
Dress!
(She lets it drop, spells:)
F, a, c, e, face!
(She draws HELEN’S hand to her cheek, and pressing it there, staring into the child’s responseless eyes, hears the distant belfry begin to toll, slowly: one, two, three, four, five, six.
On the third stroke the lights stealing in around the garden house show us figures waiting: VINEY, the other servant, MARTHA, PERCY at the drapes, and JAMES on the dim porch. ANNIE and HELEN remain, frozen. The chimes die away. Silently PERCY moves the drape-rod back out of sight; VINEY steps into the room—not using the door—and unmakes the bed; the other servant brings the wheelbarrow over, leaves it handy, rolls the bed off; VINEY puts the bed linens on top of a waiting boxful of HELEN’S toys, and loads the box on the wheelbarrow; MARTHA and PERCY take out the chairs, with the trayful, then the table; and JAMES, coming down and into the room, lifts ANNIE’S suitcase from its corner. VINEY and the other servant load the remaining odds and ends on the wheelbarrow, and the servant wheels it off. VINEY and the children departing leave only JAMES in the room with ANNIE and HELEN. JAMES studies the two of them, without mockery, and then, quietly going to the door and opening it, bears the suitcase out, and housewards. He leaves the door open.
KATE steps into the doorway, and stands. ANNIE lifting her gaze from HELEN sees her; she takes HELEN’S hand from her cheek, and returns it to the child’s own, stroking it there twice, in her mother-sign, before spelling slowly into it:)
M, o, t, h, e, r. Mother.
(HELEN with her hand free strokes her cheek, suddenly forlorn. ANNIE takes her hand again.)
M, o, t, h—
(But KATE is trembling with such impatience that her voice breaks from her, harsh.)
KATE: Let her come!
(ANNIE lifts HELEN to her feet, with a turn, and gives her a little push. Now HELEN begins groping, sensing something, trembling herself; and KATE falling one step in onto her knees clasps her, kissing her. HELEN clutches her, tight as she can. KATE is inarticulate, choked, repeating HELEN’S name again and again. She wheels with her in her arms, to stumble away out the doorway; ANNIE stands unmoving, while KATE in a blind walk carries HELEN like a baby behind the main house, out of view.
ANNIE is now alone on the stage. She turns, gazing around at the stripped room, bidding it silently farewell, impassively, like a defeated general on the deserted battlefield. All that remains is a stand with a basin of water; and here ANNIE takes up an eyecup, bathes each of her eyes, empties the eyecup, drops it in her purse, and tiredly locates her smoked glasses on the floor. The lights alter subtly; in the act of putting on her glasses ANNIE hears something that stops her, with head lifted. We hear it too, the voices out of the past, including her own now, in a whisper:)
BOY’S VOICE: You said we’d be together, forever—You promised, forever and?
??Annie!
ANAGNOS’ VOICE: But that battle is dead and done with, why not let it stay buried?
ANNIE’S VOICE [WHISPERING]: I think God must owe me a resurrection.
ANAGNOS’ VOICE: What?
(A pause, and ANNIE answers it herself, heavily.)
ANNIE: And I owe God one.
BOY’S VOICE: Forever and ever—
(ANNIE shakes her head.)
—forever, and ever, and—
(ANNIE covers her ears.)
—forever, and ever, and ever—
(It pursues ANNIE; she flees to snatch up her purse, wheels to the doorway, and KELLER is standing in it. The lights have lost their special color.)
KELLER: Miss—Annie.
(He has an envelope in his fingers.)
I’ve been waiting to give you this.
ANNIE [AFTER A BREATH]: What?
KELLER: Your first month’s salary.
(He puts it in her hand.)
With many more to come, I trust. It doesn’t express what we feel, it doesn’t pay our debt. For what you’ve done.
ANNIE: What have I done?
KELLER: Taken a wild thing, and given us back a child.
ANNIE [PRESENTLY]: I taught her one thing, no. Don’t do this, don’t do that—
KELLER: It’s more than all of us could, in all the years we—
ANNIE: I wanted to teach her what language is. I wanted to teach her yes.
KELLER: You will have time.
ANNIE: I don’t know how. I know without it to do nothing but obey is—no gift, obedience without understanding is a—blindness, too. Is that all I’ve wished on her?
KELLER [GENTLY]: No, no—
ANNIE: Maybe. I don’t know what else to do. Simply go on, keep doing what I’ve done, and have—faith that inside she’s—That inside it’s waiting. Like water, underground. All I can do is keep on.
KELLER: It’s enough. For us.
ANNIE: You can help, Captain Keller.
KELLER: How?
ANNIE: Even learning no has been at a cost. Of much trouble and pain. Don’t undo it.
KELLER: Why should we wish to—
ANNIE [ABRUPTLY]: The world isn’t an easy place for anyone, I don’t want her just to obey but to let her have her way in everything is a lie, to her, I can’t—
(Her eyes fill, it takes her by surprise, and she laughs through it.)
And I don’t even love her, she’s not my child! Well. You’ve got to stand between that lie and her.
KELLER: We’ll try.