Thursday, May 14, 2009 8:31:43 PM
At the most wretched hour between a black night and a wintry morning in the year 1777, Mrs. Dudgeon, of New Hampshire, is sitting up in the kitchen and general dwelling room of her farm house on the outskirts of the town of Websterbridge. She is not a prepossessing woman. No woman looks her best after sitting up all night; and Mrs. Dudgeon's face, even at its best, is grimly trenched by the channels into which the barren forms and observances of a dead Puritanism can pen a bitter temper and a fierce pride. She is an elderly matron who has worked hard and got nothing by it except dominion and detestation in her sordid home, and an unquestioned reputation for piety and respectability among her neighbors, to whom drink and debauchery are still so much more tempting than religion and rectitude, that they conceive goodness simply as self-denial. This conception is easily extended to others--denial, and finally generalized as covering anything disagreeable. So Mrs. Dudgeon, being exceedingly disagreeable, is held to be exceedingly good. Short of flat felony, she enjoys complete license except for amiable weaknesses of any sort, and is consequently, without knowing it, the most licentious woman in the parish on the strength of never having broken the seventh commandment or missed a Sunday at the Presbyterian church.
The year 1777 is the one in which the passions roused of the breaking off of the American colonies from England, more by their own weight than their own will, boiled up to shooting point, the shooting being idealized to the English mind as suppression of rebellion and maintenance of British dominion, and to the American as defence of liberty, resistance to tyranny, and selfsacrifice on the altar of the Rights of Man. Into the merits of these idealizations it is not here necessary to inquire: suffice it to say, without prejudice, that they have convinced both Americans and English that the most high minded course for them to pursue is to kill as many of one another as possible, and that military operations to that end are in full swing, morally supported by confident requests from the clergy of both sides for the blessing of God on their arms.
Under such circumstances many other women besides this disagreeable Mrs. Dudgeon find themselves sitting up all night waiting for news. Like her, too, they fall asleep towards morning at the risk of nodding themselves into the kitchen fire. Mrs. Dudgeon sleeps with a shawl over her head, and her feet on a broad fender of iron laths, the step of the domestic altar of the fireplace, with its huge hobs and boiler, and its hinged arm above the smoky mantel-shelf for roasting. The plain kitchen table is opposite the fire, at her elbow, with a candle on it in a tin sconce. Her chair, like all the others in the room, is uncushioned and unpainted; but as it has a round railed back and a seat conventionally moulded to the sitter's curves, it is comparatively a chair of state. The room has three doors, one on the same side as the fireplace, near the corner, leading to the best bedroom; one, at the opposite end of the opposite wall, leading to the scullery and washhouse; and the house door, with its latch, heavy lock, and clumsy wooden bar, in the front wall, between the window in its middle and the corner next the bedroom door. Between the door and the window a rack of pegs suggests to the deductive observer that the men of the house are all away, as there are no hats or coats on them. On the other side of the window the clock hangs on a nail, with its white wooden dial, black iron weights, and brass pendulum. Between the clock and the corner, a big cupboard, locked, stands on a dwarf dresser full of common crockery.
On the side opposite the fireplace, between the door and the corner, a shamelessly ugly black horsehair sofa stands against the wall. An inspection of its stridulous surface shows that Mrs. Dudgeon is not alone. A girl of sixteen or seventeen has fallen asleep on it. She is a wild, timid looking creature with black hair and tanned skin. Her frock, a scanty garment, is rent, weatherstained, berrystained, and by no means scrupulously clean. It hangs on her with a freedom which, taken with her brown legs and bare feet, suggests no great stock of underclothing.
Suddenly there comes a tapping at the door, not loud enough to wake the sleepers. Then knocking, which disturbs Mrs. Dudgeon a little. Finally the latch is tried, whereupon she springs up at once.
MRS DUDGEON [threateningly]
Well, why don't you open the door? [She sees that the girl is asleep and immediately raises a clamor of heartfelt vexation.] Well, dear, dear me! Now this is-- [shaking her] wake up, wake up: do you hear?
THE GIRL [sitting up]
What is it?
MRS DUDGEON
Wake up; and be ashamed of yourself, you unfeeling sinful girl, falling asleep like that, and your father hardly cold in his grave.
THE GIRL [half asleep still]
I didn't mean to. I dropped off--
MRS DUDGEON [cutting her short]
Oh yes, you've plenty of excuses, I daresay. Dropped off! [Fiercely, as the knocking recommences.] Why don't you get up and let your uncle in? after me waiting up all night for him! [She pushes her rudely off the sofa.] There: I'll open the door: much good you are to wait up. Go and mend that fire a bit.
The girl, cowed and wretched, goes to the fire and puts a log on. Mrs. Dudgeon unbars the door and opens it, letting into the stuffy kitchen a little of the freshness and a great deal of the chill of the dawn, also her second son Christy, a fattish, stupid, fair-haired, round-faced man of about 22, muffled in a plaid shawl and grey overcoat. He hurries, shivering, to the fire, leaving Mrs. Dudgeon to shut the door.
CHRISTY [at the fire]
F--f--f! but it is cold. [Seeing the girl, and staring lumpishly at her.] Why, who are you?
THE GIRL [shyly]
Essie.
MRS DUDGEON
Oh you may well ask. [To Essie.] Go to your room, child, and lie down since you haven't feeling enough to keep you awake. Your history isn't fit for your own ears to hear.
ESSIE
I--
MRS DUDGEON [peremptorily]
Don't answer me, Miss; but show your obedience by doing what I tell you. [Essie, almost in tears, crosses the room to the door near the sofa.] And don't forget your prayers. [Essie goes out.] She'd have gone to bed last night just as if nothing had happened if I'd let her.
CHRISTY [phlegmatically]
Well, she can't be expected to feel Uncle Peter's death like one of the family.
MRS DUDGEON
What are you talking about, child? Isn't she his daughter--the punishment of his wickedness and shame? [She assaults her chair by sitting down.]
CHRISTY [staring]
Uncle Peter's daughter!
MRS DUDGEON
Why else should she be here? D'ye think I've not had enough trouble and care put upon me bringing up my own girls, let alone you and your good-for-nothing brother, without having your uncle's bastards--
CHRISTY [interrupting her with an apprehensive glance at the door by which Essie went out]
Sh! She may hear you.
MRS DUDGEON [raising her voice]
Let her hear me. People who fear God don't fear to give the devil's work its right name. [Christy, soullessly indifferent to the strife of Good and Evil, stares at the fire, warming himself.] Well, how long are you going to stare there like a stuck pig? What news have you for me?
CHRISTY [taking off his hat and shawl and going to the rack to hang them up]
The minister is to break the news to you. He'll be here presently.
MRS DUDGEON
Break what news?
CHRISTY [standing on tiptoe, from boyish habit, to hang his hat up, though he is quite tall enough to reach the peg, and speaking with callous placidity, considering the nature of the announcement]
Father's dead too.
MRS DUDGEON [stupent]
Your father!
CHRISTY [sulkily, coming back to the fire and warming himself again, attending much more to the fire than to his mother]
Well, it's not my fault. When we got to Nevinstown we found him ill in bed. He didn't know us at first. The minister sat up with him and sent me away. He died in the night.
MRS DUDGEON [bursting into dry angry tears]
Well, I do think this is hard on me--very hard on me. His brother, that was a disgrace to us all his life, gets hanged on the public gallows as a rebel; and your father, instead of staying at home where his duty was, with his own family, goes after him and dies, leaving everything on my shoulders. After sending this girl to me to take care of, too! [She plucks her shawl vexedly over her ears.] It's sinful, so it is; downright sinful.
CHRISTY [with a slow, bovine cheerfulness, after a pause]
I think it's going to be a fine morning, after all.
MRS DUDGEON [railing at him]
A fine morning! And your father newly dead! Where's your feelings, child?
CHRISTY [obstinately]
Well, I didn't mean any harm. I suppose a man may make a remark about the weather even if his father's dead.
MRS DUDGEON [bitterly]
A nice comfort my children are to me! One son a fool, and the other a lost sinner that's left his home to live with smugglers and gypsies and villains, the scum of the earth!
Someone knocks.
CHRISTY [without moving]
That's the minister.
MRS DUDGEON [sharply]
Well, aren't you going to let Mr. Anderson in?
Christy goes sheepishly to the door. Mrs. Dudgeon buries her face in her hands, as it is her duty as a widow to be overcome with grief. Christy opens the door, and admits the minister, Anthony Anderson, a shrewd, genial, ready Presbyterian divine of about 50, with something of the authority of his profession in his bearing. But it is an altogether secular authority, sweetened by a conciliatory, sensible manner not at all suggestive of a quite thorouqhgoing other-worldliness. He is a strong, healthy man, too, with a thick, sanguine neck; and his keen, cheerful mouth cuts into somewhat fleshy corners. No doubt an excellent parson, but still a man capable of making the most of this world, and perhaps a little apologetically conscious of getting on better with it than a sound Presbyterian ought.
ANDERSON [to Christy, at the door, looking at Mrs. Dudgeon whilst he takes off his cloak]
Have you told her?
CHRISTY
She made me. [He shuts the door; yawns; and loafs across to the sofa where he sits down and presently drops off to sleep.]
Anderson looks compassionately at Mrs. Dudgeon. Then he hangs his cloak and hat on the rack. Mrs. Dudgeon dries her eyes and looks up at him.
ANDERSON
Sister: the Lord has laid his hand very heavily upon you.
MRS DUDGEON [with intensely recalcitrant resignation]
It's His will, I suppose; and I must bow to it. But I do think it hard. What call had Timothy to go to Springtown, and remind everybody that he belonged to a man that was being hanged?--and [spitefully] that deserved it, if ever a man did.
ANDERSON [gently]
They were brothers, Mrs. Dudgeon.
MRS DUDGEON
Timothy never acknowledged him as his brother after we were married: he had too much respect for me to insult me with such a brother. Would such a selfish wretch as Peter have come thirty miles to see Timothy hanged, do you think? Not thirty yards, not he. However, I must bear my cross as best I may: least said is soonest mended.
ANDERSON [very grave, coming down to the fire to stand with his back to it]
Your eldest son was present at the execution, Mrs. Dudgeon.
MRS DUDGEON [disagreeably surprised]
Richard?
ANDERSON [nodding]
Yes.
MRS DUDGEON [vindictively]
Let it be a warning to him. He may end that way himself, the wicked, dissolute, godless--[she suddenly stops; her voice fails; and she asks, with evident dread] Did Timothy see him?
ANDERSON
Yes.
MRS DUDGEON [holding her breath]
Well?
ANDERSON
He only saw him in the crowd: they did not speak. [Mrs. Dudgeon, greatly relieved, exhales the pent up breath and sits at her ease again.] Your husband was greatly touched and impressed by his brother's awful death. [Mrs. Dudgeon sneers. Anderson breaks off to demand with some indiqnation] Well, wasn't it only natural, Mrs. Dudgeon? He softened towards his prodigal son in that moment. He sent for him to come to see him.
MRS DUDGEON [her alarm renewed]
Sent for Richard!
ANDERSON
Yes; but Richard would not come. He sent his father a message; but I'm sorry to say it was a wicked message--an awful message.
MRS DUDGEON
What was it?
ANDERSON
That he would stand by his wicked uncle, and stand against his good parents, in this world and the next.
MRS DUDGEON [implacably]
He will be punished for it. He will be punished for it--in both worlds.
ANDERSON
That is not in our hands, Mrs. Dudgeon.
MRS DUDGEON
Did I say it was, Mr. Anderson. We are told that the wicked shall be punished. Why should we do our duty and keep God's law if there is to be no difference made between us and those who follow their own likings and dislikings, and make a jest of us and of their Maker's word?
ANDERSON
Well, Richard's earthly father has been merciful and his heavenly judge is the father of us all.
MRS DUDGEON [forgetting herself]
Richard's earthly father was a softheaded--
ANDERSON [shocked]
Oh!
MRS DUDGEON [with a touch of shame]
Well, I am Richard's mother. If I am against him who has any right to be for him? [Trying to conciliate him.] Won't you sit down, Mr. Anderson? I should have asked you before; but I'm so troubled.
ANDERSON
Thank you-- [He takes a chair from beside the fireplace, and turns it so that he can sit comfortably at the fire. When he is seated he adds, in the tone of a man who knows that he is opening a difficult subject.] Has Christy told you about the new will?
MRS DUDGEON [all her fears returning]
The new will! Did Timothy--? [She breaks off, gasping, unable to complete the question.]
ANDERSON
Yes. In his last hours he changed his mind.
MRS DUDGEON [white with intense rage]
And you let him rob me?
ANDERSON
I had no power to prevent him giving what was his to his own son.
MRS DUDGEON
He had nothing of his own. His money was the money I brought him as my marriage portion. It was for me to deal with my own money and my own son. He dare not have done it if I had been with him; and well he knew it. That was why he stole away like a thief to take advantage of the law to rob me by making a new will behind my back. The more shame on you, Mr. Anderson,-- you, a minister of the gospel--to act as his accomplice in such a crime.
ANDERSON [rising]
I will take no offence at what you say in the first bitterness of your grief.
MRS DUDGEON [contemptuously]
Grief!
ANDERSON
Well, of your disappointment, if you can find it in your heart to think that the better word.
MRS DUDGEON
My heart! My heart! And since when, pray, have you begun to hold up our hearts as trustworthy guides for us?
ANDERSON [rather guiltily]
I--er--
MRS DUDGEON [vehemently]
Don't lie, Mr. Anderson. We are told that the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. My heart belonged, not to Timothy, but to that poor wretched brother of his that has just ended his days with a rope round his neck--aye, to Peter Dudgeon. You know it: old Eli Hawkins, the man to whose pulpit you succeeded, though you are not worthy to loose his shoe latchet, told it you when he gave over our souls into your charge. He warned me and strengthened me against my heart, and made me marry a Godfearing man--as he thought. What else but that discipline has made me the woman I am? And you, you who followed your heart in your marriage, you talk to me of what I find in my heart. Go home to your pretty wife, man; and leave me to my prayers. [She turns from him and leans with her elbows on the table, brooding over her wrongs and taking no further notice of him.]
ANDERSON [willing enough to escape]
The Lord forbid that I should come between you and the source of all comfort! [He goes to the rack for his coat and hat.]
MRS DUDGEON [without looking at him]
The Lord will know what to forbid and what to allow without your help.
ANDERSON
And whom to forgive, I hope--Eli Hawkins and myself, if we have ever set up our preaching against His law. [He fastens his cloak, and is now ready to go.] Just one word--on necessary business, Mrs. Dudgeon. There is the reading of the will to be gone through; and Richard has a right to be present. He is in the town; but he has the grace to say that he does not want to force himself in here.
MRS DUDGEON
He shall come here. Does he expect us to leave his father's house for his convenience? Let them all come, and come quickly, and go quickly. They shall not make the will an excuse to shirk half their day's work. I shall be ready, never fear.
ANDERSON [coming back a step or two]
Mrs. Dudgeon: I used to have some little influence with you. When did I lose it?
MRS DUDGEON [still without turning to him]
When you married for love. Now you're answered.
ANDERSON
Yes: I am answered. [He goes out, musing.]
MRS DUDGEON [to herself, thinking of her husband]
Thief! Thief!! [She shakes herself angrily out of the chair; throws back the shawl from her head; and sets to work to prepare the room for the reading of the will, beginning by replacing Anderson's chair against the wall, and pushing back her own to the window. Then she calls, in her hard, driving, wrathful way] Christy. [No answer: he is fast asleep.] Christy. [She shakes him roughly.] Get up out of that; and be ashamed of yourself-- sleeping, and your father dead! [She returns to the table; puts the candle on the mantelshelf; and takes from the table drawer a red table cloth which she spreads.]
CHRISTY [rising reluctantly]
Well, do you suppose we are never going to sleep until we are out of mourning?
MRS DUDGEON
I want none of your sulks. Here: help me to set this table. [They place the table in the middle of the room, with Christy's end towards the fireplace and Mrs. Dudgeon's towards the sofa. Christy drops the table as soon as possible, and goes to the fire, leaving his mother to make the final adjustments of its position.] We shall have the minister back here with the lawyer and all the family to read the will before you have done toasting yourself. Go and wake that girl; and then light the stove in the shed: you can't have your breakfast here. And mind you wash yourself, and make yourself fit to receive the company. [She punctuates these orders by going to the cupboard; unlocking it; and producing a decanter of wine, which has no doubt stood there untouched since the last state occasion in the family, and some glasses, which she sets on the table. Also two green ware plates, on one of which she puts a barmbrack with a knife beside it. On the other she shakes some biscuits out of a tin, putting back one or two, and counting the rest.] Now mind: there are ten biscuits there: let there be ten there when I come back after dressing myself. And keep your fingers off the raisins in that cake. And tell Essie the same. I suppose I can trust you to bring in the case of stuffed birds without breaking the glass? [She replaces the tin in the cupboard, which she locks, pocketing the key carefully.]
CHRISTY [lingering at the fire]
You'd better put the inkstand instead, for the lawyer.
Mss. DUDGEON. That's no answer to make to me, sir. Go and do as you're told. [Christy turns sullenly to obey.] Stop: take down that shutter before you go, and let the daylight in: you can't expect me to do all the heavy work of the house with a great heavy lout like you idling about.
Christy takes the window bar out of its damps, and puts it aside; then opens the shutter, showing the grey morning. Mrs. Dudgeon takes the sconce from the mantelshelf; blows out the candle; extinguishes the snuff by pinching it with her fingers, first licking them for the purpose; and replaces the sconce on the shelf.
CHRISTY [looking through the window]
Here's the minister's wife.
MRS DUDGEON [displeased]
What! Is she coming here?
CHRISTY
Yes.
MRS DUDGEON
What does she want troubling me at this hour, before I'm properly dressed to receive people?
CHRISTY
You'd better ask her.
MRS DUDGEON [threateningly]
You'd better keep a civil tongue in your head. [He goes sulkily towards the door. She comes after him, plying him with instructions.] Tell that girl to come to me as soon as she's had her breakfast. And tell her to make herself fit to be seen before the people. [Christy goes out and slams the door in her face.] Nice manners, that! [Someone knocks at the house door: she turns and cries inhospitably.] Come in. [Judith Anderson, the minister's wife, comes in. Judith is more than twenty years younger than her husband, though she will never be as young as he in vitality. She is pretty and proper and ladylike, and has been admired and petted into an opinion of herself sufficiently favorable to give her a self-assurance which serves her instead of strength. She has a pretty taste in dress, and in her face the pretty lines of a sentimental character formed by dreams. Even her little self-complacency is pretty, like a child's vanity. Rather a pathetic creature to any sympathetic observer who knows how rough a place the world is. One feels, on the whole, that Anderson might have chosen worse, and that she, needing protection, could not have chosen better.] Oh, it's you, is it, Mrs. Anderson?
JUDITH [very politely--almost patronizingly]
Yes. Can I do anything for you, Mrs. Dudgeon? Can I help to get the place ready before they come to read the will?
MRS DUDGEON [stiffly]
Thank you, Mrs. Anderson, my house is always ready for anyone to come into.
MRS ANDERSON [with complacent amiability]
Yes, indeed it is. Perhaps you had rather I did not intrude on you just now.
MRS DUDGEON
Oh, one more or less will make no difference this morning, Mrs. Anderson. Now that you're here, you'd better stay. If you wouldn't mind shutting the door! [Judith smiles, implying "How stupid of me" and shuts it with an exasperating air of doing something pretty and becoming.] That's better. I must go and tidy myself a bit. I suppose you don't mind stopping here to receive anyone that comes until I'm ready.
JUDITH [graciously giving her leave]
Oh yes, certainly. Leave them to me, Mrs. Dudgeon; and take your time. [She hangs her cloak and bonnet on the rack.]
MRS DUDGEON [half sneering]
I thought that would be more in your way than getting the house ready. [Essie comes back.] Oh, here you are! [Severely] Come here: let me see you. [Essie timidly goes to her. Mrs. Dudgeon takes her roughly by the arm and pulls her round to inspect the results of her attempt to clean and tidy herself--results which show little practice and less conviction.] Mm! That's what you call doing your hair properly, I suppose. It's easy to see what you are, and how you were brought up. [She throws her arms away, and goes on, peremptorily.] Now you listen to me and do as you're told. You sit down there in the corner by the fire; and when the company comes don't dare to speak until you're spoken to. [Essie creeps away to the fireplace.] Your father's people had better see you and know you're there: they're as much bound to keep you from starvation as I am. At any rate they might help. But let me have no chattering and making free with them, as if you were their equal. Do you hear?
ESSIE
Yes.
MRS DUDGEON
Well, then go and do as you're told.
[Essie sits down miserably on the corner of the fender furthest from the door.] Never mind her, Mrs. Anderson: you know who she is and what she is. If she gives you any trouble, just tell me; and I'll settle accounts with her. [Mrs. Dudgeon goes into the bedroom, shutting the door sharply behind her as if even it had to be made to do its duty with a ruthless hand.]
JUDITH [patronizing Essie, and arranging the cake and wine on the table more becomingly]
You must not mind if your aunt is strict with you. She is a very good woman, and desires your good too.
ESSIE [in listless misery]
Yes.
JUDITH [annoyed with Essie for her failure to be consoled and edified, and to appreciate the kindly condescension of the remark]
You are not going to be sullen, I hope, Essie.
ESSIE
No.
JUDITH
That's a good girl! [She places a couple of chairs at the table with their backs to the window, with a pleasant sense of being a more thoughtful housekeeper than Mrs. Dudgeon.] Do you know any of your father's relatives?
ESSIE
No. They wouldn't have anything to do with him: they were too religious. Father used to talk about Dick Dudgeon; but I never saw him.
JUDITH [ostentatiously shocked]
Dick Dudgeon! Essie: do you wish to be a really respectable and grateful girl, and to make a place for yourself here by steady good conduct?
ESSIE [very half-heartedly]
Yes.
JUDITH
Then you must never mention the name of Richard Dudgeon-- never even think about him. He is a bad man.
ESSIE
What has he done?
JUDITH
You must not ask questions about him, Essie. You are too young to know what it is to be a bad man. But he is a smuggler; and he lives with gypsies; and he has no love for his mother and his family; and he wrestles and plays games on Sunday instead of going to church. Never let him into your presence, if you can help it, Essie; and try to keep yourself and all womanhood unspotted by contact with such men.
ESSIE
Yes.
JUDITH [again displeased]
I am afraid you say Yes and No without thinking very deeply.
ESSIE
Yes. At least I mean--
JUDITH [severely]
What do you mean?
ESSIE [almost crying]
Only--my father was a smuggler; and-- [Someone knocks.]
JUDITH
They are beginning to come. Now remember your aunt's directions, Essie; and be a good girl. [Christy comes back with the stand of stuffed birds under a glass case, and an inkstand, which he places on the table.] Good morning, Mr. Dudgeon. Will you open the door, please: the people have come.
CHRISTY
Good morning. [He opens the house door.]
The morning is now fairly bright and warm; and Anderson, who is the first to enter, has left his cloak at home. He is accompanied by Lawyer Hawkins, a brisk, middleaged man in brown riding gaiters and yellow breeches, looking as much squire as solicitor. He and Anderson are allowed precedence as representing the learned professions. After them comes the family, headed by the senior uncle, William Dudgeon, a large, shapeless man, bottle-nosed and evidently no ascetic at table. His clothes are not the clothes, nor his anxious wife the wife, of a prosperous man. The junior uncle, Titus Dudgeon, is a wiry little terrier of a man, with an immense and visibly purse-proud wife, both free from the cares of the William household.
Hawkins at once goes briskly to the table and takes the chair nearest the sofa, Christy having left the inkstand there. He puts his hat on the floor beside him, and produces the will. Uncle William comes to the fire and stands on the hearth warming his coat tails, leaving Mrs. William derelict near the door. Uncle Titus, who is the lady's man of the family, rescues her by giving her his disengaged arm and bringing her to the sofa, where he sits down warmly between his own lady and his brother's. Anderson hangs up his hat and waits for a word with Judith.
JUDITH
She will be here in a moment. Ask them to wait. [She taps at the bedroom door. Receiving an answer from within, she opens it and passes through.]
ANDERSON [taking his place at the table at the opposite end to Hawkins]
Our poor afflicted sister will be with us in a moment. Are we all here?
CHRISTY [at the house door, which he has just shut]
All except Dick.
The callousness with which Christy names the reprobate jars on the moral sense of the family. Uncle William shakes his head slowly and repeatedly. Mrs. Titus catches her breath convulsively through her nose. Her husband speaks.
UNCLE TITUS
Well, I hope he will have the grace not to come. I hope so.
The Dudgeons all murmur assent, except Christy, who goes to the window and posts himself there, looking out. Hawkins smiles secretively as if he knew something that would change their tune if they knew it. Anderson is uneasy: the love of solemn family councils, especially funereal ones, is not in his nature. Judith appears at the bedroom door.
JUDITH [with gentle impressiveness]
Friends, Mrs. Dudgeon. [She takes the chair from beside the fireplace; and places it for Mrs. Dudgeon, who comes from the bedroom in black, with a clean handkerchief to her eyes. All rise, except Essie. Mrs. Titus and Mrs. William produce equally clean handkerchiefs and weep. It is an affecting moment.]
UNCLE WILLIAM
Would it comfort you, sister, if we were to offer up a prayer?
UNCLE TITUS
Or sing a hymn?
ANDERSON [rather hastily]
I have been with our sister this morning already, friends. In our hearts we ask a blessing.
ALL [except Essie]
Amen.
They all sit down, except Judith, who stands behind Mrs. Dudgeon's chair.
JUDITH [to Essie]
Essie: did you say Amen?
ESSIE [scaredly]
No.
JUDITH
Then say it, like a good girl.
ESSIE
Amen.
UNCLE WILLIAM [encouragingly]
That's right: that's right. We know who you are; but we are willing to be kind to you if you are a good girl and deserve it. We are all equal before the Throne.
This republican sentiment does not please the women, who are convinced that the Throne is precisely the place where their superiority, often questioned in this world, will be recognized and rewarded.
CHRISTY [at the window]
Here's Dick.
Anderson and Hawkins look round sociably. Essie, with a gleam of interest breaking through her misery, looks up. Christy grins and gapes expectantly at the door. The rest are petrified with the intensity of their sense of Virtue menaced with outrage by the approach of flaunting Vice. The reprobate appears in the doorway, graced beyond his alleged merits by the morning sunlight. He is certainly the best looking member of the family; but his expression is reckless and sardonic, his manner defiant and satirical, his dress picturesquely careless. Only his forehead and mouth betray an extraordinary steadfastness, and his eyes are the eyes of a fanatic.
RICHARD [on the threshold, taking off his hat]
Ladies and gentlemen: your servant, your very humble servant. [With this comprehensive insult, he throws his hat to Christy with a suddenness that makes him jump like a negligent wicket keeper, and comes into the middle of the room, where he turns and deliberately surveys the company.] How happy you all look! how glad to see me! [He turns towards Mrs. Dudgeon's chair; and his lip rolls up horribly from his dog tooth as he meets her look of undisguised hatred.] Well, mother: keeping up appearances as usual? that's right, that's right. [Judith pointedly moves away from his neighborhood to the other side of the kitchen, holding her skirt instinctively as if to save it from contamination. Uncle Titus promptly marks his approval of her action by rising from the sofa, and placing a chair for her to sit down upon.] What! Uncle William! I haven't seen you since you gave up drinking. [Poor Uncle William, shamed, would protest; but Richard claps him heartily on his shoulder, adding] you have given it up, haven't you? [releasing him with a playful push] of course you have: quite right too; you overdid it. [He turns away from Uncle William and makes for the sofa.] And now, where is that upright horsedealer Uncle Titus? Uncle Titus: come forth. [He comes upon him holding the chair as Judith sits down.] As usual, looking after the ladies.
UNCLE TITUS [indignantly]
Be ashamed of yourself, sir--
RICHARD [interrupting him and shaking his hand in spite of him]
I am: I am; but I am proud of my uncle--proud of all my relatives [again surveying them] who could look at them and not be proud and joyful? [Uncle Titus, overborne, resumes his seat on the sofa. Richard turns to the table.] Ah, Mr. Anderson, still at the good work, still shepherding them. Keep them up to the mark, minister, keep them up to the mark. Come! [with a spring he seats himself on the table and takes up the decanter] clink a glass with me, Pastor, for the sake of old times.
ANDERSON
You know, I think, Mr. Dudgeon, that I do not drink before dinner.
RICHARD
You will, some day, Pastor: Uncle William used to drink before breakfast. Come: it will give your sermons unction. [He smells the wine and makes a wry face.] But do not begin on my mother's company sherry. I stole some when I was six years old; and I have been a temperate man ever since. [He puts the decanter down and changes the subject.] So I hear you are married, Pastor, and that your wife has a most ungodly allowance of good looks.
ANDERSON [quietly indicating Judith]
Sir: you are in the presence of my wife. [Judith rises and stands with stony propriety.]
RICHARD [quickly slipping down from the table with instinctive good manners]
Your servant, madam: no offence. [He looks at her earnestly.] You deserve your reputation; but I'm sorry to see by your expression that you're a good woman.
[She looks shocked, and sits down amid a murmur of indignant sympathy from his relatives. Anderson, sensible enough to know that these demonstrations can only gratify and encourage a man who is deliberately trying to provoke them, remains perfectly goodhumored.] All the same, Pastor, I respect you more than I did before. By the way, did I hear, or did I not, that our late lamented Uncle Peter, though unmarried, was a father?
UNCLE TITUS
He had only one irregular child, sir.
RICHARD
Only one! He thinks one a mere trifle! I blush for you, Uncle Titus.
ANDERSON
Mr. Dudgeon you are in the presence of your mother and her grief.
RICHARD
It touches me profoundly, Pastor. By the way, what has become of the irregular child?
ANDERSON [pointing to Essie]
There, sir, listening to you.
RICHARD [shocked into sincerity]
What! Why the devil didn't you tell me that before? Children suffer enough in this house without-- [He hurries remorsefully to Essie.] Come, little cousin! never mind me: it was not meant to hurt you. [She looks up gratefully at him. Her tearstained face affects him violently, and he bursts out, in a transport of wrath] Who has been making her cry? Who has been ill-treating her? By God--
MRS DUDGEON [rising and confronting him]
Silence your blasphemous tongue. I will hear no more of this. Leave my house.
RICHARD
How do you know it's your house until the will is read? [They look at one another for a moment with intense hatred; and then she sinks, checkmated, into her chair. Richard goes boldly up past Anderson to the window, where he takes the railed chair in his hand.] Ladies and gentlemen: as the eldest son of my late father, and the unworthy head of this household, I bid you welcome. By your leave, Minister Anderson: by your leave, Lawyer Hawkins. The head of the table for the head of the family. [He places the chair at the table between the minister and the attorney; sits down between them; and addresses the assembly with a presidential air.] We meet on a melancholy occasion: a father dead! an uncle actually hanged, and probably damned. [He shakes his head deploringly. The relatives freeze with horror.] That's right: pull your longest faces [his voice suddenly sweetens gravely as his glance lights on Essie] provided only there is hope in the eyes of the child. [Briskly.] Now then, Lawyer Hawkins: business, business. Get on with the will, man.
TITUS
Do not let yourself be ordered or hurried, Mr. Hawkins.
HAWKINS [very politely and willingly]
Mr. Dudgeon means no offence, I feel sure. I will not keep you one second, Mr. Dudgeon. Just while I get my glasses--[he fumbles for them. The Dudgeons look at one another with misgiving].
RICHARD
Aha! They notice your civility, Mr. Hawkins. They are prepared for the worst. A glass of wine to clear your voice before you begin. [He pours out one for him and hands it; then pours one for himself.]
HAWKINS
Thank you, Mr. Dudgeon. Your good health, sir.
RICHARD
Yours, sir. [With the glass half way to his lips, he checks himself, giving a dubious glance at the wine, and adds, with quaint intensity.] Will anyone oblige me with a glass of water?
Essie, who has been hanging on his every word and movement, rises stealthily and slips out behind Mrs. Dudgeon through the bedroom door, returning presently with a jug and going out of the house as quietly as possible.
HAWKINS
The will is not exactly in proper legal phraseology.
RICHARD
No: my father died without the consolations of the law.
HAWKINS
Good again, Mr. Dudgeon, good again. [Preparing to read] Are you ready, sir?
RICHARD
Ready, aye ready. For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Go ahead.
HAWKINS [reading]
"This is the last will and testament of me Timothy Dudgeon on my deathbed at Nevinstown on the road from Springtown to Websterbridge on this twenty-fourth day of September, one thousand seven hundred and seventy seven. I hereby revoke all former wills made by me and declare that I am of sound mind and know well what I am doing and that this is my real will according to my own wish and affections."
RICHARD [glancing at his mother]
Aha!
HAWKINS [shaking his head]
Bad phraseology, sir, wrong phraseology. "I give and bequeath a hundred pounds to my younger son Christopher Dudgeon, fifty pounds to be paid to him on the day of his marriage to Sarah Wilkins if she will have him, and ten pounds on the birth of each of his children up to the number of five."
RICHARD
How if she won't have him?
CHRISTY
She will if I have fifty pounds.
RICHARD
Good, my brother. Proceed.
HAWKINS
"I give and bequeath to my wife Annie Dudgeon, born Annie Primrose"--you see he did not know the law, Mr. Dudgeon: your mother was not born Annie: she was christened so--"an annuity of fifty-two pounds a year for life [Mrs. Dudgeon, with all eyes on her, holds herself convulsively rigid] to be paid out of the interest on her own money"--there's a way to put it, Mr. Dudgeon! Her own money!
MRS DUDGEON
A very good way to put God's truth. It was every penny my own. Fifty-two pounds a year!
HAWKINS
"And I recommend her for her goodness and piety to the forgiving care of her children, having stood between them and her as far as I could to the best of my ability."
MRS DUDGEON
And this is my reward! [raging inwardly] You know what I think, Mr. Anderson you know the word I gave to it.
ANDERSON
It cannot be helped, Mrs. Dudgeon. We must take what comes to us. [To Hawkins.] Go on, sir.
HAWKINS
"I give and bequeath my house at Websterbridge with the land belonging to it and all the rest of my property soever to my eldest son and heir, Richard Dudgeon."
RICHARD
Oho! The fatted calf, Minister, the fatted calf.
HAWBINB
"On these conditions--"
RICHARD
The devil! Are there conditions?
HAWKINS
"To wit: first, that he shall not let my brother Peter's natural child starve or be driven by want to an evil life."
RICHARD [emphatically, striking his fist on the table]
Agreed.
Mrs. Dudgeon, turning to look malignantly at Essie, misses her and looks quickly round to see where she has moved to; then,, seeing that she has left the room without leave, closes her lips vengefully.
HAWKINS
"Second, that he shall be a good friend to my old horse Jim"--[again slacking his head] he should have written James, sir.
RICHARD
James shall live in clover. Go on.
HAWKINS
--and keep my deaf farm laborer Prodger Feston in his service."
RICHARD
Prodger Feston shall get drunk every Saturday.
HAWKINS
"Third, that he make Christy a present on his marriage out of the ornaments in the best room."
RICHARD [holding up the stuffed birds]
Here you are, Christy.
CHRISTY [disappointed]
I'd rather have the China peacocks.
RICHARD
You shall have both. [Christy is greatly pleased.] Go on.
HAWKINS
"Fourthly and lastly, that he try to live at peace with his mother as far as she will consent to it."
RICHARD [dubiously]
Hm! Anything more, Mr. Hawkins?
HAWKINS [solemnly]
"Finally I gave and bequeath my soul into my Maker's hands, humbly asking forgiveness for all my sins and mistakes, and hoping that he will so guide my son that it may not be said that I have done wrong in trusting to him rather than to others in the perplexity of my last hour in this strange place."
ANDERSON
Amen.
THE UNCLES AND AUNTS
Amen.
RICHARD
My mother does not say Amen.
MRS DUDGEON [rising, unable to give up her property without a struggle]
Mr. Hawkins: is that a proper will? Remember, I have his rightful, legal will, drawn up by yourself, leaving all to me.
HAWKINS
This is a very wrongly and irregularly worded will, Mrs. Dudgeon; though [turning politely to Richard] it contains in my judgment an excellent disposal of his property.
ANDERSON [interposing before Mrs. Dudgeon can retort]
That is not what you are asked, Mr. Hawkins. Is it a legal will?
HAWKINS
The courts will sustain it against the other.
ANDERSON
But why, if the other is more lawfully worded?
HAWKING
Because, sir, the courts will sustain the claim of a man--and that man the eldest son--against any woman, if they can. I warned you, Mrs. Dudgeon, when you got me to draw that other will, that it was not a wise will, and that though you might make him sign it, he would never be easy until he revoked it. But you wouldn't take advice; and now Mr. Richard is cock of the walk. [He takes his hat from the floor; rises; and begins pocketing his papers and spectacles.]
This is the signal for the breaking-up of the party. Anderson takes his hat from the rack and joins Uncle William at the fire. Uncle Titus fetches Judith her things from the rack. The three on the sofa rise and chat with Hawkins. Mrs. Dudgeon, now an intruder in her own house, stands erect, crushed by the weight of the law on women, accepting it, as she has been trained to accept all monstrous calamities, as proofs of the greatness of the power that inflicts them, and of her own wormlike insignificance. For at this time, remember, Mary Wollstonecraft is as yet only a girl of eighteen, and her Vindication of the Rights of Women is still fourteen years off. Mrs. Dudgeon is rescued from her apathy by Essie, who comes back with the jug full of water. She is taking it to Richard when Mrs. Dudgeon stops her.
MRS DUDGEON [threatening her]
Where have you been? [Essie, appalled, tries to answer, but cannot.] How dare you go out by yourself after the orders I gave you?
ESSIE
He asked for a drink--[she stops, her tongue cleaving to her palate with terror].
JUDITH [with gentler severity]
Who asked for a drink? [Essie, speechless, points to Richard.]
RICHARD
What! I!
JUDITH [shocked]
Oh Essie, Essie!
RICHARD
I believe I did. [He takes a glass and holds it to Essie to be filled. Her hand shakes.] What! afraid of me?
ESSIE [quickly]
No. I-- [She pours out the water.]
RICHARD [tasting it]
Ah, you've been up the street to the market gate spring to get that. [He takes a draught.] Delicious! Thank you. [Unfortunately, at this moment he chances to catch sight of Judith's face, which expresses the most prudish disapproval of his evident attraction for Essie, who is devouring him with her grateful eyes. His mocking expression returns instantly. He puts down the glass; deliberately winds his arm round Essie's shoulders; and brings her into the middle of the company. Mrs. Dudgeon being in Essie's way as they come past the table, he says] By your leave, mother [and compels her to make way for them]. What do they call you? Bessie ?
ESSIE
Essie.
RICHARD
Essie, to be sure. Are you a good girl, Essie?
ESSIE [greatly disappointed that he, of all people should begin at her in this way]
Yes. [She looks doubtfully at Judith.] I think so. I mean I--I hope so.
RICHARD
Essie: did you ever hear of a person called the devil?
ANDERSON [revolted]
Shame on you, sir, with a mere child--
RICHARD
By your leave, Minister: I do not interfere with your sermons: do not you interrupt mine. [To Essie.] Do you know what they call me, Essie?
ESSIE
Dick.
RICHARD [amused: patting her on the shoulder]
Yes, Dick; but something else too. They call me the Devil's Disciple.
ESSIE
Why do you let them?
RICHARD [seriously]
Because it's true. I was brought up in the other service; but I knew from the first that the Devil was my natural master and captain and friend. I saw that he was in the right, and that the world cringed to his conqueror only through fear. I prayed secretly to him; and he comforted me, and saved me from having my spirit broken in this house of children's tears. I promised him my soul, and swore an oath that I would stand up for him in this world and stand by him in the next. [Solemnly] That promise and that oath made a man of me. From this day this house is his home; and no child shall cry in it: this hearth is his altar; and no soul shall ever cower over it in the dark evenings and be afraid. Now [turning forcibly on the rest] which of you good men will take this child and rescue her from the house of the devil?
JUDITH [coming to Essie and throwing a protecting arm about her]
I will. You should be burnt alive.
ESSIE
But I don't want to. [She shrinks back, leaving Richard and Judith face to face.]
RICHARD [to Judith]
Actually doesn't want to, most virtuous lady!
UNCLE TITUS
Have a care, Richard Dudgeon. The law--
RICHARD [turning threateningly on him]
Have a care, you. In an hour from this there will be no law here but martial law. I passed the soldiers within six miles on my way here: before noon Major Swindon's gallows for rebels will be up in the market place.
ANDERSON [calmly]
What have we to fear from that, sir?
RICHARD
More than you think. He hanged the wrong man at Springtown: he thought Uncle Peter was respectable, because the Dudgeons had a good name. But his next example will be the best man in the town to whom he can bring home a rebellious word. Well, we're all rebels; and you know it.
ALL THE MEN [except Anderson]
No, no, no!
RICHARD
Yes, you are. You haven't damned King George up hill and down dale as I have; but you've prayed for his defeat; and you, Anthony Anderson, have conducted the service, and sold your family bible to buy a pair of pistols. They mayn't hang me, perhaps; because the moral effect of the Devil's Disciple dancing on nothing wouldn't help them. But a Minister! [Judith, dismayed, clings to Anderson] or a lawyer! [Hawkins smiles like a man able to take care of himself] or an upright horsedealer! [Uncle Titus snarls at him in rags and terror] or a reformed drunkard [Uncle William, utterly unnerved, moans and wobbles with fear] eh? Would that show that King George meant business--ha?
ANDERSON [perfectly self-possessed]
Come, my dear: he is only trying to frighten you. There is no danger. [He takes her out of the house. The rest crowd to the door to follow him, except Essie, who remains near Richard.]
RICHARD [boisterously derisive]
Now then: how many of you will stay with me; run up the American flag on the devil's house; and make a fight for freedom? [They scramble out, Christy among them, hustling one another in their haste.] Ha ha! Long live the devil! [To Mrs. Dudgeon, who is following them] What mother! are you off too?
MRS DUDGEON [deadly pale, with her hand on her heart as if she had received a deathblow]
My curse on you! My dying curse! [She goes out.]
RICHARD [calling after her]
It will bring me luck. Ha ha ha!
ESSIE [anxiously]
Mayn't I stay?
RICHARD [turning to her]
What! Have they forgotten to save your soul in their anxiety about their own bodies? Oh yes: you may stay. [He turns excitedly away again and shakes his fist after them. His left fist, also clenched, hangs down. Essie seizes it and kisses it, her tears falling on it. He starts and looks at it.] Tears! The devil's baptism! [She falls on her knees, sobbing. He stoops goodnaturedly to raise her, saying] Oh yes, you may cry that way, Essie, if you like.
Act II
Minister Anderson's house is in the main street of Websterbridge, not far from the town hall. To the eye of the eighteenth century New Englander, it is much grander than the plain farmhouse of the Dudgeons; but it is so plain itself that a modern house agent would let both at about the same rent. The chief dwelling room has the same sort of kitchen fireplace, with boiler, toaster hanging on the bars, movable iron griddle socketed to the hob, hook above for roasting, and broad fender, on which stand a kettle and a plate of buttered toast. The door, between the fireplace and the corner, has neither panels, fingerplates nor handles: it is made of plain boards, and fastens with a latch. The table is a kitchen table, with a treacle colored cover of American cloth, chapped at the corners by draping. The tea service on it consists of two thick cups and saucers of the plainest ware, with milk jug and bowl to match, each large enough to contain nearly a quart, on a black japanned tray, and, in the middle of the table, a wooden trencher with a big loaf upon it, and a square half pound block of butter in a crock. The big oak press facing the fire from the opposite side of the room, is for use and storage, not for ornament; and the minister's house coat hangs on a peg from its door, showing that he is out; for when he is in it is his best coat that hangs there. His big riding boots stand beside the press, evidently in their usual place, and rather proud of themselves. In fact, the evolution of the minister's kitchen, dining room and drawing room into three separate apartments has not yet taken place; and so, from the point of view of our pampered period, he is no better off than the Dudgeons.
But there is a difference, for all that. To begin with, Mrs. Anderson is a pleasanter person to live with than Mrs. Dudgeon. To which Mrs. Dudgeon would at once reply, with reason, that Mrs. Anderson has no children to look after; no poultry, pigs nor cattle; a steady and sufficient income not directly dependent on harvests and prices at fairs; an affectionate husband who is a tower of strength to her: in short, that life is as easy at the minister's house as it is hard at the farm. This is true; but to explain a fact is not to alter it; and however little credit Mrs. Anderson may deserve for making her home happier, she has certainly succeeded in doing it. The outward and visible signs of her superior social pretensions are a drugget on the floor, a plaster ceiling between the timbers and chairs which, though not upholstered, are stained and polished. The fine arts are represented by a mezzotint portrait of some Presbyterian divine, a copperplate of Raphael's St. Paul preaching at Athens, a rococo presentation clock on the mantelshelf, flanked by a couple of miniatures, a pair of crockery dogs with baskets in their mouths, and, at the corners, two large cowrie shells. A pretty feature of the room is the low wide latticed window, nearly its whole width, with little red curtains running on a rod half way up it to serve as a blind. There is no sofa; but one of the seats, standing near the press, has a railed back and is long enough to accommodate two people easily. On the whole, it is rather the sort of room that the nineteenth century has ended in struggling to get back to under the leadership of Mr. Philip Webb and his disciples in domestic architecture, though no genteel clergyman would have tolerated it fifty years ago.
The evening has closed in; and the room is dark except for the cosy firelight and the dim oil lamps seen through the window in the wet street, where there is a quiet, steady, warm, windless downpour of rain. As the town clock strikes the quarter, Judith comes in with a couple of candles in earthenware candlesticks, and sets them on the table. Her self-conscious airs of the morning are gone: she is anxious and frightened. She goes to the window and peers into the street. The first thing she sees there is her husband, hurrying here through the rain. She gives a little gasp of relief, not very far removed from a sob, and turns to the door. Anderson comes in, wrapped in a very wet cloak.
JUDITH [running to him]
Oh, here you are at last, at last! [She attempts to embrace him.]
ANDERSON [keeping her off]
Take care, my love: I'm wet. Wait till I get my cloak off. [He places a chair with its back to the fire; hangs his cloak on it to dry; shakes the rain from his hat and puts it on the fender; and at last turns with his hands outstretched to Judith.] Now! [She flies into his arms.] I am not late, am I? The town clock struck the quarter as I came in at the front door. And the town clock is always fast.
JUDITH
I'm sure it's slow this evening. I'm so glad you're back.
ANDERSON [taking her more closely in his arms]
Anxious, my dear?
JUDITH
A little.
ANDERSON
Why, you've been crying.
JUDITH
Only a little. Never mind: it's all over now. [A bugle call is heard in the distance. She starts in terror and retreats to the long seat, listening.] What's that?
ANDERSON [following her tenderly to the seat and making her sit down with him]
Only King George, my dear. He's returning to barracks, or having his roll called, or getting ready for tea, or booting or saddling or something. Soldiers don't ring the bell or call over the banisters when they want anything: they send a boy out with a bugle to disturb the whole town.
JUDITH
Do you think there is really any danger?
ANDERSON
Not the least in the world.
JUDITH
You say that to comfort me, not because you believe it.
ANDERSON
My dear: in this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it. There's a danger that the house will catch fire in the night; but we shan't sleep any the less soundly for that.
JUDITH
Yes, I know what you always say; and you're quite right. Oh, quite right: I know it. But--I suppose I'm not brave: that's all. My heart shrinks every time I think of the soldiers.
ANDERSON
Never mind that, dear: bravery is none the worse for costing a little pain.
JUDITH
Yes, I suppose so. [Embracing him again.] Oh how brave you are, my dear! [With tears in her eyes.] Well, I'll be brave too: you shan't be ashamed of your wife.
ANDERSON
That's right. Now you make me happy. Well, well! [He rises and goes cheerily to the fire to dry his shoes.] I called on Richard Dudgeon on my way back; but he wasn't in.
JUDITH [rising in consternation]
You called on that man!
ANDERSON [reassuring her]
Oh, nothing happened, dearie. He was out.
JUDITH [almost in tears, as if the visit were a personal humiliation to her]
But why did you go there?
ANDERSON [gravely]
Well, it is all the talk that Major Swindon is going to do what he did in Springtown--make an example of some notorious rebel, as he calls us. He pounced on Peter Dudgeon as the worst character there; and it is the general belief that he will pounce on Richard as the worst here.
JUDITH
But Richard said--
ANDERSON [goodhumoredly cutting her short]
Pooh! Richard said! He said what he thought would frighten you and frighten me, my dear. He said what perhaps [God forgive him!] he would like to believe. It's a terrible thing to think of what death must mean for a man like that. I felt that I must warn him. I left a message for him.
JUDITH [querulously]
What message?
ANDERSON
Only that I should be glad to see him for a moment on a matter of importance to himself; and that if he would look in here when he was passing he would be welcome.
JUDITH [aghast]
You asked that man to come here!
ANDERSON
I did.
JUDITH [sinking on the seat and clasping her hands]
I hope he won't come! Oh, I pray that he may not come!
ANDERSON
Why? Don't you want him to be warned?
JUDITH
He must know his danger. Oh, Tony, is it wrong to hate a blasphemer and a villain? I do hate him! I can't get him out of my mind: I know he will bring harm with him. He insulted you: he insulted me: he insulted his mother.
ANDERSON [quaintly]
Well, dear, let's forgive him; and then it won't matter.
JUDITH
Oh, I know it's wrong to hate anybody; but--
ANDERSON [going over to her with humorous tenderness]
Come, dear, you're not so wicked as you think. The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity. After all, my dear, if you watch people carefully, you'll be surprised to find how like hate is to love. [She starts, strangely touched--even appalled. He is amused at her.] Yes: I'm quite in earnest. Think of how some of our married friends worry one another, tax one another, are jealous of one another, can't bear to let one another out of sight for a day, are more like jailers and slave-owners than lovers. Think of those very same people with their enemies, scrupulous, lofty, self-respecting, determined to be independent of one another, careful of how they speak of one another--pooh! haven't you often thought that if they only knew it, they were better friends to their enemies than to their own husbands and wives? Come: depend on it, my dear, you are really fonder of Richard than you are of me, if you only knew it. Eh?
JUDITH
Oh, don't say that: don't say that, Tony, even in jest. You don't know what a horrible feeling it gives me.
ANDERSON [Laughing]
Well, well: never mind, pet. He's a bad man; and you hate him as he deserves. And you're going to make the tea, aren't you?
JUDITH [remorsefully]
Oh yes, I forgot. I've been keeping you waiting all this time. [She goes to the fire and puts on the kettle.]
ANDERSON [going to the press and taking his coat off]
Have you stitched up the shoulder of my old coat?
JUDITH
Yes, dear. [She goes to the table, and sets about putting the tea into the teapot from the caddy.]
ANDERSON [as he changes his coat for the older one hanging on the press, and replaces it by the one he has just taken off]
Did anyone call when I was out?
JUDITH
No, only--[someone knocks at the door. With a start which betrays her intense nervousness, she retreats to the further end of the table with the tea caddy and spoon, in her hands, exclaiming] Who's that?
ANDERSON [going to her and patting her encouragingly on the shoulder]
All right, pet, all right. He won't eat you, whoever he is. [She tries to smile, and nearly makes herself cry. He goes to the door and opens it. Richard is there, without overcoat or cloak.] You might have raised the latch and come in, Mr. Dudgeon. Nobody stands on much ceremony with us. [Hospitably.] Come in. [Richard comes in carelessly and stands at the table, looking round the room with a slight pucker of his nose at the mezzotinted divine on the wall. Judith keeps her eyes on the tea caddy.] Is it still raining? [He shuts the door.]
RICHARD
Raining like the very [his eye catches Judith's as she looks quickly and haughtily up]--I beg your pardon; but [showing that his coat is wet] you see--!
ANDERSON
Take it off, sir; and let it hang before the fire a while: my wife will excuse your shirtsleeves. Judith: put in another spoonful of tea for Mr. Dudgeon.
RICHARD [eyeing him cynically]
The magic of property, Pastor! Are even you civil to me now that I have succeeded to my father's estate?
Judith throws down the spoon indignantly.
ANDERSON [quite unruffled, and helping Richard off with his coat]
I think, sir, that since you accept my hospitality, you cannot have so bad an opinion of it. Sit down. [With the coat in his hand, he points to the railed seat. Richard, in his shirtsleeves, looks at him half quarrelsomely for a moment; then, with a nod, acknowledges that the minister has got the better of him, and sits down on the seat. Anderson pushes his cloak into a heap on the seat of the chair at the fire, and hangs Richard's coat on the back in its place.]
RICHARD
I come, sir, on your own invitation. You left word you had something important to tell me.
ANDERSON
I have a warning which it is my duty to give you.
RICHARD [quickly rising]
You want to preach to me. Excuse me: I prefer a walk in the rain. [He makes for his coat.]
ANDERSON [stopping him]
Don't be alarmed, sir; I am no great preacher. You are quite safe. [Richard smiles in spite of himself. His glance softens: he even makes a gesture of excuse. Anderson, seeing that he has tamed him, now addresses him earnestly.] Mr. Dudgeon: you are in danger in this town.
RICHARD
What danger?
ANDERSON
Your uncle's danger. Major Swindon's gallows.
RICHARD
It is you who are in danger. I warned you--
ANDERSON [interrupting him goodhumoredly but authoritatively]
Yes, yes, Mr. Dudgeon; but they do not think so in the town. And even if I were in danger, I have duties here I must not forsake. But you are a free man. Why should you run any risk?
RICHARD
Do you think I should be any great loss, Minister?
ANDERSON
I think that a man's life is worth saving, whoever it belongs to. [Richard makes him an ironical bow. Anderson returns the bow humorously.] Come: you'll have a cup of tea, to prevent you catching cold?
RICHARD
I observe that Mrs. Anderson is not quite so pressing as you are, Pastor.
JUDITH [almost stifled with resentment, which she has been expecting her husband to share and express for her at every insult of Richard's]
You are welcome for my husband's sake. [She brings the teapot to the fireplace and sets it on the hob.]
RICHARD
I know I am not welcome for my own, madam. [He rises.] But I think I will not break bread here, Minister.
ANDERSON [cheerily]
Give me a good reason for that.
RICHARD
Because there is something in you that I respect. and that makes me desire to have you for my enemy.
ANDERSON
That's well said. On those terms, sir, I will accept your enmity or any man's. Judith: Mr. Dudgeon will stay to tea. Sit down: it will take a few minutes to draw by the fire. [Richard glances at him with a troubled face; then sits down with his head bent, to hide a convulsive swelling of his throat.] I was just saying to my wife, Mr. Dudgeon, that enmity--[she grasps his hand and looks imploringly at him, doing both with an intensity that checks him at once] Well, well, I mustn't tell you, I see; but it was nothing that need leave us worse friend-- enemies, I mean. Judith is a great enemy of yours.
RICHARD
If all my enemies were like Mrs. Anderson I should be the best Christian in America.
ANDERSON [gratified, patting her hand]
You hear that, Judith? Mr. Dudgeon knows how to turn a compliment.
The latch is lifted from without.
JUDITH [starting]
Who is that?
Christy comes in.
CHRISTY [stopping and staring at Richard]
Oh, are you here?
RICHARD
Yes. Begone, you fool: Mrs. Anderson doesn't want the whole family to tea at once.
CHRISTY [coming further in]
Mother's very ill.
RICHARD
Well, does she want to see me?
CHRISTY
No.
RICHARD
I thought not.
CHRISTY
She wants to see the minister--at once.
JUDITH [to Anderson]
Oh, not before you've had some tea.
ANDERSON
I shall enjoy it more when I come back, dear. [He is about to take up his cloak.]
CHRISTY
The rain's over.
ANDERSON [dropping the cloak and picking up his hat from the fender]
Where is your mother, Christy?
CHRISTY
At Uncle Titus's.
ANDERSON
Have you fetched the doctor?
CHRISTY
No: she didn't tell me to.
ANDEBSON
Go on there at once: I'll overtake you on his doorstep. [Christy turns to go.] Wait a moment. Your brother must be anxious to know the particulars.
RICHARD
Psha! not I: he doesn't know; and I don't care. [Violently.] Be off, you oaf. [Christy runs out. Richard adds, a little shamefacedly] We shall know soon enough.
ANDERSON
Well, perhaps you will let me bring you the news myself. Judith: will you give Mr. Dudgeon his tea, and keep him here until I return?
JUDITH [white and trembling]
Must I--
ANDERSON [taking her hands and interrupting her to cover her agitation]
My dear: I can depend on you?
JUDITH [with a piteous effort to be worthy of his trust]
Yes.
ANDERSON [pressing her hand against his cheek]
You will not mind two old people like us, Mr. Dudgeon. [Going.] I shall not say good evening: you will be here when I come back. [He goes out.]
They watch him pass the window, and then look at each other dumbly, quite
Saturday, May 9, 2009 12:08:11 PM
Good evening, my fellow citizens:
This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.
Upon receiving the first preliminary hard information of this nature last Tuesday morning at 9 A.M., I directed that our surveillance be stepped up. And having now confirmed and completed our evaluation of the evidence and our decision on a course of action, this Government feels obliged to report this new crisis to you in fullest detail.
The characteristics of these new missile sites indicate two distinct types of installations. Several of them include medium range ballistic missiles, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead for a distance of more than 1,000 nautical miles. Each of these missiles, in short, is capable of striking Washington, D. C., the Panama Canal, Cape Canaveral, Mexico City, or any other city in the southeastern part of the United States, in Central America, or in the Caribbean area.
Click photo for high resolution
Additional sites not yet completed appear to be designed for intermediate range ballistic missiles -- capable of traveling more than twice as far -- and thus capable of striking most of the major cities in the Western Hemisphere, ranging as far north as Hudson Bay, Canada, and as far south as Lima, Peru. In addition, jet bombers, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, are now being uncrated and assembled in Cuba, while the necessary air bases are being prepared.
This urgent transformation of Cuba into an important strategic base -- by the presence of these large, long-range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction -- constitutes an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas, in flagrant and deliberate defiance of the Rio Pact of 1947, the traditions of this nation and hemisphere, the joint resolution of the 87th Congress, the Charter of the United Nations, and my own public warnings to the Soviets on September 4 and 13. This action also contradicts the repeated assurances of Soviet spokesmen, both publicly and privately delivered, that the arms buildup in Cuba would retain its original defensive character, and that the Soviet Union had no need or desire to station strategic missiles. on the territory of any other nation.
The size of this undertaking makes clear that it has been planned for some months. Yet, only last month, after I had made clear the distinction between any introduction of ground-to-ground missiles and the existence of defensive antiaircraft missiles, the Soviet Government publicly stated on September 11 that, and I quote, "the armaments and military equipment sent to Cuba are designed exclusively for defensive purposes," that there is, and I quote the Soviet Government, "there is no need for the Soviet Government to shift its weapons for a retaliatory blow to any other country, for instance Cuba," and that, and I quote their government, "the Soviet Union has so powerful rockets to carry these nuclear warheads that there is no need to search for sites for them beyond the boundaries of the Soviet Union."
That statement was false.
Only last Thursday, as evidence of this rapid offensive buildup was already in my hand, Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko told me in my office that he was instructed to make it clear once again, as he said his government had already done, that Soviet assistance to Cuba, and I quote, "pursued solely the purpose of contributing to the defense capabilities of Cuba," that, and I quote him, "training by Soviet specialists of Cuban nationals in handling defensive armaments was by no means offensive, and if it were otherwise," Mr. Gromyko went on, "the Soviet Government would never become involved in rendering such assistance."
That statement also was false.
Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation's security to constitute maximum peril. Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.
For many years, both the Soviet Union and the United States, recognizing this fact, have deployed strategic nuclear weapons with great care, never upsetting the precarious status quo which insured that these weapons would not be used in the absence of some vital challenge. Our own strategic missiles have never been transferred to the territory of any other nation under a cloak of secrecy and deception; and our history -- unlike that of the Soviets since the end of World War II -- demonstrates that we have no desire to dominate or conquer any other nation or impose our system upon its people. Nevertheless, American citizens have become adjusted to living daily on the bull's-eye of Soviet missiles located inside the U.S.S.R. or in submarines.
In that sense, missiles in Cuba add to an already clear and present danger -- although it should be noted the nations of Latin America have never previously been subjected to a potential nuclear threat. But this secret, swift, extraordinary buildup of Communist missiles -- in an area well known to have a special and historical relationship to the United States and the nations of the Western Hemisphere, in violation of Soviet assurances, and in defiance of American and hemispheric policy -- this sudden, clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for the first time outside of Soviet soil -- is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country, if our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either friend or foe.
The 1930's taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to war. This nation is opposed to war. We are also true to our word. Our unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these missiles against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or elimination from the Western Hemisphere.
Our policy has been one of patience and restraint, as befits a peaceful and powerful nation which leads a worldwide alliance. We have been determined not to be diverted from our central concerns by mere irritants and fanatics. But now further action is required, and it is under way; and these actions may only be the beginning. We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth; but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.
Acting, therefore, in the defense of our own security and of the entire Western Hemisphere, and under the authority entrusted to me by the Constitution as endorsed by the Resolution of the Congress, I have directed that the following initial steps be taken immediately:
First: To halt this offensive buildup a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948.
Second: I have directed the continued and increased close surveillance of Cuba and its military buildup. The foreign ministers of the OAS [Organization of American States], in their communiqué' of October 6, rejected secrecy on such matters in this hemisphere. Should these offensive military preparations continue, thus increasing the threat to the hemisphere, further action will be justified. I have directed the Armed Forces to prepare for any eventualities; and I trust that in the interest of both the Cuban people and the Soviet technicians at the sites, the hazards to all concerned of continuing this threat will be recognized.
Third: It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.
Fourth: As a necessary military precaution, I have reinforced our base at Guantanamo, evacuated today the dependents of our personnel there, and ordered additional military units to be on a standby alert basis.
Fifth: We are calling tonight for an immediate meeting of the Organ[ization] of Consultation under the Organization of American States, to consider this threat to hemispheric security and to invoke articles 6 and 8 of the Rio Treaty in support of all necessary action. The United Nations Charter allows for regional security arrangements, and the nations of this hemisphere decided long ago against the military presence of outside powers. Our other allies around the world have also been alerted.
Sixth: Under the Charter of the United Nations, we are asking tonight that an emergency meeting of the Security Council be convoked without delay to take action against this latest Soviet threat to world peace. Our resolution will call for the prompt dismantling and withdrawal of all offensive weapons in Cuba, under the supervision of U.N. observers, before the quarantine can be lifted.
Seventh and finally: I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations. I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in an historic effort to end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man. He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction by returning to his government's own words that it had no need to station missiles outside its own territory, and withdrawing these weapons from Cuba by refraining from any action which will widen or deepen the present crisis, and then by participating in a search for peaceful and permanent solutions.
This nation is prepared to present its case against the Soviet threat to peace, and our own proposals for a peaceful world, at any time and in any forum -- in the OAS, in the United Nations, or in any other meeting that could be useful -- without limiting our freedom of action. We have in the past made strenuous efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. We have proposed the elimination of all arms and military bases in a fair and effective disarmament treaty. We are prepared to discuss new proposals for the removal of tensions on both sides, including the possibilities of a genuinely independent Cuba, free to determine its own destiny. We have no wish to war with the Soviet Union -- for we are a peaceful people who desire to live in peace with all other peoples.
But it is difficult to settle or even discuss these problems in an atmosphere of intimidation. That is why this latest Soviet threat -- or any other threat which is made either independently or in response to our actions this week-- must and will be met with determination. Any hostile move anywhere in the world against the safety and freedom of peoples to whom we are committed, including in particular the brave people of West Berlin, will be met by whatever action is needed.
Finally, I want to say a few words to the captive people of Cuba, to whom this speech is being directly carried by special radio facilities. I speak to you as a friend, as one who knows of your deep attachment to your fatherland, as one who shares your aspirations for liberty and justice for all. And I have watched and the American people have watched with deep sorrow how your nationalist revolution was betrayed -- and how your fatherland fell under foreign domination. Now your leaders are no longer Cuban leaders inspired by Cuban ideals. They are puppets and agents of an international conspiracy which has turned Cuba against your friends and neighbors in the Americas, and turned it into the first Latin American country to become a target for nuclear war -- the first Latin American country to have these weapons on its soil.
These new weapons are not in your interest. They contribute nothing to your peace and well-being. They can only undermine it. But this country has no wish to cause you to suffer or to impose any system upon you. We know that your lives and land are being used as pawns by those who deny your freedom. Many times in the past, the Cuban people have risen to throw out tyrants who destroyed their liberty. And I have no doubt that most Cubans today look forward to the time when they will be truly free -- free from foreign domination, free to choose their own leaders, free to select their own system, free to own their own land, free to speak and write and worship without fear or degradation. And then shall Cuba be welcomed back to the society of free nations and to the associations of this hemisphere.
My fellow citizens, let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can foresee precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred. Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead -- months in which both our patience and our will be tested, months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing.
The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are; but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.
Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right; not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.
Thank you and good night.
Saturday, May 9, 2009 12:02:09 PM
Madam President, Members of the General Assembly:
When Secretary General Hammarskjold’s invitation to address this General Assembly reached me in Bermuda, I was just beginning a series of conferences with the Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers of Great Britain and of France. Our subject was some of the problems that beset our world.
During the remainder of the Bermuda Conference, I had constantly in mind that ahead of me lay a great honor. That honor is mine today, as I stand here, privileged to address the General Assembly of the United Nations.
At the same time that I appreciate the distinction of addressing you, I have a sense of exhilaration as I look upon this Assembly. Never before in history has so much hope for so many people been gathered together in a single organization. Your deliberations and decisions during these somber years have already realized part of those hopes.
But the great tests and the great accomplishments still lie ahead. And in the confident expectation of those accomplishments, I would use the office which, for the time being, I hold, to assure you that the Government of the United States will remain steadfast in its support of this body. This we shall do in the conviction that you will provide a great share of the wisdom, of the courage, and the faith which can bring to this world lasting peace for all nations, and happiness and well-being for all men.
Clearly, it would not be fitting for me to take this occasion to present to you a unilateral American report on Bermuda. Nevertheless, I assure you that in our deliberations on that lovely island we sought to invoke those same great concepts of universal peace and human dignity which are so cleanly etched in your Charter. Neither would it be a measure of this great opportunity merely to recite, however hopefully, pious platitudes.
I therefore decided that this occasion warranted my saying to you some of the things that have been on the minds and hearts of my legislative and executive associates, and on mine, for a great many months -- thoughts I had originally planned to say primarily to the American people.
I know that the American people share my deep belief that if a danger exists in the world, it is a danger shared by all; and equally, that if hope exists in the mind of one nation, that hope should be shared by all.
Finally, if there is to be advanced any proposal designed to ease even by the smallest measure the tensions of today’s world, what more appropriate audience could there be than the members of the General Assembly of the United Nations. I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new, one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.
The atomic age has moved forward at such a pace that every citizen of the world should have some comprehension, at least in comparative terms, of the extent of this development, of the utmost significance to everyone of us. Clearly, if the peoples of the world are to conduct an intelligent search for peace, they must be armed with the significant facts of today’s existence.
My recital of atomic danger and power is necessarily stated in United States terms, for these are the only incontrovertible facts that I know. I need hardly point out to this Assembly, however, that this subject is global, not merely national in character.
On July 16, 1945, the United States set off the world’s first atomic explosion.
Since that date in 1945, the United States of America has conducted forty-two test explosions. Atomic bombs today are more than twenty-five times as powerful as the weapons with which the atomic age dawned, while hydrogen weapons are in the ranges of millions of tons of TNT equivalent.
Today, the United States stockpile of atomic weapons, which, of course, increases daily, exceeds by many times the total [explosive] equivalent of the total of all bombs and all shells that came from every plane and every gun in every theatre of war in all the years of World War II.
A single air group, whether afloat or land based, can now deliver to any reachable target a destructive cargo exceeding in power all the bombs that fell on Britain in all of World War II. In size and variety, the development of atomic weapons has been no less remarkable. The development has been such that atomic weapons have virtually achieved conventional status within our armed services.
In the United States, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marine Corps are all capable of putting this weapon to military use. But the dread secret and the fearful engines of atomic might are not ours alone.
In the first place, the secret is possessed by our friends and allies, Great Britain and Canada, whose scientific genius made a tremendous contribution to our original discoveries and the designs of atomic bombs.
The secret is also known by the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union has informed us that, over recent years, it has devoted extensive resources to atomic weapons. During this period the Soviet Union has exploded a series of atomic advices -- devices, including at least one involving thermo-nuclear reactions. If at one time the Unites States possessed what might have been called a monopoly of atomic power, that monopoly ceased to exist several years ago.
Therefore, although our earlier start has permitted us to accumulate what is today a great quantitative advantage, the atomic realities of today comprehend two facts of even greater significance.
First, the knowledge now possessed by several nations will eventually be shared by others, possibly all others.
Second, even a vast superiority in numbers of weapons, and a consequent capability of devastating retaliation, is no preventive, of itself, against the fearful material damage and toll of human lives that would be inflicted by surprise aggression. The free world, at least dimly aware of these facts, has naturally embarked on a large program of warning and defense systems. That program will be accelerated and expanded. But let no one think that the expenditure of vast sums for weapons and systems of defense can guarantee absolute safety for the cities and citizens of any nation. The awful arithmetic of the atomic bomb does not permit of any such easy solution. Even against the most powerful defense, an aggressor in possession of the effective minimum number of atomic bombs for a surprise attack could probably place a sufficient number of his bombs on the chosen targets to cause hideous damage.
Should such an atomic attack be launched against the United States, our reactions would be swift and resolute. But for me to say that the defense capabilities of the United States are such that they could inflict terrible losses upon an aggressor, for me to say that the retaliation capabilities of the Unites States are so great that such an aggressor’s land would be laid waste, all this, while fact, is not the true expression of the purpose and the hope of the United States.
To pause there would be to confirm the hopeless finality of a belief that two atomic colossi are doomed malevolently to eye each other indefinitely across a trembling world. To stop there would be to accept hope -- helplessly the probability of civilization destroyed, the annihilation of the irreplaceable heritage of mankind handed down to use generation from generation, and the condemnation of mankind to begin all over again the age-old struggle upward from savagery toward decency, and right, and justice. Surely no sane member of the human race could discover victory in such desolation.
Could anyone wish his name to be coupled by history with such human degradation and destruction? Occasional pages of history do record the faces of the “great destroyers,” but the whole book of history reveals mankind’s never-ending quest for peace and mankind’s God-given capacity to build.
It is with the book of history, and not with isolated pages, that the United States will ever wish to be identified. My country wants to be constructive, not destructive. It wants agreements, not wars, among nations. It wants itself to live in freedom and in the confidence that the people of every other nation enjoy equally the right of choosing their own way of life.
So my country’s purpose is to help us move out of the dark chamber of horrors into the light, to find a way by which the minds of men, the hopes of men, the souls of men everywhere, can move forward toward peace and happiness and well-being.
In this quest, I know that we must not lack patience. I know that in a world divided, such as ours today, salvation cannot be attained by one dramatic act. I know that many steps will have to be taken over many months before the world can look at itself one day and truly realize that a new climate of mutually peaceful confidence is abroad in the world. But I know, above all else, that we must start to take these steps now.
The United States and its allies, Great Britain and France, have, over the past months, tried to take some of these steps. Let no one say that we shun the conference table. On the record has long stood the request of the United States, Great Britain, and France to negotiate with the Soviet Union the problems of a divided Germany. On that record has long stood the request of the same three nations to negotiate an Austrian peace treaty. On the same record still stands the request of the United Nations to negotiate the problems of Korea.
Most recently we have received from the Soviet Union what is in effect an expression of willingness to hold a four-Power meeting. Along with our allies, Great Britain and France, we were pleased to see that his note did not contain the unacceptable pre-conditions previously put forward. As you already know from our joint Bermuda communiqué, the United States, Great Britain, and France have agreed promptly to meet with the Soviet Union.
The Government of the United States approaches this conference with hopeful sincerity. We will bend every effort of our minds to the single purpose of emerging from that conference with tangible results towards peace, the only true way of lessening international tension. We never have, we never will, propose or suggest that the Soviet Union surrender what is rightfully theirs. We will never say that the people of Russia are an enemy with whom we have no desire ever to deal or mingle in friendly and fruitful relationship.
On the contrary, we hope that this coming conference may initiate a relationship with the Soviet Union which will eventually bring about a free intermingling of the peoples of the East and of the West -- the one sure, human way of developing the understanding required for confident and peaceful relations.
Instead of the discontent which is now settling upon Eastern Germany, occupied Austria, and the countries of Eastern Europe, we seek a harmonious family of free European nations, with none a threat to the other, and least of all a threat to the peoples of the Russia. Beyond the turmoil and strife and misery of Asia, we seek peaceful opportunity for these peoples to develop their natural resources and to elevate their lives.
These are not idle words or shallow visions. Behind them lies a story of nations lately come to independence, not as a result of war, but through free grant or peaceful negotiation. There is a record already written of assistance gladly given by nations of the West to needy peoples and to those suffering the temporary effects of famine, drought, and natural disaster. These are deeds of peace. They speak more loudly than promises or protestations of peaceful intent.
But I do not wish to rest either upon the reiteration of past proposals or the restatement of past deeds. The gravity of the time is such that every new avenue of peace, no matter how dimly discernible, should be explored. There is at least one new avenue of peace which has not yet been well explored -- an avenue now laid out by the General Assembly of the Unites Nations.
In its resolution of November 18th, 1953 this General Assembly suggested -- and I quote -- “that the Disarmament Commission study the desirability of establishing a sub-committee consisting of representatives of the Powers principally involved, which should seek in private an acceptable solution and report such a solution to the General Assembly and to the Security Council not later than September 1, of 1954.”
The United States, heeding the suggestion of the General Assembly of the United Nations, is instantly prepared to meet privately with such other countries as may be “principally involved,” to seek “an acceptable solution” to the atomic armaments race which overshadows not only the peace, but the very life of the world. We shall carry into these private or diplomatic talks a new conception.
The United States would seek more than the mere reduction or elimination of atomic materials for military purposes. It is not enough to take this weapon out of the hands of the soldiers. It must be put into the hands of those who will know how to strip its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace.
The United States knows that if the fearful trend of atomic military build-up can be reversed, this greatest of destructive forces can be developed into a great boon, for the benefit of all mankind. The United States knows that peaceful power from atomic energy is no dream of the future. That capability, already proved, is here, now, today. Who can doubt, if the entire body of the world’s scientists and engineers had adequate amounts of fissionable material with which to test and develop their ideas, that this capability would rapidly be transformed into universal, efficient, and economic usage?
To hasten the day when fear of the atom will begin to disappear from the minds of people and the governments of the East and West, there are certain steps that can be taken now. I therefore make the following proposals:
The governments principally involved, to the extent permitted by elementary prudence, to begin now and continue to make joint contributions from their stockpiles of normal uranium and fissionable materials to an international atomic energy agency. We would expect that such an agency would be set up under the aegis of the United Nations.
The ratios of contributions, the procedures, and other details would properly be within the scope of the “private conversations” I have referred to earlier.
The United States is prepared to undertake these explorations in good faith. Any partner of the United States acting in the same good faith will find the United States a not unreasonable or ungenerous associate.
Undoubtedly, initial and early contributions to this plan would be small in quantity. However, the proposal has the great virtue that it can be undertaken without the irritations and mutual suspicions incident to any attempt to set up a completely acceptable system of world-wide inspection and control.
The atomic energy agency could be made responsible for the impounding, storage, and protection of the contributed fissionable and other materials. The ingenuity of our scientists will provide special, safe conditions under which such a bank of fissionable material can be made essentially immune to surprise seizure.
The more important responsibility of this atomic energy agency would be to devise methods whereby this fissionable material would be allocated to serve the peaceful pursuits of mankind. Experts would be mobilized to apply atomic energy to the needs of agriculture, medicine, and other peaceful activities. A special purpose would be to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world. Thus the contributing Powers would be dedicating some of their strength to serve the needs rather than the fears of mankind.
The United States would be more than willing -- it would be proud to take up with others “principally involved” the development of plans whereby such peaceful use of atomic energy would be expedited.
Of those “principally involved” the Soviet Union must, of course, be one. I would be prepared to submit to the Congress of the United States, and with every expectation of approval, any such plan that would, first, encourage world-wide investigation into the most effective peacetime uses of fissionable material, and with the certainty that they [the investigators] had all the material needed for the conduct of all experiments that were appropriate; second, begin to diminish the potential destructive power of the world’s atomic stockpiles; third, allow all peoples of all nations to see that, in this enlightened age, the great Powers of the earth, both of the East and of the West, are interested in human aspirations first rather than in building up the armaments of war; fourth, open up a new channel for peaceful discussion and initiate at least a new approach to the many difficult problems that must be solved in both private and public conversations, if the world is to shake off the inertia imposed by fear and is to make positive progress toward peace.
Against the dark background of the atomic bomb, the United States does not wish merely to present strength, but also the desire and the hope for peace.
The coming months will be fraught with fateful decisions. In this Assembly, in the capitals and military headquarters of the world, in the hearts of men everywhere, be they governed or governors, may they be the decisions which will lead this world out of fear and into peace.
To the making of these fateful decisions, the United States pledges before you, and therefore before the world, its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma -- to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.
I again thank the delegates for the great honor they have done me in inviting me to appear before them and in listening me -- to me so courteously.
Thank you.
My Opera
