 | Uncle Tom's Cabin |  |
SCENE I
[Description: 916EAF. Page 077.]
Plain Chamber. Enter Eliza, meeting George.
Ah! George, is it you? Well, I am so glad you've come. (George
regards her mournfully.)
Why don't you smile, and ask after Harry?
GEORGE:
(Bitterly.)
I wish he'd never been born! I wish I'd never been born
myself!
ELIZA:
(Sinking her head upon his breast and weeping.)
Oh George!
GEORGE:
There now, Eliza, it's too bad for me to make you feel so. Oh! how I
wish you had never seen me—you might have been happy!
ELIZA:
George! George! how can you talk so? What dreadful thing has hap-
pened, or is going to happen? I'm sure we've been very happy till lately.
GEORGE:
So we have, dear. But oh! I wish I'd never seen you, nor you me.
ELIZA:
Oh, George! how can you?
GEORGE:
Yes, Eliza, it's all misery! misery! The very life is burning out of
me! I'm a poor, miserable, forlorn drudge! I shall only drag you down with me,
that's all! What's the use of our trying to do anything—trying to know
anything—trying to be anything? I wish I was dead!
ELIZA:
Oh! now, dear George, that is really wicked. I know how you feel
about losing your place in the factory, and you have a hard master; but pray be
patient—
GEORGE:
Patient! Haven't I been patient? Did I say a word when he came
and took me away—for no earthly reason—from the place where everybody
was kind to me? I'd paid him truly every cent of my earnings, and they all say I
worked well.
ELIZA:
Well, it is dreadful; but, after all, he is your master, you know.
GEORGE:
My master! And who made him my master? That's what I think
of. What right has he to me? I'm as much a man as he is. What right has he to
make a dray-horse of me?—to take me from things I can do better than he can,
and put me to work that any horse can do? He tries to do it; he says he'll bring
me down and humble me, and he puts me to just the hardest, meanest and dir-
tiest work, on purpose.
ELIZA:
Oh, George! George! you frighten me. Why, I never heard you talk
so. I'm afraid you'll do something dreadful. I don't wonder at your feelings at
[Description: 916EAF. Page 078.]
GEORGE:
I have been careful, and I have been patient, but it's growing
worse and worse—flesh and blood can't bear it any longer. Every chance he can
get to insult and torment me he takes. He says that though I don't say anything,
he sees that I've got the devil in me, and he means to bring it out; and one of
these days it will come out, in a way that he won't like, or I'm mistaken.
ELIZA:
Well, I always thought that I must obey my master and mistress, or
I couldn't be a Christian.
GEORGE:
There is some sense in it in your case. They have brought you up
like a child—fed you, clothed you and taught you, so that you have a good
education—that is some reason why they should claim you. But I have been
kicked and cuffed and sworn at, and what do I owe? I've paid for all my keeping
a hundred times over. I won't bear it!—no, I won't! Master will find out that
I'm one whipping won't tame. My day will come yet, if he don't look out!
ELIZA:
What are you going to do? Oh! George, don't do anything wicked;
if you only trust in heaven and try to do right, it will deliver you.
GEORGE:
Eliza, my heart's full of bitterness. I can't trust in heaven. Why
does it let things be so?
ELIZA:
Oh, George! we must all have faith. Mistress says that when all
things go wrong to us, we must believe that heaven is doing the very best.
GEORGE:
That's easy for people to say who are sitting on their sofas and
riding in their carriages; but let them be where I am—I guess it would come
some harder. I wish I could be good; but my heart burns and can't be reconcil-
ed. You couldn't, in my place, you can't now, if I tell you all I've got to say; you
don't know the whole yet.
ELIZA:
What do you mean?
GEORGE:
Well, lately my master has been saying that he was a fool to let me
marry off the place—that he hates Mr. Shelby and all his tribe—and he says he
won't let me come here any more, and that I shall take a wife and settle down on
his place.
ELIZA:
But you were married to me by the minister, as much as if you had
been a white man.
GEORGE:
Don't you know I can't hold you for my wife if he chooses to part
us? That is why I wish I'd never seen you—it would have been better for us
both—it would have been better for our poor child if he had never been born.
ELIZA:
Oh! but my master is so kind.
GEORGE:
Yes, but who knows?—he may die, and then Harry may be sold
to nobody knows who. What pleasure is it that he is handsome and smart and
bright? I tell you, Eliza, that a sword will pierce through your soul for every
good and pleasant thing your child is or has. It will make him worth too much
for you to keep.
ELIZA:
Heaven forbid!
GEORGE:
So, Eliza, my girl, bear up now, and good by, for I'm going.
ELIZA:
Going, George! Going where?
GEORGE:
To Canada; and when I'm there I'll buy you—that's all the hope
that's left us. You have a kind master, that won't refuse to sell you. I'll buy you
and the boy—heaven helping me, I will!
ELIZA:
Oh, dreadful! If you should be taken?
GEORGE:
I won't be taken, Eliza—I'll die first! I'll be free, or I'll die.
ELIZA:
You will not kill yourself?
[Description: 916EAF. Page 079.]
No need of that; they will kill me, fast enough. I will never go
down the river alive.
ELIZA:
Oh, George! for my sake, do be careful. Don't lay hands on
yourself, or anybody else. You are tempted too much, but don't. Go, if you
must, but go carefully, prudently, and pray heaven to help you!
GEORGE:
Well, then Eliza, hear my plan. I'm going home quite resigned,
you understand, as if all was over. I've got some preparations made, and there
are those that will help me; and in the course of a few days I shall be among the
missing. Well, now, good by.
ELIZA:
A moment—our boy.
GEORGE:
(Choked with emotion.)
True, I had forgotten him; one last look,
and then farewell!
ELIZA:
And heaven grant it be not forever! (Exeunt.)
| Uncle Tom's Cabin | |