University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

—Corey's kitchen. A table with supper. Martha knitting.
MARTHA.
He 's come at last. I hear him in the passage.
Something has gone amiss with him to-day;
I know it by his step, and by the sound
The door made as he shut it. He is angry.

Enter Corey with his riding-whip. As he speaks he takes off his hat and gloves, and throws them down violently.
COREY.
I say if Satan ever entered man
He 's in John Proctor!

MARTHA.
Giles, what is the matter?
You frighten me.

COREY.
I say if any man
Can have a Devil in him, then that man
Is Proctor,—is John Proctor, and no other!

MARTHA.
Why, what has he been doing?

COREY.
Everything!
What do you think I heard there in the village?

MARTHA.
I'm sure I cannot guess. What did you hear?

COREY.
He says I burned his house!

MARTHA.
Does he say that?

COREY.
He says I burned his house. I was in bed
And fast asleep that night; and I can prove it.

MARTHA.
If he says that, I think the Father of Lies
Is surely in the man.

COREY.
He does say that,
And that I did it to wreak vengeance on him
For taking sides against me in the quarrel
I had with that John Gloyd about his wages.
And God knows that I never bore him malice
For that, as I have told him twenty times!

MARTHA.
It is John Gloyd has stirred him up to this.
I do not like that Gloyd. I think him crafty,
Not to be trusted, sullen, and untruthful.
Come, have your supper. You are tired and hungry.

COREY.
I'm angry, and not hungry.

MARTHA.
Do eat something.
You'll be the better for it.

COREY
(sitting down).
I'm not hungry.

MARTHA.
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.

COREY.
It has gone down upon it, and will rise
To-morrow, and go down again upon it.
They have trumped up against me the old story
Of causing Goodell's death by trampling on him.

MARTHA.
Oh, that is false. I know it to be false.

COREY.
He has been dead these fourteen years or more.
Why can't they let him rest? Why must they drag him
Out of his grave to give me a bad name?
I did not kill him. In his bed he died,
As most men die, because his hour had come.
I have wronged no man. Why should Proctor say
Such things about me? I will not forgive him
Till he confesses he has slandered me.
Then, I've more trouble. All my cattle gone.

MARTHA.
They will come back again.

COREY.
Not in this world.
Did I not tell you they were overlooked?
They ran down through the woods, into the meadows,
And tried to swim the river, and were drowned.
It is a heavy loss.

MARTHA.
I'm sorry for it.

COREY.
All my dear oxen dead. I loved them, Martha,
Next to yourself. I liked to look at them,
And watch the breath come out of their wide nostrils,
And see their patient eyes. Somehow I thought
It gave me strength only to look at them.
And how they strained their necks against the yoke
If I but spoke, or touched them with the goad!
They were my friends; and when Gloyd came and told me
They were all drowned, I could have drowned myself
From sheer vexation; and I said as much
To Gloyd and others.

MARTHA.
Do not trust John Gloyd
With anything you would not have repeated.

COREY.
As I came through the woods this afternoon,
Impatient at my loss, and much perplexed
With all that I had heard there in the village,
The yellow leaves lit up the trees about me
Like an enchanted palace, and I wished
I knew enough of magic or of Witchcraft
To change them into gold. Then suddenly
A tree shook down some crimson leaves upon me,
Like drops of blood, and in the path before me
Stood Tituba the Indian, the old crone.

MARTHA.
Were you not frightened?

COREY.
No, I do not think
I know the meaning of that word. Why frightened?
I am not one of those who think the Lord
Is waiting till He catches them some day
In the back yard alone! What should I fear?
She started from the bushes by the path,
And had a basket full of herbs and roots
For some witch-broth or other,—the old hag!

MARTHA.
She has been her to-day.

COREY.
With hand outstretched
She said: “Giles Corey, will you sign the Book?”
“Avaunt!” I cried: “Get thee behind me, Satan!”
At which she laughed and left me. But a voice
Was whispering in my ear continually:
“Self-murder is no crime. The life of man
Is his, to keep it or to throw away!”

MARTHA.
'T was a temptation of the Evil One!
Giles, Giles! why will you harbor these dark thoughts?

COREY
(rising).
I am too tired to talk. I'll go to bed.

MARTHA.
First tell me something about Bridget Bishop.
How did she look? You saw her? You were there?

COREY.
I'll tell you that to-morrow, not to-night.
I'll go to bed.

MARTHA.
First let us pray together.

COREY.
I cannot pray to-night.

MARTHA.
Say the Lord's Prayer,
And that will comfort you.

COREY.
I cannot say,
“As we forgive those that have sinned against us,”
When I do not forgive them.

MARTHA
(kneeling on the hearth).
God forgive you!

COREY.
I will not make believe! I say, to-night
There 's something thwarts me when I wish to pray,
And thrusts into my mind, instead of prayers,
Hate and revenge, and things that are not prayers,
Something of my old self,—my old, bad life,—
And the old Adam in me, rises up,
And will not let me pray. I am afraid
The Devil hinders me. You know I say
Just what I think, and nothing more nor less,
And, when I pray, my heart is in my prayer.
I cannot say one thing and mean another.
If I can't pray, I will not make believe!

[Exit Corey. Martha continues kneeling.