Note: The words in red are added in as they include an important speech by Hale and it is necessary to closely analyse the words he uses.
Proctor stands there, gulping air. Horses and a wagon creak-ing are heard.
Hale, in great uncertainty: Mr. Proctor –
Proctor: Out of my sight!
Hale: Charity, Proctor, charity. What I have heard in her favor, I will not fear to testify in court. God help me, I cannot judge her guilty or innocent – I know not. Only this consider: the world goes mad, and it profit nothing you should lay the cause to the vengeance of a little girl.
Proctor: You are a coward! Though you be ordained in God’s own tears, you are a coward now!
Hale: Proctor, I cannot think God be provoked so grandly by such a petty cause. The jails are packed – our greatest judges sit in Salem now – and hangin’s promised. Man, we must look to cause proportionate. Were there murder done, perhaps, and never brought to light? Abomination? Some secret blasphemy that stinks to Heaven? Think on cause, man, and let you help me to discover it. For there’s your way, believe it, there is your only way, when such confusion strikes upon the world. He goes to Giles and Francis. Let you counsel among yourselves; think on your village and what may have drawn from heaven such thundering wrath upon you all. I shall pray God open up our eyes.
Hale goes out.
Francis, struck by Hate’s mood: I never heard no murder done in Salem.
Proctor – he has been reached by Hale’s words: Leave me, Francis, leave me.
Giles, shaken: John – tell me, are we lost?
Proctor: Go home now, Giles, We’ll speak on it tomorrow.
Giles: Let you think on it. We’ll come early, eh?
Proctor: Aye. Go now, Giles.
Giles: Good night, then.
Giles Corey goes out. After a moment:
Mary Warren, in a fearful squeak of a voice: Mr. Proctor, very likely they’ll let her come home once they’re given proper evidence.
Proctor: You’re coming to the court with me, Mary. You will tell it in the court.
Mary Warren: I cannot charge murder on Abigail.
Proctor, moving menacingly toward her: You will tell the court how that poppet come here and who stuck the needle in.
Mary Warren: She’ll kill me for sayin’ that! Proctor continues toward her. Abby’ll charge lechery on you, Mr. Proctor!
Proctor, halting: She’s told you!
Mary Warren: I have known it, sir. She’ll ruin you with it, I know she will.
Proctor, hesitating, and with deep hatred of himself: Good. Then her saintliness is done with. Mary backs from him. We will slide together into our pit; you will tell the court what you know.
Mary Warren, in terror: I cannot, they’ll turn on me –
Proctor strides and catches her, and she is repeating, “I cannot, I cannot!”
Proctor: My wife will never die for me! I will bring your guts into your mouth but that goodness will not die for me!
Mary Warren, struggling to escape him: I cannot do it, I cannot!
Proctor, grasping her by the throat as though he would strangle her: Make your peace with it! Now Hell and Heaven grapple on our backs, and all our old pretense is ripped away – make your peace! He throws her to the poor, where she sobs, "I cannot, I cannot...” And now, half to himself, staring, and turning to the open door: Peace. It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now. He walks as though toward a great horror, facing the open sky. Aye, naked! And the wind, God’s icy wind, will blow!
And she is over and over again sobbing, “I cannot, I cannot, l cannot,” as
THE CURTAIN FALLS