ACT TWO
The common room of Proctor’s house, eight days later.
At the right is a door opening on the fields outside. A fireplace is at the left, and behind it a stairway leading upstairs. It is the low, dark, and rather long living room of the time. As the curtain rises, the room is empty. From above, Elizabeth is heard softly singing to the children. Presently the door opens and John Proctor enters, carrying his gun. He glances about the room as he comes toward the fireplace, then halts for an instant as he hears her singing. He continues on to the fireplace, leans the gun against the wall as he swings a pot out of the fire and smells it. Then he lifts out the ladle and tastes. He is not quite pleased. He reaches to a cupboard, takes a pinch of salt, and drops it into the pot. As he is tasting again, her footsteps are heard on the stair. He swings the pot into the fireplace and goes to a basin and washes his hands and face, Elizabeth enters.
Elizabeth: What keeps you so late? It’s almost dark.
Proctor: I were planting far out to the forest edge.
Elizabeth: Oh, you’re done then.
Proctor: Aye, the farm is seeded. The boys asleep?
Elizabeth: They will be soon. And she goes to the fireplace, proceeds to ladle up stew in a dish.
Proctor: Pray now for a fair summer.
Elizabeth: Aye.
Proctor: Are you well today?
Elizabeth: I am. She brings the plate to the table, and, indicating the food: It is a rabbit.
Proctor, going to the table: Oh, is it! In Jonathan’s trap?
Elizabeth: No, she walked into the house this afternoon; I found her sittin’ in the corner like she come to visit.
Proctor: Oh, that’s a good sign walkin’ in.
Elizabeth: Pray God. It hurt my heart to strip her, poor rabbit. She sits and watches him taste it.
Proctor: It’s well seasoned.
Elizabeth, blushing with pleasure: I took great care. She’s tender?
Proctor: Aye. He eats. She watches him. I think we’ll see green fields soon. It’s warm as blood beneath the clods.
Elizabeth: That’s well.
Proctor eats, then looks up.
Proctor: If the crop is good I’ll buy George Jacob’s heifer. How would that please you?
Elizabeth: Aye, it would.
Proctor, with a grin: I mean to please you, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, it is hard to say: I know it, John.
He gets up, goes to her, kisses her. She receives it. With a certain disappointment, he returns to the table.
Proctor, as gently as he can: Cider?
Elizabeth, with a sense of reprimanding herself for having forgot: Aye! She gets up and goes and pours a glass for him. He now arches his back.
Proctor: This farm’s a continent when you go foot by foot droppin’ seeds in it.
Elizabeth, coming with the cider: It must be.
Proctor, drinks a long draught, then, putting the glass down: You ought to bring some flowers in the house.
Elizabeth: Oh! I forgot! I will tomorrow.
Proctor: It’s winter in here yet. On Sunday let you come with me, and we’ll walk the farm together; I never see such a load of flowers on the earth. With good feeling he goes and looks up at the sky through the open doorway. Lilacs have a purple smell. Lilac is the smell of nightfall, I think. Massachusetts is a beauty in the spring!
Elizabeth: Aye, it is.
There is a pause. She is watching him from the table as he stands there absorbing the night. It is as though she would speak but cannot. Instead, now, she takes up his plate and glass and fork and goes with them to the basin. Her back is turned to him. He turns to her and watches her. A sense of their separation rises.
Proctor: I think you’re sad again. Are you?
Elizabeth, she doesn’t want friction, and yet she must: You come so late I thought you’d gone to Salem this afternoon.
Proctor: Why? I have no business in Salem.
Elizabeth: You did speak of going, earlier this week.
Proctor – he knows what she means: I thought better of it since.
Elizabeth: Mary Warren’s there today.
Proctor: Why’d you let her? You heard me forbid her go to Salem any morel
Elizabeth: I couldn’t stop her.
Proctor, holding back a full condemnation of her: It is a fault, it is a fault, Elizabeth – you’re the mistress here, not Mary Warren.
Elizabeth: She frightened all my strength away.
Proctor: How may that mouse frighten you, Elizabeth? You –
Elizabeth: It is a mouse no more. I forbid her go, and she raises up her chin like the daughter of a prince and lays to me, “I must go to Salem, Goody Proctor; I am an official of the court!”
Proctor: Court! What court?
Elizabeth: Aye, it is a proper court they have now. They’ve sent four judges out of Boston, she says, weighty magistrates of the General Court, and at the head sits the Deputy Governor of the Province.
Proctor, astonished: Why, she’s mad.
Elizabeth: I would to God she were. There be fourteen people in the jail now, she says. Proctor simply looks at her, unable to grasp it. And they’ll be tried, and the court have power to hang them too, she says.
Proctor, scoffing, but without conviction: Ah, they’d never hang –
Elizabeth: The Deputy Governor promise hangin’ if they’ll not confess, John. The town’s gone wild, I think. She speak of Abigail, and I thought she were a saint, to hear her. Abigail brings the other girls into the court, and where she walks the crowd will part like the sea for Israel. And folks are brought before them, and if they scream and howl and fall to the floor – the person’s clapped in the jail for bewitchin’ them.
Proctor, wide-eyed: Oh, it is a black mischief.
Elizabeth: I think you must go to Salem, John. He turns to her. I think so. You must tell them it is a fraud.
Proctor, thinking beyond this: Aye, it is, it is surely.
Elizabeth: Let you go to Ezekiel Cheever – he knows you well. And tell him what she said to you last week in her uncle’s house. She said it had naught to do with witchcraft, did she not?
Proctor, in thought: Aye, she did, she did. Now a pause.
Elizabeth, quietly, fearing to anger him by prodding: God forbid you keep that from the court, John. I think they must be told.
Proctor, quietly, struggling with his thought: Aye, they must, they must. It is a wonder they do believe her.
Elizabeth: I would go to Salem now, John – let you go tonight.
Proctor: I’ll think on it.
Elizabeth, with her courage now: You cannot keep it, John,
Proctor, angering: I know I cannot keep it. I say I will think on it!
Elizabeth, hurt, and very coldly: Good, then, let you think on it. She stands and starts to walk out of the room.
Proctor: I am only wondering how I may prove what she told me, Elizabeth. If the girl’s a saint now, I think it is not easy to prove she’s fraud, and the town gone so silly. She told it to me in a room alone – I have no proof for it.
Elizabeth: You were alone with her?
Proctor, stubbornly: For a moment alone, aye.
Elizabeth: Why, then, it is not as you told me.
Proctor, his anger rising: For a moment, I say. The others come in soon after.
Elizabeth, quietly – she has suddenly lost all faith in him: Do as you wish, then. She starts to turn.
Proctor: Woman. She turns to him. I’ll not have your suspicion any more.
Elizabeth, a little loftily: I have no –
Proctor: I’ll not have it!
Elizabeth: Then let you not earn it.
Proctor, with a violent undertone: You doubt me yet?
Elizabeth, with a smile, to keep her dignity: John, if it were not Abigail that you must go to hurt, would you falter now? I think not.
Proctor: Now look you –
Elizabeth: I see what I see, John.
Proctor, with solemn warning: You will not judge me more, Elizabeth. I have good reason to think before I charge fraud on Abigail, and I will think on it. Let you look to your own im–provement before you go to judge your husband any more. I have forgot Abigail, and –
Elizabeth: And I.
Proctor: Spare me! You forget nothin’ and forgive nothin’. Learn charity, woman. I have gone tiptoe in this house all seven month since she is gone. I have not moved from there to there without I think to please you, and still an everlasting funeral marches round your heart. I cannot speak but I am doubted, every moment judged for lies, as though I come into a court when I come into this house!
Elizabeth: John, you are not open with me. You saw her with a crowd, you said. Now you –
Proctor: I’ll plead my honesty no more, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, now she would justify herself: John, I am only –
Proctor: No more! I should have roared you down when first you told me your suspicion. But I wilted, and, like a Christian, I confessed. Confessed! Some dream I had must have mistaken you for God that day. But you’re not, you’re not, and let you remember it! Let you look sometimes for the goodness in me, and judge me not.
Elizabeth: I do not judge you. The magistrate sits in your heart that judges you. I never thought you but a good man, John – with a smile – only somewhat bewildered.