Long Day's Journey Into Night Page #11

But it's just a summer cold.

James!

- I'm so frightened! I know he's gonna die.

- Don't say that it's not true.

- They promised me in six months he'd be cured.

- You don't believe that. I can tell when you're acting. It'll be all my fault.

I should never have born him.

It would've been better for his sake. I couldn't have hurt him then.

He wouldn't have had to know his mother was a dope fiend.

Hush Mary. For the love of God. He loves you.

He knows it was a curse put upon you without you knowing or willing it.

He's proud you're his mother.

Hush now, here comes Cathleen, you don't want her to see you crying.

Dinner is served sir.

Dinner is served ma'am.

Come along dear.

Let's have our dinner.

I'm as hungry as a hunter.

I couldn't... possibly eat anything James.

I think you'll have to excuse me.

My...my hands... pain me dreadfully.

I think the best thing for me is to go to bed... and rest.

Goodnight dear.

Up to take more of that God damn poison is it?

You'll be like a mad ghost before the night is over.

I don't know what you're talking about.

You say such mean bitter things when you've had too much to drink.

You're as bad as Jamie or Edmund.

Who's that?

- Is it you Edmund?

- Yes.

Turn that light out before you come in.

Well I'm glad you've come lad I've been damn lonely.

You're a fine one to run away and leave me

to sit alone here all night when you know...

I've told you to turn out that light.

We're not giving a ball.

There's no reason to have the house ablaze with electricity

at this time of night burning up money.

"ablaze with electricity", one bulb!

Hell everyone leaves a light on in the front porch until they go to bed.

Ended up busting my knee on the hatstand.

The light from here shows in the hall.

You could see a way well enough if you were sober.

- If "I" were sober, I like that.

- I don't give a damn what other people do. If they want to be wasteful fools

- for the sake of show let them be.

- One bulb! God don't be such a cheapskate.

I've proved to you by figures you can leave the light bulb

all night on all night it wouldn't be as much as one drink.

- To hell with your figures! The proof is in the bills I have to pay.

- Yes, facts don't mean a thing do they?

What you want to believe, that's the only truth.

- Shakespeare was an irish catholic for example.

- So he was. The proof was in his plays.

Well he wasn't and there is no proof of it in his plays except to you.

- The Duke of Wellington that was another good irish catholic.

I never said he was a good one, he was a renegade but a catholic just the same.

Well he wasn't, you just want to believe that nobody

but an irish catholic general could beat Napoleon.

Yes, now I'm not going to argue with you.

I asked you to turn out that light in the hall.

- I heard you and as far as I'm concerned it stays on.

- None of your damned insolence. Are you going to obey me or not?

Not!

- You want to be a crazy miser, put it out yourself.

- Now you listen to me. I put up with a lot from you because from the mad things

you've done at times I thought you weren't quite right in your head.

I've excused you and never lifted my hand to you

but there's a straw that breaks the camel's back.

You'll obey me and put out that light or big as you

are I'll give you a trashing that will teach you...

I'm sorry lad, forgive me I forgot.

You shouldn't goat me into losing my temper.

Forget it Papa, I apologize too.

I had no right being nasty about nothing.

I'm a bit souse I guess.

- I'll put out the damn light.

- No. No. No. Stay where you are. Let it burn.

We'll have them all on.

Let them burn.

To hell with them.

The poor house is the end of the road it might as well be sooner as later.

- That's a grand curtain. You're a wonder Papa.

- That's right, laugh at the poor old man. The poor old ham.

But the final curtain will be in the poor house just he same.

And that's not comedy.

Well, well let's not argue. You'll live to learn the value of a dollar.

You're not like that damned tramp of a brother.

I've given up hope he'll ever get sense.

Where is he, by the way?

- How would I know?

- I thought you went back uptown to meet him.

- No I walked down by the beach. I haven't seen him since this afternoon.

- Well if you shared the money I gave you like a fool...

- Sure I did. He always staked me when he had anything.

- Well it doesn't take a soothsayer to tell he's probably in the whorehouse.

- For God's sake Papa. If you're gonna start that stuff again I'll beat it.

- All right. All right. I'll stop. God knows I don't like the subject either.

- Will you join me in a drink?

- Now you're talking!

I'm wrong to treat you, you've had enough already but if you walked

all the way to the beach you must be damp and chilled.

- I dropped in at the inn on the way out and back.

- Not the night I'd pick for a long walk.

- I love the fog.

- It was what I needed.

- You should have more sense than to risck...

To hell with sense!

The fog was where I wanted to be.

Halfway down the path you can't see this house.

You'd never even know it was here.

Everything looked and sounded unreal.

It was like... walking on the bottom of the sea.

As if I'd drowned long ago.

As if I was a ghost, belonging to the fog.

And the fog was the ghost of the sea.

It felt damn peaceful to nothing more than a ghost within a ghost.

Don't look at me as if I'd gone nutty.

Who wants to se life as it is if they can help it?

You've a poet in you but it's a damn morbid one.

Devil take your pessimism!

I'm low spirited enough.

Why can't you remember your Shakespeare?

You'll find what you were trying to say in him.

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on

and our little life is rounded with a sleep"

Fine.

That's beautiful but I wasn't trying to say that.

We are such stuff as manure is made on so

let's drink up and forget it, that's more my idea.

Keep such sentiments to yourself.

I shouldn't have given you that drink.

It did pack a whallop all right.

On you too.

Even if you never missed a performance.

What's wrong with being drunk?

It's what were after isn't it?

"Be always drunken

Nothing else matters

That is the only question"

"If you would not feel the horrible burden of time

weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth"

"Be drunken continually"

"Be drunken with what?

With wine, with poetry or virtue as you will"

"But be drunken

And if sometimes on the stairs of a palace"

"Or on the green side of a ditch

Or in the dreary solitude of your own room"

"You should awaken

And the drunkenness be half of wholly slipped away from you"

"Ask of the wind or of the wave or of the star or of the bird or of the clock

Of whatever flies or sighs or rocks or sings or speaks"

"Ask what hour it is

And the wind, the wave, star, bird, clock will answer you"

"It is the hour to be drunken

Be drunken continually"

"With wine, with poetry or with virtue

As you will"

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