Long Day's Journey into Night (Yale Nota Bene) Read Online Free PDF Page B

too, Jamie. It wasn’t until after Edmund was born that I had a single grey hair. Then it began to turn white.
    The girlishness fades from her face.
TYRONE
    Quickly.
    And that made it prettier than ever.
MARY
    Again embarrassed and pleased.
    Will you listen to your father, Jamie—after thirty-five years of marriage! He isn’t a great actor for nothing, is he? What’s come over you, James? Are you pouring coals of fire on my head for teasing you about snoring? Well then, I take it all back. It must have been only the foghorn I heard.
    She laughs, and they laugh with her. Then she changes to a brisk businesslike air.
    But I can’t stay with you any longer, even to hear compliments. I must see the cook about dinner and the day’s marketing.
    She gets up and sighs with humorous exaggeration.
    Bridget is so lazy. And so sly. She begins telling me about her relatives so I can’t get a word in edgeways and scold her. Well, I might as well get it over.
    She goes to the back-parlor doorway, then turns, her face worried again.
    You musn’t make Edmund work on the grounds with you, James, remember.
    Again with the strange obstinate set to her face.
    Not that he isn’t strong enough, but he’d perspire and he might catch more cold.
    She disappears through the back parlor. Tyrone turns on Jamie condemningly.
TYRONE
    You’re a fine lunkhead! Haven’t you any sense? The one thing to avoid is saying anything that would get her more upset over Edmund.
JAMIE
    Shrugging his shoulders.
    All right. Have it your way. I think it’s the wrong idea to let Mama go on kidding herself. It will only make the shock worse when she has to face it. Anyway, you can see she’s deliberately fooling herself with that summer cold talk. She knows better.
TYRONE
    Knows? Nobody knows yet.
JAMIE
    Well, I do. I was with Edmund when he went to Doc Hardy on Monday. I heard him pull that touch of malaria stuff. He was stalling. That isn’t what he thinks any more. You know it as well as I do. You talked to him when you went uptown yesterday, didn’t you?
TYRONE
    He couldn’t say anything for sure yet. He’s to phone me today before Edmund goes to him.
JAMIE
    Slowly.
    He thinks it’s consumption, doesn’t he, Papa?
TYRONE
    Reluctantly.
    He said it might be.
JAMIE
    Moved, his love for his brother coming out.
    Poor kid! God damn it!
    He turns on his father accusingly.
    It might never have happened if you’d sent him to a real doctor when he first got sick.
TYRONE
    What’s the matter with Hardy? He’s always been our doctor up here.
JAMIE
    Everything’s the matter with him! Even in this hick burg he’s rated third class! He’s a cheap old quack!
TYRONE
    That’s right! Run him down! Run down everybody! Everyone is a fake to you!
JAMIE
    Contemptuously.
    Hardy only charges a dollar. That’s what makes you think he’s a fine doctor!
TYRONE
    Stung.
    That’s enough! You’re not drunk now! There’s no excuse—
    He controls himself—a bit defensively.
    If you mean I can’t afford one of the fine society doctors who prey on the rich summer people—
JAMIE
    Can’t afford? You’re one of the biggest property owners around here.
TYRONE
    That doesn’t mean I’m rich. It’s all mortgaged—
JAMIE
    Because you always buy more instead of paying off mortgages. If Edmund was a lousy acre of land you wanted, the sky would be the limit!
TYRONE
    That’s a lie! And your sneers against Doctor Hardy are lies! He doesn’t put on frills, or have an office in a fashionable location, or drive around in an expensive automobile. That’s what you pay for with those other five-dollars-to-look-at-your-tongue fellows, not their skill.
JAMIE
    With a scornful shrug of his shoulders.
    Oh, all right. I’m a fool to argue. You can’t change the leopard’s spots.
TYRONE
    With rising anger.
    No, you can’t. You’ve taught me that lesson only too well. I’ve lost all hope you will ever change yours. You dare tell me what I can afford? You’ve never known the value of