The Crucible (12 page)

HALE: Theology, sir, is a fortress; no crack in a fortress may be accounted small.
He rises; he seems worried now. He paces a little, in deep thought.

PROCTOR: There be no love for Satan in this house, Mister.

HALE: I pray it, I pray it dearly.
He looks to both of them, an attempt at a smile on his face, but his misgivings are clear.
Well, then—I’ll bid you good night.

ELIZABETH,
unable to restrain herself:
Mr. Hale.
He turns.
I do think you are suspecting me somewhat? Are you not?

HALE,
obviously disturbed—and evasive:
Goody Proctor, I do not judge you. My duty is to add what I may to the godly wisdom of the court. I pray you both good health and good fortune.
To John:
Good night, sir.
He starts out.

ELIZABETH,
with a note of desperation:
I think you must tell him, John.

HALE: What’s that?

ELIZABETH,
restraining a call:
Will you tell him?

PROCTOR,
with difficulty:
I—I have no witness and cannot prove it, except my word be taken. But I know the children’s sickness had naught to do with witchcraft.

HALE,
stopped, struck:
Naught to do—?

PROCTOR: Mr. Parris discovered them sportin’ in the woods. They were startled and took sick.

HALE: Who told you this?

PROCTOR,
hesitates, then:
Abigail Williams.

HALE: Abigail!

PROCTOR: Aye.

HALE,
his
eyes
wide:
Abigail Williams told you it had naught to do with witchcraft!

PROCTOR:
She told me the day you came, sir.

HALE,
suspiciously:
Why—why did you keep this?

PROCTOR: I never knew until tonight that the world is gone daft with this nonsense.

HALE: Nonsense! Mister, I have myself examined Tituba, Sarah Good, and numerous others that have confessed to dealing with the Devil. They have
confessed
it.

PROCTOR: And why not, if they must hang for denyin’ it? There are them that will swear to anything before they’ll hang; have you never thought of that?

HALE: I have. I—I have indeed.
It is his own suspicion, but he resists it. He glances at Elizabeth, then at John.
And you—would you testify to this in court?

PROCTOR: I—had not reckoned with goin’ into court. But if I must I will.

HALE: Do you falter here?

PROCTOR: I falter nothing, but I may wonder if my story will be credited in such a court. I do wonder on it, when such a steady-minded minister as you will suspicion such a woman that never lied, and cannot, and the world knows she cannot! I may falter somewhat, Mister; I am no fool.

HALE,
quietly
—
it has impressed him:
Proctor, let you open with me now, for I have a rumor that troubles me. It’s said you hold no belief that there may even be witches in the world. Is that true, sir?

PROCTOR—
he knows this is critical, and is striving against his disgust with Hale and with himself for even answering:
I know not what I have said, I may have said it. I have wondered if there be witches in the world—although I cannot believe they come among us now.

HALE: Then you do not believe—

PROCTOR: I have no knowledge of it; the Bible speaks of witches, and I will not deny them.

HALE: And you, woman?

ELIZABETH: I—I cannot believe it.

HALE,
shocked:
You cannot!

PROCTOR: Elizabeth, you bewilder him!

ELIZABETH,
to Hale:
I cannot think the Devil may own a woman’s soul, Mr. Hale, when she keeps an upright way, as I have. I am a good woman, I know it; and if you believe I may do only good work in the world, and yet be secretly bound to Satan, then I must tell you, sir, I do not believe it.

HALE: But, woman, you do believe there are witches in—

ELIZABETH: If you think that I am one, then I say there are none.

HALE: You surely do not fly against the Gospel, the Gospel—

PROCTOR: She believe in the Gospel, every word!

ELIZABETH: Question Abigail Williams about the Gospel, not myself!

PROCTOR: She do not mean to doubt the Gospel, sir, you cannot think it. This be a Christian house, sir, a Christian house.

HALE: God keep you both; let the third child be quickly baptized, and go you without fail each Sunday in to Sabbath prayer; and keep a solemn, quiet way among you. I think—

GILES: John!

PROCTOR: Giles! What’s the matter?

GILES: They take my wife.

GILES: And his Rebecca!

PROCTOR,
to Francis:
Rebecca’s in the
jail!

FRANCIS: Aye, Cheever come and take her in his wagon. We’ve only now come from the jail, and they’ll not even let us in to see them.

ELIZABETH: They’ve surely gone wild now, Mr. Hale!

FRANCIS,
going to Hale:
Reverend Hale! Can you not speak to the Deputy Governor? I’m sure he mistakes these people—

HALE: Pray calm yourself, Mr. Nurse.

FRANCIS: My wife is the very brick and mortar of the church, Mr. Hale—
indicating Giles
—and Martha Corey, there cannot be a woman closer yet to God than Martha.

HALE: How is Rebecca charged, Mr. Nurse?

FRANCIS,
with a mocking, half—hearted laugh:
For murder, she’s charged!
Mockingly quoting the warrant:
“For the marvelous and supernatural murder of Goody Putnam’s babies.” What am I to do, Mr. Hale?

HALE,
turns from Francis, deeply troubled, then:
Believe me, Mr. Nurse, if Rebecca Nurse be tainted, then nothing’s left to stop the whole green world from burning. Let you rest upon the justice of the court; the court will send her home, I know it.

FRANCIS : You cannot mean she will be tried in court!

HALE,
pleading:
Nurse, though our hearts break, we cannot flinch; these are new times, sir. There is a misty plot afoot so subtle we should be criminal to cling to old respects and ancient friendships. I have seen too many frightful proofs in court—the Devil is alive in Salem, and we dare not quail to follow wherever the accusing finger points!

PROCTOR,
angered:
How may such a woman murder children?

HALE,
in great pain:
Man, remember, until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.

GILES: I never said my wife were a witch, Mr. Hale; I only said she were reading books!

HALE: Mr. Corey, exactly what complaint were made on your wife?

GILES: That bloody mongrel Walcott charge her. Y’see, he buy a pig of my wife four or five year ago, and the pig died soon after. So he come dancin’ in for his money back. So my Martha, she says to him, “Walcott, if you haven’t the wit to feed a pig properly, you’ll not live to own many,” she says. Now he goes to court and claims that from that day to this he cannot keep a pig alive for more than four weeks because my Martha bewitch them with her books!

CHEEVER: Good evening to you, Proctor.

PROCTOR: Why, Mr. Cheever. Good evening.

CHEEVER: Good evening, all. Good evening, Mr. Hale.

PROCTOR: I hope you come not on business of the court.

CHEEVER: I do, Proctor, aye. I am clerk of the court now, y’know.

GILES: It’s a pity, Ezekiel, that an honest tailor might have gone to Heaven must burn in Hell. You’ll burn for this, do you know it?

CHEEVER: You know yourself I must do as I’m told. You surely know that, Giles. And I’d as lief you’d not be sending me to Hell. I like not the sound of it, I tell you; I like not the sound of it.
He fears Proctor, but starts to reach inside his coat.
Now believe me, Proctor, how heavy be the law, all its tonnage I do carry on my back tonight.
He takes out a warrant.
I have a warrant for your wife.

PROCTOR,
to Hale:
You said she were not charged!

HALE: I know nothin’ of it.
To Cheever:
When were she charged?

CHEEVER: I am given sixteen warrant tonight, sir, and she is one.

PROCTOR: Who charged her?

CHEEVER: Why, Abigail Williams charge her.

PROCTOR: On what proof, what proof?

CHEEVER,
looking about the room:
Mr. Proctor, I have little time. The court bid me search your house, but I like not to search a house. So will you hand me any poppets that your wife may keep here?

PROCTOR: Poppets?

ELIZABETH: I never kept no poppets, not since I were a girl.

CHEEVER,
embarrassed, glancing toward the mantel where sits Mary Warren’s poppet:
I spy a poppet, Goody Proctor.

ELIZABETH: Oh!
Going for it:
Why, this is Mary’s.

CHEEVER,
shyly:
Would you please to give it to me?

ELIZABETH,
handing it to him, asks Hale:
Has the court discovered a text in poppets now?

CHEEVER,
carefully holding the poppet:
Do you keep any others in this house?

PROCTOR: No, nor this one either till tonight. What signifies a poppet?

CHEEVER: Why, a poppet—
he gingerly turns the poppet over
—a poppet may signify—Now, woman, will you please to come with me?

PROCTOR: She will not!
To Elizabeth:
Fetch Mary here.

CHEEVER,
ineptly reaching toward Elizabeth:
No, no, I am forbid to leave her from my sight.

PROCTOR,
pushing his arm away:
You’ll leave her out of sight and out of mind, Mister. Fetch Mary, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth goes upstairs.

HALE: What signifies a poppet, Mr. Cheever?

CHEEVER,
turning the poppet over in his hands:
Why, they say it may signify that she—
He has lifted the poppet’s skirt, and his eyes widen in astonished fear.
Why, this, this—

PROCTOR,
reaching for the poppet:
What’s there?

CHEEVER: Why—
h
e draws
out a long needle from the poppet
—it is a needle! Herrick, Herrick, it is a needle!

PROCTOR,
angrily, bewildered:
And what signifies a needle!

CHEEVER,
his hands shaking:
Why, this go hard with her, Proctor, this—I had my doubts, Proctor, I had my doubts, but here’s calamity.
To Hale, showing the needle:
You see it, sir, it is a needle!

HALE: Why? What meanin’ has it?

CHEEVER,
wide-eyed, trembling:
The girl, the Williams girl, Abigail Williams, sir. She sat to dinner in Reverend Parris’s house tonight, and without word nor warnin’ she falls to the floor. Like a struck beast, he says, and screamed a scream that a bull would weep to hear. And he goes to save her, and, stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly, he draw a needle out. And demandin’ of her how she come to be so stabbed, she—to
Proctor now
—testify it were your wife’s familiar spirit pushed it in.

PROCTOR: Why, she done it herself!
To Hale:
I hope you’re not takin’ this for proof, Mister!

CHEEVER: ’Tis hard proof!
To Hale:
I find here a poppet Goody Proctor keeps. I have found it, sir. And in the belly of the poppet a needle’s stuck. I tell you true, Proctor, I never warranted to see such proof of Hell, and I bid you obstruct me not, for I—

PROCTOR: Here now! Mary, how did this poppet come into my house?

MARY WARREN,
frightened for herself, her voice very small:
What poppet’s that, sir?

PROCTOR,
impatiently, pointing at the doll in Cheever’s hand:
This poppet, this poppet.

MARY WARREN,
evasively, looking at it:
Why, I—I think it is mine.

PROCTOR: It is your poppet, is it not?

MARY WARREN,
not understanding the direction of this:
It—is, sir.

PROCTOR: And how did it come into this house?

MARY WARREN,
glancing about at the avid faces:
Why—I made it in the court, sir, and—give it to Goody Proctor tonight.

PROCTOR,
to Hale:
Now, sir—do you have it?

HALE: Mary Warren, a needle have been found inside this poppet.

MARY WARREN,
bewildered:
Why, I meant no harm by it, sir.

PROCTOR,
quickly:
You stuck that needle in yourself?

MARY WARREN: I—I believe I did, sir, I—

PROCTOR,
to Hale:
What say you now?

HALE,
watching Mary Warren closely:
Child, you are certain this be your natural memory? May it be, perhaps, that someone conjures you even now to say this?

MARY WARREN: Conjures me? Why, no, sir, I am entirely myself, I think. Let you ask Susanna Walcott—she saw me sewin’ it in court. Or better
still:
Ask Abby, Abby sat beside me when I made it.

PROCTOR,
to Hale, of Cheever:
Bid him begone. Your mind is surely settled now. Bid him out, Mr. Hale.

ELIZABETH: What signifies a needle?

HALE: Mary—you charge a cold and cruel murder on Abigail.

MARY WARREN: Murder! I charge no—

HALE: Abigail were stabbed tonight; a needle were found stuck into her belly—

ELIZABETH: And she charges me?