SUPPRESSED DESIRES by SUSAN GLASPELL
ART ::: THEATRE :::
(In Collaboration with George Cram Cook)
A COMEDY IN TWO SCENES
ORIGINAL CAST
Henrietta Brewster .... Susan Glaspell
Stephen Brewster .... George Cram Cook
Mabel . . . . Mary Pyne
Scene I : A studio apartment in an upper story,
Washington Square South. Through an immense
north window in the back wall appear tree tops and
the upper part of the Washington Arch. Beyond it
you look up Fifth Avenue. Near the window is a
big table, loaded at one end with serious-looking books
and austere scientific periodicals. At the other end
are architect's drawings, blue prints, dividing compasses,
square, ruler, etc. At the left is a door leading
to the rest of the apartment; at the right the outer
door. ' A breakfast table is set for three, but only
two are seated at it— Henrietta and Stephen
Brewster. As the curtains withdraw Steve pushes
back his coffee cup and sits dejected.
HENRIETTA:
It isn't the coffee, Steve dear. There's nothing the
matter with the coffee. There's something the matter
with you.
STEVE:
[Doggedly.] There may be something the matter
with my stomach.
HENRIETTA:
[Scornfully.] Your stomach! The trouble is not
with your stomach but in your subconscious mind.
STEVE:
Subconscious piffle! [Takes morning paper and tries to read.]
HENRIETTA:
Steve, you never used to be so disagreeable. You
certainly have got some sort of a complex. You're all
inhibited. You're no longer open to new ideas. You
won't listen to a word about psychoanalysis.
STEVE:
A word ! I've listened to volumes!
HENRIETTA:
You've ceased to be creative in architecture—your
work isn't going well. You're not sleeping well—
STEVE:
How can I sleep, Henrietta, when you're always
waking me up to find out what I'm dreaming?
HENRIETTA:
But dreams are so important, Steve. If you'd tell
yours to Dr. Russell he'd find out exactly what's wrong
with you.
STEVE:
There's nothing wrong with me.
HENRIETTA:
You don't even talk as well as you used to.
STEVE:
Talk? I can't say a thing without you looking at
me in that dark fashion you have when you're on
the trail of a complex.
HENRIETTA:
This very irritability indicates that you're suffering
from some suppressed desire.
STEVE:
I'm suffering from a suppressed desire for a little
peace.
HENRIETTA:
Dr. Russell is doing simply wonderful things with
nervous cases. Won't you go to him, Steve?
STEVE:
[Slamming down his newspaper.] No, Henrietta,
I won't!
HENRIETTA:
But, Stephen—!
STEVE:
Tst! I hear Mabel coming. Let's not be at each
other's throats the first day of her visit.
[He takes out cigarettes. Mabel comes
in from door left, the side opposite
Steve, so that he is facing her. She
is wearing a rather fussy negligee
in contrast to Henrietta, who
wears "radical" clothes. Mabel is
what is called plump.]
MABEL:
Good morning.
HENRIETTA:
Oh, here you are, little sister.
STEVE:
Good morning, Mabel.
[Mabel nods to him and turns, her face
lighting up, to Henrietta.]
HENRIETTA:
[Giving Mabel a hug as she leans against her.] It's
so good to have you here. I was going to let you
sleep, thinking you'd be tired after the long trip. Sit
down. There'll be fresh toast in a minute and
[Rising] will you have —
MABEL:
Oh, I ought to have told you, Henrietta. Don't
get anything for me. I'm not eating breakfast.
HENRIETTA:
[At first in mere surprise.] Not eating breakfast?
[She sits down, then leans toward Mabel
who is seated now, and scrutinizes
her.]
STEVE:
[Half to himself.] The psychoanalytical look!
HENRIETTA:
Mabel, why are you not eating breakfast?
MABEL:
[A little startled.] Why, no particular reason. I
just don't care much for breakfast, and they say it
keeps down— [A hand on her hip — the gesture of one
who is "reducing"] that is, it's a good thing to go
without it.
HENRIETTA:
Don't you sleep well ? Did you sleep well last night ?
MABEL:
Oh, yes, I slept all right. Yes, I slept fine last
night, only [Laughing] I did have the funniest dream!
STEVE:
S-h! S-t!
HENRIETTA:
[Moving closer.] And what did you dream, Mabel?
STEVE:
Look-a-here, Mabel, I feel it's my duty to put you
on. Don't tell Henrietta your dreams. If you do
she'll find out that you have an underground desire to
kill your father and marry your mother—
HENRIETTA:
Don't be absurd, Stephen Brewster. [Sweetly to
Mabel.] What was your dream, dear?
MABEL:
[Laughing.] Well, I dreamed I was a hen.
HENRIETTA:
A hen?
MABEL:
Yes; and I was pushing along through a crowd as
fast as I could, but being a hen I couldn't walk very
fast — it was like having a tight skirt, you know ; and
there was some sort of creature in a blue cap —you
know how mixed up dreams are — and it kept shouting
after me, "Step, Hen ! Step, Hen!" until I got all
excited and just couldn't move at all.
HENRIETTA:
[Resting chin in palm and peering.] You say you
became much excited?
MABEL:
[Laughing.] Oh, yes; I was in a terrible state.
HENRIETTA:
[Leaning back, murmurs.] This is significant.
STEVE:
She dreams she's a hen. She is told to step lively.
She becomes violently agitated. What can it mean?
HENRIETTA:
[Turning impatiently from him.] Mabel, do you
know anything about psychoanalysis?
MABEL:
[Feebly.] Oh—not much. No — I — [Brightening.]
It's something about the war, isn't it?
STEVE:
Not that kind of war.
MABEL:
[Abashed.] I thought it might be the name of a
new explosive.
STEVE:
It is.
MABEL:
[Apologetically to Henrietta, who is frowning.]
You see, Henrietta, I — we do not live in touch with
intellectual things, as you do. Bob being a dentist—
somehow our friends—.
STEVE:
[Softly.] Oh, to be a dentist!
[Goes to window and stands looking out.
HENRIETTA:
Don't you see anything more of that editorial writer — what was his name?
MABEL:
Lyman Eggleston?
HENRIETTA:
Yes, Eggleston. He was in touch with things.
Don't you see him?
MABEL:
Yes, I see him once in a while. Bob doesn't like
him very well.
HENRIETTA:
Your husband does not like Lyman Eggleston?
[Mysteriously.] Mabel, are you perfectly happy with
your husband?
STEVE:
[Sharply.] Oh, come now, Henrietta — that's going
a little strong!
HENRIETTA:
Are you perfectly happy with him, Mabel ?
[Steve goes to work-table.]
MABEL:
Why — yes — I guess so. Why — of course I am!
HENRIETTA:
Are you happy? Or do you only think you are?
Or do you only think you ought to be?
MABEL:
Why, Henrietta, I don't know what you mean!
STEVE:
[Seizes stack of books and magazines and dumps them on the breakfast table.] This is what she means,
Mabel. Psychoanalysis. My work-table groans with
it. Books by Freud, the new Messiah; books by Jung,
the new St. Paul; the Psychoanalytical Review —
back numbers two-fifty per.
MABEL:
But what's it all about?
STEVE:
All about your sub-un-non-conscious mind and desires
you know not of. They may be doing you a great
deal of harm. You may go crazy with them. Oh,
yes ! People are doing it right and left. Your dreaming
you're a hen —
[Shakes his head darkly.]
HENRIETTA:
Any fool can ridicule anything.
MABEL:
[Hastily, to avert a quarrel.] But what do you
say it is, Henrietta?
STEVE:
[Looking at his watch.] Oh, if Henrietta's going
to start that!
[During Henrietta's next speech settles
himself at work-table and sharpens
a lead pencil.]
HENRIETTA:
It's like this, Mabel. You want something. You
think you can't have it. You think it's wrong. So
you try to think you don't want it. Your mind protects
you — avoids pain — by refusing to think the
forbidden thing. But it's there just the same. It
stays there shut up in your unconscious mind, and it
festers.
STEVE:
Sort of an ingrowing mental toenail.
HENRIETTA:
Precisely. The forbidden impulse is there full of
energy which has simply got to do something. It
breaks into your consciousness in disguise, masks itself
in dreams, makes all sorts of trouble. In extreme
cases it drives you insane.
MABEL:
[With a gesture of horror.] Oh!
HENRIETTA:
[Reassuring.] But psychoanalysis has found out
how to save us from that. It brings into consciousness
the suppressed desire that was making all the
trouble. Psychoanalysis is simply the latest scientific
method of preventing and curing insanity.
STEVE:
[From his table.] It is also the latest scientific
method of separating families.
HENRIETTA:
[Mildly.] Families that ought to be separated.
STEVE:
The Dwights, for instance. You must have met
them, Mabel, when you were here before. Helen was
living, apparently, in peace and happiness with good
old Joe. Well — she went to this psychoanalyzer—
she was "psyched," and biff ! — bang ! — home she
comes with an unsuppressed desire to leave her husband.
[He starts work, drawing lines on a
drawing board with a T-square.]
MABEL:
How terrible! Yes, I remember Helen Dwight.
But—but did she have such a desire ?
STEVE:
First she'd known of it.
MABEL:
And she left him ?
HENRIETTA:
[Coolly.] Yes, she did.
MABEL:
Wasn't he kind to her?
HENRIETTA:
Why yes, good enough.
MABEL:
Wasn't he kind to her.
HENRIETTA:
Oh, yes—kind to her.
MABEL:
And she left her good kind husband—
!
HENRIETTA:
Oh, Mabel! "Left her good, kind husband!"
How naive — forgive me, dear, but how bourgeoise
you are! She came to know herself. And she had
the courage!
MABEL:
I may be very naive and — bourgeoise—but I don't
see the good of a new science that breaks up homes.
[Steve applauds.
STEVE:
In enlightening Mabel, we mustn't neglect to mention the case of Art Holden's private secretary, Mary
Snow, who has just been informed of her suppressed
desire for her employer.
MABEL:
Why, I think it is terrible, Henrietta! It would
be better if we didn't know such things about ourselves.
HENRIETTA:
No, Mabel, that is the old way.
MABEL:
But—but her employer? Is he married?
STEVE:
[Grunts.] Wife and four children.
MABEL:
Well, then, what good does it do the girl to be told
she has a desire for him? There's nothing can be
done about it.
HENRIETTA:
Old institutions will have to be reshaped so that
something can be done in such cases. It happens,
Mabel, that this suppressed desire was on the point of
landing Mary Snow in the insane asylum. Are you
so tight-minded that you'd rather have her in the
insane asylum than break the conventions?
MABEL:
But—but have people always had these aw'ful suppressed
desires?
HENRIETTA:
Always.
STEVE:
But they've just been discovered,
HENRIETTA:
The harm they do has just been discovered. And
free, sane people must face the fact that they have
to be dealt with.
MABEL:
[Stoutly.] I don't believe they have them in Chicago.
HENRIETTA:
[Business of giving Mabel up.] People "have
them" wherever the living Libido — the center of the
soul's energy — is in conflict with petrified moral codes.
That means everywhere in civilization. Psychoanalysis
—
STEVE:
Good God! I've got the roof in the cellar!
HENRIETTA:
The roof in the cellar!
STEVE:
[Holding plan at arm's length.] That's what psychoanalysis
does!
HENRIETTA:
That's what psychoanalysis could un-do. Is it any
wonder I'm concerned about Steve? He dreamed the
other night that the walls of his room melted away
and he found himself alone in a forest. Don't you
see how significant it is for an architect to have walls
slip away from him ? It symbolizes his loss of grip in
his work. There's some suppressed desire—
STEVE:
[Hurling his ruined plan viciously to the floor.]
Suppressed hell!
HENRIETTA:
You speak more truly than you know. It is through
suppressions that hells are formed in us.
MABEL:
[Looking at Steve, who is tearing his hair.] Don't
you think it would be a good thing, Henrietta, if we
went somewhere else? [They rise and begin to pick
up the dishes. Mabel drops a plate which breaks.
Henrietta draws up short and looks at her — the
psychoanalytic look.] I'm sorry, Henrietta. One of
the Spode plates, too. [Surprised and resentful as
Henrietta continues to peer at her.] Don't take it
so to heart, Henrietta.
HENRIETTA:
I can't help taking it to heart.
MABEL:
I'll get you another. [Pause. More sharply as
Henrietta does not answer.] I said I'll get you another
plate, Henrietta.
HENRIETTA:
It's not the plate.
MABEL:
For heaven's sake, what is it then?
HENRIETTA:
It's the significant little false movement that made
you drop it.
MABEL:
Well, I suppose everyone makes a false movement
once in a while.
HENRIETTA:
Yes, Mabel, but these false movements all mean
something.
MABEL:
[About to cry.] I don't think that's very nice!
It was just because I happened to think of that Mabel
Snow you were talking about —
HENRIETTA:
Mabel Snow!
MABEL:
Snow — Snow—well, what was her name, then ?
HENRIETTA:
Her name is Mary. You substituted your own name
for hers.
MABEL:
Well, Mary Snow, then; Mary Snow. I never
heard her name but once. I don't see anything to
make such a fuss about.
HENRIETTA:
[Gently.] Mabel dear—mistakes like that in
names —
MABEL:
[Desperately.] They don't mean something, too, do
they?
HENRIETTA:
[Gently.] I am sorry, dear, but they do.
MABEL:
But I'm always doing that!
HENRIETTA:
[After a start of horror.] My poor little sister, tell
me about it.
MABEL:
About what?
HENRIETTA:
About your not being happy. About your longing
for another sort of life.
MABEL:
But I don't.
HENRIETTA:
Ah, I understand these things, dear. You feel Bob
is limiting you to a life in which you do not feel free—
MABEL:
Henrietta ! When did I ever say such a thing ?
HENRIETTA:
You said you are not in touch with things intellectual.
You showed your feeling that it is Bob's profession — that has engendered a resentment which has
colored your whole life with him.
MABEL:
Why — Henrietta
!
HENRIETTA:
Don't be afraid of me, little sister. There's nothing
can shock me or turn me from you. I am not like that.
I wanted you to come for this visit because I had a
feeling that you needed more from life than you were
getting. No one of these things I have seen would
excite my suspicion. It's the combination. You don't
eat breakfast [Enumerating on her fingers]; you
make false moves; you substitute your own name for
the name of another whose love is misdirected. You're
nervous; you look queer; in your eyes there's a frightened
look that is. most unlike you. And this dream.
A hen. Come with me this afternoon to Dr. Russell!
Your whole life may be at stake, Mabel.
MABEL:
[Gasping.] Henrietta, I — you — you always were
the smartest in the family, and all that, but -— this is
terrible! I don't think we ought to think such things.
[Brightening.] Why, I'll tell you why I dreamed I
was a hen. It was because last night, telling about
that time in Chicago, you said I was as mad as a wet
hen.
HENRIETTA:
[Superior.] Did you dream you were a wet hen?
MABEL:
[Forced to admit it.] No.
HENRIETTA:
No. You dreamed you were a dry hen. And why,
being a hen, were you urged to step ?
MABEL:
Maybe it's because when I am getting on a street
car it always irritates me to have them call " Step
lively."
HENRIETTA:
No, Mabel, that is only a child's view of it — if
you will forgive me. You see merely the elements
used in the dream. You do not see into the dream;
you do not see its meaning. This dream of the hen—
STEVE:
Hen — hen— wet hen — dry hen — mad hen!
[Jumps up in a rage.] Let me out of this!
HENRIETTA:
[Hastily picking up dishes, speaks soothingly.] Just
a minute, dear, and we'll have things so you can work
in quiet. Mabel and I are going to sit in my room.
[She goes out left, carrying dishes.]
STEVE:
[Seizing hat and coat from an alcove near the outside
door.] I'm going to be psychoanalyzed. I'm
going now! I'm going straight to that infallible doctor
of hers — that priest of this new religion. If he's
got honesty enough to tell Henrietta there's nothing
the matter with my unconscious mind, perhaps I can
be let alone about it, and then I will be all right.
[From the door in a low voice.] Don't tell Henrietta
I'm going. It might take weeks, and I couldn't stand
all the talk.
[He hurries out.]
HENRIETTA:
[Returning.] Where's Steve? Gone? [With a
hopeless gesture.] You see how impatient he is —
how unlike himself! I tell you, Mabel, I'm nearly
distracted about Steve.
MABEL:
I think he's a little distracted, too.
HENRIETTA:
Well, if he's gone — you might as well stay here.
I have a committee meeting at the book-shop, and
will have to leave you to yourself for an hour or two.
[As she puts her hat on, taking it from the alcove
where Steve found his, her eye, lighting up almost
carnivorously, falls on an enormous volume on the
floor beside the work table. The book has been half
hidden by the wastebasket. She picks it up and carries
it around the table toward Mabel.] Here, dear, is one
of the simplest statements of psychoanalysis. You
just read this and then we can talk more intelligently.
[Mabel takes volume and staggers back under its
weight to chair rear center, Henrietta goes to outer
door, stops and asks abruptly.] How old is Lyman
Eggleston ?
MABEL:
[Promptly.] He isn't forty yet. Why, what made
you ask that, Henrietta?
[As she turns her head to look at Henrietta
her hands move toward the
upper corners of the book balanced
on her knees.]
HENRIETTA:
Oh, nothing. Au revoir.
[She goes out. Mabel stares at the
ceiling. The book slides to the floor.
She starts; looks at the book, then
at the broken plate on the table.]
The plate! The book! [She lifts
her eyes, leans forward elbow on
knee, chin on knuckles and plaintively
queries] Am I unhappy?
(Curtain)
Scene II: Two weeks later. The stage is as in
Scene I, except that the breakfast table has been removed.
During the first few minutes the dusk of a
winter afternoon deepens. Out of the darkness spring
rows of double street-lights almost meeting in the distance.
Henrietta is at the psychoanalytical end of
Steve's work-table, surrounded by open books and
periodicals, writing. Steve enters briskly.
STEVE:
What are you doing, my dear?
HENRIETTA:
My paper for the Liberal Club.
STEVE:
Your paper on — ?
HENRIETTA:
On a subject which does not have your sympathy.
STEVE:
Oh, I'm not sure I'm wholly out of sympathy with
psychoanalysis, Henrietta. You worked it so hard. I
couldn't even take a bath without it's meaning something.
HENRIETTA:
[Loftily.] I talked it because I knew you needed it.
STEVE:
You haven't said much about it these last two weeks.
Uh — your faith in it hasn't weakened any?
HENRIETTA:
Weakened? It's grown stronger with each new
thing I've come to know. And Mabel. She is with
Dr. Russell now. Dr. Russell is wonderful I From
what Mabel tells me I believe his analysis is going to
prove that I was right. Today I discovered a remarkable
confirmation of my theory in the hen-dream.
STEVE:
What is your theory?
HENRIETTA:
Well, you know about Lyman Eggleston. I've wondered
about him. I've never seen him, but I know he's less bourgeois than Mabel's other friends— more
intellectual: — and [Significantly] she doesn't see much
of him because Bob doesn't like him.
STEVE:
But what's the confirmation?
HENRIETTA:
Today I noticed the first syllable of his name.
STEVE:
Ly?
HENRIETTA:
No — egg.
STEVE:
Egg?
HENRIETTA:
[Patiently.] Mabel dreamed she was a hen.
[Steve laughs.] You wouldn't laugh if you knew
how important names are in interpreting dreams.
Freud is full of just such cases in which a whole
hidden complex is revealed by a single significant
syllable — like this egg.
STEVE:
Doesn't the traditional relation of hen and egg suggest
rather a maternal feeling?
HENRIETTA:
There is something maternal In Mabel's love, of
course, but that's only one element.
STEVE:
Well, suppose Mabel hasn't a suppressed desire to
be this gentleman's mother, but his beloved. What's
to be done about it? What about Bob? Don't you
think it's going to be a little rough on him?
HENRIETTA:
That can't be helped. Bob, like everyone else, must
face the facts of life. If Dr. Russell should arrive
independently at this same interpretation I shall not
hesitate to advise Mabel to leave her present husband.
STEVE:
Um—hum! [The lights go up on Fifth Avenue.
Steve goes to the window and looks out.] How long
is it we've lived here, Henrietta?
HENRIETTA:
Why, this is the third year, Steve.
STEVE:
I — we— one would miss this view if one went
away, wouldn't one?
HENRIETTA:
How strangely you speak! Oh, Stephen, I wish
you'd go to Dr. Russell. Don't think my fears have
abated because I've been able to restrain myself. I
had to on account of Mabel. But now, dear — won't
you go?
STEVE:
I — [He breaks off, turns on the light, then comes
and sits beside Henrietta.] How long have we been
married, Henrietta?
HENRIETTA:
Stephen, I don't understand you! You must go to
Dr. Russell.
STEVE:
I have gone.
HENRIETTA:
You — what?
STEVE:
[Jauntily.] Yes, Henrietta, I've been psyched.
HENRIETTA:
You went to Dr. Russell?
STEVE:
The same.
HENRIETTA:
And what did he say?
STEVE:
He said — I — I was a little surprised by what he
said, Henrietta.
HENRIETTA:
[Breathlessly.] Of course—one can so seldom
anticipate. But tell me — your dream, Stephen ? It
means — ?
STEVE:
It means — I was considerably surprised by what
it means.
HENRIETTA:
Don't be so exasperating!
STEVE:
It means -— you really want to know, Henrietta?
HENRIETTA:
Stephen, you'll drive me mad!
STEVE:
He said — of course he may be wrong in what he
said.
HENRIETTA:
He isn't wrong. Tell me
!
STEVE:
He said my dream of the walls receding and leaving
me alone in a forest indicates a suppressed desire —
HENRIETTA:
Yes — yes!
STEVE:
To be freed from —
HENRIETTA:
Yes — freed from — ?
STEVE:
Marriage.
HENRIETTA:
[Crumples. Stares.] Marriage!
STEVE:
He — he may be mistaken, you know.
HENRIETTA:
May be mistaken?
STEVE:
I — well, of course, I hadn't taken any stock in it
myself. It was only your great confidence—
HENRIETTA:
Stephen, are you telling me that Dr. Russell —Dr.
A. E. Russell—told you this? [Steve nods.] Told
you you have a suppressed desire to separate from
me?
STEVE:
That's what he said.
HENRIETTA:
Did he know who you were ?
STEVE:
Yes.
HENRIETTA:
That you were married to me ?
STEVE:
Yes, he knew that.
HENRIETTA:
And he told you to leave me?
STEVE:
It seems he must be wrong, Henrietta.
HENRIETTA:
[Rising.] And I've sent him more patients — !
[Catches herself and resumes coldly.] What reason
did he give for this analysis?
STEVE:
He says the confining walls are a symbol of my
feeling about marriage and that their fading away is
a wish-fulfillment.
HENRIETTA:
[Gulping.] Well, is it ? Do you want our marriage
to end?
STEVE:
It was a great surprise to me that I did. You see
I hadn't known what was in my unconscious mind.
HENRIETTA:
[Flaming.] What did you tell Dr. Russell about
me to make him think you weren't happy ?
STEVE:
I never told him a thing, Henrietta. He got it all
from his confounded clever inferences. I — I tried
to refute them, but he said that was only part of my
self-protective lying.
HENRIETTA:
And that's why you were so — happy — when you
came in just now!
STEVE:
Why, Henrietta, how can you say such a thing? I
was sad. Didn't I speak sadly of — of the view?
Didn't I ask how long we had been married?
HENRIETTA:
[Rising.] Stephen Brewster, have you no sense of
the seriousness of this? Dr. Russell doesn't know
what our marriage has been. You do. You should
have laughed him down! Confined — in life with
me? Did you tell him that I believe in freedom?
STEVE:
I very emphatically told him that his results were
a great surprise to me.
HENRIETTA:
But you accepted them.
STEVE:
Oh, not at all. I merely couldn't refute his arguments.
I'm not a psychologist. I came home to talk
it over with you. You being a disciple of psychoanalysis
—
HENRIETTA:
If you are going, I wish you would go tonight!
STEVE:
Oh, my dear! I — surely I couldn't do that!
Think of my feelings. And my laundry hasn't come
home.
HENRIETTA:
I ask you to go tonight. Some women would falter
at this, Steve, but I am not such a woman. I leave
you free. I do not repudiate psychoanalysis; I say
again that it has done great things. It has also made
mistakes, of course. But since you accept this analysis — [She sits down and pretends to begin work.] I have
to finish this paper. I wish you would leave me.
STEVE:
[Scratches his head, goes to the inner door.] I'm
sorry, Henrietta, about my unconscious mind.
[Alone, Henrietta's face betrays her
outraged state of mind — disconcerted,
resentful, trying to pull herself
together. She attains an air of
bravely bearing an outrageous thing. The outer door opens and Mabel
enters in great excitement.]
MABEL:
[Breathless.] Henrietta, I'm so glad you're here.
And alone? [Looks toward the inner door.] Are
you alone, Henrietta ?
HENRIETTA:
[With reproving dignity.] Very much so.
MABEL:
[Rushing to her.] Henrietta, he's found it!
HENRIETTA:
[Aloof.] Who has found what?
MABEL:
Who has found what? Dr. Russell has found my
suppressed desire!
HENRIETTA:
That is interesting.
MABEL:
He finished with me today—he got hold of my
complex—in the most amazing way ! But, oh, Henrietta—
it is so terrible!
HENRIETTA:
Do calm yourself, Mabel. Surely there's no occasion
for all this agitation.
MABEL:
But there is! And when you think of the lives
that are affected — the readjustments that must be
made in order to bring the suppressed hell out of me
and save me from the insane asylum — !
HENRIETTA:
The insane asylum!
MABEL:
You said that's where these complexes brought people!
HENRIETTA:
What did the doctor tell you, Mabel ?
MABEL:
Oh, I don't know how I can tell you—it is so
awful — so unbelievable.
HENRIETTA:
I rather have my hand in at hearing the unbelievable.
MABEL:
Henrietta, who would ever have thought it? How
can it be true? But the doctor is perfectly certain that
I have a suppressed desire for -
[Looks at Henrietta, is unable to continue.]
HENRIETTA:
Oh, go on, Mabel. I'm not unprepared for what
you have to say.
MABEL:
Not unprepared ? You mean you have suspected it ?
HENRIETTA:
From the first. It's been my theory all along.
MABEL:
But, Henrietta, I didn't know myself that I had
this secret desire for Stephen.
HENRIETTA:
[Jumps up.] Stephen!
MABEL:
My brother-in-law! My own sister's husband!
HENRIETTA:
You have a suppressed desire for Stephen!
MABEL:
Oh, Henrietta, aren't these unconscious selves terrible?
They seem so unlike us!
HENRIETTA:
What insane thing are you driving at?
MABEL:
[Blubbering.] Henrietta, don't you use that word
to me. I don't want to go to the insane asylum.
HENRIETTA:
What did Dr, Russell say?
MABEL:
Well, you see — oh, it's the strangest thing! But
you know the voice in my dream that called "Step,
Hen!" Dr. Russell found out today that when I was
a little girl I had a story-book in words of one syllable
and I read the name Stephen wrong. I used to read
it S-t-e-p, step, h-e-n, hen. [Dramatically.] Step Hen
is Stephen. [Enter Stephen, his head bent over a
time-table.] Stephen is Step Hen!
STEVE:
I? Step Hen?~
MABEL:
[Triumphantly.] S-t-e-p, step, H-e-n, hen, Stephen!
HENRIETTA:
[Exploding.] Well, what if Stephen is Step Hen?
[Scornfully.] Step Hen! Step Hen! For that ridiculous
coincidence —
MABEL:
Coincidence! But it's childish to look at the mere
elements of a dream. You have to look into it— you
have to see what it means!
HENRIETTA:
On account of that trivial, meaningless play on
syllables — on that flimsy basis — you are ready —
[Wails.] O-h!
STEVE:
What on earth's the matter? What has happened?
Suppose I am Step Hen? What about it? What
does it mean?
MABEL:
[Crying.] It means—that I — have a suppressed
desire for you!
STEVE:
For me! The deuce you have! [Feebly.] What — er— makes you think so ?
MABEL:
Dr. Russell has worked it out scientifically.
HENRIETTA:
Yes. Through the amazing discovery that Step Hen
equals Stephen!
MABEL:
[Tearfully.] Oh, that isn't all — that isn't near all.
Henrietta won't give me a chance to tell it. She'd
rather I'd go to the insane asylum than be unconventional.
HENRIETTA:
We'll all go there if you can't control yourself. We
are still waiting for some rational report.
MABEL:
[Drying her eyes.] Oh, there's such a lot about
names. [With some pride.] I don't see how I ever
did it. It all works in together. I dreamed I was
a hen because that's the first syllable of Hen-rietta's
name, and when I dreamed I was a hen, I was putting
myself in Henrietta's place.
HENRIETTA: With Stephen?
MABEL:
With Stephen.
HENRIETTA:
[Outraged.] Oh! [Turns in rage upon Stephen,
who is fanning himself with the time-table.] What
are you doing with that time-table?
STEVE:
Why — I thought — you were so keen to have me
go tonight — I thought I'd just take a run up to
Canada, and join Billy — a little shooting —but —
MABEL:
But there's more about the names.
HENRIETTA:
Mabel, have you thought of Bob— dear old Bob — your good, kind husband ?
MABEL:
Oh, Henrietta, "my good, kind husband!"
HENRIETTA:
Think of him, Mabel, out there alone in Chicago,
working his head off, fixing people's teeth — for you!
MABEL:
Yes, but think of the living Libido — in conflict
with petrified moral codes! And think of the perfectly
wonderful way the names all prove it. Dr. Russell
said he's never seen anything more convincing. Just
look at Stephen's last name — Brewster. I dream
I'm a hen, and the name Brewster — you have to say
its first letter by itself — and then the hen, that's me,
she says to him: "Stephen, Be Rooster!"
[Henrietta and Stephen collapse into
the nearest chairs.]
MABEL:I think it's perfectly wonderful ! Why, if it wasn't
for psychoanalysis you'd never find out how wonderful
your own mind is!
STEVE:
[Begins to chuckle.] Be Rooster! Stephen, Be Rooster!
HENRIETTA:
You think it's funny, do you?
STEVE:
Well, what's to be done about it? Does Mabel
have to go away with me?
HENRIETTA:
Do you want Mabel to go away with you?
STEVE:
Well, but Mabel herself — her complex — her suppressed
desire — !
HENRIETTA:
[Going to her.] Mabel, are you going to insist
on going away with Stephen?
MABEL:
I'd rather go with Stephen than go to the insane
asylum!
HENRIETTA:
For heaven's sake, Mabel, drop that insane asylum!
If you did have a suppressed desire for Stephen hidden
away in you — God knows it isn't hidden now. Dr.
Russell has brought it into your consciousness — with
a vengeance. That's all that's necessary to break up
a complex. Psychoanalysis doesn't say you have to
gratify every suppressed desire.
STEVE:
[Softly.] Unless it's for Lyman Eggleston.
HENRIETTA:
[Turning on him.] Well, if it comes to that, Stephen
Brewster, I'd like to know why that interpretation
of mine isn't as good as this one? Step, Hen!
STEVE:
But Be Rooster! [He pauses, chuckling to himself.]
Step-Hen B-rooster. And Henrietta. Pshaw, my
dear, Doc Russell's got you beat a mile! [He turns
away and chuckles.] Be rooster!
MABEL:
What has Lyman Eggleston got to do with it?
STEVE:
According to Henrietta, you, the hen, have a suppressed
desire for Eggleston, the egg.
MABEL:
Henrietta, I think that's indecent of you! He is
bald as an egg and little and fat—the idea of you
thinking such a thing of me I
HENRIETTA:
Well, Bob isn't little and bald and fat ! Why don't
you stick to your own husband? [To Stephen.]
What if Dr. Russell's interpretation has got mine "beat
a mile"? [Resentful look at him.] It would only
mean that Mabel doesn't want Eggleston and does want
you. Does that mean she has to have you?
MABEL:
But you said Mabel Snow —
HENRIETTA:
Mary Snow! You're not as much like her as you
think — substituting your name for hers! The cases
are entirely different. Oh, I wouldn't have believed
this of you, Mabel. [Beginning to cry.] I brought
you here for a pleasant visit — thought you needed
brightening up — wanted to be nice to you — and now
you — my husband — you insist —
[In fumbling her way to her chair she
brushes to the floor some sheets from
the psychoanalytical table.]
STEVE:
[With solicitude.] Careful, dear. Your paper on
psychoanalysis!
[Gathers up sheets and offers them to her.]
HENRIETTA:
I don't want my paper on psychoanalysis! I'm sick
of psychoanalysis!
STEVE:
[Eagerly.] Do you mean that, Henrietta?
HENRIETTA:
Why shouldn't I mean it? Look at all I've done
for psychoanalysis — and — [Raising a tear-stained
face] what has psychoanalysis done for me?
STEVE:
Do you mean, Henrietta, that you're going to stop
talking psychoanalysis?
HENRIETTA:
Why shouldn't I stop talking it? Haven't I seen
what it does to people? Mabel has gone crazy about
psychoanalysis! [At the word "crazy" with a moan
Mabel sinks to chair and buries her
face in her hands.]
STEVE:
[Solemnly.] Do you swear never to wake me up
in the night to find out what I'm dreaming?
HENRIETTA:
Dream what you please — I don't care what you're
dreaming.
STEVE:
Will you clear off my work-table so the Journal
of Morbid Psychology doesn't stare me in the face
when I'm trying to plan a house?
HENRIETTA:
[Pushing a stack of periodicals off the table.] I'll
bum the Journal of Morbid Psychology!
STEVE:
My dear Henrietta, if you're going to separate from
psychoanalysis, there's no reason why I should separate
from you.
[They embrace ardently. Mabel lifts
her head and looks at them woefully.]
MABEL:
[Jumping up and going toward them.] But what
about me? What am I to do with my suppressed
desire?
STEVE:
[With one arm still around Henrietta, gives Mabel
a brotherly hug.] Mabel, you just keep right on suppressing
it!
(Curtain)