詩集的題目Das Standenbuch，原係中世紀天主教（或東正教）教會內的一個專有名詞，指供普通教徒或俗人採用的定時（早中晚）祈禱書，為一般辭書所不載。英譯一般作book of hours，英語讀者大都懂得，這是指breviary，即a book containing the daily service of the R. C. Church，漢語讀者不熟悉天主教風習，此詞如按英譯字面譯作「時間之書」或「時辰之書」，恐易引起誤解。這部詩集作於一八九九─一九○三年，是詩人偕女友Lou AndreasSalone ★兩度訪俄的產品。全詩假託一位從事繪畫神像的俄國僧侶所撰。所有篇什均為無題詩，自成體系，共分三部分︰一、關於僧侶生活（一八九九，第一次訪俄期間）；二、關於參詣聖地（一九○一，第二次訪俄期間）；三、關於貧窮與死亡（一九○三）。細讀可知，詩中僧侶所奉之神，不是基督教的上帝，而是詩人早年崇尚的心靈純樸的人格化，由此見出詩人的藝術宗教的開端，只有這種宗教才能使詩人心靈臻於完善。
Da neigt sich die Stunde und rührt mich an
Da neigt sich die Stunde und ruehrt mich an
mit klarem, metallenem Schlag:
mir zittern die Sinne. Ich fuehle: ich kann –
und ich fasse den plastischen Tag.
Nichts war noch vollendet, eh ich es erschaut,
ein jedes Werden stand still.
Meine Blicke sind reif, und wie eine Braut
kommt jedem das Ding, das er will.
Nichts ist mir zu klein und ich lieb es trotzdem
und mal es auf Goldgrund und gross,
und halte es hoch, und ich weiss nicht wem
loest es die Seele los...
英譯
The hour is striking so close above me,
so clear and sharp,
that all my senses ring with it.
I feel it now: there’s a power in me
to grasp and give shape to my world.
I know that nothing has ever been real
without my beholding it.
All becoming has needed me.
My looking ripens things
and they come toward me, to meet and be met.
No thing is too small for me to cherish
and paint in gold, as if it were an icon
that could bless us,
though I'll not know who else among us
will feel this blessing.
中譯
1
禱事將盡（註一），並動我以
清亮金屬敲擊聲的時候（註二）
我的感官都戰慄起來。我覺我能──
我能抓住這造形的白晝。
在我目睹之前，每種成長均已
停頓，無物得以完成。（註三）
我的目光成熟，每望一次所盼見
之物乃如新娘姍姍來臨。
萬物皆不覺其小，我反愛它
並將它畫大於金色之背景（註四）
並把它高舉起來（註五），卻不知
誰的靈魂將脫體而飛升……
註一︰原文die Stunde此處轉意為「禱課」、「禱事」；一般作「課時」解。
註二︰第一句原文Da neigt sich die Stunde und ruhrt mich an……係時間狀語從句，修飾主句「我的感官戰慄起來」。其中neigt sich是德語慣用的修辭格，其完整意義為sich zum Ende neigen（＝英語draws to a close，或is on the wane，或is nearing the end等；相當於漢語中更漏、世界將盡、將完結之意），故不宜如英譯直譯為bows down★ bows down在英語中並無neigt sich在德語中所有的修辭作用，即沒有「將完結」的意思，如照英譯字面譯成漢語，勢必引出種種誤會。又，neigt sich是個不及物動詞，與後文的mich（＝me）無關，故不論「我俯向時間」或「時辰俯向我」，均非作者原意。
註三︰虛擬作者是個畫神像的僧侶，故前句用plastisch（＝plastic）來形容他將「抓住」（從事工作）的Tag(Day) ，此處則用erschaut（目睹）來點明繪畫之初。英譯作Perceived似不切。
註四︰「金色背景」為中古或拜占廷宗教畫常用背景。
註五︰神像畫成，就應「高舉」起來。英譯 I prized it亦不甚切。從以上註文可見，原作各行的遣詞造句，共同表示了那位僧侶虔敬繪畫神像的全部過程。
2
時光俯下軀身，輕撫我
以清澈、金屬質的敲擊聲。
這感覺令我顫慄。我感到：我能夠——
且領會到形象化的日子。
虛無依然完美，在我覺察之前，
每一個進程都靜靜凝立。
我的目光成熟如同一個新娘，
落在每一個渴望她的物上。
虛無於我雖然微渺，我卻依然愛它，
巨大地，畫它在金色的背景上。
高擎著它，我不知道誰
靈魂因它而離散……
當時刻（時光）就要結束，時光（時刻）俯下身軀，以清澈（清晰）的、金屬質的叩擊輕觸我，我的感官開始顫慄。我感到，我開始能夠（有能力）去把握，並且我已經開始在把握形象化的日子（「秒、分、時、日」之日）。
在我用感官體察之前，萬物沒有什麼已經被完成，完成中的每一個進程都靜靜佇立（靜靜地停止著）。我的目光在成熟，每道目光所渴望的「物」，彷彿新娘，出現在每道目光之前。
對我而言，萬物沒有什麼太微小，但是我喜愛萬物，我將萬物畫在金色背景下，巨大地畫下，我將萬物（的畫）高高舉起，我不知道，萬物讓誰與自己的靈魂分開……
Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen
Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen,
die sich über die Dinge ziehn.
Ich werde den letzten vielleicht nicht vollbringen,
aber versuchen will ich ihn.
Ich kreise um Gott, um den uralten Turm,
und ich kreise jahrtausendelang;
und ich weiß noch nicht: bin ich ein Falke, ein Sturm
oder ein großer Gesang.
英譯
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
我生活我的生活在生長的圓裡，
圓在物之上伸張。
或許我無法最終完成，
但我願將之試嘗。
圍繞著上帝，圍繞著古老的鐘樓，
我旋轉了千年；
而我依然不知道：我是鷹，是風暴
抑或是一首宏大的詩篇。
Ich habe viele Brüder in Sutanen
Ich habe viele Brüder in Sutanen
Im Süden, wo in Klöstern Lorbeer steht.
Ich weiß, wie menschlich sie Madonnen planen,
und träume oft von jungen Tizianen,
durch die der Gott in Gluten geht.
Doch wie ich mich auch in mich selber neige:
Mein Gott ist dunkel und wie ein Gewebe
Von hundert Wurzeln, welche schweigsam trinken.
Nur, dass ich mich aus seiner Wärme hebe,
mehr weiß ich nicht, weil alle meine Zweige
tief unten ruhn und nur im Winde winken.
英
I have many brothers in the South
who move, handsome in their vestments,
through cloister gardens.
The Madonnas they make are so human,
and I dream often of their Titians,
where God becomes an ardent flame.
But when I lean over the chasm of myself –
it seems
my God is dark
and like a web: a hundred roots
silently drinking.
This is the ferment I grow out of.
More I don’t know, because my branches
rest in deep silence, stirred only by the wind.
我的許多身穿長袍的兄弟
在南方，修道院裡桂影婆娑。
我知道，他們在怎樣人性地構畫聖母，
我時常夢見這些年輕的提香，
藉著他們的手，神在霞光中顯現。
而當我也俯向自己的內心：
我的天主暗昧如一匹布，
有著千百條根，在無聲地吸吮。
我僅僅知道，我浮沉在
他的溫暖裡，因為我所有的枝條
靜靜低垂，只在風來時輕搖。
Wir dürfen dich nicht eigenmächtig malen
Wir dürfen dich nicht eigenmächtig malen,
du Dämmernde, aus der der Morgen stieg.
Wir holen aus den alten Farbenschalen
die gleichen Striche und die gleichen Strahlen,
mit denen dich der Heilige verschwieg.
Wir bauen Bilder vor dir auf wie Wände;
so daß schon tausend Mauern um dich stehn.
Denn dich verhüllen unsre frommen Hände,
so oft dich unsre Herzen offen sehn.
英譯
We must not portray you in king’s robes
You drifting mist that brought forth the morning.
Once again from the old paintboxes
we take the same gold for sceptre and crown
that has disguised you through the ages.
Piously we produce images of you
till they stand around you like a thousand walls.
And when our hearts would simply open
Our fervent hands hide you.
中譯
我們不敢擅自將你繪畫，
你啊晨光，黎明從中升起。
我們從古老的調色盤中揀選
聖者用以隱藏你的
相同的筆觸、相同的線條。
我們豎起畫像在你的面前，如牆，
因此千道圍牆矗立在你的身邊。
每當我們心扉開敞將你看見，
我們就用虔敬的雙手將你遮掩。
Ich liebe meines Wesens Dunkelstunden
Ich liebe meines Wesens Dunkelstunden,
in welchen meine Sinne sich vertiefen;
in ihnen hab ich, wie in alten Briefen,
mein täglich Leben schon gelebt gefunden
und wie Legende weit und überwunden.
Aus ihnen kommt mir Wissen, daß ich Raum
zu einem zweiten zeitlos breiten Leben habe.
Und manchmal bin ich wie der Baum,
der, reif und rauschend, über einem Grabe
den Traum erfüllt, den der vergangne Knabe
(um den sich seine warmen Wurzeln drängen)
verlor in Traurigkeiten und Gesängen.
英譯
I love the dark hours of my being.
My mind deepens into them.
There I can find, as in old letters,
the days of my life, already lived,
and held like a legend, and understood.
Then the knowing comes: I can open
to another life that's wide and timeless.
So I am sometimes like a tree
rustling over a gravesite
and making real the dream
of the one its living roots
embrace:
a dream once lost
among sorrows and songs.
中譯
我愛我生命中的晦冥時分，
那一刻我的感官漸漸深沉。
那一刻，彷彿在舊日的信箋中，
我發現，平淡的生活已然度過，
如傳說一樣遙遠而神奇。
那一刻裡，我省悟，我擁有
通往第二個永恆悠長生命的空間。
時而我恰如那棵樹，
枝繁葉茂、樹影婆娑，在墳塋之上
充滿幻夢（溫暖的根須簇擁
在夢的周圍），那個昔日少年
在傷悲與琴聲中失去的夢。
Du, Nachbar Gott, wenn ich dich manches Mal
Du, Nachbar Gott, wenn ich dich manches Mal
in langer Nacht mit hartem Klopfen störe, -
so ist's, weil ich dich selten atmen höre
und weiß: Du bist allein im Saal.
Und wenn du etwas brauchst, ist keiner da,
um deinem Tasten einen Trank zu reichen:
Ich horche immer. Gib ein kleines Zeichen.
Ich bin ganz nah.
Nur eine schmale Wand ist zwischen uns,
durch Zufall; denn es könnte sein:
ein Rufen deines oder meines Munds -
und sie bricht ein
ganz ohne Lärm und Laut.
Aus deinen Bildern ist sie aufgebaut.
Und deine Bilder stehn vor dir wie Namen.
Und wenn einmal das Licht in mir entbrennt,
mit welchem meine Tiefe dich erkennt,
vergeudet sichs als Glanz auf ihren Rahmen.
Und meine Sinne, welche schnell erlahmen,
sind ohne Heimat und von dir getrennt.
英譯
You, God, who live next door--
If at times, through the long night, I trouble you
with my urgent knocking--
this is why: I hear you breathe so seldom.
I know you're all alone in that room.
If you should be thirsty, there's no one
to get you a glass of water.
I wait listening, always. Just give me a sign!
I'm right here.
As it happens, the wall between us
is very thin. Why couldn't a cry
from one of us
break it down? It would crumble
easily,
it would barely make a sound.
中譯
你，我的天主，當我多次在漫漫長夜
以劇烈的心跳將你煩擾，——
你我便結成比鄰，因為我難得地聽見你的呼吸，
且知道：你獨自在空空的大廳裡。
而當你需要什麼，那裡卻無人
為你奉上一杯飲料：
我始終在傾聽。請顯現一個微小的朕兆吧。
我就在你的近旁。
僅僅一道薄牆隔在你我之間，
不斷地崩塌著；因為可能：
你的或我的口中一聲呼喚——
於是牆崩塌
全無喧囂與喧嘩。
牆被構畫在你的畫像之上。
你的畫像矗立在你面前如名。
我心深處用以明認你的光，
在我體內燃燒，
灰飛如畫框上的光輝。
我的感官，驟然倦怠，
沒有故鄉，與你隔絕。
Wenn es nur einmal so ganz stille wäre
Wenn es nur einmal so ganz stille wäre.
Wenn das Zufällige und Ungefähre
verstummte und das nachbarliche Lachen,
wenn das Geräusch, das meine Sinne machen,
mich nicht so sehr verhinderte am Wachen -:
Dann könnte ich in einem tausendfachen
Gedanken bis an deinen Rand dich denken
und dich besitzen (nur ein Lächeln lang),
um dich an alles Leben zu verschenken
wie einen Dank.
If only for once it were still.
If the not quite right and the why this
could be muted, and the neighbor's laughter,
and the static my senses make —
if all of it didn't keep me from coming awake —
Then in one vast thousandfold thought
I could think you up to where thinking ends.
I could possess you,
even for the brevity of a smile,
to offer you
to all that lives,
in gladness.
假如曾經僅有一次這樣靜謐。
假如意外和偶然
以及鄰人的訕笑平靜下來，
假如，我的感官產生的雜音
不曾這樣強烈地妨礙我清醒：
我將能夠在千種
思想中思想你直自你的衣邊，
擁有你（僅僅談笑間），
只為將你贈與眾生
如同感恩。
Ich lebe grad, da das Jahrhundert geht
Ich lebe grad, da das Jahrhundert geht.
Man fühlt den Wind von einem großen Blatt,
das Gott und du und ich beschrieben hat
und das sich hoch in fremden Händen dreht.
Man fühlt den Glanz von einer neuen Seite,
auf der noch alles werden kann.
Die stillen Kräfte prüfen ihre Breite
und sehn einander dunkel an.
I'm living just as the century ends.
A great leaf, that God and you and I
Have covered with writing
Turns now, overhead, in strange hands.
We feel the sweep of it like a wind.
We see the brightness of a new page
Where everything yet can happen.
Unmoved by us, the fates take its measure
And look at one another, saying nothing.
我活著適逢世紀之交。
人們在一枚巨大的樹葉上感受到風，
那樹葉，上主與你與我曾在上面書寫，
那樹葉，高高旋轉在陌生的掌心。
人們在一張新的書頁感受到光輝，
書頁上一切依然可能發生。
沉靜的力檢視著彼此的距離，
互相暗自打量。
Ich lese es heraus aus deinem Wort
Ich lese es heraus aus deinem Wort,
aus der Geschichte der Gebärden,
mit welchen deine Hände um das Werden
sich rundeten, begrenzend, warm und weise.
Du sagtest leben laut und sterben leise
und wiederholtest immer wieder: Sein.
Doch vor dem ersten Tode kam der Mord.
Da ging ein Riß durch deine reifen Kreise
und ging ein Schrein
und riß die Stimmen fort,
die eben erst sich sammelten,
um dich zu sagen,
um dich zu tragen
alles Abgrunds Brücke -
Und was sie seither stammelten,
sind Stücke
deines alten Namens.
I read it here in your very word,
in the story of the gestures
with which your hands cupped themselves
around our becoming - limiting, warm.
You said live out loud, and die you said lightly,
and over and over again you said be.
But before the first death came murder.
A fracture broke across the rings you'd ripened.
A screaming shattered the voices
that had come together to speak you,
to make of you a bridge
over the chasm of everything.
And what they have stammered ever since
are fragments
of your ancient name.
我從你的話語中讀出它，
從手勢的往事，
你的手因之在成長中
合攏，輪廓漸成，熱情而賢明。
你高聲言說著生，低聲言說著死，
一次又一次地重複著：存在。
但謀殺發生在最初的死亡之前。
一道罅隙穿過你成熟的圓，
更有一聲驚叫穿過，
撕裂聲音，
那剛剛聚___集的聲音
為你而述說，
為你而支撐起
所有深淵上的橋——
它們從此囁嚅著的，
是你的
古老的名的片斷。
Der blasse Abelknabe spricht
Der blasse Abelknabe spricht:
Ich bin nicht. Der Bruder hat mir was getan,
was meine Augen nicht sahn.
Er hat mir das Licht verhängt.
Er hat mein Gesicht verdrängt
mit seinem Gesicht.
Er ist jetzt allein.
Ich denke, er muß noch sein.
Denn ihm tut niemand, wie er mir getan.
Es gingen alle meine Bahn,
kommen alle vor seinen Zorn,
gehen alle an ihm verloren.
Ich glaube, mein großer Bruder wacht
wie ein Gericht.
An mich hat die Nacht gedacht;
an ihn nicht.
英譯
(Abel speaks)
I am not. The brother did something to me
that my eyes didn't see.
He veiled the light.
He hid my face with his face.
Now he is alone.
I think he must still exist,
for no one does to him what he did to me.
All have gone the same way:
all are met with his rage,
beside him all are lost.
I sense my brother lies awake
as if accused.
Night offers itself to me,
not to him.
蒼白的少年亞伯說：
我已不在人世。我兄長對我做下的，
我的雙眼不曾看見。
他遮蔽了照耀我的光。
他排擠了我的面孔
用他的面龐。
此刻他孑然一身。
我想，他將不得不孤獨下去。
因為無人待他，像他待我一樣。
所有人都重蹈我的舊路，
所有人都令他惱怒，
所有人都因他而逝去。
我相信，我的兄長清醒
如一個審判者。
黑夜思念著我；
而不是他。
Du Dunkelheit, aus der ich stamme
Du Dunkelheit, aus der ich stamme,
ich liebe dich mehr als die Flamme,
welche die Welt begrenzt,
indem sie glänzt
für irgend einen Kreis,
aus dem heraus kein Wesen von ihr weiß.
Aber die Dunkelheit hält alles an sich:
Gestalten und Flammen, Tiere und mich,
wie sie's errafft,
Menschen und Mächte -
Und es kann sein: eine große Kraft
rührt sich in meiner Nachbarschaft.
Ich glaube an Nächte.
英譯
You, darkness, of whom I am born–
I love you more that the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illuminates
and excludes all the rest.
But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me,
people, nations–just as they are.
It let’s me imagine
a great presence stirring beside me.
I believe in the night.
中譯
黑暗呵，我出生於你，
我愛你更甚於愛火焰，
世界以火焰為界，
世界中火焰閃耀著
圍繞著某一個圓，
無人知曉它的本質。
而黑暗卻籠罩著一切：
形態與火焰，動物和我，
當黑暗攫取，
人類與權力——
就將有：一股巨大的力
跳動在我的周圍。
我信奉黑夜。
Ich glaube an alles noch nie Gesagte
Ich glaube an alles noch nie Gesagte.
Ich will meine frömmsten Gefühle befrein.
Was noch keiner zu wollen wagte,
wird mir einmal unwillkürlich sein.
Ist das vermessen, mein Gott, vergib.
Aber ich will dir damit nur sagen:
Meine beste Kraft soll sein wie ein Trieb,
so ohne Zürnen und ohne Zagen;
so haben dich ja die Kinder lieb.
Mit diesem Hinfluten, mit diesem Münden
in breiten Armen ins offene Meer,
mit dieser wachsenden Wiederkehr
will ich dich bekennen, will ich dich verkünden
wie keiner vorher.
Und ist das Hoffart, so laß mich hoffärtig sein
für mein Gebet,
das so ernst und allein
vor deiner wolkigen Stirne steht.
英譯
I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.
If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.
Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.
我信奉尚未說出的一切。
我願將我最虔誠的情感釋放。
那依舊無人膽敢渴望的，
終將為我而不由自主地存在。
如果這是放肆，我主，請寬恕。
而我只願對你說：
我最好的力量恰如一種本能，
無怨無悔；
恰如孩子們對你的愛。
以這海潮翻漲，以這江流奔騰，
穿過寬廣的堤岸，湧入開敞的大海，
以這增長著的回歸
我願將你明認，我願將你傳佈
捨我其誰。
如果這是傲慢，就讓我
為我的祈禱傲慢，
我的祈禱誠摯而孤寂，
兀立在你雲翳的額前。
Ich bin auf der Welt zu allein und doch nicht allein genug
Ich bin auf der Welt zu allein und doch nicht allein genug,
um jede Stunde zu weihn.
Ich bin auf der Welt zu gering und doch nicht klein genug,
um vor dir zu sein wie ein Ding,
dunkel und klug.
Ich will meinen Willen und will meinen Willen begleiten
die Wege zur Tat;
und will in stillen, irgendwie zögernden Zeiten,
wenn etwas naht,
unter den Wissenden sein
oder allein.
Ich will dich immer spiegeln in ganzer Gestalt,
und will niemals blind sein oder zu alt,
um dein schweres schwankendes Bild zu halten.
Ich will mich entfalten.
Nirgends will ich gebogen bleiben,
denn dort bin ich gelogen, wo ich gebogen bin.
Und ich will meinen Sinn
wahr vor dir. Ich will mich beschreiben
wie ein Bild, das ich sah,
lange und nah,
wie ein Wort, das ich begriff,
wie meinen täglichen Krug,
wie meiner Mutter Gesicht,
wie ein Schiff,
das mich trug
durch den tödlichsten Sturm.
英譯
I'm too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy.
I'm too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing --
just as it is.
I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones --
or alone.
I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.
I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.
I would describe myself
like a landscape I've studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I'm coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;
like my mother's face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.
中譯
我在世間十分孤獨，但尚未孤獨得足以
淨化每一寸光陰。
我在世間十分卑微，但尚未卑微得足以
在你面前像一個事物，
昏黑而聰敏。
我渴望我的渴望，渴望我的渴望伴隨著
行動之路；
渴望在寧靜、無論怎樣躊躇的時分，
當某物臨近，
置身智者之中
或者孤獨。
我渴望始終映照出你全部的形象，
渴望從未盲眇或蒼老得
無法支撐你沉重、搖擺著的畫像。
我渴望展現自己，
無論何地，我渴望保持著鞠躬，
因為哪裡我鞠躬，哪裡我被欺騙。
我渴望我的感覺
真實展現於你面前。我渴望將自己描畫得
像我看見的一幅畫，
長久而臨近，
像我領會的一句話，
像我日用的水罐，
像我母親的臉，
像一艘船，
負載著我
穿過最凶險的風暴。
2010年6月15日 星期二
Rainer Maria Rilke 萊納·瑪利亞·里爾克
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875－1926)是一位重要的德語詩人，除了創作德語詩歌外還攥寫小說、劇本以及一些雜文和法語詩歌，其書信集也是里爾克文學作品的一個重要組成部分。對19世紀末的詩歌裁體和風格以及歐洲頹廢派文學都有深厚的影響。
1875-1896: 詩人的孩提時代
里爾克1875年12月出生於布拉格這個波希米亞地區大都會，這裡當時屬於的奧地利，（因為奧匈帝國於1918年解體，分為奧地利和匈牙利）。里爾克的童年生活是缺少樂趣和歡笑的。詩人原名是充滿法國氣息的勒內（René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke）。
父親約瑟夫·里爾克（1838-1906），是個身體虛弱而脾氣暴躁的人，仕途不順後退伍謀得一份鐵路局小吏的工作。
母親索菲亞·菲婭·恩特茲（1851-1931）是一個為上流社會生活所著迷的女人，婚前生活在布拉格一個中產的製造業家庭。在她因為婚姻無法滿足她過上流的奢華生活而忍無可忍時於1884年與丈夫離婚。而期間的種種不滿導致了夫妻關係不合，也對詩人的幼年心靈留下了深刻的烙印。
詩人母親與兒子的關係並不和睦，因為比里爾克更早一年出生的女兒剛出世便夭折了。菲婭給兒子起名René便有「天生」（Re Born）的意思，也是為了紀念早夭的女兒。一直到6歲菲婭都將里爾克當作女孩來教育，留長捲髮、穿女式洋裝以及提供布制玩偶作為玩具。這也成為了詩人日後創作中的一個重要主題（《杜伊諾哀歌》第四首哀歌〈玩偶〉）等作品都有提及。
1885年裡爾克被父親約瑟夫送往聖波爾藤（St.Pölten）的一家軍事學校，而一系列體力化的訓練令里爾克不堪重負。終於在1891年因病離開了軍事學校，轉向一家商校。1892年至1895年大概是里爾克的一個重要轉折點，因為在這段時間裡詩人在準備進入大學所必須的中學畢業考試，並決定了此後從事文學創作的目標。並於1895年首先就讀於布拉格大學，而後於1896年轉往慕尼黑大學。期間一直主修都是哲學，文學和藝術史。
在里爾克離開布拉格之後，遇到了一個重要的女性露·安德烈亞斯·莎樂美（Lou Andreas-Salomé），她是里爾克一生中重要的朋友。並在1896年他將自己的名字勒內（René）改為萊納（Rainer）。
1897-1902: 詩人進步的數年
1897年裡爾克在慕尼黑遇到了那個聰慧異常且對文學有著過人見解的露·安德烈斯·莎勒美後不久便深深的愛上了她。雖然莎勒美是一個已婚的女人，卻也愛上了里爾克，於是乎兩人就將這樣曖昧的關係一直保持到了1900年。在兩人分開後，莎勒美也被證明是里爾克最為重要的良師益友。在里爾克困惑的時候經常予以幫助和提點。他們這樣的關係在1912年至1913年的一次心理學精神分析會上被標上俄狄浦斯情結（因為莎勒美比里爾克年齡大15歲），這樣的理論是由弗洛伊德提出的。
「...在他（指里爾克）無助、困惑的時候，她變成了他的貼心的知己、慈祥的母親。」 （弗洛伊德悼念露·安德烈斯·莎勒美的文章,1937）
里爾克與莎勒美在1897年秋天確定了關係，隨後兩人住在柏林郊區的一棟複式公寓里。1898年兩人第一次海外旅行的目的地是義大利，兩人共渡了好幾個星期的時間。隨後里爾克兩次隨莎勒美和她的丈夫安德烈斯前往俄國，並於1899年在莫斯科遇到了文學泰斗托爾斯泰。1900年（5月8日）里爾克又單獨同莎勒美遊歷俄國，這次去到了莫斯科和聖彼得堡。
在1900年秋天，莎勒美決定和里爾克分手，於是里爾克來到了不萊梅附近的一個叫做沃爾波斯維德的地方。並結識了畫家海因里希·沃格勒（Heinrich Vogeler），經過沃格勒的引見里爾克認識了奧托·莫德索恩（Otto Modersohn）和妻子保拉·莫德索恩-貝克爾（Paula Modersohn-Becker）以及卡爾·霍普特曼（Carl Hauptmann ）當然還有最重要的－雕塑家克拉拉·威斯特霍夫（1878-1954）。在1901年4月里爾克與克拉拉結婚並於同年12月誕下一女露絲（1901-1972）。1902年夏天裡爾克接到一份專題論文的工作而來到巴黎，這部論文的主題是關於大師級雕塑家羅丹（Auguste Rodin 1840-1917），而作品也就是後來的羅丹論。因為克拉拉曾經師從於羅丹的關係，所以里爾克得以順利與羅丹會面並完成作品。
在這段時間裡里爾克在朋友的幫助下對於藝術有了新的見解，而結識文學家托爾斯泰、畫家列昂尼德·帕斯捷爾奈克（即《日瓦格醫生》作者之父）、雕塑家羅丹、特魯勃茨科依（Paul Trubezkoi）等人，這對其日後創作幫助良多。羅丹在其中尤其重要，里爾克時常在書信里向人提及羅丹的名言Il faut travailler！（必須得幹活！）
1902-1910: 第一個創作高峰
第一次來到巴黎的日子並不順利，因為這個「奇怪」的大都市對里爾克來說還有許多未知。可這些經歷對里爾克後來編寫《布里格手記》（全稱《馬爾特·勞里茲·布里格手記》（Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge））時幫助良多。這段時間裡爾克與羅丹的密切交往，而後與另一位知名畫家塞尚（Paul Cezanne 1839-1906）也有著頻繁的來往。巴黎也變成對詩人越來越重要的地方，在1905年到1906年期間里爾克一度擔任羅丹的私人秘書。而後因為詩人的父親在1906年5月去世；羅丹對里爾克越發信任工作量也有所增加，而詩人自己又需要極大的時間、空間去完成自己的創作。因為這樣種種理由里爾克與羅丹的雇傭關係就這樣解除了。
因為在巴黎的這段時間裡而誕生的作品有《新詩集》（Neue Gedichte）（1907年）以及《續新詩》（Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil》（1908年）、《安魂曲》 （Requiem）（1909年）和在1904年開始創作的小說《布里格手記》（1910年）。
1910-1919: 詩人蛻變的內外
在一個長達十年的歲月里（1912至1922年2月）里爾克的生命就是《杜伊諾哀歌》（Duineser Elegien），而《杜伊諾哀歌》的起因是因為伯爵夫人瑪利亞·馮·圖勒恩和塔克西（Marie von Thurn und Taxis）這位里爾克忠實的讀者盛情邀請詩人前往杜伊諾城堡（Schloss Duineser）作客。而杜伊諾哀歌正是瑪利亞為了讓里爾克專心寫作而讓他獨自居住在杜伊諾城堡時，靈光閃現的產物。
隨後第一次世界大戰爆發了，因為身在德國的詩人多年來唯一的固定居所在法國，交戰關係令里爾克不能回到巴黎。所以在整個一戰詩人流離於德國和奧地利。而巴黎的居所也因為無法交納租金而被政府發付處理，裡面連同里爾克大量的資料和文件。1916年里爾克被迫應徵入伍，可幸運的是里爾克在他的貴族朋友幫助並沒有被派往前線，而只留在慕尼黑和做文書工作。
1919-1926: 詩人最後的日子
1919年6月11日里爾克從慕尼黑來到了瑞士蘇黎世。表面上看來是應蘇黎士地方邀請前往講學，實際上則是里爾克想逃脫戰後的混亂以及離棄這個耽誤他多年寫作工作的地方，重新開始《杜伊諾哀歌》的創作。然而找尋一個合適的住所是困難的，起先里爾克蘇黎士附近的伊爾舍勒河畔（Irchel），而後在1921年裡爾克發現了一個叫做慕佐（Muzot）位於瓦萊州（Wallis）謝爾（Sierre）地區的小城堡。隨後在1922年5月里爾克的朋友萊茵哈特（Werner Reinhart 1884-1951）將這座城堡為里爾克租下而後買下贈與詩人。
1922年二月在短短的幾個星期內里爾克靈感迸發，完成了長達十年的《杜伊諾哀歌》的創作，並且在這段時間裡爾克還完成了另一部巨著《致奧爾弗斯的十四行詩》（Sonette an Orpheus）。這兩部作品也是里爾克一生中最重要及富影響力的創作。
因為創作耗費大量的精力、體力，1923年裡爾克不得不在療養院度日。隨後的兩年時間一直在法國和瑞士逗留，直到1925年8月。這時的里爾克已經虛弱不堪無法擺脫病魔的束縛。終於在1926年裡爾克再次身體情況惡化，進入療養院。
終於在1926年12月29日，里爾克與世長辭。醫生診斷為肝臟功能衰竭及白血病。1927年1月里爾克被埋葬在瓦萊西邊的小鎮Visp,在平滑的墓碑上寫著里爾克生前為自己所作的墓志銘（因里爾剋死於白血病，一說是由於玫瑰針刺感染。所以在墓志銘中提到了謀殺偉大詩人的兇手－玫瑰）：
Rose, oh reiner Widerspruch, Lust,
Niemandes Schlaf zu sein unter soviel
Lidern.
玫瑰，噢純粹的矛盾，欲願，
是這許多眼瞼下無人有過的
睡眠。
藝術的影響
對於里爾克的藝術叔本華和尼采都有著很深的影響，並且開始在很早的時候，這也是里爾克一直醉心於古典文學時仍不放棄哲學的原因之一。
年輕的里爾克傳記開始在無家可歸後開始，寂寥這是里爾克一生的桎梏。從那首被修飾後出現在1896年發行的詩集《祭神》中的〈家〉（Heimat）可見一斑。表達了里爾克對家鄉布拉格的情結。
小記: 布拉格和文學
布拉格是波斯米亞地區最大的城市，而為世界所知的是他們在德意志帝國中獲得了第一所大學稱號。在1900年左右布拉格大學就像一座溫室孕育著牠的學生們，而後逐漸的形成了三個詩文派系的競爭圈子：布洛德（Max Brod）和他的好友卡夫卡，魏爾什（Felix Weltsch）和鮑姆（Otto Baum）。這更加促進了布拉格文化圈的形成。而"Wefa"協會中包括了許多作家，像阿德勒（z. B. Friederich Adler）、里爾克、麥林克（Gustav Meyrink）以及在布拉格工作的年輕作家魏菲爾（Franz Werfel）形成了年輕人間的文化圈。在詩集《夢想之冠》的不少篇章中詩人提及了對生活的感慨，這很大程度上都來自「Wefa」的影響。
里爾克的早期創作很受詩歌體裁的控制，且並沒有系統的創作。可自《夢想之冠》和《到來》以及隨後的《祝福我》（1897/1889）發表后里爾克第一次真正受到世界的注視。而與《祝福我》幾乎同時完成的作品"祝福你"則因涉及較多與莎勒美的私隱而無法公諸於世。之後的《時辰祈禱》（3部，完成於1899-1903年）以及一些宗教題材的抒情詩，牠們形成了里爾克生命中第一個創作高潮。而後里爾克逐漸形成了自己獨特的創作風格，為了證明自己並不需要依靠教會的力量而放棄了宗教題材抒情詩的攥寫。
尼採的哲學理論也通過里爾克的親密好友莎勒美，體現在詩人身上並對他形成了巨大的影響。現實的世界根本無法接受兩人之間的感情關係，這些大眾間嚴守的道德操守使得里爾克走向孤獨，而形成了自己的「內部世界」。
1910年至1912年之間里爾克完成了對其以後詩歌及寫作有著很深影響的兩部作品-《新詩集》、《布里格手記》。這是里爾克創作類型轉變的開端，從唯物（類似豹之類的描述事物外表的詩）詩向唯心詩創作的轉變。這些變化逐漸形成了里爾克在《杜伊諾哀歌》中的表現手法。
里爾克人生最後一個創作高峰發生在1912年至1922年之間，由《杜伊諾哀歌》和《致奧爾甫斯的十四行詩》構成了這個創作的高峰。然而這兩部詩歌表達的意境卻截然不同，"杜伊諾哀歌"中更多的描述苦難與死亡；而《致奧爾甫斯的十四行詩》中則是歌頌、歌頌著世間萬物。
里爾克的文學創作不僅在文學圈發酵，1998年英國前衛詩人Anne Clark與樂手Martyn Bate攜手製作的音樂劇《日落之後》(Just after Sunset)，將詩人一系列的英譯詩作透過吟唱、朗誦與表演的形式搬到舞台上，簡要介紹詩人的一生。
2010年6月9日 星期三
羅伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森
羅伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森（巴爾佛）（Robert Louis Stevenson,1850–1894年），蘇格蘭作家。他是最多產的作家之一。他的浪漫冒險小說是自《沃爾特·斯科特爵士》問世以來英國最受公眾喜愛的作品。《金銀島》（1883年），是關於尋找海盜寶藏的故事，也是他的浪漫小說中最受歡迎的一部，同時還是最受歡迎的英語兒童書籍之一。《化身博士》（1886年），是一部關於人類雙重性格的諷刺性小說，同時也是描述心理活動的懸疑恐怖小說。《兒童詩園》（1885年），是一部經典作品。
在怪誕題材的「馬克漢姆」和「醜陋的珍妮特」、悲劇題材的《法理絲的海灘》、幻想題材的《邁爾斯特`多爾閣下》等作品中，史蒂文森證明了自己還是一位短篇小說大師。他的散文、遊記以及信函文字優美、內容睿智且見聞廣博。
史蒂文森的著作使得他在有生之年非常受歡迎，但是在他去世後他的文學聲譽開始下降，並且後人僅僅認為他是一名傑出的兒童故事作家。然而，到了20世紀中期，評論家對其作品進行了新的評價，並將他列為20世紀最偉大的作家之一。
史蒂文森傳記
史蒂文森出生於愛丁堡。父親是一名富有的工程師，希望子承父業。背其道而為之，史蒂文森則選擇在愛丁堡大學學習法律，並於1875年通過了律師資格考試（但是他從來沒有從事法律行業）。從1873年開始，他陸續在各種期刊雜誌上發表作品，將全部精力都投入到了文學創作中。
史蒂文森的身體一直不是很好，他早期開始到處旅遊，既是為了健康也是為了消遣。他早期在歐洲旅遊的一些經歷在《內河航程》（1878年）和《騎驢漫遊記》（1879年）中進行了描述。
在1876年去法國的一次旅程中，史蒂文森遇到了芬尼·奧斯本太太，她是一名與丈夫關係疏遠的美國人，三年之後他追隨她去了美國。1880年，在她離婚之後，他們結婚了。當年的夏天，這對夫婦以及她的兒子居住在加利福尼亞州一個廢棄礦場的小木屋中，史蒂文森在《銀礦小徑破落戶》（1883年）中記錄了這段經歷。數年之後，為了紀念史蒂文森，在該礦場附近建立了羅伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森公墓州立公園和銀礦博物館。
在1880年返回蘇格蘭之後不久，史蒂文森得知自己患上了肺結核。他前往瑞士，之後到了法國南部，1884年又前往英格蘭的波恩茅斯。在這個期間，史蒂文森發表了散文集《少男少女》（1881年）；短篇小說集《新天方夜譚》（1882年）；冒險小說《金銀島》和《綁架》（1886年）以及《化身博士》等一系列作品，以此確立其文學威望。
1887年，史蒂文森再次前往美國，這次他在紐約的薩拉納克湖住了一年。在接下來的一年，他航行到了太平洋群島，並最終於1890年定居薩摩亞的烏波魯島。在那裡，史蒂文森購買了一大塊房產，將其稱為「維利馬」。他在這個島上大量創作，並且積極參與當地的政治活動。
史蒂文森死於突發性腦溢血。留下了一部未完成的小說《赫米斯頓的韋爾》，於1896年出版。這本小說的故事背景為18世紀的蘇格蘭，包含史蒂文森最偉大並具有現實性的一些人物形象。一些評論家認為這部小說是史蒂文森的一部傑作。
其他作品包括：長篇小說—《巴倫特雷的少爺》（1889年）以及《戴維 巴爾佛》（1893年）；短篇小說—《快樂的男人們》（1887年）以及《海島之夜娛樂記》（1893年）；詩歌—《民歌》（1891年）、《旅行之歌》（1896年）；非小說作品—《人與書研究》（1882年）、《回憶與肖像》（1887年）以及《橫渡平原》（1892年）。
2010年6月5日 星期六
A Jury of Her Peers
by Susan Glaspell
When Martha Hale opened the storm-door and got a cut of the north wind, she ran back for her big woolen scarf. As she hurriedly wound that round her head her eye made a scandalized sweep of her kitchen. It was no ordinary thing that called her away--it was probably further from ordinary than anything that had ever happened in Dickson County. But what her eye took in was that her kitchen was in no shape for leaving: her bread all ready for mixing, half the flour sifted and half unsifted.
She hated to see things half done; but she had been at that when the team from town stopped to get Mr. Hale, and then the sheriff came running in to say his wife wished Mrs. Hale would come too--adding, with a grin, that he guessed she was getting scary and wanted another woman along. So she had dropped everything right where it was.
"Martha!" now came her husband's impatient voice. "Don't keep folks waiting out here in the cold."
She again opened the storm-door, and this time joined the three men and the one woman waiting for her in the big two-seated buggy.
After she had the robes tucked around her she took another look at the woman who sat beside her on the back seat. She had met Mrs. Peters the year before at the county fair, and the thing she remembered about her was that she didn't seem like a sheriff's wife. She was small and thin and didn't have a strong voice. Mrs. Gorman, sheriff's wife before Gorman went out and Peters came in, had a voice that somehow seemed to be backing up the law with every word. But if Mrs. Peters didn't look like a sheriff's wife, Peters made it up in looking like a sheriff. He was to a dot the kind of man who could get himself elected sheriff--a heavy man with a big voice, who was particularly genial with the law-abiding, as if to make it plain that he knew the difference between criminals and non-criminals. And right there it came into Mrs. Hale's mind, with a stab, that this man who was so pleasant and lively with all of them was going to the Wrights' now as a sheriff.
"The country's not very pleasant this time of year," Mrs. Peters at last ventured, as if she felt they ought to be talking as well as the men.
Mrs. Hale scarcely finished her reply, for they had gone up a little hill and could see the Wright place now, and seeing it did not make her feel like talking. It looked very lonesome this cold March morning. It had always been a lonesome-looking place. It was down in a hollow, and the poplar trees around it were lonesome-looking trees. The men were looking at it and talking about what had happened. The county attorney was bending to one side of the buggy, and kept looking steadily at the place as they drew up to it.
"I'm glad you came with me," Mrs. Peters said nervously, as the two women were about to follow the men in through the kitchen door.
Even after she had her foot on the door-step, her hand on the knob, Martha Hale had a moment of feeling she could not cross that threshold. And the reason it seemed she couldn't cross it now was simply because she hadn't crossed it before. Time and time again it had been in her mind, "I ought to go over and see Minnie Foster"--she still thought of her as Minnie Foster, though for twenty years she had been Mrs. Wright. And then there was always something to do and Minnie Foster would go from her mind. But now she could come.
The men went over to the stove. The women stood close together by the door. Young Henderson, the county attorney, turned around and said, "Come up to the fire, ladies."
Mrs. Peters took a step forward, then stopped. "I'm not--cold," she said.
And so the two women stood by the door, at first not even so much as looking around the kitchen.
The men talked for a minute about what a good thing it was the sheriff had sent his deputy out that morning to make a fire for them, and then Sheriff Peters stepped back from the stove, unbuttoned his outer coat, and leaned his hands on the kitchen table in a way that seemed to mark the beginning of official business. "Now, Mr. Hale," he said in a sort of semi-official voice, "before we move things about, you tell Mr. Henderson just what it was you saw when you came here yesterday morning."
The county attorney was looking around the kitchen.
"By the way," he said, "has anything been moved?" He turned to the sheriff. "Are things just as you left them yesterday?"
Peters looked from cupboard to sink; from that to a small worn rocker a little to one side of the kitchen table.
"It's just the same."
"Somebody should have been left here yesterday," said the county attorney.
"Oh--yesterday," returned the sheriff, with a little gesture as of yesterday having been more than he could bear to think of. "When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for that man who went crazy--let me tell you. I had my hands full yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by today, George, and as long as I went over everything here myself--"
"Well, Mr. Hale," said the county attorney, in a way of letting what was past and gone go, "tell just what happened when you came here yesterday morning."
Mrs. Hale, still leaning against the door, had that sinking feeling of the mother whose child is about to speak a piece. Lewis often wandered along and got things mixed up in a story. She hoped he would tell this straight and plain, and not say unnecessary things that would just make things harder for Minnie Foster. He didn't begin at once, and she noticed that he looked queer--as if standing in that kitchen and having to tell what he had seen there yesterday morning made him almost sick.
"Yes, Mr. Hale?" the county attorney reminded.
"Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes," Mrs. Hale's husband began.
Harry was Mrs. Hale's oldest boy. He wasn't with them now, for the very good reason that those potatoes never got to town yesterday and he was taking them this morning, so he hadn't been home when the sheriff stopped to say he wanted Mr. Hale to come over to the Wright place and tell the county attorney his story there, where he could point it all out. With all Mrs. Hale's other emotions came the fear now that maybe Harry wasn't dressed warm enough--they hadn't any of them realized how that north wind did bite.
"We come along this road," Hale was going on, with a motion of his hand to the road over which they had just come, "and as we got in sight of the house I says to Harry, 'I'm goin' to see if I can't get John Wright to take a telephone.' You see," he explained to Henderson, "unless I can get somebody to go in with me they won't come out this branch road except for a price I can't pay. I'd spoke to Wright about it once before; but he put me off, saying folks talked too much anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet--guess you know about how much he talked himself. But I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it before his wife, and said all the women-folks liked the telephones, and that in this lonesome stretch of road it would be a good thing--well, I said to Harry that that was what I was going to say--though I said at the same time that I didn't know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John--"
Now there he was!--saying things he didn't need to say. Mrs. Hale tried to catch her husband's eye, but fortunately the county attorney interrupted with:
"Let's talk about that a little later, Mr. Hale. I do want to talk about that but, I'm anxious now to get along to just what happened when you got here."
When he began this time, it was very deliberately and carefully:
"I didn't see or hear anything. I knocked at the door. And still it was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up--it was past eight o'clock. So I knocked again, louder, and I thought I heard somebody say, 'Come in.' I wasn't sure--I'm not sure yet. But I opened the door--this door," jerking a hand toward the door by which the two women stood. "and there, in that rocker"--pointing to it--"sat Mrs. Wright."
Everyone in the kitchen looked at the rocker. It came into Mrs. Hale's mind that that rocker didn't look in the least like Minnie Foster--the Minnie Foster of twenty years before. It was a dingy red, with wooden rungs up the back, and the middle rung was gone, and the chair sagged to one side.
"How did she--look?" the county attorney was inquiring.
"Well," said Hale, "she looked--queer."
"How do you mean--queer?"
As he asked it he took out a note-book and pencil. Mrs. Hale did not like the sight of that pencil. She kept her eye fixed on her husband, as if to keep him from saying unnecessary things that would go into that note-book and make trouble.
Hale did speak guardedly, as if the pencil had affected him too.
"Well, as if she didn't know what she was going to do next. And kind of--done up."
"How did she seem to feel about your coming?"
"Why, I don't think she minded--one way or other. She didn't pay much attention. I said, 'Ho' do, Mrs. Wright? It's cold, ain't it?' And she said. 'Is it?'--and went on pleatin' at her apron.
"Well, I was surprised. She didn't ask me to come up to the stove, or to sit down, but just set there, not even lookin' at me. And so I said: 'I want to see John.'
"And then she--laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh.
"I thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said, a little sharp, 'Can I see John?' 'No,' says she--kind of dull like. 'Ain't he home?' says I. Then she looked at me. 'Yes,' says she, 'he's home.' 'Then why can't I see him?' I asked her, out of patience with her now. 'Cause he's dead' says she, just as quiet and dull--and fell to pleatin' her apron. 'Dead?' says, I, like you do when you can't take in what you've heard.
"She just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but rockin' back and forth.
"'Why--where is he?' says I, not knowing what to say.
"She just pointed upstairs--like this"--pointing to the room above.
"I got up, with the idea of going up there myself. By this time I--didn't know what to do. I walked from there to here; then I says: 'Why, what did he die of?'
"'He died of a rope around his neck,' says she; and just went on pleatin' at her apron."
Hale stopped speaking, and stood staring at the rocker, as if he were still seeing the woman who had sat there the morning before. Nobody spoke; it was as if every one were seeing the woman who had sat there the morning before.
"And what did you do then?" the county attorney at last broke the silence.
"I went out and called Harry. I thought I might--need help. I got Harry in, and we went upstairs." His voice fell almost to a whisper. "There he was--lying over the--"
"I think I'd rather have you go into that upstairs," the county attorney interrupted, "where you can point it all out. Just go on now with the rest of the story."
"Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked--"
He stopped, his face twitching.
"But Harry, he went up to him, and he said. 'No, he's dead all right, and we'd better not touch anything.' So we went downstairs.
"She was still sitting that same way. 'Has anybody been notified?' I asked. 'No, says she, unconcerned.
"'Who did this, Mrs. Wright?' said Harry. He said it businesslike, and she stopped pleatin' at her apron. 'I don't know,' she says. 'You don't know?' says Harry. 'Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with him?' 'Yes,' says she, 'but I was on the inside. 'Somebody slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him, and you didn't wake up?' says Harry. 'I didn't wake up,' she said after him.
"We may have looked as if we didn't see how that could be, for after a minute she said, 'I sleep sound.'
"Harry was going to ask her more questions, but I said maybe that weren't our business; maybe we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner or the sheriff. So Harry went fast as he could over to High Road--the Rivers' place, where there's a telephone."
"And what did she do when she knew you had gone for the coroner?" The attorney got his pencil in his hand all ready for writing.
"She moved from that chair to this one over here"--Hale pointed to a small chair in the corner--"and just sat there with her hands held together and lookin down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some conversation, so I said I had come in to see if John wanted to put in a telephone; and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and looked at me--scared."
At the sound of a moving pencil the man who was telling the story looked up.
"I dunno--maybe it wasn't scared," he hastened: "I wouldn't like to say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr. Lloyd came, and you, Mr. Peters, and so I guess that's all I know that you don't."
He said that last with relief, and moved a little, as if relaxing. Everyone moved a little. The county attorney walked toward the stair door.
"I guess we'll go upstairs first--then out to the barn and around there."
He paused and looked around the kitchen.
"You're convinced there was nothing important here?" he asked the sheriff. "Nothing that would--point to any motive?"
The sheriff too looked all around, as if to re-convince himself.
"Nothing here but kitchen things," he said, with a little laugh for the insignificance of kitchen things.
The county attorney was looking at the cupboard--a peculiar, ungainly structure, half closet and half cupboard, the upper part of it being built in the wall, and the lower part just the old-fashioned kitchen cupboard. As if its queerness attracted him, he got a chair and opened the upper part and looked in. After a moment he drew his hand away sticky.
"Here's a nice mess," he said resentfully.
The two women had drawn nearer, and now the sheriff's wife spoke.
"Oh--her fruit," she said, looking to Mrs. Hale for sympathetic understanding.
She turned back to the county attorney and explained: "She worried about that when it turned so cold last night. She said the fire would go out and her jars might burst."
Mrs. Peters' husband broke into a laugh.
"Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder, and worrying about her preserves!"
The young attorney set his lips.
"I guess before we're through with her she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about."
"Oh, well," said Mrs. Hale's husband, with good-natured superiority, "women are used to worrying over trifles."
The two women moved a little closer together. Neither of them spoke. The county attorney seemed suddenly to remember his manners--and think of his future.
"And yet," said he, with the gallantry of a young politician. "for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies?"
The women did not speak, did not unbend. He went to the sink and began washing his hands. He turned to wipe them on the roller towel--whirled it for a cleaner place.
"Dirty towelsl Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?"
He kicked his foot against some dirty pans under the sink.
"There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm," said Mrs. Hale stiffly.
"To be sure. And yet"--with a little bow to her--'I know there are some Dickson County farm-houses that do not have such roller towels." He gave it a pull to expose its full length again.
"Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always as clean as they might be.
"Ah, loyal to your sex, I see," he laughed. He stopped and gave her a keen look, "But you and Mrs. Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too."
Martha Hale shook her head.
"I've seen little enough of her of late years. I've not been in this house--it's more than a year."
"And why was that? You didn't like her?"
"I liked her well enough," she replied with spirit. "Farmers' wives have their hands full, Mr. Henderson. And then--" She looked around the kitchen.
"Yes?" he encouraged.
"It never seemed a very cheerful place," said she, more to herself than to him.
"No," he agreed; "I don't think anyone would call it cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the home-making instinct."
"Well, I don't know as Wright had, either," she muttered.
"You mean they didn't get on very well?" he was quick to ask.
"No; I don't mean anything," she answered, with decision. As she turned a lit- tle away from him, she added: "But I don't think a place would be any the cheerfuller for John Wright's bein' in it."
"I'd like to talk to you about that a little later, Mrs. Hale," he said. "I'm anxious to get the lay of things upstairs now."
He moved toward the stair door, followed by the two men.
"I suppose anything Mrs. Peters does'll be all right?" the sheriff inquired. "She was to take in some clothes for her, you know--and a few little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday."
The county attorney looked at the two women they were leaving alone there among the kitchen things.
"Yes--Mrs. Peters," he said, his glance resting on the woman who was not Mrs. Peters, the big farmer woman who stood behind the sheriff's wife. "Of course Mrs. Peters is one of us," he said, in a manner of entrusting responsibility. "And keep your eye out, Mrs. Peters, for anything that might be of use. No telling; you women might come upon a clue to the motive--and that's the thing we need."
Mr. Hale rubbed his face after the fashion of a showman getting ready for a pleasantry.
"But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?" he said; and, having delivered himself of this, he followed the others through the stair door.
The women stood motionless and silent, listening to the footsteps, first upon the stairs, then in the room above them.
Then, as if releasing herself from something strange. Mrs. Hale began to arrange the dirty pans under the sink, which the county attorney's disdainful push of the foot had deranged.
"I'd hate to have men comin' into my kitchen," she said testily--"snoopin' round and criticizin'."
"Of course it's no more than their duty," said the sheriff's wife, in her manner of timid acquiescence.
"Duty's all right," replied Mrs. Hale bluffly; "but I guess that deputy sheriff that come out to make the fire might have got a little of this on." She gave the roller towel a pull. 'Wish I'd thought of that sooner! Seems mean to talk about her for not having things slicked up, when she had to come away in such a hurry."
She looked around the kitchen. Certainly it was not "slicked up." Her eye was held by a bucket of sugar on a low shelf. The cover was off the wooden bucket, and beside it was a paper bag--half full.
Mrs. HaIe moved toward it.
"She was putting this in there," she said to herself--slowly.
She thought of the flour in her kitchen at home--half sifted, half not sifted. She had been interrupted, and had left things half done. What had interrupted Minnie Foster? Why had that work been left half done? She made a move as if to finish it,--unfinished things always bothered her,--and then she glanced around and saw that Mrs. Peters was watching her--and she didn't want Mrs. Peters to get that feeling she had got of work begun and then--for some reason--not finished.
"It's a shame about her fruit," she said, and walked toward the cupboard that the county attorney had opened, and got on the chair, murmuring: "I wonder if it's all gone."
It was a sorry enough looking sight, but "Here's one that's all right," she said at last. She held it toward the light. "This is cherries, too." She looked again. "I declare I believe that's the only one."
With a sigh, she got down from the chair, went to the sink, and wiped off the bottle.
"She'Il feel awful bad, after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the afternoon I put up my cherries last summer.
She set the bottle on the table, and, with another sigh, started to sit down in the rocker. But she did not sit down. Something kept her from sitting down in that chair. She straightened--stepped back, and, half turned away, stood looking at it, seeing the woman who had sat there "pleatin' at her apron."
The thin voice of the sheriff's wife broke in upon her: "I must be getting those things from the front-room closet." She opened the door into the other room, started in, stepped back. "You coming with me, Mrs. Hale?" she asked nervously. "You--you could help me get them."
They were soon back--the stark coldness of that shut-up room was not a thing to linger in.
"My!" said Mrs. Peters, dropping the things on the table and hurrying to the stove.
Mrs. Hale stood examining the clothes the woman who was being detained in town had said she wanted.
"Wright was close!" she exclaimed, holding up a shabby black skirt that bore the marks of much making over. "I think maybe that's why she kept so much to herself. I s'pose she felt she couldn't do her part; and then, you don't enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively--when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls, singing in the choir. But that--oh, that was twenty years ago."
With a carefulness in which there was something tender, she folded the shabby clothes and piled them at one corner of the table. She looked up at Mrs. Peters, and there was something in the other woman's look that irritated her.
"She don't care," she said to herself. "Much difference it makes to her whether Minnie Foster had pretty clothes when she was a girl."
Then she looked again, and she wasn't so sure; in fact, she hadn't at any time been perfectly sure about Mrs. Peters. She had that shrinking manner, and yet her eyes looked as if they could see a long way into things.
"This all you was to take in?" asked Mrs. Hale.
"No," said the sheriffs wife; "she said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want, " she ventured in her nervous little way, "for there's not much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just to make her feel more natural. If you're used to wearing an apron--. She said they were in the bottom drawer of this cupboard. Yes--here they are. And then her little shawl that always hung on the stair door."
She took the small gray shawl from behind the door leading upstairs, and stood a minute looking at it.
Suddenly Mrs. Hale took a quick step toward the other woman, "Mrs. Peters!"
"Yes, Mrs. Hale?"
"Do you think she--did it?'
A frightened look blurred the other thing in Mrs. Peters' eyes.
"Oh, I don't know," she said, in a voice that seemed to shink away from the subject.
"Well, I don't think she did," affirmed Mrs. Hale stoutly. "Asking for an apron, and her little shawl. Worryin' about her fruit."
"Mr. Peters says--." Footsteps were heard in the room above; she stopped, looked up, then went on in a lowered voice: "Mr. Peters says--it looks bad for her. Mr. Henderson is awful sarcastic in a speech, and he's going to make fun of her saying she didn't--wake up."
For a moment Mrs. Hale had no answer. Then, "Well, I guess John Wright didn't wake up--when they was slippin' that rope under his neck," she muttered.
"No, it's strange," breathed Mrs. Peters. "They think it was such a--funny way to kill a man."
She began to laugh; at sound of the laugh, abruptly stopped.
"That's just what Mr. Hale said," said Mrs. Hale, in a resolutely natural voice. "There was a gun in the house. He says that's what he can't understand."
"Mr. Henderson said, coming out, that what was needed for the case was a motive. Something to show anger--or sudden feeling."
'Well, I don't see any signs of anger around here," said Mrs. Hale, "I don't--" She stopped. It was as if her mind tripped on something. Her eye was caught by a dish-towel in the middle of the kitchen table. Slowly she moved toward the table. One half of it was wiped clean, the other half messy. Her eyes made a slow, almost unwilling turn to the bucket of sugar and the half empty bag beside it. Things begun--and not finished.
After a moment she stepped back, and said, in that manner of releasing herself:
"Wonder how they're finding things upstairs? I hope she had it a little more red up up there. You know,"--she paused, and feeling gathered,--"it seems kind of sneaking: locking her up in town and coming out here to get her own house to turn against her!"
"But, Mrs. Hale," said the sheriff's wife, "the law is the law."
"I s'pose 'tis," answered Mrs. Hale shortly.
She turned to the stove, saying something about that fire not being much to brag of. She worked with it a minute, and when she straightened up she said aggressively:
"The law is the law--and a bad stove is a bad stove. How'd you like to cook on this?"--pointing with the poker to the broken lining. She opened the oven door and started to express her opinion of the oven; but she was swept into her own thoughts, thinking of what it would mean, year after year, to have that stove to wrestle with. The thought of Minnie Foster trying to bake in that oven--and the thought of her never going over to see Minnie Foster--.
She was startled by hearing Mrs. Peters say: "A person gets discouraged--and loses heart."
The sheriff's wife had looked from the stove to the sink--to the pail of water which had been carried in from outside. The two women stood there silent, above them the footsteps of the men who were looking for evidence against the woman who had worked in that kitchen. That look of seeing into things, of seeing through a thing to something else, was in the eyes of the sheriff's wife now. When Mrs. Hale next spoke to her, it was gently:
"Better loosen up your things, Mrs. Peters. We'll not feel them when we go out."
Mrs. Peters went to the back of the room to hang up the fur tippet she was wearing. A moment later she exclaimed, "Why, she was piecing a quilt," and held up a large sewing basket piled high with quilt pieces.
Mrs. Hale spread some of the blocks on the table.
"It's log-cabin pattern," she said, putting several of them together, "Pretty, isn't it?"
They were so engaged with the quilt that they did not hear the footsteps on the stairs. Just as the stair door opened Mrs. Hale was saying:
"Do you suppose she was going to quilt it or just knot it?"
The sheriff threw up his hands.
"They wonder whether she was going to quilt it or just knot it!"
There was a laugh for the ways of women, a warming of hands over the stove, and then the county attorney said briskly:
"Well, let's go right out to the barn and get that cleared up."
"I don't see as there's anything so strange," Mrs. Hale said resentfully, after the outside door had closed on the three men--"our taking up our time with little things while we're waiting for them to get the evidence. I don't see as it's anything to laugh about."
"Of course they've got awful important things on their minds," said the sheriff's wife apologetically.
They returned to an inspection of the block for the quilt. Mrs. Hale was looking at the fine, even sewing, and preoccupied with thoughts of the woman who had done that sewing, when she heard the sheriff's wife say, in a queer tone:
"Why, look at this one."
She turned to take the block held out to her.
"The sewing," said Mrs. Peters, in a troubled way, "All the rest of them have been so nice and even--but--this one. Why, it looks as if she didn't know what she was about!"
Their eyes met--something flashed to life, passed between them; then, as if with an effort, they seemed to pull away from each other. A moment Mrs. Hale sat there, her hands folded over that sewing which was so unlike all the rest of the sewing. Then she had pulled a knot and drawn the threads.
"Oh, what are you doing, Mrs. Hale?" asked the sheriff's wife, startled.
"Just pulling out a stitch or two that's not sewed very good," said Mrs. Hale mildly.
"I don't think we ought to touch things," Mrs. Peters said, a little helplessly.
"I'll just finish up this end," answered Mrs. Hale, still in that mild, matter-of-fact fashion.
She threaded a needle and started to replace bad sewing with good. For a little while she sewed in silence. Then, in that thin, timid voice, she heard:
"Mrs. Hale!"
"Yes, Mrs. Peters?"
'What do you suppose she was so--nervous about?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Hale, as if dismissing a thing not important enough to spend much time on. "I don't know as she was--nervous. I sew awful queer sometimes when I'm just tired."
She cut a thread, and out of the corner of her eye looked up at Mrs. Peters. The small, lean face of the sheriff's wife seemed to have tightened up. Her eyes had that look of peering into something. But next moment she moved, and said in her thin, indecisive way:
'Well, I must get those clothes wrapped. They may be through sooner than we think. I wonder where I could find a piece of paper--and string."
"In that cupboard, maybe," suggested to Mrs. Hale, after a glance around.
One piece of the crazy sewing remained unripped. Mrs. Peter's back turned, Martha Hale now scrutinized that piece, compared it with the dainty, accurate sewing of the other blocks. The difference was startling. Holding this block made her feel queer, as if the distracted thoughts of the woman who had perhaps turned to it to try and quiet herself were communicating themselves to her.
Mrs. Peters' voice roused her.
"Here's a bird-cage," she said. "Did she have a bird, Mrs. Hale?"
'Why, I don't know whether she did or not." She turned to look at the cage Mrs. Peters was holding up. "I've not been here in so long." She sighed. "There was a man round last year selling canaries cheap--but I don't know as she took one. Maybe she did. She used to sing real pretty herself."
Mrs. Peters looked around the kitchen.
"Seems kind of funny to think of a bird here." She half laughed--an attempt to put up a barrier. "But she must have had one--or why would she have a cage? I wonder what happened to it."
"I suppose maybe the cat got it," suggested Mrs. Hale, resuming her sewing.
"No; she didn't have a cat. She's got that feeling some people have about cats--being afraid of them. When they brought her to our house yesterday, my cat got in the room, and she was real upset and asked me to take it out."
"My sister Bessie was like that," laughed Mrs. Hale.
The sheriff's wife did not reply. The silence made Mrs. Hale turn round. Mrs. Peters was examining the bird-cage.
"Look at this door," she said slowly. "It's broke. One hinge has been pulled apart."
Mrs. Hale came nearer.
"Looks as if someone must have been--rough with it."
Again their eyes met--startled, questioning, apprehensive. For a moment neither spoke nor stirred. Then Mrs. Hale, turning away, said brusquely:
"If they're going to find any evidence, I wish they'd be about it. I don't like this place."
"But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs. Hale." Mrs. Peters put the bird-cage on the table and sat down. "It would be lonesome for me--sitting here alone."
"Yes, it would, wouldn't it?" agreed Mrs. Hale, a certain determined naturalness in her voice. She had picked up the sewing, but now it dropped in her lap, and she murmured in a different voice: "But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs. Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here. I wish--I had."
"But of course you were awful busy, Mrs. Hale. Your house--and your children."
"I could've come," retorted Mrs. Hale shortly. "I stayed away because it weren't cheerful--and that's why I ought to have come. I"--she looked around--"I've never liked this place. Maybe because it's down in a hollow and you don't see the road. I don't know what it is, but it's a lonesome place, and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now--" She did not put it into words.
"Well, you mustn't reproach yourself," counseled Mrs. Peters. "Somehow, we just don't see how it is with other folks till--something comes up."
"Not having children makes less work," mused Mrs. Hale, after a silence, "but it makes a quiet house--and Wright out to work all day--and no company when he did come in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs. Peters?"
"Not to know him. I've seen him in town. They say he was a good man."
"Yes--good," conceded John Wright's neighbor grimly. "He didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him--." She stopped, shivered a little. "Like a raw wind that gets to the bone." Her eye fell upon the cage on the table before her, and she added, almost bitterly: "I should think she would've wanted a bird!"
Suddenly she leaned forward, looking intently at the cage. "But what do you s'pose went wrong with it?"
"I don't know," returned Mrs. Peters; "unless it got sick and died."
But after she said it she reached over and swung the broken door. Both women watched it as if somehow held by it.
"You didn't know--her?" Mrs. Hale asked, a gentler note in her voice.
"Not till they brought her yesterday," said the sheriff's wife.
"She--come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself. Real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and--fluttery. How--she--did--change."
That held her for a long time. Finally, as if struck with a happy thought and relieved to get back to everyday things, she exclaimed:
"Tell you what, Mrs. Peters, why don't you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her mind."
"Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs. Hale," agreed the sheriff's wife, as if she too were glad to come into the atmosphere of a simple kindness. "There couldn't possibly be any objection to that, could there? Now, just what will I take? I wonder if her patches are in here--and her things?"
They turned to the sewing basket.
"Here's some red," said Mrs. Hale, bringing out a roll of cloth. Underneath that was a box. "Here, maybe her scissors are in here--and her things." She held it up. "What a pretty box! I'll warrant that was something she had a long time ago--when she was a girl."
She held it in her hand a moment; then, with a little sigh, opened it.
Instantly her hand went to her nose.
"Why--!"
Mrs. Peters drew nearer--then turned away.
"There's something wrapped up in this piece of silk," faltered Mrs. Hale.
"This isn't her scissors," said Mrs. Peters, in a shrinking voice.
Her hand not steady, Mrs. Hale raised the piece of silk. "Oh, Mrs. Peters!" she cried. "It's--"
Mrs. Peters bent closer.
"It's the bird," she whispered.
"But, Mrs. Peters!" cried Mrs. Hale. "Look at it! Its neck--look at its neck! It's all--other side to."
She held the box away from her.
The sheriff's wife again bent closer.
"Somebody wrung its neck," said she, in a voice that was slow and deep.
And then again the eyes of the two women met--this time clung together in a look of dawning comprehension, of growing horror. Mrs. Peters looked from the dead bird to the broken door of the cage. Again their eyes met. And just then there was a sound at the outside door. Mrs. Hale slipped the box under the quilt pieces in the basket, and sank into the chair before it. Mrs. Peters stood holding to the table. The county attorney and the sheriff came in from outside.
"Well, ladies," said the county attorney, as one turning from serious things to little pleasantries, "have you decided whether she was going to quilt it or knot it?"
"We think," began the sheriff's wife in a flurried voice, "that she was going to--knot it."
He was too preoccupied to notice the change that came in her voice on that last.
"Well, that's very interesting, I'm sure," he said tolerantly. He caught sight of the bird-cage.
"Has the bird flown?"
"We think the cat got it," said Mrs. Hale in a voice curiously even.
He was walking up and down, as if thinking something out.
"Is there a cat?" he asked absently.
Mrs. Hale shot a look up at the sheriff's wife.
"Well, not now," said Mrs. Peters. "They're superstitious, you know; they Ieave."
She sank into her chair.
The county attorney did not heed her. "No sign at all of anyone having come in from the outside," he said to Peters, in the manner of continuing an interrupted conversation. "Their own rope. Now let's go upstairs again and go over it, picee by piece. It would have to have been someone who knew just the--"
The stair door closed behind them and their voices were lost.
The two women sat motionless, not looking at each other, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding back. When they spoke now it was as if they were afraid of what they were saying, but as if they could not help saying it.
"She liked the bird," said Martha Hale, low and slowly. "She was going to bury it in that pretty box."
When I was a girl," said Mrs. Peters, under her breath, "my kitten--there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes--before I could get there--" She covered her face an instant. "If they hadn't held me back I would have"--she caught herself, looked upstairs where footsteps were heard, and finished weakly--"hurt him."
Then they sat without speaking or moving.
"I wonder how it would seem," Mrs. Hale at last began, as if feeling her way over strange ground--"never to have had any children around?" Her eyes made a slow sweep of the kitchen, as if seeing what that kitchen had meant through all the years "No, Wright wouldn't like the bird," she said after that--"a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that too." Her voice tightened.
Mrs. Peters moved uneasily.
"Of course we don't know who killed the bird."
"I knew John Wright," was Mrs. Hale's answer.
"It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs. Hale," said the sheriff's wife. "Killing a man while he slept--slipping a thing round his neck that choked the life out of him."
Mrs. Hale's hand went out to the bird cage.
"We don't know who killed him," whispered Mrs. Peters wildly. "We don't know."
Mrs. Hale had not moved. "If there had been years and years of--nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful--still--after the bird was still."
It was as if something within her not herself had spoken, and it found in Mrs. Peters something she did not know as herself.
"I know what stillness is," she said, in a queer, monotonous voice. "When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died--after he was two years old--and me with no other then--"
Mrs. Hale stirred.
"How soon do you suppose they'll be through looking for the evidence?"
"I know what stillness is," repeated Mrs. Peters, in just that same way. Then she too pulled back. "The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale," she said in her tight little way.
"I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster," was the answer, "when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons, and stood up there in the choir and sang."
The picture of that girl, the fact that she had lived neighbor to that girl for twenty years, and had let her die for lack of life, was suddenly more than she could bear.
"Oh, I wish I'd come over here once in a while!" she cried. "That was a crime! Who's going to punish that?"
"We mustn't take on," said Mrs. Peters, with a frightened look toward the stairs.
"I might 'a' known she needed help! I tell you, it's queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together, and we live far apart. We all go through the same things--it's all just a different kind of the same thing! If it weren't--why do you and I understand? Why do we know--what we know this minute?"
She dashed her hand across her eyes. Then, seeing the jar of fruit on the table she reached for it and choked out:
"If I was you I wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone! Tell her it ain't. Tell her it's all right--all of it. Here--take this in to prove it to her! She--she may never know whether it was broke or not."
She turned away.
Mrs. Peters reached out for the bottle of fruit as if she were glad to take it--as if touching a familiar thing, having something to do, could keep her from something else. She got up, looked about for something to wrap the fruit in, took a petticoat from the pile of clothes she had brought from the front room, and nervously started winding that round the bottle.
"My!" she began, in a high, false voice, "it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us! Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a--dead canary." She hurried over that. "As if that could have anything to do with--with--My, wouldn't they laugh?"
Footsteps were heard on the stairs.
"Maybe they would," muttered Mrs. Hale--"maybe they wouldn't."
"No, Peters," said the county attorney incisively; "it's all perfectly clear, except the reason for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was some definite thing--something to show. Something to make a story about. A thing that would connect up with this clumsy way of doing it."
In a covert way Mrs. Hale looked at Mrs. Peters. Mrs. Peters was looking at her. Quickly they looked away from each other. The outer door opened and Mr. Hale came in.
"I've got the team round now," he said. "Pretty cold out there."
"I'm going to stay here awhile by myself," the county attorney suddenly announced. "You can send Frank out for me, can't you?" he asked the sheriff. "I want to go over everything. I'm not satisfied we can't do better."
Again, for one brief moment, the two women's eyes found one another.
The sheriff came up to the table.
"Did you want to see what Mrs. Peters was going to take in?"
The county attorney picked up the apron. He laughed.
"Oh, I guess they're not very dangerous things the ladies have picked out."
Mrs. Hale's hand was on the sewing basket in which the box was concealed. She felt that she ought to take her hand off the basket. She did not seem able to. He picked up one of the quilt blocks which she had piled on to cover the box. Her eyes felt like fire. She had a feeling that if he took up the basket she would snatch it from him.
But he did not take it up. With another little laugh, he turned away, saying:
"No; Mrs. Peters doesn't need supervising. For that matter, a sheriff's wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, Mrs. Peters?"
Mrs. Peters was standing beside the table. Mrs. Hale shot a look up at her; but she could not see her face. Mrs. Peters had turned away. When she spoke, her voice was muffled.
"Not--just that way," she said.
"Married to the law!" chuckled Mrs. Peters' husband. He moved toward the door into the front room, and said to the county attorney:
"I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to take a look at these windows."
"Oh--windows," said the county attorney scoffingly.
"We'll be right out, Mr. Hale," said the sheriff to the farmer, who was still waiting by the door.
Hale went to look after the horses. The sheriff followed the county attorney into the other room. Again--for one final moment--the two women were alone in that kitchen.
Martha Hale sprang up, her hands tight together, looking at that other woman, with whom it rested. At first she could not see her eyes, for the sheriff's wife had not turned back since she turned away at that suggestion of being married to the law. But now Mrs. Hale made her turn back. Her eyes made her turn back. Slowly, unwillingly, Mrs. Peters turned her head until her eyes met the eyes of the other woman. There was a moment when they held each other in a steady, burning look in which there was no evasion or flinching. Then Martha Hale's eyes pointed the way to the basket in which was hidden the thing that would make certain the conviction of the other woman--that woman who was not there and yet who had been there with them all through that hour.
For a moment Mrs. Peters did not move. And then she did it. With a rush forward, she threw back the quilt pieces, got the box, tried to put it in her handbag. It was too big. Desperately she opened it, started to take the bird out. But there she broke--she could not touch the bird. She stood there helpless, foolish.
There was the sound of a knob turning in the inner door. Martha Hale snatched the box from the sheriff's wife, and got it in the pocket of her big coat just as the sheriff and the county attorney came back into the kitchen.
"Well, Henry," said the county attorney facetiously, "at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to--what is it you call it, ladies?"
Mrs. Hale's hand was against the pocket of her coat.
"We call it--knot it, Mr. Henderson."
When Martha Hale opened the storm-door and got a cut of the north wind, she ran back for her big woolen scarf. As she hurriedly wound that round her head her eye made a scandalized sweep of her kitchen. It was no ordinary thing that called her away--it was probably further from ordinary than anything that had ever happened in Dickson County. But what her eye took in was that her kitchen was in no shape for leaving: her bread all ready for mixing, half the flour sifted and half unsifted.
She hated to see things half done; but she had been at that when the team from town stopped to get Mr. Hale, and then the sheriff came running in to say his wife wished Mrs. Hale would come too--adding, with a grin, that he guessed she was getting scary and wanted another woman along. So she had dropped everything right where it was.
"Martha!" now came her husband's impatient voice. "Don't keep folks waiting out here in the cold."
She again opened the storm-door, and this time joined the three men and the one woman waiting for her in the big two-seated buggy.
After she had the robes tucked around her she took another look at the woman who sat beside her on the back seat. She had met Mrs. Peters the year before at the county fair, and the thing she remembered about her was that she didn't seem like a sheriff's wife. She was small and thin and didn't have a strong voice. Mrs. Gorman, sheriff's wife before Gorman went out and Peters came in, had a voice that somehow seemed to be backing up the law with every word. But if Mrs. Peters didn't look like a sheriff's wife, Peters made it up in looking like a sheriff. He was to a dot the kind of man who could get himself elected sheriff--a heavy man with a big voice, who was particularly genial with the law-abiding, as if to make it plain that he knew the difference between criminals and non-criminals. And right there it came into Mrs. Hale's mind, with a stab, that this man who was so pleasant and lively with all of them was going to the Wrights' now as a sheriff.
"The country's not very pleasant this time of year," Mrs. Peters at last ventured, as if she felt they ought to be talking as well as the men.
Mrs. Hale scarcely finished her reply, for they had gone up a little hill and could see the Wright place now, and seeing it did not make her feel like talking. It looked very lonesome this cold March morning. It had always been a lonesome-looking place. It was down in a hollow, and the poplar trees around it were lonesome-looking trees. The men were looking at it and talking about what had happened. The county attorney was bending to one side of the buggy, and kept looking steadily at the place as they drew up to it.
"I'm glad you came with me," Mrs. Peters said nervously, as the two women were about to follow the men in through the kitchen door.
Even after she had her foot on the door-step, her hand on the knob, Martha Hale had a moment of feeling she could not cross that threshold. And the reason it seemed she couldn't cross it now was simply because she hadn't crossed it before. Time and time again it had been in her mind, "I ought to go over and see Minnie Foster"--she still thought of her as Minnie Foster, though for twenty years she had been Mrs. Wright. And then there was always something to do and Minnie Foster would go from her mind. But now she could come.
The men went over to the stove. The women stood close together by the door. Young Henderson, the county attorney, turned around and said, "Come up to the fire, ladies."
Mrs. Peters took a step forward, then stopped. "I'm not--cold," she said.
And so the two women stood by the door, at first not even so much as looking around the kitchen.
The men talked for a minute about what a good thing it was the sheriff had sent his deputy out that morning to make a fire for them, and then Sheriff Peters stepped back from the stove, unbuttoned his outer coat, and leaned his hands on the kitchen table in a way that seemed to mark the beginning of official business. "Now, Mr. Hale," he said in a sort of semi-official voice, "before we move things about, you tell Mr. Henderson just what it was you saw when you came here yesterday morning."
The county attorney was looking around the kitchen.
"By the way," he said, "has anything been moved?" He turned to the sheriff. "Are things just as you left them yesterday?"
Peters looked from cupboard to sink; from that to a small worn rocker a little to one side of the kitchen table.
"It's just the same."
"Somebody should have been left here yesterday," said the county attorney.
"Oh--yesterday," returned the sheriff, with a little gesture as of yesterday having been more than he could bear to think of. "When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for that man who went crazy--let me tell you. I had my hands full yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by today, George, and as long as I went over everything here myself--"
"Well, Mr. Hale," said the county attorney, in a way of letting what was past and gone go, "tell just what happened when you came here yesterday morning."
Mrs. Hale, still leaning against the door, had that sinking feeling of the mother whose child is about to speak a piece. Lewis often wandered along and got things mixed up in a story. She hoped he would tell this straight and plain, and not say unnecessary things that would just make things harder for Minnie Foster. He didn't begin at once, and she noticed that he looked queer--as if standing in that kitchen and having to tell what he had seen there yesterday morning made him almost sick.
"Yes, Mr. Hale?" the county attorney reminded.
"Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes," Mrs. Hale's husband began.
Harry was Mrs. Hale's oldest boy. He wasn't with them now, for the very good reason that those potatoes never got to town yesterday and he was taking them this morning, so he hadn't been home when the sheriff stopped to say he wanted Mr. Hale to come over to the Wright place and tell the county attorney his story there, where he could point it all out. With all Mrs. Hale's other emotions came the fear now that maybe Harry wasn't dressed warm enough--they hadn't any of them realized how that north wind did bite.
"We come along this road," Hale was going on, with a motion of his hand to the road over which they had just come, "and as we got in sight of the house I says to Harry, 'I'm goin' to see if I can't get John Wright to take a telephone.' You see," he explained to Henderson, "unless I can get somebody to go in with me they won't come out this branch road except for a price I can't pay. I'd spoke to Wright about it once before; but he put me off, saying folks talked too much anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet--guess you know about how much he talked himself. But I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it before his wife, and said all the women-folks liked the telephones, and that in this lonesome stretch of road it would be a good thing--well, I said to Harry that that was what I was going to say--though I said at the same time that I didn't know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John--"
Now there he was!--saying things he didn't need to say. Mrs. Hale tried to catch her husband's eye, but fortunately the county attorney interrupted with:
"Let's talk about that a little later, Mr. Hale. I do want to talk about that but, I'm anxious now to get along to just what happened when you got here."
When he began this time, it was very deliberately and carefully:
"I didn't see or hear anything. I knocked at the door. And still it was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up--it was past eight o'clock. So I knocked again, louder, and I thought I heard somebody say, 'Come in.' I wasn't sure--I'm not sure yet. But I opened the door--this door," jerking a hand toward the door by which the two women stood. "and there, in that rocker"--pointing to it--"sat Mrs. Wright."
Everyone in the kitchen looked at the rocker. It came into Mrs. Hale's mind that that rocker didn't look in the least like Minnie Foster--the Minnie Foster of twenty years before. It was a dingy red, with wooden rungs up the back, and the middle rung was gone, and the chair sagged to one side.
"How did she--look?" the county attorney was inquiring.
"Well," said Hale, "she looked--queer."
"How do you mean--queer?"
As he asked it he took out a note-book and pencil. Mrs. Hale did not like the sight of that pencil. She kept her eye fixed on her husband, as if to keep him from saying unnecessary things that would go into that note-book and make trouble.
Hale did speak guardedly, as if the pencil had affected him too.
"Well, as if she didn't know what she was going to do next. And kind of--done up."
"How did she seem to feel about your coming?"
"Why, I don't think she minded--one way or other. She didn't pay much attention. I said, 'Ho' do, Mrs. Wright? It's cold, ain't it?' And she said. 'Is it?'--and went on pleatin' at her apron.
"Well, I was surprised. She didn't ask me to come up to the stove, or to sit down, but just set there, not even lookin' at me. And so I said: 'I want to see John.'
"And then she--laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh.
"I thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said, a little sharp, 'Can I see John?' 'No,' says she--kind of dull like. 'Ain't he home?' says I. Then she looked at me. 'Yes,' says she, 'he's home.' 'Then why can't I see him?' I asked her, out of patience with her now. 'Cause he's dead' says she, just as quiet and dull--and fell to pleatin' her apron. 'Dead?' says, I, like you do when you can't take in what you've heard.
"She just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but rockin' back and forth.
"'Why--where is he?' says I, not knowing what to say.
"She just pointed upstairs--like this"--pointing to the room above.
"I got up, with the idea of going up there myself. By this time I--didn't know what to do. I walked from there to here; then I says: 'Why, what did he die of?'
"'He died of a rope around his neck,' says she; and just went on pleatin' at her apron."
Hale stopped speaking, and stood staring at the rocker, as if he were still seeing the woman who had sat there the morning before. Nobody spoke; it was as if every one were seeing the woman who had sat there the morning before.
"And what did you do then?" the county attorney at last broke the silence.
"I went out and called Harry. I thought I might--need help. I got Harry in, and we went upstairs." His voice fell almost to a whisper. "There he was--lying over the--"
"I think I'd rather have you go into that upstairs," the county attorney interrupted, "where you can point it all out. Just go on now with the rest of the story."
"Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked--"
He stopped, his face twitching.
"But Harry, he went up to him, and he said. 'No, he's dead all right, and we'd better not touch anything.' So we went downstairs.
"She was still sitting that same way. 'Has anybody been notified?' I asked. 'No, says she, unconcerned.
"'Who did this, Mrs. Wright?' said Harry. He said it businesslike, and she stopped pleatin' at her apron. 'I don't know,' she says. 'You don't know?' says Harry. 'Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with him?' 'Yes,' says she, 'but I was on the inside. 'Somebody slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him, and you didn't wake up?' says Harry. 'I didn't wake up,' she said after him.
"We may have looked as if we didn't see how that could be, for after a minute she said, 'I sleep sound.'
"Harry was going to ask her more questions, but I said maybe that weren't our business; maybe we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner or the sheriff. So Harry went fast as he could over to High Road--the Rivers' place, where there's a telephone."
"And what did she do when she knew you had gone for the coroner?" The attorney got his pencil in his hand all ready for writing.
"She moved from that chair to this one over here"--Hale pointed to a small chair in the corner--"and just sat there with her hands held together and lookin down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some conversation, so I said I had come in to see if John wanted to put in a telephone; and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and looked at me--scared."
At the sound of a moving pencil the man who was telling the story looked up.
"I dunno--maybe it wasn't scared," he hastened: "I wouldn't like to say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr. Lloyd came, and you, Mr. Peters, and so I guess that's all I know that you don't."
He said that last with relief, and moved a little, as if relaxing. Everyone moved a little. The county attorney walked toward the stair door.
"I guess we'll go upstairs first--then out to the barn and around there."
He paused and looked around the kitchen.
"You're convinced there was nothing important here?" he asked the sheriff. "Nothing that would--point to any motive?"
The sheriff too looked all around, as if to re-convince himself.
"Nothing here but kitchen things," he said, with a little laugh for the insignificance of kitchen things.
The county attorney was looking at the cupboard--a peculiar, ungainly structure, half closet and half cupboard, the upper part of it being built in the wall, and the lower part just the old-fashioned kitchen cupboard. As if its queerness attracted him, he got a chair and opened the upper part and looked in. After a moment he drew his hand away sticky.
"Here's a nice mess," he said resentfully.
The two women had drawn nearer, and now the sheriff's wife spoke.
"Oh--her fruit," she said, looking to Mrs. Hale for sympathetic understanding.
She turned back to the county attorney and explained: "She worried about that when it turned so cold last night. She said the fire would go out and her jars might burst."
Mrs. Peters' husband broke into a laugh.
"Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder, and worrying about her preserves!"
The young attorney set his lips.
"I guess before we're through with her she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about."
"Oh, well," said Mrs. Hale's husband, with good-natured superiority, "women are used to worrying over trifles."
The two women moved a little closer together. Neither of them spoke. The county attorney seemed suddenly to remember his manners--and think of his future.
"And yet," said he, with the gallantry of a young politician. "for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies?"
The women did not speak, did not unbend. He went to the sink and began washing his hands. He turned to wipe them on the roller towel--whirled it for a cleaner place.
"Dirty towelsl Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?"
He kicked his foot against some dirty pans under the sink.
"There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm," said Mrs. Hale stiffly.
"To be sure. And yet"--with a little bow to her--'I know there are some Dickson County farm-houses that do not have such roller towels." He gave it a pull to expose its full length again.
"Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always as clean as they might be.
"Ah, loyal to your sex, I see," he laughed. He stopped and gave her a keen look, "But you and Mrs. Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too."
Martha Hale shook her head.
"I've seen little enough of her of late years. I've not been in this house--it's more than a year."
"And why was that? You didn't like her?"
"I liked her well enough," she replied with spirit. "Farmers' wives have their hands full, Mr. Henderson. And then--" She looked around the kitchen.
"Yes?" he encouraged.
"It never seemed a very cheerful place," said she, more to herself than to him.
"No," he agreed; "I don't think anyone would call it cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the home-making instinct."
"Well, I don't know as Wright had, either," she muttered.
"You mean they didn't get on very well?" he was quick to ask.
"No; I don't mean anything," she answered, with decision. As she turned a lit- tle away from him, she added: "But I don't think a place would be any the cheerfuller for John Wright's bein' in it."
"I'd like to talk to you about that a little later, Mrs. Hale," he said. "I'm anxious to get the lay of things upstairs now."
He moved toward the stair door, followed by the two men.
"I suppose anything Mrs. Peters does'll be all right?" the sheriff inquired. "She was to take in some clothes for her, you know--and a few little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday."
The county attorney looked at the two women they were leaving alone there among the kitchen things.
"Yes--Mrs. Peters," he said, his glance resting on the woman who was not Mrs. Peters, the big farmer woman who stood behind the sheriff's wife. "Of course Mrs. Peters is one of us," he said, in a manner of entrusting responsibility. "And keep your eye out, Mrs. Peters, for anything that might be of use. No telling; you women might come upon a clue to the motive--and that's the thing we need."
Mr. Hale rubbed his face after the fashion of a showman getting ready for a pleasantry.
"But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?" he said; and, having delivered himself of this, he followed the others through the stair door.
The women stood motionless and silent, listening to the footsteps, first upon the stairs, then in the room above them.
Then, as if releasing herself from something strange. Mrs. Hale began to arrange the dirty pans under the sink, which the county attorney's disdainful push of the foot had deranged.
"I'd hate to have men comin' into my kitchen," she said testily--"snoopin' round and criticizin'."
"Of course it's no more than their duty," said the sheriff's wife, in her manner of timid acquiescence.
"Duty's all right," replied Mrs. Hale bluffly; "but I guess that deputy sheriff that come out to make the fire might have got a little of this on." She gave the roller towel a pull. 'Wish I'd thought of that sooner! Seems mean to talk about her for not having things slicked up, when she had to come away in such a hurry."
She looked around the kitchen. Certainly it was not "slicked up." Her eye was held by a bucket of sugar on a low shelf. The cover was off the wooden bucket, and beside it was a paper bag--half full.
Mrs. HaIe moved toward it.
"She was putting this in there," she said to herself--slowly.
She thought of the flour in her kitchen at home--half sifted, half not sifted. She had been interrupted, and had left things half done. What had interrupted Minnie Foster? Why had that work been left half done? She made a move as if to finish it,--unfinished things always bothered her,--and then she glanced around and saw that Mrs. Peters was watching her--and she didn't want Mrs. Peters to get that feeling she had got of work begun and then--for some reason--not finished.
"It's a shame about her fruit," she said, and walked toward the cupboard that the county attorney had opened, and got on the chair, murmuring: "I wonder if it's all gone."
It was a sorry enough looking sight, but "Here's one that's all right," she said at last. She held it toward the light. "This is cherries, too." She looked again. "I declare I believe that's the only one."
With a sigh, she got down from the chair, went to the sink, and wiped off the bottle.
"She'Il feel awful bad, after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the afternoon I put up my cherries last summer.
She set the bottle on the table, and, with another sigh, started to sit down in the rocker. But she did not sit down. Something kept her from sitting down in that chair. She straightened--stepped back, and, half turned away, stood looking at it, seeing the woman who had sat there "pleatin' at her apron."
The thin voice of the sheriff's wife broke in upon her: "I must be getting those things from the front-room closet." She opened the door into the other room, started in, stepped back. "You coming with me, Mrs. Hale?" she asked nervously. "You--you could help me get them."
They were soon back--the stark coldness of that shut-up room was not a thing to linger in.
"My!" said Mrs. Peters, dropping the things on the table and hurrying to the stove.
Mrs. Hale stood examining the clothes the woman who was being detained in town had said she wanted.
"Wright was close!" she exclaimed, holding up a shabby black skirt that bore the marks of much making over. "I think maybe that's why she kept so much to herself. I s'pose she felt she couldn't do her part; and then, you don't enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively--when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls, singing in the choir. But that--oh, that was twenty years ago."
With a carefulness in which there was something tender, she folded the shabby clothes and piled them at one corner of the table. She looked up at Mrs. Peters, and there was something in the other woman's look that irritated her.
"She don't care," she said to herself. "Much difference it makes to her whether Minnie Foster had pretty clothes when she was a girl."
Then she looked again, and she wasn't so sure; in fact, she hadn't at any time been perfectly sure about Mrs. Peters. She had that shrinking manner, and yet her eyes looked as if they could see a long way into things.
"This all you was to take in?" asked Mrs. Hale.
"No," said the sheriffs wife; "she said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want, " she ventured in her nervous little way, "for there's not much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just to make her feel more natural. If you're used to wearing an apron--. She said they were in the bottom drawer of this cupboard. Yes--here they are. And then her little shawl that always hung on the stair door."
She took the small gray shawl from behind the door leading upstairs, and stood a minute looking at it.
Suddenly Mrs. Hale took a quick step toward the other woman, "Mrs. Peters!"
"Yes, Mrs. Hale?"
"Do you think she--did it?'
A frightened look blurred the other thing in Mrs. Peters' eyes.
"Oh, I don't know," she said, in a voice that seemed to shink away from the subject.
"Well, I don't think she did," affirmed Mrs. Hale stoutly. "Asking for an apron, and her little shawl. Worryin' about her fruit."
"Mr. Peters says--." Footsteps were heard in the room above; she stopped, looked up, then went on in a lowered voice: "Mr. Peters says--it looks bad for her. Mr. Henderson is awful sarcastic in a speech, and he's going to make fun of her saying she didn't--wake up."
For a moment Mrs. Hale had no answer. Then, "Well, I guess John Wright didn't wake up--when they was slippin' that rope under his neck," she muttered.
"No, it's strange," breathed Mrs. Peters. "They think it was such a--funny way to kill a man."
She began to laugh; at sound of the laugh, abruptly stopped.
"That's just what Mr. Hale said," said Mrs. Hale, in a resolutely natural voice. "There was a gun in the house. He says that's what he can't understand."
"Mr. Henderson said, coming out, that what was needed for the case was a motive. Something to show anger--or sudden feeling."
'Well, I don't see any signs of anger around here," said Mrs. Hale, "I don't--" She stopped. It was as if her mind tripped on something. Her eye was caught by a dish-towel in the middle of the kitchen table. Slowly she moved toward the table. One half of it was wiped clean, the other half messy. Her eyes made a slow, almost unwilling turn to the bucket of sugar and the half empty bag beside it. Things begun--and not finished.
After a moment she stepped back, and said, in that manner of releasing herself:
"Wonder how they're finding things upstairs? I hope she had it a little more red up up there. You know,"--she paused, and feeling gathered,--"it seems kind of sneaking: locking her up in town and coming out here to get her own house to turn against her!"
"But, Mrs. Hale," said the sheriff's wife, "the law is the law."
"I s'pose 'tis," answered Mrs. Hale shortly.
She turned to the stove, saying something about that fire not being much to brag of. She worked with it a minute, and when she straightened up she said aggressively:
"The law is the law--and a bad stove is a bad stove. How'd you like to cook on this?"--pointing with the poker to the broken lining. She opened the oven door and started to express her opinion of the oven; but she was swept into her own thoughts, thinking of what it would mean, year after year, to have that stove to wrestle with. The thought of Minnie Foster trying to bake in that oven--and the thought of her never going over to see Minnie Foster--.
She was startled by hearing Mrs. Peters say: "A person gets discouraged--and loses heart."
The sheriff's wife had looked from the stove to the sink--to the pail of water which had been carried in from outside. The two women stood there silent, above them the footsteps of the men who were looking for evidence against the woman who had worked in that kitchen. That look of seeing into things, of seeing through a thing to something else, was in the eyes of the sheriff's wife now. When Mrs. Hale next spoke to her, it was gently:
"Better loosen up your things, Mrs. Peters. We'll not feel them when we go out."
Mrs. Peters went to the back of the room to hang up the fur tippet she was wearing. A moment later she exclaimed, "Why, she was piecing a quilt," and held up a large sewing basket piled high with quilt pieces.
Mrs. Hale spread some of the blocks on the table.
"It's log-cabin pattern," she said, putting several of them together, "Pretty, isn't it?"
They were so engaged with the quilt that they did not hear the footsteps on the stairs. Just as the stair door opened Mrs. Hale was saying:
"Do you suppose she was going to quilt it or just knot it?"
The sheriff threw up his hands.
"They wonder whether she was going to quilt it or just knot it!"
There was a laugh for the ways of women, a warming of hands over the stove, and then the county attorney said briskly:
"Well, let's go right out to the barn and get that cleared up."
"I don't see as there's anything so strange," Mrs. Hale said resentfully, after the outside door had closed on the three men--"our taking up our time with little things while we're waiting for them to get the evidence. I don't see as it's anything to laugh about."
"Of course they've got awful important things on their minds," said the sheriff's wife apologetically.
They returned to an inspection of the block for the quilt. Mrs. Hale was looking at the fine, even sewing, and preoccupied with thoughts of the woman who had done that sewing, when she heard the sheriff's wife say, in a queer tone:
"Why, look at this one."
She turned to take the block held out to her.
"The sewing," said Mrs. Peters, in a troubled way, "All the rest of them have been so nice and even--but--this one. Why, it looks as if she didn't know what she was about!"
Their eyes met--something flashed to life, passed between them; then, as if with an effort, they seemed to pull away from each other. A moment Mrs. Hale sat there, her hands folded over that sewing which was so unlike all the rest of the sewing. Then she had pulled a knot and drawn the threads.
"Oh, what are you doing, Mrs. Hale?" asked the sheriff's wife, startled.
"Just pulling out a stitch or two that's not sewed very good," said Mrs. Hale mildly.
"I don't think we ought to touch things," Mrs. Peters said, a little helplessly.
"I'll just finish up this end," answered Mrs. Hale, still in that mild, matter-of-fact fashion.
She threaded a needle and started to replace bad sewing with good. For a little while she sewed in silence. Then, in that thin, timid voice, she heard:
"Mrs. Hale!"
"Yes, Mrs. Peters?"
'What do you suppose she was so--nervous about?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Hale, as if dismissing a thing not important enough to spend much time on. "I don't know as she was--nervous. I sew awful queer sometimes when I'm just tired."
She cut a thread, and out of the corner of her eye looked up at Mrs. Peters. The small, lean face of the sheriff's wife seemed to have tightened up. Her eyes had that look of peering into something. But next moment she moved, and said in her thin, indecisive way:
'Well, I must get those clothes wrapped. They may be through sooner than we think. I wonder where I could find a piece of paper--and string."
"In that cupboard, maybe," suggested to Mrs. Hale, after a glance around.
One piece of the crazy sewing remained unripped. Mrs. Peter's back turned, Martha Hale now scrutinized that piece, compared it with the dainty, accurate sewing of the other blocks. The difference was startling. Holding this block made her feel queer, as if the distracted thoughts of the woman who had perhaps turned to it to try and quiet herself were communicating themselves to her.
Mrs. Peters' voice roused her.
"Here's a bird-cage," she said. "Did she have a bird, Mrs. Hale?"
'Why, I don't know whether she did or not." She turned to look at the cage Mrs. Peters was holding up. "I've not been here in so long." She sighed. "There was a man round last year selling canaries cheap--but I don't know as she took one. Maybe she did. She used to sing real pretty herself."
Mrs. Peters looked around the kitchen.
"Seems kind of funny to think of a bird here." She half laughed--an attempt to put up a barrier. "But she must have had one--or why would she have a cage? I wonder what happened to it."
"I suppose maybe the cat got it," suggested Mrs. Hale, resuming her sewing.
"No; she didn't have a cat. She's got that feeling some people have about cats--being afraid of them. When they brought her to our house yesterday, my cat got in the room, and she was real upset and asked me to take it out."
"My sister Bessie was like that," laughed Mrs. Hale.
The sheriff's wife did not reply. The silence made Mrs. Hale turn round. Mrs. Peters was examining the bird-cage.
"Look at this door," she said slowly. "It's broke. One hinge has been pulled apart."
Mrs. Hale came nearer.
"Looks as if someone must have been--rough with it."
Again their eyes met--startled, questioning, apprehensive. For a moment neither spoke nor stirred. Then Mrs. Hale, turning away, said brusquely:
"If they're going to find any evidence, I wish they'd be about it. I don't like this place."
"But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs. Hale." Mrs. Peters put the bird-cage on the table and sat down. "It would be lonesome for me--sitting here alone."
"Yes, it would, wouldn't it?" agreed Mrs. Hale, a certain determined naturalness in her voice. She had picked up the sewing, but now it dropped in her lap, and she murmured in a different voice: "But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs. Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here. I wish--I had."
"But of course you were awful busy, Mrs. Hale. Your house--and your children."
"I could've come," retorted Mrs. Hale shortly. "I stayed away because it weren't cheerful--and that's why I ought to have come. I"--she looked around--"I've never liked this place. Maybe because it's down in a hollow and you don't see the road. I don't know what it is, but it's a lonesome place, and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now--" She did not put it into words.
"Well, you mustn't reproach yourself," counseled Mrs. Peters. "Somehow, we just don't see how it is with other folks till--something comes up."
"Not having children makes less work," mused Mrs. Hale, after a silence, "but it makes a quiet house--and Wright out to work all day--and no company when he did come in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs. Peters?"
"Not to know him. I've seen him in town. They say he was a good man."
"Yes--good," conceded John Wright's neighbor grimly. "He didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him--." She stopped, shivered a little. "Like a raw wind that gets to the bone." Her eye fell upon the cage on the table before her, and she added, almost bitterly: "I should think she would've wanted a bird!"
Suddenly she leaned forward, looking intently at the cage. "But what do you s'pose went wrong with it?"
"I don't know," returned Mrs. Peters; "unless it got sick and died."
But after she said it she reached over and swung the broken door. Both women watched it as if somehow held by it.
"You didn't know--her?" Mrs. Hale asked, a gentler note in her voice.
"Not till they brought her yesterday," said the sheriff's wife.
"She--come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself. Real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and--fluttery. How--she--did--change."
That held her for a long time. Finally, as if struck with a happy thought and relieved to get back to everyday things, she exclaimed:
"Tell you what, Mrs. Peters, why don't you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her mind."
"Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs. Hale," agreed the sheriff's wife, as if she too were glad to come into the atmosphere of a simple kindness. "There couldn't possibly be any objection to that, could there? Now, just what will I take? I wonder if her patches are in here--and her things?"
They turned to the sewing basket.
"Here's some red," said Mrs. Hale, bringing out a roll of cloth. Underneath that was a box. "Here, maybe her scissors are in here--and her things." She held it up. "What a pretty box! I'll warrant that was something she had a long time ago--when she was a girl."
She held it in her hand a moment; then, with a little sigh, opened it.
Instantly her hand went to her nose.
"Why--!"
Mrs. Peters drew nearer--then turned away.
"There's something wrapped up in this piece of silk," faltered Mrs. Hale.
"This isn't her scissors," said Mrs. Peters, in a shrinking voice.
Her hand not steady, Mrs. Hale raised the piece of silk. "Oh, Mrs. Peters!" she cried. "It's--"
Mrs. Peters bent closer.
"It's the bird," she whispered.
"But, Mrs. Peters!" cried Mrs. Hale. "Look at it! Its neck--look at its neck! It's all--other side to."
She held the box away from her.
The sheriff's wife again bent closer.
"Somebody wrung its neck," said she, in a voice that was slow and deep.
And then again the eyes of the two women met--this time clung together in a look of dawning comprehension, of growing horror. Mrs. Peters looked from the dead bird to the broken door of the cage. Again their eyes met. And just then there was a sound at the outside door. Mrs. Hale slipped the box under the quilt pieces in the basket, and sank into the chair before it. Mrs. Peters stood holding to the table. The county attorney and the sheriff came in from outside.
"Well, ladies," said the county attorney, as one turning from serious things to little pleasantries, "have you decided whether she was going to quilt it or knot it?"
"We think," began the sheriff's wife in a flurried voice, "that she was going to--knot it."
He was too preoccupied to notice the change that came in her voice on that last.
"Well, that's very interesting, I'm sure," he said tolerantly. He caught sight of the bird-cage.
"Has the bird flown?"
"We think the cat got it," said Mrs. Hale in a voice curiously even.
He was walking up and down, as if thinking something out.
"Is there a cat?" he asked absently.
Mrs. Hale shot a look up at the sheriff's wife.
"Well, not now," said Mrs. Peters. "They're superstitious, you know; they Ieave."
She sank into her chair.
The county attorney did not heed her. "No sign at all of anyone having come in from the outside," he said to Peters, in the manner of continuing an interrupted conversation. "Their own rope. Now let's go upstairs again and go over it, picee by piece. It would have to have been someone who knew just the--"
The stair door closed behind them and their voices were lost.
The two women sat motionless, not looking at each other, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding back. When they spoke now it was as if they were afraid of what they were saying, but as if they could not help saying it.
"She liked the bird," said Martha Hale, low and slowly. "She was going to bury it in that pretty box."
When I was a girl," said Mrs. Peters, under her breath, "my kitten--there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes--before I could get there--" She covered her face an instant. "If they hadn't held me back I would have"--she caught herself, looked upstairs where footsteps were heard, and finished weakly--"hurt him."
Then they sat without speaking or moving.
"I wonder how it would seem," Mrs. Hale at last began, as if feeling her way over strange ground--"never to have had any children around?" Her eyes made a slow sweep of the kitchen, as if seeing what that kitchen had meant through all the years "No, Wright wouldn't like the bird," she said after that--"a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that too." Her voice tightened.
Mrs. Peters moved uneasily.
"Of course we don't know who killed the bird."
"I knew John Wright," was Mrs. Hale's answer.
"It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs. Hale," said the sheriff's wife. "Killing a man while he slept--slipping a thing round his neck that choked the life out of him."
Mrs. Hale's hand went out to the bird cage.
"We don't know who killed him," whispered Mrs. Peters wildly. "We don't know."
Mrs. Hale had not moved. "If there had been years and years of--nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful--still--after the bird was still."
It was as if something within her not herself had spoken, and it found in Mrs. Peters something she did not know as herself.
"I know what stillness is," she said, in a queer, monotonous voice. "When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died--after he was two years old--and me with no other then--"
Mrs. Hale stirred.
"How soon do you suppose they'll be through looking for the evidence?"
"I know what stillness is," repeated Mrs. Peters, in just that same way. Then she too pulled back. "The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale," she said in her tight little way.
"I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster," was the answer, "when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons, and stood up there in the choir and sang."
The picture of that girl, the fact that she had lived neighbor to that girl for twenty years, and had let her die for lack of life, was suddenly more than she could bear.
"Oh, I wish I'd come over here once in a while!" she cried. "That was a crime! Who's going to punish that?"
"We mustn't take on," said Mrs. Peters, with a frightened look toward the stairs.
"I might 'a' known she needed help! I tell you, it's queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together, and we live far apart. We all go through the same things--it's all just a different kind of the same thing! If it weren't--why do you and I understand? Why do we know--what we know this minute?"
She dashed her hand across her eyes. Then, seeing the jar of fruit on the table she reached for it and choked out:
"If I was you I wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone! Tell her it ain't. Tell her it's all right--all of it. Here--take this in to prove it to her! She--she may never know whether it was broke or not."
She turned away.
Mrs. Peters reached out for the bottle of fruit as if she were glad to take it--as if touching a familiar thing, having something to do, could keep her from something else. She got up, looked about for something to wrap the fruit in, took a petticoat from the pile of clothes she had brought from the front room, and nervously started winding that round the bottle.
"My!" she began, in a high, false voice, "it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us! Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a--dead canary." She hurried over that. "As if that could have anything to do with--with--My, wouldn't they laugh?"
Footsteps were heard on the stairs.
"Maybe they would," muttered Mrs. Hale--"maybe they wouldn't."
"No, Peters," said the county attorney incisively; "it's all perfectly clear, except the reason for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was some definite thing--something to show. Something to make a story about. A thing that would connect up with this clumsy way of doing it."
In a covert way Mrs. Hale looked at Mrs. Peters. Mrs. Peters was looking at her. Quickly they looked away from each other. The outer door opened and Mr. Hale came in.
"I've got the team round now," he said. "Pretty cold out there."
"I'm going to stay here awhile by myself," the county attorney suddenly announced. "You can send Frank out for me, can't you?" he asked the sheriff. "I want to go over everything. I'm not satisfied we can't do better."
Again, for one brief moment, the two women's eyes found one another.
The sheriff came up to the table.
"Did you want to see what Mrs. Peters was going to take in?"
The county attorney picked up the apron. He laughed.
"Oh, I guess they're not very dangerous things the ladies have picked out."
Mrs. Hale's hand was on the sewing basket in which the box was concealed. She felt that she ought to take her hand off the basket. She did not seem able to. He picked up one of the quilt blocks which she had piled on to cover the box. Her eyes felt like fire. She had a feeling that if he took up the basket she would snatch it from him.
But he did not take it up. With another little laugh, he turned away, saying:
"No; Mrs. Peters doesn't need supervising. For that matter, a sheriff's wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, Mrs. Peters?"
Mrs. Peters was standing beside the table. Mrs. Hale shot a look up at her; but she could not see her face. Mrs. Peters had turned away. When she spoke, her voice was muffled.
"Not--just that way," she said.
"Married to the law!" chuckled Mrs. Peters' husband. He moved toward the door into the front room, and said to the county attorney:
"I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to take a look at these windows."
"Oh--windows," said the county attorney scoffingly.
"We'll be right out, Mr. Hale," said the sheriff to the farmer, who was still waiting by the door.
Hale went to look after the horses. The sheriff followed the county attorney into the other room. Again--for one final moment--the two women were alone in that kitchen.
Martha Hale sprang up, her hands tight together, looking at that other woman, with whom it rested. At first she could not see her eyes, for the sheriff's wife had not turned back since she turned away at that suggestion of being married to the law. But now Mrs. Hale made her turn back. Her eyes made her turn back. Slowly, unwillingly, Mrs. Peters turned her head until her eyes met the eyes of the other woman. There was a moment when they held each other in a steady, burning look in which there was no evasion or flinching. Then Martha Hale's eyes pointed the way to the basket in which was hidden the thing that would make certain the conviction of the other woman--that woman who was not there and yet who had been there with them all through that hour.
For a moment Mrs. Peters did not move. And then she did it. With a rush forward, she threw back the quilt pieces, got the box, tried to put it in her handbag. It was too big. Desperately she opened it, started to take the bird out. But there she broke--she could not touch the bird. She stood there helpless, foolish.
There was the sound of a knob turning in the inner door. Martha Hale snatched the box from the sheriff's wife, and got it in the pocket of her big coat just as the sheriff and the county attorney came back into the kitchen.
"Well, Henry," said the county attorney facetiously, "at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to--what is it you call it, ladies?"
Mrs. Hale's hand was against the pocket of her coat.
"We call it--knot it, Mr. Henderson."
Trifles 瑣事
"Trifles" by Susan Glaspell (1916)
Scene: The kitchen in the now abandoned farmhouse of John Wright, a gloomy kitchen, and left without having been put in order--unwashed pans under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the breadbox, a dish towel on the table--other signs of incompleted work. At the rear the outer door opens,and the Sheriff comes in, followed by the county Attorney and Hale. The Sheriff and Hale are men in middle life, the county Attorney is a young man; all are much bundled up and go at once to the stove. They are followed by the two women--the Sheriff's Wife first; she is a slight wiry woman, a thin nervous face. Mrs. Hale is larger and would ordinarily be called more comfortable looking, but she is disturbed now and looks fearfully about as she enters. The women have come in slowly and stand close together near the door.
COUNTY ATTORNEY (rubbing his hands). This feels good. Come up to the fire, ladies.
MRS. PETERS (after taking a step forward). I'm not--cold.
SHERIFF (unbuttoning his overcoat and stepping away from the stove as if to the beginning of official business). Now, Mr. Hale, before we move things about, you explain to Mr. Henderson just what you saw when you came here yesterday morning.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. By the way, has anything been moved? Are things just as you left them yesterday?
SHERIFF (looking about). It's just the same. When it dropped below zer0 last night, I thought I'd better send Frank out this morning to make a fire for us--no use getting pneumonia with a big case on; but I told him not to touch anything except the stove--and you know Frank.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Somebody should have been left here yesterday.
SHERIFF. Oh--yesterday. When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for that man who went crazy--I want you to know I had my hands full yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by today, and as long as I went over everything here myself-
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Well, Mr. Hale, tell just what happened when you came here yesterday morning.
HALE. Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes. We came along the road from my place; and as I got here, I said, "I'm going to see if I can't get John Wright to go in with me on a party telephone." I spoke to Wright about it once before, and he put me off, saying folks talked too much anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet--I guess you know about how much he talked himself; but I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it before his wife, though I said to Harry that I didn't know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John--
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Let's talk about that later, Mr. Hale. I do want to talk about that, but tell now just what happened when you got to the house.
HALE. I didn't hear or see anything; I knocked at the door, and still it was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up, it was past eight o'clock. so I knocked again, and I thought I heard somebody say, "Come in." I wasn't sure, I'm not sure yet, but I opened the door--this door (indicating the door by which the two women are still standing), and there in that rocker-- (pointing to it) sat Mrs. Wright. (They all look at the rocker.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY. What--was she doing?
HALE. She was rockin' back and forth. She had her apron in her hand and was kind of--pleating it.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. And how did she--look?
HALE. Well, she looked queer.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. How do you mean--queer?
HALE. Well, as if she didn't know what she was going to do next. And kind of done up.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. How did she seem to feel about your coming?
HALE. Why, I don't think she minded--one way or other. She didn't pay much attention. I said, "How do, Mrs. Wright, it's cold, ain't it?" And she said, "Is it?"--and went on kind of pleating at her apron. Well, I was surprised; she didn't ask me to come up to the stove, or to set down, but just sat there, not even looking at me, so I said, "I want to see John." And then she--laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh. I thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said a little sharp:"Can't I see John?" "No," she says, kind o' dull like. "Ain't he home?" says I. "Yes," says she, "he's home." "Then why can't I see him?" I asked her, out of patience. "'Cause he's dead," says she. "Dead?" says I. She just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but rockin' back and forth. "Why--where is he?" says I, not knowing what to say. She just pointed upstairs--like that (himself pointing to the room above). I got up, with the idea of going up there. I talked from there to here--then I says, "Why, what did he die of?" "He died of a rope around his neck," says she, and just went on pleatin' at her apron. Well, I went out and called Harry. I thought I might--need help. We went upstairs, and there he was lying'--
COUNTY ATTORNEY. I think I'd rather have you go into that upstairs, where you can point in all out. Just go on now with the rest of the story.
HALE. Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. I looked...(Stops, his face twitches.)...but Harry, he went up to him, and he said, "No, he's dead all right, and we'd better not touch anything." So we went back downstairs. She was still sitting that same way. "Has anybody been notified?" I asked." "No," says she, unconcerned. "Who did this, Mrs. Wright?" said Harry. He said it business-like--and she stopped pleatin' of her apron. "I don't know," she says. "You don't know?" says Harry. "No," says she, "Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with him?" says Harry. "Yes," says she, "but I was on the inside." "Somebody slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him, and you didn't wake up?" says Harry. "I didn't wake up," she said after him. We must 'a looked as if we didn't see how that could be, for after a minute she said, "I sleep sound." Harry was going to ask her more questions, but I said maybe we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner, or the sheriff, so Harry went fast as he could to Rivers' place, where there's a telephone.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. And what did Mrs. Wright do when she knew that you had gone for the coroner.
HALE. she moved from that chair to this over here... (Pointing to a small chair in the corner)...and just sat there with her hand held together and looking down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some conversation, so I said I had come in to see if John wanted to put in a telephone, and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and looked at me--scared.
(The County Attorney, who has had his notebook out, makes a note.) I dunno, maybe it wasn't scared. I wouldn't like to say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr. Lloyd came, and you, Mr. Peters, and so I guess that's all I know that you don't.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. (looking around). I guess we'll go upstairs first--and then out to the barn and around there. (To the Sheriff). You're convinced that there was nothing important here--nothing that would point to any motive?
SHERIFF. Nothing here but kitchen things.
(The County Attorney, after again looking around the kitchen, opens the door of a cupboard closet. He gets up on a chair and looks on a shelf. Pulls his hand away, sticky.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Here's a nice mess.
(The women draw nearer.)
MRS. PETERS (to the other woman). Oh, her fruit; it did freeze. (To the Lawyer). She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire'd go out and her jars would break.
SHERIFF. Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin' about her preserves.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. I guess before we're through she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about.
HALE. Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.
(The two women move a little closer together.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY (with the gallantry of a young politician). And yet, for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies? (The women do not unbend. He goes to the sink, takes dipperful of water form the pail and, pouring it into a basin, washes his hands. Starts to wipe them on the roller towel, turns it for a cleaner place.) Dirty towels! (Kicks his foot against the pans under the sink.) Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?
MRS. HALE (stiffly). There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. To be sure. And yet... (With a little bow to her.) ...I know there are some Dickson county farmhouses which do not have such roller towels. (He gives it a pull to expose its full length again.)
MRS. HALE. Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always as clean as they might be.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Ah, loyal to your sex, I see. But you and Mrs. Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too.
MRS. HALE (shaking her head.) I've not seen much of her of late years. I've not been in this house--it's more than a year.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. And why was that? You didn't like her?
MRS. HALE. I liked her all well enough. Farmers' wives have their hands full, Mr. Henderson. And then--
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Yes--?
MRS. HALE (looking about.) It never seemed a very cheerful place.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. No--it's not cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the homemaking instinct.
MRS. HALE. Well, I don't know as Wright had, either.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. You mean that they didn't get on very well?
MRS. HALE. No, I don't mean anything. But I don't think a place'd be any cheerfuller for John Wright's being in it.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. I'd like to talk more of that a little later. I want to get the lay of things upstairs now. (He goes to the left, where three steps lead to a stair door.)
SHERIFF. I suppose anything Mrs. Peters does'll be all right. She was to take in some clothes for her, you know, and a few little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Yes, but I would like to see what you take, Mrs. Peters, and keep an eye out for anything that might be of use to us.
MRS. PETERS. Yes, Mr. Henderson.
(The women listen to the men's steps on the stairs, then look about the kitchen.)
MRS. HALE. I'd hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and criticizing. (She arranges the pans under sink which the Lawyer had shoved out of place.)
MRS. PETERS. Of course it's no more than their duty.
MRS. HALE. Duty's all right, but I guess that deputy sheriff that came out to make the fire might have got a little of this on. (Gives the roller towel a pull.) Wish I'd thought of that sooner. Seems mean to talk about her for not having things slicked up when she had to come away in such a hurry.
MRS. PETERS. (who has gone to a small table in the left rear corner of the room, and lifted on end of a towel that covers a pan). She had bread set. (Stands still.)
MRS. HALE (eyes fixed on a loaf of bread beside the breadbox, which is on a low shelf at the other side of the room. Moves slowly toward it.)she was going to put this in there. (Picks up loaf, then abruptly drops it. In a manner of returning to familiar things.) It's a shame about her fruit. I wonder if it's all gone. (Gets up on the chair and looks.) I think there's some here that's all right, Mrs. Peters. Yes--here; (Holding it toward the window.) This is cherries, too. (Looking again.) I declare I believe that's the only one. (Gets down, bottle in her hand. Goes to the sink and wipes it off on the outside.) She'll feel awful bad after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the afternoon I put up my cherries last summer.
(She puts the bottle on the big kitchen table, center of the room, front table. With a sigh, is about to sit down in the rocking chair. Before she is seated realizes what chair it is; with a slow look at it, steps back. The chair, which she has touched, rocks back and forth.)
MRS. PETERS. Well, I must get those things from the front room closet. [She goes to the door at the right, but after looking into the other room, steps back.] You coming with me, Mrs. Hale? You could help me carry them. (They go into the other room; reappear, Mrs. Peters carrying a dress and skirt, Mrs. Hale following with a pair of shoes.)
MRS. PETERS. My, it's cold in there. (She puts the cloth on the big table, and hurries to the stove.)
MRS HALE (examining the skirt). Wright was close. I think maybe that's why she kept so much to herself. She didn't even belong to the Ladies' Aid. I suppose she felt she couldn't do her part, and then you don't enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was MInnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir. But that--oh, that was thirty years ago. This all you was to take?
MRS. PETERS. She said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want, for there isn't much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just to make her feel more natural. She said they was in the top drawer in this cupboard. Yes, here. And then her little shawl that always hung behind the door. (Opens stair door and looks.) Yes, here it is. (Quickly shuts door leading upstairs..)
MRS. HALE (abruptly moving toward her.) Mrs. Peters?
MRS. PETERS. Do you think she did it?
MRS. PETERS (in a frightened voice.) Oh, I don't know.
MRS. HALE. Well, I don't think she did. Asking for an apron and her little shawl. Worrying about her fruit.
MRS. PETERS (starts to speak, glances up, where footsteps are heard in the room above. In a low voice.) Mrs. Peters says it looks bad for her. Mr. Henderson is awful sarcastic in speech, and he'll make fun of her sayin' she didn't wake up.
MRS. HALE. Well, I guess John Wright didn't wake when they was slipping that rope under his neck.
MRS. PETERS. No, it's strange. It must have been done awful crafty and still. They say it was such a --funny way to kill a man, rigging it all up like that.
MRS. HALE. That's just what Mr. Hale said. There was a gun in the house. He says that's what he can't understand.
MRS. PETERS. Mr. Henderson said coming out that what was needed for the case was a motive; something to show anger or--sudden feeling.
MRS. HALE (who is standing by the table). Well, I don't see any signs of anger around here. (she puts her hand on the dish towel which lies on the table, stands looking down at the table, one half of which is clean, the other half messy.) It's wiped here. (Makes a move as if to finish work, then turns and looks at loaf of bread outside the breadbox. Drops towel. In that voice of coming back to familiar things. ) Wonder how they are finding things upstairs? I hope she had it a little more there. You know, it seems kind of sneaking. Locking her up in town and then coming out here and trying to get her own house to turn against her!
MRS. PETERS. But, Mrs. Hale, the law is the law.
MRS. HALE. I s'pose 'tis. (Unbuttoning her coat.) Better loosen up your things, Mrs. Peters. You won't feel them when you go out. (Mrs. Peters takes off her fur tippet, goes to hang it on hook at the back of room, stands looking at the under part of the small corner table.)
MRS. PETERS. She was piecing a quilt. (She brings the large sewing basket, and they look at the bright pieces.)
MRS. HALE. It's log cabin pattern. Pretty, isn't it? I wonder if she was goin' to quilt or just knot it? (Footsteps have been heard coming down the stairs. The Sheriff enters, followed by Hale and the County Attorney.)
SHERIFF. They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it. (The men laugh, the women look abashed.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY (rubbing his hands over the stove). Frank's fire didn't do much up there, did it? Well, let's go out to the barn and get that cleared up. (The men go outside.)
MRS. HALE (resentfully). I don't know as there's anything so strange, our takin' up our time with little things while we're waiting for them to get the evidence. (She sits down at the big table, smoothing out a block with decision.) I don't see as it's anything to laugh about.
MRS. PETERS. (apologetically). Of course they've got awful important things on their minds. (Pulls up a chair and joins Mrs. Hale at the table.)
MRS. HALE (examining another block.) Mrs. Peters, look at this one. Here, this is the one she was working on, and look at the sewing! All the rest of it has been so nice and even. And look at this! It's all over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn't know what she was about! (After she has said this, they look at each other, then start to glance back at the door. After an instant Mrs. Hale has pulled at a knot and ripped the sewing.)
MRS. PETERS. Oh, what are you doing, Mrs. Hale?
MRS. HALE (mildly). Just pulling out a stitch or two that's not sewed very good. (Threading a needle). Bad sewing always made me fidgety.
MRS. PETERS. (nervously). I don't think we ought to touch things.
MRS. HALE. I'll just finish up this end. (Suddenly stopping and leaning forward.) Mrs. Peters?
MRS. PETERS. Yes, Mrs. Hale?
MRS. HALE. What do you suppose she was so nervous about?
MRS. PETERS. Oh--I don't know. I don't know as she was nervous. I sometimes sew awful queer when I'm just tired. (Mrs. Hale starts to say something looks at Mrs. Peters, then goes on sewing.) Well, I must get these things wrapped up. They may be through sooner than we think. (Putting apron and other things together.) I wonder where I can find a piece of paper, and string.
MRS. HALE. In that cupboard, maybe.
MRS. PETER. (looking in cupboard). Why, here's a birdcage. (Holds it up.) Did she have a bird, Mrs. Hale?
MRS. HALE. Why, I don't know whether she did or not--I've not been here for so long. There was a man around last year selling canaries cheap, but I don't know as she took one; maybe she did. She used to sing real pretty herself.
MRS. PETERS. (glancing around). Seems funny to think of a bird here. But she must have had one, or why should she have a cage? I wonder what happened to it?
MRS. HALE. I s'pose maybe the cat got it.
MRS. PETERS. No, she didn't have a cat. She's got that feeling some people have about cats--being afraid of them. My cat got in her room, and she was real upset and asked me to take it out.
MRS. HALE. My sister Bessie was like that. Queer, ain't it?
MRS. PETERS. (examining the cage). Why, look at this door. It's broke. One hinge is pulled apart.
MRS. HALE. (looking, too.) Looks as if someone must have been rough with it.
MRS. PETERS. Why, yes. (she brings the cage forward and puts it on the table.)
MRS. HALE. I wish if they're going to find any evidence they'd be about it. I don't like this place.
MRS. PETERS. But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs. Hale. It would be lonesome of me sitting here alone.
MRS. HALE. It would, wouldn't it? (Dropping her sewing). But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs. Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes she was here. I-- (Looking around the room.)--wish I had.
MRS. PETERS. But of course you were awful busy, Mrs. Hale---your house and your children.
MRS. HALE. I could've come. I stayed away because it weren't cheerful--and that's why I ought to have come. I--I've never liked this place. Maybe because it's down in a hollow, and you don't see the road. I dunno what it is, but it's a lonesome place and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now--(Shakes her head.)
MRS. PETERS. Well, you mustn't reproach yourself, Mrs. Hale. Somehow we just don't see how it is with other folks until--something comes up.
MRS. HALE. Not having children makes less work--but it makes a quiet house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs. Peters?
MRS. PETERS. Not to know him; I've seen him in town. They say he was a good man.
MRS. HALE. Yes--good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him. (Shivers.) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone. (Pauses, her eye falling on the cage.) I should think she would 'a wanted a bird. But what do you suppose went with it?
MRS. PETERS. I don't know, unless it got sick and died. (She reaches over and swings the broken door, swings it again; both women watch it.)
MRS.> HALE. She--come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself--real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and--fluttery. How--she--did--change. (Silence; then as if struck by a happy thought and relieved to get back to everyday things.) Tell you what, Mrs. Peters, why don't you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her mind.
MRS. PETERS. Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs. Hale. There couldn't possible be any objection to it, could there? Now, just what would I take? I wonder if her patches are in here--and her things. (They look in the sewing basket.)
MRS. HALE. Here's some red. I expect this has got sewing things in it (Brings out a fancy box.) What a pretty box. Looks like something somebody would give you. Maybe her scissors are in here. (Opens box. Suddenly puts her hand to her nose.) Why-- (Mrs. Peters bend nearer, then turns her face away.) There's something wrapped up in this piece of silk.
MRS. PETERS. Why, this isn't her scissors.
MRS. HALE (lifting the silk.) Oh, Mrs. Peters--it's-- (Mrs. Peters bend closer.)
MRS. PETERS. It's the bird.
MRS. HALE (jumping up.) But, Mrs. Peters--look at it. Its neck! Look at its neck! It's all--other side to.
MRS. PETERS. Somebody--wrung--its neck.
(Their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension of horror. Steps are heard outside. Mrs. Hale slips box under quilt pieces, and sinks into her chair. Enter Sheriff and County Attorney. Mrs. Peters rises.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY (as one turning from serious thing to little pleasantries). Well, ladies, have you decided whether she was going to quilt it or knot it?
MRS. PETERS. We think she was going to--knot it.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Well, that's interesting, I'm sure. (Seeing the birdcage.) Has the bird flown?
MRS. HALE (putting more quilt pieces over the box.) We think the--cat got it.
COUNTY ATTORNEY (preoccupied). Is there a cat?
(Mrs. Hale glances in a quick covert way at Mrs. Peters.
) MRS. PETERS. Well, not now. They're superstitious, you know. They leave.
COUNTY ATTORNEY (to Sheriff Peters, continuing an interrupted conversation.) No sign at all of anyone having come from the outside. Their own rope. Now let's go up again and go over it piece by piece. (They start upstairs.) It would have to have been someone who knew just the--
(Mrs. Peters sits down. The two women sit there not looking at one another, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding back. When they talk now, it is the manner of feeling their way over strange ground, as if afraid of what they are saying, but as if they cannot help saying it.) MRS. HALE. She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty box.
MRS. PETERS. (in a whisper). When I was a girl--my kitten--there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes--and before I could get there--(Covers her face an instant.) If they hadn't held me back, I would have-- (Catches herself, looks upstairs, where steps are heard, falters weakly.)--hurt him.
MRS. HALE (with a slow look around her.) I wonder how it would seem never to have had any children around. (Pause.) No, Wright wouldn't like the bird--a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too.
MRS. PETERS (moving uneasily). We don't know who killed the bird.
MRS. HALE. I knew John Wright.
MRS. PETERS. It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs. Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope around his neck that choked the life out of him.
MRS. HALE. His neck, Choked the life out of him.
(Her hand goes out and rests on the birdcage.) MRS. PETERS (with a rising voice). We don't know who killed him. We don't know.
MRS. HALE (her own feeling not interrupted.) If there'd been years and years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful--still, after the bird was still.
MRS. PETERS (something within her speaking). I know what stillness is. When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died--after he was two years old, and me with no other then--
MRS. HALE (moving). How soon do you suppose they'll be through, looking for evidence?
MRS. PETERS. I know what stillness is. (Pulling herself back). The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale. MRS. HALE (not as if answering that). I wish you'd seen MInnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang. (A look around the room). Oh, I wish I'd come over here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to punish that?
MRS. Peters (looking upstairs). We mustn't--take on.
MRS. HALE. I might have known she needed help! I know how things can be--for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things--it's all just a different kind of the same thing. (Brushes her eyes, noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for it.) If I was you, I wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her it ain't. Tell her it's all right. Take this in to prove it to her. She--she may never know whether it was broke or not.
MRS. PETERS (takes the bottle, looks about for something to wrap it in; takes petticoat from the clothes brought from the other room, very nervously begins winding this around the bottle. In a false voice). My, it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us. Wouldn't they just laugh! Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a--dead canary. As if that could have anything to do with--with--wouldn't they laugh!
(The men are heard coming downstairs.) MRS. HALE (under her breath). Maybe they would--maybe they wouldn't.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. No, Peters, it's all perfectly clear except a reason for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was some definite thing. Something to show--something to make a story about--a thing that would connect up with this strange way of doing it.
(The women's eyes meet for an instant. Enter Hale from outer door.)
HALE. Well, I've got the team around. Pretty cold out there.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. I'm going to stay here awhile by myself (To the Sheriff). You can send Frank out for me, can't you? I want to go over everything. I'm not satisfied that we can't do better.
SHERIFF. Do you want to see what Mrs. Peters is going to take in?
(The Lawyer goes to the table, picks up the apron, laughs.) COUNTY ATTORNEY. Oh I guess they're not very dangerous things the ladies have picked up. (Moves a few things about, disturbing the quilt pieces which cover the box. Steps back.) No, Mrs. Peters doesn't need supervising. For that matter, a sheriff's wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, Mrs. Peters?
MRS. PETERS. Not--just that way.
SHERIFF (chuckling). Married to the law. (Moves toward the other room.) I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to take a look at these windows.
COUNTY ATTORNEY (scoffingly). Oh, windows!
SHERIFF. We'll be right out, Mr. Hale.
(Hale goes outside. The Sheriff follows the County Attorney into the other room. Then Mrs. Hale rises, hands tight together, looking intensely at Mrs. Peters, whose eyes take a slow turn, finally meeting Mrs. Hale's. A moment Mrs. Hale holds her, then her own eyes point the way to where the box is concealed. Suddenly Mrs. Peters throws back quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing. It is too big. She opens box, starts to take the bird out, cannot touch it, goes to pieces, stands there helpless. Sound of a knob turning in the other room. Mrs. Hale snatches the box and puts it in the pocket of her big coat. Enter County Attorney and Sheriff.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY (facetiously). Well, Henry, at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to--what is it you call it, ladies!
MRS. HALE (her hand against her pocket). We call it--knot it, Mr. Henderson.
人物：喬治·亨德森（鄉村律師）
亨利·彼得斯（警長）
劉易斯·黑爾（一個住在附近的農民）
彼得斯太太
黑爾太太
場景：約翰·賴特家的廚房像是被廢棄了一樣，裡面陰森森的，雜亂一團：沒有清洗的平底鍋躺在水槽裡，一塊麵包留在麵包盒外，洗碗帕耷拉在桌子上，從種種跡象看來：活才幹了一半。後面的大門開了，警長走了進來，身後跟著鄉村律師和農民黑爾。警長和黑爾都已是中年，而鄉村律師還是個年輕人。大家都緊了緊衣服，趕快向火爐邊靠去。後面跟進來兩個女人：警長的老婆先進來，她長得瘦高個兒，瘦削的臉有些羞怯；而黑爾太太體格稍顯豐滿，相貌看起來自然，也更討人喜歡。但此時她非常不安，進來時驚恐地四下張望。兩個女人慢慢地走到一塊兒，緊挨著站在門邊。
律師：（搓手）這下好了。過來烤火吧，女士們。
彼得斯太太：（向前邁了一步）我不——冷。
警長：（解開他的外套，離開火爐像是要開始幹正事了）黑爾，這樣吧。在我們搜查這屋裡的東西之前，你先向亨德森先生講一下昨天早上你看到的情況。
律師：順便問一下，你們動過這裡的東西嗎？保持著昨天的原樣嗎？
警長：（環視四周）還是原樣。只是我想到昨天晚上氣溫已經降到了零下，就叫弗蘭克今天早上過來幫我們生了火。要是大家帶著肺炎查案子就不好了。不過，我囑咐過他，除了爐子不要動任何東西。你們該信得過弗蘭克吧。
律師：昨天該有人在這裡留守的。
警長：哈，昨天。那會兒我得派弗蘭克去默瑞斯中心找那個精神失常的人。而我昨天也忙得不可開交。我知道你會在今天之前從歐馬哈趕回來，既然我親自察看過這裡的一切……
律師：好了，黑爾，告訴我昨天早上你來這兒時出了什麼事？
黑爾：哈里和我推了一車土豆準備去鎮上賣。我們出門就沿著大路走，走到這兒時，我對哈里說：「我去看看能否讓約翰改變主意，和我一起裝個共用電話。」之前我已經跟他說過一次了。他拒絕了我，說鄉里們閒聊得已經夠多的了，他只想清靜一點。我猜你也曉得他的話本來就不多。不過我想，指不定到他家去，當著他老婆的面說這個事兒可能會好一點。不過，我對哈里說，我並沒有把握他老婆會讓他回心轉意。
律師：黑爾，這個嘛，我們晚點再談吧。我倒是很想瞭解這些情況的，只是現在你還是先告訴我，昨天早上你踏進這房子的時候，這裡到底發生了什麼事？
黑爾：當時，我聽不到聲響，也不見有人來。我敲了門，可屋裡頭就是沒人應。我琢磨著他們也該起床了，那會兒已經過了8點。於是，我又敲了敲門，聽見有人說「進來」。我當時就沒搞明白，甚至現在都不明白。可是，當我打開門——就是這扇門（指著那扇門，兩個女人仍然站在旁邊），還有賴特太太正坐在——那把搖椅上（指著它）。（他們都看著那把搖椅。）
律師：她在做什麼？
黑爾：她正坐在椅子上前搖後擺的，手裡拿著自己的圍裙，像是在——打褶子。
律師：她看起來如何？
黑爾：哦，她看起來很奇怪。
律師：怎麼個奇怪法？
黑爾：嗯，她好像不知道接下來該幹啥似的。好像在系什麼東西。
律師：看到你進來，她有何反應？
黑爾：這個嘛，我想她多少有點漠不關心。她並沒有在意我。我說：「你好，賴特太太，天兒真冷，是吧？」而她說：「冷嗎？」——說完又繼續在圍裙上打褶子。嘿，我很吃驚。她既不叫我到火爐旁去烤火，也不請我坐下，就在那兒坐著，甚至連看都不看我一眼。那我就說：「我想見見約翰。」她當時就笑了，如果那也叫笑的話。我想到哈里和牲口還在外面，就有點急了，「我就不能見見約翰嗎？」「不能。」她悶悶地說。「他不在家嗎？」我問。「不是。在家。」她又說。「那為什麼不能見？」我有點不耐煩地問。她說：「因為他已經死了。」「死了？」我說。她只是點點頭，卻一點也不激動，只是不停地搖來搖去。「為什麼——他在哪裡？」我不知道該說什麼好。她只是指著樓上，像這樣（他自己指著上面的房間）。我站起來，想去樓上看看。我從那兒走到這兒，然後我說：「他為什麼會死？是怎麼死的？」「被繩子勒死的。」她說完又接著給她的圍裙打褶子。唉，我出去叫哈里，因為我覺得或許得有個幫手。我和哈里上了樓，看見他就躺在那兒……
律師：我很想到樓上看看去。這樣，你可以向我詳細說明事情經過。現在繼續把你的故事講完吧。
黑爾：嗯，我首先想到的是將繩子取下來，那像是……（突然停住，他的臉抽搐了一下。） 但哈里走了過去，說：「別，他肯定已經死了。我們最好不要動任何東西。」於是，我們就下了樓。她還是那樣坐著。我問道：「報案了嗎？」她毫不關心地說：「沒有。」「是誰幹的，賴特太太？」哈里又問。他像是例行公事一樣。她停下手裡的活兒說：「我不知道。」哈里問：「你不知道？」她說：「不知道。」「你不是睡在他的身邊嗎？」哈里又問。她又說：「是。但我睡在裡面。」「有人偷偷把繩子套在他的脖子上，而你卻沒有醒？」哈里說。她接著說：「我睡得很死。」哈里還想再問一些問題，但我說，我們最好讓她先將事情經過告訴驗屍官或者警長什麼的。於是，哈里以最快的速度趕到了瑞威爾，為的是用那兒的電話找人。
律師：那麼，當賴特太太知道你們去找驗屍官時，她有什麼反應？
黑爾：她從那把椅子移到了另一把上（指著角落裡的一把小椅子）。她只是坐在那兒握著雙手，盯著下面。我覺得我應該聊點兒什麼，於是我就說，我來是想看看約翰願不願意裝個電話。她突然笑了起來，接著又不笑了，並驚恐地看著我。（律師拿出筆記本，做起了筆記。）我不知道，也許她並沒有被嚇住。我想沒有吧。不一會兒哈里就回來了，羅依德醫生也來了，接著你和彼得斯先生也趕來了。我知道的就這麼多，其他的你們都知道了。
律師：（四下裡看）我想我們應該先去樓上看看——再到外面棚捨和周圍轉轉。（對警長說）你確定沒有漏掉什麼重要的東西嗎？任何可以確定動機的東西？
警長：除了廚房裡用的東西什麼都沒有。（律師又環視了一下廚房，然後打開櫥櫃的門。他踩上一把椅子，往架子上看了看。他脫出手來，感覺黏糊糊的。）
律師：這裡簡直一片狼藉。（兩個女人靠得更近了。）
彼得斯太太：（對另一個女人說）呀，她的果醬真的凍住了。（又對律師說）她就擔心天一變，果醬會被凍住。她說，爐火滅了，果醬瓶就會裂。
警長：哼，真搞不懂女人啊！都已經被控謀殺了，收押期間還在擔心她的果醬。
律師：在結束調查以前，她可能有比果醬更需要擔心的事兒。
黑爾：嘿，女人就愛關心這些雞毛蒜皮的事。（兩個女人又靠近了些。）
律師：（帶著青年政治家的剛毅）雖然她們總在乎這些瑣碎的事，不過，要沒有女人還真不行。（女人們並沒有因此而釋然。他走向水槽，從桶裡舀了一瓢水倒到盆子裡洗了手，並用毛巾擦乾淨。他翻來覆去想找塊乾淨點的地方。）髒死了！（踹了一腳放在水槽裡的平底鍋。）她這個家庭主婦可真不像樣。你們說呢，女士們？
黑爾太太：（生硬地）農場裡有很多活兒要幹。
律師：那是當然。（向她們微微鞠躬）但我知道有個狄克森縣的農莊，他們家裡的滾筒毛巾就不是這樣的。（他又扯了扯毛巾將其展開。）
黑爾太太：那些毛巾很快就會被弄髒。男人們的手並不一直像他們想像的那麼乾淨。
律師：啊，看來你倒挺忠於你的性別的。畢竟你和賴特太太是鄰居嘛。我想你們也是朋友吧。
黑爾太太：（搖頭）最近幾年我很少來拜訪她。我已經好久沒來這房子了——有一年多了。
律師：為什麼呢？你不喜歡她嗎？
黑爾太太：我非常喜歡她。農民的老婆有好多事做，脫不開手啊，亨德森先生。而且那會兒——
律師：怎麼了？
黑爾太太：（瞅瞅四周）這兒壓根兒就不像是個叫人快活的地兒。
律師：是啊，這裡令人很不愉快。我猜她沒什麼打理家務的本事。
黑爾太太：嗯，我想賴特也是一樣。
律師：你是說他們相處得不怎麼好？
黑爾太太：不，我可沒這個意思。不過，我覺得要是有約翰·賴特在的話，這屋子就叫人愉快不了。
律師：關於這個問題，我們待會兒再談，現在我想先去處理樓上的事兒。（他向左邊走去，從那上三個台階就有一個樓門。）
警長：我想彼得斯太太會把事情安排妥當的。她會為賴特太太收拾一些衣服和小物品。我們昨天離開的時候有些匆忙。
律師：好。但我想看看你都收拾了些什麼，彼得斯太太，還得留意任何可能對我們有用的東西。
彼得斯太太：好的，亨德森先生。（女人們聽到男人們上樓去了，四處瞧了瞧廚房。）
黑爾太太：我就討厭男人到我的廚房來，東看看，西看看，還在那兒指手畫腳的。（她正了正水槽裡被律師踢歪的平底鍋。）
彼得斯太太：自然的啦，他們也只不過是職責所在嘛。
黑爾太太：職責倒是沒錯，不過我猜來生火的副警長可能在這上面蹭過。（扯了扯滾筒毛巾）我早該想到這一點。怪她因匆忙間離開，而沒把東西收拾好，似乎有點卑鄙。
彼得斯太太：（走向屋子左後方角落的一張桌子，提起蓋著平底鍋的毛巾一角）她擺著麵包呢。（靜靜地站著。）
黑爾太太：（目光落在一塊放在麵包盒旁邊的麵包上。麵包盒就放在屋子另一頭的矮架子上。她慢慢地走了過去）她要把這個放到裡邊去。（拿起那塊麵包，突然又扔下，注意力又回到果醬上）她的果醬真可惜了。不知道是不是全都壞了。（從椅子上站了起來看了看）我想有些還是好的。彼得斯太太，是的——這兒。（對著窗戶拿著它）這也是草莓的。（又看了看）我猜只剩下這些了吧。（手裡拿著瓶子，走到水槽旁，將外面的東西衝洗乾淨）大熱天做這些辛苦活，她肯定難受極了。記得去年夏天的某個下午，我自己也在做草莓醬。（她把瓶子放在屋子中間的那張大餐桌上，歎了口氣，想要坐在那把搖椅上。剛要坐下的時候突然想到那椅子意味著什麼。她緩緩地將其打量了一番，又退了回來。那椅子由於推力前後擺動起來。）
彼得斯太太：嗯，我得去前屋的櫃子裡拿些東西。（她向右邊的門走去，但是向另一間屋子看了看又退了回來。）你和我一起嗎，黑爾太太？你可以幫我搬一下。（她們走進另一間屋子。再出來時彼得斯太太拿了一條裙子和一件襯衣，黑爾太太也提著一雙鞋跟了出來。）
彼得斯太太：我的天啊，可真冷。（她把衣服放在那張大桌子上，趕緊湊近火爐。）
黑爾太太：（清理襯衣）賴特很吝嗇，所以她很少與人交往。她甚至沒有參加婦女互助會。我想她是交不起會費。人感到自己很寒酸時，是難以享受快樂的。她以前常穿得漂漂亮亮，生機勃勃的。那會兒她還是少女米莉·佛斯特，鎮上女子合唱團的成員。但那——唉，那都已經是三十年前的事兒了。你就帶這些？
彼得斯太太：她說她想要一條圍裙。真有意思，監獄裡有什麼會弄髒衣服呢，天知道。不過，我猜她只是想讓自己覺得更自然一些吧。她說東西在這個櫃子最上面的抽屜裡，在這兒，還有她一直掛在門後的小披肩。（打開樓梯門看了一下）在這兒呢。（趕快關上通往樓上的門。）
黑爾太太：（迅速靠近她）彼得斯太太？
彼得斯太太：什麼事？黑爾太太？
黑爾太太：你認為是她幹的嗎？
彼得斯太太：（用一種驚恐的聲音）啊，我不知道。
黑爾太太：嗯，我想不是她幹的。她還想要一條圍裙和她的小披肩，甚至還在擔心她的果醬。
彼得斯太太：（想要開口，瞥了一眼樓上腳步聲傳來的地方，低聲地）彼得斯先生說，情況看起來對她非常不利。亨德森先生很喜歡在法庭辯論中諷刺人。他會取笑她沒有被驚醒的說法的。
黑爾太太：噢，我想繩子套在約翰·賴特脖子上時他並沒有醒。
彼得斯太太：是啊，這也太奇怪了。那必須得很有技巧才行，而且還沒有聲響。他們說，像這樣草草了事的殺人方法真是蹊蹺。
黑爾太太：黑爾先生就是這麼說的。屋裡有一支槍，他也搞不清楚怎麼回事。
彼得斯太太：亨德森先生說，要想一切水落石出，只需要一個動機：憤怒或者情緒突變的跡象。
黑爾太太：（站在桌子旁）呃，我並沒有發現任何憤怒的跡象。（她一手搭在桌上的洗碗帕上，站在那兒看著桌子。桌子的一半是乾淨的，另一半卻很零亂。）只擦到這兒。（像是要把活做完，又轉身看著麵包盒外的那塊麵包。丟下毛巾，用一種言歸正傳的口吻）不知道他們在樓上找得怎麼樣了。我希望她樓上的東西會整潔點。你瞧，這像是在偷竊。把她關在鎮上，我們卻到這兒來，為的是利用她自己的房子來給她定罪。
彼得斯太太：但是，黑爾太太，法律畢竟是法律啊。
黑爾太太：我想是的。（解開她的外套）最好鬆一鬆你的衣服，彼得斯太太。出去的時候會舒服點兒。（彼得斯太太脫掉她的毛皮披肩，掛在房間後面的掛鉤上，站在那兒看著那張角桌的底部。）
彼得斯太太：她正在做百衲被呢。（拿起那個巨大的針線簍，她們看著那些鮮艷的碎布。）
黑爾太太：是個圓木小屋圖案，很漂亮吧？我不知道她是要走平針呢還是要打花結？（聽到腳步聲到了樓下，警長走進來，後面跟著黑爾和鄉村律師。）
警長：她們不知道她是要走平針呢還是要打花結。（男人們笑了起來，女人們看起來很尷尬。）
律師：（在火爐旁搓手）弗蘭克生的火對上面可沒起什麼作用，是吧？現在我們到外面棚捨去看看，把這事兒解決了。（男人們走了出去。）
黑爾太太：（懊悔地）有什麼大驚小怪的，我們只是在等他們收集證據的空當做些家務活兒而已。（她在大桌子前坐下來，麻利地收拾起桌上的雜物來）這沒有什麼好笑的？
彼得斯太太：（表示歉意地）當然了，他們有更重要的事要考慮嘛。（拉出一把椅子和黑爾太太一起坐在桌子前。）
黑爾太太：（清理其他雜物）彼得斯太太，看看這個。喏，這就是她正在做的活兒。瞧瞧這針腳！都這麼漂亮、平整。快看這兒！這兒全歪了！哎呀，看起來她像是有點心不在焉。（話音剛落，她們互望一眼，接著向後瞅了一眼門口。黑爾太太快速地把一個結拉開，把縫好的針腳扯開。）
彼得斯太太：你幹什麼呀，黑爾太太？
黑爾太太：（溫和地）就拉脫了一兩個沒有縫好的針腳。（穿上針）我永遠無法忍受蹩腳的針線活兒。
彼得斯太太：（緊張地）我覺得咱們不該碰那些東西。
黑爾太太：我只是想收個尾。（突然停下來，向前靠去）彼得斯太太。
彼得斯太太：怎麼了，黑爾太太？
黑爾太太：你說她在緊張什麼呢？
彼得斯太太：噢，我不知道。不知道當時她是不是有些不安。不過有時我累了也會縫得很亂。（黑爾太太還想說什麼，看了看彼得斯太太，又接著縫了起來。）我得把這些東西打包，他們可能結束得比我們想像的要快。（把圍裙和其他東西放在一起）得找一張紙和一根繩子。
黑爾太太：櫥櫃裡也許有吧。
彼得斯太太：（到櫥櫃裡看）這兒怎麼會有個鳥籠？（拿起來）她養鳥嗎，黑爾太太？
黑爾太太：我不知道她是不是有——我好久沒來了。大概是去年吧，這兒來了個賣鳥人，他賣的金絲雀特別便宜，但我不知道她也買了一隻。也許她買了吧。過去她的歌唱得可好了。
彼得斯太太：（向周圍掃了一眼）有隻鳥在這裡，似乎有點奇怪。她肯定養過一隻，要不怎麼會有個籠子呢？不知道出了啥事？
黑爾太太：我猜是貓把它叼走了。
彼得斯太太：不，她沒有貓。她是那種對貓很反感的人——她怕貓。我的貓闖進她房間的時候，她被嚇壞了，叫我把它帶出去。
黑爾太太：我姐姐貝絲也是這樣，很奇怪，不是嗎？
彼得斯太太：（檢查籠子）咦？看這扇門，怎麼壞了？一個合頁都被拉脫了。
黑爾太太：（也看到了）好像是有人使勁把它掰開的。
彼得斯太太：喲，是啊。（她把籠子提上前來，放在桌子上。）
黑爾太太：但願他們能盡快找到證據，我可不喜歡呆在這個地方。
彼得斯太太：但我很高興你能和我一起來，黑爾太太。我一個人坐在這裡肯定悶死了。
黑爾太太：是啊，可不是嗎？（扔下她的活兒）但我跟你說我最希望的是什麼，彼得斯太太。她在那會兒，我能時常過來就好了。我——（看了看四周）要是這樣就好了。
彼得斯太太：但你也很忙啊，黑爾太太——你要打掃屋子和照顧孩子。
黑爾太太：我應該過來的。因為這房子讓人不愉快，所以我迴避了——正因為這樣我才應該過來。我——我從來都不喜歡這地方。也許因為它在山谷裡，看不到它的通路。我不知道怎麼回事，這是個偏僻的地方，而且一直都是。要是我能時常過來看看米莉·佛斯特就好了。看到現在——（搖搖頭。）
彼得斯太太：唉，你沒必要自責，黑爾太太。不管怎麼說我們也不可能瞭解別人的家務事，直到——有些事情浮出水面。
黑爾太太：沒有孩子會省很多事情——但也會讓房子死氣沉沉。賴特整天在外工作，即使回來也不會陪她。你認識約翰·賴特吧？
彼得斯太太：不算認識。我在鎮上見過他。他們說他是個好人。
黑爾太太：是——好人。他不喝酒，也像大多數人那樣講信用。我想他也不欠債。但他卻是一個冷酷無情的人。和他過日子，（顫抖）就像寒風刺骨一般。（停頓，她的目光落在那個鳥籠上）我應該想到她想要一隻鳥的。但你說它到底出了什麼事？
彼得斯太太：我不知道。要不就是它生病死了。（她過去搖了搖被毀壞的門，又搖了一下。她們都看著那扇門。）
黑爾太太：你以前沒有到這附近來過吧？（彼得斯太太搖搖頭）你不認識——她？
彼得斯太太：直到他們昨天把她帶走時我才認識的。
黑爾太太：想想整件事，她就像一隻鳥，既漂亮又甜美，但是又有點膽怯地——拍著翅膀——她是——怎麼——變的（沉默，又像是被什麼好主意所打動，注意力又重新回到了正題）我說，為什麼不把那個百衲被帶上呢？她可能正惦記著那活兒呢。
彼得斯太太：對啊，真是個好主意，黑爾太太。沒人會反對，不是嗎？現在看看還能帶些什麼？我不知道她的布塊是不是還在。——還有她的東西。（她們朝針線簍裡看去。）
黑爾太太：這兒有個紅色的東西。我想這裡面是她做針線用的東西吧。也許她的剪刀就放在這裡面。（打開盒子，突然用手摀住鼻子）呀——（彼得斯太太走過來，然後轉開她的臉）這塊絲綢裡包著什麼東西。
彼得斯太太：呀，這不是她的剪刀。
黑爾太太：（把那塊絲綢拿開）啊，彼得斯太太。這是——（彼得斯太太湊近了點兒。）
彼得斯太太：一隻鳥。
黑爾太太：（跳了起來）彼得斯太太——看，它那脖子，看它的脖子，都歪了。
彼得斯太太：有人——扭斷了——它的——脖子。（她們對視著，流露出恍然大悟且充滿恐懼的神情。聽到外面的腳步聲，黑爾太太把盒子偷偷放在布塊下，陷在椅子裡。警長和律師走了進來，彼得斯太太站了起來。）
律師：（像從正經事轉入輕鬆話題）哈，女士們，你們確定她要走平針還是打花結了嗎？
彼得斯太太：我們猜她是想打花結。
律師：啊，我猜那一定很有意思。（看到了那個籠子）那隻鳥飛走了嗎？
黑爾太太：（用更多碎布蓋住那個盒子）我想是貓把它叼走的。
律師：（心不在焉地）這兒有貓嗎？（黑爾太太很快偷瞥了彼得斯太太一眼。）
彼得斯太太：噢，不是現在。你瞧，他們很迷信。貓都跑了。
律師：（和彼得斯警長繼續一個被打斷的談話）沒有跡象表明有人從外面進來。繩子也是他們自己的。我們現在再上樓看看去，仔細核對一下。（他開始上樓）一定是已經有人知道——（彼得斯太太坐下。兩個女人坐在那兒並不看對方，但都好像在偷看什麼東西，同時又想克制住不去看。當她們開始談話時，也感到自己很奇怪，好像很害怕她們正在說的話，卻又忍不住要說。）
黑爾太太：她喜歡那隻鳥。她想把它埋在那個漂亮的盒子裡。
彼得斯太太：（輕聲地）當我還是姑娘的時候——我的貓——一個手裡拿著小斧的男孩，當著我的面——在我走過去之前——（突然摀住臉）如果不是他們拉住我，我早就（努力克制自己，看著樓上腳步聲傳來的方向，虛弱地搖晃著）——「傷」到他了。
黑爾太太：（緩緩地看著她）我不明白他們怎麼會沒有孩子在身邊。（停頓）對了，賴特不喜歡那隻鳥——能唱歌的東西。她過去常常唱歌。他也扼殺了她的愛好。
彼得斯太太：（艱難地挪動著步子）我們不知道誰殺了那隻鳥。
黑爾太太：我瞭解約翰·賴特。
彼得斯太太：那天晚上這屋子裡發生了一件可怕的事，黑爾太太。有人殺死了一個熟睡中的人，把繩子偷偷套在他的脖子上，使其窒息而死。
黑爾太太：他的脖子，窒息而死。（她伸出手搭在那個鳥籠子上。）
彼得斯太太：（高聲地）我們不知道誰殺了他，我們不知道。
黑爾太太：（她的情緒並沒有被打斷）要是在這常年空無一物的屋子裡能聽到鳥兒的歌唱該多好啊！而鳥兒死後又是一片死寂，可怕的死寂。
彼得斯太太：（她的聲音裡像是夾著什麼東西）我知道什麼叫死寂。當我們還住在達科塔時，我的第一個孩子死了——那時他才兩歲。而我當時身邊沒有其他人——
黑爾太太：（走動）你覺得他們要多長時間才能結束，還在尋找證據？
彼得斯太太：我知道什麼叫死寂。（退回去）法律必須嚴懲罪惡，黑爾太太。
黑爾太太：（不像在回答）真希望你能看一看米莉·佛斯特穿著白色長裙，繫著藍色腰帶，站在合唱隊裡唱歌的光景。（環視整個屋子）唉，要是我能偶爾到這兒來看看就好了！這是犯罪！誰將來懲罰這罪孽？
彼得斯太太：（向樓上看去）我決不能——允許。
黑爾太太：我早該想到她需要幫助！身為女人，我該知道事情的狀況。我跟你說，這真奇怪，彼得斯太太。我們住得很近又像離得很遠。我們都經歷過同樣的事情——都是同一個故事的不同腳本罷了。（揉了揉她的眼睛，注意到那瓶果醬，去拿起來）如果我是你，就不會告訴她果醬已經沒了。告訴她還沒有壞，告訴她都是好的吧，帶上這個去作證。她——她可能永遠也不知道果醬到底壞沒壞。
彼得斯太太：（拿起瓶子到處找東西把它包起來。她扯下一件衣服裡的襯裙，這件衣服是從另一個房間拿來的。她非常緊張地開始把瓶子包起來，聲音都變了）感謝上帝，那些男人聽不到我們說話真是太好了。難道他們不會嘲笑嗎？為一個小東西都能鬧彆扭，像這只——死了的金絲雀。好像跟什麼事有關——難道他們不會嘲笑嗎？（男人的聲音到了樓下。）
黑爾太太：（屏住呼吸）他們也許會——也許不會。
律師：不，彼得斯。一切完全清楚了，只差一個謀殺的理由。但你知道一提到女人，陪審團會怎麼裁決吧。要是有確鑿的證據就好了。有些東西可以表明——可以使案情成立的東西——可以把這種奇怪的殺人法串起來的東西——（女人們飛快地對視了一下，黑爾從門外進來）
黑爾：啊，我已經把那些牲口搞定了。外面可真冷啊。
律師：我想在這兒單獨呆會兒。（對警長）你叫弗蘭克到外面等我，可以嗎？我想仔細清理一遍每一件物品。如果毫無進展，我是不會罷休的。
警長：你想看看彼得斯太太帶了些什麼嗎？（律師走向桌子，拿起圍裙，笑了。）
律師：啊，我猜女士們挑的東西不會有什麼問題。（碰了一下旁邊的一些東西，翻了翻蓋在盒子上的碎布，退後。）不，彼得斯太太用不著監督。因為做警長的妻子不就等於嫁給了法律了嗎？是這樣嗎，彼得斯太太？
彼得斯太太：不——一定。
警長：（偷笑）嫁給法律。（向另一間屋子走去）你快到這裡來看看，喬治。我們該看看那些窗戶。
律師：（嘲笑地）啊，窗戶！
警長：我們馬上就到外面去，黑爾先生。（黑爾走了出去，警長跟律師到了另一間屋子，接著黑爾太太站了起來，緊握住手緊張地看著彼得斯太太，彼得斯太太的目光緩緩轉過來，最後與黑爾太太相遇。一下子，黑爾太太盯了她一會兒，目光一直延伸到藏盒子的地方。突然彼得斯太太把拼被子的碎布掰開，試圖將盒子放入她的背包裡。可那盒子太大了。她打開盒子，想把那隻鳥拿出來，卻摸不到它，她又到碎布裡去找，最後無助地站在那兒。從另一間屋子傳來門鈕的聲音。黑爾太太抓起那個盒子，放在自己大衣的口袋裡。律師和警長進來了。）
律師：（開玩笑地）嗯，亨利。我們至少發現她不想走平針。她要——你們叫做什麼來著，女士們？
黑爾太太：（她的手抵住口袋）我們叫它——打花結，亨德森先生。
（幕落）
Scene: The kitchen in the now abandoned farmhouse of John Wright, a gloomy kitchen, and left without having been put in order--unwashed pans under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the breadbox, a dish towel on the table--other signs of incompleted work. At the rear the outer door opens,and the Sheriff comes in, followed by the county Attorney and Hale. The Sheriff and Hale are men in middle life, the county Attorney is a young man; all are much bundled up and go at once to the stove. They are followed by the two women--the Sheriff's Wife first; she is a slight wiry woman, a thin nervous face. Mrs. Hale is larger and would ordinarily be called more comfortable looking, but she is disturbed now and looks fearfully about as she enters. The women have come in slowly and stand close together near the door.
COUNTY ATTORNEY (rubbing his hands). This feels good. Come up to the fire, ladies.
MRS. PETERS (after taking a step forward). I'm not--cold.
SHERIFF (unbuttoning his overcoat and stepping away from the stove as if to the beginning of official business). Now, Mr. Hale, before we move things about, you explain to Mr. Henderson just what you saw when you came here yesterday morning.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. By the way, has anything been moved? Are things just as you left them yesterday?
SHERIFF (looking about). It's just the same. When it dropped below zer0 last night, I thought I'd better send Frank out this morning to make a fire for us--no use getting pneumonia with a big case on; but I told him not to touch anything except the stove--and you know Frank.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Somebody should have been left here yesterday.
SHERIFF. Oh--yesterday. When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for that man who went crazy--I want you to know I had my hands full yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by today, and as long as I went over everything here myself-
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Well, Mr. Hale, tell just what happened when you came here yesterday morning.
HALE. Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes. We came along the road from my place; and as I got here, I said, "I'm going to see if I can't get John Wright to go in with me on a party telephone." I spoke to Wright about it once before, and he put me off, saying folks talked too much anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet--I guess you know about how much he talked himself; but I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it before his wife, though I said to Harry that I didn't know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John--
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Let's talk about that later, Mr. Hale. I do want to talk about that, but tell now just what happened when you got to the house.
HALE. I didn't hear or see anything; I knocked at the door, and still it was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up, it was past eight o'clock. so I knocked again, and I thought I heard somebody say, "Come in." I wasn't sure, I'm not sure yet, but I opened the door--this door (indicating the door by which the two women are still standing), and there in that rocker-- (pointing to it) sat Mrs. Wright. (They all look at the rocker.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY. What--was she doing?
HALE. She was rockin' back and forth. She had her apron in her hand and was kind of--pleating it.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. And how did she--look?
HALE. Well, she looked queer.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. How do you mean--queer?
HALE. Well, as if she didn't know what she was going to do next. And kind of done up.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. How did she seem to feel about your coming?
HALE. Why, I don't think she minded--one way or other. She didn't pay much attention. I said, "How do, Mrs. Wright, it's cold, ain't it?" And she said, "Is it?"--and went on kind of pleating at her apron. Well, I was surprised; she didn't ask me to come up to the stove, or to set down, but just sat there, not even looking at me, so I said, "I want to see John." And then she--laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh. I thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said a little sharp:"Can't I see John?" "No," she says, kind o' dull like. "Ain't he home?" says I. "Yes," says she, "he's home." "Then why can't I see him?" I asked her, out of patience. "'Cause he's dead," says she. "Dead?" says I. She just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but rockin' back and forth. "Why--where is he?" says I, not knowing what to say. She just pointed upstairs--like that (himself pointing to the room above). I got up, with the idea of going up there. I talked from there to here--then I says, "Why, what did he die of?" "He died of a rope around his neck," says she, and just went on pleatin' at her apron. Well, I went out and called Harry. I thought I might--need help. We went upstairs, and there he was lying'--
COUNTY ATTORNEY. I think I'd rather have you go into that upstairs, where you can point in all out. Just go on now with the rest of the story.
HALE. Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. I looked...(Stops, his face twitches.)...but Harry, he went up to him, and he said, "No, he's dead all right, and we'd better not touch anything." So we went back downstairs. She was still sitting that same way. "Has anybody been notified?" I asked." "No," says she, unconcerned. "Who did this, Mrs. Wright?" said Harry. He said it business-like--and she stopped pleatin' of her apron. "I don't know," she says. "You don't know?" says Harry. "No," says she, "Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with him?" says Harry. "Yes," says she, "but I was on the inside." "Somebody slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him, and you didn't wake up?" says Harry. "I didn't wake up," she said after him. We must 'a looked as if we didn't see how that could be, for after a minute she said, "I sleep sound." Harry was going to ask her more questions, but I said maybe we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner, or the sheriff, so Harry went fast as he could to Rivers' place, where there's a telephone.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. And what did Mrs. Wright do when she knew that you had gone for the coroner.
HALE. she moved from that chair to this over here... (Pointing to a small chair in the corner)...and just sat there with her hand held together and looking down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some conversation, so I said I had come in to see if John wanted to put in a telephone, and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and looked at me--scared.
(The County Attorney, who has had his notebook out, makes a note.) I dunno, maybe it wasn't scared. I wouldn't like to say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr. Lloyd came, and you, Mr. Peters, and so I guess that's all I know that you don't.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. (looking around). I guess we'll go upstairs first--and then out to the barn and around there. (To the Sheriff). You're convinced that there was nothing important here--nothing that would point to any motive?
SHERIFF. Nothing here but kitchen things.
(The County Attorney, after again looking around the kitchen, opens the door of a cupboard closet. He gets up on a chair and looks on a shelf. Pulls his hand away, sticky.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Here's a nice mess.
(The women draw nearer.)
MRS. PETERS (to the other woman). Oh, her fruit; it did freeze. (To the Lawyer). She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire'd go out and her jars would break.
SHERIFF. Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin' about her preserves.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. I guess before we're through she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about.
HALE. Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.
(The two women move a little closer together.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY (with the gallantry of a young politician). And yet, for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies? (The women do not unbend. He goes to the sink, takes dipperful of water form the pail and, pouring it into a basin, washes his hands. Starts to wipe them on the roller towel, turns it for a cleaner place.) Dirty towels! (Kicks his foot against the pans under the sink.) Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?
MRS. HALE (stiffly). There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. To be sure. And yet... (With a little bow to her.) ...I know there are some Dickson county farmhouses which do not have such roller towels. (He gives it a pull to expose its full length again.)
MRS. HALE. Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always as clean as they might be.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Ah, loyal to your sex, I see. But you and Mrs. Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too.
MRS. HALE (shaking her head.) I've not seen much of her of late years. I've not been in this house--it's more than a year.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. And why was that? You didn't like her?
MRS. HALE. I liked her all well enough. Farmers' wives have their hands full, Mr. Henderson. And then--
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Yes--?
MRS. HALE (looking about.) It never seemed a very cheerful place.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. No--it's not cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the homemaking instinct.
MRS. HALE. Well, I don't know as Wright had, either.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. You mean that they didn't get on very well?
MRS. HALE. No, I don't mean anything. But I don't think a place'd be any cheerfuller for John Wright's being in it.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. I'd like to talk more of that a little later. I want to get the lay of things upstairs now. (He goes to the left, where three steps lead to a stair door.)
SHERIFF. I suppose anything Mrs. Peters does'll be all right. She was to take in some clothes for her, you know, and a few little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Yes, but I would like to see what you take, Mrs. Peters, and keep an eye out for anything that might be of use to us.
MRS. PETERS. Yes, Mr. Henderson.
(The women listen to the men's steps on the stairs, then look about the kitchen.)
MRS. HALE. I'd hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and criticizing. (She arranges the pans under sink which the Lawyer had shoved out of place.)
MRS. PETERS. Of course it's no more than their duty.
MRS. HALE. Duty's all right, but I guess that deputy sheriff that came out to make the fire might have got a little of this on. (Gives the roller towel a pull.) Wish I'd thought of that sooner. Seems mean to talk about her for not having things slicked up when she had to come away in such a hurry.
MRS. PETERS. (who has gone to a small table in the left rear corner of the room, and lifted on end of a towel that covers a pan). She had bread set. (Stands still.)
MRS. HALE (eyes fixed on a loaf of bread beside the breadbox, which is on a low shelf at the other side of the room. Moves slowly toward it.)she was going to put this in there. (Picks up loaf, then abruptly drops it. In a manner of returning to familiar things.) It's a shame about her fruit. I wonder if it's all gone. (Gets up on the chair and looks.) I think there's some here that's all right, Mrs. Peters. Yes--here; (Holding it toward the window.) This is cherries, too. (Looking again.) I declare I believe that's the only one. (Gets down, bottle in her hand. Goes to the sink and wipes it off on the outside.) She'll feel awful bad after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the afternoon I put up my cherries last summer.
(She puts the bottle on the big kitchen table, center of the room, front table. With a sigh, is about to sit down in the rocking chair. Before she is seated realizes what chair it is; with a slow look at it, steps back. The chair, which she has touched, rocks back and forth.)
MRS. PETERS. Well, I must get those things from the front room closet. [She goes to the door at the right, but after looking into the other room, steps back.] You coming with me, Mrs. Hale? You could help me carry them. (They go into the other room; reappear, Mrs. Peters carrying a dress and skirt, Mrs. Hale following with a pair of shoes.)
MRS. PETERS. My, it's cold in there. (She puts the cloth on the big table, and hurries to the stove.)
MRS HALE (examining the skirt). Wright was close. I think maybe that's why she kept so much to herself. She didn't even belong to the Ladies' Aid. I suppose she felt she couldn't do her part, and then you don't enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was MInnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir. But that--oh, that was thirty years ago. This all you was to take?
MRS. PETERS. She said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want, for there isn't much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just to make her feel more natural. She said they was in the top drawer in this cupboard. Yes, here. And then her little shawl that always hung behind the door. (Opens stair door and looks.) Yes, here it is. (Quickly shuts door leading upstairs..)
MRS. HALE (abruptly moving toward her.) Mrs. Peters?
MRS. PETERS. Do you think she did it?
MRS. PETERS (in a frightened voice.) Oh, I don't know.
MRS. HALE. Well, I don't think she did. Asking for an apron and her little shawl. Worrying about her fruit.
MRS. PETERS (starts to speak, glances up, where footsteps are heard in the room above. In a low voice.) Mrs. Peters says it looks bad for her. Mr. Henderson is awful sarcastic in speech, and he'll make fun of her sayin' she didn't wake up.
MRS. HALE. Well, I guess John Wright didn't wake when they was slipping that rope under his neck.
MRS. PETERS. No, it's strange. It must have been done awful crafty and still. They say it was such a --funny way to kill a man, rigging it all up like that.
MRS. HALE. That's just what Mr. Hale said. There was a gun in the house. He says that's what he can't understand.
MRS. PETERS. Mr. Henderson said coming out that what was needed for the case was a motive; something to show anger or--sudden feeling.
MRS. HALE (who is standing by the table). Well, I don't see any signs of anger around here. (she puts her hand on the dish towel which lies on the table, stands looking down at the table, one half of which is clean, the other half messy.) It's wiped here. (Makes a move as if to finish work, then turns and looks at loaf of bread outside the breadbox. Drops towel. In that voice of coming back to familiar things. ) Wonder how they are finding things upstairs? I hope she had it a little more there. You know, it seems kind of sneaking. Locking her up in town and then coming out here and trying to get her own house to turn against her!
MRS. PETERS. But, Mrs. Hale, the law is the law.
MRS. HALE. I s'pose 'tis. (Unbuttoning her coat.) Better loosen up your things, Mrs. Peters. You won't feel them when you go out. (Mrs. Peters takes off her fur tippet, goes to hang it on hook at the back of room, stands looking at the under part of the small corner table.)
MRS. PETERS. She was piecing a quilt. (She brings the large sewing basket, and they look at the bright pieces.)
MRS. HALE. It's log cabin pattern. Pretty, isn't it? I wonder if she was goin' to quilt or just knot it? (Footsteps have been heard coming down the stairs. The Sheriff enters, followed by Hale and the County Attorney.)
SHERIFF. They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it. (The men laugh, the women look abashed.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY (rubbing his hands over the stove). Frank's fire didn't do much up there, did it? Well, let's go out to the barn and get that cleared up. (The men go outside.)
MRS. HALE (resentfully). I don't know as there's anything so strange, our takin' up our time with little things while we're waiting for them to get the evidence. (She sits down at the big table, smoothing out a block with decision.) I don't see as it's anything to laugh about.
MRS. PETERS. (apologetically). Of course they've got awful important things on their minds. (Pulls up a chair and joins Mrs. Hale at the table.)
MRS. HALE (examining another block.) Mrs. Peters, look at this one. Here, this is the one she was working on, and look at the sewing! All the rest of it has been so nice and even. And look at this! It's all over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn't know what she was about! (After she has said this, they look at each other, then start to glance back at the door. After an instant Mrs. Hale has pulled at a knot and ripped the sewing.)
MRS. PETERS. Oh, what are you doing, Mrs. Hale?
MRS. HALE (mildly). Just pulling out a stitch or two that's not sewed very good. (Threading a needle). Bad sewing always made me fidgety.
MRS. PETERS. (nervously). I don't think we ought to touch things.
MRS. HALE. I'll just finish up this end. (Suddenly stopping and leaning forward.) Mrs. Peters?
MRS. PETERS. Yes, Mrs. Hale?
MRS. HALE. What do you suppose she was so nervous about?
MRS. PETERS. Oh--I don't know. I don't know as she was nervous. I sometimes sew awful queer when I'm just tired. (Mrs. Hale starts to say something looks at Mrs. Peters, then goes on sewing.) Well, I must get these things wrapped up. They may be through sooner than we think. (Putting apron and other things together.) I wonder where I can find a piece of paper, and string.
MRS. HALE. In that cupboard, maybe.
MRS. PETER. (looking in cupboard). Why, here's a birdcage. (Holds it up.) Did she have a bird, Mrs. Hale?
MRS. HALE. Why, I don't know whether she did or not--I've not been here for so long. There was a man around last year selling canaries cheap, but I don't know as she took one; maybe she did. She used to sing real pretty herself.
MRS. PETERS. (glancing around). Seems funny to think of a bird here. But she must have had one, or why should she have a cage? I wonder what happened to it?
MRS. HALE. I s'pose maybe the cat got it.
MRS. PETERS. No, she didn't have a cat. She's got that feeling some people have about cats--being afraid of them. My cat got in her room, and she was real upset and asked me to take it out.
MRS. HALE. My sister Bessie was like that. Queer, ain't it?
MRS. PETERS. (examining the cage). Why, look at this door. It's broke. One hinge is pulled apart.
MRS. HALE. (looking, too.) Looks as if someone must have been rough with it.
MRS. PETERS. Why, yes. (she brings the cage forward and puts it on the table.)
MRS. HALE. I wish if they're going to find any evidence they'd be about it. I don't like this place.
MRS. PETERS. But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs. Hale. It would be lonesome of me sitting here alone.
MRS. HALE. It would, wouldn't it? (Dropping her sewing). But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs. Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes she was here. I-- (Looking around the room.)--wish I had.
MRS. PETERS. But of course you were awful busy, Mrs. Hale---your house and your children.
MRS. HALE. I could've come. I stayed away because it weren't cheerful--and that's why I ought to have come. I--I've never liked this place. Maybe because it's down in a hollow, and you don't see the road. I dunno what it is, but it's a lonesome place and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now--(Shakes her head.)
MRS. PETERS. Well, you mustn't reproach yourself, Mrs. Hale. Somehow we just don't see how it is with other folks until--something comes up.
MRS. HALE. Not having children makes less work--but it makes a quiet house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs. Peters?
MRS. PETERS. Not to know him; I've seen him in town. They say he was a good man.
MRS. HALE. Yes--good; he didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him. (Shivers.) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone. (Pauses, her eye falling on the cage.) I should think she would 'a wanted a bird. But what do you suppose went with it?
MRS. PETERS. I don't know, unless it got sick and died. (She reaches over and swings the broken door, swings it again; both women watch it.)
MRS.> HALE. She--come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself--real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and--fluttery. How--she--did--change. (Silence; then as if struck by a happy thought and relieved to get back to everyday things.) Tell you what, Mrs. Peters, why don't you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her mind.
MRS. PETERS. Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs. Hale. There couldn't possible be any objection to it, could there? Now, just what would I take? I wonder if her patches are in here--and her things. (They look in the sewing basket.)
MRS. HALE. Here's some red. I expect this has got sewing things in it (Brings out a fancy box.) What a pretty box. Looks like something somebody would give you. Maybe her scissors are in here. (Opens box. Suddenly puts her hand to her nose.) Why-- (Mrs. Peters bend nearer, then turns her face away.) There's something wrapped up in this piece of silk.
MRS. PETERS. Why, this isn't her scissors.
MRS. HALE (lifting the silk.) Oh, Mrs. Peters--it's-- (Mrs. Peters bend closer.)
MRS. PETERS. It's the bird.
MRS. HALE (jumping up.) But, Mrs. Peters--look at it. Its neck! Look at its neck! It's all--other side to.
MRS. PETERS. Somebody--wrung--its neck.
(Their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension of horror. Steps are heard outside. Mrs. Hale slips box under quilt pieces, and sinks into her chair. Enter Sheriff and County Attorney. Mrs. Peters rises.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY (as one turning from serious thing to little pleasantries). Well, ladies, have you decided whether she was going to quilt it or knot it?
MRS. PETERS. We think she was going to--knot it.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. Well, that's interesting, I'm sure. (Seeing the birdcage.) Has the bird flown?
MRS. HALE (putting more quilt pieces over the box.) We think the--cat got it.
COUNTY ATTORNEY (preoccupied). Is there a cat?
(Mrs. Hale glances in a quick covert way at Mrs. Peters.
) MRS. PETERS. Well, not now. They're superstitious, you know. They leave.
COUNTY ATTORNEY (to Sheriff Peters, continuing an interrupted conversation.) No sign at all of anyone having come from the outside. Their own rope. Now let's go up again and go over it piece by piece. (They start upstairs.) It would have to have been someone who knew just the--
(Mrs. Peters sits down. The two women sit there not looking at one another, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding back. When they talk now, it is the manner of feeling their way over strange ground, as if afraid of what they are saying, but as if they cannot help saying it.) MRS. HALE. She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty box.
MRS. PETERS. (in a whisper). When I was a girl--my kitten--there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes--and before I could get there--(Covers her face an instant.) If they hadn't held me back, I would have-- (Catches herself, looks upstairs, where steps are heard, falters weakly.)--hurt him.
MRS. HALE (with a slow look around her.) I wonder how it would seem never to have had any children around. (Pause.) No, Wright wouldn't like the bird--a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too.
MRS. PETERS (moving uneasily). We don't know who killed the bird.
MRS. HALE. I knew John Wright.
MRS. PETERS. It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs. Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope around his neck that choked the life out of him.
MRS. HALE. His neck, Choked the life out of him.
(Her hand goes out and rests on the birdcage.) MRS. PETERS (with a rising voice). We don't know who killed him. We don't know.
MRS. HALE (her own feeling not interrupted.) If there'd been years and years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful--still, after the bird was still.
MRS. PETERS (something within her speaking). I know what stillness is. When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died--after he was two years old, and me with no other then--
MRS. HALE (moving). How soon do you suppose they'll be through, looking for evidence?
MRS. PETERS. I know what stillness is. (Pulling herself back). The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale. MRS. HALE (not as if answering that). I wish you'd seen MInnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang. (A look around the room). Oh, I wish I'd come over here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to punish that?
MRS. Peters (looking upstairs). We mustn't--take on.
MRS. HALE. I might have known she needed help! I know how things can be--for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things--it's all just a different kind of the same thing. (Brushes her eyes, noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for it.) If I was you, I wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her it ain't. Tell her it's all right. Take this in to prove it to her. She--she may never know whether it was broke or not.
MRS. PETERS (takes the bottle, looks about for something to wrap it in; takes petticoat from the clothes brought from the other room, very nervously begins winding this around the bottle. In a false voice). My, it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us. Wouldn't they just laugh! Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a--dead canary. As if that could have anything to do with--with--wouldn't they laugh!
(The men are heard coming downstairs.) MRS. HALE (under her breath). Maybe they would--maybe they wouldn't.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. No, Peters, it's all perfectly clear except a reason for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was some definite thing. Something to show--something to make a story about--a thing that would connect up with this strange way of doing it.
(The women's eyes meet for an instant. Enter Hale from outer door.)
HALE. Well, I've got the team around. Pretty cold out there.
COUNTY ATTORNEY. I'm going to stay here awhile by myself (To the Sheriff). You can send Frank out for me, can't you? I want to go over everything. I'm not satisfied that we can't do better.
SHERIFF. Do you want to see what Mrs. Peters is going to take in?
(The Lawyer goes to the table, picks up the apron, laughs.) COUNTY ATTORNEY. Oh I guess they're not very dangerous things the ladies have picked up. (Moves a few things about, disturbing the quilt pieces which cover the box. Steps back.) No, Mrs. Peters doesn't need supervising. For that matter, a sheriff's wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, Mrs. Peters?
MRS. PETERS. Not--just that way.
SHERIFF (chuckling). Married to the law. (Moves toward the other room.) I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to take a look at these windows.
COUNTY ATTORNEY (scoffingly). Oh, windows!
SHERIFF. We'll be right out, Mr. Hale.
(Hale goes outside. The Sheriff follows the County Attorney into the other room. Then Mrs. Hale rises, hands tight together, looking intensely at Mrs. Peters, whose eyes take a slow turn, finally meeting Mrs. Hale's. A moment Mrs. Hale holds her, then her own eyes point the way to where the box is concealed. Suddenly Mrs. Peters throws back quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing. It is too big. She opens box, starts to take the bird out, cannot touch it, goes to pieces, stands there helpless. Sound of a knob turning in the other room. Mrs. Hale snatches the box and puts it in the pocket of her big coat. Enter County Attorney and Sheriff.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY (facetiously). Well, Henry, at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to--what is it you call it, ladies!
MRS. HALE (her hand against her pocket). We call it--knot it, Mr. Henderson.
人物：喬治·亨德森（鄉村律師）
亨利·彼得斯（警長）
劉易斯·黑爾（一個住在附近的農民）
彼得斯太太
黑爾太太
場景：約翰·賴特家的廚房像是被廢棄了一樣，裡面陰森森的，雜亂一團：沒有清洗的平底鍋躺在水槽裡，一塊麵包留在麵包盒外，洗碗帕耷拉在桌子上，從種種跡象看來：活才幹了一半。後面的大門開了，警長走了進來，身後跟著鄉村律師和農民黑爾。警長和黑爾都已是中年，而鄉村律師還是個年輕人。大家都緊了緊衣服，趕快向火爐邊靠去。後面跟進來兩個女人：警長的老婆先進來，她長得瘦高個兒，瘦削的臉有些羞怯；而黑爾太太體格稍顯豐滿，相貌看起來自然，也更討人喜歡。但此時她非常不安，進來時驚恐地四下張望。兩個女人慢慢地走到一塊兒，緊挨著站在門邊。
律師：（搓手）這下好了。過來烤火吧，女士們。
彼得斯太太：（向前邁了一步）我不——冷。
警長：（解開他的外套，離開火爐像是要開始幹正事了）黑爾，這樣吧。在我們搜查這屋裡的東西之前，你先向亨德森先生講一下昨天早上你看到的情況。
律師：順便問一下，你們動過這裡的東西嗎？保持著昨天的原樣嗎？
警長：（環視四周）還是原樣。只是我想到昨天晚上氣溫已經降到了零下，就叫弗蘭克今天早上過來幫我們生了火。要是大家帶著肺炎查案子就不好了。不過，我囑咐過他，除了爐子不要動任何東西。你們該信得過弗蘭克吧。
律師：昨天該有人在這裡留守的。
警長：哈，昨天。那會兒我得派弗蘭克去默瑞斯中心找那個精神失常的人。而我昨天也忙得不可開交。我知道你會在今天之前從歐馬哈趕回來，既然我親自察看過這裡的一切……
律師：好了，黑爾，告訴我昨天早上你來這兒時出了什麼事？
黑爾：哈里和我推了一車土豆準備去鎮上賣。我們出門就沿著大路走，走到這兒時，我對哈里說：「我去看看能否讓約翰改變主意，和我一起裝個共用電話。」之前我已經跟他說過一次了。他拒絕了我，說鄉里們閒聊得已經夠多的了，他只想清靜一點。我猜你也曉得他的話本來就不多。不過我想，指不定到他家去，當著他老婆的面說這個事兒可能會好一點。不過，我對哈里說，我並沒有把握他老婆會讓他回心轉意。
律師：黑爾，這個嘛，我們晚點再談吧。我倒是很想瞭解這些情況的，只是現在你還是先告訴我，昨天早上你踏進這房子的時候，這裡到底發生了什麼事？
黑爾：當時，我聽不到聲響，也不見有人來。我敲了門，可屋裡頭就是沒人應。我琢磨著他們也該起床了，那會兒已經過了8點。於是，我又敲了敲門，聽見有人說「進來」。我當時就沒搞明白，甚至現在都不明白。可是，當我打開門——就是這扇門（指著那扇門，兩個女人仍然站在旁邊），還有賴特太太正坐在——那把搖椅上（指著它）。（他們都看著那把搖椅。）
律師：她在做什麼？
黑爾：她正坐在椅子上前搖後擺的，手裡拿著自己的圍裙，像是在——打褶子。
律師：她看起來如何？
黑爾：哦，她看起來很奇怪。
律師：怎麼個奇怪法？
黑爾：嗯，她好像不知道接下來該幹啥似的。好像在系什麼東西。
律師：看到你進來，她有何反應？
黑爾：這個嘛，我想她多少有點漠不關心。她並沒有在意我。我說：「你好，賴特太太，天兒真冷，是吧？」而她說：「冷嗎？」——說完又繼續在圍裙上打褶子。嘿，我很吃驚。她既不叫我到火爐旁去烤火，也不請我坐下，就在那兒坐著，甚至連看都不看我一眼。那我就說：「我想見見約翰。」她當時就笑了，如果那也叫笑的話。我想到哈里和牲口還在外面，就有點急了，「我就不能見見約翰嗎？」「不能。」她悶悶地說。「他不在家嗎？」我問。「不是。在家。」她又說。「那為什麼不能見？」我有點不耐煩地問。她說：「因為他已經死了。」「死了？」我說。她只是點點頭，卻一點也不激動，只是不停地搖來搖去。「為什麼——他在哪裡？」我不知道該說什麼好。她只是指著樓上，像這樣（他自己指著上面的房間）。我站起來，想去樓上看看。我從那兒走到這兒，然後我說：「他為什麼會死？是怎麼死的？」「被繩子勒死的。」她說完又接著給她的圍裙打褶子。唉，我出去叫哈里，因為我覺得或許得有個幫手。我和哈里上了樓，看見他就躺在那兒……
律師：我很想到樓上看看去。這樣，你可以向我詳細說明事情經過。現在繼續把你的故事講完吧。
黑爾：嗯，我首先想到的是將繩子取下來，那像是……（突然停住，他的臉抽搐了一下。） 但哈里走了過去，說：「別，他肯定已經死了。我們最好不要動任何東西。」於是，我們就下了樓。她還是那樣坐著。我問道：「報案了嗎？」她毫不關心地說：「沒有。」「是誰幹的，賴特太太？」哈里又問。他像是例行公事一樣。她停下手裡的活兒說：「我不知道。」哈里問：「你不知道？」她說：「不知道。」「你不是睡在他的身邊嗎？」哈里又問。她又說：「是。但我睡在裡面。」「有人偷偷把繩子套在他的脖子上，而你卻沒有醒？」哈里說。她接著說：「我睡得很死。」哈里還想再問一些問題，但我說，我們最好讓她先將事情經過告訴驗屍官或者警長什麼的。於是，哈里以最快的速度趕到了瑞威爾，為的是用那兒的電話找人。
律師：那麼，當賴特太太知道你們去找驗屍官時，她有什麼反應？
黑爾：她從那把椅子移到了另一把上（指著角落裡的一把小椅子）。她只是坐在那兒握著雙手，盯著下面。我覺得我應該聊點兒什麼，於是我就說，我來是想看看約翰願不願意裝個電話。她突然笑了起來，接著又不笑了，並驚恐地看著我。（律師拿出筆記本，做起了筆記。）我不知道，也許她並沒有被嚇住。我想沒有吧。不一會兒哈里就回來了，羅依德醫生也來了，接著你和彼得斯先生也趕來了。我知道的就這麼多，其他的你們都知道了。
律師：（四下裡看）我想我們應該先去樓上看看——再到外面棚捨和周圍轉轉。（對警長說）你確定沒有漏掉什麼重要的東西嗎？任何可以確定動機的東西？
警長：除了廚房裡用的東西什麼都沒有。（律師又環視了一下廚房，然後打開櫥櫃的門。他踩上一把椅子，往架子上看了看。他脫出手來，感覺黏糊糊的。）
律師：這裡簡直一片狼藉。（兩個女人靠得更近了。）
彼得斯太太：（對另一個女人說）呀，她的果醬真的凍住了。（又對律師說）她就擔心天一變，果醬會被凍住。她說，爐火滅了，果醬瓶就會裂。
警長：哼，真搞不懂女人啊！都已經被控謀殺了，收押期間還在擔心她的果醬。
律師：在結束調查以前，她可能有比果醬更需要擔心的事兒。
黑爾：嘿，女人就愛關心這些雞毛蒜皮的事。（兩個女人又靠近了些。）
律師：（帶著青年政治家的剛毅）雖然她們總在乎這些瑣碎的事，不過，要沒有女人還真不行。（女人們並沒有因此而釋然。他走向水槽，從桶裡舀了一瓢水倒到盆子裡洗了手，並用毛巾擦乾淨。他翻來覆去想找塊乾淨點的地方。）髒死了！（踹了一腳放在水槽裡的平底鍋。）她這個家庭主婦可真不像樣。你們說呢，女士們？
黑爾太太：（生硬地）農場裡有很多活兒要幹。
律師：那是當然。（向她們微微鞠躬）但我知道有個狄克森縣的農莊，他們家裡的滾筒毛巾就不是這樣的。（他又扯了扯毛巾將其展開。）
黑爾太太：那些毛巾很快就會被弄髒。男人們的手並不一直像他們想像的那麼乾淨。
律師：啊，看來你倒挺忠於你的性別的。畢竟你和賴特太太是鄰居嘛。我想你們也是朋友吧。
黑爾太太：（搖頭）最近幾年我很少來拜訪她。我已經好久沒來這房子了——有一年多了。
律師：為什麼呢？你不喜歡她嗎？
黑爾太太：我非常喜歡她。農民的老婆有好多事做，脫不開手啊，亨德森先生。而且那會兒——
律師：怎麼了？
黑爾太太：（瞅瞅四周）這兒壓根兒就不像是個叫人快活的地兒。
律師：是啊，這裡令人很不愉快。我猜她沒什麼打理家務的本事。
黑爾太太：嗯，我想賴特也是一樣。
律師：你是說他們相處得不怎麼好？
黑爾太太：不，我可沒這個意思。不過，我覺得要是有約翰·賴特在的話，這屋子就叫人愉快不了。
律師：關於這個問題，我們待會兒再談，現在我想先去處理樓上的事兒。（他向左邊走去，從那上三個台階就有一個樓門。）
警長：我想彼得斯太太會把事情安排妥當的。她會為賴特太太收拾一些衣服和小物品。我們昨天離開的時候有些匆忙。
律師：好。但我想看看你都收拾了些什麼，彼得斯太太，還得留意任何可能對我們有用的東西。
彼得斯太太：好的，亨德森先生。（女人們聽到男人們上樓去了，四處瞧了瞧廚房。）
黑爾太太：我就討厭男人到我的廚房來，東看看，西看看，還在那兒指手畫腳的。（她正了正水槽裡被律師踢歪的平底鍋。）
彼得斯太太：自然的啦，他們也只不過是職責所在嘛。
黑爾太太：職責倒是沒錯，不過我猜來生火的副警長可能在這上面蹭過。（扯了扯滾筒毛巾）我早該想到這一點。怪她因匆忙間離開，而沒把東西收拾好，似乎有點卑鄙。
彼得斯太太：（走向屋子左後方角落的一張桌子，提起蓋著平底鍋的毛巾一角）她擺著麵包呢。（靜靜地站著。）
黑爾太太：（目光落在一塊放在麵包盒旁邊的麵包上。麵包盒就放在屋子另一頭的矮架子上。她慢慢地走了過去）她要把這個放到裡邊去。（拿起那塊麵包，突然又扔下，注意力又回到果醬上）她的果醬真可惜了。不知道是不是全都壞了。（從椅子上站了起來看了看）我想有些還是好的。彼得斯太太，是的——這兒。（對著窗戶拿著它）這也是草莓的。（又看了看）我猜只剩下這些了吧。（手裡拿著瓶子，走到水槽旁，將外面的東西衝洗乾淨）大熱天做這些辛苦活，她肯定難受極了。記得去年夏天的某個下午，我自己也在做草莓醬。（她把瓶子放在屋子中間的那張大餐桌上，歎了口氣，想要坐在那把搖椅上。剛要坐下的時候突然想到那椅子意味著什麼。她緩緩地將其打量了一番，又退了回來。那椅子由於推力前後擺動起來。）
彼得斯太太：嗯，我得去前屋的櫃子裡拿些東西。（她向右邊的門走去，但是向另一間屋子看了看又退了回來。）你和我一起嗎，黑爾太太？你可以幫我搬一下。（她們走進另一間屋子。再出來時彼得斯太太拿了一條裙子和一件襯衣，黑爾太太也提著一雙鞋跟了出來。）
彼得斯太太：我的天啊，可真冷。（她把衣服放在那張大桌子上，趕緊湊近火爐。）
黑爾太太：（清理襯衣）賴特很吝嗇，所以她很少與人交往。她甚至沒有參加婦女互助會。我想她是交不起會費。人感到自己很寒酸時，是難以享受快樂的。她以前常穿得漂漂亮亮，生機勃勃的。那會兒她還是少女米莉·佛斯特，鎮上女子合唱團的成員。但那——唉，那都已經是三十年前的事兒了。你就帶這些？
彼得斯太太：她說她想要一條圍裙。真有意思，監獄裡有什麼會弄髒衣服呢，天知道。不過，我猜她只是想讓自己覺得更自然一些吧。她說東西在這個櫃子最上面的抽屜裡，在這兒，還有她一直掛在門後的小披肩。（打開樓梯門看了一下）在這兒呢。（趕快關上通往樓上的門。）
黑爾太太：（迅速靠近她）彼得斯太太？
彼得斯太太：什麼事？黑爾太太？
黑爾太太：你認為是她幹的嗎？
彼得斯太太：（用一種驚恐的聲音）啊，我不知道。
黑爾太太：嗯，我想不是她幹的。她還想要一條圍裙和她的小披肩，甚至還在擔心她的果醬。
彼得斯太太：（想要開口，瞥了一眼樓上腳步聲傳來的地方，低聲地）彼得斯先生說，情況看起來對她非常不利。亨德森先生很喜歡在法庭辯論中諷刺人。他會取笑她沒有被驚醒的說法的。
黑爾太太：噢，我想繩子套在約翰·賴特脖子上時他並沒有醒。
彼得斯太太：是啊，這也太奇怪了。那必須得很有技巧才行，而且還沒有聲響。他們說，像這樣草草了事的殺人方法真是蹊蹺。
黑爾太太：黑爾先生就是這麼說的。屋裡有一支槍，他也搞不清楚怎麼回事。
彼得斯太太：亨德森先生說，要想一切水落石出，只需要一個動機：憤怒或者情緒突變的跡象。
黑爾太太：（站在桌子旁）呃，我並沒有發現任何憤怒的跡象。（她一手搭在桌上的洗碗帕上，站在那兒看著桌子。桌子的一半是乾淨的，另一半卻很零亂。）只擦到這兒。（像是要把活做完，又轉身看著麵包盒外的那塊麵包。丟下毛巾，用一種言歸正傳的口吻）不知道他們在樓上找得怎麼樣了。我希望她樓上的東西會整潔點。你瞧，這像是在偷竊。把她關在鎮上，我們卻到這兒來，為的是利用她自己的房子來給她定罪。
彼得斯太太：但是，黑爾太太，法律畢竟是法律啊。
黑爾太太：我想是的。（解開她的外套）最好鬆一鬆你的衣服，彼得斯太太。出去的時候會舒服點兒。（彼得斯太太脫掉她的毛皮披肩，掛在房間後面的掛鉤上，站在那兒看著那張角桌的底部。）
彼得斯太太：她正在做百衲被呢。（拿起那個巨大的針線簍，她們看著那些鮮艷的碎布。）
黑爾太太：是個圓木小屋圖案，很漂亮吧？我不知道她是要走平針呢還是要打花結？（聽到腳步聲到了樓下，警長走進來，後面跟著黑爾和鄉村律師。）
警長：她們不知道她是要走平針呢還是要打花結。（男人們笑了起來，女人們看起來很尷尬。）
律師：（在火爐旁搓手）弗蘭克生的火對上面可沒起什麼作用，是吧？現在我們到外面棚捨去看看，把這事兒解決了。（男人們走了出去。）
黑爾太太：（懊悔地）有什麼大驚小怪的，我們只是在等他們收集證據的空當做些家務活兒而已。（她在大桌子前坐下來，麻利地收拾起桌上的雜物來）這沒有什麼好笑的？
彼得斯太太：（表示歉意地）當然了，他們有更重要的事要考慮嘛。（拉出一把椅子和黑爾太太一起坐在桌子前。）
黑爾太太：（清理其他雜物）彼得斯太太，看看這個。喏，這就是她正在做的活兒。瞧瞧這針腳！都這麼漂亮、平整。快看這兒！這兒全歪了！哎呀，看起來她像是有點心不在焉。（話音剛落，她們互望一眼，接著向後瞅了一眼門口。黑爾太太快速地把一個結拉開，把縫好的針腳扯開。）
彼得斯太太：你幹什麼呀，黑爾太太？
黑爾太太：（溫和地）就拉脫了一兩個沒有縫好的針腳。（穿上針）我永遠無法忍受蹩腳的針線活兒。
彼得斯太太：（緊張地）我覺得咱們不該碰那些東西。
黑爾太太：我只是想收個尾。（突然停下來，向前靠去）彼得斯太太。
彼得斯太太：怎麼了，黑爾太太？
黑爾太太：你說她在緊張什麼呢？
彼得斯太太：噢，我不知道。不知道當時她是不是有些不安。不過有時我累了也會縫得很亂。（黑爾太太還想說什麼，看了看彼得斯太太，又接著縫了起來。）我得把這些東西打包，他們可能結束得比我們想像的要快。（把圍裙和其他東西放在一起）得找一張紙和一根繩子。
黑爾太太：櫥櫃裡也許有吧。
彼得斯太太：（到櫥櫃裡看）這兒怎麼會有個鳥籠？（拿起來）她養鳥嗎，黑爾太太？
黑爾太太：我不知道她是不是有——我好久沒來了。大概是去年吧，這兒來了個賣鳥人，他賣的金絲雀特別便宜，但我不知道她也買了一隻。也許她買了吧。過去她的歌唱得可好了。
彼得斯太太：（向周圍掃了一眼）有隻鳥在這裡，似乎有點奇怪。她肯定養過一隻，要不怎麼會有個籠子呢？不知道出了啥事？
黑爾太太：我猜是貓把它叼走了。
彼得斯太太：不，她沒有貓。她是那種對貓很反感的人——她怕貓。我的貓闖進她房間的時候，她被嚇壞了，叫我把它帶出去。
黑爾太太：我姐姐貝絲也是這樣，很奇怪，不是嗎？
彼得斯太太：（檢查籠子）咦？看這扇門，怎麼壞了？一個合頁都被拉脫了。
黑爾太太：（也看到了）好像是有人使勁把它掰開的。
彼得斯太太：喲，是啊。（她把籠子提上前來，放在桌子上。）
黑爾太太：但願他們能盡快找到證據，我可不喜歡呆在這個地方。
彼得斯太太：但我很高興你能和我一起來，黑爾太太。我一個人坐在這裡肯定悶死了。
黑爾太太：是啊，可不是嗎？（扔下她的活兒）但我跟你說我最希望的是什麼，彼得斯太太。她在那會兒，我能時常過來就好了。我——（看了看四周）要是這樣就好了。
彼得斯太太：但你也很忙啊，黑爾太太——你要打掃屋子和照顧孩子。
黑爾太太：我應該過來的。因為這房子讓人不愉快，所以我迴避了——正因為這樣我才應該過來。我——我從來都不喜歡這地方。也許因為它在山谷裡，看不到它的通路。我不知道怎麼回事，這是個偏僻的地方，而且一直都是。要是我能時常過來看看米莉·佛斯特就好了。看到現在——（搖搖頭。）
彼得斯太太：唉，你沒必要自責，黑爾太太。不管怎麼說我們也不可能瞭解別人的家務事，直到——有些事情浮出水面。
黑爾太太：沒有孩子會省很多事情——但也會讓房子死氣沉沉。賴特整天在外工作，即使回來也不會陪她。你認識約翰·賴特吧？
彼得斯太太：不算認識。我在鎮上見過他。他們說他是個好人。
黑爾太太：是——好人。他不喝酒，也像大多數人那樣講信用。我想他也不欠債。但他卻是一個冷酷無情的人。和他過日子，（顫抖）就像寒風刺骨一般。（停頓，她的目光落在那個鳥籠上）我應該想到她想要一隻鳥的。但你說它到底出了什麼事？
彼得斯太太：我不知道。要不就是它生病死了。（她過去搖了搖被毀壞的門，又搖了一下。她們都看著那扇門。）
黑爾太太：你以前沒有到這附近來過吧？（彼得斯太太搖搖頭）你不認識——她？
彼得斯太太：直到他們昨天把她帶走時我才認識的。
黑爾太太：想想整件事，她就像一隻鳥，既漂亮又甜美，但是又有點膽怯地——拍著翅膀——她是——怎麼——變的（沉默，又像是被什麼好主意所打動，注意力又重新回到了正題）我說，為什麼不把那個百衲被帶上呢？她可能正惦記著那活兒呢。
彼得斯太太：對啊，真是個好主意，黑爾太太。沒人會反對，不是嗎？現在看看還能帶些什麼？我不知道她的布塊是不是還在。——還有她的東西。（她們朝針線簍裡看去。）
黑爾太太：這兒有個紅色的東西。我想這裡面是她做針線用的東西吧。也許她的剪刀就放在這裡面。（打開盒子，突然用手摀住鼻子）呀——（彼得斯太太走過來，然後轉開她的臉）這塊絲綢裡包著什麼東西。
彼得斯太太：呀，這不是她的剪刀。
黑爾太太：（把那塊絲綢拿開）啊，彼得斯太太。這是——（彼得斯太太湊近了點兒。）
彼得斯太太：一隻鳥。
黑爾太太：（跳了起來）彼得斯太太——看，它那脖子，看它的脖子，都歪了。
彼得斯太太：有人——扭斷了——它的——脖子。（她們對視著，流露出恍然大悟且充滿恐懼的神情。聽到外面的腳步聲，黑爾太太把盒子偷偷放在布塊下，陷在椅子裡。警長和律師走了進來，彼得斯太太站了起來。）
律師：（像從正經事轉入輕鬆話題）哈，女士們，你們確定她要走平針還是打花結了嗎？
彼得斯太太：我們猜她是想打花結。
律師：啊，我猜那一定很有意思。（看到了那個籠子）那隻鳥飛走了嗎？
黑爾太太：（用更多碎布蓋住那個盒子）我想是貓把它叼走的。
律師：（心不在焉地）這兒有貓嗎？（黑爾太太很快偷瞥了彼得斯太太一眼。）
彼得斯太太：噢，不是現在。你瞧，他們很迷信。貓都跑了。
律師：（和彼得斯警長繼續一個被打斷的談話）沒有跡象表明有人從外面進來。繩子也是他們自己的。我們現在再上樓看看去，仔細核對一下。（他開始上樓）一定是已經有人知道——（彼得斯太太坐下。兩個女人坐在那兒並不看對方，但都好像在偷看什麼東西，同時又想克制住不去看。當她們開始談話時，也感到自己很奇怪，好像很害怕她們正在說的話，卻又忍不住要說。）
黑爾太太：她喜歡那隻鳥。她想把它埋在那個漂亮的盒子裡。
彼得斯太太：（輕聲地）當我還是姑娘的時候——我的貓——一個手裡拿著小斧的男孩，當著我的面——在我走過去之前——（突然摀住臉）如果不是他們拉住我，我早就（努力克制自己，看著樓上腳步聲傳來的方向，虛弱地搖晃著）——「傷」到他了。
黑爾太太：（緩緩地看著她）我不明白他們怎麼會沒有孩子在身邊。（停頓）對了，賴特不喜歡那隻鳥——能唱歌的東西。她過去常常唱歌。他也扼殺了她的愛好。
彼得斯太太：（艱難地挪動著步子）我們不知道誰殺了那隻鳥。
黑爾太太：我瞭解約翰·賴特。
彼得斯太太：那天晚上這屋子裡發生了一件可怕的事，黑爾太太。有人殺死了一個熟睡中的人，把繩子偷偷套在他的脖子上，使其窒息而死。
黑爾太太：他的脖子，窒息而死。（她伸出手搭在那個鳥籠子上。）
彼得斯太太：（高聲地）我們不知道誰殺了他，我們不知道。
黑爾太太：（她的情緒並沒有被打斷）要是在這常年空無一物的屋子裡能聽到鳥兒的歌唱該多好啊！而鳥兒死後又是一片死寂，可怕的死寂。
彼得斯太太：（她的聲音裡像是夾著什麼東西）我知道什麼叫死寂。當我們還住在達科塔時，我的第一個孩子死了——那時他才兩歲。而我當時身邊沒有其他人——
黑爾太太：（走動）你覺得他們要多長時間才能結束，還在尋找證據？
彼得斯太太：我知道什麼叫死寂。（退回去）法律必須嚴懲罪惡，黑爾太太。
黑爾太太：（不像在回答）真希望你能看一看米莉·佛斯特穿著白色長裙，繫著藍色腰帶，站在合唱隊裡唱歌的光景。（環視整個屋子）唉，要是我能偶爾到這兒來看看就好了！這是犯罪！誰將來懲罰這罪孽？
彼得斯太太：（向樓上看去）我決不能——允許。
黑爾太太：我早該想到她需要幫助！身為女人，我該知道事情的狀況。我跟你說，這真奇怪，彼得斯太太。我們住得很近又像離得很遠。我們都經歷過同樣的事情——都是同一個故事的不同腳本罷了。（揉了揉她的眼睛，注意到那瓶果醬，去拿起來）如果我是你，就不會告訴她果醬已經沒了。告訴她還沒有壞，告訴她都是好的吧，帶上這個去作證。她——她可能永遠也不知道果醬到底壞沒壞。
彼得斯太太：（拿起瓶子到處找東西把它包起來。她扯下一件衣服裡的襯裙，這件衣服是從另一個房間拿來的。她非常緊張地開始把瓶子包起來，聲音都變了）感謝上帝，那些男人聽不到我們說話真是太好了。難道他們不會嘲笑嗎？為一個小東西都能鬧彆扭，像這只——死了的金絲雀。好像跟什麼事有關——難道他們不會嘲笑嗎？（男人的聲音到了樓下。）
黑爾太太：（屏住呼吸）他們也許會——也許不會。
律師：不，彼得斯。一切完全清楚了，只差一個謀殺的理由。但你知道一提到女人，陪審團會怎麼裁決吧。要是有確鑿的證據就好了。有些東西可以表明——可以使案情成立的東西——可以把這種奇怪的殺人法串起來的東西——（女人們飛快地對視了一下，黑爾從門外進來）
黑爾：啊，我已經把那些牲口搞定了。外面可真冷啊。
律師：我想在這兒單獨呆會兒。（對警長）你叫弗蘭克到外面等我，可以嗎？我想仔細清理一遍每一件物品。如果毫無進展，我是不會罷休的。
警長：你想看看彼得斯太太帶了些什麼嗎？（律師走向桌子，拿起圍裙，笑了。）
律師：啊，我猜女士們挑的東西不會有什麼問題。（碰了一下旁邊的一些東西，翻了翻蓋在盒子上的碎布，退後。）不，彼得斯太太用不著監督。因為做警長的妻子不就等於嫁給了法律了嗎？是這樣嗎，彼得斯太太？
彼得斯太太：不——一定。
警長：（偷笑）嫁給法律。（向另一間屋子走去）你快到這裡來看看，喬治。我們該看看那些窗戶。
律師：（嘲笑地）啊，窗戶！
警長：我們馬上就到外面去，黑爾先生。（黑爾走了出去，警長跟律師到了另一間屋子，接著黑爾太太站了起來，緊握住手緊張地看著彼得斯太太，彼得斯太太的目光緩緩轉過來，最後與黑爾太太相遇。一下子，黑爾太太盯了她一會兒，目光一直延伸到藏盒子的地方。突然彼得斯太太把拼被子的碎布掰開，試圖將盒子放入她的背包裡。可那盒子太大了。她打開盒子，想把那隻鳥拿出來，卻摸不到它，她又到碎布裡去找，最後無助地站在那兒。從另一間屋子傳來門鈕的聲音。黑爾太太抓起那個盒子，放在自己大衣的口袋裡。律師和警長進來了。）
律師：（開玩笑地）嗯，亨利。我們至少發現她不想走平針。她要——你們叫做什麼來著，女士們？
黑爾太太：（她的手抵住口袋）我們叫它——打花結，亨德森先生。
（幕落）
Susan Glaspell
蘇珊·格萊斯佩爾（Susan Glaspell，1882—1948）, 20世紀初美國小戲劇運動的代表人物，活躍在20世紀初美國戲劇向本土化過渡的初期，在當時是和尤金·奧尼爾齊名的劇作家。以往評論界普遍認為她的劇作數量不大，不能稱作是真正意義上的劇作家，因而對她的作品沒有給以應有的關注。一般人對格萊斯佩爾的瞭解，大多限於她是奧尼爾的發掘者和資助人。其實，格萊斯佩爾的劇作極具個人風格，對戲劇創作也有自己的獨到見解，甚至奧尼爾的有些劇作也受到了她的影響。基於其地位的重要性，從20世紀70年代開始，這位美國早期的女劇作家重新「浮出歷史地表」，成為近來美國戲劇研究的熱點之一。
格萊斯佩爾在成為劇作家之前已經是一位頗為成熟的小說家，然而一般認為她10年的劇作家生涯才是其創作的頂峰時期。最初她先嘗試創作了一些獨幕劇，如《壓抑的慾望》 （Suppressed Desire）、《瑣事》（Trifles）、《人民》（The People）、《把書關上》（Close the Book）、《外界》（The Outside）、《女性的榮譽》（Woman's Honor）等。她堅持將社會生活引入戲劇，其作品往往涉及一些當時敏感的政治事件，有明顯的現實主義風格。而作為女性劇作家，格萊斯佩爾在創作中還特別關注女性話題，作品中的主人公常常是獨立而堅強的女性形象，表現出較早的女性覺醒意識。此外，她還渴望在創作技巧上突破歐洲傳統戲劇的束縛，不斷嘗試表現主義、象徵手法等現代主義的戲劇技巧。這些戲劇實驗始終貫穿在她的劇作中，並更加明顯地體現在之後的《貝爾尼斯》（Bernice）、《界限》（The Verge）及獲得普利策獎的《艾裡森的房子》（Alison's House）等多幕劇中。格萊斯佩爾公開上演的劇目總共有11部之多，在當時與尤金·奧尼爾均為普林斯頓劇社創作團體的領軍人物。
作為戲劇活動家，格萊斯佩爾還是先鋒戲劇團體「普林斯頓劇社」的創始人之一，扶植了一批像奧尼爾一樣的青年劇作家，包括後來她年輕的情人諾曼·馬特森。應該說她對當時美國戲劇的發展有著不可替代的作用，然而她在文學史中的「缺席」狀態卻與其貢獻極不相稱。其成就常常被傑出的戲劇活動家喬治·克萊姆·庫克和「美國現代戲劇之父」奧尼爾的光輝所掩蓋，很多時候只能成為他們的註腳，或是普林斯頓劇社及美國小劇場運動的背景資料。
戰後的戲劇研究者們在重寫美國戲劇史時認為，格萊斯佩爾的創作根本無法與奧尼爾等一些當時的男性劇作家相提並論，缺乏研究的價值。在這種思想的影響下，四五十年代對格萊斯佩爾的研究和評論幾乎是一片空白。這一現象直到70年代女性主義批評蓬勃發展之時才有了一個較大的轉變。
格萊斯佩爾在中國的研究才剛剛起步，甚至可以說是一片空白。也是近幾年國外學者的熱情推介，一些研究美國戲劇的學者才開始瞭解和注意這位與奧尼爾同時代的劇作家。
《瑣事》（1916）是蘇珊·格萊斯佩爾第一部獨立完成的獨幕劇，上演之時曾引起轟動。這個劇本在當時看來不僅在思想上非常激進，而且在創作手法上也力圖創新，甚至帶有某種實驗性。它也是格萊斯佩爾所有上演的劇目中最為著名，被評論界關注得最多的一部作品。這部獨幕劇篇幅短小卻意義深刻，在半個多小時的演出時間裡講述了一個耐人尋味的謀殺案。故事取材於格萊斯佩爾在得梅因當記者時報道的一宗真實的謀殺案。農民約翰在熟睡中被人勒死在自家臥室的床上，而睡在他身邊的妻子賴特太太卻稱毫不知情。後來，她作為嫌疑犯被送到鎮上的監獄關押候審。而就在此時，農民黑爾夫婦、警長彼得斯夫婦和鄉村律師亨德森五個人進入了賴特家中，以期收集到可以證明其謀殺動機的證據……
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