SCENE--Nearly eleven years later. The sitting room of the Evans' apartment on Park Avenue, New York City--a room that is a tribute to Nina's good taste. It is a large, sunny room, the furniture expensive but extremely simple. The arrangement of the furniture shown is as in previous scenes except there are more pieces. Two chairs are by the table at left. There is a smaller table at center, and a chaise longue. A large, magnificently comfortable sofa is at right.
It is about one in the afternoon of a day in early fall. Nina and Darrell and their son, Gordon, are in the room. Nina is reclining on the chaise longue watching Gordon who is sitting on the floor near her, turning over the pages of a book. Darrell is sitting by the table at left, watching Nina.
Nina is thirty-five, in the full bloom of her womanhood. She is slimmer than in the previous scene. Her skin still retains a trace of summer tan and she appears in the pink of physical condition. But as in the first act of the play, there is beneath this a sense of great mental strain. One notices the many lines in her face at second glance. Her eyes are tragically sad in repose and her expression is set and masklike.
Gordon is eleven--a fine boy with, even at this age, the figure of an athlete. He looks older than he is. There is a grave expression to his face. His eyes are full of a quick-tempered sensitiveness. He does not noticeably resemble his mother. He looks nothing at all like his father. He seems to have sprung from a line distinct from any of the people we have seen.
Darrell has aged greatly. His hair is streaked with gray. He has grown stout. His face is a bit jowly and puffy under the eyes. The features have become blurred. He has the look of a man with no definite aim or ambition to which he can relate his living. His eyes are embittered and they hide his inner self-resentment behind a pose of cynical indifference.
GORDON--(thinking as he plays--resentfully)
I wish Darrell'd get out of here! … why couldn't Mother let me run my own birthday? … I'd never had him here, you bet! … what's he always hanging 'round for? … why don't he go off on one of his old trips again … last time he was gone more'n a year … I was hoping he'd died! … what makes Mother like him so much? … she makes me sick! … I'd think she'd get sick of the old fool and tell him to get out and never come back! … I'd kick him out if I was big enough! … it's good for him he didn't bring me any birthday present or I'd smash it first chance I got! …
NINA--(watching him--brooding with loving tenderness--sadly)
No longer my baby … my little man … eleven … I can't believe it … I'm thirty-five … five years more … at forty a woman has finished living … life passes by her … she rots away in peace! …
(intensely)
I want to rot away in peace! … I'm sick of the fight for happiness! …
(smiling with a wry amusement at herself)
What ungrateful thoughts on my son's birthday! … my love for him has been happiness … how handsome he is! … not at all like Ned … when I was carrying him I was fighting to forget Ned … hoping he might be like Gordon … and he is … poor Ned, I've made him suffer a great deal … !
(She looks over at Darrell--self-mockingly)
My lover! … so very rarely now, those interludes of passion … what has bound us together all these years? … love? … if he could only have been contented with what I was able to give him! … but he has always wanted more … yet never had the courage to insist on all or nothing … proud without being proud enough! … he has shared me for his comfort's sake with a little gratitude and a big bitterness … and sharing me has corrupted him! …
(then bitterly)
No, I can't blame myself! … no woman can make a man happy who has no purpose in life! … why did he give up his career? … because I had made him weak? …
(with resentful scorn)
No, it was I who shamed him into taking up biology and starting the station at Antigua … if I hadn't he'd simply have hung around me year after year, doing nothing …
(irritatedly)
Why does he stay so long? … over six months … I can't stand having him around me that long any more! … why doesn't he go back to the West Indies? … I always get a terrible feeling after he's been back a while that he's waiting for Sam to die! … or go insane! …
DARRELL--(thinking--with an apathetic bitterness)