The Crucible- Act 1 scene 1

Parris: I cannot blink what I saw, Abigail- for my enemies will not blink it. I saw a dress lying in the grass.

A dress?

Proctor: Abby, that's a wild thing to say...

A wild thing may say wild things. I have seen you since she put me out, I have seen you nights.

Proctor: Abby, I may think of you from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I'll ever reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind- we never touched, Abby.

Aye, but we did.

Betty: You drank blood, Abby, you drank blood!

Betty, you never say that again! You will never...

Mercy: It's weirdish, I know not- she seems to walk like a dead one since last night.

Betty? Now stop this! Sit up now!

Mercy: Oh, you're a great one for lookin', aren't you, Mary Warren?

Betty? Now, Betty, dear, wake up now. It's Abigail. I'll beat you, Betty! My, you seem improving. I talked to your papa and I told him everything. So there's nothing to....

Parris: Now look you, child- I have no desire to punish you; that will come in its time. But if you trafficked with spirits in the forest, I must know it, for surely my enemies will, and they'll ruin me with it...

But we never conjured spirits.

Parris: Oh? The doctor. Let her come, let her come.

Come in, Susanna.

Proctor: Dancin' by moonlight! You'll be clapped in the stocks before you're twenty.

Give me a word, John. A soft word.

Mercy: And what more?

He saw you naked.

Proctor: Child..

How do you call me child!

Parris: There is a terrible power in her arms today.

How is Ruth sick?

Hale: Did you feel any strangeness when she called him! A sudden wind, perhaps? A trembling below the ground?

I didn't see no Devil! Betty, wake up, Betty! Betty!

Proctor: I have hardly stepped off my farm this sevenmonth.

I have a sense for heat, John, and yours has drawn me to my window. Do you tell me you've never looked up at my window?

Proctor: You know me better.

I know how you clutched my back behind your house and sweated like a stallion whenever I come near! I saw your face when she put me out and you loved me then and you do now!

Parris: Then why can she not move herself since midnight? This child is desperate! It must come out- my enemies will bring it out. Let me know what you done there. Abigail, do you understand that I have many enemies?

I know it, Uncle

Hale: How did she call him?

I know not- She spoke Barbados

Proctor: Perhaps I .... have.

I know you, John, I know you. I cannot sleep for dreamin', I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the house as though I'd find you comin' through some door.

Proctor: Do you look for whippin'!

I look for John Proctor that put knowledge in my heart! I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men!- And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is you love me yet! John, pity me, pity me! Betty?

Hale: Abigail, it may be your cousin is dying- Did you call the devil last night?

I never called him! Tituba called him!

Hale: Why are you concealing? Have you sold yourself to Lucifer?

I never sold myself! I'm a good girl- I- I did drink of the kettle!- She made me do it! She made Betty do it!

Betty: I saw Goody Cobb with the Devil.

I saw Goody Franklin with the Devil.

Betty: I saw Alice Barrow with the Devil

I saw Goody Hawkins with the Devil... I saw Mister Barton with the Devil!

Betty: I saw Martha Ballows with the Devil!

I saw Goody Sibber with the Devil!

Mary: What's got her? Abby, she's going to die! It's a sin to conjure and we...

I say shut it, Mary Warren!

Parris: There is a faction that is sworn to drive me from my pulpit. Do you understand that?

I think so, sir.

Betty: I'll fly to Mama, let me fly....!

I told him everything, he knows now, he knows everything we....

Hale: Take courage, you must give us all their names. How can you bear to see these children suffering? Look at them, Tituba- look at their God- given innocence; their souls are so tender; we must protect them, Tituba; the Devil is out and preying on them like a beast upon the flesh of the pure lamb... God will bless you for your help...

I want to open myself! I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him; I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand- I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!

Parris: Child. Sit you down.

I would never hurt Betty, I love her dearly, I.....

Tituba: You beg me conjure, Abby! She beg me make charm-

I'll tell you something. She comes to me while I sleep; she's always making me dream corruptions!

Parris: Now then- in the midst of such disruption my own household is discovered to be in the very center of some obscene practice. Abominations are done in the forest....

It were only sport, Uncle!

Proctor: I come to see what mischief your uncle's brewin' now. Put it out of mind, Abby.

John- I am waitin' for you every night.

Parris: Aye, a dress. And I thought I saw a... someone naked running through the trees!

No one was naked! You mistake yourself, Uncle!

Mercy: Have you tried beatin' her? I gave Ruth a good one and it waked her for a minute. Here let me have her....

No, he'll be comin' up. Now look you, if they be questioning us tell them we danced- I told him as much already.

Hale: Did you drink it?

No, sir!

Parris: Then you were conjuring spirits last night.

Not I, sir, not I. - Tituba and Ruth

Betty: Mama, Mama....!

Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam's dead sisters. And that is all. And mark this- let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know i can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down! Now you.... sit up and stop this!

Proctor: Aye, but we did not.

Oh, I marvel how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be...

Proctor: So she flies, eh? Where are her wings?

Oh, John, sure you're not believin' she flies!

Proctor: The road past my house is a pilgrimage to Salem all morning. The town's mumbling witchcraft.

Oh, posh!- We were dancin' in the woods last night, and my uncle leaped in on us. She took fright, is all.

Mary: Abby, we've got to tell. Witchery's a hangin' error, a hangin' like they done in Boston two year ago! We must tell the truth, Abby!- you'll only be whipped for dancin', and the other things!

Oh, we'll be whipped!

Parris: I saw Tituba waving her arms over the fire when I came on you; why were she doing that? And I heard a screeching and gibberish comin' from her mouth...

She always sings her Barbados song, and we dance.

Parris: She have often laughed at prayer!

She comes to me every night to go and drink blood!

Parris: What happened? what are you doing to her! Betty!

She heard you singin' and suddenly she's up an screamin'...

Proctor: You'll speak nothin' of Elizabeth!

She is blackening my name in the village! she is telling lies about me! She is a cold snivelling woman and you bend to her! Let her turn you like a... ?

Tituba: Abby!

She makes me drink blood!

Hale: You cannot evade me, Abigail.- Did your cousin drink any of the brew in that kettle?

She never drank it!

Hale: You have sent your spirit out upon this child, have you not? Are you gathering souls for the Devil?

She send her spirit on me in church, she make me laugh at prayer!

Hale: Did Tituba ask you to drink it?

She tried but I refused.

Mercy: I'd best be off. I have my Ruth to watch... Good morning, Mister Proctor.

She's only gone silly, somehow. She'll come out of it.

Betty: You did, you did! You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!

Shut it! Now shut it!

Tituba: Abby!

Sometimes I wake and find myself standing in the open doorway and not a stitch on my body! I always hear her laughing in my sleep. I hear her singing her Barbados songs and tempting me with-

Susanna: Aye, sir. He bid me tell you.

Speak nothin' of it in the village, Susanna.

Hale: Mister Parris, you did not notice, did you- any living thing in the kettle? A mouse, perhaps, a spider, a frog-?

That frog jumped in, we never put in in!

Parris: I think I ought to say that I -I saw a kettle in the grass where they were dancing.

That were only soup

Parris: I saw it! Now tell me true, Abigail. Now my ministry's at stake; my ministry and perhaps your cousin's life.... Whatever abomination you have done, give me all of it now, for I dare not be taken unaware when I go before them down there.

There is nothin' more. I swear it, Uncle.

Parris: Abigail, is there any other cause then you have told me, for Goody Proctor dischargin' you? It has troubled me that you are now seven months out of their house, and in all this time no other family has ever called for your service.

They want slaves, not such as I. Let them send to Barbados for that, I will not black my face for any of them!

Susanna: Aye, sir. I pray for her.

Uncle, the rumor of witchcraft is all about; I think you'd best go down and deny it yourself. The parlor's packed with people, sir.- I'll sit with her.

Parris: And what shall I say to them? that my daughter and my niece I discovered dancing like heathen in the forest?!

Uncle, we did dance; let you tell them I confessed it. But they're speakin' of witchcraft; Betty's not witched.

Parris: Will you leave me now, Thomas, I would pray a while alone...

Uncle, you've prayed since midnight. Why do you not go down and...?

Parris: Out of my sight! Out of my... Oh my God! God help me! Betty. Child. Dear Child. Will you wake, will you open your eyes! Betty, little one...

Uncle? Susanna Wallcott's here from Doctor Griggs.

Parris: Abigail, I cannot go before the congregation when I know you have not opened with me. What did you do with her in the forest?

We did dance, Uncle, and when you leaped out of the bush so suddenly, Betty was frightened and then she fainted. And there's the whole of it.

Parris: A frog, Abby!

We never put it in!

Betty: I want my mama!

What ails you, Betty? Your mama's dead and buried....

Parris: Abigail, I have fought here three long year to bend these stiff necked people to me, and now, just now when there must be some good respect for me in parish, you comprise my very character. I have given you a home, child, I have put clothes upon you back- now give me upright answer:- your name in the town- it is entirely white, is it not?

Why, I am sure it is sir, there be no blush about my name.

Hale: Soup? What sort of soup were in this kettle, Abigail?

Why, it were beans- and lintels, I think, and-

Hale: Does someone afflict you, child? It need not be a woman mind you, or a man. Perhaps some bird, invisible to others, comes to you, perhaps a pig, or any beast at all. Is there some figure bids you fly? In nomine Domini Sabaoth, sui filiique ite ad Infernos. Abigail, what sort of dancing were you doing with her in the forest?

Why- common dancing is all.

Parris: If she starts for the window, cry for me at once.

Yes, Uncle

Proctor: No-no, Abby, I've not come for that.

You came five miles to see a silly girl fly? I know you better.

Proctor: Abby, you'll put it out of mind. I'll not be comin' for you more.

You're surely sportin' with me.