Act 2 fight 1

I am not in the least neurotic and never have been

A psycho-analyst, then.

Physically, do you mean?

Altogether.

And later on I was equally convinced that she was in this room. I saw her distinctly and talked to her. After you'd gone up to bed we had quite th cosy little chat.

And you seriously expect me to believe that you weren't drunk?

You're very glacial this morning

Are you surprised?

I was not drunk!

Be quiet. They'll hear you in the kitchen.

When I saw her I had the shock of my life. That's why I dropped the glass.

But you couldn't have seen her.

Oh no, it isn't. You boss me and bully me and order me about. You don't even allow me to have a hallucination if I want to.

Charles, alcohol will ruin your whole life if you allow it to get a hold of you, you know.

I don't care if they hear me in folkestone town hall. I was not drunk!

Control yourself, Charles

I can't account for it; that's what's so awful.

Did you feel quite well yesterday-during the day I mean?

The way it reduces everything to normal.

Does it?

Anything interesting in the Times?

Don't be silly, Charles.

Pleas don't worry about me. I shall be perfectly happy with a bottle of gin in my bedroom.

Don't be silly, dear. Tell cook we shall both be in.

You have a genius for understatement

Don't worry about the table, Edith. I'll put it away.

A good morning. A tremendously good morning! There isn't a cloud in the sky and everything looks newly washed.

Edith's keeping your breakfast hot. You'd better ring.

I know what it is. You're frightened

Frightened! Rubbish. What is there to be frightened of?

Good morning, darling.

Good morning, Charles

I intend to work all day.

Good.

Apart from being worried, I feel quite normal

Good. You're not hearing or seeing anything in the least unusual?

I know I should know if I had anything like that.

He didn't.

What happened to him

He had it taken out and he's been as bright as a button ever since.

I think I'm going mad

How do you feel now>

It's extraordinary about daylight, isn't it?

How do you mean?

My first marriage was perfectly charming and I think it's in the worst possible taste for you to sneer at it.

I am not nearly so interested in your first marriage as you think I am. It's your second marriage that is absorbing me at the moment. It seems to be on the rocks.

You behaved with stolid, obtuse lack of comprehension that frankly shocked me!

I consider that I was remarkably patient. I shall know better next time.

You tried to make me say that she was more physically attractive than you, so that you could hold it over me.

I did not. I don't give a hoot how physically attractive she was.

I consider that point of view retrogressive, if not downright feudal.

I don't care what you consider it. I have to run the house and you don't.

Well what the hell are we talking about him for then? It's sheer waste of valuable time

I only brought him up as an example.

Elvire. You wouldn't have minded all that much even if I had been drunk; it's only because it was all mixed up with Elvira.

I seem to remember last night before dinner telling you that your views of female psychology were rather didactic. I was right. I should have added that they were puerile.

E- Yes'm

I wish you wouldn't be facetious with the servants, Charles. It confuses them and undermines their morale.

It isn't nonsense. I know it looks like nonsense now in the clear remorseless light of day, but it was far from being nonsense. I honestly had some sort of hallucination.

I would really rather not discuss it any further.

Yes'm

I'm going into Hythe this morning. Is there anything you want?

I know I wasn't drunk. If I'd been all that drunk I should have a dreadful hangover now, shouldn't I?

I'm not at all sure that you haven't.

Mrs. Winthrop-Llewellyn

I'm not interested. Then there was Elvira. She ruled you with a rod of iron.

Please, Ruth- be reasonable.

I'm perfectly reasonable.

Yes-it does

I'm sure I'm very glad to hear it.

I know I couldn't have, but I did.

I'm willing to concede, then, that you imagined you did.

I haven't got a trace of a headache my tongue's not coated. Look at it.

I've not the least desire to look at your tongue, kindly put it in again.

I was talking to Elvira!

If you were I can only say that it conjures up a fragrant picture of your first marriage.

Yes'm

It's clouding over

If you with to make an inventory of my sex life dear I think it only fair to tell you that youve missed out several episodes. I'll consult my diary and give you the complete list after lunch.

It's no use trying to impress me with your routine amorous exploits...

You ought to know, you had it with me.

Let me see now, there was lemon sole and that cheese thing.

Only because you persist in taking up this ridiculious attitude.

My attitude is that of any normal woman whose husband gets drunk and hurls abuse at her.

Did he have any sort of delusions? Did he think he saw things that weren't there?

No, I don't think so.

I swear to you that during the seance I was convinced that I heard Elvira's voice.

Nobody else did.

I was not in the least drunk, Ruth. Something happened to me last night; something very peculiar happened to me.

Nonsense

I was the victim of an aberration

Nonsense. You were drunk.

If there were something pressing on my brain I should have violent headaches, shouldn't I?

Not necessarily, An uncle of mine had a lump the size of a cricket ball pressing on his brain for years and he never felt a thing.

It isn't.

Now look here, Charles, in your younger days this display of roguish flippancy might have been alluring. In middle aged novelist it's nauseating.

She was in mine

Oh, she was, was she?

I don't suggest anything, I'm profoundly uneasy.

Perhaps there's something pressing on your brain.

I've always looked upon you as a woman of perception and understanding

Perhaps this is one of my off days.

I admit she'd have been much less agitating

Perhaps you ought to see a nerve specialist.

We were talking too much about Elvira. It's dangerous to have somebody very strongly in your mind when you start dabbling with the occult.

She certainly wasn't strongly in my mind.

Of course it isn't; and it won't as long as you insist on ascribing supernatural phenomena to colonic irritation.

Supernatural grandmother.

Yes, a great deal-but I doubt if you could get in Hythe.

Tell cook to put Alka-Seltzer down on my list, will you, Edith.

The only woman in my whole life who's ever attempted to dominate me is you. You've been at it for years

That is completely untrue.

Charles converses w Edith E- Yes, sir.

That will be all for the moment, Edith

Would you like me to writhe at your feet in a frenzy of self-abasement?

That would be equally nauseating, but certainly more approapiate.

My affair with Maud Chartersis lasted exactly seven and a half weeks; and she cried all the time

The tyranny of tears! Then there was-

Elvira never ruled anyone, she was much too elusive. That was much too elusive. That was one of her greatest charms.

Then there was Maud Charteris.

But you must discuss it. It's very distrurbing.

There I agree with you. It showed you up in a most unpleasant light. I find that extremely disturbing.

Why didn't you see your dead husband then? You had just as much of it as I did.

This is not getting us anywhere at all.

Oh yes, you do. Your whole being is devoured with jealousy.

This is too much!

That's what I've been trying to explain to you for hours

Well then, there's ovbiously something wrong with you.

No more than usual

Well, how do you account for it then?

Frankly, yes. I expected more of you.

Well, really!

It certainly is.

What certainly is what?

Of course I did

What did you have for lunch?

I refuse to endure months of expensive humiliation only to be told at the end of it that at the age of four I was in love with my rocking horse.

What do you suggest, then?

That was when it all began.

Whhen what all began?

Cook wants to know about lunch, mum.

Will you be in to lunch, Charles?

Can I clear, please'm?

Yes, Edith.

I really don't see what I've done that's so awful.

You behaved abominably last night. You wounded me and insulted me.

I did not.

You called me a guttersnipe. You told me to shut up. And when I quietly suggested that we should go up to bed you said, with the most disgusting leer, that it was an immoral suggestion.

I can't help that. I did.

You couldn't have.

Exactly; there is something wrong with me. Something fundamentally wrong with me. That's why I'vebeen imploring your sympathy and all I got was a sterile temperance lecture

You had been drinking, Charles. There's no denying that.

Drunk

You had four strong Dry Martinis before dinner, a great deal too much Burgundy at dinner, Heaven knows how much Port and Kummel with doctor Bradman while I was doing my best to entertain that mad woman- and then two double brandies later. I gave them to you myself. Of course you were drunk.

Why should having a cheese thing for lunch make me see my deceased wife after dinner?

You never know. It was rather rich.

I wasn't pretending- I really did believe that I saw Elvira and when I heard her voice I was appalled.

You put up with it for five years.

So that's your story, is it?

You refused to come to bed, and finally when I came down at three in the morning to see what had happened to you, I found you in an alcoholic coma on the sofa with the fire out and your hair all over your face.

Instead of putting out a gentle comradely hand to guide me, you shouted staccato orders at me like a sergent major.

You seem to forget that you gratuitously insulted me.

I've never been dominated by anyone.

You were hag-ridden by your mother until you were twenty-three, then you got into the clutches of that awful Mrs. Whatever her name was

......I was stone cold sober from first to last and extremely upset into the bargain.

You were upset indeed? What about me?

I take back what I said about it being a good morning. It's a horrid morning.

You'd better eat your breakfast while it's hot.

How can I control myself in the face of your idiotic damned stubborness? It's giving me claustrophobia.

You'd better ring up Dr. Bradman.

Are you implying that I couldn't

You're at liberty to try.

Women! My god, what i think of women.

Your view of women is academic to say the least of it. Just because you've been dominated by them, it doesn't neccsarily follow that you know anything about them.