The Crucible by Arthur Miller Page B

rises.
    PROCTOR: I think you’re sad again. Are you?
    ELIZABETH— she doesn’t want friction, and yet she must: You come so late I thought you’d gone to Salem this afternoon.
    PROCTOR: Why? I have no business in Salem.
    ELIZABETH: You did speak of going, earlier this week.
    PROCTOR— he knows what she means: I thought better of it since.
    ELIZABETH: Mary Warren’s there today.
    PROCTOR: Why’d you let her? You heard me forbid her to go to Salem any more!
    ELIZABETH: I couldn’t stop her.
    PROCTOR, holding back a full condemnation of her: It is a fault, it is a fault, Elizabeth—you’re the mistress here, not Mary Warren.
    ELIZABETH: She frightened all my strength away.
    PROCTOR: How may that mouse frighten you, Elizabeth? You—
    ELIZABETH : It is a mouse no more. I forbid her go, and she raises up her chin like the daughter of a prince and says to me, “I must go to Salem, Goody Proctor; I am an official of the court!”
    PROCTOR: Court! What court?
    ELIZABETH: Aye, it is a proper court they have now. They’ve sent four judges out of Boston, she says, weighty magistrates of the General Court, and at the head sits the Deputy Governor of the Province.
    PROCTOR, astonished: Why, she’s mad.
    ELIZABETH: I would to God she were. There be fourteen people in the jail now, she says. Proctor simply looks at her, unable to grasp it. And they’ll be tried, and the court have power to hang them too, she says.
    PROCTOR, scoffing, but without conviction: Ah, they’d never hang—
    ELIZABETH : The Deputy Governor promise hangin’ if they’ll not confess, John. The town’s gone wild, I think. She speak of Abigail, and I thought she were a saint, to hear her. Abigail brings the other girls into the court, and where she walks the crowd will part like the sea for Israel. And folks are brought before them, and if they scream and howl and fall to the floor—the person’s clapped in the jail for bewitchin’ them.
    PROCTOR, wide-eyed: Oh, it is a black mischief.
    ELIZABETH: I think you must go to Salem, John. He turns to her. I think so. You must tell them it is a fraud.
    PROCTOR, thinking beyond this: Aye, it is, it is surely.
    ELIZABETH: Let you go to Ezekiel Cheever—he knows you well. And tell him what she said to you last week in her uncle’s house. She said it had naught to do with witchcraft, did she not?
    PROCTOR, in thought: Aye, she did, she did. Now a pause.
    ELIZABETH, quietly, fearing to anger him by prodding: God forbid you keep that from the court, John. I think they must be told.
    PROCTOR, quietly, struggling with his thought: Aye, they must, they must. It is a wonder they do believe her.
    ELIZABETH: I would go to Salem now, John—let you go tonight.
    PROCTOR: I’ll think on it.
    ELIZABETH, with her courage now: You cannot keep it, John.
    PROCTOR, angering: I know I cannot keep it. I say I will think on it!
    ELIZABETH, hurt, and very coldly: Good, then, let you think on it. She stands and starts to walk out of the room.
    PROCTOR: I am only wondering how I may prove what she told me, Elizabeth. If the girl’s a saint now, I think it is not easy to prove she’s fraud, and the town gone so silly. She told it to me in a room alone- have no proof for it.
    ELIZABETH: You were alone with her?
    PROCTOR, stubbornly: For a moment alone, aye.
    ELIZABETH: Why, then, it is not as you told me.
    PROCTOR, his anger rising: For a moment, I say. The others come in soon after.
    ELIZABETH, quietly—she has suddenly lost all faith in him: Do as you wish, then. She starts to turn.
    PROCTOR: Woman. She turns to him. I’ll not have your suspicion any more.
    ELIZABETH, a little loftily: I have no-
    PROCTOR: I’ll not have it!
    ELIZABETH: Then let you not earn it.
    PROCTOR, with a violent undertone: You doubt me yet?
    ELIZABETH, with a smile, to keep her dignity: John, if it were not Abigail that you must go to hurt, would you falter now? I think not.
    PROCTOR: Now look you—
    ELIZABETH : I see what I see, John.
    PROCTOR, with