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Summer and Smoke – Scene Six

A delicately suggested arbor, enclosing a table and two chairs. Over the table is suspended a
torn paper lantern. This tiny set may be placed way downstage in front of the two interiors,
which should be darkened out, as in the fountain scenes. In the background, as it is
throughout the play, the angel of the fountain is dimly visible.

Music from the nearby pavilion of the Casino can be used when suitable for background.

John’s voice is audible before he and Alma enter.

John: (from the darkness) I don’t understand why we can’t go in the casino.

Alma: You do understand. You’re just pretending not to.

John: Give me one reason.

Alma: (coming into the arbor) I am a minister’s daughter.

John: That’s no reason. (He follows her in. He wears a white linen suit, carrying the coat over
his arm)

Alma: You’re a doctor. That’s a better reason. You can’t any more afford to be seen in such
places than I can – less!

John (bellowing): Dusty!

Dusty (from the darkness): Coming!

John: What are you fishing in that pocketbook for?

Alma: Nothing.

John: What have you got there?

Alma: Let go!

John: Those sleeping tablets I gave you?

Alma: Yes.

John: What for?

Alma: I need one.

John: Now?
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Alma: Yes.

John: Why?

Alma: Why? Because I nearly died of heart failure in your automobile. What possessed you
to drive like that? A demon?

(Dusty enters).

John: A bottle of vino rosso.

Dusty: Sure. (He withdraws).

John: Hey! Tell Shorty I ant to hear the “Yellow Dog Blues.”

Alma: Please give me back my tablets.

John: You want to turn into a dope-fiend taking this stuff? I said take one when you need
one.

Alma: I need one now.

John: Sit down and stop swallowing air. (Dusty returns with a tall wine bottle and two thin-
stemmed glasses.) When does the cockfight start?

Dusty: ‘Bout ten o’clock, Dr. Johnny.

Alma: When does what start?

John: They have a cock-fight here every Saturday night. Ever seen one?

Alma: Perhaps in some earlier incarnation of mine.

John: When you wore a brass ring in your nose?

Alma: Then maybe I went to exhibitions like that.

John: You’re going to see one tonight.

Alma: Oh, no, I’m not.

John: That’s what we came here for.

Alma: I didn’t think such exhibitions were legal.

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John: This is Moon Lake Casino where anything goes.

Alma: And you’re a frequent patron?

John: I’d say constant.

Alma: Then I’m afraid you must be serious about giving up your medical career.

John: You bet I am! A doctor’s life is walled in by sickness and misery and death.

Alma: May I be so presumptuous as to inquire what you’ll do when you quit?

John: You may be so presumptuous as to inquire.

Alma: But you won’t tell me?

John: I haven’t’ made up my mind, but I’ve been thinking of South America lately.

Alma: (sadly) Oh ….

John: I’ve heard that cantinas are lots more fun than saloons, and senoritas are caviar
among females.

Alma: Dorothy Sykes’ brother went to South America and was never heard of again. It takes
a strong character to survive in the tropics. Otherwise it’s a quagmire.

John: You think my character’s weak?

Alma: I think you’re confused, just awfully, awfully confused, as confused as I am – but in a
different way . . .

John: (stretching out his legs) Hee-haw, ho-hum.

Alma: You used to say that as a child – to signify your disgust!

John: (grinning) Did I?

Alma: (sharply) Don’t sit like that!

John: Why not?

Alma: You look so indolent and worthless.

John: Maybe I am.

Alma: If you must go somewhere, why don’t you choose a place with a bracing climate?
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John: Parts of South America are as cool as a cucumber.

Alma: I never knew that.

John: Well, now you do.

Alma: Those Latins all dream in the sun – and indulge their senses.

John: Well, it’s yet to be proven that anyone on this earth is crowned with so much glory as
the one that uses his senses to get all he can in the way of – satisfaction.

Alma: Self-satisfaction.

John: What other kind is there?

Alma: I will answer that question by asking you one. Have you ever seen, or looked at a
picture, of a Gothic cathedral?

John: Gothic cathedrals? What about them?

Alma: How everything reaches up, how everything seems to be straining for something out
of the reach of stone – or human –fingers? . . . The immense stained windows, the great
arched doors that are five or six times the height of the tallest man – the vaulted ceiling and
all the delicate spires – all reaching up to something beyond attainment! To me – well, that
is the secret, the principle back of existence – the everlasting struggle and aspiration for
more than our human limits have placed in our reach . . . Who was that said that – oh, so
beautiful thing! – “All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars!”

John: Mr. Oscar Wilde.

Alma: (somewhat taken aback) Well, Regardless of who said it, it’s still true. Some of us are
looking at the stars! (She looks up raptly and places her hand over his.)

John: It’s no fun, holding hands with gloves on, Miss Alma.

Alma: That’s easily remedied. I’ll just take the gloves off. (Music is heard)

John: Christ! (He rises abruptly and lights a cigarette.) Rosa Gonzales is dancing in the
Casino.

Alma: You are unhappy. You hate me for depriving you of the company inside. Well, you’ll
escape by and by. You’ll drive me home and come back out yourself . . . I’ve only gone out
with three young men at all seriously, and with each one there was a desert between us.

John: What do mean by a desert?

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Alma: Oh – wide, wide stretches of uninhabitable ground.

John: Maybe you made it that way by being stand-offish.

Alma: I made quite an effort with one or two of them.

John: What kind of an effort?

Alma: Oh, I – tried to entertain them the first few times. I would play and sing for them in
the Rectory parlor.

John: With your father in the next room and the door half open?

Alma: I don’t think that was the trouble.

John: What was the trouble?

Alma: I – I didn’t have my heart in it. (She laughs uncertainly.) A silence would fall between
us. You know, a silence?

John: Yes, I know a silence.

Alma: I’d try to talk and he’d try to talk and neither would make a go of it.

John: The silence would fall?

Alma: Yes, the enormous silence.

John: Then you’d go back to the piano?

Alma: I’d twist my ring. Sometimes I twisted it so hard that the band cut my finger! He’d
glance at his watch and we’d both know that the useless undertaking had come to a close…

John: You’d call it quits?

Alma: Quits is – what we’d call it . . . One or two times I was rather sorry about it.

John: But you didn’t have your heart in it?

Alma: None of them really engaged my serious feelings.

John: You do have serious feelings – of that kind?

Alma: Doesn’t everyone – sometimes?

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John: Some women are cold. Some women are what is called frigid.

Alma: Do I give that impression?

John: Under the surface you have a lot of excitement, a great deal more than any other
woman I have met. So much that you have to carry these sleeping pills with you. The
question is why? (He leans over and lifts her veil).

Alma: What are you doing that for?

John: So that I won’t get your veil in my mouth when I kiss you.

Alma: (faintly) Do you want to do that?

John: (gently) Miss Alma. (He takes her arms and draws her to her feet.)
Oh, Miss Alma, Miss Alma! (He kisses her).

Alma: (in a low, shaken voice) Not “Miss” and more. Just Alma.

John: (grinning gently) “miss” suit you better, Miss Alma. (He kisses her again. She hesitantly
touches his shoulders, but not quite to push him away. John speaks softly to her.) Is it so hard
to forget you’re a preacher’s daughter?

Alma: There is no reason for me to forget that I am a minister’s daughter. A minister’s

daughter’s no different from any other young lady who tries to remember that she is a lady.

John: This lady stuff, is that so important?

Alma: Not to the sort of girls that you may be used to bringing to Moon Lake Casino. But
suppose that some day . . . (She crosses out of the arbor and faces away from him.) suppose
that some day you – married . . . The woman that you selected to be your wife, and not only
your wife but – the mother of your children! (she catches her breath at the thought).
Wouldn’t you want that woman to be a lady? Wouldn’t you want her to be somebody that
you, as her husband, and they as her precious children – could look up to with very deep
respect? (there is a pause)

John: There’s other things between a man and a woman besides respect. Did you know that,
Miss Alma?

Alma: Yes . . .

John: There’s such a thing as intimate relations.

Alma: Thank you for telling me that. So plainly.

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John: It may strike you as unpleasant. But it does have a good deal to do with – connubial
felicity, as you’d call it. There are some women that just give in to a man as a sort of
obligation imposed on them by there – cruelty of nature! (He finishes his glass and pours
another.) And there you are.

Alma: There I am?

John: I am speaking generally.

Alma: Oh.

(Hoarse shouts go up from the Casino.)

John: The cock-fight has started!

Alma: Since you have spoken so plainly, I’ll speak plainly, too. There are some women who
turn a possibly beautiful thing into something no better than coupling of beasts! – but love
is what you bring to it.

John: You’re right about that.

Alma: Some people bring just their bodies. But there are some people, there are some
women, John – who can bring their hearts to it, also – who can bring their souls to it!

John: (Derisively) Souls again, huh? – those Gothic cathedrals you dream of!

(There is another hoarse prolonged shout from the Casino.)

Your name is Alma and Alma is Spanish for soul. Some time I’d like to show you a chart of
the human anatomy that I have in the office. It shows what our insides are like, and maybe
you can show me where the beautiful soul is located on that chart. (He drains the wine
bottle.) Let’s go watch the cock-fight.

Alma: No! (There is a pause).

John: I know something else we could do. There are rooms above the Casino . . .

Alma: (her back stiffening) I’d heard that you made suggestions like that to girls that you go
out with, but I refused to believe such stories were true. What made you think I might be
amenable to such a suggestion?

John: I counted your pulse in the office the night you ran out because you weren’t able to
sleep.

Alma: The night I was ill and went to your father for help.
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John: It was me you went to.

Alma: It was your father, and you wouldn’t call your father.

John: Fingers frozen stiff when I . . .

Alma: (rising) Oh! I want to go home. But I won’t go with you. I will go in a taxi! (She wheels
about hysterically.) Boy! Boy! Call a taxi!

John: I’ll call one for you, Miss Alma. – Taxi! (He goes out of the arbor.)

Alma: (wildly) YOU’RE NOT A GENTLEMAN!

John: (from the darkness) Taxi!

Alma: YOU’RE NOT A GENTLEMAN!

(As he disappears she makes a sound in her throat like a hurt animal. The light fades out of
the arbor and comes up more distinctly on the stone angel of the fountain.)