Act One

SCENE I

Wallace Stevens' office at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity. Stevens, a huge man, elegantly dressed in a dark suit, vest, white broadcloth shirt, and red tie, sits behind his massive desk pouring over documents. Willard, a clerk in his early 20s', stands in the doorway and fidgets. Stevens continues to work, oblivious to Willard's presence. Inadvertently, Willard makes a noise. Stevens looks up and sees him.

STEVENS: Ah, come in, Willard. Come in.

WILLARD (Willard enters tentatively): Thank you, sir . . . I . . . I'm sorry that I'm late.

STEVENS: No matter. I was engrossed.

WILLARD: I was very sorry to hear about your brother.

STEVENS: Thank you, Willard, I'm afraid it finds us all. At least the weather was pleasant. Rain lends a certain acuity to funerals, don't you think?

WILLARD: . . . well . . . I was very sorry to hear it.

STEVENS: I hadn't seen the fellow in twenty years you know.

WILLARD: I see. (Pause) Have we settled the claim?

STEVENS: Fellberg?

WILLARD: Have they settled?

STEVENS: I was doing the contract.

WILLARD: Oh.

STEVENS: Willard, my boy, do you know what day this Saturday is?

WILLARD: It's the twenty-first, sir.

STEVENS: Yes. That's true. It is. And do you know what is happening on the twenty-first?

WILLARD: If it's overtime for a case, Mr. Stevens, I can do it. I'll check citations. I'll Shepardize. I'll work all weekend if need be.

STEVENS: I know you will. You are a very dedicated young man.

WILLARD: Thank you, sir

STEVENS: And I aim to repay you for that dedication. This Saturday you and I will be riding the rails to Cambridge to watch the fall classic.

WILLARD: We will?

STEVENS: Yes indeed my friend. The most exciting Saturday of the entire year. The forward pass. The end around. The cheering crowd. The rum and cider. And I would love to have you join me.

WILLARD: Mr. Stevens?

STEVENS: Yes, Willard?

WILLARD: I don't know what the fall classic is.

STEVENS: . . . Willard . . . Willard . . . Willard . . . this Saturday is the Harvard-Yale game. I've booked a berth on the train for us. Lunch at the Parker House with their lovely Parker House rolls. Baskets full And two tickets right there on the fifty yard line to watch the Crimson battle. Always the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

WILLARD: This Saturday?

STEVENS: It will be the best afternoon of your life. I'll send my driver by your home at 6:15 sharp. You must wear a tie, something crimson if you have it, but dress for the weather. And bring your heartiest appetite!

WILLARD: . . . I promised my girl a stroll in Elizabeth Park.

STEVENS: I see.

WILLARD: And seeing as I visit my grand folks on Sunday, well . . . Saturday was gonna be the day.

STEVENS: I see.

WILLARD: I don't mean to cause you any trouble.

STEVENS: Trouble? Why, no. I'll go alone. I do every year.

WILLARD: It does sound great.

STEVENS: I just thought it might be nice to have some companionship. Spend the afternoon with your girl. She is far more important than your boss.

WILLARD: It's just that I've been promising her since . . .

STEVENS: No, no, Willard, I won't hear any more. Stroll in Elizabeth Park with your girl. I simply should not have presumed.

WILLARD: I really appreciate the offer though . . . you know, I've never even been out of Connecticut.

STEVENS: You're young. Don't worry. There's nothing to see. Thank you for coming down, Willard.

WILLARD: You are very welcome Mr. Stevens. (Pause )

STEVENS: You would have come to work though?

WILLARD: Of course.

STEVENS: What about your girl?

WILLARD: I guess she'd have no choice. A fella has to do his job if he wants to get anywhere in the world these days.

STEVENS: Well . . . thank you for your time. I'm sorry that you cannot accompany me this Saturday.

WILLARD: Maybe next year. (Willard leaves. Fade to black.)

~~~~~~~~~~

SCENE II

The semi-private cabin of a train. Two banks of seats facing each other with a window between and luggage rack overhead. Stevens enters carrying a crimson pennant with "Harvard" written across it, the porter is carrying his suitcase behind. He removes his hat, a black fedora with a brilliant crimson band and hooks both it and the pennant on the corner of his seat. The porter helps him off with his light-weight overcoat. He helps the porter lift the suitcase onto the luggage rack. He reaches into his pocket and takes a bill from his bill-fold. He hands it to the porter.

STEVENS: Beautiful, blond fall weather. It is a shame to have to return home so soon.

PORTER: Yes it is sir, thank you. (The porter exits —Stevens sits and gazes out the window for a moment. Rises and removes his suitcoat and drapes it carefully over the seatback. He sits and stretches. He picks up the pennant and waves it in a faint cheer. He looks at his watch and sighs. Off stage a clamor is heard. Stevens looks around. It is the porter arguing with someone.)

PORTER: (O.S.) But it is our policy.

VOICE: (O.S.) You! You! It is up to you! Celebrate the unity of all things.

PORTER: (O.S.) But first class passengers are entitled to . . . (They enter the compartment. The voice belongs to Charles Ives. Fifty, tall, thin, with an aged, floppy brown hat and a tweed suit which hangs off him like a scarecrow's clothes. In one hand is a blue pennant with "Yale" on it and in the other, a blue suitcase with a giant white "Y" on its side.)

IVES: Don't speak to me of entitlement, unless you mean by it the entitlement we each have to soar and be free. No, I will not have it. Get your hand off my valise! Turn you attentions to some one less fortunate than myself. The passengers in steerage, they require your help. Go and be quick about it!

PORTER: This is a train, we don't have steerage. Steerage is on a ship .

IVES: Convention. I will not be bound by mere convention!

PORTER: At least let me help you put it on the rack.

IVES: No, no. It is not necessary. I am perfectly able.

PORTER: But sir . . .

IVES: To you I say this: poke your head out of the train, feel the last few minutes of the sun, think a pleasant thought, of your lovely wife perhaps, and then if you feel the pressing need to jump to someone's assistance, which by all means you should, let it be one of the earth's more downtrodden. How about it? (Pause.)

IVES (cont'd): Ahh! I am truly an oaf. (He digs through his pockets and produces what he takes to be a dollar bill.) This is for your trouble.

PORTER: A napkin?

IVES: Ahh! So it is. Digs through his pockets again and gets a crumpled bill. He hands it to the porter.) The real McCoy. If it was a dog, it would have jumped up and bit me.

PORTER: Thank you sir.

IVES: I was wondering if maybe you could warn me when my stop comes . . . I'm Danbury.

PORTER: And you sir?

STEVENS: Hartford

IVES: Neighbors!

PORTER: Have a good trip gentlemen. (The porter exits.—Ives looks at his suitcase. He looks at the luggage rack. He looks back at his suitcase.)

IVES: You wouldn't be so kind as to . . .

STEVENS: Don't mention it. (Together they lift the suitcase. Stevens taps the giant "Y" on its side with his finger.) The corpse of the vanquished enemy. (Ives lets go of the suitcase and it falls narrowly missing Stevens' foot.) Maybe you'll get us next year.

IVES: Indeed we will sir. (In one mighty motion, Ives heaves the suitcase onto the rack all by himself. Brushes off his hands.) Indeed we will —Charles Ives. Yale class of 98. A pleasure. (The most vigorous, manly handshake imaginable.)

STEVENS: Wallace Stevens. Harvard class of 1900. A thrill. (They sit.)

IVES: I've never seen drop kicking like that fella Whitehall does it. Goes a mile. And that Yale line, tough as a nickel steak every one of 'em. The problem is, you see, that they are lacking an overall-mind-concept for the game.

STEVENS: You mean plays?

IVES: Not the plays themselves, but the overall-mind-concept for the plays. Each man merely doing his part is not enough. Each man needs to see himself as sharing equally in one eleventh of the passing, blocking, kicking, catching, and running and not just doing his job. Just doing your job is never enough!

STEVENS: You are quite a fan Mr. Ives.

IVES: Not really.

STEVENS: And quite a student of the game I might add.

IVES: I see myself as a student of the world, Mr. Stevens. And on the one Saturday each year that Yale plays Harvard, well . . . that IS the world.

STEVENS: Don't you mean Harvard plays Yale?

IVES: It breaks my heart to see the Elis lose. The proud blue trampled beneath the hoof of the Crimson hun. But what is a man to do? Weep? Just lash himself to the mast and listen for the alma-mater! What a game! What a team! Goooo Elis!

STEVENS: See that trophy, / See it shine. / Come on Crimson, / Hold that line! Wasn't it just astonishing the way O'Callahan ran that one back?

IVES: Runback? When?

STEVENS: He danced 75 yards.

IVES: Danced? More like . . . limped . . . more like . . . crutched!

STEVENS: I didn't see anybody tackling him, did you?

IVES: How could they with all that holding going?

STEVENS: Holding? At Harvard we call that "blocking."

IVES: Well at Yale, where we value truth and honesty, we call that "holding."

STEVENS: The Harvard line values truth and honesty. The truth is that we won and quite honestly it wasn't much of a contest.

IVES: Those bums you call the Harvard line couldn't pick garbage off the streets of New Haven.

STEVENS: I have to disagree; they couldn't help but do it. There is nothing BUT garbage in New Haven.

IVES: And just what is that supposed to mean?

STEVENS: It means that I would not send my dog to Yale.

IVES: Well Mr. Stevens I do not have a dog but I would gleefully purchase an entire kennel just so I could NOT send even the lowliest of its occupants to the place you call Harvard. (The porter sticks his head in.)

PORTER: Would either of you gentlemen care for a drink?

IVES: Get me out of here, this man went to Harvard!

PORTER: I am terribly sorry, but the train is full.

IVES: I'll stand in the hall. I don't care.

PORTER: That would be against regulations.

IVES: I'll stand between cars. I want to leave.

PORTER: It's raining sir.

STEVENS: And it was such a lovely day.

PORTER: I can't do anything about the weather. I can't do anything about your seat. What I can do is get you a drink.

STEVENS: Scotch please.

IVES: This is an abomination! This is unconscionable! This is exactly what they teach the boys at Harvard.

PORTER: I didn't go to Harvard.

IVES: Well he did.

PORTER: That's one scotch. And for you sir?

IVES: A new seat.

PORTER: Rules is rules. Have a pleasant trip gentlemen. (Porter exits.)

IVES: Why do they have to hold these damn games in Cambridge anyway? Travel all that way just to have your face ground into the dirt and then all the way back and be humiliated on the train by some baggage toting half-wit!

STEVENS: The Blue did play a good first half, though.

IVES: I've heard enough about rules do you hear me? I have heard enough from the short-sighted and feeble minded of this world and their goddamn rules!

STEVENS: And a fine third quarter, all in all.

IVES: It makes me boil! Do you hear me? Boil! In a country full of such fine people we got a goddamn depression on our hands, we got a goddamn lunatic over there in Germany, we got idiots running our railroads and all they make is . . . RULES ! (Ives flies up out of his seat.) You know they drove my poor dad crazy with those rules. Why not let the folks decide for themselves? You take that away from a man and you just leave him there naked!

STEVENS: Maybe you should write a letter.

IVES: Letter?!! Wrote a million letters in my day.—Take a gander at this. (Ives pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket.)

STEVENS: The 20th Amendment?

IVES: "Congress may not wage or declare war without the consent of the people given directly in a referendum." Sent about 20,000 of em out. Folks think I'm throwing my money away, but they've thrown their democratic rights away. Now you tell me which is easier to get back.

STEVENS: But you don't think they'll pass this?

IVES: Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but you give it a few years . . . till the people of this country wake up . . . then there's gonna be some fire works!

STEVENS: Mind if I keep it?

IVES: That's what it's for. Got a suitcase full of 'em.

STEVENS: Thank you.

IVES: People now have such a limited experience of the world. Sure they're educated and travel here and there, but the world is a tiny place to them . . . everything's been done . . . been seen, like there is no possibility left in the world for an authentic experience . . . like the world is small, and feeble.

STEVENS: Not without cause.

IVES: But the world is not small and feeble. They asked Thoreau if he had traveled. And he told them, "Yes, I have traveled extensively in Concord." Daily life, the business of living is a wonderful thing. There is so much to do, so much in need of expression.

STEVENS: Yes, but modern life is filled with empty gestures.

IVES: Empty? . . . Mr. Stevens, nothing is empty. I'm an insurance man, Mr. Stevens. I guarantee the future. I let a man sleep nights because he knows that his family is protected from the random cruelties of this world. Can you call that empty?

STEVENS: Insurance? Did you say that you were an insurance man?

IVES: Yes, indeed. Ives and Myrick, agent for Mutual Life . . .

STEVENS: Well, I'll be damned. I'm with Hartford. Surety claims.

IVES: Well there you have it! Doesn't it all just tie together somehow? I'm a stranger. You're a stranger. You don't know me from Adam nor I you. Just talking football on a train. It's all just peas and carrots, right? . . . peas and carrots . . . peas and carrots . . . Saw a man today at the half-time I hadn't seen in 35 years. Frederick Wyndhall Foster-Laycock. "Remember that cute little blond, used to come up on a visit from Boston all time?" I say, "wonder whatever became of her?" I say. "You must mean my late wife, Maggie "—There is no such thing as small talk Mr. Stevens. That's because nothing is small. Everything is large! Everything enormous!

STEVENS: No man's life is to be taken lightly.

IVES: A life is a big thing Mr. Stevens. But sheerly from laziness, most folks will just shrink it down and down and down until it's just a featureless little bean that they can throw in the pot for Sunday supper. And this is their own life. Think what they do to the lives of others? If a man is famous then each detail of his life takes on gigantic proportion. How Babe Ruth takes his coffee in the morning has got more weight, more reality, than the lives of 100 farmers or factory workers, or insurance executives! Well it shouldn't be! It is a crime of degradation against the human spirit!! It is the ultimate crime! It is a form of spiritual slavery!!!

STEVENS: Open the gates and let the prisoners run free!

IVES: But think of the simple reality of a Connecticut afternoon. How the valley throws itself together for you when you climb to the top of the hill. And how the light and shade and sound play scatter tag with one another across the town green among the swirling leaves and Indian Corn decoration placed on each and every light post by the children from the third grade, let out early from the grammar school. Or the work of Emerson, or Hawthorne.

STEVENS: Yes! Reality is an activity of the most august imagination!

IVES: No, Mr. Stevens, reality is an activity of the collective imagination!!! (Ives rises to his feet, shaking his finger at the heavens like an Old Testament prophet.) Who is going to teach men to sing about the world again!! Oh my God . . . Harmony . . . (Ives collapses on the floor, gasping for air. Stevens rushes to his side and cradles him in his arms.)

STEVENS: Porter!! Porter!! (The porter runs in with Stevens' drink )

PORTER: I am sorry about the delay sir, but . . . my God in heaven . . .

IVES: (Gasping) Harmony . . . Harmony . . .

STEVENS: Call an ambulance, tell them to meet us in Hartford.

PORTER: Yes sir.

STEVENS: And for godsake find a doctor on this goddamn train and get him in here immediately.

PORTER: Yes sir. (Porter exits.)

IVES: Harmony. Harmony . . .

STEVENS: (Continues to cradle him.) I know just how you feel. (Fade to black.)

~~~~~~~~~~

SCENE III

The den of Stevens' house. Sound of key in lock. Enter Stevens' wife Elsie. She is pretty in a dower sort of way. She wears a cloth coat, gloves, and hat. She looks around, exasperated. Stevens descends the stairs in shirt sleeves rolled up and tie slightly undone.

STEVENS: Elsie . . . Where in the world have you been all this time?

ELSIE: Wallace? Oh my God, Wallace!!! Where have you been? I've been all over Connecticut looking for you. They said you had to be taken from the train, that there'd been some kind of accident. Somebody had collapsed. I thought you were languishing somewhere in a ditch. I thought you'd been killed!!

STEVENS: Now, dear . . . calm down . . . there is nothing to fret over . . . I just . . .

ELSIE: We went to all the hospitals!

STEVENS: Elsie, please. I'm fine. You see . . .

ELSIE: I was waiting there with Namaan just as we'd planned, with the car, and the man told us you were dead! That they took someone off the train in Chicopee!

STEVENS: Yes, they did. But no one is dead, dear. Everything is fine.

ELSIE: Wallace, what was I to think? You should have sent a cable.

STEVENS: I apologize, Elsie. I didn't mean to cause you any distress.

ELSIE: Well, my God. I didn't know where you were. I thought . . . I didn't know what to think. Namaan drove me all over the state.

STEVENS: There now. Don't you worry.

ELSIE: The man said something happened

STEVENS: Elsie, something did happen . . . a man from Danbury had an attack of some kind. We took him off in Chicopee. In a very fragile state. An insurance man. Just like me. A fine, nice gentleman from Danbury.

ELSIE: Is that ALL that happened?

STEVENS: Do I look like something happened?

ELSIE:  Your tie is loose.

STEVENS: (Buttoning his shirt collar and tightening his tie.) So it is. (He rolls down his sleeves and buttons his cuffs.) There now. Everything is fine. Just fine.

ELSIE: Wallace, what's wrong?

STEVENS: Nothing's wrong.

ELSIE: Good. Then I'm going upstairs to take a bath.

STEVENS: No, Elsie. You mustn't.

ELSIE: Why not? Why can't I go upstairs?

STEVENS: Actually, you can go upstairs.

ELSIE: Good. Then I'm going.

STEVENS: Armed of course with the knowledge that he is here.

ELSIE: (She stops.) Who is here?

STEVENS: The gentleman I was speaking about. The gentleman from the train.

ELSIE: A stranger?! A total stranger! Here in our house!

STEVENS: Now, Elsie. there's nothing to get alarmed about.

ELSIE: Wallace, you know I don't like people here. You know that. You know how I feel about people.

STEVENS: Yes, Elsie. Of course I know.

ELSIE: Well, he can't stay here. He just can't stay here.

STEVENS: Dear, he can't be moved. His condition is very fragile. Dr. Joffey said the slightest excitement could set off another attack.

ELSIE: Wallace we don't know who this man is. He could be a murderer!

STEVENS: What do you expect me to do?

ELSIE: He could rise up and strangle us in our sleep.

STEVENS: You're being absurd; he's a very pleasant fellow.

ELSIE: What is his name?

STEVENS: Charles Ives. Now that's not so bad is it? A good Yankee name like that?

ELSIE: Oh. Wallace.

STEVENS: Follow me. (They go up the stairs.)

ELSIE: (From offstage) Oh my God in heaven.

(They return.)

ELSIE: You know you ought to hang your head in shame for doing this to me, Wallace.

STEVENS: This has nothing to do with you Elsie.

ELSIE: It's my house, isn't it? It's my life that's being disrupted?

STEVENS: I didn't ask him to have a heart attack, you know.

ELSIE: You brought him here.

STEVENS: He collapsed at my feet. Should I have just ignored him and walked away?

ELSIE: Wallace, you could have taken him to a hospital. You could have visited him every day if you wanted. For hours and hours if you wanted. You could have lingered . . .

STEVENS: Elsie, please.

ELSIE: I think I am making a valid point. A sick man belongs in a hospital.

STEVENS: That is not the point.

ELSIE: How can it not be the point? The man is ill. He needs to be under the care of a physician.

STEVENS: Elsie, you will never understand how I feel about these things. (Pause.)

ELSIE: But I want to understand, please tell me. (Pause.)

STEVENS: I couldn't find the old comforter. So I just stacked up the blankets.

ELSIE: The back-hall closet.

STEVENS: I thought I looked there.

ELSIE: At the top?

STEVENS: The top?

ELSIE: It's right up at the top.

STEVENS: I thought I looked at the top. (Pause.) He does look comfortable, doesn't he?

ELSIE: Yes, he does.

STEVENS: You should have seen him. He was railing at the heavens all the way here in the ambulance. They had that little mask over his face and he kept pushing it off. It was really something to see. I was trying to soothe him on the way over here by telling him all about my meal at the Parker House this afternoon, and he was particularly interested in the pancakes. You see, they were thicker than blini but thinner than what you'd call the "typical American pancake," you know, that doughy sort of Pennsylvania Dutch pancake we're used to.

ELSIE: Yes . . . I think so.

STEVENS: They were not that type of pancake at all. No. They make different types of pancakes altogether over at the Parker House in Boston. But Mr. Ives said the most amazing thing. "Think about the fella that makes those pancakes," he said. "Everyone comes to the Parker House wants rolls, but this fella is determined to change their ways. He's making pancakes."

ELSIE: I don't understand.

STEVENS: You do what you have to do Elsie, and the fella at the Parker House, he just has to make his pancakes.

ELSIE: Yes?

STEVENS: That's it . . . he makes wonderful pancakes at a place where everyone eats rolls.

ELSIE: But the Parker House is known for its rolls.

STEVENS: Well of course it is. That's just the point.

ELSIE: That the Parker House is known for its rolls?

STEVENS: No! That the fella makes pancakes!

ELSIE: I'm sorry, Wallace. You don't have to shout at me.

STEVENS: I'm sorry, Elsie. The point is that the man is laboring in obscurity.

ELSIE: Oh.

STEVENS: Within the kitchen of the Parker House, where the roll is king, he has his own tiny fiefdom. Pancakes are not even on the menu there. It is almost a sort of secret club. And the pancake maker occupies this special, secret territory. With his own griddle, way in the back somewhere . . . and Mr. Ives had the oddest thought . . .

ELSIE: I see. How awful for that poor pancake maker. (Long pause.)

STEVENS: I almost forgot. I called Mr. Ives' wife. She was out of town but she'll be coming soon.

ELSIE: I see.

STEVENS: It was the first thing he asked me.

ELSIE: What?

STEVENS: To bring his wife.

ELSIE: That's a lovely thought.

STEVENS: Yes, it is, isn't it? (Pause.)

ELSIE: You know, I really thought it was you that had the attack.

STEVENS: Not me. I'm fit as a fiddle.

ELSIE: I had a feeling something awful was going to happen, and that I was going to lose you forever.

STEVENS: Well, that just goes to show you, doesn't it?

ELSIE: What?

STEVENS: Just how wrong your feelings can be.

ELSIE: (Pause.) I'll be in the bath. (Elsie goes up the stairs. Fade to black )

~~~~~~~~~~

SCENE IV

Stevens sits behind his desk in his office at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity. As always, dressed in the charcoal gray, three piece suit. Willard, stands nervously across the desk from Stevens.

WILLARD: I mean some of it doesn't quite fit.

STEVENS: Was the drive pleasant?

WILLARD: Yes it was.

STEVENS: I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you doing this for me.

WILLARD: If you ever need another special project done.

STEVENS: I appreciate the thought Willard. (Stevens hands him two small packages wrapped in plain brown paper.)

STEVENS: These are my way of saying thank you. I hope you don't mind.

WILLARD: Mind? Oh no, I couldn't.

STEVENS: I hope you enjoy them.

WILLARD: I don' t know what to . . .

STEVENS: Just tell me what you've found.

WILLARD: (As Willard speaks, he fumbles with the packages inadvertently unwrapping them.) His great-grandfather Isaac started a hat business in Danbury county. And he had the first flush toilet in Fairfield.

STEVENS: Splendid.

WILLARD: Grandfather George had the first savings and loan. And his son, George Edward Ives, was Charles' father. George was something of a musician. His father, George senior, took him all the way to The Bronx, New York for music lessons. And young George formed the town band when he got home from the Civil War and . . . oh my god! Ants! (One of the packages has opened from his nervous tampering and its contents, loose tea, begins spilling out.)

STEVENS: It's Russian Black Tea.

WILLARD: Oh. (He somehow manages to get the package under control.) Thank you very much sir. (He looks quizzically at the second, half opened package.)

STEVENS: They're pears. Dried, Bosque pears.

WILLARD: Oh, pears Mr. Stevens.

STEVENS: Have one, Willard. Have a pear.

WILLARD: (Takes a large bite.) Thank you. Please have one. I insist.

STEVENS: Thank you. (Takes a pear.) Now about young George?

WILLARD: Right, well, that's it. Something of a failure. Just the music. Never amounted to much of anything . . . these pears are wonderful, Mr. Stevens. Absolutely wonderful.

STEVENS: Thank you. (Pause.) This is young George. Charles' father?

WILLARD: Like I said, never held a steady job. Just all this weird music nobody seemed to care for. —But, when you get to this Charles Ives, it all falls apart. East 74th Street town house. Wall Street office. Largest exclusive insurance agent in the Northeast. 60 million dollar volume and then this music thing comes up again. He thinks . . . he . . . he . . . thinks . . . .that he's . . .

STEVENS: What?

WILLARD: That he is a composer. That he can write music. But you should hear what people say. Like fingernails on a blackboard. Like sheep being tortured. I think it's some kind of joke personally. Doesn't seem to me the artistic type.

STEVENS: An artist and an insurance man . . . good God!! Have you heard this music?

WILLARD: No . . . but I got some titles. There's one called "Three Places in New England," "The Housatonic at Stockbridge," "The Concord Sonata," and you're not going to believe this, one is called "Central Park in the Dark."

STEVENS: "Central Park in the Dark."

WILLARD: They tell me he has got stacks and stacks of the stuff, prints it up himself, and nobody famous plays it, but he thinks he's John Phillip Sousa all the same.

STEVENS: Yes . . . "Central Park in the Dark" . . . have an other apricot Willard . . .

WILLARD: Pears Mr. Stevens.

STEVENS: So they are . . . (Intercom buzzes.)

SECRETARY: (O.S.) Outside call Mr. Stevens . . . It's a Mrs. Ives.

STEVENS: Thank you. (Picks up the phone.) Hello? Yes . . . it was nothing really Mrs. Ives. He is very comfortable . . . everything is going to be ok . . . It is a black sedan and it should be at you door in about 30 minutes . . . No, I am completely at your disposal . . . My wife? . . . she . . . she's thrilled! She loves company more than anything else in the world . . . He was very chipper this morning when I left . . . Please, no trouble at all. Have a safe trip and we'll see you this evening . . . Good-bye Mrs. Ives.

WILLARD: That's his wife? Ives' wife?

STEVENS: Yes.

WILLARD: Well, you re not going to believe this.

STEVENS: What?

WILLARD: Her name is Harmony Ives.

STEVENS: Harmony Ives . . .

WILLARD: Now how do you figure that?

STEVENS: Harmony. (Black out)

~~~~~~~~~~

SCENE V

The den of the Stevens' home. Elsie sits on the couch with Harmony Ives. She is in her fifties and pretty in a simple way. A Connecticut minister's daughter.

HARMONY: . . .and it's very funny because he hasn't had an attack since last spring.

ELSIE: Don't you feel he ought to be under a physician's care?

HARMONY: I can manage. I'm trained as a nurse you know.

ELSIE: Is that so?

HARMONY: Oh yes, of course. I called the doctor from our home in as soon as I heard from your husband. He described Charlie's condition to me and I gave him Charlie's medical history. We chatted and concurred on the treatment: calm peaceful bed rest. It's what we've always done.

ELSIE: I see.

HARMONY: So there is really nothing to worry about. Other than what prompted the attack. (Pause.)

ELSIE: Tell me Mrs. Ives?

HARMONY: Yes?