Strange Interlude

Dr. Ned Darrell:
[to young Gordon] See here, son. there's things a man of honor doesn't tell anyone, not even his father and mother.

Charlie Marsden:
[With irony] It's a wise father who knows his own son, you know.

Mrs. Evans:
[to an agitated Nina] Have you ever seen an insane person. Do you know what it means? I'm going to show you!

Dr. Ned Darrell:
[Thinking to himself about telling Sam the truth] I couldn't tell him. To kill happiness is a worse crime than taking a life.

Title Card:
In order for us fully to understand his characters, Eugene O'Neill allows them to express their thoughts aloud. As in life, these thoughts are quite different from the words that pass their lips.

Charlie Marsden:
This pleasant old town, doting. What memories it brings back. [Inner thoughts] Queer things, thoughts, our true selves. Spoken words are just a mask to disguise them.

Charlie Marsden:
[Inner thoughts] Nina, here in my arms. How often I've dreamed of this. Dreams. That's the trouble. I'm only a dreamer. How she'd laugh if she could read my thoughts.

Nina Leeds:
[Inner thoughts] Oh, Gordon, lips on my lips, strong arms around me, spirit so brave and gay. Ashes. Ashes - dissolving into mud.

Nina Leeds:
I gave him - what did I give him? Its what I didn't give. That last night, before he sailed, in his arms, knowing - something in me knowing that he would die. Never kiss me again, knowing so surely. And yet my cowardly brain lying, "No, he'll come back and marry you. You'll be happy ever after. With his children in your arms, looking up with his eyes. But, Gordon didn't marry me. And now Gordon is muddy ashes and I've lost my happiness forever.

Dr. Ned Darrell:
[Inner thoughts] How much need I tell him? I can't tell him the raw truth about her. I have to tone it down. [Spoken] Nina has been giving away more and more to a morbid longing for - martyrdom.

Charlie Marsden:
May I ask in what specific actions of hers this theory of yours is based?

Dr. Ned Darrell:
On her evident craving to make an exhibition of necking, spooning, in general, with any patient in the institution who got a case on her. [Inner thoughts] Spooning - probably a mild word, but, strong enough for this ladylike soul.

Charlie Marsden:
You know what I'm inclined to suspect, Doctor? That you may be in love with Nina yourself.

Dr. Ned Darrell:
[Inner thoughts] Oh, really, I wonder if I am? Forget it! No woman's going to tangle up my career!

[Spoken]

Dr. Ned Darrell:
No. In my mind she always belongs to Gordon. And I couldn't share a woman. Even with a ghost.

Charlie Marsden:
I can quite appreciate your feeling about Gordon. I wouldn't care to share with a ghost-lover myself. That species of dead is so invulnerably alive - even a Doctor couldn't kill one, eh?

Nina Leeds:
Yes, he's gone. My father who began me. He's ended.

Nina Leeds:
Life. You see, life is just one long drawn-out lie - with a sniffing sigh at the end.

Nina Leeds:
Oh, Charlie. If you only knew how I'd want to run home to you - confess everything.

Charlie Marsden:
Confess what, Nina?

Nina Leeds:
I've been bad, Charlie. Wicked. I need to be punished and you're the only one left to punish me.

Nina Leeds:
Yes. It's all settled. You know, I feel so curiously calm. So at peace. You've done this Charlie. Without punishing me at all. You haven't punished me, you know. I don't feel as if you punished me hardly at all.

Charlie Marsden:
[Inner thoughts] This is all my desire. I am this kind of lover. This is my love. My little girl, not woman.

Nina Leeds:
Did she mind because Charlie Marsden drove us down here?

Sam Evans:
Of course not, why should she?

Nina Leeds:
I don't know? I thought she was rather upset when he decided to stay overnight. [Inner thoughts] She acted so queerly. Seemed anxious to get me alone.

Sam Evans:
She's such a fussy old lady. She's probably afraid he'd criticize the bed sheets.

Nina Leeds:
Ha-ha. He probably did!

Nina Leeds:
It's a queer old house, Sam. It has voices. Old voices. I could hear them last night, Sam. Plainly. Tired whispers and high, meaningless laughter.

Sam Evans:
I've never been so happy in all my life. I tell you, marriage certainly puts the right kind of ambition into a fella. Unselfish ambition. You know, working for his wife and - perhaps, someone else, who knows?

Dr. Ned Darrell:
[Inner thoughts] Oh, here comes that fussbudget Marsden and me to see Nina. He's an old maid who seduces himself in his novels.

Dr. Ned Darrell:
[Inner thoughts] Queer fellow, Marsden. I thought he was so ingrown he didn't care about anyone. His mother. Now I begin to see him!

Nina Leeds:
[to Ned] Well, since you're out here professionally and my husband wants me to consult you, I might as well give you the whole case history. I warn you, it isn't pretty. But, I hope it will teach you not to be so cock-sure, in the future.

Nina Leeds:
[Inner thoughts] I love Ned. I've loved him ever since that afternoon, that scientific afternoon. What a goose I was. It twas then love came to me. I hid it from him. Held him to his aloof Doctor's pose and sent him away proud of his willpower. But, I've watched love grow in him until I'm sure. But, am I?

Nina Leeds:
[Inner thoughts] I love you. What do I care for anything in the world but you.

Dr. Ned Darrell:
[Inner thoughts] The touch of her skin. What do I care for anything else.

Nina Leeds:
[Inner thoughts] You do love me, Ned.

Dr. Ned Darrell:
[Inner thoughts] I don't love you.

Charlie Marsden:
[Inner thoughts] Darrell and Nina. There's something unnatural here. Love and hate and lust! Where's Sam? Why isn't he here? I hate Nina! I must punish her!

Nina Leeds:
[Inner thoughts - while cradling Sam's head in her chest] Poor little boy. One gives birth to little boys. One doesn't drive them mad and kill them.

Sam Evans:
How 'bout the old scout?

Charlie Marsden:
Oh, he seemed fine, fellow. Yes, yes, he said he was having a gay time. When I saw him he was with a startling looking female. I gather he was quite involved.

Nina Leeds:
[Inner thoughts] How limp his hands. Is it possible, he loves me? How absurd. [Spoken] Alright, Charlie, dear, I'll forgive you.

Charlie Marsden:
You're the only genuinely modest person I know, Sam.

Sam Evans:
Who me? I'm the boob of the family. Except when it comes to business. I'll make the money, alright.

Dr. Ned Darrell:
Hello, Marsden.

Charlie Marsden:
When did you get back from Europe?

Dr. Ned Darrell:
This morning, on the Olympic. [Inner thoughts] Look out for this fellow. Always had it in for me. He's like a woman, smells out love.

Nina Leeds:
You can't get me out of your blood anymore than I can get you out of mine.

Nina Leeds:
[Inner thoughts] I can't believe it. I'm growing older. In a few years, I'll have reached that state where a woman has finished living. Life passes her by.

Sam Evans:
He's sick of being babied, Nina. You don't realize he's getting to be a big boy now. We want him to grow up into a real he-man, not an old lady like Charlie. Now, that's what's the matter with Charlie, I'll bet. His mother never stopped babying him.

Nina Leeds:
Perhaps you're right, Sam.

Sam Evans:
I know I'm right. [Sam exits]

Nina Leeds:
[Rolls her eyes] Oh, heaven grant that I may someday tell this fool the truth!

Nina Leeds:
Go ahead, dear. Row to victory! You can't lose.

Nina Leeds:
We're always desiring death - for ourselves or others, aren't we?

Dr. Ned Darrell:
You've got to give up owning people. Meddling in their lives as if you were God and had created them.

Dr. Ned Darrell:
Miss Arnold, as a Doctor, I feel it my duty, that Mrs. Evans isn't herself. She's morbidly jealous of you and subject to queer delusions. So, get back to your race and God bless you.

Charlie Marsden:
Here, Madeline. Here is a rose for you. Here, your love. We who have died, salute you.

Madeline:
[Inner thoughts] Queer creature. Something uncanny. Oh, what nonsense. Why, it's only poor old Charlie.

[Spoken]

Madeline:
Thank you, Uncle Charlie.

Nina Leeds:
Oh, Ned, are you saying you wanted to tell Gordon something?

Dr. Ned Darrell:
No. There's - nothing to tell.

Dr. Ned Darrell:
You heard what Gordon said. He expects us to marry. But, he'll be so pleased when he knows you turned me down.

Nina Leeds:
Yes. Our ghosts would torture us to death, wouldn't they.

Nina Leeds:
We've saved a soul. Sam's soul. We brought him happiness. Surely that's not a lifetime lived in vain.

Nina Leeds:
Fly up to heaven! Fly with your love, then. Fly always. Never crash to earth like my old Gordon. Be happy, dear! You've got to be happy!

Nina Leeds:
I wonder if our old garden is the same? We'll pick flowers together, in the aging afternoons of Spring and Summer. I'm so contentedly weary of life.