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Lesson 160 Death Of A Salesman (Ⅱ)
The following scene is taken from Act One.
Willy is almost gone when Biff, in his pajamas, comes down the
stairs and enters the kitchen, where Linda is doing the chore.
Biff: What is he doing out there?
Linda: Sh!
Biff: God Almighty, Mom, how long has he been doing this?
Linda: Don't, he'll hear you.
Biff: What the hell is the matter with him?
Linda: It'll pass by morning.
Biff: Shouldn't we do anything?
Linda: Oh, my dear, you should do a lot of things, but there's
nothing to do, so go to sleep.
Happy comes down the stair and sits on the steps.
Happy: I never heard him so loud, Mom.
Linda: Well, come around more often, then you'll hear him. [She sits
down at the table and mends the lining of Willy's jacket.]
Biff: Why didn't you ever write me about this, Mom?
Linda: How would I write to you? For past three months you had no
address.
Biff: I was on the move. But you know I thought about you all the
time. You know that, pal?
Linda: I know, dear, I know. But he likes to have a letter. There
still a possibility for better things.
Biff: He's not like this all the time, is he?
Linda: When you come home he's always the worst. When you write
you're coming, he's all smiles, and talks about the future, and -- he's
just wonderful. The closer you seem to come, the more shaky he gets. By
the time you get here, he's arguing, and he seems angry at you. I think
it's just that maybe he can't bring himself to open up to you. Why are
you so hateful to each other? Why is that?
Biff: [evasively:] I'm not hateful, Mom.
Linda: But no sooner you get into the door than you're fighting!
Biff: I don't know why. I mean to change. I'm tryin', Mom, you
understand?
Linda: Are you home to stay now?
Biff: I don't know. I want to look around, see what's doin'.
Linda: Biff, you can't look around all you life, can you?
Biff: I just can't take hold, Mom. I can't take hold of some kind of
a life.
Linda: Biffe, a man is not a bird, to come and go with the
springtime.
Biff: Your hair ... [He touches her hair.] Your hair got so gray,
Mom.
Linda: Oh, it's been gray since you were in high school. I just
stopped dyeing it, that's all.
Biff: Dye it again, will ya? I don't want my pal looking old. [He
smiles.]
Linda: You're such a boy! You think you can go away for a year and
... You've got to get it into your head now that one day you'll knock
on that door and there'll be strange people here --
Biff: What are you talking about? You're not even sixty, Mom.
Linda: But what about your father?
Biff: [lamely.] Well, I meant him too.
Happy: He admires Pop.
Linda: Biff, dear, if you don't have any feeling for him, then you
can't have any feeling for me.
Biff: Sure I can, Mom.
Linda: No. You can't just come to see me, because I love him. [With
a threat, but only a threat, of tears:] He's the dearest man in the
world to me, and I won't have anyone making him fell unwanted and low
and blue. You've got to make up your mind now, there's not leeway any
more. Either he's your father and you pay him that respect, or you're
not to come here. I know he's not easy to get along with -- nobody
knows that better than me ...
Willy: [from the left, with a laugh:] Hey, hey, Biffo!
Biff: [starting to go out after Willy:] What the hell is the matter
with him? [Happy stops him.]
Linda: Don't -- don't you go near him!
Biff: Stop making excuses for him! He always wiped the floor with
you. Never had an ounce of respect for you.
Happy: He's always had respect for --
Biff: What the hell do you know about it?
Happy: [surlily:] Just don't call him crazy!
Biff: He's got no character -- Charley wouldn't do this. Not in his
own house -- spewing out that vomit from his mind.
Happy: Charley never had to cope with what he's got to.
Biff: People are worse off than Willy Loman. Believe me, I've seen
them!
Linda: Then make Charley your father, Biff. You can't do that, can
you? I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of
money. His name was never in the papers. He's not the finest character
that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is
happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to
fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be paid
to such a person. You call him craze --
Biff: I didn't mean --
Linda: No, a lot of people think he's lost his -- balance. But you
don't have to be very smart to know what his trouble is. The man is
exhausted.
Happy: Sure!
Linda: A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man. He works
for a firm thirty-six years this March, opens up unheard-of territories
to their trademark, and now in his old age they take away his salary.
Happy: [indignantly:] I didn't know that, Mom.
Linda: You never asked, my dear! Now that you get your spending
money someplace else you don't trouble your mind with him.
Happy: But I gave you money last --
Linda: Last Christmas time, fifty dollars! To fix the hot water
heater it cost ninety-seven fifty! For the past five weeks he's been on
a straight commission, like a beginner, an unknown!
Biff: Those ungrateful bastards!
Linda: Are they any worse than his sons? When he brought them
business, when he was young, they were glad to see him. But now his old
friends, all the old buyers that loved him so and always managed to
hand him some order in a pinch -- they're all dead, retired. He used to
be able to make six, or seven calls a day in Boston. Now he takes his
valises out of the car, puts them back, takes them out again and he's
exhausted. Instead of walking he walks now. He drives seven hundred
miles, and when he gets there no one knows him any more, no one
welcomes him. What goes through a man's mind, driving seven hundred
miles home without having earned a cent? Why shouldn't he talk to
himself? Why? When he has to go to Charley and borrow fifty dollars a
week and pretend to me that it's his pay? How long can that go on? How
long? You see what I'm sitting here and waiting for? You tell me he has
no character? The man who never worked a day but for your benefit? When
does he get the medal for that? Is this his reward -- to turn around at
the age of sixty-three and find his sons, who he loved better than his
life, one a philandering bum --
Happy: Mom!
Linda: That's all you are, my baby! [To Biff:] And you! What
happened to the love you had for him? You were such pals! How you used
to talk to him on the phone every night! How lonely he was till he
could come home to you!
Biff: All right, Mom. I'll live here in my room, and I'll get a job.
I'll keep away from him, that's all.
Linda: No, Biff. You can't stay here and fight all the time.
Biff: He threw me out of this house, remember that,
Linda: Why was that? I never knew why.
Biff: Because I know he's a fake and he doesn't like anybody around
who knows!
Linda: Why a fake? In what way? What do you mean?
Biff: Just don't lay it all at my feet. It's between me and him --
that's all I have to say. I'll chip in from now on. He'll settle for
half my pay check. He'll be all right. I'm going to bed. [He starts for
the stairs.]
Linda: He won't be all right.
Biff: [turning on the stairs, furiously:] I hate this city and I'll
stay here. Now what do you want?
Linda: He's dying, Biff.
