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with you.” And wrote your parents. With the first terms of affection. Since you were a child. Asking for comfort. As you had been harmed. Now you want to go free. And appeal, as does a child, to those in power. Seeking out power.
    CATHY : What do you say about me?
    ANN : Say about you . . .
    CATHY : Yes, when . . .
    ANN : I don’t speak about you.
    CATHY : At a dinner party, to a friend . . . if someone asks you. They must ask you.
    ANN : Very little anymore.
    CATHY : Oh.
    ANN : Yes—you were famous once.
    CATHY : All right. At the end of the day. Can you not overcome your animosity? . . .
    ANN : As you have, Cathy? (Pause) Officer Shay. Had he lived he would have been what?
    CATHY : Had he lived he would have been eighty-one.
    ANN : Is that an old man?
    CATHY : Is it an old man?
    ANN : You want to live . . .
    CATHY : Yes. I do. I assume all people do.
    ANN : There was a time you didn’t care to.
    (Pause.)
    CATHY : That’s right.
    ANN : Do you remember that?
    CATHY : Yes.
    ANN : You came to us then with a different request.
    CATHY : Well. It’s a long life.
    ANN : And the longer we live the more we see things change. And bring us back to the beginning.
    CATHY : And people cannot change?
    ANN : I’ve yet to see it.
    CATHY : But can you imagine it?
    ANN : I think I can.
    CATHY : In what would it consist? In your imagination. How would it be established? By a record such as mine, of service and of study? . . . or else, what are you doing here? If you cannot conceive an instance. Where your work could help? What do you want of me?
    ANN : What do you think?
    CATHY : I think you want revenge.
    ANN : You feel subjecting you periodically to my questioning constitutes revenge?
    CATHY : Do you know. What it’s like. To vacillate . Between the desire to please . To, to embellish in order to please; or to be reticent, and fear your reserve will be misinterpreted as sullenness ? When your freedom is at stake? Your very freedom ?
    ANN : Well, you broke the law. Didn’t you. And you wanted to die. As once you were “thwarted in love.” Poor thing. And counted yourself privileged. By your grievance. As you were imprisoned. And your lover abandoned you. She “left” you, and . . .
    CATHY : . . . all right.
    ANN : You wanted to die. As if she could “be” with you. In prison, what, “in death”? And dramatized yourself. As if no woman ever suffered in love. (Studies papers) You wrote. About her face: “Dreaming of her face.” About the power of dreams: “What is the power of dreams? They have the power to release us . . . each morning.” Period. “It’s a new vision.” Period. “Of a previously unsuspected depth of sorrow.” (Pause) Many were moved. (Pause) Somethought you should have been allowed to die. When you wanted to die. And some prayed for your soul.
    (Pause.)
    Why did they pray for you?
    CATHY : Because I was in pain.
    ANN : No. They prayed for you as you expressed yourself well.
    CATHY : Can you not control your hatred?
    ANN : . . . as you have done in your book. “The love of Christ washes over me. And the sweet balm of forgiven . . .” You congratulate yourself for Christ’s forgiveness. But you forgive no one. Do you? John and Jack? . . .
    (Cathy rises.)
    CATHY : Call the guard.
    ANN : Sit down. I said: sit down. I’ll see you in punitive detention do you hear me? For how long? Indefinitely. Which means forever. For Nobody Cares. Cathy. Your family has left you, your lover abandoned you, the officers’ families live to desire your death, the public no longer remembers your name, and no one cares.
    CATHY : Why do you care?
    ANN : Because it’s my duty.
    CATHY : I think you are a voyeur.
    ANN : Do you?
    CATHY : I think you are a frustrated old woman, who gains enjoyment from her “charade of Probity.”
    ANN : . . . yes, I read that article.
    CATHY : . . . that you are jealous.
    ANN : Of?
    CATHY :