Read The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays for Free Online Page B

it?
    MITCH : Smart girl! We’ll be back in half an hour.
    BABE : Keep your chin up, Duchess. So long!
    [
Mitch and Babe leave. The stage is darkened for a moment to indicate the passing of about fifteen minutes. Linda is still standing by the window. Footsteps are heard slowly climbing the stairs
.]
    LINDA [
turning from window, her eyes wide with emotion
]: JIM!
    [
The door is pushed open and Jim comes in. He stands in the doorway without speaking, a dazed look on his face, the canvases sagging from under his arm
.]
    LINDA : Oh, JIM—your pictures—they’re all wet!
    JIM [
laughing bitterly
]: All wet? Yes! All wet! [
Tosses them roughly to floor
.] That’s what Wescott said about them—all wet! [
Tosses soaked hat into corner of the room
.] Only he didn’t put it quite so bluntly. Oh, he was very genteel about it. Used a lot of high-sounding language. Talked about planes of consciousness and aesthetic values. All the usual tripe. Shook his head very sadly and said he feared the world wasn’t ready quite yet for my kind of art. Go back to school, he said, and master your technique. You’re still just a boy. You’ve got years and years, he said. Years and years of what? I asked him. Starvation? He laughed. He said I was taking it much too hard— Oh, Linda! [
He throws himself down on the couch
.] I’m so terribly disgusted with things!
    [
As he cries her name Linda stretches her arms toward him and a look of tenderness comes over her face. She feels that he needs her now
.]
    LINDA [
lifting her hand slowly to the window shade
]: Jim, when I pull this window shade down, do you know what I’m really doing? I’m shutting out the whole world. Mr. Wescott was right, Jim. We have got years and years.
    JIM [
with choking bitterness
]: Of what?
    LINDA [
pulling the shade slowly down
]: Of each other!
    JIM [
tossing impatiently on the couch
]: Each other! Each other! Do you think we can EAT each other!
    LINDA [
astonished
]: Jim!
    JIM : Come down to earth, woman! You can’t stay up in the clouds all your life. . . .
    LINDA : It’s not the clouds I’m up in, Jim—it’s our magic tower!
    JIM [
brutally
]: Magic tower, boloney! It’s Mrs. O’Fallon’s attic that we’re up in, Linda! Mrs. O’Fallon’s lousy, leaking attic! And we’re five weeks behind on the rent! Do you know what’s going to happen to us, Linda? We’re going to get kicked out on our ears, that’s what!
    LINDA : I thought you said—in this state of enchantment—in whichwe lived—nothing ever happened—nothing ever mattered except our having each other!
    JIM : Those were pretty words!
    LINDA : You didn’t mean them? [
There is a long silence
.] I see—just words! [
She goes slowly back to the window, gives the cord a jerk, and the curtain flies up
.]
    JIM : What was that?
    LINDA [
dully
]: Just the shade flying up. [
She turns toward him again. There is a faint, inscrutable smile on her lips
.] How old are you, Jim?
    JIM [
sleepily
]: Twenty-one. Why? [
Crossly
.] What’s that got to do with the situation?
    LINDA [
softly
]: Twenty- one—how marvelously young that is! I’m twenty-six, Jim. You didn’t know that?
    JIM : Gosh, Linda! You say such trivial things!
    LINDA : I know. I have a terribly trivial mind . . . poor Jim. You’re all tired out. And soaking wet. That long walk through the rain. All for nothing. Here. I’ll put the screen in front of the bed. You can undress and have a nap. I still have some ironing to do. After a while you can go down and get a bite to eat from Mrs. O’Fallon! I’m sure she’ll be glad to let you have something.
    JIM [
sleepily
]: She always used to be before I got . . .
    LINDA : Yes, I know. Before you got yourself tied up with a dame! Oh, well. . . . [
She laughs softly
.] There’s a price for everything! Nothing comes for nothing, Jim. You’ll learn that some day. [
With the screen drawn in front of Jim’s couch, Linda hastily throws her things into the new traveling bag. She