The Early Ayn Rand

PERKINS: [In a dull, persistent monotone] You know what I'm saying. You can't have it. You won't.

MRS. SHLY: Have you gone plumb outta your mind? Are you thinking of... of...

PERKINS: [Dully] Yes.

MRS. PERKINS: Mama!!

MRS. SHLY: [Ferociously] D'you know who you're talking to? It's my daughter you're talking to, not a street woman! To come right out with a thing like that... to his own wife... to his own...

MRS. PERKINS: What's happened to you?

PERKINS: Rosie, I didn't mean to insult you. It's not even dangerous nowadays and...

MRS. PERKINS: Make him stop, Mama!

MRS. SHLY: Where did you pick that up? Decent people don't even know about such things! You hear about it maybe with gangsters and actresses. But in a respectable married home!

MRS. PERKINS: What's happened to you today?

PERKINS: It's not today, Rosie. It's for a long, long time back... But I'm set with the firm now. I can take good care of you and the children. But the rest — Rosie, I can't throw it away for good.

MRS. PERKINS: What are you talking about? What better use can you find for your extra money than to take care of a baby?

PERKINS: That's just it. Take care of it. The hospital and the doctors. The strained vegetables — at two bits the can. The school and the measles. All over again. And nothing else.

MRS. PERKINS: So that's how you feel about your duties! There's nothing holier than to raise a family. There's no better blessing. Haven't I spent my life making a home for you? Don't you have everything every decent man struggles for? What else do you want?

PERKINS: Rosie, it's not that I don't like what I've got. I like it fine. Only... Well, it's like this bathrobe of mine. I'm glad I have it, it's warm and comfortable, and I like it, just the same as I like the rest of it. Just like that. And no more. There should be more.

MRS. PERKINS: Well, I like that! The swell bathrobe I picked out for your birthday! Well, if you didn't like it, why didn't you exchange it?

PERKINS: Oh, Rosie, it's not that! It's only that a man can't live his whole life for a bathrobe. Or for things that he feels the same way about. Things that do nothing to him — inside, I mean. There should be something that he's afraid of — afraid and happy. Like going to church — only not in a church. Something he can look up to. Something — high, Rosie... that's it, high.

MRS. PERKINS: Well, if it's culture you want, didn't I subscribe to the Book-of-the-Month Club?

PERKINS: Oh, I know I can't explain it! All I ask is, don't let's have that baby, Rosie. That would be the end of it all for me. I'll be an old man, if I give those things up. I don't want to be old. Not yet. God, not yet! Just leave me a few years, Rosie!

MRS. PERKINS: [Breaking down into tears] Never, never, never did I think I'd live to hear this!

MRS. SHLY: [Rushing to her] Rosie, sweetheart! Don't cry like that, baby! [Whirling upon PERKINS] See what you've done? Now don't let me hear another word out of that filthy mouth of yours! Do you want to kill your wife? Take the Chinese, for instance. They go in for abortions, that's why all the Chinks have rickets. PERKINS: Now, Mother, who ever told you that?

MRS. SHLY: Well, I suppose I don't know what I'm talking about? I suppose the big businessman is the only one to tell us what's what?

PERKINS: I didn't mean... I only meant that...

MRS. PERKINS: [Through her sobs] You leave Mama alone, George.

PERKINS: [Desperately] But I didn't...

MRS. SHLY: I understand. I understand perfectly, George Perkins. An old mother, these days, is no good for anything but to shut up and wait for the graveyard!

PERKINS: [Resolutely] Mother, I wish you'd stop trying to... [Bravely]... to make trouble.

MRS. SHLY: So? So that's it? So I'm making trouble? So I'm a burden to you, am I? Well, I'm glad you came out with it, Mr. Perkins! And here I've been, poor fool that I am, slaving in this house like if it was my own! That's the gratitude I get. Well, I won't stand for it another minute. Not one minute. [Rushes out Left, slamming the door]

MRS. PERKINS: [With consternation] George!... George, if you don't apologize, Mama will leave us!

PERKINS: [With sudden, desperate courage] Well, let her go.

MRS. PERKINS: [Stares at him incredulously, then:] So it's come to that? So that's what it does to you, your big promotion? Coming home, picking a fight with everybody, throwing his wife's old mother out into the gutter! If you think I'm going to stand for...

PERKINS: Listen, I've stood about as much of her as I'm going to stand. She'd better go. It was coming to this, sooner or later.

MRS. PERKINS: You just listen to me, George Perkins! If you don't apologize to Mama, if you don't apologize to her before tomorrow morning, I'll never speak to you again as long as I live!