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The Crucible By Arthur Miller
ACT 1
SETTING: A small upper bedroom in the home of Reverend Samuel Parris, Salem, Massachusetts, in the spring of the year 1692.There is a narrow window at the left. Through its leaded panes the morning sunlight streams. A candle still burns near the bed, which is at the right. A chest, a chair, and a small table are the other furnishings. At the back a door opens on the landing of the stairway to the ground floor. The room gives off an air of clean sparseness. The roof rafters are exposed, and the wood colors are raw and unmellowed.
As the curtain rises we see Parris on his knees, beside a bed. His daughter Betty, aged 10, is asleep in it. Abigail Williams, 17, ENTERS.
TITUBA: My Betty be hearty soon?
PARRIS: Out of here!
TITUBA: My Betty not goin’ die...
PARRIS: Out of my sight! Out of my – (He is overcome with sobs. He goes to the bed and gently takes Betty’s hands.) Betty. Child. Dear child. Will you wake, will you open up your eyes? Betty, little one...
ABIGAIL: Uncle? Susanna Wallcott’s here from Dr. Griggs.
PARRIS: Oh? (Rising.) Let her come, let her come.
ABIGAIL: Come in Susanna. (Susanna Walcott, a little younger than Abigail, enters.)
SUSANNA: Reverend, sir?
PARRIS: What does the doctor say, child?
SUSANNA: Dr. Griggs he bid me come and tell you, Reverend sir, that he cannot discover no medicine for it in his books.
PARRIS: Then he must search on.
SUSANNA: Aye, sir, he have been searchin’ his books since he left you, sir, but he bid me tell you, that you might look to unnatural things for the cause of it.
PARRIS: No-no. There be no unnatural causes here. Tell him I have sent for Reverend Hale of Beverly, and Mister Hale will surely confirm that. Let him look to medicine, and put out all thought of unnatural causes here. There be none.
SUSANNA: Aye, sir. He bid me tell you.
ABIGAIL: Speak nothing of it in the village, Susanna.
PARRIS: Go directly home and speak nothin’ of unnatural causes.
SUSANNA: Aye, sir, I pray for her. (Goes out.)
ABIGAIL: Uncle, the rumor of witchcraft is all about; I think you’d best go down and deny it yourself. The parlor’s packed with people, sir.--I’ll sit with her.
PARRIS: And what shall I say to them? That my daughter and my niece I discovered dancing like heathen in the forest?!
ABIGAIL: Uncle, we did dance; let you tell them I confessed it, and I’ll be whipped if I must be. But they’re speakin’ of witchcraft; Betty’s not witched.
PARRIS: Abigail, I cannot go before the congregation when I know you have not been open with me. What did you do with her in the forest?
ABIGAIL: We did dance, Uncle, and when you leaped out of the bush so suddenly, Betty was frightened and then she fainted. And there’s the whole of it. We never conjured spirits.
PARRIS: Why can she not mover herself since midnight? This child is desperate. It must come out – my enemies will bring it out. Let me know what you have done there. Abigail, do you understand that I have many enemies?
ABIGAIL: I have heard of it, Uncle.
PARRIS: There is a faction that is sworn to drive me from my pulpit. Do you understand that?
ABIGAIL: I think so, sir.
PARRIS: Now then, in the midst of such disruption, my own household is discovered to be the very center of some obscene practice. Abominations are done in the forest.
ABIGAIL: It were sport, Uncle!
PARRIS: You call this sport! Abigail, if you know something that may help the doctor, for God’s sake tell it to me. I saw Tituba waving her arms over the fire when I came on you; why were she doing that?
ABIGAIL: She always sings her Barbados songs and we dance.
PARRIS: I cannot blink what I saw, Abigail, for my enemies will not blink it. I saw a dress lying on the grass.
ABIGIAL: A dress?
PARRIS: Aye, a dress. And I thought I saw ….someone running naked through the trees!
ABIGAIL: No one was naked! You mistake yourself, Uncle!
PARRIS: I saw it! Now tell me true, Abigail. And I pray you feel the weight of truth upon you. Now my ministry’s at stake; my ministry and perhaps your cousin’s life…..whatever abomination you have done, give me all of it now, for I dare not be taken unaware when I go before them down there.
ABIGAIL: There is nothin’ more. I swear it, Uncle.
PARRIS: Abigail, I have fought here three long years to bend these stiff-necked people to me, and now, just now when some good respect is rising for me in the parish, you compromise my very character. I have given you a home, child. I have put clothes upon your back – now give me an upright answer. Your name in the town – it is entirely white, is it not?
Abigial: Why, I am sure it is, sir. There be no blush about my name.
PARRIS: Abigial, is there any other cause than you have told me, for your being discharged from Goody Proctor’s service seven months back? I’ve heard it said, and … I’ll tell you how I heard it, that she comes so rarely to church this year for she will not sit so close to something soiled. What signified that remark?
Abigail: She hates me uncle, she must, for I would not be her slave. It’s a bitter woman, a lying, cold, sniveling woman, and I will not work for such a woman! My name is good in the village! I will not have it said my name is soiled! Goody Proctor is a gossiping liar!
(Enter Mrs. Ann Putnam, forty-five, and Thomas Putnam, near fifty.)
PARRIS: Why, Goody Putnam, Mr. Putnam, come in.
ANN: It is a marvel. It is surely a stroke of hell upon you…
PARRIS: No, Goody Putnam, it is…
ANN: How high did your Betty fly, how high?
PARRIS: No—no, she never flew…
ANN: Why, it’s sure she did; Mister Collins saw her goin’ over Ingersoll’s barn, and come down light as bird, he says!
PARRIS: Now, look you, Goody Putnam; she never…
PUTNAM: Look you, Ann. Betty’s eyes is closed!
ANN: Why, that’s strange. Ours is open.
PARRIS: Your Ruth is sick?
ANN: I’d not call it sick, the Devil’s touch is heavier than sick, it’s death, y’know, it’s death drivin’ into them forked and hoofed.
PARRIS: Oh, pray not! Why, how does your Ruth ail?
ANN: She ails as she must—she never waked this morning but her eyes open and she walks, and hears naught, sees naught, and cannot eat. Her soul is taken, surely.
PUTNAM: They say you’ve sent for Reverend Hale of Beverly?
PARRIS: A precaution only. He has much experience in all demonic arts, and I …
ANN: He has indeed, and found a witch in Beverly last year, and let you remember that.
PARRIS: Now, Goody Ann, they only thought that were a witch, and I am certain there be no element of witchcraft here.
PUTNAM: No witchcraft! Now look you, Mr. Parris –
PARRIS: No, no, Thomas, I pray you, leap not to witchcraft. They will howl me out of Salem for such corruption in my house.
PUTNAM: Ann, tell Mr. Parris what you have done.
ANN: Reverend Parris, I have laid seven babies unbaptized in the earth. And now, this year, my Ruth, my only-I saw her turning strange. A secret child she has become this year, and shrivels like a sucking mouth were pullin’ on her life, too. And so I thought to send her to your Tituba-
PARRIS: To Tituba! What may Tituba….?
ANN: Tituba knows how to speak to the dead, Mister Parris.
PARRIS: Goody Ann, it is a formidable sin to conjure up the dead!
ANN: I take it on my soul, but who else may surely tell us what person murdered my babies.
PARRIS: Woman!
ANN: They were murdered, Mister Parris! And mark this proof! – mark it! Last night my Ruth were ever so close to their little spirits, I know it, sir. For how else is she stuck dumb now except some power of darkness would stop her mouth? It is a marvelous sign, Mister Parris! Don’t you understand it, sir? There is a murdering witch among us bound to keep herself in the dark. You cannot blink it more.
PARRIS: Then you were conjuring spirits last night, Abigail.
ABIGAIL: Not I, sir, Tituba and Ruth.
PARRIS: Oh, oh, my poor Betty. Abigail, what proper payment for my charity? Now I am undone.
PROCTOR: No, no, Abby, that’s done with. Put it out of mind.
ABIGAIL: John—I am waitin’ for you every night.
PROCTOR: Abby, I never give you hope to wait for me.
ABIGAIL: I have something better than hope, I think!
PROCTOR: Abby, you’ll put it out of mind. I’ll not be comin’ for you more.
ABIGAIL: You’re surely sportin’ with me.
PROCTOR: You know me better.
ABIGAIL: I know how you clutched my back behind your house and sweated like a stallion whenever I come near! Or did I dream that? It’s she put me out, you cannot pretend it were you. I saw your face when she put me out and you loved me then and you do now!
PROCTOR: Abby, that’s a wild thing to say –
ABIGAIL: A wild thing may say wild things. But not so wild, I think. I have seen you since she put me out; I have seen you nights.
PROCTOR: I have hardly stepped off my farm this seven month.
ABIGAIL: I have a sense for heat, John, and yours has drawn me to my window, and I have seen you looking up, burning in your loneliness. Do you tell me you’ve never looked up at my window?
PROCOTR: I may have looked up.
ABIGAIL: And you must. You are no wintry man. I know you, John. I know you. I cannot sleep for dreamin’; I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the house as though I’d find you comin’ through some door. (She clutches him!)
PROCTOR: Child… child!
ABIGAIL: (Angry) How do you call me child!
PROCTOR: Abby. Abby! I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind—we never touched, Abby.
ABIGAIL: Aye, but we did.
PROCTOR: Aye, but we did not.
ABIGAIL: Oh, I marvel how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be…
PROCTOR: You‘ll speak nothin‘ of Elizabeth!
ABIGAIL: She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold sniveling woman and you bend to her! Let her turn you like a…?
PROCTOR: (Shakes her.) Do you look for whippin‘!
ABIGAIL: I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart. I never knew what pretense Salem was. I never knew what lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is you love me yet! John, pity me, pity me!
(Betty claps her ear, whining. Parris ENTERS.)
PROCTOR: What’s she doing?
ABIGAIL: Betty?
PROCTOR: Girl, what ails you? Stop that wailing.
PARRIS: Betty. What Happened? What are you doing to her! Betty! (Rushes to bed, crying ―Betty Betty!
ANN: (Entering) The psalm! The psalm! – she cannot bear to hear the Lord‘s name!
PARRIS: No, God forbid… Mercy, run to the doctor. Tell him what’s happened here.
ANN: Mark it for a sign, mark it…! (Rebecca Nurse enters.)
PUTNAM: That child is a notorious sign of witchcraft afoot, Goody Nurse. A prodigious sign.
PARRIS: Rebecca, Rebecca Nurse, go to her. We‘re lost. She suddenly cannot bear to hear the Lord‘s name.
(Giles Corey enters.)
COREY: Is she going to fly again? I hear she flies?
REBECCA: It’s hard sickness here, Giles Corey, so please to keep the quiet.
PUTNAM: Man, be quiet now.
COREY: Sorry, sorry.
REBECCA: Betty. There... Betty.... A child... there.
ANN: What have you done?
PARRIS: What do you make of it, Rebecca?
PUTNAM: Goody Nurse, will you go to my Ruth and see if you can wake her?
REBECCA: I think she’ll wake in time. Pray, calm yourselves. I have eleven children and I am twenty-six times a grandma, and I have seen them all through their silly seasons, and when it come on them they will run the Devil bowlegged keeping up with their mischief.
PROCTOR: Aye, that’s the truth of it, Rebecca.
ANN: This is no silly season, Rebecca. My Ruth is bewildered, Rebecca, she cannot eat.
REBECCA: Perhaps she is not hungered yet. Mr. Parris, I hope you are not decided to go in search of loose sprits. I‘ve heard promise of that outside…
PARRIS: A wide opinion‘s running in the parish that the Devil may be among us, and I would satisfy them that they are wrong.
PROCTOR: Then let you come out and call them wrong. Did you consult the wardens before you called this Reverend Hale to look for devils?
PARRIS: He is not coming to look for devils!
PROCTOR: Then what’s he coming for?
PUTNAM: There will be children dyin‘ in the village, Mister…!
PROCTOR: I see none dyin‘. This society will not be a bag to swing around your head, Mister Putnam.
REBECCA: Pray, calm yourself, John. Mister Parris, I think you‘d best send Reverend Hale back as soon as he come. This will set us all to arguin’ again in the society. And we thought to have peace this year. I think we ought to rely on the doctor now, and good prayer…
ANN: Rebecca, the doctor‘s baffled.
REBECCA: If so he is, then let us go to God for the cause of it. There is prodigious danger in the seeking of loose spirits, I fear it, I fear it. Let us rather blame ourselves …
PUTNAM: How may we blame ourselves? I am one of nine sons; the Putnam seed have peopled this province. And yet I have but one child left of eight—and now she shrivels!
REBECCA: I cannot fathom that!
ANN: But I must. You think it’s God’s work that you should never lose a child, nor grandchild either, and I bury all but one? There are wheels within wheels in this village, and fires within fires!
PUTNAM: When Reverend Hale comes you will proceed to look for signs of witchcraft, Mister Parris.
PROCTOR: You cannot command Mister Parris. We vote by name in this society, not by acreage.
PUTNAM: I never heard you worried so on this society, Mister Proctor. I do not think I saw you at Sabbath meeting since snow flew.
PROCTOR: I have trouble enough without I come five mile to hear him preach only hellfire and bloody damnation. You take it to heart, Mister Parris. There are many others who stay away from church these days because you hardly ever mention God any more.
PARRIS: Why, that’s a drastic charge.
REBECCA: It’s somewhat true; there are many that quail to bring their children –
PARRIS: I do not preach for children, Rebecca. It is not the children who are unmindful of their obligation toward this ministry. My contract provides I be supplied with all my firewood. I am waiting since November for a stick, and even in November, I had to show my frostbitten hands like some London beggar!
COREY: You are allowed six pounds a year to buy your wood, Mister Parris.
PARRIS: I regard that six pound as part of my salary. I am paid little enough without I spend six pound on firewood.
PROCTOR: Sixty, plus six for firewood –
PARRIS: The salary is sixty-six pounds, Mister Proctor! I am not some preaching farmer with a book under my arm; I am a graduate of Harvard College!
COREY: Aye, and well instructed in arithmetic!
PROCTOR: Mister Parris, you are the first minister ever did demand the deed to his house. The last meeting I were at you spoke so long on deeds and mortgages I thought it were an auction.
PARRIS: I want a mark of confidence, is all! I am your third preacher in seven years. I do not wish to be put out like a cat, whenever some majority feels the whim. You people seem not to comprehend that a minister is the Lord‘s man in the parish; a minister is not to be so lightly crossed and contradicted…
PUTNAM: Aye!
PARRIS: There is either obedience or the church will burn like hell is burning!
PROCTOR: Can you speak one minute without we land in hell again? I am sick of hell!
PARRIS: It is not for you to say what is good for you to hear!
PROCTOR: I may speak my heart, I think!
HALE: No-no…Now let me instruct you. We cannot look to superstition in this. The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone, and I must tell you all, that I shall not proceed unless you are prepared to believe me if I should find no bruise of hell upon her.
PARRIS: It is agreed, sir—it is agreed—we will abide by your judgment.
HALE: Good then. Now, sir, what were your first warnings of this strangeness?
PARRIS: Why, sir… I discovered my daughter Betty… Abigail, my niece … and ten or twelve of the other girls, dancing in the forest last night.
HALE: You permit dancing?!
PARRIS: No—no, it were secret…
ANN: Mr. Parris‘ slave has knowledge of conjurin‘, sir.
PARRIS: We cannot be sure of that, Goody Ann…
ANN: I know it, sir. I sent my child… she should learn from Tituba who murdered her sisters.
REBECCA: Goody Ann! You sent a child to conjure up the dead…?
ANN: Let God blame me, not you, not you, Rebecca! I‘ll not have you judging me any more! Is it a natural work to lose seven children before they live a day?
HALE: Seven dead in childbirth? (Leafs through a book.)
ANN: Aye. (Hale looks in book.)
HALE: Have no fear now—we shall find the Devil out if he has come among us, and I mean to crush him utterly if he has shown his face!
REBECCA: Will it hurt the child, sir?
HALE: I cannot tell. If she is truly in the Devil‘s grip we may have to rip and tear to get her free.
REBECCA: I think I‘ll go then. I am too old for this.
PARRIS: Why, Rebecca, we may open up the boil of all our troubles today!
REBECCA: Let us hope for that. I go to God for you, sir.
PARRIS: I hope you do not mean we go to Satan here!
REBECCA: I wish I knew. I only wish I knew. (She goes out.)
PUTNAM: Come, Mister Hale, let‘s get on. (Hale sits on stool.)
HALE: Now mark me, if the Devil is in her you will witness some frightful wonders in this room, so please to keep your wits about you. Mister Putnam, stand close in case she flies. Now, Betty dear, will you sit up? Can you hear me? I am John Hale, minister of Beverly. I have come to help you, dear. Do you remember my two little girls in Beverly?
PARRIS: Betty. Answer Mister Hale, Betty!
HALE: Does someone afflict you, child? It need not be a woman, mind you, or a man. Perhaps some bird, invisible to others, comes to you, perhaps a pig, or a mouse, or any beast at all. Is there some figure bids you fly? (Speaks in Latin) In nomine Domini Sabaoth, sui filiique ite ad Infernos. (Betty is laid back on pillow.) Abigail, what sort of dancing were you doing with her in the forest?
ABIGAIL: Why—common dancing is all.
PARRIS: I think I ought to say that I—I saw a kettle in the grass where they were dancing.
ABIGAIL: That were only soup.
HALE: What sort of soup were in this kettle, Abigail?
ABIGAIL: Why, it were beans—and lintels, I think, and—
HALE: Mister Parris, you did not notice, did you – any living thing in the kettle? A mouse, perhaps, a spider, a frog?
PARRIS: I do believe there were some movement in the soup.
ABIGAIL: That jumped in, we never put it in!
HALE: What jumped in?
ABIGAIL: Why, a very little frog jumped –
PARRIS: A frog, Abby!
HALE: Abigail, it may be your cousin is dying—Did you call the Devil last night?
ABIGAIL: I never called him! Tituba … Tituba!
PARRIS: She called the Devil!
ANN: Oh, praise be to God!
HALE: I should like to speak with Tituba.
PARRIS: Goody Ann, will you bring her up?
ANN: Aye. (She Exits.)
HALE: How did she call him?
ABIGAIL: I know not—she spoke Barbados.
HALE: Did you feel any strangeness when she called him? A sudden cold wind, perhaps? A trembling below the ground?
ABIGAIL: I didn‘t see no Devil!— Betty, wake up, Betty! Betty!
HALE: You cannot evade me, Abigail.—Did your cousin drink any of the brew in that kettle?
ABIGAIL: She never drank it!
HALE: Did you drink it?
ABIGAIL: No, sir!
HALE: Did Tituba ask you to drink it?
ABIGAIL: She tried but I refused.
HALE: Why are you concealing? Have you sold yourself to Lucifer?
ABIGAIL: I never sold myself! I‘m a good girl—I’m a proper girl— (Ann enters with Tituba.)—She, she made me do it! Tituba made Betty do it!
TITUBA: Abby!
ABIGAIL: She makes me drink blood!
PARRIS: Blood!!
ANN: My baby‘s blood?
TITUBA: No—no, chicken blood, I give she chicken blood!
HALE: Woman, have you enlisted these children for the devil?
TITUBA: No-no, sir, I don‘t truck with no devil.
HALE: Why can she not wake? Are you silencing this child?
TITUBA: I love me Betty!
HALE: You have sent your spirit out upon this child, have you not? Are you gathering souls for the Devil?
ABIGAIL: She send her spirit on me in church, she make me laugh at prayer!
PARRIS: She have often laughed at prayer!
ABIGAIL: She comes to me every night to go and drink blood!
TITUBA: You beg me to conjure! She beg me make charm-
ABIGAIL: Don’t lie! She comes to me while I sleep; she‘s always making me dream corruptions!
TITUBA: Why you say that, Abby?
ABIGAIL: Sometimes I wake and find myself standing in the open doorway and not a stitch on my body!
TITUBA: Oh, Abby!
ABIGAIL: I always hear her laughing in my sleep. I hear her singing her Barbados songs and tempting me.
TITUBA: Mister Reverend, I never-
HALE: Tituba, I want you to wake this child.
TITUBA: I have no power on this child.
HALE: You most certainly do, and you will free her from it now! When did you compact with the Devil?
TITUBA: I don‘t compact with no devil!
PARRIS: You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to your death, Tituba!
PUTNAM: This woman must be hanged! She must be taken and hanged!
TITUBA: No-no, don‘t hang Tituba. No, I tell him I don‘t desire to work for him, sir.
PARRIS: The Devil?
HALE: Then you saw him?
ANN: Praise God.
HALE: Now, Tituba, I know that when we bind ourselves to Hell it is very hard to break with it. We are going to help you tear yourself free.
TITUBA: Oh, Mister Reverend, I do believe somebody else be witchin’ these chiidlren?
HALE: Who?
TITUBA: I don’t know, sir. But the Devil got himself numerous witches?
HALE: Does he? Tituba, look into my eyes. Come, look into me. You would be a good Christian woman, would you not, Tituba?
TITUBA: Aye, sir, a good Christian woman.
HALE: And you love these little children?
TITUBA: Oh, yes, sir, I don‘t desire to hurt little children.
HALE: And you love God, Tituba?
TITUBA: I love God with all my bein‘.
HALE: Take courage, you must give us all their names. How can you bear to see this child, Betty, suffering? Look at her, Tituba- look at her God-given innocence; her soul is so tender; we must protect her, Tituba; the devil is out and preying on her like a beast upon the flesh of the pure lamb…God will bless you for your help…
ABIGAIL: (Hands clasped, eyes closed.) I want to open myself! I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him; I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand—I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Good Osburn with the devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!
BETTY: I saw George Jacobs with the Devil! I saw Goody Howe with the Devil!
PARRIS: She speaks. Betty speaks!
HALE: Glory to God!—it is broken, they are free!
BETTY: I saw Martha Bellows with the Devil!
ABIGAIL: I saw Goody Sibber with the Devil!
PUTNAM: The marshal, I‘ll call the marshal!
HALE: Let the marshal bring irons. (On the girls‘ ecstatic cries, CURTAIN FALLS.)
