If I could say that, I can say more. Tha...

If I could say that, I can say more. That boy in there—his face—uncovered something—for twenty years, I did what you are doing. And I can tell you—it's not the way. We had been married—two years. (A start, as of sudden pain. Says it again, as if to make herself say it) Married—two years. He had a chance to go north on a whaler. Times hard. He had to go. A year and a half—it was to be. A year and a half. Two years we'd been married. The day he went away. The days after he was gone. I heard at first. Last letter said farther north—not another chance to write till on the way home. Six months. Another, I did not hear. Nobody ever heard. I used to talk as much as any girl in Provincetown. Jim used to tease me about my talking. But they'd come in to talk to me. They'd say—'You may hear yet.' They'd talk about what must have happened. And one day a woman who'd been my friend all my life said—'Suppose he was to walk in!' I got up and drove her from my kitchen—and from that time till this I've not said a word I didn't have to say. (She has become almost wild in telling this. That passes. In a whisper) The ice that caught Jim—caught me. It's not the way. You're not the only woman in the world whose husband is dead!

For full extended monologue, please refer to clips or the script edition cited here: Susan Glaspell, The Outside, Public domain, 1917.

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