ELSA (putting the portfolio on the table...

ELSA (putting the portfolio on the table): Come in.

ANN: May I? Just a moment?

ELSA: Of course, Ann.

ANN (looking around): Alison's room. As if—as if she might be going to bed here.

ELSA: I have been thinking of that. [Pause. Won't you sit down, dear?

[ANN comes to the table, sits.]

ANN: I feel I shouldn't be here. I know you are tired, and want to be alone in this room. I'll only stay a minute.

ELSA: I'm glad you came.

ANN (impulsively, yet timidly): I was so glad to see you, Elsa, when you came.

ELSA (grateful): You were?

ANN: Oh, yes. So were Eben and Ted.

ELSA: But father—

ANN: He can't help it, can he?

ELSA: No. Of course not. But—I did so want to come. (Shaking her head) It wasn't that I wanted to. I had to.

ANN: You had to be here once more.

ELSA: The last time.

ANN: It's hard.

ELSA: I used to come to this room when things went wrong. “Come to Alison, dear,” she'd say. Or, “Whatever is wrong, Alison will make it right.” [Pause. If only she could!

ANN: Perhaps she can.

ELSA: I fear not. I have gone—out of her world.

ANN: I'm not sure she would think so.

ELSA: Perhaps not. For, really, you couldn't go out of her world. She was everywhere. She knew.

ANN: I didn't know her but—it does seem that way. What did I say? I didn't know her? But I do know her. Her poems let me know her. And now, to-night, I know her better than before.

[ELSA only waits in enquiry].

Elsa! Can you fall in love, all at once, with somebody you don't know?

ELSA (looking at the picture over the desk): Ask Alison.

ANN (following her look): Is that—his picture?

ELSA: Yes. It was always there ... as long as I can remember.

ANN (going to it): How strange the clothes look.

ELSA: Ours will look strange too, in thirty years.

ANN: Why, I suppose they will. They seem so right now.

ELSA: Nothing stays right—for ever.

ANN (turning to her): Love does.

ELSA (with a little laugh): Love doesn't have to clothe itself.

ANN (coming back to her): Then you think it really can be love, though it happens—all at once?

ELSA: It has happened too often for me to say it can't be true. Though it wasn't that way with me.

ANN: You and Bill had known each other a long time.

ELSA: Since I had braids down my back. And he never used to be—different from anyone else. And then, all of a sudden—We had been dancing; we stopped by the door. We just looked at each other—stared, rather, and he said, “Why, Elsa!” We stood there, and then he said, “It is Elsa.” And we went out to the verandah, and everything was different, because he was Bill and I was Elsa.

ANN: So it did happen suddenly, after all.

ELSA: And everything we had together in the past—when we used to slide down hill together—was there, alive, giving us a past we hadn't known we were making for ourselves.

ANN: I think it is a miracle, don't you?

ELSA: Yes, I think it is a miracle. Though it's a miracle you have to pay for, sometimes.

ANN: Always, perhaps.

ELSA: I don't know. Often it goes happily. It's nice that you don't have to hurt anyone.

ANN: But I do, I fear. He was almost engaged. Not quite. Elsa! His name is Richard.

ELSA: Richard is a nice name.

ANN: I shall never call him Dick. Richard I think is better for him.

[ELSA nods gravely.]

And to think it was Alison brought us together! That is like a blessing, don't you think?

ELSA: I do think so.

ANN: It was wonderful, down by the river, thinking of all that happened in this century that is going, of all that will happen in the century that is right here now, for us. [She is lost in this a moment. Perhaps it seems cruel we should be sitting here talking of love, with poor Miss Agatha dead just across the hall.

ELSA: It is the way it is.

ANN: And it is strange. She was so good; but she does seem dead, and Alison, dead eighteen years, is here.

[ELSA'S hand moves, rests on the portfolio.] Elsa, I came to ask you something, and I'm sorry it seems I came for a purpose—a favour; because I stayed down here hoping to have a talk with you, but—

ELSA: What is it, dear? I will do it, if I can.

ANN: You see, Richard has to think of—the story. In spite of— (an excited little laugh) —everything else, he has to think of the paper. And it's more of a story now, Alison's sister dying just as she is leaving the house where she and Alison lived together.

ELSA: Yes, I suppose it is more of a story.

ANN: And he needs a picture of Miss Agatha.

ELSA: You would have to ask father about that.

ANN: How can I? He's with her.

ELSA: But, you see, I haven't—the right. Ask Eben.

ANN: Eben is so strange. He's down in the library, reading the books, and he doesn't look up when you come in, or hear you when you speak. So I thought, “I can't talk to the others, but I believe I could talk to Elsa.” I always wanted to talk to you. I always had—sounds foolish—a sort of case on you. All the younger girls did. Elsa Stanhope, they'd say. As if you were what they wanted to be.

ELSA: Oh—Ann!

ANN: It seemed you had everything. Beautiful—a Stanhope—so nice to everyone, yet always holding yourself a little apart. We used to think of you as a princess.

ELSA (after looking at her in silence a moment): And then I—went back on you, didn't I?

ANN: To tell the truth, we didn't think so. The older people did, or thought they should. We thought you were brave.

ELSA: I wasn't brave. I was trapped. I didn't think it was right, but I couldn't help myself. And Bill. When you love, you want to give your man—everything in the world.

ANN: Everything.

ELSA: But in giving to him, I took so much away from him.

ANN (for a moment not intruding on all ELSA is feeling): But you love each other—as much as ever.

ELSA: Our love is a flame—burning fiercely—in sorrow. (Coming from this) I wish I could say yes about the picture, Ann. There is one here. [She goes to the desk, takes a picture from the drawer.

[ANN goes to her, they look at it].

ANN: Oh, it's a dear. She was much younger then.

ELSA: Taken years ago, before Alison died.

ANN: When she was Agatha, while Alison was Alison.

ELSA (nodding): It never would have occurred to her to have one taken afterwards. She thought she was just for Alison.

ANN: She worshipped her.

ELSA: And guarded her, her whole life through. I'd really like to give it to you, for her own sake. Aunt Agatha, who lived always in this house, now wanted, for a moment, by the world. She was so good. And she will pass—so soon. I'd like to talk to your Richard, and tell him how good she was.

ANN: Oh, would you, Elsa?

ELSA: But I haven't the right to speak for the family

Susan Glaspell. “Alison’s House” in Six Plays: the Green Pastures: Marc Connelly: Street Scene: Elmer Rice: Badger's Green: R. C. Sherriff: Down Our Street: Ernest George: Socrates: Clifford Bax: Alison's House: Susan Glaspell. (London, 1930) p.645-650.