Dr. Charles McGrath’s study. At stage right is the Doctor’s desk, which looks like that of a business executive. An easy chair for visitors faces it at an angle to the audience, so that anybody sitting in it can be seen three-quarters face. Very far to stage left is a closed door. The back wall is lined with bookcases, containing, on the right, darkly bound theological works and, to the left, contemporary books, mostly with their dust jackets on. On top of these bookcases leaning against the wall, are photographs of energetic modern divines whom Dr. McGrath admires and old prints of leaders of the Reformation. The wall on the left is bare, but has a window toward the front of the stage. The glass of this window is broken, as if a stone had been thrown through it.
Dr. McGrath is sitting at his desk, with an open Bible before him. He is a powerful-looking man in his forties, but nervous and evidently suffering from some severe tension.
McGrath (to himself, reading from Matthew XXIV). “Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
“But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come (he looks up toward the door) he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. (He looks toward the window.)
“Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh”—
A knock at the door. McGrath looks up startled.
McGrath. Yes?
A Servant enters. He is a slim, pale young man with a pointed beard.
The Servant. There’s a Mr. Duquesne to see you, Doctor.
McGrath. Oh, yes. Ask him to come in here.
The Servant goes out. McGrath puts a marker in the Bible and sets it aside; then rather ostentatiously begins to write.
Francis Duquesne comes in. He has the look of a distinguished scholar, thin and sallow and dry, and he speaks with a faint French accent. He has left his hat and coat outside. McGrath gets up and shakes hands with him from behind the desk.
Duquesne (nodding toward the manuscript on the desk). Another sizzling sermon?
McGrath. Sit down: I wanted to talk to you.
Duquesne (sitting down in the easy chair). Well, it’s ages since I’ve seen you, Charley, though we’re almost neighbors. The last thing I heard about you was that you were going to Allensburg, Pennsylvania. The First Presbyterian Church, wasn’t it?
McGrath. That didn’t go through.
Duquesne. What a pity.
McGrath. It’s been a severe disappointment.
Duquesne. What was the trouble?
McGrath. I’m not quite sure. I preached out there in October, and I know that I was very much wanted by the better elements in the congregation. I suspect that the Communists prevented it.
Duquesne. The Communists? In the congregation?
McGrath. Yes.
Duquesne. Do the Communists out there go to church?
McGrath. You never can tell nowadays. There are members of that congregation—even fairly well-to-do people—who refer to themselves as “liberals.” When I hear the word liberal now, I know that it means Communist.
Duquesne. All the liberals aren’t by any means Communists. I suppose I’m a liberal myself. And, Charley, I must say that any liberal might naturally be expected to object to the kind of sermons you’ve been preaching.
McGrath. I haven’t seen you in church.
Duquesne. I read about them in the papers. You’re getting a lot of publicity.
McGrath. Yes: I let the Communists have it. I haven’t pulled any punches. In such a soft-headed community as this—where they don’t want to admit they’re menaced—I’m bound to attract attention.
Duquesne. Where do you see the menace?
McGrath. Are you one of the softies, too? Don’t you know that the Copperworkers’ Union is Communist from top to bottom?
Duquesne. What’s your evidence for that?
McGrath. Their defiant attitude—the outrageous demands they’re making!
Duquesne. All unions make demands. They don’t have to be Communists for that. Do you object on principle to organized labor?
McGrath. I’ve never known much good to come of it.
Duquesne. They often get better conditions.
McGrath. At the cost of being ruled by the Communists, and they’re made to turn their backs on religion.
Duquesne. A good many of these workers here are Catholics—Italians and Poles and so on. There are two Catholic churches in town, and both, I understand, are well filled.
McGrath. That means that those Polacks and Wops are enslaved to the Catholic Church.
Duquesne. To both Communism and the Catholic Church?
McGrath. You have two conspiracies at work. I think they’ve made a deal with one another. I give the Catholics a blast, too, from time to time.
Duquesne. Of course, you know that the Catholic policy now is to promote more cordial relations with the various Protestant churches.
McGrath. They’re trying to take us over. I believe that the Communists are behind the whole thing. Didn’t Father Leary here come out for the copper-workers in the last strike? Didn’t Khrushchev go to see the Pope?
Duquesne. That was his son-in-law.
McGrath. It’s the same thing.
Duquesne. Look here, Charley: it may be that those elders in Allensburg—impressive, of course, though your sermons are—decided that you sometimes talked a little wildly.
McGrath. That’s always the accusation against a sincere reformer.
Duquesne. Well, people don’t always want such alarming invectives as you’ve been giving them lately. They go to church to be edified and reassured.
McGrath. What I want to do is wake them up.
Duquesne. You want to make them unsure and uncomfortable the way the old preachers did, with their visions of damnation, of being roasted alive for eternity—when ministers like Jonathan Edwards sometimes scared his weaker sinners into suicide.
McGrath. As far as my congregation goes, it’s their indifference that’s suicidal. You can’t temporize with Evil!
Duquesne. But I’m sure there are people like myself who wonder how a minister who calls himself a Christian can spend quite so much of his time preaching hatred and indignation.
McGrath. If you were an honest Christian—
Duquesne. I don’t call myself a Christian at all.
McGrath. Well, if you were one, you’d feel indignation, too. Didn’t Christ himself say—
Duquesne. That he came not to bring peace but a sword. Jesus did have his militant moments; but in general his doctrine was quite distinct from the policy of the more pugnacious Jews who hadn’t yet been beaten by the Romans—that is, so far as it’s possible to tell. We really know very little about him.
McGrath. I suppose that by this time you’re one of those skeptics who claim that He never existed!
Duquesne. Not at all. There’s no real way of proving it, but I think it’s impossible to doubt that there was someone remarkable there—a religious leader of genius—who inspired the Christian legend.
McGrath. Is that what you’re teaching them up there at the college?
Duquesne. What I give them is strictly factual—so far as one can know the facts. I don’t teach them any theology—except as doctrine that people are known to have believed. As for the divinity of Jesus, I let them make up their own minds.
A knock at the door.
McGrath. Yes?
The Servant appears.
McGrath. is it the man to fix the window?
The Servant. No, Doctor. It’s your brother-in-law on the phone.
McGrath. Tell him I’m busy just now.
The Servant. He wants to know if you’re coming out to your sister’s funeral.
McGrath reaches his hand toward the telephone on the desk, then decides not to pick up the receiver.
McGrath. Tell him no. Tell him I’ll call him later.
The Servant leaves.
McGrath (to Duquesne). My sister out in Ohio just died. But I’ve got to stay here and fight it out. And then my drunken brother-in-law. He ruined my sister’s life. He started as an ambulance-chasing lawyer, and now he works in a filling station. If I went out there, I wouldn’t be able to see him without telling him what I think of him. Of course, I’ll have to pay for the funeral—I suppose you think I ought to forgive him.
Duquesne. He’s a very bad lot, is he?
McGrath. He’s godless and graceless and gutless. She deserved to get somebody better.
Duquesne. You were fond of your sister?
McGrath (after a moment’s hesitation). I was fond of her up to the time she married that jerk.—I suppose you’d have me pity and comfort him.
Duquesne. I’ve told you I am not myself a Christian. From my point of view, a bad character is just something that has to be accepted. You can perfectly well not want him around, but when things have gone beyond a certain point, there’s no use in being angry.
McGrath. He’ll turn up here and ask for a handout as soon as he’s got her buried. And I suppose you think I ought to help him. But I gave him handouts enough as long as Edith was living. This is going to be the end.—And then out there they’d have me at a disadvantage. Once they had me away from my base, they could make it look like an accident.
Duquesne. What do you mean? Who do you mean?
McGrath. The people we’ve been talking about. You see that broken window.
Duquesne. What happened?
McGrath. They threw a rock through it last night when I was sitting here in my study.
Duquesne. That doesn’t sound like Communists. It must have been some of these kids. Had you been preaching any sermons against youthful delinquents?
McGrath. Yes: I certainly had. I said that they ought all to be shipped off to Vietnam.
Duquesne. I don’t blame them, though, if they don’t want to be. They don’t believe in the government, they don’t believe in religion. They don’t want to raise a family and live the way what they call the squares live—so they don’t want to learn to do anything, and they don’t see any point in staying in college. They don’t feel they have anything to live for except hopping themselves up with drugs and sex. They’re really dying of boredom. So they make themselves a nuisance for kicks.
McGrath. And fall into the hands of the Communists. The Communists are behind all these demonstrations.
Duquesne. What was it you wanted to talk about?
McGrath. Well, what I wanted to ask you is this. Tell me, Francis—you’re a scholar—(He hesitates a moment)—which of the words of Christ may be taken as really authentic?
Duquesne. Why, from the scholarly point of view, none of them. The Gospels as we have them must have been written long after Jesus’s death. We don’t know what he actually said or how much his words may have been edited.
McGrath. We are told in the Gospels again and again, as well as in the Pauline epistles, that He would come again to judge the world.
Duquesne. It may very well be that he did say that and that he had really come to believe it.
McGrath. That He would sit on the right hand of God and separate the sheep from the goats.
Duquesne. It was a very bad time for the Jews. They had been subjugated over and over. The followers of Jesus must have had to imagine, when they had seen their Messiah crucified, that he would still vindicate their faith in him and appear on the Judgment Day.
McGrath (not paying much attention). In Matthew, it is said that He may come like a thief, that we can never know when He is coming.
Duquesne (smiling). Yes: it says we must be on the watch.
McGrath. “Then two shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.”
Duquesne. Yes: the faithful and wise servant is taken, and the evil servant is left.
McGrath. The evil servant has sinned in eating and drinking with the drunken.
Duquesne. But you may have erred a little on the other count that is mentioned—that of smiting your fellow-servants.
McGrath. What do you mean?
Duquesne. Why, your present attitude toward the Communists and the Catholic priests.
McGrath. The Communists and the Catholic priests are no fellow-servants of mine!
Duquesne. They believe, according to their lights, every bit as much as you do that they’re serving the best interests of humanity.
McGrath. Your indifference, your infidelity have blunted your moral sense. I don’t see how they can trust those young men to your demoralizing tutelage!
Duquesne. Well, a good many people would agree with you. That’s why I’m out here at this little college instead of at one of the big seminaries. This Protestant Irishman who’s President is an out-and-out agnostic who is fully in sympathy with my point of view. He’s like something out of the 18th century.
McGrath. Well, we’re in the 20th now, and we have to fight a form of godlessness that’s more terrible than any Voltaireanism.
Duquesne. Take it easy, Charley: we’re all of us fallible human beings, and we have to get along with one another—even with the Communists and the Catholic priests.
McGrath. I am a Christian; you’re not.
Duquesne. I could never see Calvinism as Christianity. What you are is an old-fashioned Calvinist.
McGrath. My mother’s family in Scotland were Covenanters—in fact, they were straight Cameronians.
Duquesne. And fought the Church of England for all they were worth, and hated the other Presbyterians who accepted the authority of the government. Well, I come from the Calvinist tradition, too; but I developed in the other direction. You remember Admiral Duquesne who played such a role under Louis XIV? He refused to forswear his Calvinist faith when the king offered to make him a marshal, but only on condition that he would repudiate Calvinism. That was my father’s family, and that’s why I went to the Seminary, but I found that I didn’t believe and I didn’t take orders afterwards. In your case, you’ve never departed from the original Calvinist bigo-(Stopping himself from saying “bigotry”), from the inevitable Calvinist intolerance, which had of course its historical justification. In the early days, Protestantism was wildly centrifugal, and it had to be consolidated. That was the mission of Calvin. He organized the Protestants all over Europe, and he did his best to destroy all those who didn’t go along with him. Geneva was the Protestant Kremlin.
McGrath. How can you make such an outrageous statement?!
Duquesne. The Protestants had complained that the Catholic Church didn’t want people to read the Bible, because they feared that its inconsistencies would make them ask embarrassing questions; but Calvin, in his Institutes, completely refashioned the Bible and provided the Protestants with a new sacred text which seemed to be more consistent because everything human had been excluded. The Jesus Christ of Calvin was no longer a loving Savior: he was a part that was needed for the functioning of the new theological machine. Since the gulf between God and man is so great, according to Calvin, that, by man’s own efforts, he will never be able to bridge it, God has found it necessary to send down to earth a part-human divine emissary to make it possible for man to attain to him. Though one wonders why God should have gone to this trouble when the whole situation had been rigged in advance long before God sent down Jesus. He had already made his arrangements about who was to be saved and who damned—and we must never ask the reasons for his choices. So the Christian idea that salvation can be granted to anyone who earns it by repenting and accepting Jesus Christ had, for Calvinism, completely disappeared.
McGrath. You could always talk brilliantly, Francis, but—
Duquesne. Please pardon this lecture, Charley. This habit of expository conversation is an occupational disease, I suppose.
McGrath. You’re more of a scholar than I am, but where does all this scholarship get us? I’m not a theologian—I’m a man of action, and action is what we must have.
Duquesne. But do you understand the principles you act on?—if you’ll forgive my going on in this way. At the Seminary, they softpedaled Calvin. What we read was old Fuzzy Martin’s rather watered-down version of the Institutes. But I looked the original up, and that’s when I ceased to believe. As Protestants, when we lived in France, we had had to brace and stiffen ourselves to hold our own in a Catholic world; but when I came to grow up in America, there was no such pressure to pit oneself against, and I found myself following the development that had led from Luther to the Enlightenment. J’ai brulé les étapes, as we say—I soon became as centrifugal as any early non-Calvinist Protestant. What I’m trying to explain is that you and I are now at opposite poles in representing the different tendencies of Protestantism. You want to lay down the law—I want to reject authority.
McGrath (who has been listening to this with nervous impatience). You want to talk about the past when our whole civilization is menaced. You’re sitting up there at the college playing intellectual games with your students while I’m fighting the battle here alone. Not only do they break my windows, but they write me anonymous letters and make abusive telephone calls. I suspect that this room is bugged. I’m going to have the walls examined when the man comes to fix the window. I know the house is being watched. Did you notice that new boy who works for me?
Duquesne. Not particularly. Why?
A knock.
McGrath. Come in.
The Servant. When do you want lunch, Doctor? It’s almost one.
McGrath (to Duquesne). Will you join me for lunch?
Duquesne (rising). No: I’m sorry—I can’t. I’m lunching with the head of our sociology department to talk about coördinating our courses.
McGrath (to the Servant). You can bring my tray in here. I’ll call you in a few minutes.
The Servant goes.
McGrath. I’m sorry you can’t stay. I wanted you to observe him. Would you say he has a good face or a bad face?
Duquesne. With these beatnik beards they’re wearing, it’s hard to tell.
McGrath. I don’t like the piercing way he looks at me—as if he suspected me of something.
Duquesne. He’s probably a sharp young Jew. They’re likely to look at you like that. They watch me in my classes like hawks to see whether they can catch me out.
McGrath. I don’t trust him.
Duquesne. Where did you get him?
McGrath. He answered an ad of mine. I’d had to let Katy, my Irish girl, go. It’s made things very hard for me lately, because she typed as well as cooked—but she got to be completely impossible. I advertised for a secretary who could get me meals, and this young fellow turned up.
Duquesne. Where does he come from?
McGrath. I haven’t been able to find out. He’s very noncommittal about himself. (Lowering his voice) I suspect very strongly he’s a Communist. A good many of the Communists are Jews.
Duquesne. Have you talked to him? You can usually tell them by the line they take about things.
McGrath. I’ve never talked to a Communist. (Suspiciously) You’ve evidently seen something of them?
Duquesne. When I worked at a settlement house, just after I got out of the Seminary, I used to make a point of seeing them. I even went to their meetings.—Look, Charley: I think you’re upset by this Allensburg disappointment and the death of your sister—and then this broken window. It’s enough to get anybody down.
McGrath. I’m all right, and I’m ready for anything. (He takes a revolver out of a drawer.) I always keep this on hand.
Duquesne (laughing). Well, don’t shoot your servant! They’re hard to get nowadays.
McGrath. I’m sure they’re out to kill me.
Duquesne. If I were you, I’d see a doctor and tell him about everything that’s happened. If he’d send you to a sanitarium, you’d be able to get a rest and you’d be perfectly safe from your enemies.
McGrath. And give up the struggle against Evil? Nay, the gates of Hell shall not prevail against me!
Duquesne. I’ll have to go along now. Could I come back for awhile after lunch?
McGrath. You’re a scoffer!
Duquesne. I’ll promise not to scoff. I’d like to hear more about what you’re doing. This reminds me of the old bull sessions that we used to have at the Seminary. So farewell for the present.
He goes out, leaving the door open.
McGrath (going to the door, calls). All right, Jonathan.
Voices of Boys, outside the window. What’s happened to Katy Nolan? Where’s Katy?
McGrath (going to the window, still with the gun in his hand). Get out of here! I’ve got a gun!
Laughter from outside.
McGrath returns to the desk and, still holding the revolver, sits in thought a moment; then puts the revolver down and picks up the phone and dials a number.
McGrath (in answer to the operator). This is 567-2204.
A moment’s wait. He picks up some papers and covers the revolver with them.
Voice from the telephone. Hello.
McGrath. Hello, Fred—Charley speaking. I’m sorry I can’t come out, but I’m up to my neck in engagements, and it’s really important for me to be here.
Fred’s Voice. We were hoping you’d conduct the service.
McGrath. After all, perhaps I’m not the right person. I’m sending along a check to cover expenses.—How is your job going?
Fred’s Voice. It’s gone.
McGrath. What happened?
Fred’s Voice. It was a wheel I put on came off. It was all my own fault I know. I hadn’t screwed it on hard enough. I just did it with my fingers, and I ought to have used a wrench. I was in such a state of mind about Edie!
McGrath. Was anybody injured?!
Fred’s Voice. Just a few contusions. Nothing that won’t be all right in a couple of months. But they’re going to sue the garage, and Joe says that if they get a verdict, he’s going to make me pay. But, as a lawyer, I know he can’t do it. Actually I’m glad to be rid of that job. I never could get along with Joe: he was always jumping me for something.
McGrath (who has been fooling with a paper-knife and otherwise showing signs of impatience). Well, what are you going to do now?
Fred’s Voice. I don’t know. I’ve talked to Ed Ferriss about getting a job in the post office, but—
McGrath. Now, I tell you: you have the funeral parlor send the bill to me, and I’ll send you something to tide you over.
Fred’s Voice. That’s very kind of you, Charley. I—
McGrath. All right. I’ll have to hang up. There’s somebody waiting to see me. Sorry I can’t get out there. Goodbye.
He hangs up and stares angrily at the desk.
Jonathan comes in with the lunch tray.
McGrath. Put it here on the desk. (He clears a place, pushing the gun away under the papers.)
Jonathan. That soup may taste a little funny. I don’t know much about cooking, and I’ve been studying a recipe book. I tried to make a soup that has curry in it.
McGrath. I’ve told you that I like plain food.
Jonathan. Taste it and see if it’s all right.
McGrath (looks down at the soup but does not taste it). Tell me something about yourself. You’re Jewish, aren’t you?
Jonathan. Yes.
McGrath. An Orthodox Jew?
Jonathan. No, Doctor.
McGrath. Because I don’t want to order ham or pork if you’re not going to be able to eat it.
Jonathan. I don’t take the Mosaic prohibition as strictly binding any more, but it’s hard to break a habit. Don’t deny yourself on my account, though. I can always eat bread and vegetables.
McGrath. You don’t belong to a Reformed congregation?
Jonathan. No, Doctor.
McGrath. You’re not by any chance a Christian convert?
Jonathan. Not exactly: no.
McGrath. But you do have some knowledge of Christian ideals.
Jonathan. I’ve given the subject some attention.
McGrath. My friend who was here just now was telling me my sermons were un-Christian because I’m preaching war on the Communists. Does that seem to you un-Christian?
Jonathan. Well, the early Christians were Communists.
McGrath. That was quite a different thing. It was the holding of goods in common that one finds in a monastic order. The Communism of our time is an infamous plot to deprive people of their property and turn them against religion. What can we do except exterminate them like vermin?
Jonathan. Did your friend think we ought to love our enemies the way that Jesus says?
McGrath. Christ follows that up by saying, “Do good to them that hate you.” Aren’t we doing the Communists good by preventing them from doing harm?
Jonathan. Would you say it was doing people good to drop bombs on them and burn them alive?
McGrath. When it’s a question of stopping something evil, the more effective the weapons, the better.
Jonathan. Have you heard about the non-violent resistance movement?
McGrath. Rubbish! What would non-violence mean in a practical crisis such as ours in Vietnam,? Abandoning the bulwarks we’ve built against the tide that’s been mounting to flood the world!
Jonathan. Even under Communist domination, the Christian could always say, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”
McGrath. You seem to know the Scriptures pretty well for a Jew.—Have you ever had Communist affiliations?
Jonathan. I was too young in the 30’s to go through the Communist phase.
McGrath. You’ve taken part in these demonstrations?
Jonathan. A few.
McGrath. That’s all the work of the Communists.
Jonathan. Not these nowadays. They always try to infiltrate any movement of protest, but at present they don’t count for much. They’re not strong enough to capture any movement. I don’t think we’ve got anything to fear like Eastern Europe or Russia.
McGrath. Were you born in Russia?
Jonathan. No: I was born in Bethlehem. (McGrath looks up, startled; then down at the desk, embarrassed.) Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. But we left there when I was very young.
McGrath. Where did you grow up?
Jonathan. In Brooklyn, where my father had a small furniture factory.
McGrath (still looking down). Did you have the usual Jewish education?
Jonathan. Yes: I went to the yeshiva, if that’s what you mean. I was a prize yeshiva bokher. (He smiles.) I used to dispute with the rabbis. I even wanted to be a rabbi myself.
McGrath (looking up). What stopped you?
Jonathan. I had the curiosity to read up on the literature of Jesus, and I came to the conclusion that Jesus was the greatest of the Jewish prophets—the fullest expression of the will of our God. The later prophets had been leading up to him and Hillel, the great rabbi, had prepared the way. They were finding that our God was a God of love.
McGrath. And that makes me a bad Christian if my God says, “Vengeance is mine”?
Jonathan (with a Jewish gesture of outflung hands). I am your judge?
McGrath drops his eyes and for a moment is silent.
McGrath. You act as if you were.
Jonathan. Excuse me. There’s the telephone.
He goes out.
McGrath takes up a spoonful of soup, then puts it down again.
McGrath (muttering to himself). He said it might taste rather queer. I have to be careful nowadays.
Jonathan reappears.
Jonathan. It’s Deacon Fairchild. He says it’s urgent.
McGrath picks up the phone; Jonathan goes.
McGrath. Yes, Deacon.
Voice of Fairchild. There’ve been vandals in the church.
McGrath. What? What did they do?
Voice of Fairchild. They broke into the church and did quite a lot of damage. They threw the chairs down from the choir-loft and daubed obscene words in green paint, and they’ve torn your gown to shreds.
McGrath. The Devil is loose among us! I’ll come over as soon as I can. You notify the police.
He puts the receiver down, sits terrifiedly staring a moment, then gets up and goes to the door.
McGrath (calling). Jonathan!
Jonathan appears.
McGrath. Did you take those new hymnals to the church?
Jonathan. Yes, Doctor. Last night.
McGrath. Did you notice anything wrong?
Jonathan. No, Doctor. I put them in the racks and piled the old ones up in the vestry.
McGrath. The church has been vandalized.
Jonathan. It must be that River Street gang. They’ve evidently got it in for you, Doctor.
McGrath. Did you get that green paint for the door?
Jonathan. Yes: I painted part of it this afternoon, and I’ll finish it in the morning.
McGrath. Is the pail in the house?
Jonathan. Yes.
McGrath. It’s the work of the Devil, like everything else!
Jonathan. A possible explanation, Doctor, is that Katy Dolan, who worked for you before, has a young brother who lives down there, and he seems to have a grudge against you.
McGrath. A possible explanation is that you’ve come to make trouble for me! What are you, I’d like to know. Who are you?
Jonathan. I told you just now, Doctor.
McGrath. You’ve told me that you were born in Bethlehem and that your father was a carpenter and that, as a boy, you disputed with the rabbis. You want me to think that you’re Jesus Christ, and that you’ve come to reproach me, to judge me. Actually, you’re a Communist agent!
Jonathan. I’ve told you I’m not a Communist.
McGrath. And you told me the Apostles were Communists.
Jonathan. I’m simply here as your servant.
McGrath. The suffering Servant, eh?
Jonathan (with a Jewish gesture). I will be if you talk like that, Doctor.
McGrath. You’re trying to frighten me with your false divinity, your mouthing of texts, your pretended humility! But I’m able to defend myself! (He picks up the revolver from the desk and threatens Jonathan with it.) Confess that you’ve come here to terrorize me, to hound me out of my pulpit. A devil in the guise of our Savior! You’ve been spying on me and you’re trying to blackmail me—getting scandal from Katy’s brother. You want to give me a bad conscience. Well, the moment has come to end this! Any jury in the world would acquit me!
Jonathan moves backwards to the blank left wall and stretches out his arms in the pose of the Crucified, closing his eyes and dropping his head.
McGrath stands staring and speechless. A long moment of silence; then he drops the hand with the gun.
McGrath (in a frightened voice). Is it really thou—Savior?
Jonathan lifts his head and looks upon McGrath with great compassion and sadness.
McGrath. Thou hast really come again! How base and unworthy I am to have stood in Thy divine presence and not to have recognized Thee! (He puts down the revolver on the desk and comes forward and falls to his knees.) Thou accusest me. I know I have sinned. (Jonathan assumes a sterner look.) Can anyone since Thou camest to redeem us ever have sinned more grievously than I? God gave me authority, eloquence, a magnetic personality—strength and courage to fight against Evil. I had everything, I thought in my pride, to make a great preacher and a consecrated servant of God. But God, who had seen my sin, has known well, in His infinite wisdom, that I should never be able to expiate it and has condemned me to remain forever in this unawakened second-rate town. I have been punished by being made to preach to these petty and darkened souls who do not merely not hear me, they hate me. I am punished, Master, for that which Thou knowest, since I doubt not Thou knowest all things—for the sins of the flesh, for impurity—for the impurity of incestuous relations, which is a double abomination in Thy sight. Hardly can I hope for forgiveness in pleading that we were young people, my sister and I, alone in the country with our parents on a poor isolated farm; that we had only one another for companions, that in childhood we had slept in the same room, that it was natural for us as children, when it got to be too cold in winter, to snuggle up together in the same bed; and that this later led to what Thou knowest. I won a scholarship—for I showed early promise—went East to the Seminary. I left her pregnant, though she never let me know it. She married a good-for-nothing, and the child was lost. When I went home and found what had happened, I never wanted to see her again. I thought about her sometimes with anguish—driving miles to a beauty parlor to try to make herself attractive for the miserable wretch she had married; but I labored and prayed and wrestled to turn myself into a force for good. Was all my labor wasted? Can I hope for no pity and forgiveness? I have never been able to believe in the strict doctrine of Calvin’s Institutes: that God has condemned us from birth. Thou didst come into the world to redeem us, and I have tried to earn my redemption. I have struggled all my life with the flesh, and I have been on the whole successful—though, I own it with remorse, some lapses. This poor girl Katy—the Tempter led me astray.
Duquesne has appeared at the door and stands listening.
McGrath. I could not marry such a girl—and she, of course, a Catholic—it would have hurt my prestige as a preacher—I could hardly have taken her to Allensburg—and I had to put her away to protect myself and her from my passion. Though I gave her a high recommendation in the hope that she would find work elsewhere, I fear her reputation has suffered, and I have earned the bitter indignities to which I am now subjected. Oh, Jesus, take pity upon my contrition. Let me meet my sister Edith in the other world—let me atone for what I have done!
Duquesne comes forward from the doorway; McGrath looks around amazed. Duquesne puts his hand on his shoulder.
Duquesne. Look, Charley: I’m sorry to intrude on your devotions, but I think that I ought to tell you you’re laboring under a misapprehension. This boy is not Jesus Christ: he’s a sociology major from the college. I’ve just had lunch with our sociology man, and he told me all about him. He took this job here with you as an assignment of sociological field work.
McGrath looks up at him dazed. Jonathan has dropped his arms.
Duquesne. You’d better get up, old man. I’ve brought the doctor from the college, and I think that you ought to see him.
McGrath (rising to his feet). What can a doctor do for me now?
Duquesne. He can give you a tranquillizer and perhaps relieve your mind.
Duquesne takes his arm and leads him out.
Jonathan flexes his arms, then picks up the revolver and puts it in his pocket.
Duquesne comes back into the room.
Jonathan. That was a tough one.
Duquesne. I could see.
Jonathan. I’m sorry I had to hear his confession, but he was on the point of shooting me.—Here, you better take this gun. (He hands Duquesne the revolver.) He imagined I was a Communist pretending to be Jesus, so I thought I could only save my life by pretending that I actually was. The whole thing was very embarrassing, and it’s hard to keep in that position—as if you were nailed up—without moving a muscle.
Duquesne. AS a student of sociology, what conclusions did you come to about the Doctor?
Jonathan. I don’t think he’s difficult to analyze. From the psychological point of view, he’s got a long-standing neurosis—a tie-up with this sister who just died. Now he always has to repudiate his women the way he did her. That’s what happened with this maid he just dismissed. From the economic standpoint, he’s terrified that the Communists will take over the country and that he won’t have any more job. I tried to reassure him about that, but he’s too paranoiac now to be reassured. In the strictly sociological connection, he wants somebody to do everything for him here—to do cooking and housework and secretarial work for fifty dollars a week. That probably shows the clergy are underpaid.
But I really feel sorry for him. He’s had to spend his whole life pretending. A Jew has to do a certain amount of pretending, but usually not on that scale. It’s been hard enough for me this week to pretend to be a butler—and then pretend to be Jesus!
McGrath comes back from the other room.
Duquesne. Did he give you a tranquillizer?
McGrath. Yes.—I want to do some private phoning.
Duquesne. All right: we’ll leave you alone.
They go out.
McGrath dials and gives his number.
A Carpenter appears at the door.
The Carpenter. IS it all right to work on the window?
McGrath. Go on. You won’t disturb me. (To the telephone, with difficulty controlling his voice.) Hello, Fred. I’ve decided to come out, after all, but I can’t perform the service. This whole thing has very much—broken me up. Yes: I’m getting a reservation for tomorrow morning. You don’t need to meet me.
He hangs up.
McGrath (to the carpenter, who has been taking out the broken panes and measuring the window frame). I was afraid you weren’t coming today. It’s important to get it repaired.
The Carpenter. I’ll have to get a pane the right size.
McGrath. Can’t you finish it up tonight?
The Carpenter. It’ll take a little time.
McGrath. Well, get it done as soon as you can. It’s uncomfortable to have that cold air coming in.
The Carpenter. It’s a little bit late for today. But I’ll try to do it sometime tomorrow.
McGrath. All right. Please see that you do.
The Carpenter goes out with his tools.
McGrath picks up the Bible and opens it, as if he were looking for a text; then puts it down and sinks on the desk, his shoulders shaking with sobs and his hands clasping his head.
McGrath. Oh, Edie, I thought you’d be so proud of me!
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