Long Day's Journey into Night (Yale Nota Bene) by Eugene O'Neill, Harold Bloom

honor!
    Then with a sad bitterness.
    But I suppose you’re remembering I’ve promised before on my word of honor.
EDMUND
    No!
MARY
    Her bitterness receding into a resigned helplessness.
    I’m not blaming you, dear. How can you help it? How can any one of us forget?
    Strangely.
    That’s what makes it so hard—for all of us. We can’t forget.
EDMUND
    Grabs her shoulder.
    Mama! Stop it!
MARY
    Forcing a smile.
    All right, dear. I didn’t mean to be so gloomy. Don’t mind me. Here. Let me feel your head. Why, it’s nice and cool. You certainly haven’t any fever now.
EDMUND
    Forget! It’s you—
MARY
    But I’m quite all right, dear.
    With a quick, strange, calculating, almost sly glance at him.
    Except I naturally feel tired and nervous this morning, after such a bad night. I really ought to go upstairs and lie down until lunch time and take a nap.
    He gives her an instinctive look of suspicion—then, ashamed of himself, looks quickly away. She hurries on nervously.
    What are you going to do? Read here? It would be much better for you to go out in the fresh air and sunshine. But don’t get overheated, remember. Be sure and wear a hat.
    She stops, looking straight at him now. He avoids her eyes. There is a tense pause. Then she speaks jeeringly.
    Or are you afraid to trust me alone?
EDMUND
    Tormentedly.
    No! Can’t you stop talking like that! I think you ought to take a nap.
    He goes to the screen door—forcing a joking tone.
    I’ll go down and help Jamie bear up. I love to lie in the shade and watch him work.
    He forces a laugh in which she makes herself join. Then he goes out on the porch and disappears down the steps. Her first reaction is one of relief. She appears to relax. She sinks down in one of the wicker armchairs at rear of table and leans her head back, closing her eyes. But suddenly she grows terribly tense again. Her eyes open and she strains forward, seized by a fit of nervous panic. She begins a desperate battle with herself. Her long fingers, warped and knotted by rheumatism, drum on the arms of the chair, driven by an insistent life of their own, without her consent.
CURTAIN

Act Two, Scene One
     
    SCENE
    The same. It is around quarter to one. No sunlight comes into the room now through the windows at right. Outside the day is still fine but increasingly sultry, with a faint haziness in the air which softens the glare of the sun.
    Edmund sits in the armchair at left of table, reading a book. Or rather he is trying to concentrate on it but cannot. He seems to be listening for some sound from upstairs. His manner is nervously apprehensive and he looks more sickly than in the previous act.
    The second girl, CATHLEEN , enters from the back parlor. She carries a tray on which is a bottle of bonded Bourbon, several whiskey glasses, and a pitcher of ice water. She is a buxom Irish peasant, in her early twenties, with a red-cheeked comely face, black hair and blue eyes—amiable, ignorant, clumsy, and possessed by a dense, well-meaning stupidity. She puts the tray on the table. Edmund pretends to be so absorbed in his book he does not notice her, but she ignores this.
CATHLEEN
    With garrulous familiarity.
    Here’s the whiskey. It’ll be lunch time soon. Will I call your father and Mister Jamie, or will you?
EDMUND
    Without looking up from his book.
    You do it.
CATHLEEN
    It’s a wonder your father wouldn’t look at his watch once in a while. He’s a divil for making the meals late, and then Bridget curses me as if I was to blame. But he’s a grand handsome man, if he is old. You’ll never see the day you’re as good looking—nor Mister Jamie, either.
    She chuckles.
    I’ll wager Mister Jamie wouldn’t miss the time to stop work and have his drop of whiskey if he had a watch to his name!
EDMUND
    Gives up trying to ignore her and grins.
    You win that one.
CATHLEEN
    And here’s another I’d win, that you’re making me call them so you can sneak a drink before they come.
EDMUND
    Well, I hadn’t