The Miracle Worker: Act II

[HELEN is enough interested in and puzzled by this spelling that she proffers her hand again, so ANNIE spells and impassively dunks it back in the spillage.] Ink. It has a name.

[HELEN is enough interested in and puzzled by this spelling that she proffers her hand again, so ANNIE spells and impassively dunks it back in the spillage.] Ink. It has a name.

Then with vengeful resolve she seizes her doll and is about to dash its brains out on the floor when ANNIE, diving, catches it in one hand, which she at once shakes with hopping pain but otherwise ignores, patiently.

ANNIE manages to achieve self-control. She picks up a fragment or two of the pitcher, sees HELEN is puzzling over the card, and resolutely kneels to demonstrate it again.

ANNIE. Any baby. Gibberish, grown-up gibberish, baby-talk gibberish, do they understand one word of it to start? Somehow they begin to. If they hear it. I’m letting Helen hear it.

ANNIE [Indignantly]. Why does she get a reward? For stabbing me?

KATE. Well—[Then, tiredly] We catch our flies with honey, I’m afraid. We haven’t the heart for much else, and so many times she simply cannot be compelled.

“The, more, I, think, the, more, certain, I, am, that, obedience, is, the, gateway, through, which, knowledge, enters, the, mind, of, the, child—”

Then HELEN comes groping with soiled hands past her own plate, to ANNIE’S; her hand goes to it, and ANNIE, who has been waiting, deliberately lifts and removes her hand.

HELEN thrusts her hands again, ANNIE catches them, and HELEN begins to flail and make noises; the interruption brings KELLER’S gaze upon them.

KATE. Miss Annie. You see, she’s accustomed to helping herself from our plates to anything she—
ANNIE [Evenly]. Yes, but I’m not accustomed to it.

[Silence for a moment, except for HELEN’S noises as she struggles to get loose; the KELLERS are a bit nonplussed, and ANNIE is too darkly intent on HELEN’S manners to have any thoughts now of her own.]

[HELEN bangs her toe on the chair and sinks to the floor, crying with rage and feigned injury; ANNIE keeps hold of her wrists, gazing down, while KATE rises.]

For this tyrant? The whole house turns on her whims. Is there anything she wants she doesn’t get? I’ll tell you what I pity, that the sun won’t rise and set for her all her life, and every day you’re telling her it will.

ANNIE comes over to his door in turn, removing her glasses grimly; as KELLER outside begins speaking, ANNIE closes the door on JAMES, locks it, removes the key, and turns with her back against the door to stare ominously at HELEN, kicking on the floor.

KELLER. This girl, this—cub of a girl—presumes! I tell you, I’m of half a mind to ship her back to Boston before the week is out.

ANNIE, retrieving her plate, takes up a forkful of food, stops it halfway to her mouth, gazes at it devoid of appetite, and half lowers it; but after a look at HELEN she sighs, dips the forkful toward HELEN in a for-your-sake toast, and puts it in her own mouth to chew, not without an effort.

ANNIE rises, crosses, takes her wrists, draws her resisting back to the table, seats her, and releases her hands upon her plate; as ANNIE herself begins to sit, HELEN writhes out of her chair, runs to the front door, and tugs and kicks at it.

HELEN scrambles out, but as she passes, ANNIE catches her up again from behind and deposits her in the chair; HELEN scrambles out on the other side, for the rear door, but ANNIE, at her heels, catches her up and deposits her again in the chair.

Then she tentatively puts out her left foot and hand, ANNIE interposes her own hand, and at the contact HELEN jerks hers in.

Finally, leaning back, she slumps down in her chair, in a sullen biding.

HELEN’S hand comes out to explore, and seeing it, ANNIE sits without moving; the child’s hand goes over her hand and fork, pauses—ANNIE still does not move—and withdraws. Presently it moves for her own plate, slaps about for it, and stops, thwarted.

After a glower of indecision, she holds the empty plate out for more.

ANNIE waits a stolid moment, then lowers HELEN’S hand.

ANNIE, with HELEN’S hand, takes up another spoonful and shoves it into her open mouth. HELEN swallows involuntarily, and while she is catching her breath ANNIE forces her palm open, throws four swift letters into it, then another four, and bows toward her with devastating pleasantness.

[ANNIE lifts HELEN’S hand to feel her face nodding; HELEN grabs a fistful of her hair, and yanks. The pain brings ANNIE to her knees, and HELEN pummels her; they roll under the table, and the lights commence to dim out on them.]

[But KATE is moveless, until VINEY starts to take the baby; KATE looks down at her before relinquishing her.]

KATE, taking in HELEN’S ravaged state, becomes steely in her gaze up at ANNIE.

And still erect, with only her head in surrender, KATE for the first time that we see loses her protracted war with grief; but she will not let a sound escape her, only the grimace of tears comes, and sobs that shake her in a grip of silence.

Can nothing be done to disinter this human soul?

The whole neighborhood would rush to save this woman if she were buried alive by the caving in of a pit, and labor with zeal until she were dug out.

From the moment she stepped off the train she’s been nothing but a burden, incompetent, impertinent, ineffectual, immodest—

KATE. Not ineffectual. Helen did fold her napkin.
KELLER. What in heaven’s name is so extraordinary about folding a napkin?
KATE [With some humor]. Well. It’s more than you did, Captain.

I think perhaps you—underestimate Helen.

ANNIE. Everything. The food she eats, the clothes she wears, fresh—[She is amused at herself, though very serious.]—air, yes, the air she breathes, whatever her body needs is a—primer, to teach her out of. It’s the only way, the one who lets her have it should be her teacher.

[She considers them in turn; they digest it, KELLER frowning, KATE perplexed.]

[But when ANNIE attends him he is speechless, and she is merely earnest.]

KATE [Closes her eyes]. Oh, my dear—
ANNIE. —the graves. [She is immune to KATE’S compassion.] No, it made me strong. But I don’t think you need send Helen there. She’s strong enough.

ANNIE. Two weeks. For only one miracle? [She nods at him, nervously.] I’ll get her to tolerate me.

ANNIE stands as the door closes behind her, her manner so apprehensive that finally she slaps her brow, holds it, sighs, and, with her eyes closed, crosses herself for luck.

ANNIE now drags the box of toys into center, props up the doll conspicuously on top; with the people melted away, except for JAMES, all is again still.

HELEN stumbles over the box on the floor and in it discovers her doll and other battered toys, is pleased, sits to them, then becomes puzzled and suddenly very wary.

HELEN recoils, gropes, and touches her cheek instantly.

HELEN kicks her, breaks free, and careens around the room like an imprisoned bird, colliding with furniture, groping wildly, repeatedly touching her cheek in a growing panic.

ANNIE moves to comfort her, but her touch sends HELEN into a paroxysm of rage...

...she tears away, falls over her box of toys, flings its contents in handfuls in ANNIE’S direction, flings the box too, reels to her feet, rips curtains from the window, bangs and kicks at the door, sweeps objects off the mantelpiece and shelf, a little tornado incarnate, all destruction, until she comes upon her doll and, in the act of hurling it, freezes.

[She comes to HELEN, prone on the floor.]

[PERCY’S voice comes in a thick sleepy mumble, unintelligible.]

[HELEN’S hand waits, intractably waits.]

She is rather happy and dangles the doll on her knee, and it makes its momma sound. ANNIE whispers to it in mock solicitude.