46
PARTISAN REVIEW
booming came on the blue and white air, and you were there, and
· nothing else. I forgot all else and lived my life, gathered myself into
a moment, jumped on the truck without a by-your-leave, came to you,
to give myself.
DRUM-MAN. That
is
good.
MARTHA. Do you care?
DRUM-MAN. Yes, I'm glad. I like your love. I like the way you
dropped your life to follow my drum. Boom boom boom. It makes
me know I'm tall as a river and blond as the sun. It makes me feel
that my eyes are blue and white. I'm glad I'm that. 0 ·boom boom
boom.
MARTHA. It's a matter of courage, you don't seem to realize.
I left my life where there was always a same tomorrow, left it for a
doubtful today. With a bird in me singing and my thighs demanding
with your boom boom boom.
DRUM-MAN. I don't understand your courage. I live my iife
and the living comes, the loving comes. I take it when
it
comes. It
doesn't really matter. When it's within the reach of my hand I seize
it strongly like the current takes a reed. Hold it close. Live my love.
Beat my drum. It's a man's life, man's.
MARTHA. But I love you, I love you, I love you, aren't you
glad?
DRUM-MAN. Yes I'm glad.
THE TRAMP. I don't understand your courage either. When
life
is
about and love is there my living grows and it makes me strong.
When people breathe the morning sun I breathe it too and it makes
us glad.
If
they forget the sun at noon or watch
it
die with a swal–
lowed regret, I still follow it still as long as there is day.
MARTHA. You might as well stop drumming, the booming
is
within me, the blue-white boom, the morning boom. It booms for
you, for you, for you. Don't you love me too, don't you want me,
don't you?
DRUM-MAN. I suppose I will. You're one of the people, I've
seen you all live, you seem to be afraid to live, afraid to love, all of
you, afraid to stand and beat a drum, lazily alertly in the sun.
MARTHA. I was afraid when I felt the love, the bird in my
throat, the beating in my belly and my breasts and thighs. I was afraid
when I ran to the truck (under their eyes) , afraid as I jumped (that
your eyes wouldn't care), I felt my bones melt into a stagnant pool
on a summer day, the frog in my ear.
TRAMP. Once I saw a woman afraid. She was crying because
her lover had gone away, I couldn't understand. Then the wind
changed and I floated off.
