Jonathan Ned Katz: "Comrades and Lovers," Act I, Part II

Continued from: Jonathan Ned Katz: "Comrades and Lovers," Act I

LIGHTS UP ON WHITMAN.

TITLE: 7 Walt Whitman, "Alone I had thought"

AS WHITMAN SPEAKS HE IS JOINED, ONE BY ONE, BY A GROUP OF YOUNG MEN. WHITMAN AND THE SPEAKERS ADDRESS EACH OTHER

WHITMAN:

Alone I had thought --

yet soon a silent troop gathers around me,

SPEAKER 1:

Some walk by my side, and some behind,

SPEAKER 2:

and some embrace my arms or neck,

WHITMAN:

They, the spirits of friends, dead or alive -- thicker they come, a great crowd, and I in the middle,

SPEAKER 3:

Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,

WHITMAN:

Plucking something for tokens -- something for these, till I hit upon a name -- tossing toward whoever is near me,

SPEAKER 4:

Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,

SPEAKER 1:

Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pulled off a live-oak in Florida, as it hung trailing down,

SPEAKER 2:

Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,

SPEAKER 3:

And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pond-side,

WHITMAN:

(0 here I last saw him that tenderly loves me -and returns again, never to separate from me, And this, 0 this shall henceforth be the token of comrades -- this calamus-root shall, Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)

WHITMAN GIVES CALAMUS-ROOT TO SYMONDS, WHO TAKES IT GLADLY, HOLDING IT UP TO AUDIENCE

SCENE TITLE: 8 John Addington Symonds: "I am taking with me to London"

SYMONDS ADDRESSES AUDIENCE, HIS CONFIDANT, WITH URGENCY, ON THE TRAIL OF CALAMUS

SYMONDS:

I am taking with me to London

an introduction

to the American Unitarian clergyman, Moncure Conway,

whose biography of Whitman appeared in the Fortnightly.

From Conway I hope to learn

something more

about the innovator.

I shall not omit

to ask Conway questions

about the substance

of Whitman's Calamus poems

with a view to hearing

what a nest for it

there is in America.

TIME PASSES, HE REFOCUSES; MOOD/LIGHTING CHANGE

I saw Conway.

I could not get him

to say anything explicit about Calamus.

This means that Calamus

is really very important

and Conway refuses

to talk it over with a stranger.

He cannot be oblivious

of its plainer meanings.

If I see Conway again

I shall consult him further

about certain Whitman poems.

FRED VAUGHAN STEPS FORWARD, HIS WORKING CLASS DEMEANOR AND SPEECH CONTRAST WITH SYMONDS' ARISTOCRATIC ENGLISH

SCENE TITLE: 9 Fred Vaughan, "To form the acquaintance"

VAUGHAN:

TO WHITMAN

To form the acquaintance

of any Boston stage man,

get on one of those stages

running to Charleston Bridge, or Chelsea Ferry.

Introduce yourself as my friend.

By the way, Walt,

what do you think of the Common?

You tell me Mr. Emerson came to see you.

I heard him lecture on Friday last.

Though much pleased with the subject,

I did not at all like his strained delivery.

But Walt,

when I thought

how a few days before

he had been so attentive to you,

my heart warmed toward him very much.

I think he has that in him

which makes men

capable of strong friendships.

This theme he touched on,

and said that

a man whose heart was filled with Friendship,

warm, ever-enduring,

not-to-be-shaken-by-anything,

was one to be set on one side

apart from other men.

VAUGHAN AND WHITMAN FORM A TABLEAU REPRESENTING SINCERE FRIENDS

There, Walt,

what do you think of them

setting up you and myself

and one or two others that we know

in some public place,

HE LOOKS AROUND THE STAGE AREA

with a large placard on our breasts:

VAUGHAN HOLDS UP A PLACARD WITH AN ORNATE SIGN: "SINCERE FRIENDS"

Good doctrine that.

WHITMAN MOVES AWAY FROM VAUGHAN TO INSPECT HIS PROOF SHEETS, AND TO DISTANCE HIMSELF FROM VAUGHAN'S INTENSE NEED

I am glad, Walt,

you are succeeding so well with your book.

Send me some of the first proof sheets.

WHITMAN RESPONDS NEGATIVELY TO VAUGHAN'S DEMAND

WHITMAN:

TO VAUGHAN

Are you the new person drawn toward me?

To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose.

VAUGHAN:

How is this, Walt?

I have written to you twice since I heard from you.

WHITMAN:

Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?

Do you think it is so easy to have me become your lover?

VAUGHAN:

What the devil is the matter?

Nothing serious I hope.

WHITMAN:

Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloyed satisfaction?

VAUGHAN:

I cannot succeed

in hearing one word from you.

WHITMAN:

Do you think I am trusty and faithful?

VAUGHAN:

I swear

I would have thought

you to be the last man in the world to neglect me.

WHITMAN:

Do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?

VAUGHAN:

I was very much pleased to hear from you.

WHITMAN:

Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?

VAUGHAN:

I want to see you, Walt,

very much indeed.

WHITMAN:

Have you no thought 0 dreamer that it may be all maya, illusion?

VAUGHAN:

I have never thought

more frequently about you.

WHITMAN:

o the next step may precipitate you!

VAUGHAN:

Call and see me

as soon as you arrive in New York,

I have much,

very much

to talk to you about.

WHITMAN:

o let some past deceived one hiss in your ears, how many have prest on the same as you are pressing now,

How many have fondly supposed what you are supposing now only to be disappointed.

VAUGHAN:

TIME PASSES, HE REFOCUSES; LIGHTING/MOOD CHANGE

Walt,

I am to be married tomorrow,

at 213 West 43rd street.

I have invited no company.

I want you to be there.

Do not fail, please,

I am very anxious you should come.

FOUR YEARS PASS, HE REFOCUSES; LIGHTING/MOOD CHANGE

Walt,

my life has turned out

a poor miserable failure.

I have not been honest to myself,

my family,

nor my friends.

I have written to you, Walt,

at least once a week

for the last four years.

Sometimes I write long letters,

sometimes short ones.

I often keep them months

before I destroy them.

There is never a day passes

but what I think of you.

My love my Walt

is with you always.

WHITMAN TURNS FROM VAUGHAN TO A PASSING STRANGER. SCENE TITLE: 10 Walt Whitman, "Passing Stranger!"

WHITMAN:

Passing stranger! You do not know how longingly I look upon you,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass -- you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return;

I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,

I am to wait -- I do not doubt I am to meet you again,

I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

LIGHT ON EACH MAN AS HE INTRODUCES HIMSELF TO WHITMAN

SPENCER:

Daniel Spencer

WHITMAN:

told me

he had never been in a fight --

SPENCER:

do not drink at all --

gone in Second New York Light Artillery,

deserted, returned to it.

WHITMAN:

Slept with me.

WILSON:

David Wilson, about 19.

WHITMAN:

walking up from Middaugh Street --

WILSON:

work in blacksmith shop in Navy Yard --

live in Hampden Street

WHITMAN:

walks together

Sunday afternoon

and night.

Slept with me.

OSTRANDER:

Horace Ostrander from Otsego County

60 miles west of Albany,

twenty-eight years of age.

About 1855

went on voyage to Liverpool--

my experiences as a green hand.

WHITMAN:

Slept with him.

TAYLOR:

Jerry Taylor, from New Jersey, Second Regiment.

WHITMAN:

Slept with me last night.

Weather soft,

cool enough,

warm enough,

heavenly.

BLACKOUT. SOUND OF DRUMS, BUGLES, MARTIAL MUSIC; PERHAPS A FEW SHOTS IN DISTANCE

TITLE: 11 Walt Whitman, Thomas Sawyer, Lewis K. Brown, Douglass Fox, "Began my visits"

LIGHTS UP ON WHITMAN. IN BACKGROUND, PERHAPS PROJECTIONS OF CIVIL WAR PHOTOS

WHITMAN:

Began my visits

among the Army hospitals.

On the banks of the Potomac,

a large brick mansion,

the Lacy House,

used as a hospital,

only the worst cases.

A man with his mouth blown out.

Outdoors,

in front,

several dead bodies

each covered with a brown woolen blanket,

this war's regulation shroud.

Nearby,

at the foot of a tree,

a heap

of amputated feet,

legs,

arms,

pieces of men,

cut,

bloody,

black and blue,

swelled and stinking,

a load for a one-horse cart.

In the garden, rear,

a row of graves,

a very long row of graves.

LIGHTING/MOOD CHANGE; WHITMAN, BANTERINGLY, TO AUDIENCE AS HIS SOPHISTICATED, NEW YORK LITERARY MEN-FRIENDS

Have been on the battle-field among the wounded --

GOES TO MISSISSIPPI CAPTAIN

struck up a tremendous friends

with a young Mississippi captain (about 19)

that we took prisoner

badly wounded

at Fredericksburgh.

He is in the hospital here,

met him first in the Lacy House,

his leg just cut off.

Poor boy,

he has suffered a great deal

has eyes bright as a hawk,

face pale --

our affection is quite an affair,

quite romantic

TO YOUTH, WHO PUTS HIS ARM AROUND WHITMAN'S NECK, DRAWS HIS FACE DOWN TO KISS HIM

sometimes

when I lean over to say I am going,

he puts his arm round my neck,

draws my face down,

WHITMAN LOOKS UP; TO NEW YORK FRIENDS

quite a scene

for the New Bowery Theater.

SERIOUSLY; LIGHTING/MOOD CHANGE

I find the sick and dying soldiers cling to me --

These thousands

of badly wounded young men,

pallid with diarrhea,

dying with pneumonia,

open deeper mines in me than any yet.

I sometimes fancy myself with typhoid,

or under the knife,

tried by terrible tests,

the living soul's,

the body's tragedies,

bursting the petty bonds of art.

Compared to such scenes

what are your dramas

and poems,

even the tearfulest?

WHITMAN, SAWYER, AND BROWN MOVE TO AND AWAY FROM EACH OTHER IN A TRIANGULAR DANCE OF ATTRACTION AND RETREAT. LIGHTS UP ON SAWYER, WHO INTRODUCE.S HIMSELF TO WHITMAN

SAWYER:

Thomas Sawyer.

LIGHTS UP ON BROWN, WHO INTRODUCES HIMSELF TO WHITMAN

BROWN:

Lewis K. Brown.

SAWYER:

TO BROWN

Give Walter Whitman my love and best wishes for ever;

tell him I have got

that little Book witch he gave me,

and I shall always keep it

for old acquaintance sake.

WHITMAN:

TO SAWYER

Tom,

I was at Armory Hospital last evening,

saw Lewy Brown,

WHITMAN SMILES AT BROWN; GOES TO HIM

sat with him a good while.

Lew is so good,

so affectionate --

when I came away,

he reached up his face,

I put my arm around him,

and we gave each other a long kiss,

half a minute long.

BROWN REACHES UP HIS FACE TO WHITMAN WHO PUTS HIS ARMS AROUND THE SOLDIER; THEN WHITMAN TURNS AWAY FROM BROWN, FOCUSES ON SAWYER

We talked about you, Tom.

I wish you was here.

WHITMAN GLANCES AT BROWN; ADDRESSES SAWYER

Somehow I don't find the comrade that suits me to a dot --

and I won't have any other,

not for good.

I don't know how you feel about it,

but it is the wish of my heart

that if you should come safe

out of this war,

we should come together again,

where we could make a living,

and be true comrades

and never be separated--

and take Lew Brown too.

BROWN JOINS WHITMAN AND SAWYER. WHITMAN ADDRESSES SAWYER

If it is destined

that we shall not meet again,

you have my love

whatever should keep you from me,

no matter how many years.

BROWN:

TO WHITMAN

I received a letter to day from Thomas Sawyer.

He did not mention your letter.

WHITMAN TURNS TO SAWYER, ADDRESSES HIM

WHITMAN:

Tom,

I have not heard from you for some time.

Lewy Brown has received two letters.

Walter in Ward E has received one.

MOVES TO SAWYER

I was sorry you did not come up to my room

and get the things

you promised to accept from me;

WHITMAN SURVEYS SAWYER'S BODY

SAWYER:

a good strong blue shirt,

a pair of drawers.

WHITMAN:

I should have often thought:

"Now Tom may be wearing around his body

something from me."

Not a day passes, nor a night,

but I think of you.

I hope God

will put it in your heart

to bear toward me

a little of the feeling

I have for you.

SAWYER TURNS AWAY FROM WHITMAN TO BROWN

I suppose my letters sound strange to you,

but I am only expressing

the feelings of my heart.

WHITMAN TURNS TO BROWN, WHO ADDRESSES HIM

BROWN:

I am sorry to hear you wer sick, Walt.

It would be better for your health

if you would give yourself that furlou

but the boys about the Hospital

could ill spare you,

if you are as good to them

as you wer to me.

My leg continues to mend verry slow.

WHITMAN:

TO BROWN

Lewy,

dear son and comrade,

your photograph has been received,

and the good sight of your face welcomer than all,

my darling.

o Lewy,

how glad I should be to have you with me.

WHITMAN ADDRESSES SAWYER, TURNS BACK ON BROWN

Tom,

you did not answer

my last two letters,

still I will write again.

I see Lewy Brown always.

Lewy's leg has not healed.

Tom,

I should like to know how things have gone for three months past.

I can't understand

why you have ceased to correspond.

Do you want to shake me off?

LIGHTING/MOOD CHANGE; END OF SAWYER-BROWN-WHITMAN TRIANGLE. WHITMAN TURNS TO A NEW FRIEND, DOUGLASS FOX, WHO APPEARS IN LIGHT. WHITMAN SPEAKS TOBROWN

Lew,

I wish you to go in Ward G

and find a very dear friend of mine in bed 11

FOX INTRODUCES HIMSELF TO AUDIENCE

FOX:

Douglass Fox.

WHITMAN:

TO BROWN, INDICATING FOX

Tell him I sent him my best love,

and that he must not forget me,

though I know he never will.

FOX:

TO WHITMAN

You will allow me to call you Father, won't you?

Both my parents are dead

and now, Walt,

you will be a second father to me.

I have never before

met with a man that I could love as I do you.

Still there is nothing strange about it.

WHITMAN:

Dear son,

I cannot bear the thought

of being separated from you--

I know I am a great fool about such things,

but I tell you the truth.

I do not think one night has passed

when I have been at the theatre

but what amid the play

I would see your face before me,

and I would realize

how happy it would be

if I could leave all the fun and noise

and be with you.

I hope you are quite well

and with your dear wife,

for I know you have long wished

to be with her.

FOX:

I have often thought of what you told me

when I said

I am certain I will come back to Washington.

WHITMAN:

A great many of the boys have said the same

but none has returned.

FOX:

I am sorry it is so

but after I had thought it over

I concluded it would be better for me

to go into some business here.

LIGHTING, MOOD CHANGE

BUSH:

INTRODUCING HIMSELF TO AUDIENCE

Alonzo S. Bush

TO WHITMAN

I am glad to know, Walt,

that you are once more

in the Noted City of Washington

So that you can go often

and see that Friend of ours

at Armory Square Hospital

Lewy K. Brown

BROWN JOINS BUSH IN LIGHT

that fellow

that went down on your BK,

both so often with me.

I wish that I could see him this evening

and go in the Ward Master's Room

and have some fun

for he is a gay boy.

LIGHTING/MOOD CHANGE; BUSH REFOCUSES

I am very Sorry indeed

to hear that after laying so long

he is about to loose his leg.

THROUGHOUT WHITMAN'S NEXT SPEECH WE MAY OCCASIONALLY HEAR BROWN'S GROANS AND HALF-COHERENT TALK ABOUT WHITMAN

WHITMAN:

Today,

after dinner,

Lewy Brown had his left leg amputated

five inches below the knee.

I was present at the operation,

most of the time at the door.

Lewy came out of the ether.

Then it bled.

They thought

an artery had opened.

They began to cut the stitches and make a search

but after some time concluded

it was only surface bleeding.

They then stitched it up again

and Lew felt every one of these stitches.

They did not think it safe

to give him more ether.

BROWN CRIES OUT

I caught glimpses of him

through the open door.

At length they finished,

and brought the boy in on his cot.

The ether and exhaustion

had their effect for some time.

His face was very pale, his eyes dull.

BROWN ASKS FOR "WALT"

He remained very sick,

opprest for breath,

with deathly feeling,

in the stomach,

head,

and great pain in the leg.

As usual in such cases

he could feel

the lost foot and leg very plainly.

The toes would get twisted,

and not possible to disentangle.

BROWN AGAIN ASKS FOR "WALT"

About 7 o'clock in the evening

he dozed into a sleep

for a couple of hours.

The rest of the night

was very bad.

I remained all night,

slept on the adjoining cot.

The same next night.

LIGHTING/MOOD CHANGE; WHITMAN REFOCUSES ON DOUGLASS FOX AND ADDRESSES HIM

Douglass,

I have thought of you many times

since the days there in the hospital

during the war.

Lewis Brown is well.

I see him often.

Tom Sawyer,

(Lewy Brown's friend)

passed safe through the war --

but we have not heard from him now for two years.

All the big hospitals are long broken up.

I send you my love,

dear friend and soldier.

LIGHTING/MOOD CHANGE; WHITMAN REFOCUSES ON THE AUDIENCE AS CONFIDANT

WHITMAN IS AN OLD, ILL MAN HERE, BUT STILL FULL OF INNER FIRE

My letters,

sent to the boys

in the days of the War,

stir up memories

joyful, painful.

There is nothing beyond the comrade --

the man,

the woman:

nothing beyond:

even our lovers

must be comrades:

even our wives, husbands, mothers, fathers:

we can't stay together, feel satisfied,

grow bigger,

on any other basis.

You look on me now with the ravages

of that war experience

finally reducing me to powder.

I had to give up health for it,

but I am satisfied

with what I got.

I got the boys:

the boys:

thousands of them:

they were,

they are,

they will be mine.

I gave myself for them:

myself:

I got the boys:

but for this

I would never have had Leaves of Grass,

the consummated book.

I got that:

the Leaves,

the boys.

ONE OF WHITMAN'S BOYS, JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, NOW 30-YEARS OLD, FOR THE FIRST TIME REACHES OUT TO HIM. SYMONDS DIRECTLY ADDRESSES WHITMAN, WHO IS SEATED WITH HORACE TRAUBEL

SCENE TITLE: 12 John Addington Symonds, "When a man"

SYMONDS:

When a man

has dedicated a poem to another man

I think he is bound

to confess the liberty.

This is my excuse

for sending you

the crude work

in which you may detectsome echo

of your Calamus theme.

Since I first took up Leaves of Grass

in a friend's rooms

at Trinity College

six years ago,

your poems

have been my constant companions.

I have found in them

pure air and health --

the free breath of the world

when often cramped by illness.

What one man can do

by communicating to those he loves

the treasures he has found

I have done among my friends.

I say this to tell you,

as simply as I can,

how much lowe you.

I am an Englishman,

a historian and critic of art and literature,

aged thirty,

married,

with three daughters.

SYMONDS AND WHITMAN IN MOTIONLESS TABLEAU WHILE TRAUBEL INTRODUCES HIMSELF TO AUDIENCE

TRAUBEL:

Horace Traubel.

In the last four years of Whitman's life

I recorded his words faithfully

after daily visits.

He knew I would write of him someday.

WHITMAN, RESPONDING TO SYMONDS, SPEAKS TO TRAUBEL

WHITMAN:

That was the first of Symonds' letters.

ADDRESSING SYMONDS ALONG WITH TRAUBEL

Symonds has always seemed to me

a forthright man,

unhesitating,

without cant:

not slushing over,

not freezing up.

He is warm

(not too warm),

a bit inquisitive,

ingratiating.

A Symonds letter

is a red day for my calendar.

I am always strangely moved by a letter from Symonds:

it makes the day,

it makes many days,

sacred.

SYMONDS:

TO WHITMAN

Your words

give me the keenest pleasure.

I had not exactly expected to hear from you.

I was beginning to dread

that the poem I sent

confounded your own pure feeling

with the baser metal

of my own nature.

You have reassured me.

For many years

I have been attempting

to explain in verse

some of the forms

of what you call "adhesiveness."

I have traced passionate friendship

through Greece,

Rome,

the medieval

and the modern world.

While engaged in this work

I first read Leaves of Grass.

Especially did I then learn that

the Comradeship,

which I conceived

as on a par

with the sexual feeling

was real--

not a delusion of distorted passions,

not a dream of the past --

but a vital bond

of man to man.

Yet even then

how hard I found it --

brought up in English feudalism,

educated at an aristocratic school

and over-refined university

to be a simple human being.

How you helped me!

I have pored for continuous hours

over the pages of Calamus

(as I used to poor over Plato),

longing to hear you speak,

burning for a revelation

of your developed meaning,

panting to ask --

is this what you would indicate?

Most of all

did I desire

to hear from your own lips

some story of athletic friendship

from which to learn the truth.

Yet I dared not address you.

Shall I ever be permitted to question you?

WHITMAN:

TO TRAUBEL

Well, what do you think of that?

Do you think that could be answered?

You know I hate to be catechized.

Symonds is right,

no doubt,

to ask the questions:

I am just as much right

if I do not answer them.

TO SYMONDS

I often say to myself about Calamus

perhaps it means more or less

than what I thought myself.

means different:

perhaps I don't know

what it all means

perhaps never did know.

TO TRAUBEL

My first instinct

about all that Symonds writes

is violently reactionary

TO SYMONDS

is strong and brutal for no, no, no.

Then the thought intervenes

that I maybe do not know all my own meanings.

Sometime or other

I will respond to Symonds

definitely about Calamus.

TO TRAUBEL

You will be writing about Calamus some day

and what I say

may help to clear your ideas.

WHITMAN ENDS EMPHATICALLY, EVEN DESPERATELY -- HE KNOWS HIS SEXUAL MAN-LOVE CALAMUS POEMS MAY WELL COMPROMISE HIS FUTURE REPUTATION AS REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN MAN AND POET

Calamus needs clear ideas:

it may be easily,

innocently

distorted.