CORNELIUS raises his head in alarm. The others stop eating and listen.

However, we won’t discuss it any more.

Enter AUGUST with a tray.

Here’s August with our food. I’ll serve it, August.

AUGUST:

Yes, ma’am.

Exit AUGUST.

MRS. LEVI:

Here’s some white meat for you, and some giblets, very tender and very good for you. No, as I said before, you go your way and I’ll go mine.—Start right in on the wine. I think you’ll feel better at once. However, since you brought the matter up, there’s one more thing I think I ought to say.

VANDERGELDER:

Rising in rage.

I didn’t bring the matter up at all.

MRS. LEVI:

We’ll have forgotten all about it in a moment, but—sit down, sit down, we’ll close the matter forever in just a moment, but there’s one more thing I ought to say:

VANDERGELDER sits down.

It’s true, I’m a woman who likes to know everything that’s going on; who likes to manage things, you’re perfectly right about that. But I wouldn’t like to manage anything as disorderly as your household, as out of control, as untidy. You’ll have to do that yourself, God helping you.

VANDERGELDER:

It’s not out of control.

MRS. LEVI:

Very well, let’s not say another word about it. Take some more of that squash, it’s good. No, Horace, a complaining, quarrelsome, friendless soul like you is no sort of companion for me. You go your way

Peppers her own plate.

and I’ll go mine.

Peppers his plate.

VANDERGELDER:

Stop saying that.

MRS. LEVI:

I won’t say another word.

VANDERGELDER:

Besides . . . I’m not those things you said I am.

MRS. LEVI:

What?—Well, I guess you’re friendless, aren’t you? Ermengarde told me this morning you’d even quarreled with your barber—a man who’s held a razor to your throat for twenty years! Seems to me that that’s sinking pretty low.

VANDERGELDER:

Well, . . . but . . . my clerks, they . . .

MRS. LEVI:

They like you? Cornelius Hackl and that Barnaby? Behind your back they call you Wolf-trap.

Quietly the quartet at the other table have moved up to the screens—bringing chairs for Mrs. Molloy and Minnie. Wine glasses in hand, they overhear this conversation.

VANDERGELDER:

Blanching.

They don’t.

MRS. LEVI:

No, Horace. It looks to me as though I were the last person in the world that liked you, and even I’m just so-so. No, for the rest of my life I intend to have a good time. You’ll be able to find some housekeeper who can prepare you three meals for a dollar a day—it can be done, you know, if you like cold baked beans. You’ll spend your last days listening at keyholes, for fear someone’s cheating you. Take some more of that.

VANDERGELDER:

Dolly, you’re a damned exasperating woman.

MRS. LEVI:

There! You see? That’s the difference between us. I’d be nagging you all day to get some spirit into you. You could be a perfectly charming, witty, amiable man, if you wanted to.