The Gibson Upright | Page 6

and Debussy. You've even condescended to laugh with me
at times about something funny in the shop. Of course not lately; but
you used to. In everything worth anything aren't we really in the same

class?
NORA: We are not. We never shall be--and we never were! Even
before we were born we weren't! You came into this life with a silver
spoon. I was born in a tenement room where five other people lived.
My father was a man with a great brain. He never got out of the
tenements in his life; he was crushed and kept under; yet he was a
well-read man and a magnificent talker; he could talk Marx and Tolstoi
supremely. Yet he never even had time to learn English.
GIBSON: I wish you could have heard what my father talked for
English! Half the time I couldn't understand him myself. He was
Scotch.
NORA: Your father wasn't crushed under the capitalistic system as
mine was. My father was an intellectual.
GIBSON: Mine was a worker. They both landed at Castle Garden,
didn't they?
NORA: What of that? Mine remained a thinker and a revolutionist;
yours became a capitalist.
GIBSON: No; he got a job--in a piano factory.
NORA: Yes, and took advantage of the capitalistic system to own the
factory.
GIBSON: Before he did own it he worked fourteen hours a day for
twelve years. That's why he owned it.
NORA: How many hours a day do you work, Mr. Gibson?
GIBSON: I have worked twenty-four; sometimes fourteen, sometimes
two; usually six.
NORA: In other words, when you want to work.
GIBSON: I've learned to do things my father never learned to do, and it

commands a higher return.
NORA: You take a higher return!
GIBSON: You mean I don't deserve it?
NORA: Can it be possible that you think you deserve as much as any of
these workers? You don't so much as touch one of these pianos that
bring you your return. I do! I work on them with my hands. Do you
think you deserve as much as I?
GIBSON: No; I don't go so far as that.
NORA: Don't talk to me as a woman! My work is pleasant enough now;
but what work did I have to do before I got this far? I worked sixteen
hours a day, and when I was only a child at that! Twelve hours I was
sewing, and four I studied. If my father hadn't known music and taught
me a little your capitalistic system would have me sewing twelve hours
a day still!
GIBSON: Yes, Nora; when we learn how to do something we get better
pay for it.
NORA: We do? Do you really think that? That we get paid for what we
do?
GIBSON: Yes; that's what I think.
NORA: Then what do you get paid for? For nothing in the world but
owning this factory. You're paid because you're a capitalist!
GIBSON: Is that all?
NORA: Why, look at the state the factory's in! The discontent you saw
in those men--that's the fault of the capitalistic system! There aren't
twenty workmen in the place that are contented.
GIBSON: You're right about that; and they never will be.

NORA: Not until the system's changed. What are you going to do about
it?
GIBSON [with quiet desperation]: They've driven me as far as they can.
If they walk out I'll walk out. I can stand it if they can.
NORA: You'd close down? Your only solution is to take the bread out
of these men's mouths?
GIBSON: If they walk out I'll walk out!
NORA [trembling]: You coward!
GIBSON: That's fair?
NORA: You'll let us starve because you haven't the courage to come to
the right solution! Don't you mind starving us?
GIBSON: You mean you'd starve if I quit.
NORA [vehemently]: No; but because you'd close the factory.
GIBSON: Oh, the factory could run if I quit, could it?
NORA: That's the capitalist! They think it's capital that runs the
factories!
GIBSON: And I'm the capital, am I?
NORA: What in the world else? [Touches the piano.] You think you
produce this wealth because you've got your money in it? You pass out
a pittance to those who do produce it, and when they ask for more than
a pittance you take their tools away from them! If they rebel you set the
police on them. That's capital--and that's you, Mr. Gibson!
GIBSON: Nora, you told me not to speak to you as a woman.
NORA: I mean it!

GIBSON: I'm going to disregard it. Couldn't you get your theories out
of your mind for a while and make a little room there for me?
NORA: My theories! I haven't any theories! I'm talking about the truth,
and the truth is my whole