Girls-Modern

Equus

EQUUS
By Peter Shaffer

DORA
Look doctor, you don’t have to live with this.  Alan is one patient to you: one out of many.  He’s my son.  I lie awake every night thinking about it.  Frank lies there beside me.  I can hear him.  None of us sleeps all night. You come to us and say who forbids television?  Who does what behind whose back? – as if we’re criminals.  Let me tell you something.  We’re not criminals.  We’ve done nothing wrong.  We loved Alan.  We gave him the best love we could.  All right, we quarreled sometimes – all parents quarrel – we always make it up.  My husband is a good man.  He’s an upright man, religion or no religion.  He cares for his home, for the world, and for his boy.  Alan had love and care and treats, and as much fun as any boy in the world.  I know about loveless homes:  I was a teacher.  Our home was not loveless.  I know about privacy too – not invading a child’s privacy.  All right, Frank may be at fault there – he digs into him too much – but nothing in excess.  He’s not a bully…no, doctor.  Whatever’s happened has happened because of Alan.  Alan is himself.  Every soul is itself.  If you added everything we ever did to him, from his first day on earth to this, you wouldn’t find out why he did this terrible thing – because that’s him: not just all of our things added up.  Do you understand what I’m saying?  I want you to understand, because I lie awake and awake thinking it out, and I want you to know that I deny it absolutely what he’s doing now, staring at me, attacking me for what he’s done, for what he is!  You’ve got your words, and I‘ve got mine.  You call it a complex, I suppose.  But if you knew God, doctor, you would know about the Devil.  You’d know the Devil isn’t made by what mummy says and daddy says.  The Devil’s there.  It’s an old fashioned word, but a true thing…I’ll go.  What I did in there was inexcusable.I only know he was my little Alan, and then the Devil came.