The Crucible Stage Combat Scene

(You have 1st line)

PROCTOR: The road past my house is a pilgrimage to Salem all morning. The town’s mumbling witchcraft.

ABIGAIL: Oh, posh! We were dancin’ in the woods last night, and my uncle leaped in on us.

PROCTOR: Ah, you’re wicked yet, aren’t ya? You’ll be clapped in the stocks before you’re twenty. (He starts to leave)

A: Give me a word, John. A soft word.

P: No, no, Abby. That’s done with.

A: John, I am waitin’ for you every night.

P: Abby, I never give you hope to wait for me.

A: I have something better than hope, I think!

P: Abby, you’ll put it out of mind. I’ll not be comin’ for you more.

A: You’re surely sportin’ with me.

P: You know me better.

A: I know how you clutched my back behind your house and sweated like a stallion whenever I come near. Or did I dream that? It’s she put me out, you cannot pretend it were you. I saw your face when she put me out, and you loved me then and you do now!

P: Abby, that’s a wild thing to say—

A: A wild thing may say wild things. But not so wild, I think. I have seen you since she put me out; I have seen you nights.

P: I have hardly stepped off my farm this seven month.

A: I have a sense for heat, John, and yours has drawn me to my window, and I have seen you looking up, burning in your loneliness. Do you tell me you’ve never looked up at my window?

P: I may have looked up.

A: And you must. You are no wintry man. I know you, John. I know you. I cannot sleep for dreaming; I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the house as though I’d find you coming through some door.

P: Child—

A: How do you call me child?!

P: Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind. We never touched, Abby.

A: Aye, but we did.

P: Aye, but we did not.

A: Oh, I marvel how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be—

P: You’ll speak nothing of Elizabeth!

A: She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her! Let her turn you like a—

P: Do you look for a whipping?

A: I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart! I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet! John, pity me, pity me.

THE END