Free Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

to bed, heh?
    WILLY [ looking straight up ]: Gotta break your neck to see a star in this yard.
    LINDA: You coming in?
    WILLY: Whatever happened to that diamond watch fob? Remember? When Ben came from Africa that time? Didn’t he give me a watch fob with a diamond in it?
    LINDA: You pawned it, dear. Twelve, thirteen years ago. For Biff’s radio correspondence course.
    WILLY: Gee, that was a beautiful thing. I’ll take a walk.
    LINDA: But you’re in your slippers.
    WILLY [ starting to go around the house at the left ]: I was right! I was! [ Half to LINDA, as he goes, shaking his head ] What a man! There was a man worth talking to. I was right!
    LINDA [ calling after WILLY]: But in your slippers, Willy!
    [WILLY is almost gone when BIFF, in his pajamas, comes down the stairs and enters the kitchen. ]
    BIFF: What is he doing out there?
    LINDA: Sh!
    BIFF: God Almighty, Mom, how long has he been doing this?
    LINDA: Don’t, he’ll hear you.
    BIFF: What the hell is the matter with him?
    LINDA: It’ll pass by morning.
    BIFF: Shouldn’t we do anything?
    LINDA: Oh, my dear, you should do a lot of things, but there’s nothing to do, so go to sleep.
    [HAPPY comes down the stairs and sits on the steps. ]
    HAPPY: I never heard him so loud, Mom.
    LINDA: Well, come around more often; you’ll hear him.
    [ She sits down at the table and mends the lining of WILLY’S jacket. ]
    BIFF: Why didn’t you ever write me about this, Mom?
    LINDA: How would I write to you? For over three months you had no address.
    BIFF: I was on the move. But you know I thought of you all the time. You know that, don’t you, pal?
    LINDA: I know, dear, I know. But he likes to have a letter. Just to know that there’s still a possibility for better things.
    BIFF: He’s not like this all the time, is he?
    LINDA: It’s when you come home he’s always the worst.
    BIFF: When I come home?
    LINDA: When you write you’re coming, he’s all smiles, and talks about the future, and—he’s just wonderful. And then the closer you seem to come, the more shaky he gets, and then, by the time you get here, he’s arguing, and he seems angry at you. I think it’s just that maybe he can’t bring himself to—to open up to you. Why are you so hateful to each other? Why is that?
    BIFF [ evasively ]: I’m not hateful, Mom.
    LINDA: But you no sooner come in the door than you’re fighting!
    BIFF: I don’t know why. I mean to change. I’m tryin’, Mom, you understand?
    LINDA: Are you home to stay now?
    BIFF: I don’t know. I want to look around, see what’s doin’.
    LINDA: Biff, you can’t look around all your life, can you?
    BIFF: I just can’t take hold, Mom. I can’t take hold of some kind of a life.
    LINDA: Biff, a man is not a bird, to come and go with the springtime.
    BIFF: Your hair . . . [ He touches her hair. ] Your hair got so gray.
    LINDA: Oh, it’s been gray since you were in high school. I just stopped dyeing it, that’s all.
    BIFF: Dye it again, will ya? I don’t want my pal looking old. [ He smiles. ]
    LINDA: You’re such a boy! You think you can go away for a year and . . . You’ve got to get it into your head now that one day you’ll knock on this door and there’ll be strange people here—
    BIFF: What are you talking about? You’re not even sixty, Mom.
    LINDA: But what about your father?
    BIFF [ lamely ]: Well, I meant him too.
    HAPPY: He admires Pop.
    LINDA: Biff, dear, if you don’t have any feeling for him, then you can’t have any feeling for me.
    BIFF: Sure I can, Mom.
    LINDA: No. You can’t just come to see me, because I love him. [ With a threat, but only a threat, of tears ] He’s the dearest man in the world to me, and I won’t have anyone making him feel unwanted and low and blue. You’ve got to make up your mind now, darling, there’s no leeway any more. Either he’s your father and you pay him that respect, or else you’re not to come here. I know he’s not easy to get along with—nobody knows that better than