CLAIRE:  Look—­and see—­what you see.

ANTHONY:  No one should see what you’ve not seen.

CLAIRE:  I can’t see—­until I know.

(ANTHONY looks into the flower.)

ANTHONY:  (agitated) Miss Claire!

CLAIRE:  It has come through?

ANTHONY:  It has gone on.

CLAIRE:  Stronger?

ANTHONY:  Stronger, surer.

CLAIRE:  And more fragile?

ANTHONY:  And more fragile.

CLAIRE:  Look deep.  No—­turning back?

ANTHONY:  (after a searching look) The form is set. (he steps back from it)

CLAIRE:  Then it is—­out. (from where she stands she turns slowly to the plant) You weren’t.  You are.

ANTHONY:  But come and see, Miss Claire.

CLAIRE:  It’s so much more than—­I’d see.

HARRY:  Well, I’m going to see. (looking into it) I never saw anything like that before!  There seems something alive—­inside this outer shell.

DICK:  (he too looking in and he has an artist’s manner of a hand up to make the light right) It’s quite new in form.  It—­says something about form.

HARRY:  (cordially to CLAIRE, who stands apart) So you’ve really put it over.  Well, well,—­congratulations.  It’s a good deal of novelty, I should say, and I’ve no doubt you’ll have a considerable success with it—­people always like something new.  I’m mighty glad—­after all your work, and I hope it will—­set you up.

CLAIRE:  (low—­and like a machine) Will you all—­go away?

(ANTHONY goes—­into the other room.)

HARRY:  Why—­why, yes.  But—­oh, Claire!  Can’t you take some pleasure in your work? (as she stands there very still) Emmons says you need a good long rest—­and I think he’s right.

TOM:  Can’t this help you, Claire?  Let this be release.  This—­breath of the uncaptured.

CLAIRE:  (and though speaking, she remains just as still)
  Breath of the uncaptured? 
  You are a novelty. 
  Out? 
  You have been brought in. 
  A thousand years from now, when you are but a form too long repeated,
  Perhaps the madness that gave you birth will burst again,
  And from the prison that is you will leap pent queernesses
  To make a form that hasn’t been—­
  To make a person new. 
  And this we call creation, (very low, her head not coming up)
  Go away!

(TOM goes; HARRY hesitates, looking in anxiety at CLAIRE. He starts to go, stops, looks at DICK, from him to CLAIRE. But goes.  A moment later DICK moves near CLAIRE; stands uncertainly, then puts a hand upon her.  She starts, only then knowing he is there.)

CLAIRE:  (a slight shrinking away, but not really reached) Um, um.

(He goes.  CLAIRE steps nearer her creation.  She looks into what hasn’t been.  With her breath, and by a gentle moving of her hands, she fans it to fuller openness.  As she does this TOM returns and from outside is looking in at her.  Softly he opens the door and comes in.  She does not know that he is there.  In the way she looks at the flower he looks at her.)