MRS. MASTERSON. Yes, my dear... I dare say...
OCEANA. Ah, you've never been there, or you wouldn't feel that way!
Picture it as it is at this moment... the broad white beach... the sun
setting and the clouds aflame... the great green breakers rolling in...
the frigate-birds calling... the palm trees rustling in the wind! And
you don't have to wrap yourself up in clothes... you don't have to shut
yourself up in houses! You plunge through the surf, you dance upon the
beach... naked...
MRS. MASTERSON. [Aghast.] My dear girl!
OCEANA. Oh, oh! That's so! I beg your pardon!
MRS. MASTERSON. [Coldly.] It will take you, a little while to get used
to civilized ways...
OCEANA. Oh, no, no, no! I know about that... I know how it is. Father
told me about Boston.
MRS. MASTERSON. My dear...
OCEANA. Don't worry about me. I'm really going to try to behave myself
... in every way. I want to get the right sort of clothes, you know. I
couldn't get them on my trip...
MRS. MASTERSON. It's just as well, my dear. You'd best have us attend to
that. You will need mourning for quite a while, you understand.
OCEANA. Mourning!
MRS. MASTERSON. Yes... for your grandfather.
OCEANA. But, my dear Aunt Sophronia, I couldn't possibly wear mourning!
No, no! I couldn't do that!
MRS. MASTERSON. [Astonished.] Why not?
OCEANA. In the first place, I never mourn.
MRS. MASTERSON. But your own grandfather, my dear!
OCEANA. But I never knew him. Aunt Sophronia... I never saw him in my
life!
MRS. MASTERSON. Even so, my dear! Hasn't he left you all his fortune?
OCEANA. But am I supposed to mourn over that? Why, I'd naturally be
happy about that!
LETITIA. Oceana!
OCEANA. But surely.. wouldn't you be happy about it?
MRS. MASTERSON. My child, one is not supposed to set so much store by
mere money...
OCEANA. But Aunt Sophronia, money is power! And isn't anybody glad to
have power? What else did I come here for?
MRS. MASTERSON. I had hoped you had come home for some other things. ..
to see your relatives, for instance.
ETHEL. Here's father!
OCEANA. Uncle Quincy!
DR. MASTERSON. [Enters.] My dear girl! You have come! [Embraces her.]
Why, what a picture you are! A very storm from the tropics! My dear
Oceana!
OCEANA. I'm so glad to get here.
DR. MASTERSON. Yes, indeed! I can believe it! And a strange experience
it must have been... your first plunge into civilization!
OCEANA. Yes, Uncle Quincy! It's been horrible!
DR. MASTERSON. Horrible, my dear? In what way?
OCEANA. It's been almost too much for me. Really... I could understand
how it might feel to be sick!
DR. MASTERSON. Why, what did you see?
OCEANA. Everything! It rushed over me, all at once! The people... their
dreadful faces! And such noises and odors and sights!
DR. MASTERSON. I hadn't realized...
OCEANA. And then the saloons! Rows and rows of them! It is ghastly!
LETITIA. My dear cousin, mother and I contribute regularly to a
temperance society.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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