Lincoln Page #5

The room's cozy, attractive, cluttered, part dressmaker's

workshop, part repository of Mary's endless purchases:

clothing, fabrics, knicknacks, carpets. Books everywhere.

Lincoln reclines on a French chair, too small for his lengthy

frame. He's in shirtsleeves, vest unbuttoned and tie

unknotted, shoeless. He has an open folio filled with

documents on his lap.

MARY LINCOLN sits opposite, in a nightgown, housecoat and

night cap. She watches him in her vanity mirror.

She looks frightened.

TITLE:
THE WHITE HOUSE

LINCOLN:

I could be bounded in a nutshell

and count myself a king of infinite

space...were it not that I have bad

dreams.

I reckon it's the speed that's

strange to me. I'm used to going a

deliberate pace.

Mary looks at him, stricken with alarm.

LINCOLN (CONT'D)

I should spare you. I shouldn't

tell you my dreams.

MARY:

I don't want to be spared if you

aren't! And you spare me nothing.

He looks down at the carpet, then back up at her.

MARY (CONT'D)

Perhaps perhaps it's the assault on

Wilmington port. You dream about

the ship before a battle, usually.

8.

LINCOLN:

(rapping lightly on his

FOREHEAD:
)

How's the coconut?

MARY:

Beyond description.

She delicately touches her head.

MARY (CONT'D)

Almost two years, nothing mends.

Another casualty of the war. Who

wants to listen to a useless woman

grouse about her carriage accident?

LINCOLN:

I do.

MARY:

Stuff! You tell me dreams, that's

all, I'm your soothsayer, that's

all I am anymore, I'm not to be

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