Abraham Lincoln
[describing a dream]
It's nighttime. The ship's moved by some terrible power, at a terrific speed. Though it's imperceptible in the darkness, I have an intuition that we're headed towards a shore. No one else seems to be aboard the vessel. I'm very keenly aware of my aloneness. 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. I should spare you, Molly. I shouldn't tell you my dreams.
Mary Todd Lincoln
I don't want to be spared if you aren't. And you spare me nothing. Perhaps it's the assault on Wilmington Port. You dream about the ship before a battle, usually.
Abraham Lincoln
[rapping lightly on his forehead]
How's the coconut?
Mary Todd Lincoln
Beyond description. Almost two years, nothing mends. Another casualty of the war. Who wants to listen to a useless woman grouse about her carriage accident?
Abraham Lincoln
I do.
Mary Todd Lincoln
Stuff! You tell me dreams, that's all, I'm your soothsayer, that's all I am anymore, I'm not to be trusted with — Even if it was not a carriage accident, even if it was an attempted assassination.
Abraham Lincoln
It was most probably an accident—
Mary Todd Lincoln
It was an assassin. Whose intended target was you.
Abraham Lincoln
How are the plans coming along for the big shindy?
Mary Todd Lincoln
I don't want to talk about parties. You don't care about parties.
Abraham Lincoln
Not much, but they're a necessary hindrance.
Mary Todd Lincoln
I know... I know what it's about. The ship, it's not Wilmington Port, it's not a military campaign! It's the amendment to abolish slavery! Why else would you force me to invite demented radicals into my home? You're going to try to get the amendment passed in the House of Representatives before the term ends? Before the inauguration?
Abraham Lincoln
[standing]
Don't spend too much money on the flubdubs.
Mary Todd Lincoln
No one's loved as much as you, no one's ever been loved so much, by the people. You might do anything now. Don't, don't waste that power on an amendment bill that's sure of defeat. [she turns away, walking to an open window.] Did you remember Robert's coming home for the reception? [Lincoln nods] I knew you'd forget. That's the ship you're sailing on. The Thirteenth Amendment. You needn't tell me I'm right. I know I am.
Abraham Lincoln
He'll be fine, Molly. City Point's away back from the front lines, and fighting, he'll be an adjutant running messages for General Grant.
Mary Todd Lincoln
The war will take our son! A sniper, or a shrapnel shell. Or typhus, same as took Willie, it takes hundreds of boys a day! He'll die, uselessly, and how will I ever forgive you? Most men, their firstborn is their favorite. You...you've always blamed Robert for being born, for trapping you in a marriage that's only ever given you grief and caused you regret!
Abraham Lincoln
That's simply not true.
Mary Todd Lincoln
And if the slaughter of Cold Harbor is on your hands same as Grant, God help us! We'll pay for the oceans of spilled blood you've sanctioned, the uncountable corpses we'll be made to pay with our son's dear blood.
Abraham Lincoln
Just...just this once, Mrs. Lincoln, I demand of you to try and take the liberal and not the selfish point of view! Robert will never forgive himself, can you imagine he'll forgive us if we continue to stifle this very natural ambition?!
Mary Todd Lincoln
[smiles mockingly]
And if I refuse to take the high road, if I won't take up the rough old cross, will you threaten me again with the madhouse, as you did when I couldn't stop crying over Willie, when I showed you what heartbreak, real heartbreak looked like, and you hadn't the courage to countenance it, to help me...
Abraham Lincoln
That's right. That's right. When you refused so much as to comfort Tad...
Mary Todd Lincoln
I was in the room with Willie, I was holding him in my arms as he died!
Abraham Lincoln
...a child who was not only sick, dangerously sick, but beside himself with grief! Oh, but your grief! Your grief! Your inexhaustible grief!
Mary Todd Lincoln
How dare you throw that up at me?!
Abraham Lincoln
And his mother wouldn't let him near her...
Mary Todd Lincoln
I couldn't let Tad in! I couldn't risk him seeing how angry I was! [Mary starts crying]
Abraham Lincoln
...'cause she's screaming from morning to night pacing the corridors, howling at shadows and furniture and ghosts! I ought to have done it, I ought have done for Tad's sake, for everybody's Goddamned sake, I should have clapped you in the madhouse!
Mary Todd Lincoln
Then do it!! Do it! Don't you threaten me, you do it this time! Lock me away! You'll have to, I swear, if Robert is killed.
Abraham Lincoln
[pauses]
I couldn't tolerate you grieving so for Willie because I couldn't permit it in myself, though I wanted to, Mary. I wanted to crawl under the earth, into the vault with his coffin. I still do. Every day I do. Don't... speak to me about grief. [he pauses again] I must make my decisions, Bob must make his, you yours. And bear what we must, hold and carry what we must. What I carry within me, you must allow me to do it, alone as I must. And you alone, Mary, you alone may lighten this burden, or render it intolerable. As you choose.
Mary Todd Lincoln
You think I'm ignorant of what you're up to because of this you haven't discussed this scheme with me as you ought to have done? When have I ever been so easily bamboozled? I believe you when you insist that amending the Constitution and abolishing slavery will end this war, and since you are sending my son into the war, woe unto you if you fail to pass the amendment.
Abraham Lincoln
Seward doesn't want me leaving big muddy footprints all over town.
Mary Todd Lincoln
No one has ever lived who knows better than you, the proper placement of footfalls on treacherous paths. Seward can't do it. You must. Because if you fail to acquire the necessary votes, woe unto you, sir. You will answer to me.
Mary Todd Lincoln
You've an itch to travel?
Abraham Lincoln
I'd like that. To the West by rail.
Mary Todd Lincoln
Overseas.
Abraham Lincoln
The Holy Land.
Mary Todd Lincoln
[laughs]
Awfully pious for a man who takes his wife out buggy-riding on Good Friday.
Abraham Lincoln
Jerusalem. Where David and Solomon walked. I dream of walking in that ancient city.
Mary Todd Lincoln
All anyone will remember of me is I was crazy and I ruined your happiness.
Abraham Lincoln
Anyone thinks that doesn't understand, Molly.
Mary Todd Lincoln
When they look at you, at what it cost to live at the heart of this, they'll wonder at it. They'll wonder at you. They should. But they should also look at the wretched woman by your side, of they want to understand what this was truly like. For an ordinary person. For anyone other than you.
Abraham Lincoln
We must try to be happier. We must. Both of us. We've been miserable for so long.
