The Playwright Horton Foote 2007
pswb©2011
A COFFIN IN EGYPT
by
HORTON FOOTE
MYRTLE
I’m older by twenty years than the mulatto, Maude Jenkins,
but I’ve outlived so many, I might outlive her. Who will
come to her funeral? There will be lots of Jenkins there,
because they are still thick in the country and the blacks
will come from everywhere from all the bottoms and the
prairies, out of curiosity if nothing else.
(a pause)
And I’d like to go just to get a look at her after all these
years. But I couldn’t, of course, even if I was still alive
then.
(a pause)
“The Angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a
man that’s wakened out of his sleep.”
(a pause)
“The Angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a
man that’s wakened out of his sleep.”
(a pause)
What was the name of Mr. Frohman’s theater? The Empire.
It was across the street from the Metropolitan Opera House.
They’re both torn down I read somewhere. I attended them
both. Many times. I loved New York. I loved Paris. I
loved Algiers. I loved Rome. I loved...Egypt. Not, Egypt,
Texas, but Egypt. Egypt...Magic, Egypt. I used to tell
Hunter that when I died I wanted to be cremated and have my
ashes taken to one of the beautiful places I’d known as a
young woman. But now, I don’t care. Who is there left to
take my ashes anywhere? Anyway, they have a place for my
body between Hunter’s grave and my two girls and that’s where
I’ll end. In a coffin in Egypt. This Egypt. Out on the
prairie. And in the spring our graves will be covered with
the wildflowers, with primroses and Indian blankets and blue
bonnets.
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