Desire Under the Elms

That's where your father hides his money.

Remember, Eben, it belongs to you.

- Now, say it. - It belongs to me.

This farm would have been nothing

without the land I brought with me when I married him.

Only reason he married me was for the land.

And he needed a woman to look after his home and your stepbrothers

when his other wife died.

Killed her the same way he's killing me.

He worked her darn to death.

Ma, don't say that.

You're not gonna die.

Oh. Sh, sh.

When I'm gone, and when you're old enough,

I want you to take your rights.

He'll never die, that old man.

He'll live longer than the mountains.

You'll have to fight for what is yours.

Don't depend on your two stepbrothers.

They'll never help.

Remember where the stone is.

And when you need money, take it, it's yours.

Everything here is yours.

You promise?

You promise to remember, Eben?

I promise.

Say it.

"Everything here is mine, and someday I'll take it."

Say it.

Everything here is mine, and someday I'll take it.

We must go back.

You mark the place.

Come.

Eben.

You're gonna stand there mooning all day?

She's been dead for years now.

How much time you gonna waste?

You and your brothers have gotta get home to dinner.

Mm, weaklings.

In the prime of your youth and I can work you into the ground.

Spring.

The snow's off the mountains and the buds are out.

Spring.

Spring, and I'm feeling damned.

Damned like an old, bare hickory branch fit only for burning.

I'm gonna ride out and learn God's message to me in the spring,

like the prophets done.

Now, you get back to work, all of you.

Crazy. Crazy as a loon.

God's message in the spring.

I know what he feels, I know the trouble he feels in his blood.

You aiming to leave us too?

No, I'm never gonna leave here.

I don't wanna wander.

I wanna walk in my own fields,

I wanna smell the blossoms coming out on my fruit trees.

I wanna bring a woman here and show her and say,

"Well, look, this is the work I've done

"with my own two bare hands."

You move stones, brother. Move stones.

Let Pa hear the crazy calls.

One's enough for one family.

Well, get to work.

There's plenty of stones to clear.

Whoa.

Well, I don't know when I'll be back, but I'll be back.

No matter how long I'm gone,

why, don't get any fool ideas that I'm dead.

I've sworn to live to a hundred years, and I'll do it.

If only to spite you.

And you.

All of you, now, get back to work.

Let's go, boy.

There he goes. You reckon he's drunk?

He ain't drunk.

Just smart.

Gone riding off, leaving us here,

piling stone on stone, year in, year out.

Making stone walls so as he can fence us in.

Yeah, maybe it ain't a bad idea going off, getting away from here.

- Where would you go? - California.

There's gold in California, fields of gold.

There's a fortune laying just on top of the ground,

waiting to be picked.

Solomon's mines I say.

Oh, you talk and talk, but you'll never get to the goldfields.

Don't be so sure.

Well, where would you get the money?

We could walk.

Yeah, walking ain't anything new to us.

You put all the steps that we walked on this farm

end to end, we'd be on the moon.

Oh, you won't ever go, Peter.

You neither, Sim.

You just wait around here for your share of the farm,

thinking always he's gonna die soon.

- Two-thirds belongs to us. - We got a right.

Well, you haven't any right.

She wasn't your mother.

It was her farm, wasn't it?

The deed was in her name and he stole it.

Why, he'd just have a little rump of land here without her.

She's dead now and it's my farm.

Heh. You tell that to Pa when he comes back.

I bet you a dollar he laughs.

For the first time in his life.

What have you got against us, Eben? There's something.

Year after year, I've seen it in your eyes.

Why didn't you two ever stand

between him and my mother all those years

when he was slaving her to the grave?

To pay her back for the kindness that she done you

even though you weren't her own blood.

There was always work to be done.

We never had time to meddle.

California.

Boats leave out of Boston every week,

sailing out for the Golden Gate.

Ah, when Pa comes back, you ask him for the passage money.

I'll bet he laughs for the second time in his life.

Six weeks already.

No word from the old mule.

Real peaceful, ain't it?

Maybe he's dead.

Oh, it ain't that peaceful.

Hey.

Going for a walk?

Yeah, maybe.

Nice night for a walk.

Gonna be a full moon.

Sim, what direction you figure

young fella like Eben might go for a walk on a night of full moon?

I can't hardly guess.

Unless you of course he was to find himself on the road

to the widow's house.

Eben? Our Eben? Don't seem possible.

Well, he's all dressed up.

You gotta take that into account.

Yeah, he's all dressed up all right,

ain't no doubt about that. Whoo-hoo.

Won't be the first time a young fella found himself

just by accident all dressed up

in front of Min's door on the night of full moon.

It wouldn't even be the last time either, would it be?

Why don't you be quiet? I'll go where I wanna go.

Why, sure, Eben. Ain't no need to feel touchy.

You got plenty of company. Good company for you.

Right in the family, eh, Pete?

Right in the family, all the generations.

You're animals.

You're a pair of laughing hyenas.

I want anything to do with you.

Eben?

Yeah.

Where have you been?

I waited.

- Celebrating in town. - Celebrating what?

It's a private celebration.

Some news I heard.

It's been a big night for news.

Why, you're drunk.

Don't you wanna come in?

You're soft and warm and pretty.

Eben, don't let's stand here talking like this.

Come on in.

That's what I came to tell you. I...

I'm, I'm never coming here anymore.

You've been good to me, Min, but...

Well, I'm through.

I'm, I'm through taking what's left over.

Eben, what are you talking about?

What's come over you?

Goodbye.

Eben.

Eben.

Oh. Hey!

It's just me. Get up.

What'd you do that for?

I got news for you. I'm the...

I'm the bearer of glad tidings.

Can't you hold it till we get our sleep?

It's sunup.

Don't you wanna hear it?

He's gone and married again.

- Pa? - He's got himself hitched.

What?

To an Italian woman from Italy, 25 years old.

And pretty, they say.

- Who said so? - It's a lie.

You were drunk. They were making fun of you.

I didn't get drunk until after I heard it.

The whole village knows.

She was a waitress in the railroad hotel in New Dover.

Married.

He done it just to spite us, the old mule.

Everything'll go to her now.

Twenty-five-year-old greenhorn.

I hope she's a she-devil.

I hope she makes Pa wish he was dead,

living in the pit of hell for comfort.