“The wind under the door”: Webster’s The Devil’s Law Case

Abstract

In the “Game of Chess” bedroom, a woman speaks out loud and a man responds mostly, if not completely, in his head. Her words are in quotation marks; his are not.

‘My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.

‘Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.

‘What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?

‘I never know what you are thinking. Think.’

I think we are in rats’ alley

Where the dead men lost their bones.

‘What is that noise?’

The wind under the door.

‘What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?’

Nothing again nothing. (WL 111–20)

The non-conversation continues with the high-strung, high-maintenance woman complaining about her nerves, demanding to know what her partner is thinking, reproaching him for never talking to her, insisting that he stay with her, fretting about a noise, wondering what she’s to do, threatening to run out into the street and cause a scene. No matter how she sulks or accuses, though, she doesn’t manage to elicit an audible response. The man’s thoughts rove all over the map, from eerie, cryptic remarks about death to ordinary husband-like reassurance, to a musical outburst.