ller made us part of the emotional life of John and Elizabeth's marriage. We not only care what these people do, we want to know what they feel. John Proctor will either confess or he won't. If he does, it won't be in this scene. For the moment, the important thing is to find out what's in their hearts.The first half of the scene is all small talk, as it was in their first scene together, the opening of Act II. Now, as then, we get "exposition": Elizabeth is healthy, John's been tortured, the boys are taken care of, no one who matters has yet confessed, and Giles Corey was pressed to death. They run out of news, and a silence falls. Then John begins to explain himself.His main reason for confessing is, as he puts it, "I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint.... Nothing's spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before." He feels unworthy to die with the others, for they are truly innocent people. But he wants Elizabeth to forgive him for this lie he's about to tell. He wants her to "see some honesty in it." In other words, he wants her to judge him. This is a far cry from Act II when he warned her angrily to learn some charity herself before she judged him.Of course, a lot has happened since then. But none of it could have meant more to him than the one lie that Elizabeth told in her life, the lie she thought would save her husband's name. When Danforth asked her if her husband was a lecher, the two words "No, sir" contained all her love for John. And how could he hear those two words without it breaking his heart?Elizabeth has also changed. She cannot judge him any more:John, it come to naught that I should forgive you, if you'll not forgive yourself. It is not my soul, John, it is yours.Of course, beneath all this talk of confessing or hanging is another sin than lying. And that's what Elizabeth really wants to talk about:I have read my heart this three month, John. I have sins of my own to count. It needs a cold wife ...
