(sung)
With your eye on the ball and your feet on the fairway-
Hit it high little girls, marry well!

MAN
Four!

MAJOR BOUVIER
Every point under par is a leg up the stairway
To the sky little girls, marry well.
Find a staunch young patrician,
Republican!
With the blood and the brains to excel!
Like the fine strapping lad your late grandmama had
Meaning I, little girls, marry well.

Ridiculous woman my daughter Edith
Flying at the face of every good solid value I ever tried to instill in her
God knows I’ve tried to teach her tried to teach all of my brood-

EDIE &MAJOR BOUVIER(spoken)
The hallmark of aristocracy is responsibility

MAJOR BOUVIER
Edie, oh ho ho, the last hope of the great Bouvier clan.

EDIE
Oh, honestly!

BROOK
But Major Bouvier, the time!

MAJOR BOUVIER
Oh alright, alright, I’m coming.
Company, fall in! Ten hut!

EDIE
Chair the ball for the blind

LEE
Treat your church to a steeple

ALL
When in doubt, little girls, marry well!

LEE
Bail the met out of debt

JACKIE
Leave your art to the people.

ALL
And the crowd will fall under your spell!

MAJOR BOUVIER
But an unmarried lassie who’s fast and loose,
is a moose in a herd of gazelle!

ALL
POW

MAJOR BOUVIER
Don’t be picked off the pack
With your head on a plaque!
Do me proud, little girls

ALL
Marry well

MAJOR BOUVIER
It’s your future that counts
They say greatness always skips a generation
So now its up to you to burnish the family crest
And remember girls- this crest of our french royal providence
It took a while for it
We paid a pile for it
So go end up spinsters and diletants!
The name Bouvier will surpass all others
All of your uncles, aunts-

EDITH
Oh Ah Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

MAJOR BOUVIER
And mothers

LEE
Picture Lee in Milan with a prince and a villa.

MAJOR BOUVIER
Sally forth, little girl! Very nice.

JACKIE
Jackie B. in Paris, simply bathes in chinchilla

EDIE
As for me, Joe will more than suffice!

MAJOR BOUVIER
Good girl!
With a grandfather’s blessing, I wish you love!
Someone there when your hair goes to gray, and I’ll strut in my spats down the isle of Saint Pat’s!

BROOKS
Marry high!

EDIE
Marry proud!

JACKIE & LEE
Nouveau riche ain’t allowed!

BROOKS
Upper class!

LEE
Upper Crust!

JACKIE
Standard Oil and Morgan Trust!

EDIE
Marry young!

BROOKS
Marry chaste!

MAJOR BOUVIER
Or if not, then in haste-

ALL
Marry well, and you’re well on your way!

EDITH (spoken)
If you’re gone, who would I even talk to?

GOULD (spoken)
Yourself. The occasional cat.

EDITH (spoken)
That’s not funny.

GOULD
After I’m gone,
When the ocean’s haze
Blankets the grounds in grey
Drift away, on the tide,
Drift away.

When you’re alone,
And the twilight’s glow
Shimmers across the bay
Drift away, on a wave,
Drift away.
Our tete-a-tetes-

EDITH
Midnight duets-

GOULD &EDITH
Our breakfast tea and toast.

GOULD
Funny how things that mean the least
Are what we miss the most.
Deep in the night
When the whispering breeze
Sings this song I play,
Shed a tear and be glad
For the fun that we had.
Drift away, on a dream…
Drift away.

EDITH (spoken)
You’re my soul mate, that’s what you are.

GOULD (spoken)
“Soul mate.” Is that the nom de jour?

EDITH (spoken)
I’ve no idea what you mean.

GOULD (spoken)
For the party this afternoon, which would you prefer?
Should I wear the white satin jacket you bought for me at Bergdorf’s?
Or the linen one you picked up in Rome?

EDITH (spoken)
Now, Gould-! Gould!

EDIE (spoken)
You had a rich husband; you should’ve stayed with him.

EDITH (spoken)
I had a perfect marriage… beautiful children… terribly successful marriage,
I never had a fight in my life.

EDIE (spoken)
Ha!

EDITH (spoken)
I had a very, very happy, satisfying life.

EDIE (spoken)
Can’t be done. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. You can’t.

EDITH (spoken)
Ohhhh yes you can.
I most certainly did have my cake and eat it, down to the last crumb.

(sung)
What good is cake
You have but never eat?
I never could
Deny myself a sweet,
So I sliced my life
And licked my knife
And ate the cake I had.

EDIE (spoken)
Can’t be done, I’m telling you…

EDITH
Two perfect sons
I thoroughly enjoyed
An absent spouse
And cats to fill the void,
And the tri-state’s best
Accompanist
Oh yes, I ate the cake I had.

EDIE (spoken)
I’ll probably be an old maid until I die. I’ll sit around with cats the rest of my life.

EDITH (spoken)
When are you gonna learn, Edie?
You’re in this world, you know! You’re not out of the world!

(sung)
The days are gone
When money grew on trees.
The money tree
Came down with elm disease.
But at my age, ducks,
For my two bucks
I’ll eat the cake I have
And like it.
I’ll eat the cake I have.

EDIE (spoken)
I think the saddest thing was my not marrying.
During the war, my best friend, she was a nurse with the Red Cross… she met
somebody overseas in a hospital. A Marine.
Lost both of his legs at Iwo Jima.
Romance was inevitable, really, given the situation. But I couldn’t travel.
Mother wasn’t well during the war, you see.

EDITH (spoken)
Gerald Gettys worshipped you – and those two nice Rockefeller fellas-

EDIE (spoken)
They were horrible! Horrible!

EDITH (spoken)
You just didn’t want to get married. Now it’s all blamed on me.

EDIE (spoken)
I missed out on everything.

EDITH
Gripe. Groan.
Point the famous finger.
Life is disappointing,
Put the parent through the wringer.

EDIE (spoken)
I met a Count, in Greenwich Village.
He was a poet and a playwright, and he said,
“Edith, I want to make an honest woman out of you.”
I thought that was very decent.

EDITH (spoken)
He didn’t have a nickel in his trousers! Not a nickel!

EDIE (spoken)
Mother despised him. Gave him the pink slip.
To think, I coulda been a Countess – Countess Edith!

EDITH
Enough with all
Your celebrated loves.
You had two hands.
You could have modeled gloves.
Is it my fault that
Your cake fell flat?
That you’re unmarried,
Bald and fat?

EDIE (spoken)
Sometimes I think I have the saddest life…