Quote 16
PROCTOR, with great force of will, but not quite looking at her: I have been thinking I would confess to them, Elizabeth. (She shows nothing.) What say you? If I give them that?
ELIZABETH: I cannot judge you, John. (Pause.)
PROCTOR, simply—a pure question: What would you have me do?
ELIZABETH: As you will, I would have it. (Slight pause.) I want you living, John. That's sure.
PROCTOR, pauses, then with a flailing of hope: Giles' wife? Have she confessed?
ELIZABETH: She will not. (Pause.)
PROCTOR: It is a pretense, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH: What is?
PROCTOR: I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint. It is a fraud. I am not that man. She is silent. My honesty is broke, Elizabeth; I am no good man. Nothing's spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before.
ELIZABETH: And yet you've not confessed till now. That speak, goodness in you.
PROCTOR: Spite only keeps me silent. It is hard to give a lie to dogs. (IV.188-200)
Proctor confesses that it is only spite that has kept him from lying and saving his own life. But now, facing death, he is weak and thinks the deception might not be so bad. He believes he is not a good man, and though his confession would be for witchcraft, he feels it might also be true. If he goes to death, falsely condemned, he will be seen as a martyr, and he believes this, too, is false.
Quote 17
PROCTOR, breathless and in agony: It [Abigail] is a whore!
DANFORTH, dumfounded: You charge—?
ABIGAIL: Mr. Danforth, he is lying!
PROCTOR: Mark her! Now she'll suck a scream to stab me with but—
DANFORTH: You will prove this! This will not pass!
PROCTOR, trembling, his life collapsing about him: I have known her, sir. I have known her.
DANFORTH: You—you are a lecher?
FRANCIS, horrified: John, you cannot say such a—
PROCTOR: Oh, Francis, I wish you had some evil in you that you might know me. (To Danforth:) A man will not cast away his good name. You surely know that.
DANFORTH, dumfounded: In—in what time? In what place?
PROCTOR, his voice about to break, and his shame great: In the proper place—where my beasts are bedded. On the last night of my joy, some eight months past. She used to serve me in my house, sir. (He has to clamp his jaw to keep from weeping.) A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything, I know it now. I beg you, sir, I beg you—see her what she is. My wife, my dear good wife, took this girl soon after, sir, and put her out on the highroad. And being what she is, a lump of vanity, sir— (He is being overcome.) Excellency, forgive me, forgive me. (Angrily against himself, he turns away from the Governor for a moment. Then, as though to cry out is his only means of speech left:) She thinks to dance with me on my wife's grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a whore's vengeance, and you must see it now. (III.374-384)
Proctor sacrifices his reputation in order to save his wife and stop the court proceedings. He also recognizes the truth in what his wife said about the implicit promise of the act of sex, and so he stops lying to himself and admits that lust is not such a simple matter.
Quote 18
PROCTOR, moving menacingly toward her: You will tell the court how that poppet come here and who stuck the needle in.
MARY WARREN: She'll kill me for sayin' that! (Proctor continues toward her.) Abby'll charge lechery on you, Mr. Proctor!
PROCTOR, halting: She's told you!
MARY WARREN: I have known it, sir. She'll ruin you with it, I know she will.
PROCTOR, hesitating, and with deep hatred of himself: Good. Then her saintliness is done with. (Mary backs from him.) We will slide together into our pit; you will tell the court what you know.
MARY WARREN, in terror: I cannot, they'll turn on me—
Proctor strides and catches her, and she is repeating, "I cannot, I cannot!"
PROCTOR: My wife will never die for me! I will bring your guts into your mouth but that goodness will not die for me!
MARY WARREN, struggling to escape him: I cannot do it, I cannot!
PROCTOR, grasping her by the throat as though he would strangle her: Make your peace with it! Now Hell and Heaven grapple on our backs, and all our old pretense is ripped away—make your peace! (He throws her to the floor, where she sobs, "I cannot, I cannot." And now, half to himself, staring, and turning to the open door:) Peace. It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now. (He walks as though toward a great horror, facing the open sky.) Aye, naked! And the wind, God's icy wind, will blow! (II.427-436)
Proctor decides that the only way for justice to occur is to let go of his deception, to lay bare his deeds before the court, realizing that he will suffer and be punished because of his past sins. But it is those same past sins that have made his wife vulnerable, and so honesty is now a grave necessity.