Three Plays of Tennessee Williams
Page 23
BLANCHE: No coke, honey, not with my nerves tonight! Where—where—where is—?
STELLA: Stanley? Bowling! He loves it. They're having a—found some soda!—tournament...
BLANCHE: Just water, baby, to chase it! Now don't get worried, your sister hasn't turned into a drunkard, she's just all shaken up and hot and tired and dirty! You sit down, now, and explain this place to me! What are you doing in a place like this?
STELLA: Now, Blanche—
BLANCHE: Oh, I'm not going to be hypocritical, I'm going to be honestly critical about it! Never, never, never in my worst dreams could I picture—Only Poe! Only Mr. Edgar Allan Poe!—could do it justice! Out there I suppose is the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir!
[She laughs.]
STELLA: No, honey, those are the L & N tracks.
BLANCHE: No, now seriously, putting joking aside. Why didn't you tell me, why didn't you write me, honey, why didn't you let me know?
STELLA [carefully, pouring herself a drink]: Tell you what, Blanche?
BLANCHE: Why, that you had to live in these conditions!
STELLA: Aren't you being a little intense about it? It's not that bad at all! New Orleans isn't like other cities.
BLANCHE: This has got nothing to do with New Orleans. You might as well say—forgive me, blessed baby!
[She suddenly stops short]
The subject is closed!
STELLA [a little drily]: Thanks.
[During the pause, Blanche stares at her. She smiles at Blanche.]
BLANCHE [looking down at her glass, which shakes in her hand]: You're all I've got in the world, and you're not glad to see me!
STELLA [sincerely]: Why, Blanche, you know that's not true.
BLANCHE: No?—I'd forgotten how quiet you were.
STELLA: You never did give me a chance to say much, Blanche. So I just got in the habit of being quiet around you.
BLANCHE [vaguely]: A good habit to get into...
[then, abruptly]
You haven't asked me how I happened to get away from the school before the spring term ended.
STELLA: Well, I thought you'd volunteer that information—if you wanted to tell me.
BLANCHE: You thought I'd been fired?
STELLA: No, I—thought you might have—resigned...
BLANCHE: I was so exhausted by all I'd been through my—nerves broke.
[Nervously tamping cigarette]
I was on the verge of—lunacy, almost! So Mr. Graves—Mr. Graves is the high school superintendent—he suggested I take a leave of absence. I couldn't put all of those details into the wire...
[She drinks quickly]
Oh, this buzzes right through me and feels so good!
STELLA: Won't you have another?
BLANCHE: No, one's my limit.
STELLA: Sure?
BLANCHE: You haven't said a word about my appearance.
STELLA: You look just fine.
BLANCHE: God love you for a liar! Daylight never exposed so total a ruin! But you—you've put on some weight, yes, you're just as plump as a little partridge! And it's so becoming to you!
STELLA: Now, Blanche—
BLANCHE: Yes, it is, it is or I wouldn't say it! You just have to watch around the hips a little. Stand up.
STELLA: Not now.
BLANCHE: You hear me? I said stand up!
[Stella complies reluctantly]
You messy child, you, you've spilt something on the pretty white lace collar! About your hair—you ought to have it cut in a feather bob with your dainty features. Stella, you have a maid, don't you?
STELLA: No. With only two rooms it's—
BLANCHE: What? Two rooms, did you say?
STELLA: This one and—
[She is embarrassed.]
BLANCHE: The other one?
[She laughs sharply. There is an embarrassed silence.]
BLANCHE: I am going to take just one little tiny nip more, sort of to put the stopper on, so to speak....
Then put the bottle away so I won't be tempted.
[She rises]
I want you to look at my figure!
[She turns around]
You know I haven't put on one ounce in ten years, Stella? I weigh what I weighed the summer you left Belle Reve. The summer Dad died and you left us....
STELLA [a little wearily]: It's just incredible, Blanche, how well you're looking.
BLANCHE:
[They both laugh uncomfortably]
But, Stella, there's only two rooms, I don't see where you're going to put me!
STELLA: We're going to put you in here.
BLANCHE: What kind of bed's this—one of those collapsible things?
[She sits on it.]
STELLA: Does it feel all right?
BLANCHE [dubiously]: Wonderful, honey. I don't like a bed that gives much. But there's no door between the two rooms, and Stanley—will it be decent?
STELLA: Stanley is Polish, you know.
BLANCHE: Oh, yes. They're something like Irish, aren't they?
STELLA: Well—
BLANCHE: Only not so—highbrow?
[They both laugh again in the same way.]
I brought some nice clothes to meet all your lovely friends in.
STELLA: I'm afraid you won't think they are lovely.
BLANCHE: What are they like?
STELLA: They're Stanley's friends.
BLANCHE: Polacks?
STELLA: They're a mixed lot, Blanche.
BLANCHE: Heterogeneous—types?
STELLA: Oh, yes. Yes, types is right!
BLANCHE: Well—anyhow—I brought nice clothes and I'll wear them. I guess you're hoping I'll say I'll put up at a hotel, but I'm not going to put up at a hotel. I want to be near you, got to be with somebody, I can't be alone! Because—as you must have noticed—I'm not very well....
[Her voice drops and her look is frightened.]
STELLA: You seem a little bit nervous or overwrought or something.
BLANCHE: Will Stanley like me, or will I just be a visiting in-law, Stella? I couldn't stand that.
STELLA: You'll get along fine together, if you'll just try not to—well—compare him with men that we went out with at home.
BLANCHE: Is he so—different?
STELLA: Yes. A different species.
BLANCHE: In what way; what's he like?
STELLA: Oh, you can't describe someone you're in love with! Here's a picture of him!
[She hands a photograph to Blanche.]
BLANCHE: An officer?
STELLA: A Master Sergeant in the Engineers' Corps. Those are decorations!
BLANCHE: He had those on when you met him?
STELLA: I assure you I wasn't just blinded by all the brass.
BLANCHE: That's not what I—
STELLA: But of course there were things to adjust myself to later on.
BLANCHE: Such as his civilian background!
[Stella laughs uncertainly]
How did he take it when you said I was coming?
STELLA: Oh, Stanley doesn't know yet.
BLANCHE [frightened]: You—haven't told him?
STELLA: He's on the road a good deal.
BLANCHE: Oh. Travels?
STELLA: Yes.
BLANCHE: Good. I mean—isn't it?
STELLA [half to herself]: I can hardly stand it when he is away for a night...
BLANCHE: Why, Stella!
STELLA: When he's away for a week I nearly go wild!
BLANCHE: Gracious!
STELLA: And when he comes back I cry on his lap like a baby...
[She smiles to herself.]
BLANCHE: I guess that is what is meant by being in love....
[Stella looks up with a radiant smile.]
Stella—
STELLA: What?
BLANCHE [in an uneasy rush]: I haven't asked you the things you probably thought I was going to ask. And so I'll expect you to be understanding about what I have to tell you.
STELLA: What,
Blanche?
[Her face turns anxious.]
BLANCHE: Well, Stella—you're going to reproach me, I know that you're bound to reproach me—but before you do—take into consideration—you left! I stayed and struggled! You came to New Orleans and looked out for yourself. I stayed at Belle Reve and tried to hold it together! I'm not meaning this in any reproachful way, but all the burden descended on my shoulders.
STELLA: The best I could do was make my own living, Blanche.
[Blanche begins to shake again with intensity.]
BLANCHE: I know, I know. But you are the one that abandoned Belle Reve, not I! I stayed and fought for it, bled for it, almost died for it!
STELLA: Stop this hysterical outburst and tell me what's happened! What do you mean fought and bled? What kind of—
BLANCHE: I knew you would, Stella. I knew you would take this attitude about it!
STELLA: About—what?—please!
BLANCHE [slowly]: The loss—the loss...
STELLA: Belle Reve? Lost, is it? No!
BLANCHE: Yes, Stella.
[They stare at each other across the yellow-checked linoleum of the table. Blanche slowly nods her head and Stella looks slowly down at her hands folded on the table. The music of the "blue piano" grows louder. Blanche touches her handkerchief to her forehead.]
STELLA: But how did it go? What happened?
BLANCHE [springing up]: You're a fine one to ask me how it went!
STELLA: Blanche!
BLANCHE: You're a fine one to sit there accusing me of it!
STELLA: Blanche!
BLANCHE: I, I, I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! So big with it, it couldn't be put in a coffin! But had to be burned like rubbish! You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths—not always. Sometimes their breathing is hoarse, and sometimes it rattles, and sometimes they even cry out to you, "Don't let me go!" Even the old, sometimes, say, "Don't let me go." As if you were able to stop them! But funerals are quiet, with pretty flowers. And, oh, what gorgeous boxes they pack them away in! Unless you were there at the bed when they cried out, "Hold me!" you'd never suspect there was the struggle for breath and bleeding. You didn't dream, but I saw! Saw! Saw! And now you sit there telling me with your eyes that I let the place go! How in hell do you think all that sickness and dying was paid for? Death is expensive, Miss Stella! And old Cousin Jessie's right after Margaret's, hers! Why, the Grim Reaper had put up his tent on our doorstep!... Stella. Belle Reve was his headquarters! Honey—that's how it slipped through my fingers! Which of them left us a fortune? Which of them left a cent of insurance even? Only poor Jessie—one hundred to pay for her coffin. That was all, Stella! And I with my pitiful salary at the school. Yes, accuse me! Sit there and stare at me, thinking I let the place go! I let the place go? Where were you. In bed with your—Polack!
STELLA [springing]: Blanche! You be still! That's enough!
[She starts out.]
BLANCHE: Where are you going?
STELLA: I'm going into the bathroom to wash my face.
BLANCHE: Oh, Stella, Stella, you're crying!
STELLA: Does that surprise you?
BLANCHE: Forgive me—I didn't mean to—
[The sound of men's voices is heard. Stella goes into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. When the men appear, and Blanche realizes it must be Stanley returning, she moves uncertainly from the bathroom door to the dressing table, looking apprehensively toward the front door. Stanley enters, followed by Steve and Mitch. Stanley pauses near his door, Steve by the foot of the spiral stair, and Mitch is slightly above and to the right of them, about to go out. As the men enter, we hear some of the following dialogue.]
STANLEY: Is that how he got it?
STEVE: Sure that's how he got it. He hit the old weather-bird for 300 bucks on a six-number-ticket.
MITCH: Don't tell him those things; he'll believe it.
[Mitch starts out.]
STANLEY [restraining Mitch]: Hey, Mitch-come back here.
[Blanche, at the sound of voices, retires in the bedroom. She picks up Stanley's photo from dressing table, looks at it, puts it down. When Stanley enters the apartment, she darts and hides behind the screen at the head of bed.]
STEVE [to Stanley and Mitch]: Hey, are we playin' poker tomorrow?
STANLEY: Sure—at Mitch's.
MITCH [hearing this, returns quickly to the stair rail]: No—not at my place. My mother's still sick!
STANLEY: Okay, at my place....
[Mitch starts out again]
But you bring the beer!
[Mitch pretends not to hear, calls out "Goodnight all," and goes out, singing.]
EUNICE’S VOICE IS HEARD FROM ABOVE: Break it up down there! I made the spaghetti dish and ate it myself.
STEVE [going upstairs]: I told you and phoned you we was playing.
[To the men] Jax beer!
EUNICE: You never phoned me once.
STEVE: I told you at breakfast—and phoned you at lunch....
EUNICE: Well, never mind about that. You just get yourself home here once in a while.
STEVE: You want it in the papers?
[More laughter and shouts of parting come from the men. Stanley throws the screen door of the kitchen open and comes in. He is of medium height, about five feet eight or nine, and strongly, compactly built. Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes. Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it, not with weak indulgence, dependency, but with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens. Branching out from this complete and satisfying center are all the auxiliary channels of his life, such as his heartiness with men, his appreciation of rough humor, his love of good drink and food and games, his car, his radio, everything that is his, that bears his emblem of the gaudy seed-bearer. He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them.]
BLANCHE [drawing involuntarily back from his stare]: You must be Stanley. I'm Blanche.
STANLEY: Stella's sister?
BLANCHE: Yes.
STANLEY: H'lo. Where's the little woman?
BLANCHE: In the bathroom.
STANLEY: Oh. Didn't know you were coming in town.
BLANCHE: I—uh—
STANLEY: Where you from, Blanche?
BLANCHE: Why, I—live in Laurel.
[He has crossed to the closet and removed the whiskey bottle.]
STANLEY: In Laurel, huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah, in Laurel, that's right. Not in my territory. Liquor goes fast in hot weather.
[He holds the bottle to the light to observe its depletion.]
Have a shot?
BLANCHE: No, I—rarely touch it.
STANLEY: Some people rarely touch it, but it touches them often.
BLANCHE [faintly]: Ha-ha.
STANLEY: My clothes 're stickin' to me. Do you mind if I make myself comfortable?
[He starts to remove his shirt.]
BLANCHE: Please, please do.
STANLEY: Be comfortable is my motto.
BLANCHE: It's mine, too. It's hard to stay looking fresh. I haven't washed or even powdered my face and—here you are!
STANLEY: You know you can catch cold sitting around in damp things, especially when you been exercising hard like bowling is. You're a teacher, aren’t you?
BLANCHE: Yes.
STANLEY: What do you teach, Blanche?
BLANCHE: English.
STANLEY: I never was a very good English student. How long you here for, Blanche?
BLANCHE: I—don't know yet.
STANLEY: You going to shack up here?
BLANCHE: I thought I would if it's not inconvenient for you all.
STANLEY: Good.
BLANCHE: Traveling wears me out.
STANLEY: Well, take it easy.
[A cat screeches near the window. Blanche springs up.]