Orpheus Descending and Suddenly Last Summer

by Tennessee Williams

  VAL [in a soft, preoccupied tone]: You told the lady I work for that you had a message for me. Is that right, miss? Have you got a message for me?

  CAROL [she rises, moves a few steps toward him, hesitantly. Val whistles, plucks guitar string, changes pitch]: You’ve spilt some ashes on your new blue suit.

  VAL: Is that the message?

  CAROL [moves away a step]: No. No, that was just an excuse to touch you. The message is—

  VAL: What?

  [Music fades in—guitar.]

  CAROL: —I’d love to hold something the way you hold your guitar, that’s how I’d love to hold something, with such—tender protection! I’d love to hold you that way, with that same—tender protection! [Her hand has fallen onto his knee, which he has drawn up to rest a foot on the counter stool.] —Because you hang the moon for me!

  VAL [he speaks to her, not roughly but in a tone that holds a long history that began with a romantic acceptance of such declarations as she has just made to him, and that turned gradually to his present distrust. He puts guitar down and goes to her]: Who’re you tryin’ t’ fool beside you’self? You couldn’t stand the weight of a man’s body on you. [He casually picks up her wrist and pushes the sleeve back from it.] What’s this here? A human wrist with a bone? It feels like a twig I could snap with two fingers. . . . [Gently, negligently, pushes collar of her trench coat back from her bare throat and shoulders. Runs a finger along her neck tracing a vein.] Little girl, you’re transparent, I can see the veins in you. A man’s weight on you would break you like a bundle of sticks. . . .

  [Music fades out.]

  CAROL [gazes at him, startled by his perception]: Isn’t it funny! You’ve hit on the truth about me. The act of love-making is almost unbearably painful, and yet, of course, I do bear it, because to be not alone, even for a few moments, is worth the pain and the danger. It’s dangerous for me because I’m not built for childbearing.

  VAL: Well, then, fly away, little bird, fly away before you—get broke. [He turns back to his guitar.]

  CAROL: Why do you dislike me?

  VAL [turning back]: I never dislike nobody till they interfere with me.

  CAROL: How have I interfered with you? Did I snitch when I saw my cousin’s watch on you?

  VAL [Beginning to remove his watch]: —You won’t take my word for a true thing I told you. I’m thirty years old and I’m done with the crowd you run with and the places you run to. The Club Rendezvous, the Starlite Lounge, the Music Bar, and all the night places. Here— [Offers watch.] —take this Rolex Chronometer that tells the time of the day and the day of the week and the month and all the crazy moon’s phases. I never stole nothing before. When I stole that I known it was time for me to get off the party, so take it back, now, to Bertie. . . . [He takes her hand and tries to force the watch into her fist. There is a little struggle, he can’t open her fist. She is crying, but staring fiercely into his eyes. He draws a hissing breath and hurls watch violently across the floor.] —That’s my message to you and the pack you run with!

  CAROL [flinging coat away]: I RUN WITH NOBODY! —I hoped I could run with you. . . . [Music stops short.] You’re in danger here, Snakeskin. You’ve taken off the jacket that said: “I’m wild, I’m alone!” and put on the nice blue uniform of a convict! . . . Last night I woke up thinking about you again. I drove all night to bring you this warning of danger. . . . [Her trembling hand covers her lips.] —The message I came here to give you was a warning of danger! I hoped you’d hear me and let me take you away before it’s—too late.

  [Door bursts open. Lady rushes inside, crying out:]

  LADY: Your brother’s coming, go out! He can’t come in!

  [Carol picks up coat and goes into confectionery, sobbing. Val crosses toward door.]

  Lock that door! Don’t let him come in my store!

  [Carol sinks sobbing at table. Lady runs up to the landing of the stairs as David Cutrere enters the store. He is a tall man in hunter’s clothes. He is hardly less handsome now than he was in his youth but something has gone: his power is that of a captive who rules over other captives. His face, his eyes, have something of the same desperate, unnatural hardness that Lady meets the world with.]

  DAVID: Carol?

  VAL: She’s in there. [He nods toward the dim confectionery into which the girl has retreated.]

  DAVID [crossing]: Carol! [She rises and advances a few steps into the lighted area of the stage.] You broke the agreement. [Carol nods slightly, staring at Val. Then David, harshly.] All right. I’ll drive you back. Where’s your coat? [Carol murmurs something inaudible, staring at Val.] Where is her coat, where is my sister’s coat?

  [Val crosses below and picks up the coat that Carol has dropped on the floor and hands it to David. He throws it roughly about Carol’s shoulders and propels her forcefully toward store entrance. Val moves away to downstage right.]

  LADY [suddenly and sharply]: Wait, please!

  [David looks up at the landing; stands frozen as Lady rushes down the stairs.]

  DAVID [softly, hoarsely]: How—are you, Lady?

  LADY [turning to Val]: Val, go out.

  DAVID [to Carol]: Carol, will you wait for me in my car?

  [He opens the door for his sister; she glances back at Val with desolation in her eyes. Val crosses quickly through the confectionery. Sound of door closing in there. Carol nods slightly as if in sad response to some painful question and goes out of the store. Pause.]

  LADY: I told you once to never come in this store.

  DAVID: I came for my sister. . . . [He turns as if to go.]

  LADY: No, wait!

  DAVID: I don’t dare leave my sister alone on the road.

  LADY: I have something to tell you I never told you before. [She crosses to him. David turns back to her, then moves away to downstage right-center.] —I—carried your child in my body the summer you quit me. [Silence.]

  DAVID: —I—didn’t know.

  LADY: No, no, I didn’t write you no letter about it; I was proud then; I had pride. But I had your child in my body the summer you quit me, that summer they burned my father in his wine garden, and you, you washed your hands clean of any connection with a Dago bootlegger’s daughter and— [Her breathless voice momentarily falters and she makes a fierce gesture as she struggles to speak.] —took that—society girl that—restored your homeplace and give you such— [Catches breath.] —well-born children. . . .

  DAVID: —I—didn’t know.

  LADY: Well, now you do know, you know now. I carried your child in my body the summer you quit me but I had it cut out of my body, and they cut my heart out with it!

  DAVID: —I—didn’t know.

  LADY: I wanted death after that, but death don’t come when you want it, it comes when you don’t want it! I wanted death, then, but I took the next best thing. You sold yourself. I sold my self. You was bought. I was bought. You made whores of us both!

  DAVID: —I—didn’t know. . . .

  [Mandolin, barely audible, “Dicitencello Vuoi.”]

  LADY: But that’s all a long time ago. Some reason I drove by there a few nights ago; the shore of the lake where my father had his wine garden? You remember? You remember the wine garden of my father?

  [David stares at her. She turns away.]

  No, you don’t? You don’t remember it even?

  DAVID: —Lady, I don’t—remember—anything else. . . .

  LADY: The mandolin of my father, the songs that I sang with my father in my father’s wine garden?

  DAVID: Yes, I don’t remember anything else. . . .

  LADY: Core Ingrata! Come Le Rose! And we disappeared and he would call, “Lady? Lady?” [Turns to him.] How could I answer him with two tongues in my mouth! [A sharp hissing intake of breath, eyes opened wide, hand clapped over her mouth as if what she said was unendurable to her. He turns instantly,
sharply away. Music stops short, Jabe begins to knock for her on the floor above. She crosses to stairs, stops, turns.] I hold hard feelings! —Don’t ever come here again. If your wild sister comes here, send somebody else for her, not you, not you. Because I hope never to feel this knife again in me. [Her hand is on her chest; she breathes with difficulty.]

  [He turns away from her; starts toward the door. She takes a step toward him.]

  And don’t pity me neither. I haven’t gone down so terribly far in the world. I got a going concern in this mercantile store, in there’s the confectionery which’ll reopen this spring, it’s being done over to make it the place that all the young people will come to, it’s going to be like—

  [He touches the door, pauses with his back to her.]

  —the wine garden of my father, those wine-drinking nights when you had something better than anything you’ve had since!

  DAVID: Lady—That’s—

  LADY: —What?

  DAVID: —True! [Opens door.]

  LADY: Go now. I just wanted to tell you my life ain’t over.

  [He goes out as Jabe continues knocking. She stands, stunned, motionless till Val quietly re-enters the store. She becomes aware of his return rather slowly; then she murmurs.]

  I made a fool of myself. . . .

  VAL: What?

  [She crosses to stairs.]

  LADY: I made a fool of myself! [She goes up the stairs with effort as the lights change slowly to mark a division of scenes.]

  SCENE TWO

  Sunset of that day. Val is alone in the store, as if preparing to go. The sunset is fiery. A large woman opens the door and stands there looking dazed. It is Vee Talbott.

  VAL [turning]: Hello, Mrs. Talbott.

  VEE: Something’s gone wrong with my eyes. I can’t see nothing.

  VAL [going to her]: Here, let me help you. You probably drove up here with that setting sun in your face. [Leading her to shoe-fitting chair at right window.] There now. Set down right here.

  VEE: Thank you—so—much. . . .

  VAL: I haven’t seen you since that night you brought me here to ask for this job.

  VEE: Has the minister called on you yet? Reverend Tooker? I made him promise he would. I told him you were new around here and weren’t affiliated to any church yet. I want you to go to ours.

  VAL: —That’s—mighty kind of you.

  VEE: The Church of the Resurrection, it’s Episcopal.

  VAL: Uh, huh.

  VEE: Unwrap that picture, please.

  VAL: Sure. [He tears paper off canvas.]

  VEE: It’s the Church of the Resurrection. I give it a sort of imaginative treatment. You know, Jabe and Lady have never darkened a church door. I thought it ought to be hung where Jabe could look at it, it might help to bring that poor dying man to Jesus. . . .

  [Val places it against chair right of counter and crouches before the canvas, studying it long and seriously, Vee coughs nervously, gets up, bends to look at the canvas, sits uncertainly back down. Val smiles at her warmly, then back to the canvas.]

  VAL [at last]: What’s this here in the picture?

  VEE: The steeple.

  VAL: Aw. —Is the church steeple red?

  VEE: Why—no, but—

  VAL: Why’d you paint it red, then?

  VEE: Oh, well, you see, I— [Laughs nervously, childlike in her growing excitement.] —I just, just felt it that way! I paint a thing how I feel it instead of always the way it actually is. Appearances are misleading, nothing is what it looks like to the eyes. You got to have—vision—to see!

  VAL: —Yes. Vision. Vision!—to see. . . . [Rises, nodding gravely, emphatically.]

  VEE: I paint from vision. They call me a visionary.

  VAL: Oh.

  VEE [with shy pride]: That’s what the New Orleans and Memphis newspaper people admire so much in my work. They call it a primitive style, the work of a visionary. One of my pictures is hung on the exhibition in Audubon Park museum and they have asked for others. I can’t turn them out fast enough! —I have to wait for—visions, no, I—I can’t paint without—visions . . . I couldn’t live without visions!

  VAL: Have you always had visions?

  VEE: No, just since I was born, I— [Stops short, startled by the absurdity of her answer. Both laugh suddenly, then she rushes on, her great bosom heaving with curious excitement, twisting in her chair, gesturing with clenched hands.] I was born, I was born with a caul! A sort of thing like a veil, a thin, thin sort of a web was over my eyes. They call that a caul. It’s a sign that you’re going to have visions, and I did, I had them! [Pauses for breath; light fades.] —When I was little my baby sister died. Just one day old, she died. They had to baptize her at midnight to save her soul.

  VAL: Uh-huh. [He sits opposite her, smiling, attentive.]

  VEE: The minister came at midnight, and after the baptism service, he handed the bowl of holy water to me and told me, “Be sure to empty this out on the ground!”—I didn’t. I was scared to go out at midnight, with, with—death! in the—house and—I sneaked into the kitchen; I emptied the holy water into the kitchen sink—thunder struck! —the kitchen sink turned black, the kitchen sink turned absolutely black!

  [Sheriff Talbott enters the front door.]

  TALBOTT: Mama! What’re you doin?

  VEE: Talkin’.

  TALBOTT: I’m gonna see Jabe a minute, you go out and wait in th’ car. [He goes up. She rises slowly, picks up canvas and moves to counter.]

  VEE: —Oh, I—tell you!—since I got into this painting, my whole outlook is different. I can’t explain how it is, the difference to me.

  VAL: You don’t have to explain. I know what you mean. Before you started to paint, it didn’t make sense.

  VEE: —What—what didn’t?

  VAL: Existence!

  VEE [slowly and softly]: No—no, it didn’t . . . existence didn’t make sense. . . . [She places canvas on guitar on counter and sits in chair.]

  VAL [rising and crossing to her]: You lived in Two River County, the wife of the county sheriff. You saw awful things take place.

  VEE: Awful! Things!

  VAL: Beatings!

  VEE: Yes!

  VAL: Lynchings!

  VEE: Yes!

  VAL: Runaway convicts torn to pieces by hounds!

  [This is the first time she could express this horror.]

  VEE: Chain-gang dogs!

  VAL: Yeah?

  VEE: Tear fugitives!

  VAL: Yeah?

  VEE: —to pieces. . . .

  [She had half risen: now sinks back faintly. Val looks beyond her in the dim store, his light eyes have a dark gaze. It may be that his speech is too articulate: counteract this effect by groping, hesitations.]

  VAL [moving away a step]: But violence ain’t quick always. Sometimes it’s slow. Some tornadoes are slow. Corruption—rots men’s hearts and—rot is slow. . . .

  VEE: —How do you—?

  VAL: Know? I been a witness, I know!

  VEE: I been a witness! I know!

  VAL: We seen these things from seats down front at the show. [He crouches before her and touches her hands in her lap. Her breath shudders] And so you begun to paint your visions. Without no plan, no training, you started to paint as if God touched your fingers. [He lifts her hands slowly, gently from her soft lap.] You made some beauty out of this dark country with these two, soft, woman hands. . . . [Talbott appears on the stair landing, looks down, silent.] Yeah, you made some beauty! [Strangely, gently, he lifts her hands to his mouth. She gasps. Talbott calls out:]

  TALBOTT: Hey! [Vee springs up, gasping. Talbott descending.] Cut this crap! [Val moves away to right-center. Talbott to Vee.] Go out. Wait in the car. [He stares at Val till Vee lumbers out as if dazed. After a while:] Jabe Torrance told me to take a good look at
you. [Crosses to Val.] Well, now, I’ve taken that look. [Nods shortly. Goes out of store. The store is now very dim. As door closes on Talbott, Val picks up painting; he goes behind counter and places it on a shelf, then picks up his guitar and sits on counter. Lights go down to mark a division as he sings and plays “Heavenly Grass.”]

  SCENE THREE

  As Val finishes the song, Lady descends the stair. He rises and turns on a green-shaded light bulb.

  VAL [to Lady]: You been up there a long time.

  LADY: —I gave him morphine. He must be out of his mind. He says such awful things to me. He says I want him to die.

  VAL: You sure you don’t?

  LADY: I don’t want no one to die. Death’s terrible, Val. [Pause. She wanders to right front window. He takes his guitar and crosses to the door.] You gotta go now?

  VAL: I’m late.

  LADY: Late for what? You got a date with somebody?

  VAL: —No. . . .

  LADY: Then stay a while. Play something. I’m all unstrung. . . . [He crosses back and leans against counter; the guitar is barely audible, under the speeches.] I made a terrible fool of myself down here today with—

  VAL: —That girl’s brother?

  LADY: Yes, I—threw away——— pride. . . .

  VAL: His sister said she’d come here to give me a warning. I wonder what of?

  LADY [sitting in shoe-fitting chair]: —I said things to him I should of been too proud to say. . . .

  [Both are pursuing their own reflections; guitar continues softly.]

  VAL: Once or twice lately I’ve woke up with a fast heart, shouting something, and had to pick up my guitar to calm myself down. . . . Somehow or other I can’t get used to this place, I don’t feel safe in this place, but I—want to stay. . . . [Stops short; sound of wild baying.]

  LADY: The chain-gang dogs are chasing some runaway convict. . . .

  VAL: Run boy! Run fast, brother! If they catch you, you never will run again! That’s— [He has thrust his guitar under his arm on this line and crossed to the door.] —for sure. . . . [The baying of the dogs changes, becomes almost a single savage note.] —Uh-huh—the dogs’ve got him. . . . [Pause.] They’re tearing him to pieces! [Pause. Baying continues. A shot is fired. The baying dies out. He stops with his hand on the door; glances back at her; nods; draws the door open. The wind sings loud in the dusk.]