27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays

by Tennessee Williams

  WOMAN: (faintly) Clothes?

  MAN: Yes, all kinds of personal belongings and broken glass and furniture turned over as if there’d been a free-for-all fight going on and the pad was—raided . . .

  WOMAN: Oh.

  MAN: Violence must have—broken out in the—place . . .

  WOMAN: You were—?

  MAN: —in the bathtub on—ice . . .

  WOMAN: Oh . . .

  MAN: And I remember picking up the phone to ask what hotel it was but I don’t remember if they told me or not . . . Give me a drink of that water. (Both of them rise and meet in the center of the room. The glass is passed gravely between them. He rinses his mouth, staring at her gravely, and crosses to spit out the window. Then he returns to the center of the room and hands the glass back to her. She takes a sip of the water. He places his fingers tenderly on her long throat.) Now I’ve recited the litany of my sorrows! (Pause: the mandolin is heard.) And what have you got to tell me? Tell me a little something of what’s going on behind your— (His fingers trail across her forehead and eyes. She closes her eyes and lifts a hand in the air as if about to touch him. He takes the hand and examines it upside down and then he presses its fingers to his lips. When he releases her fingers she touches him with them. She touches his thin smooth chest which is smooth as a child’s and then she touches his lips. He raises his hand and lets his fingers slide along her throat and into the opening of the kimona as the mandolin gathers assurance. She turns and leans against him, her throat curving over his shoulder, and he runs his fingers along the curve of her throat and says—) It’s been so long since we have been together except like a couple of strangers living together. Let’s find each. other and maybe we won’t be lost. Talk to me! I’ve been lost!—I thought of you often but couldn’t call you, honey. Thought of you all the time but couldn’t call. What could I say if I called? Could I say, I’m lost? Lost in the city? Passed around like a dirty postcard among people?—And then hang up . . . I am lost in this—city . . .

  WOMAN: I’ve had nothing but water since you left! (She says this almost gaily, laughing at the statement. The Man holds her tight to him with a soft, shocked cry.)—Not a thing but instant coffee until it was used up, and water! (She laughs convulsively.)

  MAN: Can you talk to me, honey? Can you talk to me, now?

  WOMAN: Yes!

  MAN: Well, talk to me like the rain and—let me listen, let me lie here and—listen . . . (He falls back across the bed, rolls on his belly, one arm hanging over the side of the bed and occasionally drumming the floor with his knuckles. The mandolin continues.) It’s been too long a time since—we levelled with each other. Now tell me things. What have you been thinking in the silence?—While I’ve been passed around like a dirty postcard in this city . . . Tell me, talk to me! Talk to me like the rain and I will lie here and listen.

  WOMAN: I—

  MAN: You’ve got to, it’s necessary! I’ve got to know, so talk to me like the rain and I will lie here and listen, I will lie here and—

  WOMAN: I want to go away.

  MAN: You do?

  WOMAN: I want to go away!

  MAN: How?

  WOMAN: Alone! (She returns to window.)—I’ll register under a made-up name at a little hotel on the coast . . .

  MAN: What name?

  WOMAN: Anna—Jones . . . The chambermaid will be a little old lady who has a grandson that she talks about . . . I’ll sit in the chair while the old lady makes the bed, my arms will hang over the—sides, and—her voice will be—peaceful . . . She’ll tell me what her grandson had for supper! — tapioca and—cream . . . (The Woman sits by the window and sips the water.)—The room will be shadowy, cool, and filled with the murmur of—

  MAN: Rain?

  WOMAN: Yes. Rain.

  MAN: And—?

  WOMAN: Anxiety will—pass—over!

  MAN: Yes . . .

  WOMAN: After a while the little old woman will say, Your bed is made up, Miss, and I’ll say—Thank you . . . Take a dollar out of my pocketbook. The door will close. And I’ll be alone again. The windows will be tall with long blue shutters and it will be a season of rain—rain—rain . . . My life will be like the room, cool—shadowy cool and—filled with the murmur of—

  MAN: Rain . . .

  WOMAN: I will receive a check in the mail every week that I can count on. The little old lady will cash the checks for me and get me books from a library and pick up—laundry . . . I’ll always have clean things!—I’ll dress in white. I’ll never be very strong or have much energy left, but have enough after a while to walk on the—esplanade—to walk on the beach without effort . . . In the evening I’ll walk on the esplanade along the beach. I’ll have a certain beach where I go to sit, a little way from the pavillion where the band plays Victor Herbert selections while it gets dark . . . I’ll have a big room with shutters on the windows. There will be a season of rain, rain, rain. And I will be so exhausted after my life in the city that I won’t mind just listening to the rain. I’ll be so quiet. The lines will disappear from my face. My eyes won’t be inflamed at all any more. I’ll have no friends. I’ll have no acquaintances even. When I get sleepy, I’ll walk slowly back to the little hotel. The clerk will say, Good evening, Miss Jones, and I’ll just barely smile and take my key. I won’t ever look at a newspaper or hear a radio; I won’t have any idea of what’s going on in the world. I will not be conscious of time passing at all . . . One day I will look in the mirror and I will see that my hair is beginning to turn grey and for the first time I will realize that I have been living in this little hotel under a made-up name without any friends or acquaintances or any kind of connections for twenty-five years. It will surprise me a little but it won’t bother me any. I will be glad that time has passed as easily as that. Once in a while I may go out to the movies. I will sit in the back row with all that darkness around me and figures sitting motionless on each side not conscious of me. Watching the screen. Imaginary people. People in stories. I will read long books and the journals of dead writers. I will feel closer to them than I ever felt to people I used to know before I withdrew from the world. It will be sweet and cool this friendship of mine with dead poets, for I won’t have to touch them or answer their questions. They will talk to me and not expect me to answer. And I’ll get sleepy listening to their voices explaining the mysteries to me. I’ll fall asleep with the book still in my fingers, and it will rain. I’ll wake up and hear the rain and go back to sleep. A season of rain, rain, rain . . . Then one day, when I have closed a book or come home alone from the movies at eleven o’clock at night—I will look in the mirror and see that my hair has turned white. White, absolutely white. As white as the foam on the waves. (She gets up and moves about the room as she continues—) I’ll run my hands down my body and feel how amazingly light and thin I have grown. Oh, my, how thin I will be. Almost transparent. Not hardly real any more. Then I will realize, I will know, sort of dimly, that I have been staying on here in this little hotel, without any—social connections, responsibilities, anxieties or disturbances of any kind—for just about fifty years. Half a century. Practically a lifetime. I won’t even remember the names of the people I knew before I came here nor how it feels to be someone waiting for someone that—may not come . . . Then I will know—looking in the mirror—the first time has come for me to walk out alone once more on the esplanade with the strong wind beating on me, the white clean wind that blows from the edge of the world, from even further than that, from the cool outer edges of space, from even beyond whatever there is beyond the edges of space . . . (She sits down a gain unsteadily by the window.)— Then I’ll go out and walk on the esplanade. I’ll walk alone and be blown thinner and thinner.

  MAN: Baby. Come back to bed.

  WOMAN: And thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner! (He crosses to her and raises her forcibly from the chair.) — Till finally I won’t have any body at all, and the wind picks me up in its cool white arms forever, and takes me away!


  MAN: (presses his mouth to her throat.) Come on back to bed with me!

  WOMAN: I want to go away, I want to go away! (He releases her and she crosses to center of room sobbing uncontrollably. She sits down on the bed. He sighs and leans out the window, the light flickering beyond him, the rain coming down harder. The Woman shivers and crosses her arms against her breasts. Her sobbing dies out but she breathes with effort. Light flickers and wind whines coldly. The Man remains leaning out. At last she says to him softly—) Come back to bed. Come on back to bed, baby . . . (He turns his lost face to her as—)

  THE CURTAIN FALLS

  Something Unspoken

  CHARACTERS

  MISS CORNELIA SCOTT

  MISS GRACE LANCASTER

  Something Unspoken

  SCENE: Miss Cornelia Scott, 60, a wealthy southern spinster, is seated at a small mahogany table which is set for two. The other place, not yet occupied, has a single rose in a crystal vase before it. Miss Scott’s position at the table is flanked by a cradle phone, a silver tray of mail, and an ornate silver coffee urn. An imperial touch is given by purple velvet drapes directly behind her figure at the table. A console phonograph is at the edge of lighted area.

  At rise of the curtain she is dialing a number on the phone.

  CORNELIA: Is this Mrs. Horton Reid’s residence? I am calling for Miss Cornelia Scott. Miss Scott is sorry that she will not be able to attend the meeting of the Confederate Daughters this afternoon as she woke up this morning with a sore throat and has to remain in bed, and will you kindly give her apologies to Mrs. Reid for not letting her know sooner. Thank you. Oh, wait a moment! I think Miss Scott has another message.

  (Grace Lancaster enters the lighted area. Cornelia raises her hand in a warning gesture.)

  —What is it, Miss Scott? (There is a brief pause) Oh. Miss Scott would like to leave word for Miss Esmeralda Hawkins to call her as soon as she arrives. Thank you. Goodbye. (She hangs up.) You see I am having to impersonate my secretary this morning!

  GRACE: The light was so dim it didn’t wake me up.

  (Grace Lancaster is 40 or 45, faded but still pretty. Her blonde hair, greying slightly, her pale eyes, her thin figure, in a pink silk dressing-gown, give her an insubstantial quality in sharp contrast to Miss Scott’s Roman grandeur. There is between the two women a mysterious tension, an atmosphere of something unspoken.)

  CORNELIA: I’ve already opened the mail.

  GRACE: Anything of interest?

  CORNELIA: A card from Thelma Peterson at Mayo’s.

  GRACE: Oh, how is Thelma?

  CORNELIA: She says she’s “progressing nicely,” whatever that indicates.

  GRACE: Didn’t she have something removed?

  CORNELIA: Several things, I believe.

  GRACE: Oh, here’s the “Fortnightly Review of Current Letters!"

  CORNELIA: Much to my astonishment. I thought I had cancelled my subscription to that publication.

  GRACE: Really, Cornelia?

  CORNELIA: Surely you remember. I cancelled my subscription immediately after the issue came out with that scurrilous attack on my cousin Cecil Tutwiler Bates, the only dignified novelist the South has produced since Thomas Nelson Page.

  GRACE: Oh, yes, I do remember. You wrote a furious letter of protest to the editor of the magazine and you received such a conciliatory reply from an associate editor named Caroline Something or Other that you were completely mollified and cancelled the cancellation!

  CORNELIA: I have never been mollified by conciliatory replies, never completely and never even partially, and if I wrote to the editor-in-chief and was answered by an associate editor, my reaction to that piece of impertinence would hardly be what you call “mollified.”

  GRACE: (She changes the subject.) Oh, here’s the new catalogue from the Gramophone Shoppe in Atlanta!

  CORNELIA: (She concedes a point.) Yes, there it is.

  GRACE: I see you’ve checked several items.

  CORNELIA: I think we ought to build up our collection of Lieder.

  GRACE: You’ve checked a Sibelius that we already have.

  CORNELIA: It’s getting a little bit scratchy. (She inhales deeply and sighs, her look fastened upon the silent phone.) You’ll also notice that I’ve checked a few operatic selections.

  GRACE: (excitedly) Where, which ones, I don’t see them!

  CORNELIA: Why are you so excited over the catalogue, dear?

  GRACE: I adore phonograph records!

  CORNELIA: I wish you adored them enough to put them back in their proper places in albums.

  GRACE: Oh, here’s the Vivaldi we wanted!

  CORNELIA: Not “we” dear. Just you.

  GRACE: Not you, Cornelia?

  CORNELIA: I think Vivaldi’s a very thin shadow of Bach.

  GRACE: How strange that I should have the impression you—(The phone rings.)— Shall I answer?

  CORNELIA: If you will be so kind.

  GRACE: (lifting receiver) Miss Scott’s residence! (This announcement is made in a tone of reverence, as though mentioning a seat of holiness.) Oh, no, no, this is Grace, but Cornelia is right by my side. (She passes the phone.) Esmeralda Hawkins.

  CORNELIA: (grimly) I’ve been expecting her call, (into phone) Hello, Esmeralda, my dear. I’ve been expecting your call. Now where are you calling me from? Of course I know that you’re calling me from the meeting, ça va sans dire, ma petite! Ha ha! But from which phone in the house, there’s two, you know, the one in the downstairs hall and the one in the chatelaine’s boudoir where the ladies will probably be removing their wraps. Oh. You’re on the downstairs’, are you? Well, by this time I presume that practically all the daughters have assembled. Now go upstairs and call me back from there so we can talk with a little more privacy, dear, as I want to make my position very clear before the meeting commences. Thank you, dear. (She hangs up and looks grimly into space.)

  GRACE: The—Confederate Daughters?

  CORNELIA: Yes! They’re holding the Annual Election today.

  GRACE: Oh, how exciting! Why aren’t you at the meeting?

  CORNELIA: I preferred not to go.

  GRACE: You preferred not to go?

  CORNELIA: Yes, I preferred not to go . . . (She touches her chest breathing heavily as if she had run upstairs.)

  GRACE: But it’s the annual election of officers!

  CORNELIA: Yes! I told you it was! (Grace drops the spoon. Cornelia cries out and jumps a little.)

  GRACE: I’m so sorry! (She rings the bell for a servant.)

  CORNELIA: Intrigue, intrigue and duplicity, revolt me so that I wouldn’t be able to breathe in the same atmosphere! (Grace rings the bell louder.) Why are you ringing that bell? You know Lucinda’s not here!

  GRACE: I’m so sorry. Where has Lucinda gone?

  CORNELIA: (in a hoarse whisper, barely audible) There’s a big colored funeral in town. (She clears her throat violently and repeats the statement.)

  GRACE: Oh, dear. You have that nervous laryngitis.

  CORNELIA: No sleep, no sleep last night.

  (The phone screams at her elbow. She cries out and thrusts it from her as if it were on fire.)

  GRACE: (She picks up the phone.) Miss Scott’s residence. Oh. Just a moment, please.

  CORNELIA: (snatching phone) Esmeralda, are you upstairs now?

  GRACE: (in a loud whisper) It isn’t Esmeralda, it’s Mrs. C. C. Bright!

  CORNELIA: One moment, one moment, one moment! (She thrusts phone back at Grace with a glare of fury.) How dare you put me on the line with that woman!

  GRACE: Cornelia, I didn’t, I was just going to ask you if you—

  CORNELIA: Hush! (She springs back from the table, glaring across it.)— Now give me that phone. (She takes it, and says coldly:) What can I do for you, please? No. I’m afraid that my garden will not be open to the Pilgrims this spring. I think the cultivation of gardens is an esthetic hobby and not a competitive sport. Individual visitors will be welcome if they call in advance s
o that I can arrange for my gardener to show them around, but no bands of Pilgrims, not after the devastation my garden suffered last spring—Pilgrims coming with dogs—picking flowers and—You’re entirely welcome, yes, goodbye! (She returns the phone to Grace.)

  GRACE: I think the election would have been less of a strain if you’d gone to it, Cornelia.

  CORNELIA: I don’t know what you are talking about.

  GRACE: Aren’t you up for office?

  CORNELIA: “Up for office"? What is “up for office"?

  GRACE: Why, ha ha!— running for—something?

  CORNELIA: Have you ever known me to “run” for anything, Grace? Whenever I’ve held an office in a society or club it’s been at the insistence of the members because I really have an aversion to holding office. But this is a different thing, a different thing altogether. It’s a test of something. You see I have known for some time, now, that there is a little group, a clique, in the Daughters, which is hostile to me!

  GRACE: Oh, Cornelia, I’m sure you must be mistaken.

  CORNELIA: No. There is a movement against me.

  GRACE: A movement? A movement against you?

  CORNELIA: An organized movement to keep me out of any important office.

  GRACE: But haven’t you always held some important office in the Chapter?

  CORNELIA: I have never been Regent of it!

  GRACE: Oh, you want to be Regent?