her charade so far as to ask out loud what Southern Comfort is. Mitch does
not bite, but bides his time, getting up the nerve to say what he has come
to say. Blanche tells Mitch to take his foot off the bed, and goes on about
the liquor. Mitch again declines. Stanley has complained to him that
Blanche drinks all of his liquor. At last Blanche asks point blank what is
on his mind.
Mitch says it's dark in the room. He has never seen her in the light, never
in the afternoon. She has always made excuses on Sunday afternoons, only
gone out with him after six, and then never to well-lit places. He's never
had a good look at her. Mitch tears the paper lantern off the lightbulb. He
wants a dose of realism. "I don't want realism, I want magic," replies
Blanche. "I try to give that to people... I don't tell truth, I tell what
ought to be truth.
And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it." She begs him not to
turn the light on. He turns it on. She lets out a cry. He turns it off.
Mitch is not so concerned about her age; what he can't stomach is the
garbage and excuses about her morals and old-fashioned ideals that he's
been forced to swallow all summer. Blanche tries to defend herself, but
Mitch has heard stories about her from three difierent sources and is
convinced. She breaks, and admits the truth through convulsive sobs and
shots of liquor.
She had many intimacies with strangers. She panicked after Allan's death,
did not know she what she was doing and eventually ended up in trouble with
the seventeen-year-old. She found hope when she met Mitch, but the past
caught up with her. "You lied to me, Blanche," is all Mitch can say. In her
heart she never lied to him, Blanche replies. Mitch is unmoved.
A blind Mexican woman comes around the corner with bunches of tin owers
used at Mexican funerals. "Flores. Flores para los muertos," the woman
intones. (Flowers. Flowers for the dead.) Blanche goes to the door, opens
it, sees and hears the woman (who calls to her and offers her owers), and
slams the door, terrified. The woman moves slowly down the street, calling.
We hear the polka tune again.
Blanche begins to speak as if she were thinking out loud. Her lines are
punctuated by the Mexican woman's calls. Her tortured soliloquy mentions
regrets, legacies, death, her dying parents, death and agony everywhere,
desire as the opposite of death, the soldiers from the nearby camp who
staggered drunkenly onto her lawn and called for her while her deaf mother
slept. The polka music fades. Wanting what he's been waiting for all
summer, Mitch walks up to her, places his hands on her waist and tries to
embrace her.
Blanche says he must marry her first. Mitch doesn't want to marry her; he
does not think she's fit to live in the same house as his mother. Blanche
orders him to leave. When he does not move, she threatens to scream 'Fire.'
He still does not leave, so she screams out the window. Mitch hurries out.
Scene 10 Summary
A few hours have elapsed since Mitch's departure. Blanche's trunk is out in
the middle of the bedroom. She has been packing, drinking, trying on
clothes and speaking to imaginary admirers. Stanley enters the apartment,
slams the door and gives a low whistle when he sees Blanche. Blanche asks
about her sister. The baby won't be born until tomorrow, says Stanley. It's
just the two of them at home tonight.
Stanley asks why Blanche is all dressed up. She tells him that she has just
received a telegram from an old admirer inviting her to join him on his
yacht in the Caribbean. It was the oil millionaire she met again in Miami.
Stanley plays along. In high spirits, he opens a bottle of beer on the
corner of the table and pours the foam on his head. He offers her a sip but
she declines.
He goes to the bedroom to find his special pajamas top in anticipation of
the good news from the hospital. Blanche keeps talking, feverishly working
herself up as she describes what a gentleman this man is and how he merely
wants the companionship of an intelligent, spirited, tender, cultured
woman.
She may be poor financially, but she is rich in these qualities. And she
has been foolishly lavishing these offerings on those who do not deserve
them{ as she puts it, casting her pearls before swine. Stanley's amicable
mood evaporates.
Blanche claims that she sent Mitch away after he repeated slanderous lies
that Stanley had told him. He came groveling back, with roses and
apologies, but in vain. She cannot forgive "deliberate cruelty," and
realistically the two of them are too difierent in attitude and upbringing
for it ever to work.
Stanley cuts in with a question that trips up her improvisation. Then he
launches an attack, tearing down her make-believe world point by point. She
can make no reply but, "Oh!" He finishes with a disdainful laugh and walks
through the bedroom on into the bathroom. Frightening shadows and re
ections appear in the room. Blanche goes to the phone and tries to make a
call to her "admirer." She does not know his number or his address. The
operator hangs up; Blanche leaves the phone off the hook and walks into the
kitchen.
The special efiects continue: inhuman voices, terrifying shadows. A strange
scene takes place on a sidewalk beyond the back wall of the rooms (which
has suddenly become transparent). A drunkard and a prostitute scufie until
a police whistle sounds and they disappear. Soon thereafter the Negro woman
comes around the corner ri ing through the prostitute's purse.
Blanche returns to the phone and whispers to the operator to connect her to
Western Union. She tries to send a telegraph: "In desperate, desperate
circumstances. Help me! Caught in a trap. Caught in{".... She breaks off
when Stanley emerges from the bathroom in his special pajamas. He stares at
her, grinning. Then crosses over to the phone and replaces it on the hook.
Still grinning, he steps between Blanche and the door. She asks him to move
and he takes one step to the side. She asks him to move further away but he
will not. The jungle voices well up again as he slowly advances towards
her. Blanche tells him to stay back but he continues towards her. She backs
away, grabs a bottle, and smashes the end of it on the table. He jumps at
her, grabs her arm when she swings at him, and forces her to drop the
bottle.
"We've had this date from the beginning," he says. She sinks to her knees.
He picks her up and carries her to the bed.
Scene 11 Summary
A few weeks later. Stella is packing Blanche's belongings while Blanche
takes a bath. Stella has been crying. The men are assembled in the kitchen
playing poker. Of them, only Mitch does not seem to be in the usual card-
playing bull and bravado mood. Eunice comes downstairs and enters the
apartment.
Eunice calls them callous and goes over to Stella. Stella tells Eunice she
is not sure she did the right thing. She told Blanche that they had
arranged for her to stay in the country, and Blanche seemed to think it had
to do with her millionaire admirer. Stella couldn't believe the story
Blanche told her about the rape and still continue her life with Stanley.
Eunice comforts her.
It was the only thing Stella could do, and she should never believe the
story. "Life has got to go on," Eunice says.
The men continue playing poker. Blanche emerges from the bathroom to the
strains of the by-now familiar waltz. Stella and Eunice are gentle and
complimenting; Blanche has a slightly unhinged vivacity. The sound of
Blanche's voice sends Mitch into a daydream until Stanley snaps him out of
it. Stanley's voice from the kitchen stuns Blanche. She remains still for a
few moments, then with a rising hysteria demands to know what is going on.
The women quiet and soothe her and the men restrain Stanley from
interfering.
She is appeased for the moment, but anxious to leave. The other women
convince her to wait a moment yet. Blanche goes into a reverie, imagining
her death at sea from food poisoning with a handsome young ship's doctor at
her side.
The doctor and nurse arrive. Eunice goes to see who's at the door. Blanche
waits tensely, hoping that it is Shep Huntleigh, her millionaire savior.
Eunice returns and announces that someone is calling for Blanche. The waltz
begins again. Blanche and Stella pass through the kitchen and cross to the
door. The poker players stand as she passes, except for Mitch, who stares
at the table. When Blanche steps out onto the porch and sees the doctor,
and not Shep Huntleigh, she retreats to where Stella is standing, then
slips back into the apartment. Inside, Stanley steps up to block her way.
Blanche rushes around him, claiming she forgot something, as the weird re
ections and shadows return. The doctor sends the nurse in after her. What
follows is a wrenching capture scene, which Stella cannot bear to watch.
She rushes to the porch, where Eunice goes to comfort her. The nurse
succeeds in pinning Blanche. The doctor enters, and at Blanche's soft
request tells the nurse to release her. The doctor leads her out of the
bedroom, she holding onto his arm.
"Whoever you are," she says, "I have always depended on the kindness of
strangers." The doctor leads her through the kitchen as the poker players
look on. They head out the door and onto the porch. Stella, now crouched on
the porch in agony, calls out her sister's name. Blanche, allowing herself
to be led onward, does not turn to look at Stella. Doctor, nurse, and
Blanche turn the corner and disappear. Eunice brings the baby to Stella and
thrusts it into her arms, then goes to the kitchen to join the men. Stanley
goes out onto the porch and over to Stella, who sobs over her child. He
comforts her and begins to caress her. In the kitchen, Steve deals a new
hand.
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