STELLA:
Yes, do. Go ahead. As plainly as you want to.
[Outside, a train approaches. They are silent till the noise subsides. They are both in the bedroom.
[Under cover of the train's noise Stanley enters from outside. He stands unseen by the women, holding some packages in his arms, and overhears their following conversation. He wears an undershirt and grease-stained seersucker pants.]
BLANCHE:
Well--if you'll forgive me--he's common!
STELLA:
Why, yes, I suppose he is.
BLANCHE:
Suppose! You can't have forgotten that much of our bringing up, Stella, that you just suppose that any part of a gentleman's in his nature! Not one particle, no! Oh, if he was just--ordinary! Just plain--but good and wholesome, but--no. There's something downright--bestial--about him! You're hating me saying this, aren't you?
STELLA [coldly]:
Go on and say it all, Blanche.
BLANCHE:
He acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one! There's even something--sub-human--something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! Yes, something--ape-like about him, like one of those pictures I've seen in--anthropological studies! Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is--Stanley Kowalski--survivor of the stone age! Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you--you here--waiting for him! Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you! That is, if kisses have been discovered yet! Night falls and the other apes gather! There in the front of the cave, all grunting like him, and swilling and gnawing and hulking! His poker night!--you call it--this party of apes! Somebody growls--some creature snatches at something--the fight is on! God! Maybe we are a long way from being made in God's image, but Stella--my sister--there has been some progress since then! Such things as art--as poetry and music--such kinds of new light have come into the world since then! In some kinds of people some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning! That we have got to make grow! And cling to, and hold as our flag! In this dark march toward whatever it is we're approaching.... Don't--don't hang back with the brutes!
[Another train passes outside. Stanley hesitates, licking his lips. Then suddenly he turns stealthily about and withdraws through front door. The women are still unaware of his presence. When the train has passed he calls through the closed front door.]
STANLEY:
Hey! Hey, Stella!
STELLA [who has listened gravely to Blanche]:
Stanley!
BLANCHE:
Stell, I
[But Stella has gone to the front door. Stanley enters casually with his packages.]
STANLEY:
Hiyuh, Stella. Blanche back?
STELLA:
Yes, she's back.
STANLEY:
Hiyuh, Blanche.
[He grins at her.]
STELLA:
You must've got under the car.
STANLEY:
Them dam mechanics at Fritz's don't know their ass fr'm--Hey!
[Stella has embraced him--with both arms, fiercely, and full in the view of Blanche. He laughs and clasps her head to him. Over her head he grins through the curtains at Blanche.]
[As the lights fade away, with a lingering brightness on their embrace, the music of the "blue piano" and trumpet and drums is heard.]
SCENE FIVE
Blanche is seated in the bedroom fanning herself with a palm leaf as she reads over a just completed letter. Suddenly she bursts into a peal of laughter. Stella is dressing in the bedroom.
STELLA:
What are you laughing at, honey?
BLANCHE:
Myself, myself, for being such a liar! I'm writing a letter to Shep.
[She picks up the letter]
"Darling Shep. I am spending the summer on the wing, making flying visits here and there. And who knows, perhaps I shall take a sudden notion to swoop down on Dallas! How would you feel about that? Ha-ha!
[She laughs nervously and brightly, touching her throat as if actually talking to Shep]
Forewarned is forearmed, as they say!"--How does that sound?
STELLA:
Uh-huh...
BLANCHE [going on nervously]:
"Most of my sister's friends go north in the summer but some have homes on the Gulf and there has been a continued round of entertainments, teas, cocktails, and luncheons--"
[A disturbance is heard upstairs at the Hubbells' apartment.]
STELLA:
Eunice seems to be having some trouble with Steve.
[Eunice's voice shouts in terrible wrath.]
EUNICE:
I heard about you and that blonde!
STEVE:
That's a damn lie!
EUNICE:
You ain't pulling the wool over my eyes! I wouldn't mind if you'd stay down at the Four Deuces, but you always going up.
STEVE:
Who ever seen me up?
EUNICE:
I seen you chasing her 'round the balcony--I'm gonna call the vice squad!
STEVE:
Don't you throw that at me!
EUNICE [shrieking]:
You hit me! I'm gonna call the police!
[A clatter of aluminum striking a wall is heard, followed by a man's angry roar, shouts and overturned furniture. There is a crash; then a relative hush.]
BLANCHE [brightly]:
Did he kill her?
[Eunice appears on the steps in daemonic disorder.]
STELLA:
No! She's coming downstairs.
EUNICE:
Call the police. I'm going to call the police!
[She rushes around the comer.]
[They laugh lightly. Stanley comes around the corner in his green-and-scarlet silk bowling shirt. He trots up the steps and bangs into the kitchen. Blanche registers his entrance with nervous gestures.]
STANLEY:
What's a matter with Eun-uss?
STELLA:
She and Steve had a row. Has she got the police?
STANLEY:
Naw. She's gettin' a drink.
STELLA:
That's much more practical!
[Steve comes down nursing a bruise on his forehead and looks in the door.]
STEVE:
She here?
STANLEY:
Naw, naw. At the Four Deuces.
STEVE:
That rutting hunk!
[He looks around the corner a bit timidly, then turns with affected boldness and runs after her.]
BLANCHE:
I must jot that down in my notebook. Ha-ha! I'm compiling a notebook of quaint little words and phrases I've picked up here.
STANLEY:
You won't pick up nothing here you ain't heard before.
BLANCHE:
Can I count on that?
STANLEY:
You can count on it up to five hundred.
BLANCHE:
That's a mighty high number.
[He jerks open the bureau drawer, slams it shut and throws shoes in a corner. At each noise Blanche winces slightly. Finally she speaks]
What sign were you born under?
STANLEY [while he is dressing]:
Sign?
BLANCHE:
Astrological sign. I bet you were born under Aries. Aries people are forceful and dynamic. They dote on noise! They love to bang things around! You must have had lots of banging around in the army and now that you're out, you make up for it by treating inanimate objects with such a fury!
[Stella has been going in and out of closet during this scene. Now she pops her head out of the closet.]
STELLA:
Stanley was born just five minutes after Christmas.
BLANCHE:
Capricorn--the Goat!
STANLEY:
What sign were you born under?
BLANCHE:
Oh, my birthday's next month, the fifteenth of September; that's under Virgo.
STANLEY:
What's Virgo?
BLANCHE:
Virgo is the Virgin.
STANLEY [contemptuously]:
Bah!
[He advances a little as he knots his tie]
Say, do you happen to know somebody named Shaw?
[Her face expresses a faint shock. She reaches for the cologne bottle and dampens her handkerchief as she answers carefully.]
BLANCHE:
Why, everybody knows somebody named Shaw!
STANLEY:
Well, this somebody named Shaw is under the impression he met you in Laurel, but I figure he must have got you mixed up with some other party because this other party is someone he met at a hotel called the Flamingo.