STELLA:

I want to know why. Tell me why.

STANLEY:

When we first met, me and you, you thought I was common. How right you was, baby. I was common as dirt. You showed me the snapshot of the place with the columns. I pulled you down off them columns and how you loved it, having them colored lights going! And wasn't we happy together, wasn't it all okay till she showed here?

[Stella makes a slight movement. Her look goes suddenly inward as if some interior voice had called her name. She begins a slow, shuffling progress from the bedroom to the kitchen, leaning and resting on the back of the chair and then on the edge of a table with a blind look and listening expression. Stanley, finishing with his shirt, is unaware of her reaction.]

And wasn't we happy together? Wasn't it all okay? Till she showed here. Hoity-toity, describing me as an ape.

[He suddenly notices the change in Stella]

Hey, what is it, Stella?

[He crosses to her.]

STELLA [quietly]:

Take me to the hospital.

[He is with her now, supporting her with his arm, murmuring indistinguishably as they go outside.]

SCENE NINE

A while later that evening--Blanche is seated in a tense hunched position in a bedroom chair that she has re-covered with diagonal green-and-white stripes. She has on her scarlet satin robe. On the table beside chair is a bottle of liquor and a glass. The rapid, feverish polka tune, the "Varsouviana," is heard. The music is in her mind; she is drinking to escape it and the sense of disaster closing in on her, and she seems to whisper the words of the song. An electric fan is turning back and forth across her. Mitch comes around the corner in work clothes: blue denim shirt and pants. He is unshaven. He climbs the steps to the door and rings. Blanche is startled.

BLANCHE:

Who is it, please?

MITCH [hoarsely]:

Me. Mitch.

[The polka tune stops.]

BLANCHE:

Mitch!--just a minute.

[She rushes about frantically, hiding the bottle in a closet, crouching at the mirror and dabbing her face with cologne and powder. She is so excited her breath is audible as she dashes about. At last she rushes to the door in the kitchen and lets him in.]

Mitch!--Y'know, I really shouldn't let you in after the treatment I have received from you this evening! So utterly uncavalier! But hello, beautiful!

[She offers him her lips. He ignores it and pushes past her into the flat. She looks fearfully after him as he stalks into the bedroom.]

My, my, what a cold shoulder! And such uncouth apparel! Why, you haven't even shaved! The unforgivable insult to a lady! But I forgive you. I forgive you because it's such a relief to see you. You've stopped that polka tune that I had caught in my head. Have you ever had anything caught in your head? No, of course you haven't, you dumb angel-puss, you'd never get anything awful caught in your head!

[He stares at her while she follows him while she talks. It is obvious that he has had a few drinks on the way over.]

MITCH:

Do we have to have that fan on?

BLANCHE:

No!

MITCH:

I don't like fans.

BLANCHE:

Then let's turn it off, honey. I'm not partial to them!

[She presses the switch and the fan nods slowly off. She clears her throat uneasily as Mitch plumps himself down on the bed in the bedroom and lights a cigarette.] I don't know what there is to drink. I--haven't investigated.

MITCH:

I don't want Stan's liquor.

BLANCHE:

It isn't Stan's. Everything here isn't Stan's. Some things on the premises are actually mine! How is your mother? Isn't your mother well?

MITCH:

Why?

BLANCHE:

Something's the matter tonight, but never mind. I won't cross-examine the witness. I'll just--[She touches her forehead vaguely. The polka tune starts up again.]--pretend I don't notice anything different about you! That--music again...

MITCH:

What music?

BLANCHE:

The "Varaouviana"! The polka tune they were playing when Allan--Wait!

[A distant revolver shot is heard. Blanche seems relieved.] There now, the shot! It always stops after that.

[The polka music dies out again.]

Yes, now it's stopped.

MITCH:

Are you boxed out of your mind?

BLANCHE:

I'll go and see what I can find in the way of--[She crosses into the closet, pretending to search for the bottle.]

Oh, by the way, excuse me for not being dressed. But I'd practically given you up! Had you forgotten your invitation to supper?

MITCH:

I wasn't going to see you any more.

BLANCHE:

Wait a minute. I can't hear what you're saying and you talk so little that when you do say something, I don't want to miss a single syllable of it.... What am I looking around here for? Oh, yes--liquor! We've had so much excitement around here this evening that I am boxed out of my mind!

[She pretends suddenly to find the bottle. He draws his foot up on the bed and stares at her contemptuously. Here's something. Southern Comfort! What is that, I wonder?

MITCH:

If you don't know, it must belong to Stan.

BLANCHE:

Take your foot off the bed. It has a light cover on it. Of course you boys don't notice things like that. I've done so much with this place since I've been here.

MITCH:

I bet you have.

BLANCHE:

You saw it before I came. Well, look at it now! This room is almost--dainty! I want to keep it that way. I wonder if this stuff ought to be mixed with something? Ummm, it's sweet, so sweet! It's terribly, terribly sweet! Why, it's a liqueur, I believe! Yes, that's what it is, a liqueur!

[Mitch grunts.]

I'm afraid you won't like it, but try it, and maybe you will.

MITCH:

I told you already I don't want none of his liquor and I mean it. You ought to lay off his liquor. He says you been lapping it up all summer like a wildcat!

BLANCHE:

What a fantastic statement! Fantastic of him to say it, fantastic of you to repeat it! I won't descend to the level of such cheap accusations to answer them, even!

MITCH:

Huh.

BLANCHE:

What's in your mind? I see something in your eyes!

MITCH [getting up]:

It's dark in here.

BLANCHE:

I like it dark. The dark is comforting to me.

MITCH:

I don't think I ever seen you in the light.

[Blanche laughs breathlessly]

That's a fact!

BLANCHE:

Is it?

MITCH:

I've never seen you in the afternoon.

BLANCHE:

Whose fault is that?

MITCH:

You never want to go out in the afternoon.

BLANCHE:

Why, Mitch, you're at the plant in the afternoon!

MITCH:

Not Sunday afternoon. I've asked you to go out with me sometimes on Sundays but you always make an excuse. You never want to go out till after six and then it's always some place that's not lighted much.

BLANCHE:

There is some obscure meaning in this but I fail to catch it.

MITCH:

What it means is I've never had a real good look at you, Blanche. Let's turn the light on here.

BLANCHE [fearfully]:

Light? Which light? What for?

MITCH:

This one with the paper thing on it.

[He tears the paper lantern off the light bulb. She utters a frightened gasp.]

BLANCHE:

What did you do that for?

MITCH:

So I can take a look at you good and plain!

BLANCHE:

Of course you don't really mean to be insulting!

MITCH:

No, just realistic.

BLANCHE:

I don't want realism. I want magic!

[Mitch laughs]

Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!--Don't turn the light on!