TOM: She won’t to me. It’s her that started not speaking.

LAURA: If you just say you’re sorry she’ll start speaking.

TOM: Her not speaking – is that such a tragedy?

LAURA: Please – please!

AMANDA [calling from kitchenette]: Laura, are you going to do what I asked you to do, or do I have to get dressed and go out myself?

LAURA: Going, going – soon as I get on my coat![She pulls on a shapeless felt hat with nervous, jerky movement, pleadingly glancing at TOM. Rushes awkwardly for coat. The coat is one of AMANDA’s, inaccurately made-over the sleeves too short for LAURA.] Butter and what else?

AMANDA [centering upstage]: Just butter. Tell them to charge it.

LAURA: Mother, they make such faces when I do that

AMANDA: Sticks and stones can break our bones, but the expression on Mr. Garfinkel’s face won’t harm us! Tell your brother his coffee is getting cold.

LAURA [at door]: Do what I asked you, will you, will you, TOM?

[He looks sullenly away.]

AMANDA: Laura, go now or just don’t go at all!

LAURA [rushing out]: Going – going! [A second later she cries Out. TOM Springs up and crosses to door. AMANDA rushes anxiously in. TOM opens the door.]

TOM: Laura?

LAURA: I’m all right. I slipped, but I’m all right.

AMANDA [peering anxiously after her]: If anyone breaks a leg on those fire-escape steps, the landlord ought to be sued for every cent he possesses! [She shuts door. Remembers she isn’t speaking and returns to other room.]

[As TOM enters listlessly for his coffee she turns her back to him and stands rigidly facing the window on the gloomy gray vault of the areaway. Its light on her face with its aged but childish features is cruelly sharp, satirical as a Daumier print. MUSIC UNDER: “AVE MARIA”. TOM glances sheepishly but sullenly at her averted figure and slumps at the table. The coffee is scalding hot; he sips it and gasps and spits it back in the cup. At his gasp, AMANDA catches her breath and half turns. Then catches herself and turns back to window. Tom blows on his coffee, glancing sidewise at his mother. She clears her throat. TOM clears his. He starts to rise. Sinks back down again, scratches his head, clears his throat again. AMANDA Coughs. TOM raises his cup in both hands to blow on it – his eyes staring over the rim of it at his mother for several moments. Then he slowly sets the cup down and awkwardly and hesitantly rises from the chair.]

TOM [hoarsely]: Mother! – I apologize, Mother. [AMANDA draws a quick, shuddering breath. Her face works grotesquely. She breaks into childlike tears.] I’m sorry for what I said, for everything that I said; I didn’t mean it.

AMANDA [sobbingly]: My devotion has made me a witch and so I make myself hateful to my children!

TOM: NO, you don’t.

AMANDA: I worry so much, don’t sleep, it makes me nervous!

TOM [gently]: I understand that.

AMANDA: I’ve had to put up a solitary battle all these years. But you’re my right-hand bower[8]! Don’t fall down, don’t fail!

TOM [gently]: I try, Mother.

AMANDA [with great enthusiasm]: Try and you will succeed! [The notion makes her breathless] Why, you – you’re just full of natural endowments! Both of my children – they’re unusual children! Don’t you think I know it? I’m so proud! Happy and – feel I’ve – so much to be thankful for but – Promise me one thing, Son!

TOM: What, Mother?

AMANDA: Promise, Son, you’ll – never be a drunkard!

TOM [turns to her grinning]: I will never be a drunkard, Mother.

AMANDA: That’s what frightened me so, that you’d be drinking! Eat a bowl of Purina!

TOM: Just Coffee, Mother.

AMANDA: Shredded wheat biscuit?

Tom: No. No, Mother, just coffee.

AMANDA: You can’t put in a day’s work on an empty stomach. You’ve got ten minutes – don’t gulp! Drinking too hot liquids makes cancer of the stomach. Put cream in.

TOM: No, thank you.

AMANDA: To cool it.

TOM . No! No, thank you, I want it black.

AMANDA: I know, but it’s not good for you. We have to do all that we can to build ourselves up. In these trying times we live in, all that we have to cling to is – each other… That’s why it’s so important to – Tom! – I sent out your sister so I could discuss something with you. If you hadn’t spoken I would have spoken to you. [Sits down.]

TOM [gently]: What is it, Mother, that you want to discuss?

AMANDA: Laura!

[Tom puts his cup down slowly.

LEGEND ON SCREEN: “LAURA”.

MUSIC: “THE GLASS MENAGERIE”]

TOM: – Oh. – Laura …

AMANDA [touching his sleeve]You know how Laura is. So quiet but – still water runs deep! She notices things and I think she – broods about them. [Tom looks up.] A few days ago I came in and she was crying.

TOM: What about?

AMANDA: YOU.

TOM: Me?

AMANDA: She has an idea that you’re not happy here

TOM: What gave her that idea?

AMANDA: What gives her any idea? However, you do act strangely! – I’m not criticizing, understand that! I know your ambitions do not lie in the warehouse, that like everybody in the whole wide world – you’ve had to make sacrifices, but – Tom – Tom – life’s not easy, it calls for – Spartan endurance! There’s so many things in my heart that I cannot describe to you! I’ve never told you but – I loved your father…

TOM [gently] : I know that, Mother.

AMANDA: And you – when I see you taking after his ways! Staying out late – and – well, you had been drinking the night you were in that – terrifying condition! Laura says that you hate the apartment and that you go out nights to get away from it! Is that true, Tom?

TOM: No. You say there’s so much in your heart that you can’t describe to me. That’s true of me, too. There’s so much in my heart that I can’t describe to you! So let’s respect each other’s –

AMANDA: But, why – why, Tom – are you always so restless? Where do you go to, nights?

TOM: I – go to the movies.

AMANDA: Why do you go to the movies so much, Tom?

TOM: I go to the movies because – I like adventure. Adventure is something I don’t have much of at work, so I go to the movies.

AMANDA: But, Tom, you go to the movies entirely too much!

TOM: I like a lot of adventure.

[AMANDA looks baffled, then hurt As the familiar inquisition resumes he becomes hard and impatient again. AMANDA SLIPS back into her querulous attitude towards him.

IMAGE ON SCREEN: SAILING VESSEL[9] WITH JOLLY ROGER.]

AMANDA: Most young men find adventure in their careers.

TOM: Then most young men are not employed in a warehouse.

AMANDA: The world is full of young men employed in warehouses and offices and factories.

TOM: Do all of them find adventure in their careers?

AMANDA: They do or they do without it! Not everybody has a craze for adventure.

TOM: Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter, and none of those instincts are given much play at the warehouse!

AMANDA: Man is by instinct! Don’t quote instinct to me! Instinct is something that people have got away from! It belongs to animals! Christian adults don’t want it!

TOM: What do Christian adults want, then, Mother?

AMANDA: Superior things! Things of the mind and the spirit! Only animals have to satisfy instincts! Surely your aims are somewhat higher than theirs! Than monkeys – pigs

TOM: I reckon they’re not.

AMANDA: You’re joking. However, that isn’t what I wanted to discuss.

TOM [rising] I haven’t much time.

AMANDA [pushing his shoulders]: Sit down.

TOM: You want me to punch in red[10] at the warehouse, Mother?