glass menagerie amanda lines

TOM: "Hello--Goodbye!" and no address.

You know Laura, I had the funniest experience in church last Sunday. The church was crowded except for one pew way down front and in that was just one little woman I smiled very sweetly at her and said, "Excuse me, would you mind if I shared this pew?" "I certainly would," she said," This space is rented," Do you know that is the first time that I ever knew that the Lord rented space. These Northern Episcopalians! I can understand the Southern Episcopalians, but these Northern ones, no. Honey, don't push your food with your fingers. If you have to push your food with something, the thing to use is a crust of bread. You must chew your food. Animals have secretions in their stomachs which enable them to digest their food without mastication, but human beings must chew their food before they swallow it down, and chew, chew. Oh, eat leisurely. Eat leisurely. A well-cooked meal has many delicate flavors that have to be held in the mouth for appreciation, not just gulped down. Oh, chew, chew--chew! Don't you want to give your salivary glands a chance to function?

TOM: It's disgusting--all this discussion of animals' secretion--salivary glands--mastication!

Temperament like a Metropolitan star! You're not excused from this table.

TOM: I'm getting a cigarette.

You smoke too much.

LAURA: Mother, I'll bring in the coffee.

No, no, no, no. You sit down. I'm going to be the servant today and you're going to be the lady.

LAURA: I'm already up.

Resume your seat. Resume your seat. You keep yourself fresh and pretty for the gentlemen callers.

LAURA: I'm not expecting any gentlemen callers.

Well, the nice thing about them is they come when they're least expected. Why, I remember one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain when your mother was a girl..

LAURA: She loves to tell it.

I remember one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain when your mother was a girl, she received--seventeen--gentlemen callers! Why, sometimes there weren't chairs enough to accommodate them all and we had to send the servant over to the parish house to fetch the folding chairs.

TOM: How did you entertain all those gentlemen callers?

I happened to understand the art of conversation!

TOM: I bet you could talk!

Well, I could. All the girls in my day could, I tell you.

TOM: Yes?

They knew how to entertain their gentlemen callers. It wasn't enough for a girl to be possessed of a pretty face and a graceful figure--although I wasn't slightest in either respect. She also needed to have a nimble wit and a tongue to meet all occasions.

TOM: What did you talk about?

Why, we'd talk about things of importance going on in the world! Never anything common or coarse or vulgar. My callers were gentlemen--all! Some of the most prominent men on the Mississippi Delta--planters and sons of planters! There was young Champ Laughlin. He later became Vice President of the Delta Planter's Bank. And Hadley Stevenson; he was drowned in Moon Lake.--My goodness, he certainly left his widow well provided for--a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in government bonds. And the Cutrere Brothers--Wesley and Bates. Bates was one of my own bright particular beaus! But he got in a quarrel with that wild Wainwright boy and they shot it out on the floor of Moon Lake Casino. Bates was shot through the stomach. He died in the ambulance on his way to Memphis. He certainly left his widow provided for, too--eight or ten thousand acres, no less. He never loved that woman; she just caught him on the rebound. My picture was found on him the night he died. Oh and that boy, that boy that every girl in the Delta was setting her cap for! That beautiful brilliant young Fitzhugh boy from Greene County!

TOM: What did he leave his widow?

He never married! What's the matter with you--you talk as though all my old admirers had turned up their toes to the daisies!

TOM: Isn't this the first you've mentioned that still survives?

He made an awful lot of money. He went North to Wall Street and made a fortune. He had the Midas touch--everything that boy touched just turned to gold! And I could have been Mrs. J. Duncan Fitzhugh--mind you! But--what did I do?--I just went out of my way and picked your father!

LAURA: Mother, let me clear the table.

No, dear, you go in front and study your typewriting chart. Or practice your shorthand a little. Stay fresh and pretty! It's almost time for our gentleman callers to start arriving. How many do you suppose we're going to entertain this afternoon?

LAURA: I don't believe we're going to receive any, Mother.

Not any? Not one? Why, you must be joking! Not one gentleman caller? What's the matter? Has there been a flood or a tornado?

LAURA: Hello, Mother, I was just…

I know. You were just practicing your typing, I suppose.

LAURA: Yes.

Deception, deception, deception!

LAURA: How was the DAR meeting, Mother?

DAR meeting!

LAURA: Didn't you go to the DAR meeting, Mother?

No, I didn't go to any DAR meeting. I didn't have the strength--I didn't have the courage. I just wanted to find a hole in the ground and crawl in it and stay there for the rest of my entire life.

LAURA: Why did you do that, Mother?

Why? Why? How old are you Laura?

LAURA: Mother, you know my age.

I was under the impression that you were an adult, but evidently I was very much mistaken.

LAURA: Please don't stare at me, Mother!

What are we going to do? What is going to become of us? What is the future?

LAURA: Mother, has something happened?

I'll be all right in a minute. I'm just bewildered--by life…

LAURA: I wish that you would tell me what's happened!

I went to the DAR this afternoon, as you know; I was to be inducted as an officer. I stopped off at Rubicam's Business College to tell them about your cold and to ask how you were progressing down there.

LAURA: Oh…

Yes, oh--oh--oh--. I went straight to your typing instructor and introduced myself as your mother. She didn't even know who you were. "Wingfield?" she said. "We don't have any such scholar enrolled in this school." I assured her she did. I said my daughter Laura's been coming to classes since early January. "Well, I don't know," she said, "unless you mean that terribly shy little girl who dropped out of school after a few days' attendance?" No, I said, I don't mean that one. I mean my daughter, Laura, who's been coming here every single day for the past six weeks! "Excuse me," she said, And she took down the attendance book and there was your name, unmistakable, printed, and all the dates you'd been absent. I still told her she was wrong. I still said, "No, there must be some mistake! There must have been some mix-up in the records!" "No", she said, "I remember her perfectly now. She was so shy and her hands trembled so that her fingers couldn't touch the right keys! When we gave her a speed-test--she just broke down completely--was sick at the stomach and had to be carried to the washroom! After that she never came back. We telephoned the house every single day and never got any answer." That was while I was working all day long down at that department store, I suppose, demonstrating those--Oh! I felt so weak I couldn't stand up! I had to sit down while they got me a glass of water! Fifty dollars' tuition. I don't care about the money so much, but all my hopes for any kind of future for you--gone up the spout, just gone up the spout like that. Oh, don't DO that, Laura!--Don't play that Victrola!

LAURA: Oh!

What have you been doing every day when you've gone out of the house pretending that you were going to business college?

LAURA: I've just been going out walking.

That's not true!

LAURA: Yes, it is, Mother, I just went walking.

Walking? Walking? In winter? Deliberately courting pneumonia in that light coat? Where did you walk to, Laura?

LAURA: mostly in the park.

Even after you'd started catching that cold?

LAURA: I threw up on the floor!

From half past seven til after five every day you mean to tell me you walked around in the park, because you wanted to make me think that you were still going to Rubicam's Business College?

LAURA: I went inside places to get warmed up.

Inside where?

LAURA: where they raise the tropical flowers.

You did all that to deceive me, just for deception? Why? Why? Why? Why?

LAURA: like the picture of Jesus' mother in the museum!

Hush!

LAURA: I couldn't face it. I couldn't.

So what are we going to do now, honey, the rest of our lives? Just sit down in this house and watch the parades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass menagerie? Eternally play those worn-out records your father left us as a painful reminder of him? We can't have a business career. No we can't do that--that just gives us indigestion. What is there left for us now but dependency all out lives? I tell you Laura, I know so well what happens to unmarried women who aren't prepared to occupy a position in life. I've seen such pitiful cases in the South--barely tolerated spinsters living on some brother's wife or a sister's husband--tucked away in some mousetrap of a room--encouraged by one in-law to go on and visit the next in-law--little birdlike women--without any nest--eating the crust of humility all their lives! Is that the future that we've mapped out for ourselves? I swear I don't see any other alternative. And I don't think that's a very pleasant alternative. Of course--some girls DO marry. My goodness, Laura, haven't you ever liked some boy?

LAURA: I liked one once.

You did?

LAURA: I came across his picture a while ago.

He gave you his picture, too?

LAURA: No, it's in the yearbook.

Oh--a high-school boy.

LAURA: Here he is in The Pirates of Penance

The what?

LAURA: See his grin?

So he had a grin, too!

LAURA: He used to call me--Blue Roses.

Blue Roses? What did he call you a funny name like that for?

LAURA: that's a long time ago--they're probably married by now.

That's alright, honey, that's alright. It doesn't matter. Little girls who aren't cut out for business careers sometimes end up married to very nice young men. And I'm just going to see that you do that, too!

LAURA: But, Mother--

What is it now?

LAURA: I'm--crippled

Don't say that word! How many times have I told you never to say that word! You're not crippled, you've just got a slight defect. If you lived in the days when I was a girl and they had long graceful skirts sweeping the ground, it might have been considered an asset. When you've got a slight disadvantage like that, you've just got to cultivate something else to take its place. You have to cultivate charm--or vivacity--or CHARM That's the only thing you father had plenty of--charm!

TOM: Roping in subscribers to on of those magazines for matrons called The Homemaker's Companion.

Ida Scott? This is Amanda Wingfield. We missed you at the DAR last Monday. Oh, first I want to know how's your sinus condition? You're just a Christian martyr. That's what you are. You're just a Christian martyr. Well, I was just going through my little red book, and I saw that your subscription to the Companion is about to expire just when that wonderful new serial by Bessie Mae Harper is starting. It's the first thing she's written since Honeymoon for Three. Now, that was unusual, wasn't it? Why, Ida, this one is even lovelier. It's all about the horsey set on Long Island and a debutante is thrown from her horse while taking him over the jumps at the--regatta. Her spine--her spine is injured. That's what the horse did--he stepped on her. Now, there is only one surgeon in the entire world that can keep her from being completely paralyzed, and that's the man she's engaged to be married to and he's tall and he's blonde and he's handsome. That's unusual, too, huh? Oh, he's not perfect. Of course he has a weakness. He has the most terrible weakness in the entire world. He just drinks too much. What? Oh, no, honey, don't let them burn. You go take a look in the over and I'll hold on.. Why, that woman! Do you know what she did? She hung up on me.

LAURA: Tom's trying to write.

Oh! So he is. So he is.

TOM: Now what are you up to?

I'm trying to save your eyesight. You've only got one pair of eyes and you've got to take care of them. Oh, I know that Milton was blind, but that's not what made him a genius.

TOM: Mother will you please go away and let me finish my writing?

Why can't you sit up straight? So your shoulders don't stick through like sparrows' wings?

TOM: I'm trying to write.

Now, I've seen a medical chart, and I know what that position does to your internal organs. You sit up and I'll show you. Your stomach presses against your lungs, and your lungs press against your heart, and that poor little heart gets discouraged because it hasn't got any room left to go on beating for you.

TOM: What in hell…!

Don't you talk to me like that---

TOM: --am I supposed to do?

What's the matter with you? Have you gone out of your senses?

TOM: You've driven me out of them.

What is the matter, you big--big--idiot?

TOM: not a single thing left in this house that I can call my own.

Lower your voice!

TOM: You had the nerve to--

I did. I took that horrible novel back to the library--that awful book by that insane Mr. Lawrence. I cannot control the output of diseased mind or people who cater to them, but I won't allow such filth in my house. No, no, no, no, no!

TOM: Who makes a slave of himself to--!

Don't you dare talk to me like that!

TOM: and let you do all the talking.

Let me tell you something!

TOM: I don't want to hear any more.

You will hear more--

TOM: I'm going out.

You are going to listen to me, Tom Wingfield. I'm tired of your impudence.--And another thing--I'm right at the end of my patience!

TOM: You don't think that.

I think you're doing things you're ashamed of, and that's why you act like this. I don't believe that you go every night to the movies. Nobody goes to the movies night after night. Nobody in their right minds goes to the movies as often as you pretend to. People don't go to the movies at nearly midnight and movies don't let out at two AM. Come in stumbling, muttering to yourself like a maniac. you get three hours' sleep and then go to work. Oh, I can picture the way you're doing down there. Moping, doping, because you're in no condition!

TOM: I'm in no condition!

How dare you jeopardize your job? jeopardize our security? How do you think we'd manage--?

TOM: Please don;t grab at me, Mother!

I'm not grabbing at you. I want to know where you're going now.

TOM: I'm going to the movies!

I don't believe that lie!

LAURA: My glass!--menagerie..

I'll never speak to you again as long as you live unless you apologize to me!

TOM: I'll rise--but I won't shine.

Laura, tell your brother his coffee is ready.

LAURA: Please--please!

Laura, are you going to do what I asked you to do, or do I have to get dressed and go out myself?

LAURA: Butter and what else?

Just butter. Tell them to charge it.

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

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

LAURA: Do what I asked you, will you, will you, Tom?

Laura, go now or just don't go at all!

LAURA: I'm alright. I slipped, but i'm alright.

I tell you if anybody falls down and breaks a leg on those fire-escape steps, the landlord ought to be sued for every cent he--Who are you?

TOM: I apologize

My devotion has made me a witch and so I make myself hateful to my children!

TOM: No, you don't.

I worry so much, I don't sleep, it makes me nervous!

TOM: I understand that.

You know I've had to put up a solitary battle all these years. But you're my right hand bower! Now don't fail me. Don't fall down.

TOM: I try, mother.

That's all right! you just keep on trying and you're bound to succeed. Why, you're--you're just full of natural endowments! Both my children are--they're very precious children and i've got an awful lot to be thankful for; you just must promise me one thing.

TOM: What is it mother?

Promise me you're never going to become a drunkard!

TOM: I won't ever become a drunkard, Mother.

That's what frightened me so, that you'd be drinking! Eat a bowl of oatmeal.

TOM: Just coffee, Mother.

Shredded wheat biscuit?

TOM: No, no, Mother, just coffee.

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.

To cool it

TOM: I want it black.

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 --I sent out your sister so I could discuss something with you. If you hadn't spoken I would have spoken to you.

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

Laura!

TOM: --Oh.--Laura…

You know how Laura is. So quiet but--still water runs deep! She notices things and I think she--broods about them. A few days ago I came in and she was crying.

TOM: What about?

You.

TOM: Me?

She has an idea that you're not happy here.

TOM: What gave her that idea?

What gives her any idea? However, you do act strangely. I--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: I know that, Mother.

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: So let's respect each other's--

But, why--why, Tom--are you always so restless? Where do you go to, nights?

TOM: I--go to the movies.

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

TOM: so I go to the movies.

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

TOM: I like a lot of adventure.

Most young men find adventure in their careers.

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

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

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

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

TOM: none of those instincts are given much play at the warehouse!

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

TOM: What do Christian adults want then mother?

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.

You're joking. However, that isn't what I wanted to discuss.

TOM: I haven't much time.

Sit down.

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

You have five minutes. I want to talk about Laura.

TOM: What about Laura?

We have to be making some plans and provisions for her. She's older than you, two years, and nothing has happened. She just drifts along doing nothing. It frightens me how she just drifts along.

TOM: I guess she's the type that people call home girls.

There's no such type, and if there is, it's a pity! That is unless the home is hers, with a husband!

TOM: What?

Oh, I can see the handwriting on the wall as plain as I can see the nose in front of my face! It's terrifying! More and more you remind me of your father! He was out all hours without explanation!--Then left! Goodbye! And me with the bag to hold. I saw that letter you got from the merchant marine. I know what you're dreaming of. I'm not standing here blindfolded. Very well, then. Then do it! But not till there's somebody to take your place.

TOM: What do you mean?

I mean that as soon as Laura has got somebody to take care of her, married, a home of her own, independant--why, then you'll be free to go wherever you please, on land, on sea, whichever way the wind blows you! But until that time you've got to look out for your sister. I don't say me because I'm old and don't matter! I say for your sister because she's young and dependent. I put her in business college--a dismal failure! Frightened her so it made her sick at the stomach. I took her over to the Young People's League at the church. Another fiasco. She spoke to nobody. Nobody spoke to her. Now all she does is fool around with those pieces of glass and play those worn out records. What kind of life is that for a girl to lead?

TOM: What can I do about it?

Overcome selfishness! Self, self, self is all that you ever think of! Where is your muffler? Put your wool muffler on! Tom! I haven't said what I had in mind to ask you.