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STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE 1. Blanche: I,I, I took the blows on my face and my body! All
those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard. Father, Mother, Margaret that
dreadful way. So big with it, she couldn’t be put in a coffin, but had to be
burned like rubbish! You came just in time for funerals, Stella. And funerals
are pretty compared to death. Funerals are quiet, but deaths not always.
Sometimes their breathing is hoarse, sometimes it rattles, sometimes they cry
out to you, "Don’t let me go!" Even the old sometimes say it-
"Don't let me go". As if you could stop them! Funerals are quiet,
with pretty flowers. And oh, what lovely boxes they pack you away in! Unless
you were there at the bed when they cried out "Hold me" you'd never
suspect there was struggle for breath and bleeding. You didn't dream, but I
saw! Saw! And now you sit there telling me with your eyes that I let the
place go. How in hell do you think all that sickness and dying was paid for?
Death is expensive Miss Stella! And old Cousin Jessie, right after
Margaret's, hers! The Grim Reaper put his tent up on our doorstep! Stella,
Belle Reve was his headquarters. Honey, that's how
it slipped through my fingers. Which of them left us a fortune? Which of them
left us a cent of insurance even? Only poor Jessie- one hundred to pay for
her coffin. That was it, Stella! And I with my pitiful salary at the school!
Yes, accuse me! Sit there and stare at me, thinking I let the place go. I
let the place go! Where were you Stella? In bed with your Polack!
May
I speak plainly? Well, if you'll forgive me, he's common. You
can't have forgotten that much of our bringing up, Stella, to just suppose
that any part of a gentleman is 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? |