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Streetcar Named Desire Scene Four

Terms in this set (14)

STELLA: Blanche, you saw him at his worst last night
BLANCHE: On the contrary, I saw him at his best! What such a man has to offer is animal force and he gave a wonderful exhibition of that! But the only way to live with such a man is to--go to bed with him! And that's your job--not mine!
STELLA: After you've rested a little, you'll see it's going to work out. You don't have to worry about anything while you're here. I mean--expenses...
BLANCHE: I have to plan for us both, to get us both--out!
STELLA: You take it for granted that I am in something that I want to get out of.
BLANCHE: I take it for granted that you still have sufficient memory of Belle Reve to find this place and these poker players impossible to live with.
STELLA: Well, you're taking entirely too much for granted.
BLANCHE: I can't believe you're in earnest
STELLA: No?
BLANCHE: I understand how it happened--a little. You saw him in uniform, an officer, not here but--
STELLA: I'm not sure it would have made any difference where I saw him.
BLANCHE: Now don't say it was one of those mysterious electric things between people! If you do I'll laugh in your face.
STELLA: I am not going to say anything more at all about it!
BLANCHE: All right, then, don't!
STELLA: But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark--that sort of make everything else seem--unimportant
[Pause.] BLANCHE: What you are talking about is brutal desire--just--Desire!--the name of that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another....
STELLA: Haven't you ever ridden on that streetcar?
BLANCHE: It brought me here.--Where I'm not wanted and where I'm ashamed to be....
STELLA: Then don't you think your superior attitude is a bit out of place?
BLANCHE: I am not being or feeling at all superior, Stella. Believe me I'm not! It's just this. This is how I look at it. A man like that is someone to go out with--once--twice--three times when the devil is in you. But live with? Have a child by?
STELLA: I have told you I love him.
BLANCHE: Then I tremble for you! I just--tremble for you....
STELLA: I can't help your trembling if you insist on trembling!
[There is a pause.] BLANCHE: May I--speak--plainly?
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?
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