ARTHUR: I can forget all that with you, can't I? You're a girl, too. you could make love as well as she could. But not with Dick Miles. With me. (He moves toward her. Hertha steps back.) What are you backing away for? Are you scared? That's flatterineg. Nobody's ever been scared of me before. I was like you, Hertha. I hid behind books all the time because they used to call me a sissy when I was a kid in school. I never got over that. Not till tonight when I got drunk. God! I never knew it could be so good to get drunk and feel like a man inside. Literature and the arts. Stravinsky, Beethoven, Brahms. Concerts, matinees, recitals--what's all that? If I told you you'd blush. You don't like that kind of language. Sure, I sat through all of that stuff and thought it was great. Got my stuff published in those little magazines with the big cultural movements. Art for art's sake. Give America back to the Indians. I thought I was being highbrow. Intellectual. The hell with that stuff. Dick Miles's got the right idea. He was the one that she gave herself to, not me, not me. The one that got drunk and had himself a good time, he was the one that got Heavenly, and me with me intellectual pretensions, my fancy education, and my father's money--what did I get? Pushed in the face! Thrown over for a boy that clerks in a drugstore because he knows how to make love and I don't! Well now I can, too. I can get drunk and act like the rest of them. How about it, Miss Neilson? Why don't you come out from behind those tortoise-shell glasses of yours? (He reaches across the table and plucks them off.)
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Arthur from "Spring Storm" by Tennessee Williams
ARTHUR: Yes. I told her that I was in love with her, and she said that I should go out and get drunk because that was the only thing that would do me any good. So I got drunk. It's the first time I ever got drunk in my life and it was swell. Till I started thinking about her again making lov to Dick Miles.
HERTHA: Arthur! I'm sorry, I-- (She extends her hand towards him in a slight, pitying gesture.)
ARTHUR: I can forget all that with you, can't I? You're a girl, too. you could make love as well as she could. But not with Dick Miles. With me. (He moves toward her. Hertha steps back.) What are you backing away for? Are you scared? That's flatterineg. Nobody's ever been scared of me before. I was like you, Hertha. I hid behind books all the time because they used to call me a sissy when I was a kid in school. I never got over that. Not till tonight when I got drunk. God! I never knew it could be so good to get drunk and feel like a man inside. Literature and the arts. Stravinsky, Beethoven, Brahms. Concerts, matinees, recitals--what's all that? If I told you you'd blush. You don't like that kind of language. Sure, I sat through all of that stuff and thought it was great. Got my stuff published in those little magazines with the big cultural movements. Art for art's sake. Give America back to the Indians. I thought I was being highbrow. Intellectual. The hell with that stuff. Dick Miles's got the right idea. He was the one that she gave herself to, not me, not me. The one that got drunk and had himself a good time, he was the one that got Heavenly, and me with me intellectual pretensions, my fancy education, and my father's money--what did I get? Pushed in the face! Thrown over for a boy that clerks in a drugstore because he knows how to make love and I don't! Well now I can, too. I can get drunk and act like the rest of them. How about it, Miss Neilson? Why don't you come out from behind those tortoise-shell glasses of yours? (He reaches across the table and plucks them off.)
ARTHUR: I can forget all that with you, can't I? You're a girl, too. you could make love as well as she could. But not with Dick Miles. With me. (He moves toward her. Hertha steps back.) What are you backing away for? Are you scared? That's flatterineg. Nobody's ever been scared of me before. I was like you, Hertha. I hid behind books all the time because they used to call me a sissy when I was a kid in school. I never got over that. Not till tonight when I got drunk. God! I never knew it could be so good to get drunk and feel like a man inside. Literature and the arts. Stravinsky, Beethoven, Brahms. Concerts, matinees, recitals--what's all that? If I told you you'd blush. You don't like that kind of language. Sure, I sat through all of that stuff and thought it was great. Got my stuff published in those little magazines with the big cultural movements. Art for art's sake. Give America back to the Indians. I thought I was being highbrow. Intellectual. The hell with that stuff. Dick Miles's got the right idea. He was the one that she gave herself to, not me, not me. The one that got drunk and had himself a good time, he was the one that got Heavenly, and me with me intellectual pretensions, my fancy education, and my father's money--what did I get? Pushed in the face! Thrown over for a boy that clerks in a drugstore because he knows how to make love and I don't! Well now I can, too. I can get drunk and act like the rest of them. How about it, Miss Neilson? Why don't you come out from behind those tortoise-shell glasses of yours? (He reaches across the table and plucks them off.)
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