Vieux Carre by Tennessee Williams Page A

courtyard are heard
.]
    NURSIE : Any donations t’keep the cou’tyard up, just drop it in my apron as you go out, ladies! . . .
    JANE : Those tourists down there in the courtyard! If I’d known when I took this room it was over a tourist attraction—
    TYE : It’s the Festival, Babe. It ain’t always Festival . . . gimme my cigarettes, ought to be some left in a pocket.
    JANE [
throwing his pants and a fancy sport shirt on the bed
]: Here, your clothes, get in them.
    TYE [
putting on his shorts
]: Not yet. It’s Sunday, Babe . . . Where’s Beret? I like Beret to be here when I wake up.
    JANE : Not even a cat will wait ten, twelve hours for you to sleep off whatever you shot last night. How did a girl well educated and reasonably well brought up get involved in this . . . Oh, I’m talking to myself.
    TYE : I hear you, Babe, and I see you.
    JANE : Then . . . get up and dressed.
    TYE : It’s not dark yet, Babe. Y’know I never get dressed till after dark on Sundays.
    JANE : Today has to be an exception. I’m . . . expecting a caller, very important to me.
    TYE : Fashion designer?
    JANE : No. Buyer . . . to look at my illustrations. They’re no good, I’m no good. I just had a flair, not a talent, and the flair flared out, I’m . . . finished. These sketches are evidence of it! [
She starts tearing fashion sketches off the wall
.] Look at me! Bangles, jangles! All taste gone! [
She tears off her costume jewelry
.]
    TYE : Babe, you’re in no shape to meet a buyer.
    JANE [
slowly and bitterly
]: He’s no buyer of anything but me.
    TYE : —Buyer of
you?
Look. You said that you were expecting a buyer to look at your drawin’s here.
    JANE : I know what I said, I said a buyer to look at my illustrations,but what I said was a lie. Among other things, many other undreamed of before, you’ve taught me to practice deception.
    VOICES OFFSTAGE : Edwina, Edwina, come see this dream of a little courtyard. Oh, my, yaiss, like a dream.
    JANE : I know what I said, but let’s say, Tye, that I experienced last week a somewhat less than triumphant encounter with the buyer of fashion illustrations at
Vogue Moderne
. In fact, it left me too shattered to carry my portfolio home without a shot of Metaxas brandy at the Blue Lantern, which was on the street level of the building. It was there that I met a gentleman from Brazil. He had observed my entrance, the Brazilian, and apparently took me for a hooker, sprang up with surprising agility for a gentleman of his corpulence, hauled me to his table, and introduced me to his
camaradas
, “Señorita, this is Señor and Señor and Señor,” declared me, “
Bonita
,
muy, muy, bonita”—
tried to press a hundred-dollar bill in my hand. Well, some atavistic bit of propriety surfaced and I, like a fool, rejected it— but did accept his business card, just in case. This morning, Tye, I called him. “Señorita Bonita of the Blue Lantern awaits you, top floor of seven-two-two Toulouse,” that was the invitation that I phoned in to the message desk. He must have received it by now at the Hotel Royal Orleans, where the Presidential Suite somehow contains him.
    TYE : Who’re you talkin’ about?
    JANE : My expected caller, a responsible businessman from Brazil. Sincerely interested in my bankrupt state . . .
    TYE : Forget it, come back to bed and I’ll undress you, Babe, you need rest.
    JANE : The bed bit is finished between us. You’re moving out today.
    [
He slowly stumbles up, crosses to the table, and gulps coffee, then grasps her arm and draws her to bed
.]
    No, no, no, no, no, no!
    TYE : Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
    [
He throws her onto the bed and starts to strip her; she resists; he prevails. As the lights very gradually dim, a Negro singer-pianist at a nearby bar fades in
,
“Fly a-way! Sweet Kentucky baby-bay, fly,