Spring Storm by Tennessee Williams

Author:Tennessee Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2016-02-19T05:00:00+00:00

SCENE THREE

It is later that night. The stage is dark. Moonlight shines intermittently through the French window. Heavenly enters from the hall in pajamas. She walks slowly up to Colonel Wayne’s portrait and speaks to it in a low voice.

HEAVENLY: Colonel Wayne! I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it. I want you to forgive me! Please excuse me for disgracing your name! —If that’s what I’ve done. I don’t want to disgrace it—not any more than I have to. You know that as well as I do, Colonel Wayne! So please don’t blame me too much! . . . I’m in an awful fix. I don’t know what to do! . . . So why don’t you come down off your horse and tell me instead of lookin’ so big and important up there?

[A light goes on in the hall. Mr. Critchfield enters in his dressing robe.]

MR. CRITCHFIELD: Who’s in there? Chicken?

HEAVENLY: Yes.

MR. CRITCHFIELD: What are you doing down here at three o’clock in the morning? I thought I heard you talking to somebody.

HEAVENLY: I was.

MR. CRITCHFIELD: Who was it? Who did you have in here at this hour? [He turns on a table lamp.]

HEAVENLY: Colonel Wayne.

MR. CRITCHFIELD: What?

HEAVENLY: Colonel Wayne! I was apologizing to him.

MR. CRITCHFIELD: Good Lord! [He smiles a little.] It’s a long time since I heard you do that.

HEAVENLY: It’s a long time since I told him to go back to Gettysburg.

MR. CRITCHFIELD: Did you?

HEAVENLY: Yes. Mother and I had a fight this afternoon. Didn’t she tell you?

MR. CRITCHFIELD: Yes. We had a long talk tonight.

HEAVENLY: About—me?

MR. CRITCHFIELD: Yes. About you.

HEAVENLY: Dad, I— What’s that you’re drinking?

MR. CRITCHFIELD: Whiskey and soda. For my nerves.

HEAVENLY: I’d like to have one, too.

MR. CRITCHFIELD: Well—Heavenly, I—

HEAVENLY: Where is it? Behind the flour bin?

MR. CRITCHFIELD: You’re psychic. [She goes out to the kitchen; he calls to her.] The soda’s in the Frigidaire.

HEAVENLY [calling]: Yes, I know. [In a moment she returns with a drink.] You know, Daddy, this is the first drink we’ve ever had together.

MR. CRITCHFIELD: Yes, so it is. [She sits on the sofa beside him.]

HEAVENLY: It’s stopped raining. The moon is coming out. [She draws up her feet and leans against him.] Daddy, are you very worried about me?

MR. CRITCHFIELD: Naturally I’m a little disturbed. But I’m not going to cross-examine you about your love affairs. I guess your mother’s done plenty of that.

HEAVENLY: Everything’s going to turn out all right. Dick’s going to work for Mr. Kramer, and we’re going to get married this summer. So there’s nothing to worry about.

MR. CRITCHFIELD [ruefully shaking his head]: Chicken, chicken! Are you absolutely sure that you aren’t talking through your little spring bonnet?

HEAVENLY [hiding her face on his shoulder]: No! I’m not!

MR. CRITCHFIELD [stroking her head]: Not even a little bit?

HEAVENLY [abruptly straightening]: Daddy! [She looks at him with desperate pleading.] Why is everything so crazy, so mixed up!? Why can’t people be happy together? Why can’t they want the same things, instead of—fighting and torturing and—hating each other—even when they’re in love?!!

[Mr.

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