A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur by Tennessee Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

Place?
    BODEY: Stylish? Civilized, huh? And too expensive for you to swing it alone, so you want to rope Dotty in, rope her into a place that far from Blewett? Share expenses? You prob’ly mean pay most.
    HELENA: To move from such an unsuitable environment must naturally involve some expense.
    [
Miss Gluck falls out of the bathroom onto Dorothea’s bed
.]
    DOROTHEA: MISS GLUCK! CAREFUL! Bodey, Bodey, Sophie Gluck’s collapsed on my bed in a cloud of steam!
    HELENA: Has Miss Gluck broken a steam pipe?
    [
Bodey rushes from the kitchenette into the bedroom
.]
    BODEY [
to Helena
]: You stay out.
    [
Dorothea emerges from the bedroom. She closes the door and leans against it briefly, closing her eyes as if dizzy or faint
.]
    HELENA: At last.
    DOROTHEA: I’m so mortified.
    HELENA: Are you feeling better?
    DOROTHEA: Sundays are always different—
    HELENA : This one exceptionally so.
    DOROTHEA: I don’t know why but—I don’t quite understand why I am so—agitated . Something happened last week, just a few evenings ago that—
    HELENA: Yes? What?
    DOROTHEA: Nothing that I’m—something I can’t discuss with you. I was and still am expecting a very important phone call—
    HELENA: May I ask you from whom?
    DOROTHEA: No, please.
    HELENA: Then may I hazard a guess that the expected call not received was from a young gentleman who cuts a quite spectacular figure in the country club set but somehow became involved in the educational system?
    DOROTHEA: If you don’t mind, Helena, I’d much prefer not to discuss anything of a—private nature right now.
    HELENA: Yes, I understand, dear. And since you’ve located that chair, why don’t you seat yourself in it?
    DOROTHEA: Oh, yes, excuse me. [
She sits down, weakly, her hand lifted to her throat
.] The happenings here today are still a bit confused in my head. I was doing my exercises before you dropped by.
    HELENA: And for quite a while after.
    DOROTHEA: I was about to—no , I’d taken my shower. I was about to get dressed.
    HELENA: But the Gluck intervened. Such discipline! Well! I’ve had the privilege of an extended meeting with Miss Bodenheifer—[
She lowers her voice
.] She seemed completely surprised when I mentioned that you were moving to Westmoreland Place.
    DOROTHEA: Oh, you told her. —I’m glad . —I’m such a coward, I couldn’t.
    HELENA: Well, I broke the news to her.
    DOROTHEA: I—just hadn’t the heart to.
    [
Miss Gluck advances from the bedroom with a dripping wet mop and a dazed look
.]
    HELENA [
to Dorothea
]: Can’t you see she’s already found a replacement?
    DOROTHEA: Oh, no, there’s a limit even to Bodey’s endurance! Miss Gluck, would you please return that wet mop to the kitchen and wring it out. Küche
—mop—Sophie .
    HELENA: Appears to be catatonic.
    DOROTHEA [
as she goes into the bedroom to get Bodey
]: Excuse me.
    [
Bodey enters from the bedroom and takes Miss Gluck, with mop, into the kitchenette
.]
    BODEY [
singing nervously in the kitchenette
]: “I’m just breezing along with the breeze, pleasing to live, and living to please!”
    [
Dorothea returns to the living room
.]
    DOROTHEA: How did Bodey take the news I was moving?
    HELENA: “That far from
Blewett!
” she said as if it were transcontinental.
    DOROTHEA: Well, it is a bit far, compared to this location.
    HELENA: Surely you wouldn’t compare it to
this
location.
    DOROTHEA: Oh, no, Westmoreland Place is a—fashionable address, incomparable in that respect, but it is quite a distance. Of course, just a block from Delmar Boulevard and the Olive Street car-line, that would let me off at—what point closest to Blewett?
    HELENA: Dorothea, forget transportation, that problem. We’re going by automobile.
    DOROTHEA: By—what automobile do you—?
    HELENA: I have a lovely surprise for you, dear.
    DOROTHEA: Someone is going to drive us?
    HELENA: Yes, I will be the chauffeur and you the passenger, dear. You see, my wealthy cousin Dee-Dee , who lives in La Due, has replaced