The Traveling Companion & Other Plays

by Tennessee Williams

  DAUGHTER: What do I say to him, Daddy?

  MAN: Speak not a word. —But smile. —He’ll get the message. Now. Look here. I am producing a pair of greenbacks, paper currency, Gretchen. One is a century note and the other’s a measly ten. Mark well the difference between them. When you retire to the gentleman’s uptown quarters, do not dispense your favors until he has produced and dispensed to you a bill that corresponds in every detail exactly to this one called the century note. Verstehen Sie Gretchen?

  DAUGHTER: Ja, ja, ha! [She starts to rush out.]

  MAN: You hold your wild horses, too, I haven’t dismissed ye. I must subject ye first to a bit of inspection, meaning show Daddy your dainties.

  [The daughter runs behind the Red Blind where the son had been.]

  MAN: Upzen ze mitzen die skirtsen. Well, now, how do ye do! [To the wife.] Madam I see no imminent time of privation about the place now.

  [Die Kinder start to leave.]

  MAN: Wait, Gretchen. Having seen what I’ve seen, accept not less than double what I advised ye before, not one century note but a couple. Not eins but zwei!

  [Die Kinder shriek together.]

  MAN: Wait, wait. Hereafter always remember that your daddy conveyed to ye all worldly knowledge he ever knew: limited, yes, but it will suffice. Dismissed! On with it, praise God!

  [Die Kinder gallop screaming ecstatically from the Kirche. There is an extended pause. The daisy of the day folds up and disappears.]

  MAN: A tear has moistened my eye, the left one, nearest my heart. I tell ye, Madam, the responsibilities of bringing up a pair of wee ones can age a man of profound moral scruples to such a point that— [He takes out a pocket mirror.] —he scarcely believes the youth which he still observes in the mirror . . . Yes, indeed, it truly boggles the mind. Oh are you still here, Madam?

  [The wife pivots slowly and retreats unsteadily, exiting almost in slow motion.]

  WIFE [approaching the door]: It’s like a dream . . .

  MAN: That exit line ye lifted from Chekhov’s Sea Gull. Alas, is poor Anton now in the public domain? What’s for supper, ducks?

  WIFE [as she exits from the Kirche]: Kidneys sautéed in butter and vine sauce.

  MAN: Margarine and the cheapest California Chablis which Madam pronounces in lower SoHo dialect as Chab-liss. An accomplished shop-lifter she is but with lower middle-class taste. Ah, well. She’s not had the advantages of gourmets who shop at Gristede’s and dine in the Oak Room of the Plaza.

  [The blinds sift again, and the lights cross-fade, revealing the Lutheran Minister and his Femme-à-Toute-Faire, Fräulein Hausmitzenschlogger. The Minister is spearing kidneys from the skillet on the stove. Whenever the Fräulein extends her hand, he utters a low growl, frightening her off. On her third attempt, he raps her on the head with his umbrella, accompanied by the same sound effect as in Act One, when the Minister hit the wife with the umbrella. The Fräulein reels. The wife enters and stands transfixed for some moments after entering the Küche.]

  WIFE: —Ja, it’s like a dream! Two return visits in one day by Papa and Hotsy.

  FRÄULEIN: This time we make you a longer visit, provided the accommodations meets with our satisfaction.

  WIFE: Longer the visit? What a piece of luck, Hotsy! And you come bearin’ gifts by the sackful!

  FRÄULEIN [snatching up a clanking, fire-scorched sack]: Household equipment and personal effects, all we could save from the explosion and fire!

  WIFE: Let me get this, Hotsy, not so fast mit die tongue for me to absorb all at once! Did ye mention a fire?

  FRÄULEIN: Kirche und haus, gone PFFT!

  WIFE: PFFT? You sprechen of Pfft?

  FRÄULEIN: Ja, PFFT!

  [The Minister interrupts his meal long enough to shove a sheaf of papers at the Fräulein and point at the wife.]

  FRÄULEIN [reading from papers]: Suit for damages, assault mit batteries, defamation of characters, blackmail, and suspect of arson! [She breaks into sobs and wails.]

  WIFE: Wow! Just cool it a minute, huh, Hotsy? You got a hysterical nature and you are pregnant, advanced stage at advanced age! This miracle of nature could be affected, I mean not favorably, Hotsy!

  [Lightning quick, the wife seizes the handle of the skillet and removes it from the stove. The Minister growls and lifts his umbrella, crucifix-high above her, his eyes ablaze with Protestant rage.]

  WIFE: Advisable, now, under such circumstances, die SALT talks! You know die SALT talks, die opposite of die pepper? Like a quiet sitting down discussion, all smiling?

  [The Lutheran Minister’s umbrella descends on the wife’s head. Slowly, with a manic grin, She sinks to the floor, invisible canaries warbling about her. At this moment, Miss Rose, all Edwardian elegance of taffeta and gauze, passes through the Küche en route to the Kirche.]

  MISS ROSE [stepping delicately over the wife’s body]: Good evening, I mean Guten Abend, excuse me. I’m expected for Vespers.

  [As she passes under them, the Blue Blind drops and closes. The walls and lights make their usual transformation from the Küche to the Kirche, revealing the man in his wheelchair. Miss Rose coughs decorously to rouse him.]

  MAN: Oh, Miss Rose, I was lost in reflection . . .

  MISS ROSE: Undisturbed by the activities in the kitchen?

  MAN: You entered by the—?

  MISS ROSE: The evening being unusually fair, I came by the direct route down the alley, found the kitchen door opened and passed through very quickly, but not without observing some evidence of disorder.

  MAN: There’s been a bit of domestic trouble today, relative to the twins.

  MISS ROSE: Ah, well, be that as it may. Your pleasure, Sir? [She crosses to the organ, removing her gloves and sitting.]

  MAN: —Is yours . . .

  [Miss Rose begins to play.]

  MAN: The daisy of daytime, Miss Rose, has now completely folded—like many a good play in Boston . . . The night-blooming vine is now appearing in the daytime daisy’s place. So time’s passing’s intruding even here, walled off from things external. But time is not a thing that can be walled off as external. It is within all places and organisms as well, be they of the animal or vegetable kingdom . . .

  [Over the following lines, a night-blooming vine slowly uncoils from where the daisy of daytime appeared and vanished.]

  MAN: The night-blooming vine trails delicately down the wall from the window. Should I have permitted that window to exist in my room? Otherwise as well but sparingly fitted to my needs and desires as the—shell of a crustacean such as the—chambered nautilus . . . —You needn’t answer that question. You needn’t ask that question, nor ask nor answer or even— [Pause.]

  “Inevitably bringing the eternal note of sadness in.”

  Quote from “Dover Beach” that some people say is the first modern poem in the English language. Should remember more of it or forget it entirely.

  [Miss Rose finishes, rises, and slowly starts to exit.]

  MAN: Odd how tidbits of—incomplete recollection sometimes somewhat distorted—stab at the heart at—

  [Miss Rose turns back to look at the man.]

  MAN: —nightfall . . .

  [Miss Rose exits.]

  MAN: Anyhow, now, before the light expires—this I must say—Every man’s life must be redeemed from the squalor which is inherent in human existence by some touch of beauty.

  [The man rises from the wheelchair and lounges by the organ to view the Küche. The lights fade out and the transformation to the Küche occurs again. The Fräulein, the wife, and the Minister are discovered in the same tableau as when their last scene ended. The Minister emits low growls and snorts like a bull in heat. The Fräulein reacts with apprehension. The wife slowly regains consciousness and rises. The Minister violently empties the sack of its contents and thrusts it over the Fräulein’s head and throws her down, she
dding his black garments with somewhat undignified haste. As the Fräulein pleads and whimpers in vain, and the wife looks on in shock, the Minister plops his huge bible under the Fräulein’s derriere and mounts her. Members of the press burst in: there is a burst of flash-photos, shouts of ribaldry, etc., as the reporters shout questions at the Fräulein and the wife beats her way through them with the skillet. The Blue Blind crashes down, and the lights come up on the man sitting (not in his wheelchair) in the Kirche. He is softly singing “I want a girl just like the girl . . .” etc. The wife enters the Kirche, dizzily.]

  WIFE: All hell’s broke loose in mein Küche. Die Pentecostals got wind of moral relations between mein Papa, die Lutheran Minister of Staten, and Fräulein Hausmitzenschlogger. PFFT, dey blew up die church and residence of it. PFFT, Ja, PFTT! —So into SoHo they migrate: specifically into mein Küche. Hot on the trail, the media. Ja, ja, they smell a newsworthy scandal and lickety-split die national networks pursue ’em to die door of mein Küche. Hotsy, oh, mein Gott, Hotsy, she’s got her a Hollywood agent called Sifty, making deals for exposure world-over, competitive bidding between the Ringling und Barnum and Bailey, circuses, biggest existing. Now what? Mein Papa was throwing a good one into Hotsy when in the media crashes. So now? Hotsy is giving head to all comers, flash-bulbs popping, she is given’ ’em head non-stop wit’out choppers: —Mein Gott in Himmel und in mein Küche.

  MAN [casually]: A graphic description ye give me but not a surprise, for Protestantism, Madam, was ever the devil’s pass-key to the Christian dominion.

  WIFE [after a slow take on the man]: Und here in die Kirche somethin’ seems not like usual to me, somehow. I vunder vot.

  [The man rises and performs a calisthenics display similar to that in Act One.]

  WIFE: —You, you, you FRAUD, you, you—IMPOSTER! [She smacks him on the seat of his pants with the skillet, in the middle of his tow-to-chin exercise.] Invalidism pretendin’ all these years! I should of suspected as much when all dis gymnasium equipment was delivered to die Kirche by die late Abercrombie and Fitch, now retired from service like you! I am going to drop dead. [She collapses into the wheelchair.]

  MAN: I’d better give her a quick Christening, before her soul quits her body.

  [The Man pours sour mash from the jug the wife carried on at the opening of Act One, into the wife’s open mouth. She recovers with marvelous alacrity, seizing the neck of the jug as he starts to remove it.]

  MAN: She’s an unrepentant and unregenerate Protestant, Miss Rose, but livin’ she is. [Then to the wife]: You are excused from the Kirche. I said, you’re excused from the Kirche meaning git back to the Küche, which has exposed itself now as a subtle symbol for show-biz on Broadway. —I am mentally occupied with reflections on beauty.

  WIFE: Ah, yes, y’r own.

  MAN: I know ye think me indolent both above and below, but, Madam, I’ll have ye know—

  WIFE: WHAT? —Not already known or suspected.

  MAN: I’ve written a number of epic dramas since my second year in grade school, not all of which closed in Boston if opened. Let’s say I have served my apprenticeship in the literary world, having composed a sequence of sonnets to spring, but most importantly, Madam, a three paragraph novella that won the Hotlicker Award at the age of fifteen.

  WIFE: Die Hotlicker, vot iss die Hotlicker?

  MAN: The Hotlicker Award’s not one of those annual tributes of no more than annual significance but one that’s awarded only on such rare occasions as it’s deserved, even if that be no more than once in the life-time of an immortal.

  WIFE: And who gives out this award?

  MAN: It is named for the donor.

  WIFE: Whose name is?

  MAN: Hotlicker, Madam, Professor Emeritus Hotlicker.

  WIFE: —Strange name. —Teutonic?

  MAN: No. Descriptive.

  WIFE: And this award of the Professor Hotlicker, is it a monetary award or just honorary?

  MAN: It is axiomatic, Madam, it is axiomatic as the Pope is a Catholic and the bear shits in the woods, or vice versa, that an award is not honorary unless it is monetary as well.

  WIFE: Substantial? The monetary part of it?

  MAN: Substantial enough to sustain us for fifteen years in SoHo without deprivations of a practical nature, certainly none that I know of.

  WIFE: I could mention one to yuh. It’s been more than fifteen years since ye’ve thrown a good one in me. The screwing I get is not worth the screwing I got, if ye get what I mean.

  MAN: Madam, at times I miss your point, and I swear I don’t know if the miss is voluntary or not.

  WIFE: What a fate for a Lutheran minister’s daughter, to wind up the wife of a retired male hustler, contented entirely with his retirement.

  MAN: Contented? Entirely? Soon the room, this box square as a block, containing a single window, set so high in the wall that it could only be reached by a wall-painter on a ladder, of which I believe we have neither, nor the pecuniary means by which to procure them . . . And due to the paralysis which afflicts me, how could I mount the ladder to take a look out at the—but soon the room. How very soon the room . . .

  WIFE: Oh, but was you dozin’ your life away while I sautéed the kidneys in wine sauce, leibchen, old ducks?

  MAN: Entirely, entirely contented with this retirement? Am I? Is the light dimming on me? Time: relentless obsession. Only cure was the axe which you missed me with. “Wait for the next time,” you said. I do not wait: I endure. Perhaps that’s waiting. The verb to endure and the verb to survive are different, except in this instance.

  [There is a long pause.]

  WIFE: Balls!

  MAN: That’s better.

  WIFE: What’s better about it, reflector on beauty?

  MAN: Spherical objects with life-generating power. Yes, balls are two parts of beauty.

  WIFE: Outta your balls you give me a coupla cretins, expelled from kindergarten after fifteen years in it as not being up to snuff, not up to countin’ the colored beads on the frames or puttin’ the alphabet blocks in proper position, this is what your two parts of beauty produced. Words fail me! Ficken mich! —Words fail!

  MAN: So let’s get on with the action!

  [A trap door springs open alongside the organ, releasing a cloud of smoke. A devil with pitchfork appears, accompanied by peals of hollow, derisive laughter. The wife screams, turns about dizzily, and faints. The trap slams shut and the stage is immediately silent.]

  MAN [calling right into the wife’s ear]: Help!

  [The wife snores.]

  MAN: That would be her response if wide awake. SoHo. Sleep doesn’t become her as mourning did electric. Hmm. Well.

  [He sits and starts to work on his “GREAT MEMOIRS.” Miss Rose enters.]

  MISS ROSE: Another selection, sir?

  MAN: Yes, that would be suitable, yes.

  MISS ROSE [crossing to sit at the organ]: Classical or what they call pop?

  MAN: Miss Rose, in me very green days, I was not exposed to the great symphonic works that the uptown folk call classics. It was ever me practice to whistle the songs of the streets. Oh, not the vulgar songs, mind ye, but those that suited a lad strollin’ innocently by the Plaza on his way to a bench that directly faced that grandest of grand ole wayside Inns, a bench beside a duck-pond. Quack, quack, quack, they quacked, merrily to me, for they knew me well as a lad without guile or craft but a smidgin of the old Celtic minstrels in ’im—and a sack of bread crumbs as well. So I would whistle, most early dusks, a song of the streets of Erin such as “Sweet Molly Malone” or “My Wild Irish Rose” or “Danny Boy!” Now having come, now, to a lyrical passage in me memoirs. . . .

  MISS ROSE: Memoirs at your age, still green?

  MAN: Oh, that old artificer, that charlatan called time, we’ve walled it out of the Kirche. As best we can. For a while, that much and no more. Our exis
tence is magic devoutly believed in. The green of the heart withers not if ye defend it from seasons of corruption, and reflect upon beauty. Fifteen I was when a uniformed lad me own age—a bellhop—crossed out of the Plaza to the duck pond and blushingly delivered an invitation to visit a suite of four rooms, illuminated by crystal chandeliers and with glistening tables heaped not with crumb sacks for ducks but with the epicurrean delights of the exceedingly privileged. Cordially was I received, first at the table and then in a bed which befitted a monarch . . . a queen . . . When the visit was over, and my host had rewarded me as was befitting to a descendant of the kings of old Ireland . . . well, I was stunned by the experiences. I excused meself from his presence and went to another window facin’ my humble bench in the park. I raised it and heard the voices of my feathered friends on the pond. They seemed to be agitated. Quack, quack, quack, they were quacking. —But now their once joyful voices seemed rueful—reproachful . . . And then me benefactor, propped on his pillows, said “Lower that window, boy, a chill could take me away quite prematurely since I do so anticipate your future visits.” —which have yet to occur . . .

  [Miss Rose segues into “Danny Boy” and the man sings it.]

  MAN:

  Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling

  From glen to glen, and down the mountainside.

  The summer’s gone, and all the roses falling

  ’Tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bide.

  But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow

  Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow,

  It’s I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow.

  Oh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, I love you so.

  And when ye come, and all the flowers are dying,

  If I am dead, as dead I well may be,

  You’ll come and find the place where I am lying

  And kneel and say an Ave there for me.

  And I shall hear, though soft you tread, above me,