There was silence on the verandah.
Without rising she reached above her to pull the cord of the light bulb. Its watery yellow glow was replaced by the crisp white flood of moonlight through the gauze-netted window and through the screen of the door.
She lay flat on her back with her arms lying rigidly along her sides and every nerve tingling with excitement over the spontaneous execution of a piece of strategy carried out more expertly than it would have been after days of preparation.
For a while the silence outside her new room continued.
Then the voice of the younger writer pronounced the word “Goldilocks!”
Two shouts of laughter rose from the verandah. It continued without restraint till Miss Jelkes could feel her ears burning in the dark as if rays of intense light were concentrated on them.
There was no more talk that evening, but she heard their feet scraping as they got off the hammocks and walked across the verandah to the further steps and down them.
Miss Jelkes was badly hurt, worse than she had been hurt the previous afternoon, when she had complained about the young man’s immodesty on the beach. As she lay there upon the severe white bed that smelled of ammonia, she could feel coming toward her one of those annihilating spells of neurasthenia which had led to her breakdown six years ago. She was too weak to cope with it, it would have its way with her and bring her God knows how close to the verge of lunacy and even possibly over! What an intolerable burden, and why did she have to bear it, she who was so humane and gentle by nature that even the sufferings of a lizard could hurt her! She turned her face to the cold white pillow and wept. She wished that she were a writer. If she were a writer it would be possible to say things that only Picasso had ever put into paint. But if she said them, would anybody believe them? Was her sense of the enormous grotesquerie of the world communicable to any other person? And why should it be told if it could be? And why, most of all, did she make such a fool of herself in her frantic need to find some comfort in people!
She felt that the morning was going to be pitilessly hot and bright and she turned over in her mind the list of neuroses that might fasten upon her. Everything that is thoughtless and automatic in healthy organisms might take on for her an air of preposterous novelty. The act of breathing and the beat of her heart and the very process of thinking would be self-conscious if this worst-of-all neuroses should take hold of her—and take hold of her it would, because she was so afraid of it! The precarious balance of her nerves would be all overthrown. Her entire being would turn into a feverish little machine for the production of fears, fears that could not be put into words because of their all-encompassing immensity, and even supposing that they could be put into language and so be susceptible to the comfort of telling—who was there at the Costa Verde, this shadowless rock by the ocean, that she could turn to except the two young writers who seemed to despise her? How awful to be at the mercy of merciless people!
Now I’m indulging in self-pity, she thought.
She turned on her side and fished among articles on the bed table for the little cardboard box of sedative tablets. They would get her through the night, but tomorrow—oh, tomorrow! She lay there senselessly trying, hearing even at this distance the efforts of the captive Iguana to break from its rope and scramble into the bushes . . .
II
When Miss Jelkes awoke it was still a while before morning. The moon, however, had disappeared from the sky and she was lying in blackness that would have been total except for tiny cracks of light that came through the wall of the adjoining bedroom, the one that was occupied by the younger writer.
It did not take her long to discover that the younger writer was not alone in his room. There was no speech but the quality of sounds that came at intervals though the partition made her certain the room had two people in it.
If she could have risen from bed and peered through one of the cracks without betraying herself she might have done so, but knowing that any move would be overheard, she remained on the bed and her mind was now alert with suspicions which had before been only a formless wonder.
At last she heard someone speak.
“You’d better turn out the light,” said the voice of the younger writer.
“Why?”
“There are cracks in the wall.”
“So much the better. I’m sure that’s why she moved down here.”
The younger one raised his voice.
“You don’t think she moved because of the Iguana?”
“Hell, no, that was just an excuse. Didn’t you notice how pleased she was with herself, as if she had pulled off something downright brilliant?”
“I bet she’s eavesdropping on us right this minute,” said the younger.
“Undoubtedly she is. But what can she do about it?”
“Go to the Patrona.”
Both of them laughed.
“The Patrona wants to get rid of her,” said the younger.
“Does she?”
“Yep. She’s crazy to have her move out. She’s even given the cook instructions to put too much salt in her food.”
They both laughed.
Miss Jelkes discovered that she had risen from the bed. She was standing uncertainly on the cold floor for a moment and then she was rushing out of the screen door and up to the door of the younger writer’s bedroom.
She knocked on the door, carefully keeping her eyes away from the lighted interior.
“Come in,” said a voice.
“I’d rather not,” said Miss Jelkes. “Will you come here for a minute?”
“Sure,” said the younger writer. He stepped to the door, wearing only the trousers to his pyjamas.
“Oh,” he said. “It’s you!”
She stared at him without any idea of what she had come to say or had hoped to accomplish.
“Well?” he demanded brutally.
“I—I heard you!” she stammered.
“So?”
“I don’t understand it!”
“What?”
“Cruelty! I never could understand it!”
“But you do understand spying, don’t you?”
“I wasn’t spying!” she cried.
He muttered a shocking word and shoved past her onto the porch.
The older writer called his name: “Mike!” But he only repeated the shocking word more loudly and walked away from them. Miss Jelkes and the older writer faced each other. The violence just past had calmed Miss Jelkes a little. She found herself uncoiling inside and comforting tears beginning to moisten her eyes. Outside the night was changing. A wind had sprung up and the surf that broke on the other side of the landlocked bay called Coleta could now be heard.
“It’s going to storm,” said the writer.
“Is it? I’m glad!” said Miss Jelkes.
“Won’t you come in?”
“I’m not at all properly dressed.”
“I’m not either.”
“Oh, well—”
She came in. Under the naked light bulb and without the dark glasses his face looked older and the eyes, which she had not seen before, had a look that often goes with incurable illness.
She noticed that he was looking about for something.
“Tablets,” he muttered.
She caught sight of them first, among a litter of papers.
She handed them to him.
“Thank you. Will you have one?”
“I’ve had one already.”
“What kind are yours?”
“Seconal. Yours?”
“Barbital. Are yours good?”
“Wonderful.”
“How do they make you feel? Like a water-lily?”
“Yes, like a water lily on a Chinese lagoon!”
Miss Jelkes laughed with real gaiety but the writer responded only with a faint smile. His attention was drifting away from her again. He stood at the screen door like a worried child awaiting the return of a parent.
“Perhaps I should
—”
Her voice faltered. She did not want to leave. She wanted to stay there. She felt herself upon the verge of saying incommunicable things to this man whose singularity was so like her own in many essential respects, but his turned back did not invite her to stay. He shouted the name of his friend. There was no response. The writer turned back from the door with a worried muttering but his attention did not return to Miss Jelkes.
“Your friend—” she faltered.
“Mike?”
“Is he the—right person for you?”
“Mike is helpless and I am always attracted by helpless people.”
“But you,” she said awkwardly. “How about you? Don’t you need somebody’s help?”
“The help of God!” said the writer. “Failing that, I have to depend on myself.”
“But isn’t it possible that with somebody else, somebody with more understanding, more like yourself—!”
“You mean you?” he asked bluntly.
Miss Jelkes was spared the necessity of answering one way or another, for at that moment a great violence was unleashed outside the screen door. The storm that had hovered uncertainly on the horizon was now plunging toward them. Not continually but in sudden thrusts and withdrawals, like a giant bird lunging up and down on its terrestrial quarry, a bird with immense white wings and beak of godlike fury, the attack was delivered against the jut of rock on which the Costa Verde was planted. Time and again the whole night blanched and trembled, but there was something frustrate in the attack of the storm. It seemed to be one that came from a thwarted will. Otherwise surely the frame structure would have been smashed. But the giant white bird did not know where it was striking. Its beak of fury was blind, or perhaps the beak—
It may have been that Miss Jelkes was right on the verge of divining more about God than a mortal ought to—when suddenly the writer leaned forward and thrust his knees between hers. She noticed that he had removed the towel about him and now was quite naked. She did not have time to wonder nor even to feel much surprise for in the next few moments, and for the first time in her thirty years of preordained spinsterhood, she was enacting a fierce little comedy of defense. He thrust at her like the bird of blind white fury. His one hand attempted to draw up the skirt of her robe while his other tore at the flimsy goods at her bosom. The upper cloth tore. She cried out with pain as the predatory fingers dug into her flesh. But she did not give in. Not she herself resisted but some demon of virginity that occupied her flesh fought off the assailant more furiously than he attacked her. And her demon won, for all at once the man let go of her gown and his fingers released her bruised bosom. A sobbing sound in his throat, he collapsed against her. She felt a wing-like throbbing against her belly, and then a scalding wetness. Then he let go of her altogether. She sank back into her chair which had remained demurely upright throughout the struggle, as unsuitably, as ridiculously, as she herself had maintained her upright position. The man was sobbing. And then the screen door opened and the younger writer came in. Automatically Miss Jelkes freed herself from the damp embrace of her unsuccessful assailant.
“What is it?” asked the younger writer.
He repeated his question several times, senselessly but angrily, while he shook his older friend who could not stop crying.
I don’t belong here, thought Miss Jelkes, and suiting action to thought, she slipped quietly out the screen door. She did not turn back into the room immediately adjoining but ran down the verandah to the room she had occupied before. She threw herself onto the bed which was now as cool as if she had never lain on it. She was grateful for that and for the abrupt cessation of fury outside. The white bird had gone away and the Costa Verde had survived its assault. There was nothing but the rain now, pattering without much energy, and the far away sound of the ocean only a little more distinct than it had been before the giant bird struck. She remembered the Iguana.
Oh, yes, the Iguana! She lay there with ears pricked for the painful sound of its scuffling, but there was no sound but the effortless flowing of water. Miss Jelkes could not contain her curiosity so at last she got out of bed and looked over the edge of the verandah. She saw the rope. She saw the whole length of the rope lying there in a relaxed coil, but not the Iguana. Somehow or other the creature tied by the rope had gotten away. Was it an act of God that effected this deliverance? Or was it not more reasonable to suppose that only Mike, the beautiful and helpless and cruel, had cut the Iguana loose? No matter. No matter who did it, the Iguana was gone, had scrambled back into its native bushes and, oh, how gratefully it must be breathing now! And she was grateful, too, for in some equally mysterious way the strangling rope of her loneliness had also been severed by what had happened tonight on this barren rock above the moaning waters.
Now she was sleepy. But just before falling asleep she remembered and felt again the spot of dampness, now turning cool but still adhering to the flesh of her belly as a light but persistent kiss. Her fingers approached it timidly. They expected to draw back with revulsion but were not so affected. They touched it curiously and even pityingly and did not draw back for a while. Ah, Life, she thought to herself and was about to smile at the originality of this thought when darkness lapped over the outward gaze of her mind.
1948
A CHRONOLOGY
1907 June 3: Cornelius Coffin Williams and Edwina Estelle Dakin marry in Columbus, Mississippi.
1909 November 19: Sister, Rose Isabelle Williams, is born in Columbus, Mississippi.
1911 March 26: Thomas Lanier Williams III is born in Columbus, Mississippi.
1918 July: Williams family moves to St. Louis, Missouri.
1919 February 21: Brother, Walter Dakin Williams, is born in St. Louis, Missouri.
1928 Short story “The Vengeance of Nitocris” is published in Weird Tales magazine.
July: Williams’s grandfather, Walter Edwin Dakin (1857–1954), takes young Tom on a tour of Europe.
1929 September: Begins classes at the University of Missouri at Columbia.
1930 Writes the one-act play Beauty is the Word for a local contest.
1932 Summer: Fails ROTC and is taken out of college by his father and put to work as a clerk at the International Shoe Company.
1936 January: Enrolls in extension courses at Washington University, St. Louis.
1937 March 18 and 20: First full-length play, Candles to the Sun, is produced by the Mummers, a semi-professional theater company in St. Louis.
September: Transfers to the University of Iowa.
November 30 and December 4: Fugitive Kind is performed by the Mummers.
1938 Graduates from the University of Iowa with a degree in English.
Completes the play Not About Nightingales.
1939 Story magazine publishes “The Field of Blue Children” with the first printed use of his professional name, “Tennessee Williams.”
Receives an award from the Group Theatre for a group of short plays collectively titled American Blues, which leads to his association with Audrey Wood, his agent for the next thirty-two years.
1940 January through June: Studies playwriting with John Gassner at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
December 30: Battle of Angels, starring Miriam Hopkins, suffers a disastrous first night during its out-of-town tryout in Boston and closes shortly thereafter.
1942 December: At a cocktail party thrown by Lincoln Kirstein in New York, meets James Laughlin, founder of New Directions, who is to become Williams’ lifelong friend and publisher.
1943 January 13: A bilateral prefrontal lobotomy is performed on Rose Isabelle Williams, leaving her in a childlike mental state for the rest of her life.
Drafts a screenplay, The Gentleman Caller, while under contract in Hollywood with Metro Goldwyn Mayer: rejected by the studio, he later rewrites it as The Glass Menagerie.
October 13: A collaboration with his friend Donald Windham, You Touched Me! (based on a story by D. H. Lawrence), premieres at the Cleve
land Playhouse.
1944 December 26: The Glass Menagerie opens in Chicago starring Laurette Taylor.
A group of poems titled “The Summer Belvedere” is published in Five Young American Poets, 1944. (All books listed here are published by New Directions unless otherwise indicated.)
1945 March 25: Stairs to the Roof premieres at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.
March 31: The Glass Menagerie opens on Broadway and goes on to win the Drama Critics Circle Award for best play of the year.
September 25: You Touched Me! opens on Broadway, and is later published by Samuel French.
December 27: Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays is published.
1947 Summer: Meets Frank Merlo (1929–1963) in Provincetown—starting in 1948 they become lovers and companions, and remain together for fourteen years.
December 3: A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden, opens on Broadway to rave reviews and wins the Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics Circle Award.
1948 October 6: Summer and Smoke opens on Broadway and closes in just over three months.
1949 January: One Arm and Other Stories is published.
1950 The novel The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is published.
The film version of The Glass Menagerie is released.
1951 February 3: The Rose Tattoo opens on Broadway starring Maureen Stapleton and Eli Wallach and wins the Tony Award for best play of the year.
The film version of A Streetcar Named Desire is released starring Vivian Leigh as Blanche and Marlon Brando as Stanley.
1952 April 24: A revival of Summer and Smoke directed by José Quintero and starring Geraldine Page opens off-Broadway at the Circle at the Square and is a critical success.
The National Institute of Arts and Letters inducts Williams as a member.
1953 March 19: Camino Real opens on Broadway and after a harsh critical reception closes within two months.
1954 A book of stories, Hard Candy, is published in August.