SILVA: Yes! You make me think of cotton.
[He caresses her arm another moment.]
No! No fabric, no kind of cloth, not even satin or silk has the absolute delicacy of your skin!
BABY DOLL: Well! Should I say thanks or something?
SILVA: No, just smile, Mrs. Meighan. You have an attractive smile. Dimples!!
BABY DOLL: No. . .
SILVA: Yes, you have! Smile, Mrs. Meighan! Come on! Smile!
[Baby Doll averts her face, smiles helplessly.]
There now. See? You’ve got them!
[Delicately, he touches one of the indentations in her cheek.]
BABY DOLL: Please don’t touch me. I don’t like to be touched.
SILVA: Then why do you giggle?
BABY DOLL: Can’t help it. You make me feel kind of hysterical, Mr. Vacarro. . . Mr. Vacarro. . .
SILVA: Yes?
BABY DOLL [a different attack, more feminine, pleading]: I hope you don’t think that Archie Lee was mixed up in that fire. I swear to goodness he never left the front porch. I remember it perfectly now. We just set here on the swing till the fire broke out and then we drove into town.
SILVA: To celebrate!
BABY DOLL: No, no, no!
SILVA: Twenty-seven wagons full of cotton’s a pretty big piece of business to fall into your lap like a gift from the gods, Mrs. Meighan.
BABY DOLL: I thought you said we would drop the subject.
SILVA: You brought it up that time.
BABY DOLL: Well, please don’t try to mix me up anymore, I swear to goodness the fire had already broke out when he got back.
SILVA: That’s not what you told me a moment ago.
BABY DOLL: You got me all twisted up. We went in town. The fire broke out and we didn’t know about it.
SILVA: I thought you said it irritated your sinus.
BABY DOLL: Oh my God, you sure put words in my mouth. Maybe I’d jus’ better make us some lemonade.
[She starts to get up. Silva pulls her down.]
What did you do that for?
SILVA: I don’t want to be deprived of your company yet.
[He lightly switches her legs with his crop.]
BABY DOLL [twisting]: Mr. Vacarro, you’re getting awfully familiar.
SILVA: Haven’t you got any fun-loving spirit about you?
BABY DOLL: This isn’t fun.
SILVA: Then why do you giggle?
BABY DOLL: I’m ticklish!
SILVA: Ticklish!
BABY DOLL: Yes, quit switching me, will you?
SILVA: I’m just shooing the flies off.
BABY DOLL: Leave ’em be, then, please. They don’t hurt nothin’.
SILVA: I think you like to be switched.
BABY DOLL: I don’t. I wish you’d quit. Qui-it!
SILVA: You’d like to be switched harder.
BABY DOLL: No, I wouldn’t.
SILVA: That blue mark on your wrist—
BABY DOLL: What about it?
SILVA: I’ve got a suspicion.
BABY DOLL: Of what?
SILVA: It was twisted. By your husband.
BABY DOLL: YOU’RE CRAZY.
SILVA: Yes, it was. And you liked it.
BABY DOLL: I certainly didn’t. Would you mind moving your arm?
SILVA: Don’t be so skittish.
BABY DOLL: Awright. I’ll get up then.
SILVA: Go on.
BABY DOLL: I feel so weak.
SILVA: Dizzy?
BABY DOLL: Fuzzy and buzzy. My head’s spinnin’ round. It’s that swinging. . . . Is something on my arm?
SILVA: No.
BABY DOLL: Then what are you blowin’ at?
SILVA: Sweat off. Let me wipe it. . .
[He brushes her arm with his handkerchief.]
BABY DOLL [laughing weakly]: No, please don’t. It feels funny.
SILVA: How does it feel?
BABY DOLL: Funny! All up and down. You cut it out now. If you don’t cut it out I’m going to call.
SILVA: Call who?
BABY DOLL: That. . . that nigger boy who’s cuttin’ the grass across the road over there.
SILVA: Go on. Call then.
BABY DOLL: Hey!
[Her voice is faint, weak.]
Hey, boy, boy!
SILVA: Can’t you call any louder?
BABY DOLL: I feel so funny! What’s the matter with me?
SILVA: You’re just relaxing. . . just relaxing. So give in. Stop getting yourself all excited.
BABY DOLL: I’m not—but you. . .
SILVA: I!???
BABY DOLL: Yes. You. Suspicions. The ideas you have about my husband. . . suspicions.
SILVA: Suspicions? Such as. . .
BABY DOLL: Such as he burnt your gin down.
SILVA: Well?
BABY DOLL: He didn’t.
SILVA: Didn’t he?
BABY DOLL: I’m going inside. I’m going in the house.
[She starts in.]
SILVA [following close behind her]: But you’re afraid of the house! Do you believe in ghosts, Mrs. Meighan? I do. I believe in the presence of evil spirits.
BABY DOLL: What evil spirits you talking about now?
SILVA: Spirits of violence—and cunning—malevolence—cruelty—treachery—destruction. . .
BABY DOLL: Them’s just human characteristics.
SILVA: They’re evil spirits that haunt the human heart and take possession of it, that spread from one human heart to another human heart the way a fire goes springing from leaf to leaf and branch to branch in a tree till a forest is all aflame with it—the birds take flight—the wild things are suffocated. . . everything green and beautiful is destroyed. . .
BABY DOLL: You have got fire on the brain.
SILVA: I see it as more than it seems to be on the surface. I saw it last night as an explosion of those evil spirits that haunt the human heart—I fought it! I ran into it, beating it, stamping it, shouting the curse of God at it! They dragged me out, suffocating. I was defeated! When I came to, lying on the ground—the fire had won the battle, and all around was a ring of human figures! The fire lit their faces! I looked up. And they were all illuminated! Their eyes, their teeth were SHINING! SEE! LIKE THIS!
[He thrusts his grimacing face at her. She springs back, frightened.]
BABY DOLL: Hey! Please! Don’t do that! Don’t scare me!
SILVA: The faces I saw—were grinning! Then I knew! I knew the fire was not accidental!
[He holds her fast at the door. He twists his face into a grotesque grimace of pleasure. He holds her.]
BABY DOLL [weakly]: Not accidental?
SILVA: No, it was not accidental! It was an expression, a manifestation of the human will to destroy.
BABY DOLL: I wouldn’t—feel that way—about it. . .
SILVA: I do! I do! And so I say I believe in ghosts, in haunted places, places haunted by the people that occupy them with hearts overrun by demons of hate and destruction. I believe his place, this house is haunted. . . . What’s the matter?
BABY DOLL [now thoroughly shaken]: I don’t know. . .
SILVA: You’re scared to enter the house, is that the trouble?
BABY DOLL [calling]: Aunt Rose. Aunt Rose!!
[No answer.]
That old woman can’t hear a thing.
SILVA: There’s no question about it. This place is haunted.
[Silva moves towards her forcing her backwards to the edge of the porch until she starts to topple over.]
BABY DOLL: NO. . . no. . . please. . . I. . . I. . . OHHHH!!!
[He reaches out and pulls her into his arms.]
SILVA: You’re trembling, Mrs. Meighan, shaking all over!
BABY DOLL: Your—hands are so—hot—I don’t think I ever felt hands as hot as your hands, they’re—why they’re—why they’re like a couple of plates—took right off—the stove!
SILVA: Burn, do they?
BABY DOLL: Yeah, they—do, they burn—me— . . .please let me go
. . . why don’t I fix us a—nice pitcher of—ice cold lemonade.
SILVA: The idea of lemonade is very attractive. I would be glad to help you squeeze the lemons.
[He tightens the pressure of his embrace.]
BABY DOLL: I know you would! I mean I—thanks, but—I can do it myself.
SILVA: You don’t want my assistance, Mrs. Meighan?
BABY DOLL: Naw, it ain’t necessary. . .
SILVA: You want me to stay on the porch?
BABY DOLL: Yeh, you stay on the porch!
SILVA: Why shouldn’t I come inside?
BABY DOLL: No reason, just—just. . .!
[She giggles weakly.]
I don’t think I better. I think I will go across the road to the gin. They got a water cooler. . .
SILVA: The water cooler’s for colored. A lady, a white lady like you, the wife of the big white boss, would place herself in an undignified position if she went over the road to drink with the hands! They might get notions about her! Un-wholesome ideas! The sight of her soft white flesh, so smooth and abundant, might inflame their—natures.
BABY DOLL: I’m dizzy. My knees are so weak they’re like water. I’ve got to sit down.
SILVA: Go in.
BABY DOLL: I can’t.
SILVA: Why not?
BABY DOLL: You’d follow.
SILVA: Would that be so awful?
BABY DOLL: You’ve got a mean look in your eyes and I don’t like the whip. Honest to God, he never. He didn’t I swear!
SILVA: Do what?
BABY DOLL: The fire. . .
SILVA: Go on.
BABY DOLL: Please don’t!
SILVA: Don’t what?
BABY DOLL: Put it down. The whip, please put it down.
SILVA: What are you scared of?
BABY DOLL: You.
SILVA: Go on.
[Aunt Rose Comfort enters the yard from stage left with a big basket of greens. Baby Doll is both relieved to see her and indignant that she had left her alone.]
BABY DOLL: Why, Aunt Rose Comfort, I thought you was in the house, I am surprised at you, leavin’ me alone here with—
AUNT ROSE: You’re not alone, Baby Doll, you’re with this nice young man from the Syndicate Plantation!
BABY DOLL: That’s what I mean, you left me here alone with a—a foreigner, a stranger. Some one I scarcely know.
SILVA [quickly, with great deference]: Please let me carry that heavy basket for you, Miss Rose Comfort.
AUNT ROSE: Thank you so much, it did seem to get so heavy on the road.
SILVA: The sun increased the weight of it.
AUNT ROSE: It did seem to, ev’ry step of the way. Sometimes Archie Lee drives me to Piggly Wiggly’s Groc’ry in his automobile to shop but with all this business today, thanks to you—
SILVA: Not to me, to the fire.
[They are now in the kitchen. Baby Doll, disturbed, sits in the swing.]
AUNT ROSE: Oh, Lord, no, Mr. Vacarro, I could never give thanks to the fire!
SILVA: Perhaps Mr. Meighan could, though.
AUNT ROSE: Yais, well, frankly, Archie Lee Meighan is a very practical man that thinks mostly of his own advantage, if you know what I mean.
SILVA: I do, exactly, Ma’am.
AUNT ROSE: I should not be sayin’ this while under his roof.
SILVA: But without much left in the way of the refinements of living.
AUNT ROSE: Not even a bed, Mr. Vacarro. I sleep on a—
[Her voice breaks.]
—pile of—ole sacks.
[She weeps soundlessly for a moment, lifting her apron to her face.]
Excuse me, I’m just so—tired. You see, Archie Lee, well, he’s a tight-fisted man an’ I don’t think even prosperity would change that. He gives me, today he gave me just thirty-five cents and told me to walk in town. Six miles? Each way? Under that blazing sun? Couldn’t, couldn’t. I will tell you a secret. After a mile I gave up. I picked these turnip greens and dandelion greens on the road—with permission, of course, and these folks also give me a slab of fatback to prepare them with for supper. I have no worldly possessions except my friends. . .
[The phone rings. Aunt Rose Comfort screams.]
SILVA: What’s the matter, what’s the matter, Miss Comfort?
AUNT ROSE: Whenever that phone rings it makes me scream—so much bad news circulating. Excuse me. I better answer.
[She goes to the phone as Silva tosses the greens into a big pot on the unlit stove.]
Miss Rose Comfort McCorkle speakin’. Who are you? Oh, Bessie! How nice to hear your voice! How is Precious today? Turn for the worse? —How awful! —Honey, soon as I git my supper started I will visit her at the hospital.
SILVA: Don’t wait, don’t worry, if there’s a hospital call, I’ll see everything’s took care of for supper. A bachelor learns his way around a kitchen.
AUNT ROSE [girlishly]: You’re a bachelor, Mr. Vacarro?
SILVA: Yes, still have that misfortune.
AUNT ROSE: I’m sure it will soon be—corrected. . . . Oh, goodbye, Bessie. They’s many attractive unattached girls in Tiger Tail County would set their caps for you, new manager of the Syndicate Plantation.
SILVA: Even with the cotton gin burnt down?
AUNT ROSE: Even with the cotton burned up! —You have a, you have—charming—personality, Mr.—
SILVA: Call me Silva.
AUNT ROSE [almost flirtatious]: Silva! —I love foreign names.
SILVA: I find that a lot of the local people are prejudiced against foreigners, specially Sicilians which they call wops. It’s even been said about me I’m not completely Caucasian.
AUNT ROSE: Caw—what?
SILVA: White-blooded.
AUNT ROSE: Oh, vicious tongues, ignore ’em, ignore ’em completely!
[Fussy appears in the open kitchen door.]
FUSSY: Sq-u-u-u-awwwwww-k. . .
AUNT ROSE: Oh! Shoo, Fussy, shoo! You pesky critter!
[She flaps her skirt at her and chases her into the back room of kitchen.]
—Well, I reckon I better be on my way to the hospital now.
SILVA: —Is the hospital far? For you to go on foot?
AUNT ROSE: Not too far to make it. Always make it. . . . The poor chile. . . had such a long, tiring night, Archie Lee out so late and the—fire. . .
SILVA: The fire.
AUNT ROSE: I’ll be just a while.
SILVA: Oh, take your time, don’t hurry.
AUNT ROSE: I know that you’ll watch out for Baby Doll.
SILVA: That was my intention, Miss Rose Comfort, you can depend on that.
AUNT ROSE: Please, excuse me.
[Aunt Rose Comfort exits to the rear of the house. Silva returns to the porch. He slams the door startling Baby Doll.]
BABY DOLL: Aw. You here still?
SILVA: You didn’t hear your Aunt’s instructions to me, Mrs. Meighan?
BABY DOLL: I’m out-done with Aunt Rose Comfort. I think it was out-ray-jus of her to leave me here alone with a strange man here and not a word of warning. I tell you, I sure was relieved to see her come back. That’s how nervous you’d made me with all those crazy suspicions about the fire. Well. Now she’s back, I s’pose I better see she gits supper started. Archie Lee gets awful cross with her when she serves it late. He’s anxious to get rid of her befo’ she takes sick, wants me to pack her off to some other relations but they all got excuses not to take her in. Archie Lee says if she takes sick on him here, he won’t pay the cost of a doctor, he says he’ll let her die, he’ll just burn her up and put her ashes in a Coca-Cola bottle and throw it in Tiger Tail Bayou.
SILVA: Mr. Meighan is a man without much sentiment for the old and—homeless. . .
BABY DOLL: I’d never let her leave. I need her to be around with Archie Lee tryin’ to fo’ce me to have—well, you know— If that man laid a hand on me, if he tried to, Aunt Rose would proteck me from him, like she would from you if you got too familiar. Put that in your pipe and smoke it
.
SILVA: Don’t have a pipe, don’t smoke.
[His hand steals about her and tightens.]
BABY DOLL: YOU STOP THAT! —AUNT ROSE! AUNT ROSE?
[Aunt Rose comes out of the house all dressed up.]
BABY DOLL: Aunt Rose Comfort.
[Aunt Rose rushes past her.]
Aunt Rose Comfort!! Where are you going?
AUNT ROSE: I have to see a sick friend at the county hospital.
BABY DOLL: You might as well shout at the moon as that old woman.
SILVA: YOU didn’t want her to go??
BABY DOLL: She’s got no business leaving me here alone.
SILVA: It makes you uneasy to be alone here with me.
BABY DOLL: She just pretended not to hear me! This is just awful. I’ll tell you something. Aunt Rose don’t go to the hospital to call on sickly friends, she just goes there to eat up their choc’late candy! She’s got a passion for choc’late candy, she’ll just go there and stuff herself fulla choc’late-covered-cherries. —How far down the road’s she gotten? I’m gonna call her back. . .
[She crosses unsteadily into the yard: she shades her eyes to peer down the dirt road.]
Aunt Rose! Aunt Rose Comfort! Come back, come back, I’m— scared. . .