Read Online The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays by Tennessee Williams - Free Book Online

get worked up like this over your little bunch of pedigreed fleas? I don’t know. Sometimes I remember how it was twenty, thirty years ago—then I feel like I want to spit in your faces! All of you! This is my time—not yours! I am dealing out the cards now!
    LORD HUNTINGTON [
quietly
]: Not now—not any longer, Vashya.
    VASHYA : No?
    LORD HUNTINGTON : No, Vashya, your hand is played out.
    VASHYA : Played out is it? Since when!
    LORD HUNTINGTON : Quite recently. I’ve gotten some information about your—your secret activities.
    VASHYA : You’ll explain at once or apologize!
    LORD HUNTINGTON : Don’t get excited. I’ve come here to talk things over quietly.
    VASHYA : I won’t mince words with you. Huntington, the government you represent is under my thumb. You can’t afford to be insolent to me. D’you know who I am?
    LORD HUNTINGTON : Yes. You’re beginning to be pretty widely known, Vashya, as the International Butcher.
    VASHYA [
striking him
]: You say that to me!?
    LORD HUNTINGTON : I say it to your face, Vashya, and hope that you like it.
    VASHYA : That’s how I like it! [
Laughing
.] I slapped you! You’ve got the red mark of my hand on your face! I did it, I slapped you, the Prime Minister! Once you aristocrats spit in my face. Now I slap yours. Me, the common dung-heap peasant, Vashya Shontine, slap you, Lord Huntington, the Prime Minister. You’ve got the red marks of my fingers across your elegant lavender-scented cheek—the fingers that used to hold a pitchfork! What do you think of that, eh?
    LORD HUNTINGTON [
with a slight pause
]: I think it was the act of a swine, but it didn’t surprise me. And now that we’ve vented our little personal rage, suppose we—suppose we sit down and talk business.
    VASHYA : You take it coolly, don’t you! Yeah, because you’ve got to. You know who’s the ringmaster now! Me, Vashya, the peasant.
    LORD HUNTINGTON [
quietly
]: You’ve lost your mind.
    VASHYA [
breathing heavily
]: No. That’s over now. [
He laughs
.] I keep forgetting to be a gentleman. I ate too much black bread when I was a boy. But just the same—That was the most satisfactory moment of all my life, the moment when I felt my fingers stinging against your cheek. It was the act of a swine, but I liked it. Have a drink.
    LORD HUNTINGTON : No, thanks. I thought I’d made it plain this wasn’t a social call.
    VASHYA : Isn’t it?
    LORD HUNTINGTON : No. And now you’ve had your amusement and we can get down to business.
    VASHYA : What business?
    LORD HUNTINGTON : You have it in your power, as I said before, to put a stop to the war.
    VASHYA : I have it in my power—yes !
    LORD HUNTINGTON : If you’ll do it, I—in exchange—will keep my secret!
    VASHYA : About—?
    LORD HUNTINGTON : Your dual personality, Vashya!
    VASHYA : My dual personality?
    LORD HUNTINGTON : Yes. I have in my possession papers that prove you have been supplying our enemies with ammunition as well as ourselves. Yes—from the very beginning of the war to this present date! Here are the papers!
    VASHYA : Forgeries! Do you think I would be such a fool?
    LORD HUNTINGTON : The code was difficult. We worked on it over two years before we found the slightest clue. But now we’ve worked it out in full, ready to turn over to whoever might be interested, Vashya, in your secret communications with governments!
    VASHYA : I repeat they’re forgeries of the most absurd kind. —But even if they weren’t—what could you do about it? Have you forgotten the powers that I control?
    LORD HUNTINGTON : No. That’s why I haven’t come here to arrest you. That’s why I’ve come here to strike a bargain with you. That’s why I even let you slap me—which wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve done in my life. If you’ll stop this carnage, if you’ll put anend to the war—and I know you can do it! —These papers will be destroyed or returned to your possession. You’ll go down in history, perhaps, as the man who saved his country.