Read A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur for Free Online Page A

upstairs?
    BODEY: After hot coffee, it gives her diarrhea!
    DOROTHEA: Must she have it down here?
    MISS GLUCK [
in German
]:
KANN NICHT WARTEN!
    BODEY: She can’t wait, here, bathroom, Sophie!
Badezimmer!
    [
Miss Gluck rushes through the bedroom into the bathroom
.]
    DOROTHEA: What a scene for Helena to report at Blewett. Miss Gluck, turn on both water faucets full force.
    BODEY: Sophie,
beide Wasser rennen
.
    DOROTHEA: Bodey, while I am here don’t serve her hot coffee again since it results in these—crises!
    BODEY: Dotty, you know that Sophie’s got this problem.
    DOROTHEA: Then send her coffee upstairs.
    BODEY: Dotty, you know she needs companionship, Dotty.
    DOROTHEA: That I cannot provide her with just now!
    [
Bodey returns to the living room
.]
    HELENA: How did Dorothea react to Miss Gluck’s sudden indisposition?
    BODEY: Dotty’s a girl that understands human afflictions.
    [
There is a crash in the bathroom
.]
    DOROTHEA: Phone, Ralph’s call—has he—did he?
    BODEY: Phone, Dotty? No, no phone.
    HELENA: I wouldn’t expect—
    BODEY [
to Helena
]: Watch it!
    HELENA: Watch what, Miss Bodenheifer? What is it you want me to watch?
    BODEY: That mouth of yours, the tongue in it, with such a tongue in a mouth you could dig your grave with like a shovel!
    HELENA [
her laughter tinkling like ice in a glass
]: —The syntax of that sentence was rather confusing. You know, I suspect that English is not your native language but one that you’ve not quite adequately adopted.
    BODEY: I was born on South Grand, a block from Tower Grove Park in this city of St. Louis!
    HELENA: Ah, the German section. Your parents were German speaking?
    BODEY: I learned plenty English at school, had eight grades of school and a year of business college.
    HELENA: I see, I see, forgive me. [
She turns to a window, possibly in the
“
fourth wall
.”] Is a visitor permitted to look out the window?
    BODEY: A visitor like you’s permitted to jump out it.
    HELENA [
laughing indulgently
]: With so many restrictions placed on one’s speech and actions—
    [
Bodey turns up her hearing aid so high that it screeches shrilly
.]
    DOROTHEA: Is it the phone?
    HELENA: Please. Is it controllable, that electric hearing device?
    BODEY: What did you say?
    [
The screeching continues
.]
    HELENA: Ow . . . ow . . .
    [
Bodey finally manages to turn down the hearing aid
.]
    DOROTHEA: Oh please bring a mop, Bodey. Water’s streaming under—the bathroom door. Miss Gluck’s flooded the bathroom.
    BODEY: What? Bring?
    HELENA:
Mop, mop!
    [
Helena moves toward the bedroom door but Bodey shoves her back
.]
    BODEY: Stay! Put! Stay put!
    [
Bodey grabs a mop from the closet and then rushes into the bedroom
.]
    DOROTHEA: See? Water? Flooding?
    BODEY: You told her to turn on both faucets. SOPHIE!
Halte das Wasser ab
, Sophie! [
Bodey opens the bathroom door and thrusts in the mop
.] Here,
das Wust, das Wust
, Sophie!
    DOROTHEA [
to herself
]: This is incredible to me, I simply do not believe it! [
She then speaks to Bodey who has started back toward the living room
.] May I detain you a moment? The truth has finally struck me. Ralph’s calls have been intercepted. He has been repeatedly calling me on that phone, and you have been just as repeatedly lying to me that he hasn’t.
    BODEY: LYING TO—?
    DOROTHEA: YES, LYING! [
She stumbles to the door of the bedroom
.] Helena, will
you
please watch that phone for me now?
    HELENA [
crossing to the bedroom door
]: I’m afraid, Dorothea, that a watched phone never rings!
    [
Bodey emerges from the bedroom. She and Helena return to the living room while Dorothea retreats to the bed, shutting the door behind her
.]
    What a view through this window, totally devoid of—why , no, a living creature, a pigeon! Capable of flight but perched for a moment in this absolute desolation . . .
    INTERVAL

The scene is the same as before. The spotlight focuses on the lefthand
, “
bedroom
”
portion of the stage where Dorothea,