Blanche is hunched over in a corner of the bedroom in the evening of her birthday. She is drinking. Mitch comes by the house. Blanche invites him inside, covering up her drunk state, telling him that she shouldn't let him in after he stood her up for dinner, secretly knowing that she is the one in trouble. She offers him a drink, but he declines saying that he doesn't want Stanley's liquor. She tells him that some of the liquor is hers and that not everything in the house belongs to Stan. Mitch is somewhat confrontational with Blanche, witnessing her delusions. She keeps hearing a polka tune and a shot. She is used to hearing these sounds in her head. Mitch thinks she is extremely drunk.
He tells her he doesn't want to see her again. She pretends to not hear any of his words and continues to look for a drink and tell him how much she has helped in the house. Mitch erupts by turning on the lights and crying, "It's dark in here....I don't think I ever seen you in the light....What it means is I've never had a real good look at you...." Scene 9, pg. 218. He pushes her face under a bright light, saying that she is older than he thought. They fight about stories he heard from Stanley, and Mitch says that he didn't want to believe them. But, he checked up on them, too, and found out everything he heard about her is true. She admits to all of the rumors.
"Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers....So I came here. There was nowhere else I could go. I was played out....and I met you. You said you needed somebody. Well, I needed somebody, too. I thanked God for you, because you seemed to be gentle - a cleft in the rock of the world that I could hide in!"Scene 9, pg. 219-20
Mitch is angry that she lied to him. She claims she never lied to him about her feelings. Her heart was always honest.
An old Mexican woman comes around the corner selling flowers for the dead. This chanting sets the polka music off in Blanche's head again, bringing her back to a time in the past. She mutters lines that she heard when she was younger. The Mexican woman continues to chant "flowers for the dead" as Blanche thinks of all the people who have died.
Mitch comes behind her and places his hands on her waist wanting sexual relations. Blanches asks him to marry her if he wants that, to which he responds: "I don't think I want to marry you any more....You're not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother." Scene 9, pg. 221. Blanche is so horrified by Mitch's words that she screams at him to leave the house. She starts yelling "fire" until he runs away frightened.
