Katina Paxinou Monologues

Look I am ugly. Yet one can have a feeling here

that blinds a man while he loves you. He thinks you are beautiful. And one day for no reason at all he sees you ugly as you really are. And he is not blind anymore. Then you see yourself as ugly as he sees you - and you lose your man and your feeling. Then one day the feeling, that idiotic feeling that you are beautiful, grows inside you again and another man sees you and thinks you are beautiful and it's all to do over again. Now I'm past it. But it still might come again.

What are you saying now? You lazy, unspeakable son of an unmentionable gypsy. Answer me, gypsy!

Don't try to frighten us, coward!

Safety! Huh! There is no such thing as safety! Did I spend nine years with the worst paid matadors in the world not to learn about fear and about safety? Huh! Speak to me of anything but safety! Look at him. How I believed in him once, and look what he's now. From one year of war you've become lazy, a drunkard, and a coward.

Ugly. All of its ugly.

Here *I* command. Haven't you heard them? Here no one commands but me now.

Try it and see what happens. Listen to me, drunkard! You understand now who commands?

No! Listen! Take the wax from your ears. Listen well. I command.

This one is a gift to any man - if she could cook a little better.

Life is very curious. I would have made a good man. But, I'm all woman - and all ugly. Yet, many men have loved me. Is that strange?

What about me? Do I have to kiss you, too, to get a horse? It's been years since I kissed a bullfighter. Hold this, Ingles, till I get a good kiss at him. Hah! Look at him! He's afraid of a kiss as he was afraid of the bulls.

When I kiss, it won't be as a sister!

Even here one man can make a bureaucracy with his mouth!

What ever you will, I'm for it now.

Act like men! Don't you think you'll die soon enough?

Silence! What use is courage if you have no head?

Nobody understands you. Neither God nor your mother. Nor I. Nor you, either.

I suppose when a man has something once, always something remains.