Blanche monologue (Act 4) — The climbers : $b A play in four acts

[_Smiles sadly and shakes her head; the smile dies away._] Life to me then was like a glorious staircase, and I mounted happy step after step led by your hand till everything _seemed_ to culminate on the day of our wedding. You men don't, _can't_ realize, what that service means to a girl. In those few moments she parts from all that have cherished her, made her life, and gives her whole self, her love, her body, and even her soul sometimes--for love often overwhelms us women--to _the_ man who, she believes, wants, _starves_, for her gifts. All that a woman who marries for love feels at the altar I tell you a _man_ can't understand! You treated this gift of mine, Dick, like a child does a Santa Claus plaything--for a while you were never happy away from it, then you grew accustomed to it, then you broke it, and now you have even lost the broken pieces!