How Many Women

[FLORENCE]
How many women would drive themselves crazy
By arguing over a game of chess?
Not very many--the way things are going
There'll soon be one less!

[FREDDIE]
Don't believe you sweetie pie--

[FLORENCE]
Listen, Freddie--I too had ambitions
How did I get waylaid?
How can such a flower,
A sensitive soul, a delicate child
Wind up as a nursemaid?
Respectably set for the glittering prizes
Instead of which I landed you--

[FREDDIE]
You'll get your prizes!
I'm ninety percent of the way to the top of the heap!

[FLORENCE]
Thanks--ten percent--you got me cheap!

[FREDDIE]
(spoken)
No, no, Florence--I meant we are ninety percent of the way--

[FLORENCE]
How many women--articulate women, with
Something to shout about--spend their time
Playing a game in which silence is golden
and speaking a crime?

[FREDDIE]
Maybe if he moved his king...

[FLORENCE]
All of my struggles for qualifications--my
Nights with Goethe and Proust
Recklessly abandoned
For you! Who thinks Chekhov is King to G3
And Joyce, my college roommate!
But then when I show you a move you can't fathom
I have to admit it feels great--

[FREDDIE]
Great news for chess fans!
Yeah--that's how he did it--
Yeah, that's how the communist plays!

[FLORENCE]
Maybe I deserve a raise.