Blanche is alone in the room, sitting and drinking. Mitch rings a bell on the front door. Surprised by this visit, Blanche rushes around frantically in attempt to hide the bottle and fix her makeup before she opens the door. Finally, she lets him in and immediately nags about his behavior from earlier that day and criticizes his looks. Mitch is reserved and cold, and obviously has come there for a specific reason, but Blanche still likes to think that he's there to beg for her forgiveness. She constantly talks and moves around the house, pretending to look for a drink that she has just hidden. Mitch says a little, if anything, but whenever he speaks, rude words come from his mouth. He is now as mean as Stanley. The conversation is bitter and finally reaches its point. Mitch is there to clear up the issue between them. He says he never had a good look at her and theatrically rips the paper lantern and switches the light on. Blanche defends herself by saying that she doesn't want realism, but magic. Mitch laughs at this ironically. When he provides her with the name of a merchant who first spread the story about Blanche being a low moral girl, Blanche doesn't deny knowing him. Instead, she says that this is his revenge for her putting him in its place after his constant whistling after her.

In this scene, things begin to fall in their place. Blanche is eager to tell the whole story about her turbulent period in Laurel, so she sips a drink and admits that she had been intimate with a lot of men back there. She was trying to heal from the tragic loss of her first beloved husband, and thought that it would be a good idea to seek consolation in someone else's arms. She was devastated enough to be intimate with the seventeen year old boy, but she paid the price for that by losing her job. Then she pauses to laugh and weep at the same time. With nowhere else to go, she turned to her sister Stella, and finally met her savior- Mitch.

Mitch stares at her in silence. When words finally comes to his mouth, all he says is that she had lied to him, but Blanche replies that she has never lied to him from the inside.

A vendor comes from around the corner. It's a blind Mexican woman selling tin flowers used for funerals. The appearance of this woman reminds Blanche of death, so her mood becomes dark. She mumbles for herself about legacies, decay and death in her family, which emptied the Belle Reve.

As Mexican woman disappears from the scene, the atmosphere in the apartment changes. Mitch follows Blanche around the apartment and tries to hug her and make her have sex with him. Surprised by this act, Blanche wants to know if he plans to marry her. He says that she is not clean enough to be his wife. Irritated with this rejection, she tries to send him away, but he stares at her. She warns him that she'll scream "Fire!" if he doesn't leave immediately. He still stares at her. She goes to the window and start screaming hysterically, while Mitch clatters down the stairs and disappear from the scene.

Scene 10 describes the same evening, only several hours later. Blanche is drinking heavily. Hysterical exhilaration has come into her while packing her stuff into a wardrobe trunk. She has put on a white satin gown with a rhinestone tiara on her head and speaks to the mirror as if she's talking to a bunch of her admirers.

Stanley appears from around the corner and enters the apartment. He is visibly drunk. Blanche asks about her sister and the baby and Stanley replies that both are well, but as they won't be home until tomorrow, he has been sent home to take some rest. Blanche isn't comfortable with the idea of being alone with Stanley all night. He wants to know why she is dressed up like that. She makes up a story about getting a telegram from an old admirer, Mr. Shep Huntleigh, who has invited her on cruise to the Caribbean. Stanley smirks at her story and keeps asking questions until it becomes clear that there was no telegram. Something about his behavior makes Blanche feels threatened, so she tries to keep away from him. However, Stanley gets aggressive, he teases and humiliates her. She tries to seek help by calling the operator on the phone. Shadows and reflections dance on the wall in the room denoting that something bad is about to happen. Stanley's sinister figure appears out of the bathroom and after a short turmoil when Blanche tries to defend herself with a broken bottle, she is finally caught in a trap. He rapes her.