A View From The Bridge

Catherine: Sure, I don't mind talking' about it.

What worries you, Catherine?

Catherine: No, I mean it.

Where do you get such an idea?

Eddie: You want something?

Yes! She'll be my wife. That is what I want. My wife!

Catherine: You don't know; nobody knows! I'm not a baby, I know a lot more than people think I know. Beatrice says to be a woman, but...

Yes.

Catherine: I heard you.

You don't like to talk about it anymore?

Catherine: Suppose I wanted to live in Italy?

You going to marry somebody rich?

Catherine: Well...when we get married.

You want to be an Italian?

Catherine: Well, you're always saying it's so beautiful there, with the mountains and the ocean and all the...

You're fooling me.

Catherine: Yeah.

You're fooling.

Catherine: I mean it.

Catherine, if I ever brought you home with no money, no business, nothing, they would call the priest and the doctor and they would say Rodolpho is crazy.

Eddie: He could be very good, Marco. I'll teach him again.

Dance, Catherine. Come.

Eddie: Come on, show me! What're you gonna be! Show me!

Don't say that to me!

Catherine: Eddie, I'm not gonna be a baby any more! You...

Don't! Stop that! Have respect for her!

Eddie: I want to talk to her a minute, Rodolpho, go inside, will you?

Eddie, we only walk together in the streets. She teaches me.

Catherine: No, but I could live there without being Italian. Americans live there.

Forever?

Catherine: I know, I just thought maybe he got married recently.

I have no money to get married. I have a nice face, but no money.

Eddie:...I mean it might be a little more free here but it's just as strict.

I have respect for her, Eddie. I do anything wrong?

Catherine: Don't, don't laugh at me! I've been here all my life...Every day I saw him when he left in the morning and when he came home at night. You think it's so easy to turn around and say to a man he's nothin' to you no more?

I know, but...

Eddie: But what're you gonna be!

I show you what I be!

Eddie: All right, I only asked you. I just don't want her hangin' around Times Square, see; it's full of tramps over there.

I would like to go to Broadway once, Eddie. I would like to walk with her once where the theatres are and the opera. Since I was a boy I see pictures of those lights.

Eddie: All actresses they want to be around here.

In Italy too! All the girls.

Marco: No, in Italy oranges are orange.

Lemons are green.

Catherine: You like sugar?

Sugar?-yes! I like sugar very much!

Eddie: What do you say, Danish?-you wanna come along? I'll buy the tickets.

Sure. I like to go.

Tony: I'll see you on the pier tomorrow. You'll go to work.

This will be the first house I ever walked into in America! Imagine-she said they were poor!

Eddie:...Know what I mean?

Well, I always have respect...

Beatrice: Go ahead, Rodolpho-he's a good boxer, he could teach you.

Well, I don't know how to...

Catherine: Oh, sure, I'm crazy for Paper Doll. Go ahead, sing it.

*sings Paper Doll*

Marco: You come home early now, Rodolpho.

All right, sure. But I can't stay in the house all the time, Eddie...

Catherine: I been wanting to ask you about something. Could I?

All the answers are in my eyes, Catherine. But you don't look in my eyes lately. You're full of secrets. What is the question?

Beatrice: Can't you get a job in a that place?

Andreola got better. He's a baritone, very strong.

Catherine: No, I'm making a blouse.

Beatrice went to buy presents for her mother.

Catherine:...I know when his feet turn him, I mean I know him and now I'm supposed to turn around and make a stranger out of him? I don't know why I have to do that, I mean...

Catherine. If I take in my hands a little bird. And she grows and wishes to fly. But I will not let her out of my hands because I love her so much, is that right for me to do? I don't say you must hate him; but anyway you must go, mustn't you? Catherine?

Catherine: I don't know!

Do you trust me, Catherine? You?

Catherine: I mean it's interesting. But he's crazy for New York..

Eddie, why can't we go once to Broadway...?

Beatrice: Now go, go to your wedding, Katie, I'll stay home. Go. God bless you, God bless your children...

Eddie?

Catherine: I know, but I think we would be happier there.

Happier! What would you eat? You can' took the view!

Marco: The man brought us. Very nice man.

He says we start to work tomorrow. Is he honest?

Marco: Oh. Maybe four, five, six years, I think.

He trusts his wife.

Catherine: How come he's so dark and you're so light, Rodolpho?

I don't know. A thousand years ago, they say, the Danes invaded Sicily.

Eddie: All right, now come into me. Come on.

I don't want to hit you, Eddie.

Beatrice: Eddie, he's apologizing!

I have made all our troubles. But you have insult me too. Maybe God understand why you did that to me. Maybe you did not mean to insult me at all...

Marco: They paid for your courage. The English like courage. But once is enough.

I never heard anybody say it was too loud.

Beatrice: Listen to him! Eddie, listen what he's telling' you!

I think, maybe when Marco comes, if we can tell him we are comrades now, and we have no more argument between us-then maybe Marco will not...

Marco: Piers-Ts!-no.

In our town there are no piers, only the beach, and little fishing boats.

Eddie: I got nothin against Marco?-which he called me a rat in front of the whole neighborhood? Which he said I killed his children! Where you been?!

It is my fault, Eddie. Everything. I wish to apologize. It was wrong that I do not ask your permission. I kiss your hand.

Marco: No, no...The women wait, Eddie. Most. Most. Very few surprises.

It's more strict in our town. It's not so free.

Marco: Bad, yes.

It's terrible! We stand around all day in the piazza listening to the fountain like birds. Everybody waits only for the train.

Catherine: I love you, Rodolpho, I love you.

Then why are you afraid? That he'll spank you?

Marco: I say it was too loud. I knew it as soon as he started singing. Too loud.

Then why did they throw so much money?

Catherine: Why don't they have automobile taxis?

There is one-we push that too. Everything in our town, you gotta push!

Catherine: I don't know anything, teach me, Rodolpho, hold me.

There's nobody here now. Come inside. Come. And don't cry any more.

Catherine: God, there must be jobs somewhere!

There's nothing! Nothing, nothing, nothing. Now tell me what you're talking about. How I can bring you from a rich country to suffer in a poor country? What are you talking about? I would be a criminal stealing your face. In two years you would have an old, hungry face. When my brother's babies cry they give them water, water that boiled a bone. Don't you believe that?

Marco: If they catch fish they pay all right.

They're family boats though. And nobody in our family owned one. So we only worked when one of the families was sick.

Catherine: Tell me something. I mean just tell me, Rodolpho-Would you still want to do it if it turned out we had to go live in Italy? I mean just if it turned out that way.

This is your question or his question?

Catherine: I would like to know, Rodolpho. I mean it.

To go there with nothing.

Catherine: I'm afraid of Eddie here.

We wouldn't live here. Once I am a citizen I could work anywhere and I would find better jobs and we would have a house, Catherine...If I were not afraid to be arrested I would start to be something wonderful here!

Catherine: No, I mean live there-you and me.

When?

Catherine: Well, I could work then.

Where?

Marco: He dreams, he dreams.

Why?! Messages! The rich people in the hotel always need someone who will carry a message. But quickly, and with a great noise. With a blue motorcycle I would station myself in the courtyard of the hotel, and in a little while I would have messages.

Catherine: A motorcycle!

With a motorcycle in Italy you will never starve any more.

Eddie: Yeah, heh?

Yes! Especially when they are so beautiful!

Marco: He sang too loud.

Why too loud?

Eddie: Marco! And you're...?

Yes, Rodolpho.

Eddie: Oh, you guys'll be all right-till you pay them off, anyway. After that, you'll have to scramble, that's all. But you'll make better here than you could there.

How much? We hear all kinds of figures. How much can we make? We work hard, we'll work all day, all night...

Catherine: Well, don't get mad!

I am furious! Do you think I am so desperate? My brother is desperate, not me. You think I would carry on my back the rest of my life a woman I didn't love just to be an American? It's so wonderful? You think we have no tall buildings in Italy? Electric lights? No wides streets? No flags? No automobiles? Only work we don't have. I want to be an American so I can work, that is the only wonder here-work! How can you insult me, Catherine?

Catherine: I didn't mean that...

My heart dies to look at you. Why are you so afraid of him?

Eddie: Betcha you have done some, heh?

No.

Catherine: Yeah.

No. No.

Catherine: You wouldn't?

No; I will not marry you to live in Italy. I want you to be my wife, and I want to be a citizen. Tell him that, or I will. And tell him also, and tell yourself, please, that I am not a beggar, and you are not a horse, a gift, a favor for a poor immigrant.

Catherine: You hungry?

Not for anything to eat. I have nearly three hundred dollars. Catherine?

Marco: Oh, two days. We go all over.

Once we went to Yugoslavia.

Eddie: Who said you could come in here? Get outta here!

Marco is coming, Eddie. He's praying in the church. You understand? Catherine, I think it is better we go. Come with me.

Alfieri: I'm waiting, Marco, what do you say?

Marco never hurt anybody.

Marco: Well-we did something.

Marco, tell the man.

Marco: Too loud. The guests in the hotel are all Englishmen. They don't like too loud.

Nobody ever said it was too loud!

Beatrice: What's on the train?

Nothing. But if there are many passengers and you're lucky you make a few lire to push the taxi up the hill.

Catherine: ...I mean...I like him, Rodolpho...and I can't stand it!

Oh, Catherine-oh, little girl.

Catherine: You could sing jazz?!

Oh, I sing Napolidan, jazz, bel canto...I sing Paper Doll, you like Paper Doll?

Marco: No, but she understand everything.

Oh, he's got a clever wife!

Catherine: Hold me.

Oh, my little girl.

Eddie: Why can't you just walk, or take a trolley or sup'm?

Oh, no, the machine, the machine is necessary. A man walks into a great hotel and says, I am a messenger. Who is this man?-He disappears walking, there is no noise, nothing. Maybe he will never come back, maybe he will never deliver the message. But a man who rides up on a great machine, this man is responsible, this man exists. He will be given messages. I am also a singer, though.

Catherine: I got it on. You married, too?-No.

Oh, no...

Catherine: Did you ever hear of jazz?

Oh, sure! I sing jazz.

Beatrice: You gotta push a taxi?

Oh, sure! It's a feature in our town. The horses in our town are skinnier than goats. So if there are too many passengers we help to push the carriages up to the hotel. In our town the horses are only for show.

Eddie: You mean a regular...?

Oh, yes. One night last year Andreola got sick. And I took his place in the garden of the hotel-Three arias I sang without a mistake! Thousand-lire notes they threw from the tables, money was falling like a storm in the treasury. It was magnificent. We lived six months on that night, eh, Marco?

Eddie: Look, I gotta tell her something...

Maybe you can come too. I want to see all those lights. I'll walk by the river before I go to sleep.

Beatrice: You want to stay here too, heh? For good?

Me?-Yes, forever!-me. I want to be an American. And then I want to go back to Italy when I am rich, and I will buy a motorcycle.

Alfiere: All right, Rodolpho-you come with me now.

No! Please, Mister, Marco...Promise the man. Please, I want you to watch the wedding. How can I be married and you're in here? Please, you're not going to do anything; you know you're not.

Catherine: You wanna dance, Rodolpho?

No, I...I'm tired.

Eddie: Yeah, Marco! Eddie Carbone. Eddie Carbone. Eddie Carbone.

No, Marco, please! Eddie, please, he has children! You will kill a family!

Eddie: Why? I didn't hurt him. Did I hurt you, kid?

No, no, he didn't hurt me. I was only surprised.

Catherine: Maybe you could be a singer, like in Rome or...

Rome! Rome is full of singers.

Marcho: Whatever there is, anything...

Sometimes they build a house, or if they fix the bridge--Marco is a mason and I bring him the cement. In harvest time we work in the fields...if there is work. Anything.