A View from the Bridge by Miller Arthur

Author:Miller, Arthur [Miller, Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 1977-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

ACT TWO

Light rises on Alfieri at his desk.

ALFIERI: On the twenty-third of that December a case of Scotch whisky slipped from a net while being unloaded—as a case of Scotch whisky is inclined to do on the twenty-third of December on Pier Forty-one. There was no snow, but it was cold, his wife was out shopping. Marco was still at work. The boy had not been hired that day; Catherine told me later that this was the first time they had been alone together in the house.

Light is rising on Catherine in the apartment. Rodolpho is watching as she arranges a paper pattern on cloth spread on the table.

CATHERINE: You hungry?

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

CATHERINE: I heard you.

RODOLPHO: You don’t like to talk about it any more?

CATHERINE: Sure, I don’t mind talkin’ about it.

RODOLPHO: What worries you, Catherine?

CATHERINE: I been wantin’ to ask you about something. Could I?

RODOLPHO: All the answers are in my eyes, Catherine. But you don’t look in my eyes lately. You’re full of secrets. She looks at him. She seems withdrawn. What is the question?

CATHERINE: Suppose I wanted to live in Italy.

RODOLPHO, smiling at the incongruity: You going to marry somebody rich?

CATHERINE: No, I mean live there—you and me.

RODOLPHO, his smile vanishing: When?

CATHERINE: Well . . . when we get married.

RODOLPHO, astonished: You want to be an Italian?

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

RODOLPHO: Forever?

CATHERINE: Yeah.

RODOLPHO crosses to rocker: You’re fooling.

CATHERINE: No, I mean it.

RODOLPHO: Where do you get such an idea?

CATHERINE:Well, you’re always saying it’s so beautiful there, with the mountains and the ocean and all the—

RODOLPHO: You’re fooling me.

CATHERINE: I mean it.

RODOLPHO goes to her slowly: 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.

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

RODOLPHO: Happier! What would you eat? You can’t cook the view!

CATHERINE: Maybe you could be a singer, like in Rome or—

RODOLPHO: Rome! Rome is full of singers.

CATHERINE: Well, I could work then.

RODOLPHO: Where?

CATHERINE: God, there must be jobs somewhere!

RODOLPHO: There’s nothing! Nothing, nothing, nothing. Now tell me what you’re talking about. How can I bring you from a rich country to suffer in a poor country? What are you talking about? She searches for words. 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?

CATHERINE, quietly: I’m afraid of Eddie here.

Slight pause.

RODOLPHO steps closer to her: 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, steeling herself: Tell me something. I mean just tell me, Rodolpho—would you

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