A view from the Bridge

A View from the Bridge
A Play in Two Acts

Characters
Louis
Mike
Alfieri
Eddie
Catherine
Beatrice
Marco
Tony
Rodolpho
First Immigration Officer
Second Immigration Officer
Mr Lipari
Mrs Lipari
Two ‘Submarines’
Neighbours

Act One
The street and house front of a tenement building. The front is skeletal entirely. The main acting area is the living room–dining room of Eddie’s apartment. It is a worker’s flat, clean, sparse, homely. There is a rocker down front; a round dining table at center, with chairs; and a portable phonograph. At back are a bedroom door and an opening to the kitchen; none of these interiors are seen.
At the right, forestage, a desk. This is Mr Alfieri’s law office. There is also a telephone booth. This is not used until the last scenes, so it may be covered or left in view.
A stairway leads up to the apartment, and then farther up to the next story, which is not seen.
Ramps, representing the street, run upstage and off to right and left.
As the curtain rises, Louis and Mike, longshoremen, are pitching coins against the building at left.
A distant foghorn blows.
Enter Alfieri, a lawyer in his fifties turning gray; he is portly, goodhumored, and thoughtful. The two pitchers nod to him as he passes. He crosses the stage to his desk, removes his hat, runs his fingers through his hair, and grinning, speaks to the audience.
Alfieri You wouldn’t have known it, but something amusing has just happened. You see how uneasily they nod to me? That’s because I am a lawyer. In this neighborhood to meet a lawyer or a priest on the street is unlucky. We’re only thought of in connection with disasters, and they’d rather not get too close.
I often think that behind that suspicious little nod of theirs lie three thousand years of distrust. A lawyer means the law, and in Sicily, from where their fathers came, the law has not been a friendly idea since the Greeks were beaten.
I am inclined to notice the ruins in things, perhaps because I was born in Italy . . . I only came here when I was twenty-five.

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A View from the Bridge

Act One

In those days, Al Capone, the greatest Carthaginian of all, was learning his trade on these pavements, and Frankie Yale himself was cut precisely in half by a machine gun on the corner of
Union Street, two blocks away. Oh, there were many here who were justly shot by unjust men. Justice is very important here.
But this is Red Hook, not Sicily. This is the slum that faces the bay on the seaward side of Brooklyn Bridge. This is the gullet of New York swallowing the tonnage of the world. And now we are quite civilized, quite American. Now we settle for half, and I like it better. I no longer keep a pistol in my filing cabinet.
And my practice is entirely unromantic.
My wife has warned me, so have my friends; they tell me the people in this neighborhood lack elegance, glamour. After all, who have I dealt with in my life? Longshoremen and their wives, and fathers and grandfathers, compensation cases, evictions, family squabbles – the petty troubles of the poor – and yet . . . every few years there is still a case, and as the parties tell me what the trouble is, the flat air in my office suddenly washes in with the green scent of the sea, the dust in this air is blown away and the thought comes that in some
Caesar’s year, in Calabria perhaps or on the cliff at Syracuse, another lawyer, quite differently dressed, heard the same complaint and sat there as powerless as I, and watched it run its bloody course.
Eddie has appeared and has been pitching coins with the men and is highlighted among them. He is forty – a husky, slightly overweight longshoreman. This one’s name was Eddie Carbone, a longshoreman working the docks from Brooklyn Bridge to the breakwater where the open sea begins.
Alfieri walks into darkness.
Eddie (moving up steps into doorway)

Well, I’ll see ya, fellas.

Eddie
Louis.

Yeah, there’s another day yet on that ship. See ya,

Eddie goes into the house, as light rises in the apartment. Catherine is waving to Louis from the window and turns to him.
Catherine

Hi, Eddie!

Eddie is pleased and therefore shy about it; he hangs up his cap and jacket. Eddie

Where you goin’ all dressed up?

Catherine (running her hands over her skirt) like it?
Eddie

I just got it. You

Yeah, it’s nice. And what happened to your hair?

Catherine You like it? I fixed it different. (Calling to kitchen.)
He’s here, B!
Eddie Beautiful. Turn around, lemme see in the back. (She turns for him.) Oh, if your mother was alive to see you now! She wouldn’t believe it.
Catherine

You like it, huh?

Eddie You look like one of them girls that went to college.
Where you goin’?
Catherine (taking his arm) Wait’ll B comes in, I’ll tell you something. Here, sit down. (She is walking him to the armchair.
Calling offstage.) Hurry up, will you, B?
Eddie (sitting)
Catherine
Eddie me. What’s goin’ on?
I’ll get you a beer, all right?

Well, tell me what happened. Come over here, talk to

Catherine I want to wait till B comes in. (She sits on her heels beside him.) Guess how much we paid for the skirt.

Catherine enters from kitchen, crosses down to window, looks out.

Eddie

Louis

Catherine (standing)

You workin’ tomorrow?

5

I think it’s too short, ain’t it?
No! not when I stand up.

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A View from the Bridge

Eddie

Act One

Yeah, but you gotta sit down sometimes.

Catherine Eddie, it’s the style now. (She walks to show him.)
I mean, if you see me walkin’ down the street –
Eddie Listen, you been givin’ me the willies the way you walk down the street, I mean it.
Catherine

Why?

Eddie Catherine, I don’t want to be a pest, but I’m tellin’ you you’re walkin’ wavy.
Catherine

I’m walkin’ wavy?

Eddie Now don’t aggravate me, Katie, you are walkin’ wavy! I don’t like the looks they’re givin’ you in the candy store. And with them new high heels on the sidewalk – clack, clack, clack. The heads are turnin’ like windmills.
Catherine
that.
Eddie

But those guys look at all the girls, you know

Eddie

What do you

Now don’t get mad, kid.

Catherine

so friendly, kid. (Calls) Hey, B, what’re you doin’ in there?
(To Catherine.) Get her in here, will you? I got news for her.
Catherine (starting out )
Eddie

What?

Her cousins landed.

Catherine (clapping her hands together) No! (She turns instantly and starts for the kitchen.) B! Your cousins!
Beatrice enters, wiping her hands with a towel.
Beatrice (in the face of Catherine’s shout )
Catherine

What?

Your cousins got in!

Beatrice (astounded, turns to Eddie) about? Where?

What are you talkin’

Eddie I was just knockin’ off work before and Tony Bereli come over to me; he says the ship is in the North River.
Beatrice (her hands are clasped at her breast; she seems half in fear, half in unutterable joy) They’re all right?

You ain’t ‘all the girls’.

Catherine (almost in tears because he disapproves) want me to do? You want me to –

7

Well, I don’t know what you want from me.

Eddie He didn’t see them yet, they’re still on board. But as soon as they get off he’ll meet them. He figures about ten o’clock they’ll be here.
Beatrice (sits, almost weak from tension) the ship all right? That’s fixed, heh?

And they’ll let them off

Eddie Katie, I promised your mother on her deathbed. I’m responsible for you. You’re a baby, you don’t understand these things. I mean like when you stand here by the window, wavin’ outside. Eddie Sure, they give them regular seamen papers and they walk off with the crew. Don’t worry about it, B, there’s nothin’ to it. Couple of hours they’ll be here.

Catherine

Beatrice What happened? They wasn’t supposed to be till next Thursday.

I was wavin’ to Louis !

Eddie Listen, I could tell you things about Louis which you wouldn’t wave to him no more.
Catherine (trying to joke him out of his warning) Eddie, I wish there was one guy you couldn’t tell me things about!
Eddie Catherine, do me a favor, will you? You’re gettin’ to be a big girl now, you gotta keep yourself more, you can’t be

Eddie I don’t know; they put them on any ship they can get them out on. Maybe the other ship they was supposed to take there was some danger – What you cryin’ about?
Beatrice (astounded and afraid ) I’m – I just – I can’t believe it!
I didn’t even buy a new table cloth; I was gonna wash the walls –

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A View from the Bridge

Act One

Eddie Listen, they’ll think it’s a millionaire’s house compared to the way they live. Don’t worry about the walls. They’ll be thankful. (To Catherine.) Whyn’t you run down buy a table cloth. Go ahead, here. (He is reaching into his pocket.)

Beatrice

Catherine

Beatrice

There’s no stores open now.

Eddie (to Beatrice) chair. You was gonna put a new cover on the

Beatrice I know – well, I thought it was gonna be next week! I was gonna clean the walls, I was gonna wax the floors.
(She stands disturbed.)
Catherine ( pointing upward) Maybe Mrs. Dondero upstairs –
Beatrice (of the table cloth) No, hers is worse than this one.
(Suddenly.) My God, I don’t even have nothin’ to eat for them!
(She starts for the kitchen.)
Eddie (reaching out and grabbing her arm)

Hey, hey! Take it easy.

Beatrice No, I’m just nervous, that’s all. (To Catherine.)
I’ll make the fish.
Eddie You’re savin’ their lives, what’re you worryin’ about the table cloth? They probably didn’t see a table cloth in their whole life where they come from.
Beatrice (looking into his eyes) that’s all I’m worried.
Eddie
sleep.

I’m just worried about you,

Listen, as long as they know where they’re gonna

Beatrice floor. I told them in the letters. They’re sleepin’ on the

Eddie Beatrice, all I’m worried about is you got such a heart that I’ll end up on the floor with you, and they’ll be in our bed.
Beatrice

All right, stop it.

Eddie Because as soon as you see a tired relative, I end up on the floor.

9

When did you end up on the floor?

Eddie When your father’s house burned down I didn’t end up on the floor?

Eddie

Well, their house burned down!

Yeah, but it didn’t keep burnin’ for two weeks!

Beatrice All right, look, I’ll tell them to go someplace else.
(She starts into the kitchen.)
Eddie Now wait a minute. Beatrice! (She halts. He goes to her.)
I just don’t want you bein’ pushed around, that’s all. You got too big a heart. (He touches her hand.) What’re you so touchy?
Beatrice I’m just afraid if it don’t turn out good you’ll be mad at me.
Eddie Listen, if everybody keeps his mouth shut, nothin’ can happen. They’ll pay for their board.
Beatrice

Oh, I told them.

Eddie Then what the hell. (Pause. He moves.) It’s an honor, B.
I mean it. I was just thinkin’ before, comin’ home, suppose my father didn’t come to this country, and I was starvin’ like them over there . . . and I had people in America could keep me a couple of months? The man would be honored to lend me a place to sleep.
Beatrice (there are tears in her eyes. She turns to Catherine) You see what he is? (She turns and grabs Eddie’s face in her hands.)
Mmm! You’re an angel! God’ll bless you. (He is gratefully smiling.)
You’ll see, you’ll get a blessing for this!
Eddie (laughing)
Beatrice
Catherine

I’ll settle for my own bed.

Go, Baby, set the table.
We didn’t tell him about me yet.

Beatrice Let him eat first, then we’ll tell him. Bring everything in. (She hurries Catherine out.)

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A View from the Bridge

Eddie (sitting at the table) goin’? Beatrice be happy.
Eddie

What’s all that about? Where’s she

Noplace. It’s very good news, Eddie. I want you to

What’s goin’ on?

Act One the examination and he’ll give me the certificate. So I’ll save practically a year!
Eddie (strangely nervous)
Catherine
Avenue.

Catherine enters with plates, forks.

Eddie

Beatrice

Catherine

She’s got a job.

Where’s the job? What company?

It’s a big plumbing company over Nostrand

Nostrand Avenue and where?
It’s someplace by the Navy Yard.

Pause. Eddie looks at Catherine, then back to Beatrice.

Beatrice

Eddie

Eddie (to Catherine, surprised )

What job? She’s gonna finish school.

Catherine

Eddie, you won’t believe it –

Eddie No – no, you gonna finish school. What kinda job, what do you mean? All of a sudden you –
Catherine

Listen a minute, it’s wonderful.

Eddie It’s not wonderful. You’ll never get nowheres unless you finish school. You can’t take no job. Why didn’t you ask me before you take a job?
Beatrice

She’s askin’ you now, she didn’t take nothin’ yet.

Catherine Listen a minute! I came to school this morning and the principal called me out of the class, see? To go to his office. Eddie

Yeah?

Catherine So I went in and he says to me he’s got my records, y’know? And there’s a company wants a girl right away. It ain’t exactly a secretary, it’s a stenographer first, but pretty soon you get to be secretary. And he says to me that I’m the best student in the whole class –
Beatrice
Eddie

You hear that?

Well why not? Sure she’s the best.

Catherine I’m the best student, he says, and if I want, I should take the job and the end of the year he’ll let me take

11

Catherine

Fifty dollars a week, Eddie.
Fifty?

I swear.

Pause.
Eddie What about all the stuff you wouldn’t learn this year, though? Catherine There’s nothin’ more to learn, Eddie, I just gotta practice from now on. I know all the symbols and I know the keyboard. I’ll just get faster, that’s all. And when I’m workin’
I’ll keep gettin’ better and better, you see?
Beatrice
Eddie

That ain’t what I wanted, though.

Catherine
Eddie

Work is the best practice anyway.
Why! It’s a great big company –

I don’t like that neighborhood over there.

Catherine

It’s a block and half from the subway, he says.

Eddie Near the Navy Yard plenty can happen in a block and a half. And a plumbin’ company! That’s one step over the water front. They’re practically longshoremen.
Beatrice

Yeah, but she’ll be in the office, Eddie.

Eddie I know she’ll be in the office, but that ain’t what I had in mind.
Beatrice

Listen, she’s gotta go to work sometime.

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A View from the Bridge

Eddie Listen, B, she’ll be with a lotta plumbers? And sailors up and down the street? So what did she go to school for?
Catherine

But it’s fifty a week, Eddie.

Eddie Look, did I ask you for money? I supported you this long I support you a little more. Please, do me a favor, will ya?
I want you to be with different kind of people. I want you to be in a nice office. Maybe a lawyer’s office someplace in New
York in one of them nice buildings. I mean if you’re gonna get outa here then get out; don’t go practically in the same kind of neighborhood. Pause. Catherine lowers her eyes.
Beatrice Go, Baby, bring in the supper. (Catherine goes out.) Think about it a little bit, Eddie. Please. She’s crazy to start work. It’s not a little shop, it’s a big company. Some day she could be a secretary. They picked her out of the whole class. (He is silent, staring down at the tablecloth, fingering the pattern.)
What are you worried about? She could take care of herself.
She’ll get out of the subway and be in the office in two minutes. Eddie (somehow sickened) I know that neighborhood, B, I don’t like it.
Beatrice Listen, if nothin’ happened to her in this neighborhood it ain’t gonna happen noplace else. (She turns his face to her.) Look, you gotta get used to it, she’s no baby no more. Tell her to take it. (He turns his head away.) You hear me?
She is angering.) I don’t understand you; she’s seventeen years old, you gonna keep her in the house all her life?
Eddie (insulted )

What kinda remark is that?

Beatrice (with sympathy but insistent force) Well, I don’t understand when it ends. First it was gonna be when she graduated high school, so she graduated high school. Then it was gonna be when she learned stenographer, so she learned stenographer. So what’re we gonna wait for now? I mean it,
Eddie, sometimes I don’t understand you; they picked her out of the whole class, it’s an honor for her.

Act One

13

Catherine enters with food, which she silently sets on the table. After a moment of watching her face, Eddie breaks into a smile, but it almost seems that tears will form in his eyes.
Eddie With your hair that way you look like a madonna, you know that? You’re the madonna type. (She doesn’t look at him, but continues ladling out food onto the plates.) You wanna go to work, heh, Madonna?
Catherine (softly)

Yeah.

Eddie (with a sense of her childhood, her babyhood, and the years)
All right, go to work. (She looks at him, then rushes and hugs him.)
Hey, hey! Take it easy! (He holds her face away from him to look at her.) What’re you cryin’ about’! (He is affected by her, but smiles his emotion away.)
Catherine (sitting at her place) I just – (Bursting out.) I’m gonna buy all new dishes with my first pay! (They laugh warmly.) I mean it. I’ll fix up the whole house! I’ll buy a rug!
Eddie

And then you’ll move away.

Catherine

No, Eddie!

Eddie ( grinning) Why not? That’s life. And you’ll come visit on Sundays, then once a month, then Christmas and New
Year’s, finally.
Catherine ( grasping his arm to reassure him and to erase the accusation)
No, please!
Eddie (smiling but hurt) I only ask you one thing – don’t trust nobody. You got a good aunt but she’s got too big a heart, you learned bad from her. Believe me.
Beatrice

Be the way you are, Katie, don’t listen to him.

Eddie (to Beatrice – strangely and quickly resentful ) You lived in a house all your life, what do you know about it? You never worked in your life.
Beatrice

She likes people. What’s wrong with that?

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A View from the Bridge

Act One

Eddie Because most people ain’t people. She’s goin’ to work; plumbers; they’ll chew her to pieces if she don’t watch out. (To Catherine.) Believe me, Katie, the less you trust, the less you be sorry.
Eddie crosses himself and the women do the same, and they eat.
Catherine

First thing I’ll buy is a rug, heh, B?

Eddie

15

Around, yeah. (He eats.)

Catherine Eddie, suppose somebody asks if they’re livin’ here. (He looks at her as though already she had divulged something publicly. Defensively.) I mean if they ask.
Eddie Now look, Baby, I can see we’re gettin’ mixed up again here.

Beatrice I don’t mind. (To Eddie.) I smelled coffee all day today. You unloadin’ coffee today?

Catherine and out.

Eddie

Eddie I don’t care who sees them goin’ in and out as long as you don’t see them goin’ in and out. And this goes for you too,
B. You don’t see nothin’ and you don’t know nothin’.

Yeah, a Brazil ship.

Catherine I smelled it too. It smelled all over the neighborhood. Eddie That’s one time, boy, to be a longshoreman is a pleasure. I could work coffee ships twenty hours a day. You go down in the hold, y’know? It’s like flowers, that smell. We’ll bust a bag tomorrow, I’ll bring you some.
Beatrice Just be sure there’s no spiders in it, will ya? I mean it. (She directs this to Catherine, rolling her eyes upward.) I still remember that spider coming out of that bag he brung home.
I nearly died.
Eddie You call that a spider? You oughta see what comes outa the bananas sometimes.
Beatrice
Eddie

Don’t talk about it!

I seen spiders could stop a Buick.

Beatrice (clapping her hands over her ears)

All right, shut up!

Beatrice

No, I just mean . . . people’ll see them goin’ in

What do you mean? I understand.

Eddie You don’t understand; you still think you can talk about this to somebody just a little bit. Now lemme say it once and for all, because you’re makin’ me nervous again, both of you. I don’t care if somebody comes in the house and sees them sleepin’ on the floor, it never comes out of your mouth who they are or what they’re doin’ here.
Beatrice

Yeah, but my mother’ll know –

Eddie Sure she’ll know, but just don’t you be the one who told her, that’s all. This is the United States government you’re playin’ with now, this is the Immigration Bureau. If you said it you knew it, if you didn’t say it you didn’t know it.
Catherine

Yeah, but Eddie, suppose somebody –

Beatrice All right, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Just don’t bring none home again. What time is it?

Eddie I don’t care what question it is. You – don’t – knownothin’. They got stool pigeons all over this neighborhood they’re payin’ them every week for information, and you don’t know who they are. It could be your best friend. You hear? (To
Beatrice.) Like Vinny Bolzano, remember Vinny?

Eddie

Beatrice

Eddie (laughing and taking a watch out of his pocket) started with spiders?

Well, who

Quarter nine. (Puts watch back in his pocket.)

They continue eating in silence.
Catherine

He’s bringin’ them ten o’clock, Tony?

Oh, yeah. God forbid.

Eddie Tell her about Vinny. (To Catherine.) You think I’m blowin’ steam here? (To Beatrice.) Go ahead, tell her. (To

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A View from the Bridge

Act One

Catherine.) You was a baby then. There was a family lived next door to her mother, he was about sixteen –

Eddie (slicing an apple with his pocket knife) what do you mean?

Beatrice No, he was no more than fourteen, ’cause I was to his confirmation in Saint Agnes. But the family had an uncle that they were hidin’ in the house, and he snitched to the
Immigration.

Catherine

Catherine
Eddie

On his own uncle!

Catherine
Eddie

The kid snitched?
What, was he crazy?

He was crazy after, I tell you that, boy.

Beatrice Oh, it was terrible. He had five brothers and the old father. And they grabbed him in the kitchen and pulled him down the stairs – three flights his head was bouncin’ like a coconut. And they spit on him in the street, his own father and his brothers. The whole neighborhood was cryin’.
Catherine

Ts! So what happened to him?

Beatrice I think he went away. (To Eddie.) I never seen him again, did you?
Eddie (rises during this, taking out his watch) Him? You’ll never see him no more, a guy do a thing like that? How’s he gonna show his face? (To Catherine, as he gets up uneasily.) Just remember, kid, you can quicker get back a million dollars that was stole than a word that you gave away. (He is standing now, stretching his back.)
Catherine

Okay, I won’t say a word to nobody, I swear.

Eddie Gonna rain tomorrow. We’ll be slidin’ all over the decks. Maybe you oughta put something on for them, they be here soon.
Beatrice I only got fish, I hate to spoil it if they ate already.
I’ll wait, it only takes a few minutes; I could broil it.
Catherine What happens, Eddie, when that ship pulls out and they ain’t on it, though? Don’t the captain say nothin’?

17

Captain’s pieced off,

Even the captain?

Eddie What’s the matter, the captain don’t have to live?
Captain gets a piece, maybe one of the mates, piece for the guy in Italy who fixed the papers for them, Tony here’ll get a little bite . . .
Beatrice

I just hope they get work here, that’s all I hope.

Eddie Oh, the syndicate’ll fix jobs for them; till they pay
’em off they’ll get them work every day. It’s after the pay-off, then they’ll have to scramble like the rest of us.
Beatrice

Well, it be better than they got there.

Eddie Oh sure, well, listen. So you gonna start Monday, heh, Madonna?
Catherine (embarrassed )

I’m supposed to, yeah.

Eddie is standing facing the two seated women. First Beatrice smiles, then Catherine, for a powerful emotion is on him, a childish one and a knowing fear, and the tears show in his eyes – and they are shy before the avowal.
Eddie (sadly smiling, yet somehow proud of her) Well . . . I hope you have good luck. I wish you the best. You know that, kid.
Catherine (rising, trying to laugh) million miles!
Eddie

You sound like I’m goin’ a

I know. I guess I just never figured on one thing.

Catherine (smiling)

What?

Eddie That you would ever grow up. (He utters a soundless laugh at himself, feeling his breast pocket of his shirt.) I left a cigar in my other coat, I think. (He starts for the bedroom.)
Catherine

Stay there! I’ll get it for you.

She hurries out. There is a slight pause, and Eddie turns to Beatrice, who has been avoiding his gaze.

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A View from the Bridge

Eddie

What are you mad at me lately?

Act One

19

Marco nods. Tony continues on walking down the street.

Beatrice Who’s mad? (She gets up, clearing the dishes.) I’m not mad. (She picks up the dishes and turns to him.) You’re the one is mad. (She turns and goes into the kitchen as Catherine enters from the bedroom with a cigar and a pack of matches.)

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

Catherine Here! I’ll light it for you! (She strikes a match and holds it to his cigar. He puffs. Quietly.) Don’t worry about me,
Eddie, heh?

Marco knocks. The lights rise in the room. Eddie goes and opens the door. Enter Marco and Rodolpho, removing their caps. Beatrice and Catherine enter from the kitchen. The lights fade in the street.

Eddie Don’t burn yourself. ( Just in time she blows out the match.) You better go in help her with the dishes.

Eddie

Marco

Ssh! Come. (They go to door.)

You Marco?

Marco

Marco.

Catherine (turns quickly to the table, and, seeing the table cleared, she says, almost guiltily) Oh! (She hurries into the kitchen, and as she exits there.) I’ll do the dishes, B!

Eddie

Alone, Eddie stands looking toward the kitchen for a moment. Then he takes out his watch, glances at it, replaces it in his pocket, sits in the armchair, and stares at the smoke flowing out of his mouth.

Marco (nods, looks to the women and fixes on Beatrice. Crosses to
Beatrice) Are you my cousin?

The lights go down, then come up on Alfieri, who has moved onto the forestage. Alfieri He was as good a man as he had to be in a life that was hard and even. He worked on the piers when there was work, he brought home his pay, and he lived. And toward ten o’clock of that night, after they had eaten, the cousins came.
The lights fade on Alfieri and rise on the street.

Come on in! (He shakes Marco’s hand.)

Beatrice

Here, take the bags!

She nods. He kisses her hand.
Beatrice (above the table, touching her chest with her hand) Beatrice.
This is my husband, Eddie. (All nod.) Catherine, my sister
Nancy’s daughter. (The brothers nod.)
Marco (indicating Rodolpho) My brother. Rodolpho.
(Rodolpho nods. Marco comes with a certain formal stiffness to
Eddie.) I want to tell you now, Eddie – when you say go, we will go.

Enter Tony, escorting Marco and Rodolpho, each with a valise.
Tony halts, indicates the house. They stand for a moment looking at it.

Eddie

Marco (he is a square-built peasant of thirty-two, suspicious, tender, and quiet-voiced ) Thank you.

Marco I see it’s a small house, but soon, maybe, we can have our own house.

Tony You’re on your own now. Just be careful, that’s all.
Ground floor.

Eddie You’re welcome, Marco, we got plenty of room here.
Katie, give them supper, heh? (Exits into bedroom with their bags.)

Marco

Catherine

Thank you.

Tony (indicating the house)
You’ll go to work.

I’ll see you on the pier tomorrow.

Oh, no . . . (Takes Marco’s bag.)

Come here, sit down. I’ll get you some soup.

Marco (as they go to the table) We ate on the ship. Thank you.
(To Eddie, calling off to bedroom.) Thank you.

20

A View from the Bridge

Beatrice down. Act One

Get some coffee. We’ll all have coffee. Come sit

Eddie

Still bad there, heh?

Marco

Rodolpho and Marco sit, at the table.
Catherine (wondrously) light, Rodolpho?

How come he’s so dark and you’re so

Rodolpho (ready to laugh) I don’t know. A thousand years ago, they say, the Danes invaded Sicily.

21

Bad, yes.

Rodolpho (laughing) It’s terrible! We stand around all day in the piazza listening to the fountain like birds. Everybody waits only for the train.
Beatrice

What’s on the train?

Beatrice kisses Rodolpho. They laugh as Eddie enters.

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

Catherine (to Beatrice)

Enter Catherine; she listens.

Eddie

He’s practically blond!

How’s the coffee doin’?

Beatrice

Catherine (brought up)

I’m gettin’ it. (She hurries out to kitchen.)

Eddie (sits on his rocker)

Yiz have a nice trip?

Marco
Eddie

The ocean is always rough. But we are good sailors.
No trouble gettin’ here?

Marco

Rodolpho (laughing) 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. (He laughs.) In our town the horses are only for show.
Catherine

No. The man brought us. Very nice man.

Rodolpho (to Eddie)
Is he honest?

You gotta push a taxi?

He says we start to work tomorrow.

Why don’t they have automobile taxis?

Rodolpho There is one. We push that too. (They laugh.)
Everything in our town, you gotta push!
Beatrice (to Eddie)

How do you like that!

Eddie (laughing) No. But as long as you owe them money, they’ll get you plenty of work. (To Marco.) Yiz ever work on the piers in Italy?

Eddie (to Marco) So what’re you wanna do, you gonna stay here in this country or you wanna go back?

Marco

Marco (surprised )

Piers? Ts! – no.

Rodolpho (smiling at the smallness of his town) In our town there are no piers, only the beach, and little fishing boats.

Eddie

Beatrice

Beatrice

So what kinda work did yiz do?

Marco (shrugging shyly, even embarrassed ) anything. Whatever there is,

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

Go back?

Well, you’re married, ain’t you?

Marco

Marco years. Beatrice

Yes. I have three children.
Three! I thought only one.
Oh, no. I have three now. Four years, five years, six
Ah . . . I bet they’re cryin’ for you already, heh?

Marco What can I do? The older one is sick in his chest.
My wife – she feeds them from her own mouth. I tell you the

22

A View from the Bridge

Act One

truth, if I stay there they will never grow up. They eat the sunshine. Marco here. Beatrice

Beatrice

Marco

My God. So how long you want to stay?
With your permission, we will stay maybe a –

Eddie She don’t mean in this house, she means in the country. Marco

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

Rodolpho (smiling)

He trusts his wife.

Beatrice Yeah, but maybe you’ll get enough, you’ll be able to go back quicker.
Marco I hope. I don’t know. (To Eddie.) I understand it’s not so good here either.
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.
Rodolpho How much? We hear all kinds of figures. How much can a man make? We work hard, we’ll work all day, all night –
Marco raises a hand to hush him.

Marco

Three, four weeks! – Ts!

Eddie But I think you could probably – thirty, forty a week, over the whole twelve months of the year.
Marco (rises, crosses to Eddie)
Eddie

Because I could send them a little more if I stay

Dollars.

Sure dollars.

Marco (his eyes are showing tears) My wife – (To Eddie.) My wife – I want to send right away maybe twenty dollars –
Eddie

You could send them something next week already.

Marco (he is near tears) his hand.)

Eduardo . . . (He goes to Eddie, offering

Eddie Don’t thank me. Listen, what the hell, it’s no skin off me. (To Catherine.) What happened to the coffee?
Catherine
No.

I got it on. (To Rodolpho.) You married too?

Rodolpho (rises)

Oh, no . . .

Beatrice (to Catherine)
Catherine
recently.

I know, I just thought maybe he got married

Beatrice (to Rodolpho) good? You want to stay here too, heh? For

Catherine

A motorcycle!

Rodolpho any more.

With a motorcycle in Italy you will never starve

Marco

Eddie

Listen, you’re welcome, Marco –

He’s a real blond!

Rodolpho 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. (He smiles. Marco shakes him affectionately.)

Beatrice

If we can stay here a few months, Beatrice –

I told you he –

Rodolpho I have no money to get married. I have a nice face, but no money. (He laughs.)

Marco puts an arm round Rodolpho and they laugh.
Beatrice

As long as you want, we got plenty a room.

Catherine (to Beatrice)

Eddie (he is coming more and more to address Marco only) On the average a whole year? Maybe – well, it’s hard to say, see.
Sometimes we layoff, there’s no ships three four weeks.

23

Marco

I’ll get you coffee. (She exits to the kitchen.)

What you do with a motorcycle?
He dreams, he dreams.

24

A View from the Bridge

Act One

Rodolpho (to Marco) Why? (To Eddie.) 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.
Marco
Eddie

When you have no wife you have dreams.
Why can’t you just walk, or take a trolley or sump’m?

Enter Beatrice with coffee.

Marco Too loud. The guests in that hotel are all Englishmen.
They don’t like too loud.
Rodolpho (to Catherine)

Nobody ever said it was too loud!

Marco I say. It was too loud. (To Beatrice.) I knew it as soon as he started to sing. Too loud.
Rodolpho

Then why did they throw so much money?

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

ï

Rodolpho Oh, no, the machine, the machine is necessary.
A man comes 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. (He helps Beatrice set out the coffee things.) I am also a singer, though.
Eddie

You mean a regular – ?

Rodolpho Oh, yes. One night last year Andreola got sick.
Baritone. 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?

Rodolpho (to all but Marco) was too loud.

I never heard anybody say it

Catherine

Did you ever hear of jazz?

Rodolpho

Oh, sure! I sing jazz.

Catherine (rises)

You could sing jazz?

Rodolpho Oh, I sing Napolidan, jazz, bel canto – I sing
‘Paper Doll’, you like ‘Paper Doll’?
Catherine
sing it.

Oh, sure, I’m crazy for ‘Paper Doll’. Go ahead,

Eddie laughs.

Rodolpho (takes his stance after getting a nod of permission from Marco, and with a high tenor voice begins singing)
‘I’ll tell you boys it’s tough to be alone,
And it’s tough to love a doll that’s not your own.
I’m through with all of them,
I’ll never fall again,
Hey, boy, what you gonna do?
I’m gonna buy a paper doll that I can call my own,
A doll that other fellows cannot steal.’

Beatrice

Eddie rises and moves upstage.

Marco nods doubtfully.
Marco

Two months.

Rodolpho

Can’t you get a job in that place?
Andreola got better. He’s a baritone, very strong.

Beatrice laughs.
Marco (regretfully, to Beatrice)
Rodolpho

Why too loud?

25

He sang too loud.

Rodolpho
And then those flirty, flirty guys
With their flirty, flirty eyes
Will have to flirt with dollies that are real – ’
Eddie

Hey, kid – hey, wait a minute –

26

A View from the Bridge

Catherine (enthralled ) Leave him finish, it’s beautiful!
(To Beatrice.) He’s terrific! It’s terrific, Rodolpho.
Eddie
Marco

Look, kid; you don’t want to be picked up, do ya?
No – no! (He rises.)

Eddie (indicating the rest of the building) Because we never had no singers here . . . and all of a sudden there’s a singer in the house, y’know what I mean?
Marco

Yes, yes. You’ll be quiet, Rodolpho.

Eddie (he is flushed )
I mean.
Marco

They got guys all over the place, Marco.

Yes. He’ll be quiet. (To Rodolpho.) You’ll be quiet.

Rodolpho nods.
What’s the high heels for, Garbo?

Catherine
Eddie

Rodolpho

27

Sugar? Yes! I like sugar very much!

Eddie is downstage, watching as she pours a spoonful of sugar into his cup, his face puffed with trouble, and the room dies.
Lights rise on Alfieri.
Alfieri Who can ever know what will be discovered? Eddie
Carbone had never expected to have a destiny. A man works, raises his family, goes bowling, eats, gets old, and then he dies.
Now, as the weeks passed, there was a future, there was a trouble that would not go away.
The lights fade on Alfieri, then rise on Eddie standing at the doorway of the house. Beatrice enters on the street. She sees Eddie, smiles at him. He looks away.
She starts to enter the house when Eddie speaks.

Eddie has risen, with iron control, even a smile. He moves to Catherine.
Eddie

Act One

I figured for tonight –

Do me a favor, will you? Go ahead.

Embarrassed now, angered, Catherine goes out into the bedroom.
Beatrice watches her go and gets up; in passing, she gives Eddie a cold look, restrained only by the strangers, and goes to the table to pour coffee. Eddie

It’s after eight.

Beatrice

Well, it’s a long show at the Paramount.

Eddie They must’ve seen every picture in Brooklyn by now.
He’s supposed to stay in the house when he ain’t working. He ain’t supposed to go advertising himself.
Beatrice Well, that’s his trouble, what do you care? If they pick him up they pick him up, that’s all. Come in the house.

Eddie (striving to laugh, and to Marco, but directed as much to
Beatrice) All actresses they want to be around here.

Eddie What happened to the stenography? I don’t see her practice no more.

Rodolpho (happy about it)

Beatrice

In Italy too! All the girls.

Catherine emerges from the bedroom in low-heel shoes, comes to the table. Rodolpho is lifting a cup.
Eddie (he is sizing up Rodolpho, and there is a concealed suspicion)
Yeah, heh?
Rodolpho Yes! (Laughs, indicating Catherine.) Especially when they are so beautiful!
Catherine

You like sugar?

Eddie

She’ll get back to it. She’s excited, Eddie.

She tell you anything?

Beatrice (comes to him, now the subject is opened ) What’s the matter with you? He’s a nice kid, what do you want from him?
Eddie

That’s a nice kid? He gives me the heeby-jeebies.

Beatrice (smiling)
Eddie

Ah, go on, you’re just jealous.

Of him? Boy, you don’t think much of me.

28

A View from the Bridge

Beatrice him? Act One

I don’t understand you. What’s so terrible about

Eddie You mean it’s all right with you? That’s gonna be her husband? Beatrice Why? He’s a nice fella, hard workin’, he’s a goodlookin’ fella.
Eddie

He sings on the ships, didja know that?

Beatrice

What do you mean, he sings?

Eddie Just what I said, he sings. Right on the deck, all of a sudden, a whole song comes out of his mouth – with motions.
You know what they’re callin’ him now? Paper Doll they’re callin’ him, Canary. He’s like a weird. He comes out on the pier, one-two-three, it’s a regular free show.
Beatrice Well, he’s a kid; he don’t know how to behave himself yet.
Eddie And with that wacky hair; he’s like a chorus girl or sump’m. Beatrice
Eddie

So he’s blond, so –
You crazy or sump’m? (She tries to turn him to her.)

Eddie (he keeps his head turned away) like his whole way.

What’s so crazy? I don’t

Beatrice Listen, you never seen a blond guy in your life?
What about Whitey Balsa?
Eddie (turning to her victoriously) Sure, but Whitey don’t sing; he don’t do like that on the ships.
Beatrice

Well, maybe that’s the way they do in Italy.

Eddie Then why don’t his brother sing? Marco goes around like a man; nobody kids Marco. (He moves from her, halts. She realizes there is a campaign solidified in him.) I tell you the truth I’m surprised I have to tell you all this. I mean I’m surprised, B.

Listen, you ain’t

Eddie I ain’t startin’ nothin’, but I ain’t gonna stand around lookin’ at that. For that character I didn’t bring her up. I swear,
B, I’m surprised at you; I sit there waitin’ for you to wake up but everything is great with you.
Beatrice
Eddie
Eddie

No, everything ain’t great with me.

No?

Beatrice

No. But I got other worries.

Yeah. (He is already weakening.)

Beatrice

Yeah, you want me to tell you?

Eddie (in retreat)
Beatrice
Eddie came. Why? What worries you got?

When am I gonna be a wife again, Eddie?

I ain’t been feelin’ good. They bother me since they

Beatrice It’s almost three months you don’t feel good; they’re only here a couple of weeks. It’s three months, Eddie.
Eddie

I just hope that’s his regular hair, that’s all I hope.

Beatrice

Beatrice (she goes to him with purpose now) gonna start nothin’ here.

29

I don’t know, B. I don’t want to talk about it.

Beatrice

What’s the matter, Eddie, you don’t like me, heh?

Eddie What do you mean, I don’t like you? I said I don’t feel good, that’s all.
Beatrice
to me.

Well, tell me, am I doing something wrong? Talk

Eddie ( pause. He can’t speak, then)
Beatrice
Eddie

I can’t. I can’t talk about it.

Well tell me what –

I got nothin’ to say about it!

She stands for a moment; he is looking off; she turns to go into the house.
I’ll be all right, B; just layoff me, will ya? I’m worried about her.
Beatrice
already.

The girl is gonna be eighteen years old, it’s time

30

A View from the Bridge

Eddie

Act One

B, he’s taking her for a ride!

Beatrice All right, that’s her ride. What’re you gonna stand over her till she’s forty? Eddie, I want you to cut it out now, you hear me? I don’t like it! Now come in the house.
Eddie

I want to take a walk, I’ll be in right away.

Beatrice They ain’t goin’ to come any quicker if you stand in the street. It ain’t nice, Eddie.
Eddie

I’ll be in right away. Go ahead. (He walks off.)

She goes into the house. Eddie glances up the street, sees Louis and
Mike coming, and sits on an iron railing. Louis and Mike enter.
Louis

Wanna go bowlin’ tonight?

Eddie

I’m too tired. Goin’ to sleep.

Louis

How’s your two submarines?

Eddie

They’re okay.

Louis

I see they’re gettin’ work allatime.

Eddie

Oh yeah, they’re doin’ all right.

Mike That’s what we oughta do. We oughta leave the country and come in under the water. Then we get work.

Louis

31

Yeah, you could see. He’s a regular slave.

Mike ( grinning) That blond one, though – (Eddie looks at him.) He’s got a sense of humor. (Louis snickers.)
Eddie (searchingly)

Yeah. He’s funny –

Mike (starting to laugh) Well he ain’t exackly funny, but he’s always like makin’ remarks like, y’know? He comes around, everybody’s laughin’. (Louis laughs.)
Eddie (uncomfortably, grinning) of humor.

Yeah, well . . . he’s got a sense

Mike (laughing) Yeah, I mean, he’s always makin’ like remarks, like, y’koow?
Eddie Yeah, I know. But he’s a kid yet, y’know? He – he’s just a kid, that’s all.
Mike (getting hysterical with Louis) I know. You take one look at him – everybody’s happy. (Louis laughs.) I worked one day with him last week over the Moore-MacCormack Line, I’m tellin’ you they was all hysterical. (Louis and he explode in laughter.)
Eddie

Why? What’d he do?

Eddie

You ain’t kiddin’.

Mike I don’t know . . . he was just humorous. You never can remember what he says, y’know? But it’s the way he says it.
I mean he gives you a look sometimes and you start laughin’!

Louis

Well, what the hell. Y’know?

Eddie

Eddie

Sure.

Mike ( gasping)

Louis (sits on railing beside Eddie) a lotta credit comin’ to you.
Eddie

Believe me, Eddie, you got

Aah, they don’t bother me, don’t cost me nutt’n.

Mike That older one, boy, he’s a regular bull. I seen him the other day liftin’ coffee bags over the Matson Line. They leave him alone he woulda load the whole ship by himself.
Eddie Yeah, he’s a strong guy, that guy. Their father was a regular giant, supposed to be.

Yeah. (Troubled.) He’s got a sense of humor.

Louis (rising)

Yeah.
Well, we see ya, Eddie.

Eddie

Take it easy.

Louis

Yeah. See ya.

Mike If you wanna come bowlin’ later we’re goin’ Flatbush
Avenue.
Laughing, they move to exit, meeting Rodolpho and Catherine entering on the street. Their laughter rises as they see Rodolpho, who

32

A View from the Bridge

Act One

does not understand but joins in. Eddie moves to enter the house as
Louis and Mike exit. Catherine stops him at the door.
Catherine
laugh!

Hey, Eddie – what a picture we saw! Did we

Eddie (he can’t help smiling at sight of her)
Catherine
That –
Eddie

Where’d you go?

Paramount. It was with those two guys, y’know?

Brooklyn Paramount?

Catherine (with an edge of anger, embarrassed before Rodolpho)
Sure, the Brooklyn Paramount. I told you we wasn’t goin’ to
New York.

33

Rodolpho Maybe you can come too. I want to see all those lights. (He sees no response in Eddie’s face. He glances at Catherine.)
I’ll walk by the river before I go to sleep. (He walks off down the street.) Catherine Why don’t you talk to him, Eddie? He blesses you, and you don’t talk to him hardly.
Eddie (enveloping her with his eyes) talk to me. (He tries to smile.)
Catherine
mean?

I bless you and you don’t

I don’t talk to you? (She hits his arm.) What do you

Eddie I don’t see you no more. I come home you’re runnin’ around someplace –

Eddie (retreating before the threat of her anger) All right, I only asked you. (To Rodolpho.) I just don’t want her hangin’ around Times Square, see? It’s full of tramps over there.

Catherine Well, he wants to see everything, that’s all, so we go . . . You mad at me?

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

Eddie No. (He moves from her, smiling sadly.) It’s just I used to come home, you was always there. Now, I turn around, you’re a big girl. I don’t know how to talk to you.

Eddie (his little patience waning) I want to talk to her a minute,
Rodolpho. Go inside, will you?

Catherine

Rodolpho Eddie, we only walk together in the streets. She teaches me.
Catherine You know what he can’t get over? That there’s no fountains in Brooklyn!
Eddie (smiling unwillingly) own naivety.)

Fountains? (Rodolpho smiles at his

Catherine In Italy he says, every town’s got fountains, and they meet there. And you know what? They got oranges on the trees where he comes from, and lemons. Imagine – on the trees? I mean it’s interesting. But he’s crazy for New York.
Rodolpho (attempting familiarity) to Broadway – ?
Eddie

Eddie, why can’t we go once

Look, I gotta tell her something –

Why?

Eddie I don’t know, you’re runnin’, you’re runnin’, Katie.
I don’t think you listening any more to me.
Catherine ( going to him) Ah, Eddie, sure I am. What’s the matter? You don’t like him?
Slight pause.
Eddie (turns to her)

You like him, Katie?

Catherine (with a blush but holding her ground) him. Eddie (his smile goes)

Yeah. I like

You like him.

Catherine (looking down) Yeah. (Now she looks at him for the consequences, smiling but tense. He looks at her like a lost boy.) What’re you got against him? I don’t understand. He only blesses you.
Eddie (turns away)

He don’t bless me, Katie.

34

A View from the Bridge

Catherine

He does! You’re like a father to him!

Eddie (turns to her)
Catherine
Eddie

Katie.

What, Eddie?

You gonna marry him?

Catherine I don’t know. We just been . . . goin’ around, that’s all. (Turns to him.) What’re you got against him, Eddie?
Please, tell me. What?
Eddie

He don’t respect you.

Catherine

Oh, well, he didn’t think you’d mind.

Eddie He knows I mind, but it don’t bother him if I mind, don’t you see that?
Catherine No, Eddie, he’s got all kinds of respect for me.
And you too! We walk across the street he takes my arm – he almost bows to me! You got him all wrong, Eddie; I mean it, you –
Eddie

Katie, he’s only bowin’ to his passport.

Catherine

His passport!

Eddie That’s right. He marries you he’s got thc right to be an American citizen. That’s what’s goin’ on here. (She is puzzled and surprised.) You understand what I’m tellin’ you? The guy is lookin’ for his break, that’s all he’s lookin’ for.
Catherine ( pained )

Oh, no, Eddie, I don’t think so.

Eddie You don’t think so! Katie, you’re gonna make me cry here. Is that a workin’ man? What does he do with his first money? A snappy new jacket he buys, records, a pointy pair new shoes and his brother’s kids are starvin’ over there with tuberculosis? That’s a hit-and-run guy, baby; he’s got bright lights in his head, Broadway. Them guys don’t think of nobody

35

but theirself ! You marry him and the next time you see him it’ll be for divorce!
Catherine (steps toward him) about his papers or –
Eddie

Eddie, he never said a word

You mean he’s supposed to tell you that?

Catherine

I don’t think he’s even thinking about it.

Eddie What’s better for him to think about! He could be picked up any day here and he’s back pushin’ taxis up the hill!
Catherine

Why?

Eddie Katie . . . if you wasn’t an orphan, wouldn’t he ask your father’s permission before he run around with you like this? Catherine

Act One

Eddie

Katie, don’t break my heart, listen to me.

Catherine
Eddie

No, I don’t believe it.
I don’t want to hear it.

Katie, listen . . .

Catherine

He loves me!

Eddie (with deep alarm) Don’t say that, for God’s sake! This is the oldest racket in the country –
Catherine (desperately, as though he had made his imprint) believe it! (She rushes to the house.)

I don’t

Eddie (following her) They been pullin’ this since the
Immigration Law was put in! They grab a green kid that don’t know nothin’ and they –
Catherine (sobbing) stop it!
Eddie

I don’t believe it and I wish to hell you’d

Katie!

They enter the apartment. The lights in the living room have risen and
Beatrice is there. She looks past the sobbing Catherine at Eddie, who in the presence of his wife, makes an awkward gesture of eroded command, indicating Catherine.
Eddie

Why don’t you straighten her out?

Beatrice (inwardly angered at his flowing emotion, which in itself olarms her) When are you going to leave her alone?

36

A View from the Bridge

Eddie

Act One

B, the guy is no good!

Beatrice (suddenly, with open fright and fury) You going to leave her alone? Or you gonna drive me crazy? (He turns, striving to retain his dignity, but nevertheless in guilt walks out of the house, into the street and away. Catherine starts into a bedroom.) Listen, Catherine.
(Catherine halts, turns to her sheepishly.) What are you going to do with yourself ?
Catherine

I don’t know.

Catherine

up your mind for you any more, you understand? You gotta give him to understand that he can’t give you orders no more.
Catherine
I’m a baby.

He won’t listen to me.

Beatrice I don’t understand this. He’s not your father,
Catherine. I don’t understand what’s going on here.

Yeah, but how am I going to do that? He thinks

Beatrice Because you think you’re a baby. I told you fifty times already, you can’t act the way you act. You still walk around in front of him in your slip –
Catherine

Beatrice Don’t tell me you don’t know; you’re not a baby any more, what are you going to do with yourself ?

37

Well I forgot.

Beatrice Well you can’t do it. Or like you sit on the edge of the bathtub talkin’ to him when he’s shavin’ in his underwear.
Catherine
Beatrice

When’d I do that?
I seen you in there this morning.

Catherine (as one who herself is trying to rationalize a buried impulse)
What am I going to do, just kick him in the face with it?

Catherine and I –

Beatrice Look, honey, you wanna get married, or don’t you wanna get married? What are you worried about, Katie?

Beatrice I know, honey. But if you act like a baby and he be treatin’ you like a baby. Like when he comes home sometimes you throw yourself at him like when you was twelve years old.

Catherine (quietly, trembling) I don’t know, B. It just seems wrong if he’s against it so much.
Beatrice (never losing her aroused alarm) Sit down, honey, I want to tell you something. Here, sit down. Was there ever any fella he liked for you? There wasn’t, was there?
Catherine

But he says Rodolpho’s just after his papers.

Beatrice Look, he’ll say anything. What does he care what he says? If it was a prince came here for you it would be no different. You know that, don’t you?
Catherine
Beatrice

Yeah, I guess.
So what does that mean?

Catherine (slowly turns her head to Beatrice)

What?

Beatrice It means you gotta be your own self more. You still think you’re a little girl, honey. But nobody else can make

Catherine
Beatrice

Oh . . . well, I wanted to tell him something

Well I like to see him and I’m happy so I –
Look, I’m not tellin’ you what to do honey, but –

Catherine No, you could tell me, B! Gee, I’m all mixed up.
See, I – He looks so sad now and it hurts me.
Beatrice Well look Katie, if it’s goin’ to hurt you so much you’re gonna end up an old maid here.
Catherine

No!

Beatrice I’m tellin’ you, I’m not makin’ a joke. I tried to tell you a couple of times in the last year or so. That’s why I was so happy you were going to go out and get work, you wouldn’t be here so much, you’d be a little more independent. I mean it.
It’s wonderful for a whole family to love each other, but you’re a grown woman and you’re in the same house with a grown man. So you’ll act different now, heh?

38

A View from the Bridge

Catherine

Act One
Eddie sits besides the desk, cap in hand, looking out.

Yeah, I will. I’ll remember.

Beatrice Because it ain’t only up to him, Katie, you understand? I told him the same thing already.
Catherine (quickly)

What?

Beatrice That he should let you go. But, you see, if only
I tell him, he thinks I’m just bawlin’ him out, or maybe I’m jealous or somethin’, you know?
Catherine (astonished )

39

He said you was jealous?

Alfieri – but soon I saw it was only a passion that had moved into his body, like a stranger. (Alfieri pauses, looks down at his desk, then to Eddie as though he were continuing a conversation with him.) I don’t quite understand what I can do for you. Is there a question of law somewhere?
Eddie

That’s what I want to ask you.

Alfieri Because there’s nothing illegal about a girl falling in love with an immigrant.

Beatrice No, I’m just sayin’ maybe that’s what he thinks.
(She reaches over to Catherine’s hand; with a strained smile.) You think I’m jealous of you, honey?

Eddie Yeah, but what about it if the only reason for it is to get his papers?

Catherine

Alfieri

First of all you don’t know that.

Eddie at me.

I see it in his eyes; he’s laughin’ at her and he’s laughin’

No! It’s the first I thought of it.

Beatrice (with a quiet sad laugh) Well you should have thought of it before . . . but I’m not. We’ll be all right. Just give him to understand; you don’t have to fight, you’re just – You’re a woman, that’s all, and you got a nice boy, and now the time came when you said good-bye. All right?
Catherine (strangely moved at the prospect)
Beatrice

All right . . . If I can.

Honey . . . you gotta.

Catherine, sensing now an imperious demand, turns with some fear, with a discovery, to Beatrice. She is at the edge of tears, as though a familiar world had shattered.
Catherine

Okay.

Lights out on them and up on Alfieri, seated behind his desk.
Alfieri It was at this time that he first came to me. I had represented his father in an accident case some years before, and I was acquainted with the family in a casual way. I remember him now as he walked through my doorway –
Enter Eddie down right ramp.
Alfieri His eyes were like tunnels; my first thought was that he had committed a crime –

Alfieri Eddie, I’m a lawyer. I can only deal in what’s provable.
You understand that, don’t you? Can you prove that?
Eddie

I know what’s in his mind, Mr Alfieri!

Alfieri

Eddie, even if you could prove that –

Eddie Listen . . . will you listen to me a minute? My father always said you was a smart man. I want you to listen to me.
Alfieri

I’m only a lawyer, Eddie.

Eddie Will you listen a minute? I’m talkin’ about the law.
Lemme just bring out what I mean. A man, which he comes into the country illegal, don’t it stand to reason he’s gonna take every penny and put it in the sock? Because they don’t know from one day to another, right?
Alfieri

All right.

Eddie He’s spendin’. Records he buys now. Shoes. Jackets.
Y’understand me? This guy ain’t worried. This guy is here. So it must be that he’s got it all laid out in his mind already – he’s stayin’. Right?

40

A View from the Bridge

Alfieri

Act One

Well? What about it?

Eddie All right. (He glances at Alfieri, then down to the floor.)
I’m talking to you confidential, ain’t I?
Alfieri

Certainly.

Eddie I mean it don’t go no place but here. Because I don’t like to say this about anybody. Even my wife I didn’t exactly say this.
Alfieri

What is it?

Eddie (takes a breath and glances briefly over each shoulder) guy ain’t right, Mr Alfieri.
Alfieri

What do you mean?

Eddie

I mean he ain’t right.

Alfieri

The

I don’t get you.

Eddie (shifts to another position in the chair) at him?
Alfieri

Dja ever get a look

Not that I know of, no.

Eddie He’s a blond guy. Like . . . platinum. You know what.
I mean?
Alfieri

No.

Eddie I mean if you close the paper fast – you could blow him over.
Alfieri

Well that doesn’t mean –

Eddie Wait a minute, I’m tellin’ you sump’m. He sings, see.
Which is – I mean it’s all right, but sometimes he hits a note, see. I turn around. I mean – high. You know what I mean?
Alfieri

Well, that’s a tenor.

Eddie I know a tenor, Mr Alfieri. This ain’t no tenor. I mean if you came in the house and you didn’t know who was singin’, you wouldn’t be lookin’ for him you be lookin’ for her.
Alfieri

Yes, but that’s not –

41

Eddie I’m tellin’ you sump’m, wait a minute. Please, Mr
Alfieri. I’m tryin’ to bring out my thoughts here. Couple of nights ago my niece brings out a dress which it’s too small for her, because she shot up like a light this last year. He takes the dress, lays it on the table, he cuts it up; one-two-three, he makes a new dress. I mean he looked so sweet there, like an angel – you could kiss him he was so sweet.
Alfieri

Now look, Eddie –

Eddie Mr Alfieri, they’re laughin’ at him on the piers. I’m ashamed. Paper Doll they call him. Blondie now. His brother thinks it’s because he’s got a sense of humor, see – which he’s got – but that ain’t what they’re laughin’. Which they’re not goin’ to come out with it because they know he’s my relative, which they have to see me if they make a crack, y’know? But
I know what they’re laughin’ at, and when I think of that guy layin’ his hands on her I could – I mean it’s eatin’ me out,
Mr Alfieri, because I struggled for that girl. And now he comes in my house and –
Alfieri Eddie, look – I have my own children. I understand you. But the law is very specific. The law does not . . .
Eddie (with a fuller flow of indignation) You mean to tell me that there’s no law that a guy which he ain’t right can go to work and marry a girl and – ?
Alfieri

You have no recourse in the law, Eddie.

Eddie Yeah, but if he ain’t right, Mr Alfieri, you mean to tell me –
Alfieri

There is nothing you can do, Eddie, believe me.

Eddie

Nothin’.

Alfieri

Nothing at all. There’s only one legal question here.

Eddie

What?

Alfieri The manner in which they entered the country. But
I don’t think you want to do anything about that, do you?
Eddie

You mean – ?

42

A View from the Bridge

Alfieri

Well, they entered illegally.

Eddie Oh, Jesus, no, I wouldn’t do nothin’ about that, I mean –
Alfieri

All right, then, let me talk now, eh?

Eddie Mr Alfieri, I can’t believe what you tell me. I mean there must be some kinda law which –
Alfieri Eddie, I want you to listen to me. (Pause.) You know, sometimes God mixes up the people. We all love somebody, the wife, the kids – every man’s got somebody that he loves, heh? But sometimes . . . there’s too much. You know? There’s too much, and it goes where it mustn’t. A man works hard, he brings up a child, sometimes it’s a niece, sometimes even a daughter, and he never realizes it, but through the years – there is too much love for the daughter, there is too much love for the niece. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?
Eddie (sardonically) for her good?

What do you mean, I shouldn’t look out

Alfieri Yes, but these things have to end, Eddie, that’s all.
The child has to grow up and go away, and the man has to learn to forget. Because after all, Eddie – what other way can it end? (Pause.) Let her go. That’s my advice. You did your job, now it’s her life; wish her luck, and let her go. (Pause.) Will you do that? Because there’s no law, Eddie; make up your mind to it; the law is not interested in this.
Eddie

You mean to tell me, even if he’s a punk? If he’s –

Alfieri

There’s nothing you can do.

Eddie stands.
Eddie

Well, all right, thanks. Thanks very much.

Alfieri

What are you going to do?

Eddie (with a helpless but ironic gesture) What can I do? I’m a patsy, what can a patsy do? I worked like a dog twenty years so a punk could have her, so that’s what I done. I mean, in the worst times, in the worst, when there wasn’t a ship comin’ in

Act One

43

the harbor, I didn’t stand around lookin’ for relief – I hustled.
When there was empty piers in Brooklyn I went to Hoboken,
Staten Island, the West Side, Jersey, all over – because I made a promise. I took out of my own mouth to give to her. I took out of my wife’s mouth. I walked hungry plenty days in this city! (It begins to break through.) And now I gotta sit in my own house and look at a son-of-a-bitch punk like that – which he came out of nowhere! I give him my house to sleep! I take the blankets off my bed for him, and he takes and puts his dirty filthy hands on her like a goddam thief !
Alfieri (rising)
Eddie

But, Eddie, she’s a woman now.

He’s stealing from me!

Alfieri She wants to get married, Eddie. She can’t marry you, can she?
Eddie ( furiously) What’re you talkin’ about, marry me!
I don’t know what the helI you’re talkin’ about!
Pause.
Alfieri

I gave you my advice, Eddie. That’s it.

Eddie gathers himself. A pause.
Eddie Well, thanks. Thanks very much. It just – it’s breakin’ my heart, y’know. I –
Alfieri
that?

I understand. Put it out of your mind. Can you do

Eddie I’m – (He feels the threat of sobs, and with a helpless wave.)
I’ll see you around. (He goes out up the right ramp.)
Alfieri (sits on desk) There are times when you want to spread an alarm, but nothing has happened. I knew, I knew then and there – I could have finished the whole story that afternoon.
It wasn’t as though there was a mystery to unravel. I could see every step coming, step after step, like a dark figure walking down a hall toward a certain door. I knew where he was heading for, I knew where he was going to end. And I sat here many afternoons asking myself why, being an intelligent man,

44

A View from the Bridge

Act One

45

I was so powerless to stop it. I even went to a certain old lady in the neighborhood, a very wise old woman, and I told her, and she only nodded, and said, ‘Pray for him . . . ’ And so I – waited here.

Beatrice Yeah, but couldn’t they like fish from the beach?
You see them down Coney Island –

As lights go out on Alfieri, they rise in the apartment where all are finishing dinner. Beatrice and Catherine are clearing the table.

Eddie hook? Catherine

Beatrice Oh, I didn’t know they’re sardines. (To Catherine.)
They’re sardines!

Beatrice

You know where they went?
Where?

Catherine They went to Africa once. On a fishing boat.
(Eddie glances at her.) It’s true, Eddie.
Beatrice exits into the kitchen with dishes.
Eddie I didn’t say nothin’. (He goes to his rocker, picks up a newspaper.) Catherine

And I was never even in Staten Island.

Eddie (sitting with the paper) You didn’t miss nothin’. (Pause.
Catherine takes dishes out.) How long that take you, Marco – to get to Africa?
Marco (rising)

Oh . . . two days. We go all over.

Marco

Sardines.
Sure. (Laughing.) How you gonna catch sardines on a

Catherine Yeah, they follow them all over the ocean,
Africa, Yugoslavia . . . (She sits and begins to look through a movie magazine. Rodolpho joins her.)
Beatrice (to Eddie) It’s funny, y’know. You never think of it, that sardines are swimming in the ocean! (She exits to kitchen with dishes.)
Catherine I know. It’s like oranges and lemons on a tree.
(To Eddie.) I mean you ever think of oranges and lemons on a tree? Eddie Yeah, I know. It’s funny. (To Marco.) I heard that they paint the oranges to make them look orange.
Beatrice enters.

Rodolpho (rising)

Once we went to Yugoslavia.

Marco (he has been reading a letter)

Eddie (to Marco)

They pay all right on them boats?

Eddie

Yeah, I heard that they grow like green.

Beatrice enters. She and Rodolpho stack the remaining dishes.

Marco

Marco

Rodolpho

If they catch fish they pay all right. (Sits on a stool.)

Paint?

No, in Italy the oranges are orange.
Lemons are green.

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

Eddie (resenting his instruction) I know lemons are green, for
Christ’s sake, you see them in the store they’re green sometimes.
I said oranges they paint, I didn’t say nothin’ about lemons.

Beatrice Y’know, Marco, what I don’t understand – there’s an ocean fulI of fish and yiz are all starvin’.

Beatrice (sitting; diverting their attention) money all right, Marco?

Eddie

Marco

They gotta have boats, nets, you need money.

Catherine enters.

Beatrice

Your wife is gettin’ the

Oh, yes. She bought medicine for my boy.
That’s wonderful. You feel better, heh?

46

A View from the Bridge

Marco

Oh, yes! But I’m lonesome.

Beatrice I just hope you ain’t gonna do like some of them around here. They’re here twenty-five years, some men, and they didn’t get enough together to go back twice.
Marco Oh, I know. We have many families in our town, the children never saw the father. But I will go home. Three, four years, I think.
Beatrice Maybe you should keep more here. Because maybe she thinks it comes so easy you’ll never get ahead of yourself. Marco Oh, no, she saves. I send everything. My wife is very lonesome. (He smiles shyly.)
Beatrice

She must be nice. She pretty? I bet, heh?

Marco (blushing)
Rodolpho

No, but she understand everything.

Oh, he’s got a clever wife!

Eddie I betcha there’s plenty surprises sometimes when those guys get back there, heh?
Marco

Surprises?

Eddie (laughing) I mean, you know – they count the kids and there’s a couple extra than when they left?

Act One

47

Eddie I know, but in your town you wouldn’t just drag oft some girl without permission, I mean. (He turns.) You know what I mean, Marco? It ain’t that much different here.
Marco (cautiously)
Beatrice

Yes.

Well, he didn’t exactly drag her off though, Eddie.

Eddie I know, but I seen some of them get the wrong idea sometimes. (To Rodolpho.) I mean it might be a little more free here but it’s just as strict.
Rodolpho
Eddie

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

Look, kid, I ain’t her father, I’m only her uncle

Beatrice Well then, be an uncle then. (Eddie looks at her, aware of her criticizing force.) I mean.
Marco No, Beatrice, if he does wrong you must tell him.
(To Eddie.) What does he do wrong?
Eddie Well, Marco, till he came here she was never out on the street twelve o’clock at night.
Marco (to Rodolpho)

You come home early now.

Beatrice (to Catherine) late, didn’t you?
Catherine

Well, you said the movie ended

Yeah.

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

Beatrice Well, tell him, honey. (To Eddie.) The movie ended late.

Rodolpho It’s more strict in our town. ( Eddie looks at him now.) It’s not so free.

Eddie Look, B, I’m just sayin’ – he thinks she always stayed out like that.

Eddie (rises, paces up and down) It ain’t so free here either,
Rodolpho, like you think. I seen greenhorns sometimes get in trouble that way – they think just because a girl don’t go around with a shawl over her head that she ain’t strict, y’know?
Girl don’t have to wear black dress to be strict. Know what
I mean?

Marco

Rodolpho

Well, I always have respect –

You come home early now, Rodolpho.

Rodolpho (embarrassed ) All right, sure. But I can’t stay in thc house all the time, Eddie.
Eddie Look, kid, I’m not only talkin’ about her. The more you run around like that the more chance you’re takin’. (To
Beatrice.) I mean suppose he gets hit by a car or something.
(To Marco.) Where’s his papers, who is he? Know what I mean?

48

A View from the Bridge

Act One

Beatrice Yeah, but who is he in the daytime, though? It’s the same chance in the daytime.

Eddie

Eddie (holding back a voice full of anger) Yeah, but he don’t have to go lookin’ for it, Beatrice. If he’s here to work, then hc should work; if he’s here for a good time then he could fool around! (To Marco.) But I understood, Marco, that you was both comin’ to make a livin’ for your family. You understand me, don’t you, Marco? (He goes to his rocker.)

Marco

Marco
Eddie

I beg your pardon, Eddie.
I mean, that’s what I understood in the first place, see.

Marco

Yes. That’s why we came.

Eddie (sits on his rocker)

Well, that’s all I’m askin’.

49

Yeah.

Beatrice (to Marco)

But the women don’t go along, I bet.

No, not on the boats. Hard work.

Beatrice

What’re you got, a regular kitchen and everything?

Marco Yes, we eat very good on the boats – especially when
Rodolpho comes along; everybody gets fat.
Beatrice
Marco

Oh, he cooks?
Sure, very good cook. Rice, pasta, fish, everything.

Eddie lowers his paper.
Eddie He’s a cook, too! (Looking at Rodolpho.) He sings, he cooks . . .

Eddie reads his paper. There is a pause, an awkwardness.

Rodolpho smiles thankfully.

Now Catherine gets up and puts a record on the phonograph ‘Paper
Doll’.

Beatrice

Catherine ( flushed with revolt)

You wanna dance, Rodolpho?

Eddie freezes.
Rodolpho (in deference to Eddie)
Beatrice

No, I – I’m tired.

Go ahead, dance, Rodolpho.

Catherine Ah, come on. They got a beautiful quartet, these guys. Come.
She has taken his hand and he stiffly rises, feeling Eddie’s eyes on his back. and they dance.
Eddie (to Catherine)
Catherine

What’s that, a new record?

It’s the same one. We bought it the other day.

Beatrice (to Eddie) They only bought three records. (She watches them dance; Eddie turns his head away. Marco just sits there, waiting. Now Beatrice turns to Eddie.) Must be nice to go all over in one of them fishin’ boats. I would like that myself.
See all them other countries?

Well it’s good, he could always make a living.

Eddie It’s wonderful. He sings, he cooks, he could make dresses . . .
Catherine They get some high pay, them guys. The head chefs in all the big hotels are men. You read about them.
Eddie

That’s what I’m sayin’.

Catherine and Rodolpho continue dancing.
Catherine

Yeah, well, I mean.

Eddie (to Beatrice) He’s lucky, believe me. (Slight pause. He looks away, then back to Beatrice.) That’s why the water front is no place for him.(They stop dancing. Rodolpho turns off phonograph.) I mean like me – I can’t cook, I can’t sing, I can’t make dresses, so I’m on the water front. But if I could cook, if I could sing, if I could make dresses, I wouldn’t be on the water front. (He has been unconsciously twisting the newspaper into a tight roll. They are all regarding him now; he senses he is exposing the issue and he is driven on.) I would be someplace else. I would be like in a dress store. (He has bent the rolled paper and it suddenly tears in two. He suddenly gets up and pulls his pants up over his belly and goes

50

A View from the Bridge

Act One

to Marco.) What do you, say, Marco, we go to the bouts next
Saturday night. You never seen a fight, did you?
Marco (uneasily)

Only in the moving pictures.

Eddie ( going to Rodolpho) I’ll treat yiz. What do you say,
Danish? You wanna come along? I’ll buy the tickets.
Rodolpho

I’ll make

Eddie Go ahead, make some! Make it nice and strong.
(Mystified, she smiles and exits to kitchen. He is weirdly elated, rubbing his fists into his palms. He strides to Marco.) You wait, Marco, you sec some real fights here. You ever do any boxing?
Marco

No, I never.

Eddie (to Rodolpho)
Rodolpho
Eddie

No.

What’s he got to learn that for?

Eddie Ya can’t tell, one a these days somebody’s liable to step on his foot or sump’m. Come on, Rodolpho, I show you a couple a passes. (He stands below table.)
Beatrice Go ahead, Rodolpho. He’s a good boxer, he could teach you.
Rodolpho (embarrassed ) moves down to Eddie.)

Eddie Don’t pity me, come on. Throw it, I’ll show you how to block it. (Rodolpho jabs at him, laughing. The others join.) ’At’s it. Come on again. For the jaw right here. (Rodolpho jabs with more assurance.) Very good!
He’s very good!

Eddie crosses directly upstage of Rodolpho.
Eddie Sure, he’s great! Come on, kid, put sump’m behind it, you can’t hurt me. (Rodolpho, more seriously, jabs at Eddie’s jaw and grazes it.) Attaboy.
Catherine comes from the kitchen, watches.
Eddie

Now I’m gonna hit you, so block me, see?

Catherine (with beginning alarm)
Betcha you have done some, heh?

Well, come on, I’ll teach you.

Beatrice

I don’t want to hit you, Eddie.

Beatrice (to Marco)

Sure. I like to go.

Catherine ( goes to Eddie; nervously happy now) somc coffee, all right?

Rodolpho

Well, I don’t know how to – (He

Eddie Just put your hands up. Like this, see? That’s right.
That’s very good, keep your left up, because you lead with the left, see, like this. (He gently moves his left into Rodolpho’s face.)
See? Now what you gotta do is you gotta block me, so when I come in like that you – (Rodolpho parries his left.) Hey, that’s very good! (Rodolpho laughs.) All right, now come into me.
Come on.

51

What are they doin’?

They are lightly boxing now.
Beatrice (she senses only the comradeship in it now) him; he’s very good!

He’s teachin’

Eddie Sure, he’s terrific! Look at him go! (Rodolpho lands a blow.) ’At’s it! Now, watch out, here I come, Danish! (He feints with his left hand and lands with his right. It mildly staggers Rodolpho.
Marco rises.)
Catherine (rushing to Rodolpho)

Eddie!

Eddie Why? I didn’t hurt him. Did I hurt you, kid? (He rubs the back of his hand across his mouth.)
Rodolpho No, no, he didn’t hurt me. (To Eddie with a certain gleam and a smile.) I was only surprised.
Beatrice ( pulling Eddie down into the rocker)
Eddie; he did pretty good though.

That’s enough,

Eddie Yeah. (Rubbing his fists together.) He could be very good,
Marco. I’ll teach him again.
Marco nods at him dubiously.

52

A View from the Bridge

Rodolpho Dance, Catherine. Come. (He takes her hand; they go to phonograph and start it. It plays ‘Paper Doll’.)

Act Two

Rodolpho takes her in his arms. They dance. Eddie in thought sits in his chair, and Marco takes a chair, places it in front of Eddie, and looks down at it. Beatrice and Eddie watch him.

Light rises on Alfieri at his desk.

Marco
Eddie

Can you lift this chair?
What do you mean?

Marco From here. (He gets on one knee with one hand behind his back, and grasps the bottom of one of the chair legs but does not raise it.)

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.

Eddie Sure, why not? (He comes to the chair, kneels, grasps the leg, raises the chair one inch, but it leans over to the floor.) Gee, that’s hard,
I never knew that. (He tries again, and again fails.) It’s on an angle, that’s why, heh?

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

Marco Here. (He kneels, grasps, and with strain slowly raises the chair higher and higher, getting to his feet now. Rodolpho and
Catherine have stopped dancing as Marco raises the chair over his head.) Rodolpho Not for anything to eat. (Pause.) I have nearly three hundred dollars. Catherine?

Marco is face to face with Eddie, a strained tension gripping his eyes and jaw, his neck stiff, the chair raised like a weapon over Eddie’s head – and he transforms what might appear like a glare of warning into a smile of triumph, and Eddie’s grin vanishes as he absorbs his look.
Curtain.

Catherine

You hungry?

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
Could I?

I been wantin’ to ask you about something.

Rodolpho AIl 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) somebody rich?
Catherine

No, I mean live there – you and me.

Rodolpho (his smile vanishing)
Catherine

You going to marry

When?

WeIl . . . when we get married.

54

A View from the Bridge

Rodolpho (astonished )

Act Two

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 –

Catherine (quietly)

55

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 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.
Rodolpho

This is your question or his question?

Catherine

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

Rodolpho

You’re fooling me.

Rodolpho

To go there with nothing.

Catherine

I mean it.

Catherine

Yeah.

Rodolpho

No. (She looks at him wide-eyed.) No.

Catherine

You wouldn’t?

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 the view!

Happier! What would you eat? You can’t cook

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?

Rodolpho 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. Yes. (He moves about angrily.) 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

Well, don’t get mad!

Rodolpho I am furious! (Goes to her.) 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 wide 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 –

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

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A View from the Bridge

Catherine (near tears)
Rodolpho

I don’t know!

Do you trust me, Catherine? You?

Catherine It’s only that I – He was good to me, Rodolpho.
You don’t know him; he was always the sweetest guy to me.
Good. He razzes me all the time but he don’t mean it. I know.
I would just feel ashamed if I made him sad. ’Cause I always dreamt that when I got married he would be happy at the wedding, and laughin’ – and now he’s – mad all the time and nasty – (She is weeping.) Tell him you’d live in Italy – just tell him, and maybe he would start to trust you a little, see? Because
I want him to be happy; I mean – I like him, Rodolpho – and
I can’t stand it!
Rodolpho

Oh, Catherine – oh, little girl.

Catherine

I love you, Rodolpho, I love you.

Rodolpho

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

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?
Rodolpho

I know, but –

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 –
Rodolpho

Yes.

Catherine Then why don’t she be a woman? If I was a wife
I would make a man happy instead of goin’ at him all the time.
I can tell a block away when he’s blue in his mind and just wants to talk to somebody quiet and nice . . . I can tell when he’s hungry or wants a beer before he even says anything.
I know when his feet hurt 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.
Rodolpho 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

Act Two

57

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 (softly)

Hold me.

Rodolpho (clasping her to him)

Oh, my little girl.

Catherine Teach me. (She is weeping.) I don’t know anything, teach me, Rodolpho, hold me.
Rodolpho There’s nobody here now. Come inside. Come.
(He is leading her toward the bedrooms.) And don’t cry any more.
Light rises on the street. In a moment Eddie appears. He is unsteady, drunk. He mounts the stairs. He enters the apartment, looks around, takes out a bottle from one pocket, puts it on the table. Then another bottle from another pocket, and a third from an inside pocket. He sees the pattern and cloth, goes over to it and touches it, and turns toward upstage.
Eddie Beatrice? (He goes to the open kitchen door and looks in.)
Beatrice? Beatrice?
Catherine enters from bedroom; under his gaze she adjusts her dress.
Catherine

You got home early.

Eddie Knocked off for Christmas early. (Indicating the pattern.)
Rodolpho makin’ you a dress?
Catherine

No. I’m makin’ a blouse.

Rodolpho appears in the bedroom doorway. Eddie sees him and his arm jerks slightly in shock. Rodolpho nods to him testingly.
Rodolpho

Beatrice went to buy presents for her mother.

Pause.
Eddie Pack it up. Go ahead. Get your stuff and get outa here. (Catherine instantly turns and walks toward the bedroom, and
Eddie grabs her arm.) Where you goin’?
Catherine (trembling with fright) here, Eddie.
Eddie

I think I have to get out of

No, you ain’t goin’ nowheres, he’s the one.

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Act Two

Catherine I think I can’t stay here no more. (She frees her arm, steps back toward the bedroom.) I’m sorry, Eddie. (She sees the tears in his eyes.) Well, don’t cry. I’ll be around the neighborhood; I’ll see you. I just can’t stay here no more. You know I can’t. (Her sobs of pity and love for him break her composure.) Don’t you know I can’t? You know that, don’t you? (She goes to him.) Wish me luck.
(She clasps her hands prayerfully.) Oh, Eddie, don’t be like that!
Eddie

You ain’t goin’ nowheres.

Catherine

Eddie, I’m not gonna be a baby any more! You –

He reaches out suddenly, draws her to him, and as she strives to free herself he kisses her on the mouth.
Rodolpho Don’t! (He pulls on Eddie’s arm.) Stop that! Have respect for her!
Eddie (spun round by Rodolpho)
Rodolpho
wife!
Eddie

You want something?

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

But what’re you gonna be?

Rodolpho

I show you what I be!

Catherine

Wait outside; don’t argue with him!

Eddie

Come on, show me! What’re you gonna be? Show me!

Rodolpho (with tears of rage)

Don’t say that to me!

Rodolpho flies at him in attack. Eddie pins his arms, laughing, and suddenly kisses him.
Catherine
him!

Eddie! Let go, ya hear me! I’ll kill you! Leggo of

She tears at Eddie’s face and Eddie releases Rodolpho. Eddie stands there with tears rolling down his face as he laughs mockingly at
Rodolpho. She is staring at him in horror. Rodolpho is rigid. They are like animals that have torn at one another and broken up without a decision, each waiting for the other’s mood.
Eddie (to Catherine) You see? (To Rodolpho.) I give you till tomorrow, kid. Get outa here. Alone. You hear me? Alone.

59

Catherine I’m going with him, Eddie. (She starts toward
Rodolpho.)
Eddie (indicating Rodolpho with his head ) Not with that. (She halts, frightened. He sits, still panting for breath, and they watch him helplessly as he leans toward them over the table.) Don’t make me do nuttin’, Catherine. Watch your step, submarine. By rights they oughta throw you back in the water. But I got pity for you. (He moves unsteadily toward the door, always facing Rodolpho.) Just get outa here and don’t lay another hand on her unless you wanna go out feet first. (He goes out of the apartment.)
The lights go down, as they rise on Alfieri.
Alfieri On December twenty-seventh I saw him next. I normally go home well before six, but that day I sat around looking out my window at the bay, and when I saw him walking through my doorway, I knew why I had waited. And if I seem to tell this like a dream, it was that way. Several moments arrived in the course of the two talks we had when it occurred to me how – almost transfixed I had come to feel. I had lost my strength somewhere. (Eddie enters, removing his cap, sits in the chair, looks thoughtfully out.) I looked in his eyes more than I listened – in fact, I can hardly remember the conversation. But
I will never forget how dark the room became when he looked at me; his eyes were like tunnels. I kept wanting to call the police, but nothing had happened. Nothing at all had really happened. (He breaks off and looks down at the desk. Then he turns to
Eddie.) So in other words, he won’t leave?
Eddie My wife is talkin’ about renting a room upstairs for them. An old lady on the top floor is got an empty room.
Alfieri

What does Marco say?

Eddie

He just sits there. Marco don’t say much.

Alfieri

I guess they didn’t tell him, heh? What happened?

Eddie

I don’t know; Marco don’t say much.

Alfieri

What does your wife say?

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A View from the Bridge

Eddie (unwilling to pursue this) house. So what about that?

Act Two
Nobody’s talkin’ much in the

61

Put it out of your mind! Eddie! (He follows into the darkness, calling desperately.)

Alfieri But you didn’t prove anything about him. It sounds like he just wasn’t strong enough to break your grip.

Eddie is gone. The phone is glowing in light now. Light is out on
Alfieri. Eddie has at the same time appeared beside the phone.

Eddie I’m tellin’ you I know – he ain’t right. Somebody that don’t want it can break it. Even a mouse, if you catch a teeny mouse and you hold it in your hand, that mouse can give you the right kind of fight. He didn’t give me the right kind of fight, I know it, Mr Alfieri, the guy ain’t right.

Eddie Give me the number of the Immigration Bureau.
Thanks. (He dials.) I want to report something. Illegal immigrants. Two of them. That’s right. Four-forty-one Saxon
Street, Brooklyn, yeah. Ground floor. Heh? (With greater difficulty.) I’m just around the neighborhood, that’s all. Heh?

Alfieri

Evidently he is being questioned further, and he slowly hangs up. He leaves the phone just as Louis and Mike come down the street.

What did you do that for, Eddie?

Eddie To show her what he is! So she would see, once and for all! Her mother’ll turn over in the grave! (He gathers himself almost peremptorily.) So what do I gotta do now? Tell me what to do. Alfieri

She actually said she’s marrying him?

Eddie

She told me, yeah. So what do I do?

Slight pause.

Louis

Go bowlin’, Eddie?

Eddie

No, I’m due home.

Louis

Well, take it easy.

Eddie

I’ll see yiz.

They leave him, exiting right, and he watches them go. He glances about, then goes up into the house. The lights go on in the apartment. Beatrice is taking down Christmas decorations and packing them in a box.

Alfieri This is my last word, Eddie, take it or not, that’s your business. Morally and legally you have no rights, you cannot stop it; she is a free agent.

Eddie Where is everybody? (Beatrice does not answer.) I says where is everybody?

Eddie (angering)

Beatrice (looking up at him, wearied with it, and concealing a fear of him) I decided to move them upstairs with Mrs. Dondero.

Didn’t you hear what I told you?

Alfieri (with a tougher tone) I heard what you told me, and I’m telling you what the answer is. I’m not only telling you now,
I’m warning you – the law is nature. The law is only a word for what has a right to happen. When the law is wrong it’s because it’s unnatural, but in this case it is natural and a river will drown you if you buck it now. Let her go. And bless her. (A phone booth begins to glow on the opposite side of the stage; a faint, lonely blue. Eddie stands up, jaws clenched.) Somebody had to come for her, Eddie, sooner or later. (Eddie starts turning to go and Alfieri rises with new anxiety.) You won’t have a friend in the world,
Eddie! Even those who understand will turn against you, even the ones who feel the same will despise you! (Eddie moves off.)

Eddie

Oh, they’re all moved up there already?

Beatrice
Eddie

Where’s Catherine? She up there?

Beatrice
Eddie

Only to bring pillow cases.

She ain’t movin’ in with them.

Beatrice of it!
Eddie

Yeah.

Look, I’m sick and tired of it. I’m sick and tired

All right, all right, take it easy.

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Act Two

63

Beatrice I don’t wanna hear no more about it, you understand? Nothin’!

Beatrice Nothin’ to have out with me, it’s all settled. Now we gonna be like it never happened, that’s all.

Eddie What’re you blowin’ off about? Who brought them in here?

Eddie I want my respect, Beatrice, and you know what I’m talkin’ about.

Beatrice All right, I’m sorry; I wish I’d a drop dead before
I told them to come. In the ground I wish I was.

Beatrice

Eddie Don’t drop dead, just keep in mind who brought them in here, that’s all. (He moves about restlessly.) I mean I got a couple of rights here. (He moves, wanting to beat down her evident disapproval of him.) This is my house here not their house.

Eddie ( finally his resolution hardens) What I feel like doin’ in the bed and what I don’t feel like doin’. I don’t want no –

Beatrice What do you want from me? They’re moved out; what do you want now?
Eddie

I want my respect!

Beatrice So I moved them out, what more do you want?
You got your house now, you got your respect.
Eddie (he moves about biting his lip) to me, Beatrice.
Beatrice

I don’t like the way you talk

I’m just tellin’ you I done what you want!

Eddie I don’t like it! The way you talk to me and the way you look at me. This is my house. And she is my niece and I’m responsible for her.
Beatrice
Eddie

So that’s why you done that to him?

I done what to him?

What?

Pawe.

Beatrice

When’d I say anything about that?

Eddie You said, you said, I ain’t deaf. I don’t want no more conversations about that, Beatrice. I do what I feel like doin’ or what I don’t feel like doin’.
Beatrice

Okay.

Pause.
Eddie You used to be different, Beatrice. You had a whole different way.
Beatrice

I’m no different.

Eddie You didn’t used to jump me all the time about everything. The last year or two I come in the house I don’t know what’s gonna hit me. It’s a shootin’ gallery in here and
I’m the pigeon.
Beatrice

Okay, okay.

Beatrice What you done to him in front of her; you know what I’m talkin’ about. She goes around shakin’ all the time, she can’t go to sleep! That’s what you call responsible for her?

Eddie Don’t tell me okay, okay, I’m tellin’ you the truth.
A wife is supposed to believe the husband. If I tell you that guy ain’t right don’t tell me he is right.

Eddie (quietly) The guy ain’t right, Beatrice. (She is silent.) Did you hear what I said?

Beatrice

Beatrice her work.)

Look, I’m finished with it. That’s all. (She resumes

Eddie (helping her to pack the tinsel ) you one of these days, Beatrice.

I’m gonna have it out with

But how do you know?

Eddie Because I know. I don’t go around makin’ accusations.
He give me the heeby-jeebies the first minute I seen him. And
I don’t like you sayin’ I don’t want her marryin’ anybody. I broke my back payin’ her stenography lessons so she could go out and meet a better class of people. Would I do that if I didn’t

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Act Two

65

want her to get married? Sometimes you talk like I was a crazy man or sump’m.

landing of the stairway, and they hear her descending.) There . . . she’s comin’ down. Come on, shake hands with her.

Beatrice

Eddie (moving with suppressed suddenness) talk to her.

But she likes him.

Eddie Beatrice, she’s a baby, how is she gonna know what she likes?
Beatrice Well, you kept her a baby, you wouldn’t let hcr go out. I told you a hundred times.
Pawe.
Eddie

All right. Let her go out, then.

Beatrice

She don’t wanna go out now. It’s too late, Eddie.

Pause.
Eddie

Suppose I told her to go out. Suppose I –

Beatrice

They’re going to get married next week, Eddie.

Eddie (his head jerks around to her)

She said that?

Beatrice Eddie, if you want my advice, go to her and tell her good luck. I think maybe now that you had it out you learned better.
Eddie

What’s the hurry next week?

Beatrice Well, she’s been worried about him bein’ picked up; this way he could start to be a citizen. She loves him,
Eddie. (He gets up, moves about uneasily, restlessly.) Why don’t you give her a good word? Because I still think she would like you to be a friend, y’know? (He is standing, looking at the floor.) I mean like if you told her you’d go to the wedding.
Eddie

She asked you that?

Beatrice I know she would like it. I’d like to make a party here for hcr. I mean there oughta be some kinda send-off.
Heh? I mean she’ll have trouble enough in her life, let’s start it off happy. What do you say? ’Cause in her heart she still loves you, Eddie. I know it. (He presses his fingers against his eyes.)
What’re you, cryin’? (She goes to him, holds his face.) Go . . . whyn’t you go tell her you’re sorry? (Catherine is seen on the upper

Beatrice happy! Eddie

No, I can’t, I can’t

Eddie, give her a break; a wedding should be

I’m goin’, I’m goin’ for a walk.

He goes upstage for his jacket. Catherine enters and starts for the bedroom door.
Beatrice Katie? . . . Eddie, don’t go, wait a minute. (She embraces Eddie’s arm with warmth.) Ask him, Katie. Come on, honey. Eddie

It’s all right, I’m – (He starts to go and she holds him.)

Beatrice No, she wants to ask you. Come on, Katie, ask him. We’ll have a party! What’re we gonna do, hate each other? Come on!
Catherine I’m gonna get married, Eddie. So if you wanna come, the wedding be on Saturday.
Pause.
Eddie Okay. I only wanted the best for you, Katie. I hope you know that.
Catherine

Okay. (She starts out again.)

Eddie Catherine? (She turns to him.) I was just tellin’ Beatrice
. . . if you wanna go out, like . . . I mean I realize maybe I kept you home too much. Because he’s the first guy you ever knew, y’know? I mean now that you got a job, you might meet some fellas, and you get a different idea, y’know? I mean you could always come back to him, you’re still only kids, the both of yiz.
What’s the hurry? Maybe you’ll get around a little bit, you grow up a little more, maybe you’ll see different in a couple of months. I mean you be surprised, it don’t have to be him.
Catherine

No, we made it up already.

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A View from the Bridge

Eddie (with increasing anxiety)
Catherine

Act Two
Katie, wait a minute.

No, I made up my mind.

Catherine

67

Well what’ll I do with them?

Eddie But you never knew no other fella, Katie! How could you make up your mind?

Eddie The neighborhood is full of rooms. Can’t you stand to live a couple of blocks away from him? Get them out of the house! Catherine

Catherine

Eddie

’Cause I did. I don’t want nobody else.

But, Katie, suppose he gets picked up.

Catherine That’s why we gonna do it right away. Soon as we finish the wedding he’s goin’ right over and start to be a citizen. I made up my mind, Eddie. I’m sorry. (To Beatrice.)
Could I take two more pillow cases for the other guys?
Beatrice Sure, go ahead. Only don’t let her forget where they came from.
Catherine goes into a bedroom.
Eddie

She’s got other boarders up there?

Beatrice
Eddie

Yeah, there’s two guys that just came over.

What do you mean, came over?

Beatrice From Italy. Lipari the butcher – his nephew. They come from Bari, they just got here yesterday. I didn’t even know till Marco and Rodolpho moved up there before.
(Catherine enters, going toward exit with two pillow cases.) It’ll be nice, they could all talk together.

Well maybe tomorrow night I’ll –

Eddie Not tomorrow, do it now. Catherine, you never mix yourself with somebody else’s family! These guys get picked up, Lipari’s liable to blame you or me and we got his whole family on our head. They got a temper, that family.
Two men in overcoats appear outside, start into the house.
Catherine

How’m I gonna find a place tonight?

Eddie Will you stop arguin’ with me and get them out! You think I’m always tryin’ to fool you or sump’m? What’s the matter with you, don’t you believe I could think of your good?
Did I ever ask sump’m for myself ? You think I got no feelin’s?
I never told you nothin’ in my life that wasn’t for your good.
Nothin’! And look at the way you talk to me! Like I was an enemy! Like I – (A knock on the door. His head swerves. They all stand motionless. Another knock. Eddie, in a whisper, pointing upstage.)
Go up the fire escape, get them out over the back fence.
Catherine stands motionless, uncomprehending.
First Officer (in the hall )

Immigration! Open up in there!

Eddie Catherine! (She halts near the exit door. He takes in
Beatrice too.) What’re you, got no brains? You put them up there with two other submarines?

Eddie Go, go. Hurry up! (She stands a moment staring at him in a realized horror.) Well, what’re you lookin’ at!

Catherine

First Officer

Why?

Open upl

Eddie (in a driving fright and anger) Why! How do you know they’re not trackin’ these guys? They’ll come up for them and find Marco and Rodolpho! Get them out of the house!

Eddie (calling toward door)

Beatrice

Eddie turns, looks at Beatrice. She sits. Then he looks at
Catherine. With a sob of fury Catherine streaks into a bedroom.

But they been here so long already –

Eddie How do you know what enemies Lipari’s got? Which they’d love to stab him in the back?

First Officer

Knock is repeated.

Who’s that there?

Immigration, open up.

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Act Two

Eddie All right, take it easy, take it easy. (He goes and opens the door The Officer steps inside.) What’s all this?
First Officer

Where are they?

Second Of/ker sweeps past and, glancing about, goes into the kitchen.
Eddie

Where’s who?

First Officer Come on, come on, where are they? (He hurries into the bedrooms.)
Eddie Who? We got nobody here. (He looks at Beatrice, who turns her head away. Pugnaciously, furious, he steps toward Beatrice.)
What’s the matter with you?

69

Many steps on the outer stair draw his attention. We see the First Officer descending, with Marco, behind him Rodolpho, and Catherine and the two strange immigrants, followed by Second Officer.
Beatrice hurries to door.
Catherine (backing down stairs, fighting with First Officer; as they appear on the stairs) What do yiz want from them? They work, that’s all. They’re boarders upstairs, they work on the piers. Beatrice (to First Officer) Ah, Mister, what do you want from them, who do they hurt?

First Officer enters from the bedroom, calls to the kitchen.

Catherine ( pointing to Rodolpho) They ain’t no submarines, he was born in Philadelphia.

First Officer

First Officer

Dominick?

Enter Second Officer from kitchen.
Second Officer

Maybe it’s a different apartment.

First Officer There’s only two more floors up there. I’ll take the front, you go up the fire escape. I’ll let you in. Watch your step up there.
Second Officer Okay, right, Charley. (First Officer goes out apartment door and runs up the stairs.) This is Four-forty-one, isn’t it?
Eddie

That’s right.

Eddie turns to Beatrice. She looks at him now and sees his terror.
Eddie

Oh, Jesus, Eddie.

What’s the matter with you?

Beatrice ( pressing her palms against her face)
God . . .
Eddie

Catherine What do you mean? You can’t just come in a house and –
First Officer All right, take it easy. (To Rodolpho.) What street were you born in Philadelphia?
Catherine What do you mean, what street? Could you tell me what street you were born?
First Officer Sure. Four blocks away, One-eleven Union
Street. Let’s go fellas.
Catherine (fending him off Rodolpho) get outa here!

Second Officer goes out into the kitchen.
Beatrice (weakened with fear)

Step aside, lady.

Oh, my God, my

What’re you, accusin’ me?

Beatrice (her final thrust is to turn toward him instead of running from him) My God, what did you do?

No, you can’t! Now,

First Officer Look, girlie, if they’re all right they’ll be out tomorrow. If they’re illegal they go back where they came from. If you want, get yourself a lawyer, although I’m tellin’ you now you’re wasting your money. Let’s get them in the car,
Dom. (To the men.) Andiamo, Andiamo, let’s go.
The men start, but Marco hangs back.
Beatrice ( from doorway) Who’re they hurtin’, for God’s sake, what do you want from them? They’re starvin’ over there, what do you want! Marco!

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Act Two

71

Marco suddenly breaks from the group and dashes into the room and faces Eddie; Beatrice and First Officer rush in as Marco spits into Eddie’s face.

Catherine from him?

Catherine runs into hallway and throws herself into Rodolpho’s arms. Eddie, with an enraged cry, lunges for Marco.

The Second Officer has moved off with the two strange men.

Eddie

Marco, taking advantage of the First Officer’s being occupied with
Catherine, suddenly frees himself and points back at Eddie.

Oh, you mother’s – !

First Officer quickly intercedes and pushes Eddie from Marco, who stands there accusingly.
First Officer (between them, pushing Eddie from Marco) it out!
Eddie (over the First Officer’s shoulder, to Marco) you for that, you son of a bitch!

Cut

I’ll kill

First Officer Hey! (Shakes him.) Stay in here now, don’t come out, don’t bother him. You hear me? Don’t come out, fella.
For an instant there is silence. Then First Officer turns and takes
Marco’s arm and then gives a last, informative look at Eddie. As he and Marco are going out into the hall. Eddie erupts.
Eddie

I don’t forget that, Marco! You hear what I’m sayin’?

He was born in Philadelphia! What do you want

First Officer

Marco

Step aside, lady, come on now . . .

That one! I accuse that one!

Eddie brushes Beatrice aside and rushes out to the stoop.
First Officer ( grabbing him and moving him quickly off up the left street) Come on!
Marco (as he is taken off, pointing back at Eddie) That one! He killed my children! That one stole the food from my children!
Marco is gone. The crowd has turned to Eddie.
Eddie (to Lipari and wife) He’s crazy! I give them the blankets off my bed. Six months I kept them like my own brothers!
Lipari, the butcher, turns and starts up left with his arm around his wife. Out in the hall, First Officer and Marco go down the stairs.

Eddie Lipari! (He follows Lipari up left.) For Christ’s sake,
I kept them, I give them the blankets off my bed!

Now, in the street, Louis, Mike. and several neighbors including the butcher, Lipari – a stout, intense, middle-aged man – are gathering around the stoop.

Lipari and wife exit. Eddie turns and starts crossing down right to
Louis and Mike.

Lipari, the butcher, walks over to the two strange men and kisses them.
His wife, keening, goes and kisses their hands. Eddie is emerging from the house shouting after Marco. Beatrice is trying to restrain him.
Eddie That’s the thanks I get? Which I took the blankets off my bed for yiz? You gonna apologize to me, Marco! Marco!
First Officer (in the doorway with Marco) All right, lady, let them go. Get in the car, fellas, it’s right over there.
Rodolpho is almost carrying the sobbing Catherine off up the street, left.

Eddie

Louis! Louis!

Louis barely turns, then walks off and exits down right with Mike.
Only Beatrice is left on the stoop. Catherine now returns, blankeyed, from offstage and the car. Eddie calls after Louis and Mike.
Eddie He’s gonna take that back. He’s gonna take that back or I’ll kill him! You hear me? I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him! (He exits up street calling.)
There is a pause of darkness before the lights rise, on the reception room of a prison. Marco is seated; Alfieri, Catherine, and Rodolpho standing. 72

A View from the Bridge

Alfieri

I’m waiting, Marco, what do you say?

Rodolpho

Marco never hurt anybody.

Alfieri I can bail you out until your hearing comes up. But
I’m not going to do it, you understand me? Unless I have your promise. You’re an honorable man, I will believe your promise.
Now what do you say?
Marco In my country he would be dead now. He would not live this long.
Alfieri

All right, Rodolpho – you come with me now.

Rodolpho 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.
Marco is silent.
Catherine (kneeling left of Marco) Marco, don’t you understand? He can’t bail you out if you’re gonna do something bad. To hell with Eddie. Nobody is gonna talk to him again if he lives to a hundred. Everybody knows you spit in his face, that’s enough, isn’t it? Give me the satisfaction – I want you at the wedding. You got a wife and kids, Marco. You could be workin’ till the hearing comes up, instead of layin’ around here. Marco (to Alfieri)

I have no chance?

Alfieri (crosses to behind Marco) No, Marco. You’re going back. The hearing is a formality, that’s all.
Marco

But him? There is a chance, eh?

Act Two

73

Marco ( pulling his hand away) What will I tell him? He knows such a promise is dishonorable.
Alfieri

To promise not to kill is not dishonorable.

Marco (looking at Alfieri)
Alfieri

No?

No.

Marco ( gesturing with his head – this is a new idea) done with such a man?’
Alfieri

Nothing. If he obeys the law, he lives. That’s all.

Marco (rises, turns to Alfieri) a book.
Alfieri

Then what is

The law? All the law is not in

Yes. In a book. There is no other law.

Marco (his anger rising) He degraded my brother. My blood.
He robbed my children, he mocks my work. I work to come here, mister!
Alfieri

I know, Marco –

Marco

There is no law for that? Where is the law for that?

Alfieri

There is none.

Marco (shaking his head, sitting) I don’t understand this country.
Alfieri Well? What is your answer? You have five or six weeks you could work. Or else you sit here. What do you say to me?
Marco (lowers his eyes. It almost seems he is ashamed)
Alfieri

All right.

You won’t touch him. This is your promise.

Slight pause.

Alfieri When she marries him he can start to become an
American. They permit that, if the wife is born here.

Marco

Marco (looking at Rodolpho) Well – we did something. (He lays a palm on Rodolpho’s arm and Rodolpho covers it.)

Alfieri justice. This is not God, Marco. You hear? Only God makes

Rodolpho

Marco

All right.

Marco, tell the man.

Maybe he wants to apologize to me.

Marco is staring away. Alfieri takes one of his hands.

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A View from the Bridge

Act Two

Alfieri (nodding, not with assurance) Good! Catherine, Rodolpho,
Marco, let us go.
Catherine kisses Rodolpho and Marco, then kisses Alfieri’s hand. Catherine I’ll get Beatrice and meet you at the church. (She leaves quickly.)
Marco rises. Rodolpho suddenly embraces him. Marco pats him on the back and Rodolpho exits after Catherine. Marco faces
Alfieri.
Alfieri

Only God, Marco.

The lights rise in the apartment. Eddie is alone in the rocker, rocking back and forth in little surges. Pause. Now Beatrice emerges from a bedroom. She is in her best clothes, wearing a hat.
Beatrice (with fear, going to Eddie) hour, Eddie. All right?

I’ll be back in about an

Eddie (quietly, almost inaudibly, as though drained)
I been talkin’ to myself ?
Beatrice

What, have

Eddie, for God’s sake, it’s her wedding.

Eddie Didn’t you hear what I told you? You walk out that door to that wedding you ain’t comin’ back here, Beatrice.
Beatrice

Eddie (as though hurt) Look, I been arguin’ with you all day already, Beatrice, and I said what I’m gonna say. He’s gonna come here and apologize to me or nobody from this house is goin’ into that church today. Now if that’s more to you than
I am, then go. But don’t come back. You be on my side or on their side, that’s all.
Catherine (suddenly)
Beatrice

Why! What do you want?

Eddie I want my respect. Didn’t you ever hear of that?
From my wife?
Catherine enters from bedroom.
Catherine It’s after three; we’re supposed to be there already,
Beatrice. The priest won’t wait.
Beatrice Eddie. It’s her wedding. There’ll be nobody there from her family. For my sister let me go. I’m goin’ for my sister.

Who the hell do you think you are?

Sssh!

Catherine You got no more right to tell nobody nothin’!
Nobody! The rest of your life, nobody!
Beatrice

Marco turns and walks out. Alfieri with a certain processional tread leaves the stage. The lights dim out.

75

Catherine
Beatrice
Catherine

Shut up, Katie! (She turns Catherine around.)
You’re gonna come with me!
I can’t, Katie, I can’t . . .
How can you listen to him? This rat!

Beatrice (shaking Catherine)

Don’t you call him that!

Catherine (clearing from Beatrice) What’re you scared of ?
He’s a rat! He belongs in the sewer!
Beatrice

Stop it!

Catherine (weeping) He bites people when they sleep! He comes when nobody’s lookin’ and poisons decent people. In the garbage he belongs!
Eddie seems about to pick up the table and fling it at her.
Beatrice No, Eddie! Eddie! (To Catherine.) Then we all belong in the garbage. You, and me too. Don’t say that.
Whatever happened we all done it, and don’t you ever forget it, Catherine. (She goes to Catherine.) Now go, go to your wedding, Katie, I’ll stay home. Go. God bless you, God bless your children.
Enter Rodolpho.
Rodolpho
Eddie

Eddie?

Who said you could come in here? Get outa herel

76

A View from the Bridge

Rodolpho Marco is coming, Eddie. (Pause. Beatrice raises her hands in terror.) He’s praying in the church. You understand?
(Pause. Rodolpho advances into the room.) Catherine, I think it is better we go. Come with me.
Catherine

Eddie, go away please.

Beatrice (quietly) Eddie. Let’s go someplace. Come. You and me. (He has not moved.) I don’t want you to be here when he comes. I’ll get your coat.
Eddie

Where? Where am I goin’? This is my house.

Beatrice (crying out) What’s the use of it! He’s crazy now, you know the way they get, what good is it! You got nothin’ against Marco, you always liked Marco!
Eddie I got nothin’ against Marco? Which he called me a rat in front of the whole neighborhood? Which he said I killed his childrenl Where you been?

Act Two

77

run tell him, kid, that he’s gonna give it back to me in front of this neighborhood, or we have it out. (Hoisting up his pants)
Come on, where is he? Take me to him.
Beatrice
Eddie

Eddie, listen –

I heard enough! Come on, let’s go!

Beatrice

Only blood is good? He kissed your hand!

Eddie What he does don’t mean nothin’ to nobody! (To
Rodolpho.) Come on!
Beatrice (barring his way to the stairs) What’s gonna mean somethin’? Eddie, listen to me. Who could give you your name?
Listen to me, I love you, I’m talkin’ to you, I love you; if
Marco’ll kiss your hand outside, if he goes on his knees, what is he got to give you? That’s not what you want.
Eddie

Don’t bother me!

Rodolpho ( quite suddenly, stepping up to Eddie) It is my fault,
Eddie. Everything. I wish to apologize. It was wrong that I do not ask your permission. I kiss your hand. (He reaches for Eddie’s hand, but Eddie snaps it away from him.)

Beatrice You want somethin’ else, Eddie, and you can never have her!

Beatrice

Eddie (shocked, horrified, his fists clenching)

Eddie, he’s apologizing!

Rodolpho 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 –
Beatrice

Listen to him! Eddie, listen what he’s tellin’ you!

Catherine (in horror)

B!
Beatrice!

Marco appears outside, walking toward the door from a distant point.
Beatrice (crying out, weeping) The truth is not as bad as blood, Eddie! I’m tellin’ you the truth – tell her good-bye forever! Rodolpho 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 –

Eddie (crying out in agony) That’s what you think of me – that
I would have such a thoughts? (His fists clench his head as though it will burst.)

Eddie

Marco (calling near the door outside)

Now, listen –

Catherine
Beatrice

Eddie, give him a chance!
What do you want! Eddie, what do you want!

Eddie I want my name! He didn’t take my name; he’s only a punk. Marco’s got my name – (To Rodolpho.) and you can

Eddie Carbone!

Eddie swerves about; all stand transfixed for an instant.
People appear outside.
Eddie (as though flinging his challenge) Yeah, Marco! Eddie
Carbone. Eddie Carbone. Eddie Carbone. (He goes up the stairs

78

A View from the Bridge

Act Two

and emerges from the apartment. Rodolpho streaks up and out past him and runs to Marco.)
Rodolpho No, Marco, please! Eddie, please, he has children!
You will kill a family!
Beatrice Go in the house! Eddie, go in the house!
Eddie (he gradually comes to address the people) Maybe he come to apologize to me. Heh, Marco? For what you said about me in front of the neighborhood? (He is incensing himself and little bits of laughter even escape him as his eyes are murderous and he cracks his knuckles in his hands with a strange sort of relaxation.) He knows that ain’t right. To do like that? To a man? Which I put my roof over their head and my food in their mouth? Like in the
Bible? Strangers I never seen in my whole life? To come out of the water and grab a girl for a passport? To go and take from your own family like from the stable – and never a word to me? And now accusations in the bargain! (Directly to Marco.)
Wipin’ the neighborhood with my name like a dirty rag! I want my name, Marco. (He is moving now, carefully, toward Marco.)
Now gimme my name and we go together to the wedding.
Beatrice and Catherine (keening)

Eddie! Eddie, don’t! Eddie!

Eddie No, Marco knows what’s right from wrong. Tell the people, Marco, tell them what a liar you are! (He has his arms spread and Marco is spreading his.) Come on, liar, you know what you done! (He lunges for Marco as a great hushed shout goes up from the people.)
Marco strikes Eddie beside the neck.
Marco

Animal! You go on your knees to me!

Eddie goes down with the blow and Marco starts to raise a foot to stomp him when Eddie springs a knife into his hand and Marco steps back. Louis rushes in toward Eddie.
Louis

Eddie, for Christ’s sake!

Eddie raises the knife and Louis halts and steps back.
Eddie
say it!

You lied about me, Marco. Now say it. Come on now,

Marco

79

Anima-a-a-l!

Eddie lunges with the knife. Marco grabs his arm, turning the blade inward and pressing it home as the women and Louis and Mike rush in and separate them, and Eddie, the knife still in his hand, falls to his knees before Marco. The two women support him for a moment, calling his name again and again.
Catherine
Eddie

Then why – Oh, B!

Beatrice
Eddie

Eddie I never meant to do nothing bad to you.

Yes, yes!

My B!

He dies in her arms, and Beatrice covers him with her body.
Alfieri, who is in the crowd, turns out to the audience. The lights have gone down, leaving him in a glow, while behind him the dull prayers of the people and the keening of the women continue.
Alfieri Most of the time now we settle for half and I like it better. But the truth is holy, and even as I know how wrong he was, and his death useless, I tremble, for I confess that something perversely pure calls to me from his memory – not purely good, but himself purely, for he allowed himself to be wholly known and for that I think I will love him more than all my sensible clients. And yet, it is better to settle for half, it must be!
And so I mourn him – I admit it – with a certain . . . alarm.
Curtain.