A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller Read Free Book Online

though he had made his imprint: I don’t believe it! She rushes to the house.
    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: I don’t believe, it and I wish to hell you’d stop it!
    EDDIE: 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 alarms her: When are you going to leave her alone?
    EDDIE: 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.
    BEATRICE: Don’t tell me you don’t know; you’re not a baby any more, what are you going to do with yourself?
    CATHERINE: 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.
    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?
    BEATRICE: Look, honey, you wanna get married, or don’t you wanna get married? What are you worried about, Katie?
    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 : Yeah, I guess.
    BEATRICE: 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 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: Yeah, but how am I going to do that? He thinks I’m a baby.
    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: 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: When’d I do that?
    BEATRICE: I seen you in there this morning.
    CATHERINE: Oh, ... well, I wanted to tell him something and I—
    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: Well I like to see him and I’m happy so I—
    BEATRICE: 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