A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller Read Free Book Online Page 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?
    CATHERINE: 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: He said you was jealous?
    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?
    CATHERINE: 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-by. All right?
    CATHERINE, strangely moved at the prospect: All right.... If I can.
    BEATRICE: 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.
    His eyes were like tunnels; my first thought was that
he had committed a crime,
Eddie sits beside the desk, cap in hand, looking
out.
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.
    EDDIE: Yeah, but what about it if the only reason for it is to get his papers?
    ALFIERI: First of all you don’t know that.
    EDDIE: I see it in his eyes; he’s laughin’ at her and he’s laughin’ at me.
    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?
    ALFIERI: 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: The guy ain’t right, Mr. Alfieri.
    ALFIERI: