A View from the Bridge Read Online Free

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.
    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?
    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.?
    BEATRICE: I don’t mind. To Eddie: I smelled coffee all day today. You unloadin’ coffee today?
    EDDIE : 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: Don’t talk about it!
    EDDIE: I seen spiders could stop a Buick.
    BEATRICE, clapping her hands over her ears: All right, shut up!
    EDDIE, laughing and taking a watch out of his pocket: Well, who started with spiders?
    BEATRICE: All right, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Just don’t bring none home again. What time is it?
    EDDIE: Quarter nine.