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.
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.
Enter Tony, escorting Marco and Rodolpho, each with a valise. Tony halts, indicates the house. They stand for a moment looking at it.
MARCO—he is a square-built peasant of thirty-two, suspicious, tender, and quiet-voiced: Thank you.
TONY: You’re on your own now. Just be careful, that’s all. Ground floor.
MARCO: Thank you.
TONY, indicating the house: I’ll see you on the pier tomorrow. You’ll go to work.
Marco nods. Tony continues on walking down the street.
RODOLPHO: This will be the first house I ever walked into in America! Imagine! She said they were poor!
MARCO: Ssh! Come. They go to door.
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: You Marco?
MARCO: Marco.
EDDIE: Come on in! He shakes Marco’s hand.
BEATRICE: Here, take the bags!
MARCO nods, looks to the women and fixes on Beatrice. Crosses to Beatrice: Are you my cousin?
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.
EDDIE: Oh, no . . . Takes Marco’s bag.
MARCO: I see it’s a small house, but soon, maybe, we can have our own house.
EDDIE: You’re welcome, Marco, we got plenty of room here. Katie, give them supper, heh? Exits into bedroom with their bags.
CATHERINE: 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.
BEATRICE: Get some coffee. We’ll all have coffee. Come sit down.
Rodolpho and Marco sit, at the table.
CATHERINE, wondrously: How come he’s so dark and you’re so light, Rodolpho?
RODOLPHO, ready to laugh: I don’t know. A thousand years ago, they say, the Danes invaded Sicily.
Beatrice kisses Rodolpho. They laugh as Eddie enters.
CATHERINE, to Beatrice: He’s practically blond!
EDDIE: How’s the coffee doin’?
CATHERINE, brought up: I’m gettin’ it. She hurries out to kitchen.
EDDIE sits on his rocker: Yiz have a nice trip?
MARCO: The ocean is always rough. But we are good sailors.
EDDIE: No trouble gettin’ here?
MARCO: No. The man brought us. Very nice man.
RODOLPHO, to Eddie: He says we start to work tomorrow. Is he honest?
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?
MARCO: 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.
BEATRICE: So what kinda work did yiz do?
MARCO, shrugging shyly, even embarrassed: Whatever there is, anything.
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.
EDDIE: Still bad there, heh?
MARCO: 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?
RODOLPHO: Nothing. But if there are many passengers and you’re lucky you make a few lire to push the taxi up the hill.
Enter Catherine; she listens.
BEATRICE: You gotta push a taxi?
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: 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, to Marco: So what’re you wanna do, you gonna stay here in this country or you wanna go back?
MARCO, surprised: Go back?
EDDIE: Well, you’re married, ain’t you?
MARCO: Yes. I have three children.
BEATRICE: Three! I thought only one.
MARCO: Oh, no. I have three now. Four years, five years, six years.
BEATRICE: 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 truth, if I stay there they will never grow up. They eat the sunshine.
BEATRICE: My God. So how long you want to stay?
MARCO: 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.
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 lay off, there’s no ships three four weeks.
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: Dollars.
EDDIE: Sure dollars.
Marco puts an arm round Rodolpho and they laugh.
MARCO: If we can stay here a few months, Beatrice—
BEATRICE: Listen, you’re welcome, Marco—
MARCO: Because I could send them a little more if I stay here.
BEATRICE: As long as you want, we got plenty a room.
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: Eduardo . . . He goes to Eddie, offering his hand.
EDDIE: Don’t thank me. Listen, what the hell, it’s no skin off me. To Catherine: What happened to the coffee?
CATHERINE: I got it on. To Rodolpho: You married too? No.
RODOLPHO rises: Oh, no . . .
BEATRICE, to Cat
herine: I told you he—
CATHERINE: I know, I just thought maybe he got married recently.
RODOLPHO: I have no money to get married. I have a nice face, but no money. He laughs.
CATHERINE, to Beatrice: He’s a real blond!
BEATRICE, to Rodolpho: You want to stay here too, heh? For good?
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.
CATHERINE: A motorcycle!
RODOLPHO: With a motorcycle in Italy you will never starve any more.
BEATRICE: I’ll get you coffee. She exits to the kitchen.
EDDIE: What you do with a motorcycle?
MARCO: He dreams, he dreams.
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: When you have no wife you have dreams.
EDDIE: Why can’t you just walk, or take a trolley or sump’m?
Enter Beatrice with coffee.
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?
Marco nods doubtfully.
MARCO: Two months.
Eddie laughs.
BEATRICE: Can’t you get a job in that place?
RODOLPHO: Andreola got better. He’s a baritone, very strong.
Beatrice laughs.
MARCO, regretfully, to Beatrice: He sang too loud.
RODOLPHO: Why too loud?
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.
RODOLPHO, to all but Marco: I never heard anybody say it was too loud.
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: Oh, sure, I’m crazy for “Paper Doll.” Go ahead, sing it.
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.
Eddie rises and moves upstage.
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—
CATHERINE, enthralled: Leave him finish, it’s beautiful! To Beatrice: He’s terrific! It’s terrific, Rodolpho.
EDDIE: Look, kid; you don’t want to be picked up, do ya?
MARCO: 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: They got guys all over the place, Marco. I mean.
MARCO: Yes. He’ll be quiet. To Rodolpho: You’ll be quiet.
Rodolpho nods.
Eddie has risen, with iron control, even a smile. He moves to Catherine.
EDDIE: What’s the high heels for, Garbo?
CATHERINE: I figured for tonight—
EDDIE: 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, striving to laugh, and to Marco, but directed as much to Beatrice: All actresses they want to be around here.
RODOLPHO, happy about it: 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?
RODOLPHO: 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: 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: What happened to the stenography? I don’t see her practice no more.
BEATRICE: She’ll get back to it. She’s excited, Eddie.
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: Ah, go on, you’re just jealous.
EDDIE: Of him? Boy, you don’t think much of me.
BEATRICE: I don’t understand you. What’s so terrible about him?
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 good-lookin’ 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 r
egular 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: So he’s blond, so—
EDDIE: I just hope that’s his regular hair, that’s all I hope.
BEATRICE: You crazy or sump’m? She tries to turn him to her.
EDDIE—he keeps his head turned away: What’s so crazy? I don’t like his whole way.
BEATRICE: Listen, you never seen a blond guy in your life? What about Whitey Balso?
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.
BEATRICE—she goes to him with purpose now: Listen, you ain’t gonna start nothin’ here.
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: No, everything ain’t great with me.
EDDIE: No?
BEATRICE: No. But I got other worries.
EDDIE: Yeah. He is already weakening.
BEATRICE: Yeah, you want me to tell you?
EDDIE, in retreat: Why? What worries you got?
BEATRICE: When am I gonna be a wife again, Eddie?
EDDIE: I ain’t been feelin’ good. They bother me since they came.
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 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: Well, tell me, am I doing something wrong? Talk to me.
EDDIE—pause. He can’t speak, then: I can’t. I can’t talk about it.
BEATRICE: Well tell me what—
EDDIE: I got nothin’ to say about it!
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 51