Scene 2 Flashcards
(28 cards)
Rodolpho
This will be the first house I ever walked into in America! Imagine! She said they were poor!
Marco
Ssh! Come.
You Marco?
Marco
Marco.
Come on in!
Beatrice
Here, take the bags!
Marco
Are you my cousin?
Beatrice
Beatrice. This is my husband, Eddie.
Catherine, my sister Nancy’s daughter.
Marco
My brother. Rodolpho.
I want to tell you now, Eddie – when you say go, we will go.
Oh, no . . .
Marco
I see it’s a small house, but soon, maybe, we can have our own house.
You’re welcome, Marco, we got plenty of room here. Katie, give them supper, heh?
Catherine
Come here, sit down. I’ll get you some soup.
Marco
We ate on the ship. Thank you.
Thank you
Beatrice
Get some coffee. We’ll all have coffee. Come sit down.
Catherine
How come he’s so dark and you’re so light, Rodolpho?
Rodolpho
I don’t know. A thousand years ago, they say, the Danes invaded Sicily.
Catherine
He’s practically blond!
How’s the coffee doin’?
Catherine
I’m gettin’ it.
Yiz have a nice trip?
Marco
The ocean is always rough. But we are good sailors.
No trouble gettin’ here?
Marco
No. The man brought us. Very nice man.
Rodolpho
He says we start to work tomorrow. Is he honest?
No. But as long as you owe them money, they’ll get you plenty of work.
Yiz ever work on the piers in Italy?
Marco
Piers? Ts! – no.
Rodolpho
In our town there are no piers, only the beach, and little fishing boats.
Beatrice
So what kinda work did yiz do?
Marco
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.
In harvest time we work in the fields . . . if there is work. Anything.
Still bad there, heh?
Marco
Bad, yes.
Rodolpho
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.
Beatrice
You gotta push a taxi?
Rodolpho
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. 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. Everything in our town, you gotta push!
Beatrice
How do you like that!
So what’re you wanna do, you gonna stay here in this country or you wanna go back?
Marco
Go back?
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 –
She don’t mean in this house, she means in the country.
Marco
Oh. Maybe four, five, six years, I think.
Rodolpho
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. I understand it’s not so good here either.
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 –
On the average a whole year? Maybe – well, it’s hard to say, see. Sometimes we layoff, there’s no ships three four weeks.
Marco
Three, four weeks! – Ts!
But I think you could probably – thirty, forty a week, over the whole twelve months of the year.
Marco
Dollars.
Sure dollars.
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
My wife – My wife – I want to send right away maybe twenty dollars –
You could send them something next week already.
Marco
Eduardo . . .
Don’t thank me. Listen, what the hell, it’s no skin off me.
What happened to the coffee?
Catherine
I got it on. You married too? No.
Rodolpho
Oh, no . . .
Beatrice
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.
Catherine
He’s a real blond!
Beatrice
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.
Catherine
A motorcycle!
Rodolpho
With a motorcycle in Italy you will never starve any more.
What you do with a motorcycle?
Marco
He dreams, he dreams.
Rodolpho
Why? 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.
Why can’t you just walk, or take a trolley or sump’m?
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. I am also a singer, though.
You mean a regular – ?
Rodolpho
‘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.’
And then those flirty, flirty guys With their flirty, flirty eyes
Will have to flirt with dollies that are real – ’
Hey, kid – hey, wait a minute –
Catherine
Leave him finish, it’s beautiful!
He’s terrific! It’s terrific, Rodolpho.
Look, kid; you don’t want to be picked up, do ya?
Marco
No – no!
Because we never had no singers here . . .
and all of a sudden there’s a singer in the house, y’know what I mean?
