Free A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller Page A

So what about that?
    ALFIERI: But you didn’t prove anything about him. It sounds like he just wasn’t strong enough to break your grip.
    EDDIE: I’m tellin’ you I know—he ain’t right. Somebody that don’t want it can break it. Even a mouse, if you catch a teeny mouse and you hold it in your hand, that mouse can give you the right kind of fight. He didn’t give me the right kind of fight, I know it, Mr. Alfieri, the guy ain’t right.
    ALFIERI: What did you do that for, Eddie?
    EDDIE: To show her what he is! So she would see, once and for all! Her mother’ll turn over in the grave! He gathers himself almost peremptorily. So what do I gotta do now? Tell me what to do.
    ALFIERI: She actually said she’s marrying him?
    EDDIE: She told me, yeah. So what do I do?
    Slight pause.
    ALFIERI: This is my last word, Eddie, take it or not, that’s your business. Morally and legally you have no rights, you cannot stop it; she is a free agent.
    EDDIE, angering: Didn’t you hear what I told you?
    ALFIERI, with a tougher tone: I heard what you told me, and I’m telling you what the answer is. I’m not only telling you now, I’m warning you—the law is nature. The law is only a word for what has a right to happen. When the law is wrong it’s because it’s unnatural, but in this case it is natural and a river will drown you if you buck it now. Let her go. And bless her. A phone booth begins to glow on the opposite side of the stage; a faint, lonely blue. Eddie stands up, jaws clenched. Somebody had to come for her, Eddie, sooner or later. Eddie starts turning to go and Alfieri rises with new anxiety. You won’t have a friend in the world, Eddie! Even those who understand will turn against you, even the ones who feel the same will despise you! Eddie moves off. Put it out of your mind! Eddie! He follows into the darkness, calling desperately.
    Eddie is gone. The phone is glowing in light now. Light is out on Alfieri. Eddie has at the same time appeared beside the phone.
    EDDIE: Give me the number of the Immigration Bureau. Thanks. He dials. I want to report something. Illegal immigrants. Two of them. That’s right. Four-forty-one Saxon Street, Brooklyn, yeah. Ground floor. Heh? With greater difficulty: I’m just around the neighborhood, that’s all. Heh?
    Evidently he is being questioned further, and he slowly hangs up. He leaves the phone just as Louis and Mike come down the street.
    LOUIS: Go bowlin’, Eddie?
    EDDIE: No, I’m due home.
    LOUIS: Well, take it easy.
    EDDIE: I’ll see yiz.
    They leave him, exiting right, and he watches them go. He glances about, then goes up into the house. The lights go on in the apartment. Beatrice is taking down Christmas decorations and packing them in a box.
    EDDIE: Where is everybody? Beatrice does not answer. I says where is everybody?
    BEATRICE, looking up at him, wearied with it, and concealing a fear of him: I decided to move them upstairs with Mrs. Dondero.
    EDDIE: Oh, they’re all moved up there already?
    BEATRICE: Yeah.
    EDDIE: Where’s Catherine? She up there?
    BEATRICE: Only to bring pillow cases.
    EDDIE: She ain’t movin’ in with them.
    BEATRICE: Look, I’m sick and tired of it. I’m sick and tired of it!
    EDDIE: All right, all right, take it easy.
    BEATRICE: I don’t wanna hear no more about it, you understand? Nothin’!
    EDDIE: What’re you blowin’ off about? Who brought them in here?
    BEATRICE: All right, I’m sorry; I wish I’d a drop dead before I told them to come. In the ground I wish I was.
    EDDIE: Don’t drop dead, just keep in mind who brought them in here, that’s all. He moves about restlessly . I mean I got a couple of rights here. He moves, wanting to beat down her evident disapproval of him.
    This is my house here not their house.
    BEATRICE: What do you want from me? They’re moved out; what do you want now?
    EDDIE: I