Ask the Dust

Camilla:
You call me beautiful at home, then you are ashamed to be seen with me in public. You are ashamed of beauty you recognize that no one else does. You are ashamed to love me!

Arturo Bandini:
What does happiness mean to you Camilla?

Camilla:
That you can fall in love with whoever you want to, and not feel ashamed of it.

Vera Rivkin:
[Vera is half-asleep in her bed; as Arturo is leaving, he reaches down and takes her hand] You're very kind.

Arturo Bandini:
Take a look in the mirror.

Camilla:
I don't want to look in the mirror.

Arturo Bandini:
I don't blame you.

Man in a passing car:
[to Arturo] Come on! Learn to dance if you can't walk!

Arturo Bandini:
You promise to stop?

Camilla:
Cross my heart.

Arturo Bandini:
No, swear to God.

Camilla:
I swear to God.

Camilla:
What you imagined might be better than the real thing.

Camilla:
You've changed. Before you were just mean, now that you have a couple of bucks, you're mean and stuck up.

Camilla:
Look at the fog.

Arturo Bandini:
An army of ghosts crawling on thier bellies.

Camilla:
What are you talking about?

Arturo Bandini:
The fogbank. It creeps in and hugs the water.

[last lines]

Arturo Bandini:
When I was a kid, back in Colorado, it was Smith, Parker and Jones who hurt me with their hideous names. Who called me wop and dago and greaser, and their children hurt me. Just as I hurt you. They hurt me so much, I could never become one of them. Drove me to books, drove me within myself. Drove me to run away from that town in Colorado, into your home and into your life. And sometimes, when I see their faces out here, the same faces, the same sad, hard mouths from my hometown. I'm glad they're here fulfilling the emptiness of their lives and dying in the sun. And they hate me, and my father and my father's father. But they are old and I am young and full of hope. And love for my country and my times.

[breaking down]

Arturo Bandini:
And Camilla, when I said "greaser" to you, it was not my heart that spoke, but the quivering of an old wound. And I am ashamed of the terrible thing I have done.