West Side Story - Dance at the Gym

The Gym - 10:00 p.m.

(By the time the mambo music starts the Jets
and sharksare each on their own side of the hall.
At the climax of the dance, Tony and Bernardo's sister,
Maria, see one another :as a delicate cha-cha-cha,
they slowly walk forward to meeteach other.)

Meeting Scene

TONY:
You're not thinking I'm someone else?

MARIA:
I know you are not.

TONY:
Or that we have met before?

MARIA:
I know we have not.

TONY:
I felt I knew something-never-before was going to happen,
had to happen. But this is ...

MARIA (interrupting) :
My hands are so cold. (He takes them in his) Yours too.
(He moves her hands to his face.) So warm.
(She moves his hands to herface.)

TONY:
Yours, too...

MARIA:
But of course. They are the same.

TONY:
It's so much to believe.
You're not joking me?

MARIA:
I have not yet learned how to joke that way.
I think how I never will.

JUMP (Bernardo is upon them in an icy rage.
Chino, whom Bernardo has brought Maria from Puerto Rico
tomarry, takes her home. Riff wants Bernardo
for"War Council"; they agree to meet in hall an hour at
Doc's drugstore.)