EMILY: Are these the kinds of discussions you two have?
VINCENT: No, let me follow this through. You really think I’m dependent on you? And you like being in that position, don’t you? That’s why you’re treating me so badly these days.
MARSHA: May I have the bone if no one’s eating it? I’m ignoring you, I refuse to play into your whims.
VINCENT: What kind of Victorian prose is this? ‘I refuse to play into your whims.’
MARSHA: You better behave yourself.
VINCENT: Why?
MARSHA: Because you’re getting me angry.
VINCENT: Why am I getting you angry?
MARSHA: Because you’re not behaving yourself.
VINCENT: You know I helped her out of two very important things this summer, and now I’m dependent on her. First with her whole reaction about the fact that her analyst happens to be sleeping with women, and then her crying and clinging with Tim Cullen. How much have you helped me out of?
MARSHA: Nothing.
VINCENT: You’ve driven me to Riverhead three times for driving tests, that’s all.
MARSHA: Right, I’m not a giving person.
EMILY: Can I tell you something about the nature of your relationship which you seem to forget?
VINCENT: Go on.
EMILY: That Marsha’s a girl and you’re a boy.
VINCENT: I’ll tell you something about our relationship — it’s getting into a very precarious position. I mean it, it’s gone too far.
MARSHA: You know what I said to Emily today? We were talking about Italy, saying how well we got along, and I said you were much more mature then.
VINCENT: Are you serious? Marsha, I love you more than anyone in the world, I really do, except for one thing: you’re very dumb. Don’t you realize I was half a person then? What you cannot accept about me — you think it’s immature and you think it’s sickness and you think it’s defense — is that I am the only person you know who is absolutely willing to expose his wounds, and to show what he’s not. I don’t care if you call this immaturity, but don’t call that maturity. That was someone who was guarded, someone who was just growing up. I wasn’t mature then, I was frightened. And just because I’m open now — you know there are very few people as open as I am? Don’t get cocky, I know.
MARSHA: You’re right.
VINCENT: Emily, considering you’re serving the meal, you really should wash your hands after you go to the bathroom.
MARSHA: But how about the way you walked out of my room last night?
VINCENT: I’ll tell you about that. You were already asleep, lying on your right side with the sheet over you, and your tanned arm was on your hip, overlapping your body. It was absolutely beautiful, and I had so much affection for you and warmth. Do you call that dependency or do you call it warmth and affection?
MARSHA: Warmth and affection.
VINCENT: Yes, and that’s what wanting to be with you this summer has been about, because I know that it’s a rare time for us. I mean it. That’s what infuriates me about you. You never see beyond the surface of things; that’s your major obstacle.
EMILY: Your sensitivity is very sweet and touching, Vinnie, but you sure don’t know how to make a dressing for tomatoes.
VINCENT: Lousy, absolutely lousy, I admit it. I only had apple cider vinegar in my house, that’s why.
EMILY: You never put vinegar on tomatoes.
VINCENT: Do you know why I have to constantly defend myself against the two of you? Why I get so uncalm and panicky and completely frenetic when I’m here? Because I’m with the most like-myself people in the world, so this chemical thing happens, a substantiation of myself, which absolutely drives me crazy. It’s like everything I always hold back because I’m against the world I’m confronted with in two other human beings. So maybe it’s best we don’t see each other anymore if I offend you. You didn’t hear what she said before, Emily, when you were fixing the broccoli. She said it was so nice here without me.
MARSHA: No I didn’t.
VINCENT: You said we were so calm here without you.
MARSHA: That’s right.
VINCENT: It was definitely a comparative thing and a put-down of how alive I was.
MARSHA: We were alive when we were calm.
VINCENT: Listen to her, she is so ready to be angry with me and hate me. When I walked in here I was like a schoolboy coming home from school and finding the mother angry. I spend an hour searching for a picture today to do a painting for you, Marsha, I bring it, I show it to you, and you are so un-aristocratic that you say you’re angry without even acknowledging the picture.
MARSHA: I didn’t want a blonde picture.
VINCENT: It’s not a blonde, there’s sunlight in the sky.
MARSHA: It’s a blonde.
VINCENT: You know you’re having hallucinations — you take too much LBJ.
EMILY: I’d be happy to make some coffee, but I must say I’d really love some chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.
MARSHA: I’m not going out for anything.
VINCENT: It’s nine o’clock now, I’m leaving. I have to take the car for tomorrow morning, 8:15 mass. You know I’m very sad tonight. I came in completely happy, in such a rare mood.
MARSHA: A healthy person doesn’t let someone else affect him to that extent.
VINCENT: Healthy people don’t have moods, because all moments to them are the same. Anyway, I never said I was healthy.
EMILY: I make fantastic homemade pie.
VINCENT: Oh Em, let’s go over to the other side of the island and get peaches?
EMILY: Okay, but I don’t want to get into a whole homemade pie-making scene.
VINCENT: Emily’s gotten so healthy. From above the waist. You know what I think of when I think of women? The breasts, not the vagina.
EMILY: You really do?
VINCENT: Oh look at her, trying so hard to be elegant, peeling the skin. You think putting that peach juice on the floor is making anyone happy? You think it’s some sort of Johnson’s wax? I’ll just tell you one thing.
MARSHA: One thing.
VINCENT: What I was talking to you about last night was rarity.
MARSHA: How rare can it be when you feel it every two seconds?
VINCENT: I don’t — only when I’m with you. I never use that expression with other people. But I won’t feel it much longer, I’m beginning to feel very alone here. These peaches were not washed, I can feel the dirt on each one. There’s water at the bottom of the bowl, but they were not washed.
EMILY: Vinnie, please don’t start getting paranoid and alone. It’s too sad. Because God knows your life compared to mine at this point is just so much better and so much sweeter. If you’re going to start getting depressed when I’m punching thirty so fucking soon, just shut up.
VINCENT: You know you’re pathetic, you’re really pathetic.
MARSHA: There he goes.
VINCENT: You really are, you’re so self-indulgent.
EMILY: Boy, if I could just count the times this summer you’ve said I’m pathetic. I’m self-indulgent, but you’re talking the whole fucking night about being alone. You are not alone, you’re self-indulgent.
VINCENT: That’s why I recognize it in others.
MARSHA: This is one of the most difficult meals I’ve ever had.
VINCENT: You really consider this a difficult meal? If your stomach is full at the end of it, it wasn’t a difficult meal.
MARSHA: This is a whole act, you know, a complete act.
VINCENT: Let’s have some more wine, Emily, and get drunk.
EMILY: No, darling, I don’t drink anymore. It’s a habit I’ve given up.