The Gym - 10:00 p.m.

(By the time the mambo music starts the Jets and sharks

are 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 meet

each 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 her

face.)



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 to

marry, takes her home. Riff wants Bernardo for

"War Council"; they agree to meet in hall an hour at

Doc's drugstore.)