Linda Rosenkrantz - Talk

EMILY: It’s beautiful because she has a nice body. She’s holding her stomach in and everything.

MARSHA: That’s enough.

VINCENT: She’s the best sport of any girl I know.

EMILY: I love her very much. Can I say something?

VINCENT: Now I’ll show you mine.

MARSHA: Okay. It’s pretty. Look Emmy, just the hair.

EMILY: The hair color is very pretty.

VINCENT: Now let us see yours, Em.

EMILY: Oh no, I am not showing my twat. I want to say something. Can I say something please?

VINCENT: Go on.

EMILY: When I’m in the movies and there’s a scene where people kiss, the first feeling I get is I’m flooded with sexuality. The second feeling is I get very embarrassed. You don’t feel any embarrassment?

VINCENT: That’s probably the reason you’re so promiscuous, because you’re very sick.

EMILY: And yet I’m dying to see two people make love.

VINCENT: Would you like to watch me do it this weekend with a woman?

EMILY: I’d love to.

VINCENT: I’ll tell you of the women I know which ones I’d like to go to bed with, okay? I’d like to sleep with Marshie, but I couldn’t because emotionally I’m too pent up, it’s too loaded. I’d go to bed with Emmy in a minute. Does it always have to be women?

EMILY: No.

MARSHA: Yes! That’s what the list is.

EMILY: Could you fuck with Nathan Fass?

VINCENT: Only if I could tie his hands behind his back and really slap him. No, you know what I’d love to do? I just got the whole image. I’d like to put him down on his knees, tie his feet to a pole, have him kneeling in front of me, then slap him until the blood started creeping out of his ear, and then take his dick and slap him silly.

EMILY: Sock the dick?

VINCENT: No, just hold onto the dick and slap him silly.

EMILY: Nathan used to play with me in front of the mirror, and make me masturbate for him.

VINCENT: What’s wrong with that?

EMILY: Nothing, I’m not putting it down. I’m talking about sensibilities. How many men have you been to bed with?

VINCENT: About a hundred.

EMILY: And how many women?

VINCENT: About seven.

EMILY: So you haven’t really been promiscuous at all.

VINCENT: No, I haven’t. Why is my green lady painting in here crying instead of in the living room?

EMILY: She’s related to the green in the box on the bureau. Isn’t it brilliant that I picked up on it?

VINCENT: You know for having a father who was as loving and mystical as yours was, you’re remarkably insecure.

EMILY: My mother, Marsha knows about my mother.

VINCENT: Your mother had a hard life, darling.

EMILY: Oh, yeah, my mother had a very hard life. She had a nurse and a maid, she never took her children out herself.

VINCENT: Look, I don’t even know this woman, but she is going to die within ten years.

EMILY: Wait a second, Vinnie, I don’t like that, I swear to God.

MARSHA: He always says that to me and I can’t stand it.

EMILY: Please don’t do that, it’s very upsetting.

VINCENT: You know something? You have a lot to work out in your analysis.

EMILY: Don’t even do it in jest.

VINCENT: I’m not doing it in jest. How old is she? Sixty?

EMILY: She’s almost seventy and it’s very upsetting. I don’t want you to do it.

VINCENT: I’m saying something very objective which one can say about older people. She’s almost seventy years old and you don’t accept the fact that she’s going to die in ten years. It really panics you.

EMILY: First of all, my grandmother died at ninety-five and my mother probably will too.

VINCENT: And if she doesn’t? What’s the difference to you if she’s alive or dead? One less person you can call up? I mean it, what’s the difference really? What are you doing for her now?

EMILY: Look, there’s one thing about me, I don’t care what kind of anger I have about her, I’m very good to my mother and I love her way out of proportion to the amount she loves me.

VINCENT: Don’t forget it’s one thing algebraically for a child to love his mother, but for a mother to love four children is different.

MARSHA: It’s the same.

VINCENT: No, Marshie, you’re wrong. I understand all things like this.

MARSHA: Oh stop saying you understand everything about everything.

VINCENT: I’m just trying to get at the bottom of things and you’re both getting angry.

EMILY: I happen to be capable of tremendous love. I’m very loyal and very loving, which comes from my mother.

VINCENT: But you must admit you’ve got a problem when I say that a woman of seventy’s going to die within ten years and you panic. If I say Marsha’s mother is going to die within the next fifteen, it doesn’t panic you, does it?

MARSHA: It certainly does.

EMILY: What are we in analysis for if we can’t panic about our mothers dying? You’re telling me I have problems? I’m devastated.

VINCENT: You just said something so self-indulgent, you really said a terrible thing.

EMILY: I know, I used my analysis as a crutch.

VINCENT: Exactly. Boy oh boy, just because you’re in analysis, it doesn’t mean you’re that sick, it means you have problems.

EMILY: All right, darling. So?

MARSHA: I have to go to bed soon, I have a headache.

VINCENT: Did you take an aspirin? That’s what the doctor said to me, he said you come to me without taking aspirins? Should I get it for you, Marshie? I’m in such torment, such crisis, you have no idea, no one knows. If Emily and I went to bed together, would you be very upset?

MARSHA: Yeah.

EMILY: Did I show you this picture of my father? Be very careful, it’s the only one I have.

VINCENT: Ooooh! I’ve got some bad news for you, darling, and you better accept it. He looks just like Nathan Fass. I’ll bet you didn’t even see it — I’m the only one here who thinks of any -thing.

MARSHA: Vinnie’s getting very cocky.

VINCENT: That’s not true and don’t say it either. That’s horrible.

MARSHA: But you’re constantly saying how you know everything about everything.

VINCENT: I do. I know everything about what I know about.

EMILY: What do you think of the picture? Do you love it?

VINCENT: It’s gorgeous. No, Marshie, I mean it and I’m angry. You know I love your cat, Emmy, I love your cat.

EMILY: You really think he looks like Nathan Fass?

VINCENT: I think the cat looks like you, around the nose. Here’s the aspirin.

MARSHA: No spoon?

EMILY: Spoon? Are you four years old? Seriously, how old do you think you are emotionally, Vinnie?

VINCENT: In certain ways I’m very old.

EMILY: Marsha thinks she’s about nineteen.

VINCENT: She’s adorable.

EMILY: In certain ways I’m about thirty, but basically I’d say about twelve. How long did you go to Yale?

VINCENT: I went to Yale for two years. You’re very involved with status, aren’t you, and names. That’s because you don’t think much of yourself. Have you ever thought that women having to put on makeup makes them less than men? It’s true, isn’t it, in a certain kind of way?

EMILY: Yes.

VINCENT: Just look at this gorgeous limb. She’s got gorgeous legs.

EMILY: I love Marsha’s legs, she has very pretty legs.

MARSHA: Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

EMILY: Oh no, please, not yet! It isn’t time! Did I tell you what Sick Joan said the day after her birthday? The first words out of her mouth when she woke up were I’ve decided to extend my birthday for another day. That’s giving me the idea of extending mine. Not that it should begin before it begins — God knows I don’t want to punch thirty any sooner than I have to — but once I start punching, I might as well keep going. I’m serious.