The Dance At The Gym: Meeting Scene

(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.)

You're not thinking I'm someone else?
I know you are not
Or that we have met before?
I know we have not
I felt I knew something-never-before was going to happen, had to happen. But this is
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.)
Yours, too...
But of course. They are the same
It's so much to believe. You're not joking me?
I have not yet learned how to joke that way. I think now I never will.

(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 half an hour at Doc's drugstore.)