S.Z. Sakall

Ilsa: Rick, I have to talk to you.

Rick: [Rick is drunk] Uh-huh. I saved my first drink to have with you. Here.

[passes her a drink]

Ilsa: No. No, Rick, not tonight.

Rick: *Especially* tonight.

Ilsa: Please...

[he pours a drink]

Rick: Why did you have to come to Casablanca? There are other places.

Ilsa: I wouldn't have come if I'd known that you were here. Believe me Rick, it's true I didn't know...

Rick: It's funny about your voice, how it hasn't changed. I can still hear it. "Richard, dear, I'll go with you anyplace. We'll get on a train together and never stop - "

Ilsa: Don't, Rick! I can understand how you feel.

Rick: [scoffs] You understand how I feel. How long was it we had, honey?

Ilsa: [on the verge of tears] I didn't count the days.

Rick: Well, I did. Every one of 'em. Mostly I remember the last one. The wow finish. A guy standing on a station platform in the rain with a comical look in his face because his insides have been kicked out.

Ilsa: Can I tell you a story, Rick?

Rick: Has it got a wow finish?

Ilsa: I don't know the finish yet.

Rick: Well, go on. Tell it - maybe one will come to you as you go along.

Ilsa: It's about a girl who had just come to Paris from her home in Oslo. At the house of some friends, she met a man about whom she'd heard her whole life. A very great and courageous man. He opened up for her a whole beautiful world full of knowledge and thoughts and ideals. Everything she knew or ever became was because of him. And she looked up to him and worshiped him... with a feeling she supposed was love.

Rick: [bitterly] Yes, it's very pretty. I heard a story once - as a matter of fact, I've heard a lot of stories in my time. They went along with the sound of a tinny piano playing in the parlor downstairs. "Mister, I met a man once when I was a kid," it always began.

[laughs]

Rick: Well, I guess neither one of our stories is very funny. Tell me, who was it you left me for? Was it Lazlo, or were there others in between or... aren't you the kind that tells?

[Ilsa tearfully and silently leaves. Rick's face falls in his hands sadly, knowing that he's said all the wrong things]

Captain Renault: [to Ilsa] I was informed that you were the most beautiful woman ever to visit Casablanca. That was a *gross* understatement.

Ilsa: [genuinely pleased] You're very kind.