FICTION-ONLINE An Internet Literary Magazine Volume 2, Number 1 January-February, 1995 EDITOR'S NOTES: FICTION-ONLINE is a literary magazine publishing electronically through e-mail and the internet -- starting with this issue, on a bimonthly basis. The contents include short stories, play scripts or excerpts of plays, excerpts of novels or serialized novels, and poems. Some contributors to the magazine are members of the Northwest Fiction Group of Washington, DC, a group affiliated with Washington Independent Writers. However, the magazine is an independent entity and solicits and publishes material from the public. To subscribe or unsubscribe or for more information, please e-mail a brief request to ngwazi@clark.net To submit manuscripts for consideration, please e-mail to the same address. Back issues of the magazine may be obtained by e- mail or by anonymous ftp from ftp.etext.org where issues are filed in the directory /pub/Zines or by gopher at gopher.cic.net under "electronic serials." AOL users will find back issues under "Writer's Club E-Zines." COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The copyright for each piece of material published is retained by its author. Each subscriber is licensed to possess one electronic copy and to make one hard copy for personal reading use only. All other rights, including rights to copy or publish in whole or in part in any form or medium, to give readings or to stage performances or filming or video recording, or for any other use not explicitly licensed, are reserved. William Ramsay, Editor ngwazi@clark.net ================================================================= CONTENTS Editor's Note Contributors "Two Poems" Robert Sward "Texts," fiction? George Howell "Italy," an excerpt (chapter 4) from the novel "In Search of Mozart" William Ramsay "First Reading," a ten-minute play Otho Eskin ================================================================= CONTRIBUTORS OTHO ESKIN, former diplomat and consultant on international affairs, has had numerous plays read and produced in Washington. His play "Duet" is in production at the Elizabethan Theater at the Folger Library. GEORGE HOWELL is a fiction writer living in Takoma Park, Maryland. He has written art reviews for "Eyewash" and the "Washington Review." WILLIAM RAMSAY is a physicist and is author or co-author of seven books on energy and environmental issues. He recently published a short story, "Heritage," in "Nebo." He is co-ordinator of the Northwest Fiction Group. ROBERT SWARD teaches at the University of California Extension in Santa Cruz. He has been the winner of a Guggenheim fellowship and is the author of twelve books, including "The Jurassic Shales" and "Four Incarnations." ============================================================== TWO POEMS by Robert Sward THE KITE I still heard Auntie Blue after she did not want to come down again. She was skypaper, way up too high to pull down. The wind liked her a lot, and she was lots of noise and sky on the end of the string. And the string jumped hard all of a sudden, and the sky never even breathed, but was like it always was, slow and close far-away blue, like poor dead Uncle Blue. Auntie Blue was gone, and I could not think of her face. And the string fell down slowly for a long time. I was afraid to pull it down. Auntie Blue was in the sky, just like God. It was not my birthday anymore, and everybody knew, and dug a hole, and put a stone on it next to Uncle Blue's stone, and he died before I was even born. And it was too bad it was so hard to pull her down; and flowers. NIGHTGOWN, WIFE'S GOWN Where do people go when they go to sleep? I envy them. I want to go there too. I am outside of them, married to them. Nightgown, wife's gown, women that you look at, beside them--I knock on their shoulder blades ask to be let in. It is forbidden. But you're my wife, I say. There is no reply. Arms around her, I caress her wings. ================================================================= TEXTS by George Howell BUSSES I. In those last days, when your life is just about up, you will look out your window and watch city busses. Reassuring -- tomorrow, or the day after, you may be gone, but the busses will be there. Overcrowded, running late, breaking down. But despite the inconvenience, they will be there. Not for you. You will be on the gauzy spirit staircase, rising above the bus-stops, the city blocks, the city, the bay -- rising above it all. But for everyone else, left behind, kicking newspapers out of the way on the sidewalks, the busses will be there. You will feel calm and reassured. No rage at having to leave. No, you will feel peace -- there will be a bus for the others. II. Before you go, you'd like to see, once more, all of the people you ever liked. You can imagine them all in a large hall or dining room. All of them wear nametags and greet each other, happy to become new friends because, of course, they have you as a common denominator. You'd like to see them all, laughing and clinking their glasses together. And if you cannot come into the same large room with them, then maybe, one by one, they would come into your room. You'd all share coffee or sparkling water, just to remind yourselves why you liked each other so much. You are sure that if they sat down with you, you'd find something new, something nice and lovely about them that would prove you were right in liking them in the first place. Small things, like friendship, will last after all. III. Before you die, you may not want to see any of the people you have loved before. Waiting in this dark room, in the presence of the ones you now love, is loss enough. In a way, the old, failed loves are like small dark rooms, prefiguring the present, very dark room where you wait. Why revisit old disappointments, old ambitions that failed, old unfulfilled hopes? You would be filled with longing, filled with the desire to return to those rooms one more time, to set right those loves that didn't work then and cannot work now. So why bother? But how can you deny that you once were a visitor, that you shared something special in these rooms, with this other, difficult person, or that one? By closing off these small dark rooms, you shut away so many older versions of yourself. This is why you cannot see them. It is too much. The past and future meeting together, and both lost. Of course you would not want to see the people you have loved before! Looking into the faces of those you love, now, you are miserable enough, and the room is very dark. ARREST ME "Go ahead, arrest me, arrest me. I know you can do it. Arrest me." The gravelly voice pounds like a fist against the windows, grey and shrouded in rain. Rain turns the Capital into a water world, as two men argue in the back of the bus. "They tried to do it to me before. They tried to pin three murders on me. I did the first one, I admit it, but I wasn't gonna let'em pin those other two on me. No way. I been around, motherfucker. So you can arrest me now, man. Go ahead, just try it." "I'm no cop. I can't arrest you." "No, go ahead, arrest me. I know you want to. Say, who the fuck are you, anyway?" "Watch your language," the other man advises. His voice, calm, easy. You try to ignore the ranting. You look out the window, distracted, look at the chilly rain falling on 16th Street. The streets are walled in by brick and mortar tenements, the streets filled with cars nuzzling bumper to bumper. "I got a piece. I'm loaded. Want to see my gun? I can kill you. I'll shoot you right here. And nobody, nobody's gonna take me off this bus alive." "Who'd even try, brother?" This second voice, so soothing, the sheath to the other man's knife. The young girl sitting across from you half-turns, shifts the book bag on her lap as she cautiously looks towards the back of the bus. You identify with her, with her grey eyes afraid to catch the eyes of the maniac. Maybe he really is armed, maybe he'll fly off, maybe he'll pull out his piece and more than rain will wash against the windows of this bus. "Who the fuck are you, man? Who the fuck are you?" Finally, your stop. Without looking back, you step down into the stairwell, step out of the rear door into the wet street. There is only rain. Water washes down the sidewalks, dams up into small lakes where brown leaves choke the storm drains. Popping open your umbrella, you realize that no one even thinks about nature in this city. There are the elements, like this rain, but it is merely an obstacle. There is no ocean. There are no mountains raised like the shoulders of the gods to protect this city. Who goes down to the river to be closer to nature? Dusty pathways weave in and out of the woods along the old canal, but the river is brown and swollen, and anyone seeking calm and solace could just as easily slip on the grassy banks, slip into the muddy currents and drown. ================================================================= ITALY by William Ramsay [Chapter Four of the novel, "In Search of Mozart"] The dim light blotting through the one dark window in the Twisted Loom was fading to a darker and darker brown. The rush of the Salzach River running under the stone bridge just outside the tavern could be faintly heard during lulls in the conversation. Willy had already left. The second glass of wine had made Wolferl dizzy. He stood up, he should really go, his father wanted to talk to him about something. About Italy, probably. He jostled Rudy Forster reaching for his watch. He raised it to the light and rubbed off a spot of grime on the mirror-bright case. The Princess of Orange had given the watch to him when he was only eight. Rudy, large and muscular, grabbed the watch from his hand. "What's this thing here, what would you say it's worth, Georg?" he said. Wolfgang tried to pull away from Rudy's giant hand, but Rudy held on. "What do you say, half a thaler? Not that much?" Rudy's body seemed to spill all over the narrow wooden table and bench. Wolfgang became acutely aware of his slight build, and he felt his armpits getting sweaty. "Oh, I don't know, why don't you take it off, Wolferl, so we can get a look?" said fat Georg, snorting. Rudy made as if to pull the fat golden watch off its long chain. Wolfgang felt the sharp tug at his waistcoat, snatched the watch from Forster's grasp, and jumped up from his seat: "You couldn't afford to buy it, even if I wanted to sell it!" He suddenly felt himself trembling. Rudy grasped his hand and pried his fingers off the watch. Oh God, thought Wolfgang, why did these things always have to happen to me? "I don't know. I'll bet I could pick up a better one in the Saturday junk market," said Rudy, smiling like an evil gnome and dangling the watch in front of Wolfgang. Wolfgang felt his face flushing. He tried to catch at it. "Don't get all upset, Wolferl, we won't take your pretty watch, we don't really _want_ it!" And Rudy dropped it into Wolfgang's hand, made a razzing noise with his lips, and then turned away and called hoarsely for more wine. As Wolfgang reached the door, he shouted back, "And I'll get some more gold watches in Italy!" Rudy guffawed. "You do that, little boy," he yelled in his deep voice, "you do that!" Rudy hugged Georg tightly around the neck and Georg cocked a fat-fingered snoot at Wolfgang. "Fishy-wishy!" he shouted. I do not look like a fish, he thought as he shut the door behind him -- his eyes didn't really bulge. Much. And he was better than all the rest of them put together. No one could do the things he could! To hell with those louses! Outside, the Salzburg sky was a mottled patchwork of grays, and the damp atmosphere of approaching snow wisped about his cheekbones. But he stopped in a doorway and closed his eyes. He concentrated his mind. His stomach calmed down, and in a moment he could positively _feel_ the faint glow of the distant warmth of Italy and picture the brown, ruined walls of the Colosseum gleaming in the dazzling light of Rome. He opened his eyes -- oh shit! The old Chief Kapellmeister, his father's boss, was approaching from the bottom of the Getreidegasse, close to the river. Giuseppe Francesco Lolli, hobbling from the gout, with Count Malatesta beside him. Uh-oh. Wolfgang turned into the alley by the livery stable to avoid the old man. God, it would be good to get away from Salzburg. What a bunch of idiots! Kapellmeister "Lollipop" Lolli, and "Count Malatesta" -- who use to be plain Hans Breidel the choir director before the Pope ennobled him -- and the Archbishop's steward, Count Arco, the whole bunch of them. Back home, he fell on the staircase, picked himself up, and went into the parlor, where he sat down, his head still spinning. He heard his father leave his study, then the parlor door opened, and his father appeared, slamming the door shut behind him. He was carrying the precious calf-bound copy of his book, the "Violin School." He threw the book onto the table, where it overshot and slid onto the floor. "Kapellmeister Lolli called me in today." "Oh?" "He says that you were rude to him in the street yesterday." "Me? Rude to him? I only said, well, I don't know what I said, exactly." "You don't know what you said," his father shouted. "You don't know! Sometimes I think you never know!" His father stood over him. "You've been drinking!" "I'm almost fourteen years old!" His father raised his hand as if to hit him but then smashed it on the table instead. The oil lamp shook, quivering. "How can you have been so stupid as to insult the Chief Kapellmeister!" "But he said... Do you know what he said about my last cantata, Papa?" "And here you are, tipsy." "Just two glasses of wine." "I don't care what Chief Kapellmeister Lolli said to you. I care what _you_ said, I care that he has the power to keep me from getting a leave of absence to take the trip. That's what I care." His father threw himself onto the ottoman and grasped his head between his hands. "I couldn't help it, he was so insulting." "'He was so insulting'! Haven't you understood yet, Wolferl?" he said, taking his hands away and staring at him with pained eyes. "We're musicians, we have to be able to take that kind of insult. You can't tell off the head music director to the Archbishop. Just get your tongue under control. And your pride! You can't afford that much pride. You'll ruin us both with it!" His father's voice turned soft but firm. "People won't forgive." "To hell with all these people, starting with the Archbishop!" "Bite your tongue, Wolferl, Archbishop Sigismund has been good to us! Go to bed, sleep off the wine. And keep your mouth shut after this, if you can't talk like a civilized person, then keep quiet!" "It just isn't fair!" "'Fair'! 'Fair'!" His father sat upright. "Now _I_ have to go and see if I can soothe down the Kapellmeister." "O.K., I apologize, Father." His father came over to him, stood there a minute. Then he put his hand on Wolfgang's head, lightly. "Just watch your step from now on." Then he started to walk out of the room. "And no more wine-drinking!" At the door, he paused a moment. "Well, you know," he said, turning to Wolfgang with the beginnings of a smile. "Know what?" "Lolli _is_ a nasty, sniveling toady!" Wolfgang watched his father's face brighten. "But our job as the Archbishop's servants is to try to keep that a secret," said his father snickering as he turned to go. Wolfgang listened to his father singing an air from Handel's "Alessandro" as he clattered off down the stairs. "Archbishop's servants"! Yes, servants joking behind the back of the master. The secret merriment of the lower classes. Now that Wolfgang was becoming a man, the search for a way out from any kind of servitude was becoming serious business. What would he be? What would he become? One thing he knew already. Music -- that was his escape route. With luck, he might be able eventually to play -- and compose -- his way out of being _anyone's_ servant -- including his father's! *** The Tyrolean crowd was so thick that the coach had to slow down. Then it stopped, and started, and stopped again. People tried to look in through the small windows. The pressure of their bodies made the coach rock and tremble. The coach moved forward a few more yards, then it stopped again. The door opened. His father got out first, then he alighted. People began to applaud. There were cheers, 'Viva, viva!', 'Evviva Mozart,' and 'Es lebe der Kleine.' Two husky servants from the inn pushed a path open for them into the church, but it was slow going. There was sweat on his brow by the time he reached the organ console. The whole town of Rovereto -- Austrians as well as Italians -- seemed to be jammed into the church. His hands were cold from the Christmastide weather, but his heart was warm. They all wanted him. Him. They had searched for him and had found him. Him. He wished that that louse Rudy Forster were there! *** The Eternal City, the hub of the Ancient World, began to come into view from the Florence road. Wolfgang pointed through the trees to where the top of one of the Seven Hills appeared, and then another, and then several more. The day was sunny, and the red tile rooftops shone brightly, but there was a light haze over the city. The city looked like a deserted monument, lying there waiting for them to discover it. "I feel like Caesar, after crossing the Rubicon, at the head of his legions, ready to take Rome by storm." "Rather arrogant thoughts," said his father. "I can't help what I think." "It's what you _say_ that always does us in, Wolferl, just _think_ before you speak." Don't tell the idiots that they're imbeciles, thought Wolfgang. Two days later, at the Vatican, standing on tiptoe, Wolfgang got a glimpse of Pope Clement XIV as he went through the Easter rite of feeding the poor. Embarrassed in spite of himself, he let his father push him up to the front row, and he found himself standing between two cardinals dressed in splendid robes and seated on hard wooden chairs. The younger of the cardinals had a round shiny face. He whispered to Wolfgang, "Would you have the kindness to tell me just who you are?" There was a hint of garlic on his breath. "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, at your service, Your Eminence." "Ah, you are the famous boy that people have written me so many things about." And he smiled and stared at him for a minute. His father put his mouth to his ear and whispered to him, "That's Cardinal Pallavicini, he's one of the key men in the Vatican hierarchy." "Look, Papa," he whispered, "now the Pope is getting down on his knees!" "Yes, Wolferl." His father's face was shiny and flushed. He saw the head of the Curia handing the Pope something. "Look, Papa!" It was a giant jeweled reliquary. "Yes, Wolferl, yes. All right. Don't hop around like that." He couldn't help hopping, he had to go to the privy. Later, as his father started to lead them away, the Cardinal took off his biretta and bowed politely to him. He squeezed his knees together, pressing back on his bladder. He could hear the people around him murmuring, someone said, "Il ragazzo famoso." Then others took it up in other languages: "Puer famosus," "Der beruehmte Junge," "Le garcon connu." The buzz was deafening. Oh, God, he really had to go! Oooh! Embarrassing! And what had happened last night, on the sheets -- what deliciousness, but what humiliation to let that chambermaid see what had happened! To be grown up, that was what he longed for -- to survive being just a "famous _boy_." How about a famous _man_? What might not a famous _man_ do? *** The next evening, after giving a concert to deafening applause at the Prisci Palace, Leopold put his hand on his son's shoulder as they were announced at a reception in their honor at Cardinal Pallavicini's. The main salon of the palace was sparkling with candles reflected in the mirrored walls. The windows were magnificent, tall and wide, with elaborate light green hangings. The Cardinal greeted him standing at one of the windows. "Herr Mozart. Look out there, at the city your son has conquered." The evening light was fading over the Opera House across the street. The tall, svelte Cardinal clasped his hands behind his back. "Your Eminence is too kind." "I understand, by the way, Herr Mozart, that you Germans are stealing some of the Pope's closely guarded musical secrets." "No disrespect was intended, I'm sure, Your Eminence." "Well, I'm sure that when His Holiness forbade making copies of Maestro Allegri's 'Miserere,' he didn't mean to forbid your son to memorize it from just a single hearing and then go home and write it down." He shook his head, smiling. "Wolfgang has always had a great facility for memorizing." "It's more than a 'great facility,' it's positively miraculous." "I wouldn't claim divine intervention, Your Eminence." "Well, Herr Mozart, it's all divine intervention, life is full of divine intervention, isn't it? Isn't that what we believe, as good Catholics?" "Yes it is. It certainly is." "Watch over him, Herr Mozart. Gifts like that often come burdened with their own crosses. It's an awesome responsibility for a father. Such talent. In such a small boy -- young man, I mean." "I know, Your Eminence." The Cardinal was pulled away by a monsignor and Leopold stood at the window looking out. It was darker, only the outline of the Opera House could now be seen. He didn't need to be lectured about responsibility, he thought. "The famous boy." Now his son was becoming a man. As a man, he might be famous or he might not. But it would be for different reasons than the boy Mozart. Just genius would not be enough. Parlor tricks would be less impressive -- even very _good_ tricks like the "Miserere." In not too many more years, there would be no more child prodigy, there would be only a man named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. But what kind of man? He looked over at his son, talking to a young lady in a pale violet dress. He cut a magnificent figure in his new suit of green shot moire, with a pink taffeta lining. He was laughing loudly, almost giggling, in the way he had when he was in a good mood, and he looked just like a carefree, rich young courtier. Just then Wolfgang made a wild, sweeping gesture, and the girl suddenly broke out into a fit of giggling. The girl was half a head taller than his son. Wolfgang was still a "small young man" -- but he was growing. Would he grow tall? More to the point -- would he grow great? Wolferl wasn't just a prodigy. He could be a great musician some day. But greatness didn't just happen, genius was like a seed: if it were sown in poor soil, it wouldn't grow. He had to provide that good soil for his son. He needn't search for a meaning to his own life. He knew what it was. It was Wolferl, Wolferl was his meaning. Whether his son liked it or not. Whether anybody liked it or not. Everything looked rosy today -- but they were living on the edge of a volcano. Wolferl's inchoate manhood was like a bomb waiting to go off -- it could blast a path to greatness, or destroy the lives of all of them. The next day they would set off on their tour to Naples, including Vesuvius. Vesuvius -- how appropriate! he thought. *** The young apples on the tree by the banks of the Salzach were the size of cherries. The day was quite warm. Marianne lowered the folded sheets of the letter from Rome. "Your father's letter is full of news about troubles, all kinds of little things, but I don't think your brother is suffering on this trip." "That little so-and-so. I'm so envious. Naples, Vesuvius, Pompeii." "Look at his postscript to your father's letter." Nannerl picked up the folded sheets. I'm here too, here I am. I too am still alive and always full of fun as usual and I simply love traveling. I have been now out on the Merde-iterranean too. I kiss Mamma's hand and Nannerl a 1000 times. Your silly pilly son and good ol' Joe of a brother Marianne Mozart laughed. "And he said the King of Naples smells of garlic and stands on a box so as to be as tall as the Queen. Wouldn't you love to see it all!" "Yes," said Nannerl, "I would. I'd also like to see them both." "Yes," said Marianne Mozart. "But it's God's will, Wolferl must follow his star." "I had a star once," said her daughter. "Dear one," said Marianne, "life is a good deal easier without a star. Most of us were meant to live on the ground -- and I think we're the lucky ones!" She frowned. "I only hope he can hold onto the lion strength of the Pertls -- he'll need it!" *** They were back in Rome. The Papal Secretary in his white robe kept them waiting for a few long minutes while he finished dictating a letter to a scribe. Count Fubini stood elegant in uniform, holding his white-plumed hat under his arm, at the secretary's right hand. Despite the July heat outside, the Vatican office was dark and cool. "Well, Herr Mozart," he said, turning to Wolfgang, "these occasions always give me pleasure." "Your Reverence is too kind," said his father. "Thank you, Your Reverence," said Wolfgang. "It is therefore my distinct honor to inform you, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, that you have been elected to the order of the Knights of the Golden Spur. If you will kneel, please." He knelt and the Count, his cuirass faintly glittering, touched Wolfgang's shoulder lightly with the flat of his sword. "Arise, Cavaliere di Mozart!" Wolfgang got up -- the Count and the Secretary shook hands with him. A knighthood! As they walked outside, Wolfgang's face was burning with excitement. He tripped on one of the cobblestones outside of St. Peter's and stumbled. He caught himself by clutching onto his father's shoulder. His father said, "Watch your step, Chevalier de Mozart." His head seemed to be buzzing. "Wolferl, I'm so delighted," said his father with a wide smile. You'll be a knight the rest of your life. Nobody can ever take that away from you." "Yes." "It's precisely the same title that Gluck has, and no other musician." Wolfgang skipped along the uneven edges of the stones. "Everybody in Paris calls him "Chevalier Gluck." His father stopped and took his arm. "What are you thinking, Wolferl?" "I'm bowled over, I don't know what to think." "Yes, of course!" "It reminds me of the first time we visited Vienna -- seeing the Emperor and Empress. How I wanted to be like them." He felt himself smiling. "'Cavaliere.'" "Just think, a Mozart is a Knight of the Order of the Golden Spur. If only my father were alive to see this day!" His father slipped a little skip into his step, then walked quietly again. "Let's celebrate. We haven't seen the Colosseum yet." They got into the coach, the driver whipped the horses viciously as they clattered through the narrow streets. But as they neared the Colosseum, they had to stop as a procession passed. First some young boys dressed in white and carrying banners went by. They were followed by a band consisting of two horn players, three drummers, a flute, and a violinist. A group of about fifty adolescent girls then marched by, very slowly -- they were all dressed in black. Then another group of girls dressed in black came by. The last group, however, were wearing crowns. His father asked the coachman what the procession was. "It's the Foundation, the Brothers of Pity. They help the girls. The unmarried girls." "But why the crowns?" "Oh, the first group have been given dowries. But the last group will become nuns. That's the meaning of the crowns." The coachman whipped up the horses again. "To reign in heaven, Papa?" "I suppose so. The Italians are strange, sometimes," he said in German. "An empty honor for some of those girls, I suppose." His father shrugged. At the Colosseum, they stood for a moment looking through one of the archways. "It is colossal," said his father. "Yes, even though the name doesn't refer to the amphitheater." "Doesn't it?" "No, it's taken from a colossal statue that stood just outside." "You know everything, Chevalier de Mozart." "Don't tease me." "But I'm not teasing, I'm very proud of you." His father put both hands on his shoulders. He shook his father's hands away. "Father, suppose the knighthood turns out to be an empty honor, like the crowns on the girls in black?" "Empty, no. Not at all." His father's hand pulled at his sleeve. "Watch out, Wolferl!" His father pointed out a mound of feces right by his shoe. He looked and saw groups of similar mounds along the walls and inside the amphitheater. "Disgusting! How can the authorities here allow people to treat these monuments as dumping grounds for privies." He shook his head. "Wolferl, enjoy the honor, don't ask yourself so many questions." He stood up and walked on inside, down into the former underground cells. His father followed him. "But I'll never be as good as they, will I, Papa?" "As _they_, _they_? Whom do you mean?" "You know." "If you're talking about archdukes and kings, they're in a distinct class of society. That's the way God made the world. But today's honor is a big step up. If only my father could be here!" "I can hardly remember him," said Wolfgang. "He was a peasant, yes. But a proud man. He was proud of his strength. Proud of the skill in his hands. My father's hands were clever, too, bookbinding requires it." His father held up his own hands. "Mine are good hands too. And yours -- of course, Signor Cavaliere!" He looked at his own hands. "What would those two have thought about this?" An old man, unshaven, in rags, came up to them with his hand out. Wolfgang moved his shoulder away from the old man's touch. His father shouted, "Via, via di qua!" Then he turned back his gaze to the setting sun. They walked down into the old corridors beneath the level of the ancient arena. "They would have been proud. Not that you were suddenly a nobleman -- or almost -- but because the world had recognized that you had achieved something important. Proud that your work had been appreciated. We may be of humble origins, but we have nothing to be ashamed of, we Mozarts. Nor your mother's family, the Pertls, either." "To real aristocrats we're still just dirt, though." "I'd like to see somebody tell me _I'm_ dirt! Never believe that! Never!" His father thought a minute. "Besides, who knows, some day you might be made a baron or a count. Look at all the papal titles in Salzburg." "'Count Mozart'?" His father smiled. "Count Mozarti?" "Duke of Mozartland?' "If not you, then maybe your son, Wolferl. My future grandchild. "You're beginning to make it sound like a children's game. Like kids playing King of the Mountain." "Maybe it is a game. But if so, we're right in the middle of the 'titles' game, we court musicians, whether we like it or not. So you'd better get used to it." "So we play the game, and how does it end up?" He gestured to the crumbled walls around him that used to be the cells where the emperors has held the wild animals, the gladiators, and the human victims. Yes," said his father, "it ends up as it ended up seventeen hundred years ago for the emperors, the senators, the gladiators, and the Christians. It ends up in the grave and after that, when the Final Trumpet sounds, we will all have to face our God for judgment, all of us -- emperor or slave." "Or musician," said Wolfgang. His father looked down at him, as he sat, swinging his leg, on a piece of brick wall that might have been part of the prison cell of St. Peter. "Or geniuses, for that matter," said his father. His father grasped him hard on the shoulder, close to the neck. "Come on, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, bookbinder's grandson, Cavaliere dell' Ordine dello Sprone d'Oro, let's get back to our humble inn -- before it turns into a glorious palace." In the gloom of the coach as it clanked and clattered along the streets of Rome, Chevalier de Mozart thought about some of the things he had given up -- in terms of home and friends -- to play the game of aspiring court musician, how much his father had _arranged_ for him to give up. Where would his personal search for himself finally end? Maybe before his own personal game was played out, he would be able to climb his way into the aristocracy, into the society of the princes of this world. That was all dreams. Meanwhile, in the practical world, there was Bologna -- where he had an opera to write. *** On the road to Bologna, they had an accident. The coach lurched suddenly and then tilted over to one side, slowed and stopped with a grinding sound. They waited for help in the hot sun of July. From time to time, clouds covered the sun and it was then comfortable to lie in the open windows to try to catch the slight breeze that was now coming up from the marshes. If life could just stop for a time, caught in the amber of this moment -- he was not yet fourteen years old, and he knew he would live for ever. At last they heard horses approaching. Two men pulled a wheel out of a cart. Another brought some hammers and nails and a full sheep's bladder over to the coach. Wolfgang stepped out and asked the man what he was going to do. The man, about twenty years old, missing four teeth in front, said, "I'm going to fix the axle tree." "What are you doing with the bladder?" "That's grease for the new wheel, when we get the tree fixed." "Hey, Cavaliere, they've brought some wine and cheese," said the postilion. "'Cavaliere,' eh," said the boy with the missing teeth, leering at him. "'Cavaliere,' hummm. A cavaliere, you live in a big castle, I suppose?" "No, we have a house, like anyone else's." "You must be very rich. Remember us poor lads, Cavaliere." Their fellow passenger, Signor Pollini, came up to them. "Get on with your work, don't bother the Cavaliere." "No disrespect intended, your honor. I was just talking with the Cavaliere. Isn't that right, sir?" "It's all right, Signore Pollini, he's not bothering me," said Wolfgang. Pollini shrugged and picked up a piece of cheese. Wolfgang watched the boy work. He put the two pieces of the axletree together, saw they would not hold, and went back to the cart for a piece of wood to reinforce them. He shaped the piece of wood carefully with a long knife and then nailed it neatly into the axletree pieces. The other men brought over the wheel, and the boy greased the axle before they put it on. It was all in place. The boy pulled back his long black curly hair. "Finished." "A nice job," said Wolfgang. The boy shrugged and blushed. "It's nothing, Cavaliere. We poor people are used to working with our hands." "So are we, boy." He felt odd calling the older youth "boy" but he didn't know what other word to use. "Not you, Cavaliere. Cavalieri don't work." "I work, at least. I work with my hands. And my head." The boy shook his head, unbelieving, and smirked. "I just do the same things that my father does. And what my grandfather did. Simple things. I've been working ever since I can remember, alongside my father." The youth's brow was furrowed. "But so have I, ever since I was five. Working, just like you. Alongside my father." The youth smiled shyly. "You're making fun of me, Cavaliere." "No, it's not a joke. Here!" And he handed the youth a florin. The youth bowed to him deeply. His voice took on a whine: "A ducat would buy me a new coat, Cavaliere." "A ducat! No, no." A ridiculously large sum. The son smiled again, showing the black gap in his mouth. "Cavalieri wear coats of gold. I've seen pictures." He spit on the ground in front of Wolfgang. Then he shrugged and climbed into the cart alongside his father. Wolfgang could hear the father start to hum a tune as he whipped up the horses. He toyed with the broken axletree with the tip of his shoe. His father put his arm around him. "What are you doing, Wolferl?" He shrugged off the arm. "I'm tasting the joys of my precious knighthood, that's what I'm doing." "You see, Wolferl. It was all worth it, wasn't it? All the sacrifices." His father grasped his arms tightly. "It was all worth it!" A few hours farther down the road, he caught himself staring out the window of the coach, a book on his lap. The summer heat was bearable when the coach was moving, but the roads were too rough for comfortable reading. They were nearing Siena, where they would stop to change horses. His attention strayed from the copy of "The Arabian Nights" that their landlady, Signora Uslenghi, had given him as a going-away present when they left Rome. Baghdad! What he wouldn't give to see Baghdad. Or Constantinople. But how could a plain musician get to Constantinople? From time to time, he let his head fall down over the book. "Where are we, Wolferl?" asked his father, waking up from a doze. "Near Siena, Papa." "Have you been thinking about the opera?" his father asked. "No, all I have to go on is a title." "Well, you know the story of Mithridates, don't you? Do you want to talk it over?" Were all fathers such pests? "Try to go back to sleep, father." His father shrugged and closed his eyes again. Lulled by the swaying of the coach, his father's head fell forward as he dozed off again. Music, music, always music. Was that all there was to life? His father -- he had no such doubts about his Wolferl's future. Work, perform, compose, make connections -- that was what life would be like. The eventual goal of an easy Kapellmeistership in some congenial court, with plenty of time for composing and enjoying as many of the good things in life as a minor functionary could afford. But _he_ was not his father. He belonged to a new generation. Besides, he had a very special talent, everybody told him so. But did that mean he had to be a prisoner of that talent? A slave to music? Life was more than that. Life had to involve a search for _meaning_ -- for his own individual destiny. Life. The tepid breeze blowing in through the windows of the coach, the dazzling heat and dust outside, the chilly majesty of the far hills, covered with olive-green brush and swirling in a bluish haze. Life. The pink and bluish-white neck of Lady Hamilton in Naples, as he had stood beside her while she played the clavichord in the Ambassador's palace. Life. So much more than music! They were lounging idly with their books after dinner in the dining room of the inn in Siena. His father was studying a book of sermons. "What are you reading, Wolferl?" "About Sir Walter Raleigh's voyages." "Oh," said his father. "Raleigh," said a tall man in his thirties wearing an odd, square-shaped wig sitting opposite. "I'm sorry, but I'm English, my name is Jenkins, and I couldn't help overhearing. Could I see the book?" Wolfgang handed it to him. "Ah, that new French edition. When I was a boy, I always used to read about Raleigh and imagine myself in the jungles, looking for Eldorado. I come from the same part of England as Raleigh, Devonshire." "Do you?" said Wolfgang. "Have you ever been to Guyana?" "I_have_ been to the Gold Coast." "On a slaver?" "As a matter of fact, yes. I'm a factor, I do the business end." "How I'd love to see Africa." The stranger lit his pipe. "Maybe you will some day." "Not very likely, at least for the present," said his father. "My son's a musician. Europe is his world." "I'd give anything to see the Gold Coast," said Wolfgang. "Are you going back there now?" "No, I'm off to Constantinople when I finish my business here. I'm going from Bologna to Ravenna and then across the Adriatic to Greece." "I envy you," said Wolfgang. Jenkins laughed. "Well, if your father doesn't object, you could go along with me -- right now." "My son has to go to Bologna -- he's writing an opera for the court." "Opera?" Ah, you must be the musical ..." "'Prodigy'," said his father, smiling. Wolfgang felt embarrassed. "Well, what do you know. No, I guess you wouldn't want to go with me to Greece. You already have your life mapped out here." "But I would like to go." "We'd all like to do certain things. But we can't do everything, " said his father. "But I would, Papa." "You'd better listen to your father," said Jenkins, pulling loudly on his pipe. "I wish _I_ could play a musical instrument. Tried the fiddle once, but it didn't take. You'd better stick to your last, young man." And Mr. Jenkins bade them good-night, got up, and walked out the door. Watching Jenkins leave, it was as if a dark cloud had suddenly gathered, obscuring a bright, pale blue horizon that stretched far into the distance. The cloud sat atop the golden sails of feluccas beating to windward, headed for the Golden Horn. The fantastic spires of Constantinople receded into the far distance, his eyes seemed to search for them in vain as they dissolved into the darkness of his mind. *** Wolfgang arrived in Bologna excited about the opera -- and about meeting their host, the immensely wealthy Count Pallavicini -- who was also an Imperial Field Marshall, Knight of the Order of St. John's, and a cousin of their friend the Cardinal. He and his wife, a famous beauty whose portrait had been painted by Tiepolo, lived outside of town on a grand estate, Croce del Biacco. Guido, the Count's only son, was almost sixteen. Wolfgang envied him his small, finely chiseled nose, his tall, handsome figure -- and his title, "Imperial Grand Chamberlain." Guido invited him to share his lessons, and it was exciting to hear a real tutor talk about geometry, Latin, astronomy, rhetoric, and anatomy. "I wonder how it must feel to be in your shoes, Guido." They were in the grand salon of the house, and Wolfgang had been struggling to make a diagram of an icosahedron. Out the window, he could see the vast green lawn stretching down to a line of slender cedars, just in front of a small rocky brook. After a moment of silence, Guido stuck his tongue in his cheek, then took it out again. He said, "Oh, you mean all this," gesturing toward the far end of the room and vaguely out the window where a portion of a row of tall, slender cedars could be seen. Then, thoughtfully, "I know what you mean. But it's ... it's really a _responsibility_," he said, suddenly brightening. "My father says that I'll have to help guide the lives of all our people. It really won't be all that easy." "But you'll be rich." "Yes..." "That's something," said Wolfgang. The young Count gazed out the window at the bright day. "Do you know what I really want to be when I grow up?" Looking at Mozart intently, he blurted out, "A natural philosopher!" A natural philosopher! Wolfgang pictured distant planets and tiny creatures in drops of water, invisible to the naked eye. Laboratories, telescopes, geometry. He had been fascinated with mathematics when he was a child: his parents told him it was the only passion they had ever seen him have -- other than music. But still, natural philosophy couldn't be as grand as being the Count Pallavicini, Imperial Chamberlain and all. "You mean you'd give up being Count?" "Well, I have to be the Count, I was born to that, but I wouldn't have to just sit here and take care of things on the estate, I could live in Bologna or Rome or even Paris, and I could have a laboratory in my house -- and an observatory! Father promised he would get a telescope made for me." "Oh yes, astronomy!" The stars -- the planets. He imagined being on Mars or Jupiter. "Didn't you ever think of being anything other than a musician?" asked Guido. All the impressions of the last few months seemed to crowd into his mind. "I owe everything to music." His voice caught slightly. "Even my knighthood." "Yes, 'Cavaliere,'" said Guido. "But you have thought of other things, haven't you?" The Pallavicini palace didn't seem like the right place to be bringing up the Count Mozarti fantasy. "I'd have liked to be somebody like Columbus, maybe, or Marco Polo. You know, new worlds." He smiled. "Imagine being Raleigh and first seeing the Orinoco and the mainland of America. Going into the immense forests, looking for gold, and..." "And not knowing whether you were going to find Indians, or lions, or snakes right in your path, at any minute!" said Guido. "Yes, what a feeling that must be." How he longed for the deck of a ship, the sight of the green coastline heaving into view, the trees beginning to stand out as you got closer. But it was easier to admit to himself that he envied Sir Walter Raleigh his voyage to the Guyanas than that he envied Guido his title and estate. And now he realized he also envied his friend his freedom, his freedom to be _anything_. If Guido wanted to be a natural philosopher, he could be. If he wanted to be an explorer, he could probably go out and buy his own ship and just do it. He could even be a juggler in a traveling carnival for a while -- and then come back and be a Count again! What could Wolfgang be? Very likely just what he knew he already was -- a good musician and, if he worked hard enough, a great musician. But still -- a musician. Why could there be only one career for him? Why should someone like Guido be so favored? He admired Guido, but not _that_ much! He himself wasn't inferior to Guido in intelligence or capability -- quite the opposite, if anything. Had he been born at the wrong time, under an unlucky star? But that was just superstition. Was his life fixed? Or could there be surprises in store for him, did God want him to go farther than other people -- not only in music, but also in the other things that he could do or would do? Could the knighthood be a kind of omen that he was going to be lifted up far above anything he could have dreamed of? What could he do to search out his secret destiny -- if he had one? How alone he felt when he thought along these lines! How about love? How could he ever find a woman who would be one of his own kind, maybe with her own special genius -- and one who would truly love him? Someone sweet and wise and noble -- like Countess Lotte? Guido had been idly playing the beautiful white clavichord in the salon. He had been experimenting with one of Wolfgang's sonatas, but the piece seemed to be a little too hard for him. Now he said, apparently reading Wolfgang's mind, "Do you ever think what it would be like to be married? I suppose I'll get married someday, my mother even thinks I should marry Princess Scala. But she's only nine years old and awfully skinny and has a long, funny-looking nose, I can't imagine being married to her." "I can imagine being married to some people," said Wolfgang, thinking in particular of a lovely young brunette, the daughter of a duke at the Neapolitan court -- an older woman, sixteen, but hauntingly pale, beautiful. "Yes, did you see the ones on Margherita Piccolomini yesterday? How'd you like to get your hands on those?" "Oh, yes." What a girl -- what a woman! "Yes, I've never seen anything like it." Guido said, "Why didn't you dance with her? I saw you talking with her." "I wanted to, but she had no dances free." "But I don't understand! After I saw you with her, I saw Marchese Viccio talk with her and she wrote down something in her book. And then she talked to young Baron Lippheim and she also..." Guido stopped and turned his eyes way to stare out the window. Wolfgang didn't say anything. Guido started to turn red. "Well, anyway, what does it matter?" he said. Wolfgang closed his eyes -- they felt raw, irritated. "I mean, it's not as though..." Wolfgang bit his lip, feeling a hollowness in his stomach. "Anyway, Wolferl, you're my friend. You're as good as anybody as far as I'm concerned. After all, you're even a cavaliere." Wolfgang turned away and gazed out the window at the line of cedars along the brook. A gardener was pushing a wheelbarrow filled with manure up to a small bridge. He imagined his great-grandfathers, tilling the soil of other people. Ancestors of a "cavaliere." He almost wished his father had never left Augsburg -- then he, his son, would know who and what he was. How could he expect any desirable woman to love him -- when he was still searching for who he was? A few days later, the Mozarts moved into Bologna, to an inn in a cul-de-sac behind the prison. Manchini, the chief musician to the Papal vicar, called and told them that Wolfgang was to be elected a member of the Accademia Filarmonica at Bologna -- a special honor never before given to anyone that young. He would be received by the famous Padre Martini. Martini, the grand old man of music. His father was ecstatic. "Universally respected, Wolferl! The foremost living authority and scholar on music!" Wolfgang knew of his compositions and performances -- as well as his project to write a comprehensive history of music, "Storia della Musica." Martini received them in his sparely but expensively furnished apartments just down from the cathedral close in Bologna. His face was cheerful, with large sparkling brown eyes, under a dark gray woolen monk's cowl and a matching cylindrical hat. "My dear boy," he said, taking Wolfgang by the hand. "I've heard so much about you." The Padre asked them about their travels and then talked about the history of music from the Middle Ages down to the present. His father encouraged the Padre, pressing him with questions about the Grecian modes, Arab music, Gregorian chants. When they came down to the present day, Wolfgang was pleased to hear that Martini was not overly impressed by Handel. He predicted that Joseph Haydn, not his brother Michael, who was more familiar to Wolfgang, would be a great influence on the development of music. He talked about the court librettist at Vienna, Metastasio: "In my younger days, his creative ideas gave a real spur to composers and to other librettists. But, I fear, by now my dear old friend Pietro has become an institution. I'm afraid," said Martini, "that I'm becoming an institution myself! Just an old monument -- in ruins!" "By no means, Padre," said his father. "Your contributions remain a constant source of inspiration." "Well, it's gratifying if I've been able to do anything for music, I love it so." He turned to Wolfgang and tapped him on the knee and whispered, "Lord, what I wouldn't give to be fourteen again!" Then he turned to look at the crucifix on the wall and said, "Yes, I'm glad that people think that I've contributed something to worldly knowledge. That is something -- especially since music is inextricably connected with the divine. But life is short, and it's now getting to be time for me to concentrate on thinking about the other world." "I hope not for many years yet, Padre," said his father dutifully. "And your place in history is secure." "Ah, who of us is wise enough to know that?" He stopped and looked inquiringly at them. "Well, let's talk about life and the living -- about you, young man. You intend to dedicate yourself to music? "Yes, Your Reverence," said his father. "No rosebud lips and soft white shoulders to tempt a fourteen-year-old from a life of long hours of practicing and writing?" "No, Your Reverence," said his father. Oh, no? thought Wolfgang. That's how much his father knew! Wolfgang imagined for the fiftieth time what it would be like to be in a darkened room on a sofa with someone like Margaret Piccolomini. The Padre poured out some port into very tiny glasses and handed the glasses to them. "And remember the sacred obligation," said the Padre. "The sacred obligation?" said his father. "I mean the obligation to God. The obligation we all have to make use of our talents." "Of course, Padre," said his father. "But it's not that easy, is it?" asked Martini. "Not that easy?" said Wolfgang. "To be a talent and a human being, filled with original sin, and beset by all the weaknesses of the flesh." "But does God tell us that we have to _use_ our talents?" Wolfgang heard his voice shaking slightly. "No," said Martini thoughtfully, "many of the saints threw their talents away - - for holy purposes." "But they were saints," said his father. "The obligation isn't to do any one thing. The obligation is to do what you do for the greater glory of God. If you, young man, want to be a farmer instead of a musician, do it! But be sure that, even if you're shoveling manure on a dung heap, that you are thinking: this is what God put me here for, this is what I am doing as a Christian to make a better world, to prepare for the Second Coming." "Well said, Padre," said his father. Wolfgang felt disgusted. It all _sounded_ good -- but it was all so impossibly angelic. Martini lifted Wolfgang's face to his and kissed him. "I know how it is. You're young, there is a season for all things." He smiled at him. "Go with God. The community of the faithful is with you. Never forget that." "I wish I could, Padre," said Wolfgang. "But I do wonder if some precepts of faith are too difficult to live your life by." "Wolferl!" said his father. "Young man," said Martini, "we all have to search to find ourselves. God has given us talents." He raised one long, bent finger. "But he hasn't given us the divine knowledge of how to use them." Later, as they heard the door of the Padre's apartments close behind them, Wolfgang thought: old men didn't understand anything about life. The curve of Margaret Piccolomini's breasts in her low-cut ball gown was as beautiful -- or moreso -- as all the Handel oratorios in the world. His sacred obligation was to his one life -- living it to the full, the only life he would have in This World. There was music -- but there were also lovely girls -- and wealth -- and ambition. The ambition to make his own place, to rise above the need to bow and scrape to all the titled assholes of the world. Future Count Mozarti, full speed ahead! He wondered where "Count Mozarti" would find his countess. Italian women were lovely. Unfortunately, in the spring, they would have to return home. But hell, his future "countess" might be hidden away anywhere, even in _Salzburg_! ================================================================= FIRST READING by Otho Eskin Cast of Characters (In Order of Their Appearance) Thomas John Mistress Browne Jack Sir Oliver Mistress Jane Robert Will Mistress Marian TIME: The time is a Tuesday afternoon in the year 1586 SCENE: The back room of the Mermaid Tavern, London. In the center are chairs placed in a semicircle. Nine people are seated on the chairs -- each holding a playscript. THOMAS (Reading haltingly -- without emotion) Take up the bodies: such a sight as this becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. Go, bid the soldiers shoot. SIR OLIVER Exeunt. (The group sits in silence) JOHN (Rousing himself, speaking brightly.) Well, that certainly was interesting. Really, it was very interesting. What are your reactions? MISTRESS BROWNE I don't get it. JOHN Our young author has just joined the group. Let's keep our comments constructive. Isn't that right, Mistress Browne? Who wants to begin? JACK (Hesitatingly) There certainly was a lot of action. JOHN What else? (A long silence) THOMAS I think there should have been more blood. JOHN Remember, Thomas, at this point we only speak about what we liked in the play. Let's hold our constructive criticism until later. SIR OLIVER There was too much violence, if you ask me. I was saying only the other day to the Lord Chamberlain... MISTRESS JANE What ever happened to beauty? -- to high thinking? Doesn't anybody write plays anymore about noble themes? SIR OLIVER There hasn't been a really good play since Ralph Roister Doister. JACK Bor-ing. JOHN Can we get back to young Will's play. ROBERT (To JANE) Psst! (JANE does not notice ROBERT) JOHN What else did we like? ROBERT (To JANE - louder) Psst! (JANE looks at ROBERT) JOHN Is there anything that you didn't understand? MISTRESS BROWNE I didn't understand anything. ROBERT (To JANE) Do you believe in sex on the first date? MISTRESS JANE I beg your pardon. JOHN Well, let's begin by deciding who the protagonist is. ROBERT (To JANE) What do you say we slip away for a couple of brews? JOHN Any ideas? ROBERT (To JANE) Want to play script doctor? MISTRESS JANE I declare. (JANE turns away from ROBERT and tries to ignore him.) ROBERT I'll show you my outline if you'll show me yours. JOHN Robert! Please pay attention. Now, anybody, who is the protagonist? JACK Maybe it's...what his name--- the guy with the dagger... WILL Hamlet. ROBERT Frigid bitch. JOHN Is Hamlet the protagonist? MISTRESS JANE It can't be Hamlet. He doesn't have a plan. JOHN I think Jane has put her finger on a very basic problem in your play, Will. WILL You are missing the whole point... JOHN You can't have a central character who doesn't take action. JACK Bor-ing. JOHN The audience won't identify. Hamlet is a loser. SIR OLIVER A wimp. JACK You said it. MISTRESS BROWNE What did he say? JOHN Your main character has got to make things happen. WILL That's absurd. MISTRESS JANE Is this play supposed to be in poetry? It doesn't even rhyme. WILL I don't think any of you have any idea what this play is about. MISTRESS BROWNE I didn't. What is it about? THOMAS I don't see why Hamlet didn't just bash in his uncle's head. Crush his skull and splatter his brains all over the stage. Then tear his guts out and stomp on them. Now that would have been good theater. (The others stare at THOMAS with consternation.) MISTRESS JANE That's disgusting. JOHN Marian, you've been very quiet. What did you think? MISTRESS MARIAN I liked the scenes between Hamlet and Ophelia. They were full of sexual tension. Ophelia's lust -- her suppressed carnal desire stirring the secret, moist parts of her body... MISTRESS JANE My goodness gracious. ROBERT I missed that part. MISTRESS MARIAN You could almost feel Hamlet's throbbing need... MISTRESS JANE Oh dear. MISTRESS MARIAN You can sense every fiber of their heated flesh trembling with expectation. ROBERT (Frantically leafing through the playscript) What page was that on? MISTRESS MARIAN The blood, engorging their... JOHN Thank you, Marian. MISTRESS MARIAN Her lips - moist and open - inviting his fiery, exploring tongue... JOHN (Louder) Thank you, Marian. I am sure that was very insightful. SIR OLIVER I don't understand what the group of players was supposed to be doing. MISTRESS BROWNE I don't understand anything. JACK (To himself) I don't understand why they allow broads in this class. WILL None of you understood a thing. JOHN Now, Will. We have a lot of very talented people in our group. I dare say they have more experience in playwriting than you, my young friend. Jane here, for example, has been working on a seven-act play on the subject of the muse of dance. She has completed her fourteenth... MISTRESS JANE (Modestly) Fifteenth. JOHN .fifteenth draft of the play. (To JANE) We're beginning to seesome real progress too. ROBERT Muse of the dance! Jeezz! Dumb broad. MISTRESS JANE What did you just say? THOMAS You have all completely missed the point of the play. WILL Exactly. If I could explain.... THOMAS I'm not through. Hamlet is obviously the story of a man who wants to have sex with his mother. MISTRESS BROWNE With who? Whom? MISTRESS JANE Oh, my! THOMAS The bedroom scene with his mother is seminal. He wants to be seduced by his mother and he also wants to rape her. ROBERT No shit! MISTRESS JANE I beg your pardon. MISTRESS BROWNE What did he just say? THOMAS The murder of Polonius is a surrogate for Hamlet's murder of his own father. The vision of the ghost represents Hamlet's fantasy that his father is dead so that he can make love to his mother. MISTRESS MARIAN I love it when you talk like that. THOMAS But there is a deeper level of meaning. MISTRESS MARIAN Don't stop. WILL It might help if I said something about... THOMAS Hamlet has a repressed sexual desire for his father, as well. MISTRESS JANE Oh, my God! ROBERT That's gross. That's truly gross. THOMAS Hamlet has been psychologically castrated by his father. He wants to kill his father to get his penis back. MISTRESS JANE I think I may be ill. THOMAS The bit with the dagger says it all. MISTRESS MARIAN Tell me more about the dagger. MISTRESS BROWNE What dagger? JACK You are reading your own sick fantasies into a simple story. SIR OLIVER Hear! Hear! JACK Hamlet is a metaphor for the class struggle. SIR OLIVER I say there! JACK The uncle-king represents the oppressive class exploiting the working masses. Hamlet recognizes the historical imperatives of the struggle but he has been so weakened by the lies of the establishment that he cannot act and is therefore destroyed. SIR OLIVER I don't think that's the point at all. Not at all. JACK The problem with the play is the setting. Too remote. It should be contemporary and be put in a working class environment. That would bring out the social contradictions in our society and inspire the people in their struggle. WILL I don't think any of you know the first thing about writing plays. I don't know why any of you are here. MISTRESS JANE I am here to express the beauty I feel in my heart. JACK I want to learn to speak for the inarticulate masses. SIR OLIVER I want to bring entertainment to the little people out there. And maybe get an invitation to court. MISTRESS MARIAN I want to explore our sexual yearning, pulsating flesh in all its... JOHN Thank you, Marian. THOMAS I want to work through my anger and my conflicts. ROBERT I joined the group to meet girls. MISTRESS BROWNE I'm not sure why I'm here. WILL This is mad. If this were played upon a stage now I could condemn it as an improbable fiction. JOHN (Patiently) Don't be discouraged, Will. It is always hard at first. We've given you several very useful suggestions. You should clarify motivation and lighten the play up a bit. It's got to be up- beat to appeal to sophisticated, modern audiences. WILL That wasn't the play I had in mind exactly. JOHN Make Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into a couple of zany side kicks. WILL Perhaps I should give up the idea of writing. My father told me I had no talent. He said I would be wasting my time in London. JOHN Work on the play, Will. With our help you may eventually have something. WILL It seems, somehow, without point. When I travelled to London I had hoped for something different. I had dared to think I might discover in the dross of this great town the elixir of the soul which could transform the base metal of our sorry lives into the pure gold of poetry. I thought to make this small patch of barren wood into -- enchanted isles, dark forests wild, blasted heaths, vast fields of battle where, in fierce visored strife, great princes fall; to weave upon these dingy, mottled walls -- rich tapestries of beauty and enchantment; skeins of flowered vines where magic creatures dwell; to build upon this rough-hewn floor -- lofty battlements, spired palaces and sweet bowers of ease, drenched with perfumed passion. I hoped with my voice to mimic the dulcet chords of love, the strident drum of war, the mincing lute, the wanton lyre, the bullying trump with brazen breath. I dreamed that, with the rouge and paint of my poetry, the mortal clay of actors upon this stage would become --fair youths entangled in the happy gossamer bonds of love; stout soldiers who, with bearded oaths, daunt the very thresholds of hell; brave kings; black villains, faeries and spirits of the air to caress our fancies and sing sweet languorous songs of gentle ease; fair maidens of beauty so divine as to pierce the heart and make fond lovers of us all. Can I find that magic potion which would ease the burden of the tortured soul and bring respite to the troubled spirit? Should I seek to give our gentle audience an hour's flight of fancy, a moment of glad grace and charm; to transport them from this sorry, troubled place to another realm where light and noble passion dwell, where love and honor reign? (Beat) Nah. I don't have the talent for it. CURTAIN =================================================================