ISABELLE
Arthur, do you know me? Do you know your sister, your youngest sister, Isabelle? Can you feel my strength, my love? The love of the Lord that flows through me.
ARTHUR
I see you, my angel. My angel of happiness.
ISABELLE
Oh, yes! Yes, Arthur! I am! Your angel. Oh, thank you, Lord, for bringing my brother home before . . . before. . . .
ARTHUR
Before his death. The death of the late Arthur Rimbaud.
ISABELLE
No, perhaps it is possible that you may live! The Lord is merciful, it’s in His power to heal.
ARTHUR
We’ll walk then, you and I, around Harar, when my new leg is attached, my artificial limb. You won’t believe the colors! And Aden, we’ll journey to Aden. I can arrange things there, arms for the South. Tell Djami, my man, my one brother under the sun, I am on my way! I’m coming with snow on my scarf, flowers from the Ardennes, things he’s never seen! Wake me before the harbor burns. It will burn after our boat departs, so we can watch the flames from the deck as we disappear over the horizon, a spectacle of fire, our farewell.
ISABELLE
Arthur, Arthur! Are you gone?
ARTHUR
Sails . . . yellow, red . . . the sea.
END
SERIOUS ENOUGH
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Jane Bowles, forty-five years old, author of the novel Two Serious Ladies and a play, In the Summer House
Brenda, well-dressed woman in late middle age
Bartender
A Man
SETTING
The bar of the Stanhope Hotel in New York City, December 1962.
JANE BOWLES enters the elegantly appointed bar and takes a seat. The Stanhope is a first-class hotel. She takes off her gloves, unfastens her coat and removes her hat, revealing unruly dark hair, cut short. She shivers from the cold. Seated a couple of stools away is BRENDA, smoking a cigarette in a long holder and sipping a martini. They are the only two customers in the bar on a mid-afternoon. The BARTENDER comes over to JANE.
BARTENDER
May I serve you, madam?
JANE
I suppose, yes.
(points to Brenda’s glass)
What is she drinking?
BARTENDER
A Beefeater martini, straight up, two olives.
JANE hesitates.
BARTENDER
English gin. Very dry.
JANE
Fine, I’ll have that.
The BARTENDER walks away.
JANE
(to brenda)
Hi, my name is Jane.
BRENDA
Mine is Brenda.
JANE
(still shivering)
I’m not used to the cold any more. I grew up here but I haven’t been in New York for two years.
BRENDA
Do you live in Florida?
JANE
Oh, no, Florida is a terrible place. My mother lives there. I live in Tangier, Morocco.
BRENDA
You’re a long way from home. I’ve never been to North Africa. What do you do there?
JANE
Oh, I write, and mingle with the natives. My husband writes, too, and he composes music. We’re in New York now because he has a job composing music for a Broadway play. His name is Paul. My mother and sister were just here, from Florida, to visit me. They left this morning, thank goodness. We don’t get on well together, not well at all. Is your mother still alive?
BRENDA
No.
JANE
That’s one less thing you have to worry about.
The BARTENDER brings Jane her drink.
BARTENDER
One Beefeater martini, straight up, two olives.
He walks away. JANE lifts the glass to her lips.
BRENDA
Don’t drink it too fast. It’s very cold.
JANE
Thanks for the tip.
She sips tentatively.
JANE
(shivers again)
BRENDA
What sort of writing do you do, Jane?
JANE
Short stories, a play. Now I’m trying to write a novel.
BRENDA
Do you have a title? I often buy a book just because I like the title.
JANE
Three Serious Ladies, or maybe it’s only Two Serious Ladies. I haven’t decided yet. Is it good for you, Brenda? The title, I mean. Would it appeal to you enough to make you want to buy it?
BRENDA
I’m not sure. Perhaps, if the cover art attracted me. How serious are these two or three ladies?
JANE
Serious enough. Each of them is searching for the best way to live her life. And with whom, if there is a whom. Where do you live?
BRENDA
Aren’t we all. I live here, in the Stanhope.
JANE
I like to come in here when I’m in New York. Charlie Parker died in this hotel. Did you know that ? In a suite occupied by a very rich heiress.
BRENDA
The Baroness. Yes, I knew her. She moved to New Jersey after that musician died.
JANE
He and his friend Dizzy Gillespie invented bop. Do you like jazz? My husband hates it. Oh, I’m sorry, asking you all these questions.
BRENDA
Drink your martini, Jane. You don’t want it to cool down too much.
JANE and BRENDA both sip from their glasses.
JANE
Do you prefer women or men, Brenda? To sleep with.
BRENDA
(laughs)
I sleep with Horatio. He’s been fixed.
JANE stares at her.
BRENDA
My poodle.
BRENDA signals to the bartender, who comes over and presents BRENDA with a check, which she signs, then stands up. The BARTENDER picks up the check and moves away.
BRENDA
It’s been interesting talking with you, Jane. I’ll look for your novel.
JANE
Oh, it’ll be a while before it’s published. That’s if I can find a publisher for it, of course. Only one other person has read what I’ve written so far and he said it was unrelievedly unorthodox.
BRENDA
How could it be otherwise? Good luck, Jane.
BRENDA leaves the bar. JANE watches her go, then looks around nervously before lifting her glass and swallowing the remainder of her martini all at once.
JANE
Bartender! Oh, bartender!
He comes over.
JANE
Are there many women living alone in this hotel?
BARTENDER
A few. Would you like another martini?
JANE
I have an appointment with a psychiatrist this afternoon. Do you think I should?
BARTENDER
That’s not for me to say, madam.
JANE
I’m not a really serious drinker. I’ll bet you know if someone is a serious drinker or not as soon as they sit down at the bar, don’t you?
A MAN enters and takes a seat at the opposite end of the bar.
BARTENDER
(to jane)
Pardon me, madam. I’ll come back.
He walks away to wait on the man. Jane puts on her gloves, removes an olive from her glass and eats it, then does the same with the other olive. She puts on her hat.
JANE
If I can’t take myself seriously, why should I expect anyone else to?
She picks up her glass and holds it out in front of her.
JANE
Bartender! A martini, please, straight up, two olives!
END
THE CAPTIVE
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Marcel Proust, writer, author of the monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time)
The Angel of Death, female, wearing a black cape and cowl
SETTING
The bedroom of Marcel Proust, Paris, France, 1922. He is lying on what will very soon be his deathbed. The furnishings are sumptuous albeit stuffy, overly done; a claustrophobic atmosphere.
PROUST is on the bed surrounded by the scattered printer’s page proofs of his massive novel. He is revising the volume entitled La prisonnière (The Captive).
PROUST
Oh, the agony! It’s bad enough to know that I’m about to die, but worse to realize that my book will never be properly finished. I’m barely able to breathe and here I am mincing my words—Albertine’s words—regarding anal intercourse. Of course she must be made to make reference to it obliquely, even reluctantly. She cannot be allowed to say it straight out, “me faire casser le pot.” Not even the boys in my hotel would use such a term. No, she must let the word “asshole” slip out, as if she is perhaps conversing with one of her girlfriends, and immediately be ashamed for having even referred to the act in my—the narrator’s—presence. Here, I’ll fix it.
Proust crosses out words on the page in front of him, writes in others.
There, done! I suppose I’ll be dead and never know if even this sanitized sentence survives.
The door to the bedroom flies open and there appears in the doorway THE ANGEL OF DEATH. A female of indeterminate age, she spreads the folds of her great cape like a peacock displaying its wings and tail. PROUST looks up from his manuscript and sees her.
PROUST
No, no, not yet! I’ve not finished revising my masterpiece.
ANGEL
(advancing toward the bed)
Don’t insult my intelligence, Marcel. Your masterpiece, you call it. Scribbling about ass-fucking. Forcing Albertine to speak of your favorite activity, bending over to accommodate the stiffened members of street boys.
PROUST
They were always well paid! None ever complained.
ANGEL
What about ordering them to pierce live rats with hatpins while you watched and masturbated?
PROUST
If anyone refused to do so, they weren’t forced.
ANGEL
They weren’t paid, then, either. Nor invited back.
PROUST
Why pay someone for what he wouldn’t do?
ANGEL
I suppose you expect to go to heaven?
PROUST
If there were such a place, no doubt it would be restricted.
ANGEL
If indeed there were such places as heaven and hell your being a Jew would not determine your fate. You’re a captive of your own devices.
PROUST
Leave me be, can’t you? I want to get this right. The novel is all I have to leave for posterity.
ANGEL
You and I both know that you’ve never had any intention of completing it.
PROUST
I want it to be perfect. Is that too much to ask?
ANGEL
Yes, it is.
PROUST writes a bit more, then lays down his pen, rests his head back on his pillows, and closes his eyes.
PROUST
I’ve always thought an exception would be made in my case.
The ANGEL covers PROUST with her cape.
END
THE TRUE TEST OF GREATNESS
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, Billy Budd, and other books
A Policeman
SETTING
Melville is walking on a dock along the waterfront in New York City on October 18, 1888. Night has fallen. He stops and looks out over the Hudson River. Melville is wearing a long overcoat and a hat. A uniformed policeman approaches him.
POLICEMAN
Out for a stroll, are we?
MELVILLE
I’m just off work. Looking at the river helps me clear my head.
POLICEMAN
Where do you work?
MELVILLE
At the Customs House. I’m a clerk there.
POLICEMAN
I don’t think I’d like bein’ cooped up inside an office all day long. I’d rather be walkin’ a beat.
MELVILLE
I wasn’t always at a desk. Before I was a writer, I was a merchant seaman.
POLICEMAN
A writer? I thought you worked at the Customs House.
MELVILLE
I do. Before that I wrote stories, novels. And before that I went to sea.
POLICEMAN
I’m not much of a reader, except for the newspaper. Wrote anything that was popular?
MELVILLE
Early on, I did. Omoo, Typhoo. As long as I kept to tales of adventure, I did right well, made a good living, good enough to support my family. Then I made the mistake of a lifetime.
POLICEMAN
You didn’t kill nobody, I hope.
MELVILLE
I did. Thirty-seven years ago today, on October 18, 1851, I murdered Herman Melville.
POLICEMAN
Who was he?
MELVILLE
The writer I told you about, the author of boys’ sea stories.
POLICEMAN
Come again?
MELVILLE
Myself, I murdered myself, in the belief that readers would understand where I was trying to take them. They jumped ship, and the publishers thought I’d gone crazy. So did Hawthorne.
POLICEMAN
Is that why you’re workin’ down here now?
MELVILLE
Better the Customs House than the poorhouse.
POLICEMAN
It’s no crime to be doin’ government work. Right honorable, in fact.
MELVILLE
In some men’s eyes, honor alone might amount to a criminal condition.
POLICEMAN
I don’t know as I can rightly judge your meanin’, sir.
MELVILLE
That’s at the heart of it, officer. Meaning depends upon whoever’s doing the judging.
POLICEMAN
I’d better be makin’ my way along now. You wouldn’t be thinkin’ of doin’ anything foolish, would you?
MELVILLE
Though I am sleepy, I dare not. If there is one thing that I have learned, it’s that there is more power and beauty in the well-kept secret of one’s self and one’s thoughts than in the display of a whole heaven that one may have inside him.
POLICEMAN
I’ll be saying good evenin’, then, sir.
The POLICEMAN walks away.
MELVILLE
(to the river)
Until the oozy weeds about me twist, I’ll say it: I ain’t crazy.
END
FAREWELL LETTER
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Charles Baudelaire, French poet, most famously author of Les Fleurs du Mal. He is twenty-three years old.
The Voice of Jeanne Duval, an actress
SETTING
Baudelaire’s atelier, Paris, 1844
BAUDELAIRE enters his apartment, sees a letter addressed to him that has been slipped under his door. He picks it up, opens the envelope, removes the missive and sits down at his table. As he reads, we hear THE VOICE OF JEANNE DUVAL reciting the contents of the letter.
THE VOICE OF JEANNE DUVAL
Charles, from the beginning you always made me laugh. Sending flowers to my dressing room at Le Thé�
�tre du Panthéon as if I were a real actress
not just a piece of fluff
trotted out for a few moments in a brief costume
to make the boys’ cocks hard.
You had money, you were charming
and respectful. You appeared impervious to the fact of my blackness.
When we entered a café together
you were like a proud buck with his doe. All eyes were on us as we paraded through, and you treated me as if I were a great lady; you had the finest manners.
The apartment you bought for me was furnished exquisitely.
It resembled a Kaliph’s boudoir. If only you had been a Kaliph!
That would have made my being a whore more palatable. Expensive whores
live longer that the rest.
Nadar knew me before you, yes, as did Banville.
When you first brought me to your suite at the Hôtel Lauzun I pretended
never to have been there before.
But I had, several times, with different men, men who knew how to satisfy a woman, and themselves.
You created me for yourself as an object only, a stone creature whom you could idealize
and pretend to worship and torture yourself over. It was madness!
I’m a slut, yes, perhaps worse; a drunkard, too. But I am real! I exist here in this time, not in any other and I never will.
Your reliance on women such as Luchette and Madame Meurice has stunted you. They encourage your impotence.
“My vampire!” you called me. It’s what you wanted, begged for, demanded.
Only by cruelty could you be convinced of anything. Being cruel is
a soul-consuming task, and one which amuses me to a lesser degree than you would suppose.
I plead exhaustion, Charles.
I release myself from this obligation to you. My sweet, poetry is not enough.
Jeanne
BAUDELAIRE lays the letter down on his table.