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FINAL PROJECT

Modernism and the City

2013

Ulysses by James Joyce

all images courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art

STATELY PLUMP Buck Mulligan. 

Come on, man. Come on,

you insufferable slowpoke.

Looking down at his phone, Booth Ballard wandered past a staircase into the next gallery. With a cursory glance behind, he slowed his step and came to a stop surrounded by sixteenth century Italian paintings. Damn guidos with their Jersey Shore bullshit. Still.

He turned toward the nearest painting and absent mindedly blessed the Jesus on the wall.                                        

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Philip Alan considered the second earl of Warwick a moment longer before

- feet dragging along the hardwood floor -

he set off after Booth. 

A guard

- plump closeshaven face and sullen oval jowl buttoned securely into regulation white shirt and red tie -

was stationed in the doorway. 

As Philip passed, he nodded in sullen acknowledgment receiving a glinting gold capped smile. 

.chrysostomos. 

Displeased and sleepy

Philip came to stand by Booth who looked up and with his elbow nudged him in the spleen.                                               

Late night, man?

Did your ahem bonnie lass come by?

I haven’t seen her in a while.

Too bad. I liked her. 

At this he fullbody gestured - much to the discomfort of a stubby touring family.                        

Now how will you get your kicks?              

Route sixety six.                                                                     

Still reeling from his brute physical wit, Booth returned to bury his nose in the screen.

Okay. 

We have to go to

Greek and Roman art now so

- turning, deciding -

that way.

He pointed with some vague sense of direction through the maze of galleries.         

.fork over twenty quid.                         

How long is Haynes subletting?                    

Booth Ballard showed a dim cheek over his left shoulder.                                         

He’s pretty fucking annoying, huh?

                                       (frankly)

Thinks you’re a redneck.

Proper ivy league prick.

Bursting with money and indigestion.                  

He was raving all night about a black bear.

(with energy and growing fear)

Drunk off his rocker.

He shot me in the face with a nerf gun!

Ballard couldn’t help but laugh.                

Shit man. Really?

Ha! Ha!

- looking around -

Geez all these saints are pissed off.

Not a smirk in the room.

He turned abruptly from the saviour’s to Philip’s face.                                                 

The aunt thinks you killed your mother.

She doesn’t want me to have anything to do with you.       

Someone killed her.

(gloomily)             

You could have read at least ten shades, damn it,

when your dying mother asked you.

A deathbed is no place to stand on literary principle. 

Booth hits the hold button on his phone inspecting its face.

.an iPhone can never break.it can only become

.a mirror.

.damn there’s crack across it. 

.good night though.fell right off the bed.

.oh man but that chick.shrieked like a banshee, as they say.

He turned to Philip and thrust the phone an inch from his nose.       

War wounds. Hee hee craAazy night.

What a few shots of tequila will get you, am I right?

    .who chose this face for me? 

.cracked looking glass 

of a servant.

Hey, why don’t you try to get

an internship with Haynes’ dad?

If you and I could only work together

we might do something for the island.

    .mother of god.

He stopped and pivoted toward her. He shook his head.

Let me be and let me live,

said softly to the wall.

The squeak of spiffy shoes heralded Haynes.        

Hey does anyone have the keys? 

    A confident search of Ballard’s pockets devolved into slight panic.  

Shit. Did you bring them man? 

    .they’re mine. paid the rent. loans do at least.

.crushing debt to greet me when i graduate.

    Reluctantly Philip forked them over.                

Thanks man. 

    They flowed through the last galleries of Europe with purpose.

Haynes shook his head downcast.

His tanned face projected a pinkish hue - reflection from his polosweatervest.              

Proud to be an American

(with a long exhale)

Have you heard about this shit?

We’re getting it from all sides.

Coming over the border.

Sleeper cells.

I don’t want to see my country fall into the hands of mexican muslims.

That’s our national problem.

    - the top of the main staircase -

.stuck with this fucking asshole.

.break away.but where?  

Hey man are you coming?

Greek and Roman is that way. 

They had descended partway and now paused to look up at him.

Philip’s head shook at them. 

No I think I’ll stay up here.

Catch up with you later? 

He turned and left without waiting for the response.

What’s with all the black clothing?

Is he going for goth right now?

Cutting himself and all that?

Haynes chuckled heartily.

Oh life is so hard. I hate my life. Emo piece of shit.

    Ballard shook his head solemnly.

Tell me about it.

He kills his mother

but he can’t wear grey trousers.

=>

IT’D BE QUITE NICE to have a nibble. 

                                                                Just a nip or two. 

            .the peaches.

Beastly nice vase. Why the trousers I wonder. On her monthlies maybe.

Didn’t want her mucking up the bed. 

    Ezekiel Blum considers her a moment longer longing. As he walks away, he adjusts the elbowpatched coat slung over his arm causing a slender booklet to fall from its pocket. After a choreographed adjustment - the pants, the squat,

the hand at the base of his back,

the other thrown out for balance - 

he stoops to pick it up. 

THINK SAFETY AND TAKE PRECAUTIONS. 

Cops were handing it out. Difficult to avert your eyes and scurry past that. No harm in it. But still. 

        - POLICE STATE -

    As he straightens, he glances through to the next gallery. Alan’s daughter enters and pauses in the frame. Toting that poor baby. Where’s the father now? Walk on before she sees me. Not that she’d. Sixteen. American dream. Reality show. Like rabbits. To what end? 

An entire generation raised by babies : 

    just babies holding hands.

Squeaky Oxfords lead up to cuffed jeans. A pair of them.

Across the gallery a relaxed power couple compare art history notes. 

Who can name more useless facts? 

On your mark. 

        Get set. 

            Fuck off. 

Vegetarians no doubt. Drink their coffee from recycled jam jars. Trying to save a buck. Or is it the environment? Thrifty or green 

-- I can never quite tell. 

Probably a pair of matching fixies locked up out front. He looks again at the pamphlet in his hand. Throwaway. 

Blum’s eyes consider the pair. Patagonia. Is that a single dreadlock? Future bankers no doubt.

Sowing their wild oats. Settle down into the upper crust. Bloody waste of money to look that pedestrian. Hmph.

Went to Belmont with Travers that time. Poor sap got knackered and bet it all. Tried to stop him.

Batted me away. Called me a kike. Nothing doing. No skin off my hide.

Still. Damn shame. My age. What about the wife? The kids. Never went to Disneyworld. Now never will. Timing is everything when you’ve got nothing but time. 

    A woman brushes gently past his shoulder and into the next gallery. Nose first he follows. A faint scent. Heliotrope? Who is that? Just walked past.

    Blum’s nose scans the room : breathing in. 

        There. 

With the yellow coat. Let down your hair. I'll bet it’s soft. Fingers comb right through. That day in the grass. Pillowed on my coat she had her hair. 

O 

wOnDer! 

Coolsoft 

with ointments 

she touched me, 

caressed: 

her eyes 

upon me 

did not 

turn away. 

Ravished 

over her I lay, 

full lips full open, 

kissed her mouth. 

Yum. 

Young life, 

her lips. 

Wildly 

I lay on her, 

kissed her; 

eyes, her lips, 

her stretched neck, 

beating, woman’s breasts 

fat nipples upright. 

Hot I tongued her. 

She kissed me. 

I was kissed. 

Kissed, 

she kissed me. 

I was kissed. 

O

.

.

.

            .

        .

    .

Ah.

Hm. 

Didn’t know I needed that. Much better. Where was I? Moving right along. 

    Not certain of his aim, Blum set off past the main staircase. Some water lilies flashed by me back there. On my way. Miss the real thing. Gets the job done though. Damn shame Monet. Lost his sight by the end. Blobs of incoherent color. Lucky to be an impressionist. What was it?

Ah yes. Ineluctable modality of the visible. What’s in here?

Eyes that stare. A little unsettling. Where am I? Terracotta. Must be Etruscan. What happened to them? Never quite clear on that. Overrun by the Romans? Became the Romans? It all ends up being a codified modified Greece anyhow. Poor cradle of civilization. Look at you now.

Hero to zero. Lion looks South American. Aztec? Mayan? World didn’t end.

What do you do when you’ve geared up and survived the non apocalypse.

Why, move the date back of course. 

    Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire 

which was prepared 

for the devil and his angels! 

Hm. Hadn’t figured out contrapposto yet. Leg extends from hip all wrong. Crazy a mathematical equation needed to be worked out before perspective. Or did the artists see first and the mathematicians learn later? Must look that up. Chicken or egg that.

    Ah, I’m hungry.

=>

The Matisse street entrance of picasso, before which stretches a woman leaning on her hands, red and green apples and odalisque. Round Washington’s unfolded museum map stubby men and women squabble. They stab wildly at the page and through the air. Shouting, they head off slowly. Tourists.

Whistles call and answer.

THE CALLS

Wait, my love, and I’ll be with you.

THE ANSWERS

Round behind the chapel.

(A yellow stool with nasturtiums, winding vines draping, sits still. A chain of dancing hands imprisons it.)

THE DANCERS

Henri! Salute.

THE NASTURTIUMS

(Waves in the wind.) Victory!

THE DANCERS

Where’s the great light?

THE NASTURTIUMS

(Wafting.) Conquest.

(They release him. Philip walks on. A blind man sweeps his hand across the table, grasping his cheese, chewing. A woman ironing stoops close to the board : steaming, hissing, spatting. 

A gangly sister braids her hair, twisting, turning, knotting. The baby sprawls on the floor next to their feet. An actor pauses and turns, intoning Shakespeare. Gertrude Stein’s voice, still young, sings.drills from the frame.)

GERTRUDE STEIN

If I told him would he like it.

Would he like it if I told him.

Would he like it would Napoleon would Napoleon would would he like it.

(Philip, flourishing the museummap in his left hand, chants with joy.)

PHILIP

Let me recite

 what history teaches! 

History teaches! 

A rose is a rose is a rose! 

Moses supposes!

(Declaiming, Philip dances into the next gallery, rousing its inhabitants. A slight brunette, gaudy gauzy big blue bow, rosy pink cheeks, places a willowy hand on slender hip, watching him advance.)

MADA PRIMAVESI

Are you looking for someone? Cat come out to play?

PHILIP

(Indignant) Not I!

(His skin, alive, feels her fingertips reach out to grasp his hand, thumb erect.)

MADA PRIMAVESI

(Looking boldly.) One. 

        Two. 

    Three. 

Four. (Her thumb twiddles his.) I. 

    Declare. 

        A thumb. 

            War. 

(With that hers lunges forward, ramming his into the space between their hands.)

MADA PRIMAVESI’S THUMB

Now count to three and beg for mercy.

PHILIP

(Pulling his away, shaking.) Indecent! I really mustn’t stay.

MADA PRIMAVESI

Oh, you’ll come. Won’t you? (Smiling sweetly, she flips her hair back over slim shoulders.) It’s just an elevator ride away.

PHILIP

(Fumbling.) Elevator? Claustrophobia. Agoraphobia. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedalio

phobia. 

(Seizing up in fear.)

There it is again!

MADA PRIMAVESI

(Ignoring. Pouting.) Mama can take good care of you. Cure all the things that go bump in the night. (Pointing.) For your health. (Imploring.)

(Ashamed, he heads off in the direction of her fingers. A Roman girl reaches her torso over the edge of the fountain, stretching, mouth open, expectant. Cupids flock, flutter, fly, heralding the birth of Venus. Graziella, with gentle windblown hair, mends a net, gazing forlornly from a cliff. The ocean breeze picks up, wafting summer flowers across the Sahurs Meadows, the bay of Naples, down along the road from Versailles to Louveciennes. It upsets the petticoats of Princess Pauline Metternich, organdie pulling her toward the sea. Her hat flipping, fluttering, taken hostage by the gale, comes to rest on the brow of Madame Manet. 

The zephyr reminds the madame of a boating engagement which she attends with demure zest. Blown thither by the waves she watches soap bubbles float idly by. To the docks! The sail is dropped. 

Porte de la Reine imposes. 

Blum appears, flushed, unfulfilled, stuffing special dark and saltines into a side pocket. Louis Gueyward strikes a pose, looking levelly at him. Diable for Diable. He ducks his head and disappears into the still life with ham. Unkosher, he emerges and sets off toward Boulougne.)

BLUM

(Doubling up.) Staircase. Why did I run? Security guard gave dirty looks. Not what I used to be. 

DEAD CHRIST

(Spotting Blum from his angle of repose.) For your sins! 

BLUM

(Scoffing.) Not I! There must be some mistake. (Defiantly.) Next year in Jerusalem! 

(He spins, scanning for a friendly face.)

A MATADOR

I fought your sister! That was a compliment! C’mon you mangy git! Are you a man?

BLUM

Last I checked, you inquisitive buffoon! Hangs to the left!

A MATADOR

To be sure, I’m sure. Missing your prepuce, prick?

(Offended, he turns away, uncertain. He is presently accosted by the lilting tunes of a crooning mooning Spaniard frames away.)

THE SPANISH SINGER

Florecilla del campo, 

rosa en capullo

Duerme vida mia, 

mientras te arullo. 

Callad mientras 

la cuna se balancea

A la nanita nana, 

nanita ea.

BLUM

(Shaking his head in time, woeful.) Vuelve a contrar todo. Spanish for six years. Don’t know my culo from my codo. Merde!

(A portrait of a woman, stern, all in black, brows knitted together to the bridge, leans far out over the edge, openpalm swinging deftly, catching him on the bum, propelling him forward with a start.)

PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN

Get on with you then! Don’t want your grimy tongue about! I’ll remind you your culo!

(Rubbing what’s sore, Blum trips into the ballet. Rousing orchestral arrangements play a dissonance out of their frames vibrating amplitudes crashing in the air. Center stage, the little fourteen year old dancer stretches, chin to the sky. Upon seeing her, Blum straightens, approaching with intent and niceties. He draws the special dark from his pocket, picking lint away.)

BLUM’S TOE

Stubbyubbyub!

(Bending to nurse the wounded, Blum implores the heavens.)

BLUM

I was just trying to. I was just. But my daughter. You understand. Grows so fast.

THE OLD ITALIAN WOMAN

Every excuse in the book. Chant them from your own mouth. I seen you. Them eyes that leer. Look too long. I seen you.

(The dancers are dancing, whirling, spinning, in the throes of the ballet from Robert le Diable. The music builds. The dance is a fury of limbs. Crescendo.)

THE LITTLE FOURTEEN YEAR OLD DANCER

Nonono! He touched me he did. Touched me right there. Private square. Don’t you dare!

(Blum throws his hands up, hadn’t touched, didn’t touch, wouldn’t touch.)

BLUM

(Desperately.) Not I! Not I! Was the wind! Just a breeze. I would never. But my daughter.

(The cry is raised. Justice would be theirs. The dancers spill from their frames, leaping, trickling, overtaking. Blum is swept through toward the end of the century. Two men follow solemnly behind.)

TWO MEN

We call this court to order by the power vested in us this day our daily bread. 

(The old Italian woman finally falling to the floor enters defaming his character. The horses, sensing the rising tension, paw the ground nervously. The dancers, stretching, unfold themselves from frozen poses, tittering excitedly. They leap from their ledge, pirouetting to the floor. A schoolgirl, prim and proper and preening, approaches the bar.)

A SCHOOLGIRL

(Adjusting her hat.) Tried to drive me home one day he did. Tried to drive me home. No, I tells him. Offered me sweets and treats. I don’t talk to strangers, I tells him.

BLUM

(Incredulous.) Isabelle? Is that you? My how you’ve grown. 

(A grumble of bubbling rage rumbles around the room.)

BLUM

(Throwing his hand up. Explaining.) Nonono. You don’t understand. Isabelle! (Gesturing.) A friend of my daughter’s. Just a friend. I was the carpool father. On the way home. She was on my way home. I would never. Didn’t ever.

DANCER IN THE ROLE OF THE HARLEQUIN

(Coming forward, hands on hips, pubescent pinpricks pointing accusations.) Stood in the window watching. Stood for hours. Eyes that follow with insidious intent.

(To lead you to that overwhelming question. Oh! Do not ask what is it.)

BLUM

(Desperate now.) Just waiting for my daughter to get out of dance class. Used to dance. She used to dance. Never really liked it much. She refused to go if I didn’t stay.

MAUDE ADAMS AS JOAN OF ARC

(Passionately.) Burn him at the stake!

SERENA PULITZER LEDERER

(Demurely.) The annihilation of every human creature on the face of the earth! Imagination reigns supreme!

TWO MEN

(Hmmmming contemplatively.) Compelling cases all. Does the defense have a witness? Character reference? Do you wish to stand on trial of your peers? Alas we have no peers. 

(Inciting madness.) 

Hang him! Tar him!  

(There is a sweeping into the gallery over whereupon Blum is laid spread eagle on the dining table. The wisteria watches wistfully as the dancers hold him down and dance a lively jig on his stomach.)

J.J. DONOVAN

(Appearing suddenly.) Ladies! Ladies please! Contain your hysteria. Who is this Ezekiel Blum that you so rashly brought on charges? A father. A husband. Attentive. Dutiful. Patient. 

BLUM

(Shaking off the hands that held, he stands, straightening to his full unimpressive height.) Yes! Yes. I am a good father. Dare I say great! She will never want for anything. But knows the value of a hard day’s work. 

J.J. DONOVAN

Please. I have this. (Clearing his throat.) The only way to get rid of a temptation...

(Dissension leads to discord. Donovan and Blum dive under the table. A raucous riot ensues.)

FLAMBEAU

(Airborne.) That hard gemlike flame. Alas! I die. (Crashes into the wall, shattering.)

AUTUMN CROCUS VASE

(Cowering behind the leg of an armchair.) People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. Toe out of line. All hell. Everybody cut footloose.

BLUM

(Peeking out from under.) Ladies please! (Quoting desperately.) I’ve got tears in my eyes with sheer relief that my own inner turmoil is shared with other women!

(They stop. They turn. They melt. Peaceful return to the room’s previous state.)

THE DANCERS

You understand our plight! The modern renaissance man. The gracious metrosexual. The enlightened neanderthal.(They stoop and draw him out.) Representative of our times. Our needs. (Turning to two men.) By unanimous unspoken vote, we elect the delectable Ezekiel Blum as Majorlordgeneral of all future proceedings at this juncture. 

TWO MEN

Motion seconded. Thirded. All hail Majorlordgeneral Blum!

ALL

Hail! (They surge forward. A parade is incited.) Hosana!

(Borne on slender shoulders, Blum is carried to Courbet’s women and gently dropped to face the woman with a parrot.)

WOMAN WITH A PARROT

(Languidly she rolls to her side, upsetting her parrot, who with a squawk, flits to new heights.) Mymymy. Who are you for whom they sing hosana?

DANCER NO LONGER LOOKING AT SOLE OF HER FOOT

(Incredulous.) Why Majorlordgeneral Blum of course!

WOMAN WITHOUT A PARROT

(Slinking slowly from her frame. Voice of creamy caramel, oozing. Lips pucker and part.) Ah. Mmmmmm. (Sweet exhale.)  What’ll it be, my liege? The recollection of pleasure or the luxury of regret?

BLUSHING BLUM

(Hesitantly.) You bewilder me. I don’t know what to say.

YOUNG BATHER

(Seriously.) It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.

BLUNDERING BLUM

(Stumbling.) There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it.

WOMAN OUT OF THE WAVES

(Sensually.) You have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame.

BLUSTERING BLUM

(Falling.) Don’t speak! Let me think. Or, rather, let me try not to think!

(The question is raised. His reputation is dented. He forges desperately ahead. A battered boat has washed ashore. The wind assaults the sail still. The lines whip the unruly air.)

BLUM

(Publicity stuntily.) With great power comes great responsibility. (He runs to the raging sea, swims mightily, hauls sailors easily, safely to shore. A gasp of admiration freezes the skeptical revelers. The air is still for a moment.)

ALL

(Joyously, faith restored.) Huzzah! Hosana! 

(Riding on the hands of the swelling crowd, Blum is paraded down along Parochialstrasse, swooping around to emerge from the Groto Posilipo. A stormy sky rumbles in to join the promenade.)

STORMY SKY

(Foreshadowing.) The salute of Almidano Artifoni’s sturdy trousers swallowed by a closing door.

BLUM

(Acknowledging the salute punctually, looks longingly through the frame.) Ah, the promised land! Am yisrael chai! Three cheers for Israel! Thank god!

THE CITIZEN

Whose God?

BLUM

Your God was a Jew! Christ was a Jew like me.

THE CITIZEN

By Jesus, I’ll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy name!

(The tide has turned. The multitudes nod in agreement. He trips forward into the next room.)

SIBYLLE

(Empathetically.) I believe in him in spite of all. I’d give my life for him, the funniest man on earth. (Stabs herself.) My hero god! (She dies.)

THE CITIZEN

(Scarringly.) Murderer! (Pointing.) Run away, Blum. Run away and never return.

(Blum tucks his head into his chest and scurries on as the scene he brought dissolves behind. The sun sets near Arbonne and behind the forest in winter. Don Quixote comes upon a dead mule in the road. Baying, the cows are called home. The din of nighttown drips from the frames, trickling out, bubbling up to a dull roar. The hum and the bustle of the third class carriage wakes a once sleeping baby. He bawls without end. His mother, cooing, looks up at Blum, singing, sneering.

Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques,

Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?

    Sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines

    Ding ding dong, ding ding dong. 

Frames away the drinkers pour another drink.)

THE DRINKERS

(With fervor and sarcasm.) Which nobody can deny!

THE EXPERTS

(Aping.) I am not such a fool as I look, quoth Plato to his disciples. I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there. 

(They turn toward him and approach with a thing like calipers. Blum, head wagging in defense, makes for the elevator. Button pressed. Success. The elevator hums and drops and opens to hotter climes. He slinks past Ethiopia, wondering.)

ARGANONA WEDDASE

(Calling out, accusingly.) What thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity - like yours - the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar.

(Unable to deny, Blum sidles on deeper into the permeable heart of darkness.)

KARAN WEMBA

Walk away till you’re black in the face.

BLUM

(Starting.) I’ll give it to you! The coward. The blinds drawn. A letter. Then lie back to rest.

(His lips flutter softly.) No more. I have lived. Fare. Farewell.

KARAN WEMBA

(Stiffly, fingers tracing the lines of her cushion shoulder.) Honest? Till the next time. (She sneers.)

Suppose you can’t keep it up with your best girl. O, I can read your thoughts.

BLUM

(Bitterly.) Man and woman, love, what is it? A plug and a socket.

KARAN WEMBA

(In sudden sulks.) I hate a rotter that’s insincere. Give a bleeding whore a chance.

(She holds his hand which is feeling for her nipple.) I say, Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that and begin worse.

BLUM

(Smiling, foggily.) Worse, hearse, nurse.

KARAN WEMBA

Mmm.(Cocking her head coyly.) Come. There’s someone you should meet.

(With little parted talons she captures his hand, luring him to doom. He follows close behind, drawn on by the musky unfamiliarity of her armpits, the rustle of her naked hips in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all the male brutes that have possessed her. They come to the feet of Mangaaka, the whoremistress. Hands resting on hips, feet planted apart, she watches their approach. Each protruding nail is a forceful notch in the bedpost. She leaves her lips parted, puffing sweet seductive breaths. She taps her fingers, drumming them in time on her hip.)

HER FINGERS

(Tapping.) 

    All things end. 

Be mine. Now.

BLUM

(Undecided.) All now? 

HER FINGERS

(Points downwards slowly.) 

    You may.

BLUM

(Looks downwards and perceives her unfiled toenail.) 

    We are observed.

HER FINGERS

(Points downwards quickly.) 

    You must.

BLUM

(With desire. With reluctance.) 

I can buff a beautiful nail. 

I knelt once before today.

HER FOOT

(Forcefully.) 

Get comfortable in the pose.

BLUM

(Bewildered.) Empress!

MANGAAKA

Down! 

(Forcing him stumbling back.) Incline feet forward! 

You will fall! You are falling. On the hands down!

BLUM

(Her eyes upturned in the sign of submission, closing.) Mistress!

(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting snuffling, rooting at his feet,

then lies shamming dead.)

MANGAAKO

(Placing his heel on her neck, grinding it in.) Feel my entire weight.

Bow, bondslave, before the throne of your despot’s glorious heels, so glistening in their proud erectness.

BLUM

(Bleating. Trembling.) 

I promise to never disobey.

MANGAAKO

(Squats, with a grunt, on Blum’s upturned face.) 

    Don’t just look at it. (Puffing cigar smoke. Exhale.)

        Eat it.

BLUM

(Slithering. Slobbering.) O! O! Monsters! Cruel one!

MANGAAKO

Ask for that every ten minutes. Beg. Pray for it as you never prayed before. (Throwing a leg astride, mounting his trembling steed, plugging himself completely.) Snug as a bug in a rug. (Settling deeper into the saddle.) O O O O Shakespeherian Rag that hits the spot. Mm. Giddyup! Giddyup! I’ll ride her for the Belmont. (He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the saddle.) I’ll nurse you in proper fashion! (Bucking.)

KARAN WEMBA

(Pulling at Mangaaka.) Let me on him now. Are you not finished with him yet, suckeress?

BLUM

(Stifling.) Can’t.

MANGAAKO

Well, I’m not. Wait. (He holds in his breath.) Curse it. Here. This bung’s about to burst. 

BLUM

(A sweat breaking out over him. Coming to a head.) Tiresias!

PHILIP

(Absentmindedly from across the gallery.) Jugjugjug.

BLUM

(Straightening. Aheming.) Philip. My good man. Be on our way?

(The pair scuttles out, away from that incomprehensible frenzy. They dip down below the border.)

SEATED FEMALE DEITY

(Solicitously.) Have another go-round?

KNEELING FEMALE FIGURE

(Regretfully.) Leaving so soon, boys?

(They primp and pose and reach for the hems of Philip and Blum’s trousers. The fabric slips easily through their stony fingers as the two hurry on. A young boy sleeps comfortably on a young girl’s fledgling bosom. She raises a coy finger to her lips, demanding silence from the passersby. A bowl of milk has tipped and spilt, waterfalling into a puddle on the floor. A voice draws them on.)

PIETA

(Melting, dripping, breathing upon him softly her breath of wetted ashes.) I was once the beautiful. I am dead. You too. Time will come.

(They hurry on. The gallery opens up impressively into a long highceilinged courtyard. There is the quiet buzz and clink of the cordoned off cafe where people peruse pompous carte du joures, sipping foreign water, pinkies pointed at the ready. Ugolino looms large, a beacon of anxiety.)

UGOLINO

(Beseeching.) You ask me to endure reliving a grief so desperate, carving, sculpting my pain so poignantly in the marble of Saint-Beat. I will both speak and weep within your sight.

PHILIP

Father!(Turning, sinking.) Why don’t you help me?

UGOLINO

(Hardening. Remembering.) And then the hunger had more power than even sorrow had over me.

(Philip shakes, chest heaving, wracking silently. He gasps, freezing. The marble statue of an old woman rises from the floor, armlessly reaching to stroke his cheek. He trips, stumbling back desperately. She wheezes a rattling breath through sunken lips. As she approaches, a sagging swinging jug comes free of its dress.)

MARBLE STATUE OF AN OLD WOMAN

(With the subtle smile of death’s madness.) Who brought you into this world? Nurtured you from the womb. Don’t you like my cooking? Why don’t you ever wear that sweater I bought you? Don’t you like it?

I try so hard to make you happy. Years and years I loved you, O my son, my firstborn.

What are we going to do with you? Why do you never speak? Speak. 

PHILIP

(Choking with fright, remorse. Whispering.) But who are you that stand here, perhaps to delay torments pronounced on your own false words to men?

MARBLE STATUE OF AN OLD WOMAN

(Jittery.) What is that noise now? What is the wind doing? (Turning. Accusing.)

Do you know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember nothing? 

PHILIP

(His features grow drawn and grey and old.)

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical.               

 Naked.

MARBLE STATUE OF AN OLD WOMAN

(Voice rising, wringing her hands slowly.) Are you alive, or not?! Is there nothing in your head?!

PHILIP

No! No! No! Break my spirit all of you if you can! I’ll bring you all to heel!

MARBLE STATUE OF AN OLD WOMAN

(In the agony of her deathrattle.) What shall I do now? What shall I do? What shall we ever do?

(Shrieking now.) Bear witness unto me! The bloodstained hands of them that smite their kin!

PHILIP

Nothung!

(He lifts his museummap high with both hands and smashes the vision, slicing through the air.

He crumbles, a rubbleheap on the cold hard floor.)

PHILIP’S LUNGS

(Panting, wheezing.) 

S  l  O  w  . 

d O W n . 

Just. 

B  r  e  a  t  h  e  . 

PHILIP’S HANDS

(Tingling, freezing on the marble floor.)

We are going to push off now. That’s it. Gentlygently.

PHILIP’S TORSO

(Rolling up to rest on his haunches.)

One vertebrae at a time. Head hung heavy.

BLUM’S HAND

(Falling to rest on sloped shoulder. Reassuring weight.)

You are not alone.

BLUM

(Urging him gently to stand.)

Come, Philip.

Let’s get you hOMe.