Clair de Lune | Page 6

DEA to go.]
Why do you dismiss your beautiful daughter? Her pallor, her most
haunting stare, have already sown chaos in the heart of a certain
important personage.
URSUS
Leave me, Dea.
[DEA silently exits.]
Who are you who visit us so abruptly?
PHEDRO [whimsically]
I think I am a cork upon very troubled waters.

URSUS
That does not answer me enough.
PHEDRO
Then I am a web binding men and women while they sleep to
unexpected things.
URSUS
Ah, you are a trouble maker?
PHEDRO
No--but I discover what is unusual in the senses of one person and in
the circumstances of another person--Indeed, I have had a splendid
training.
URSUS
Where?
PHEDRO
I have been--but I was almost showing you the colour of the water I
rose from.
URSUS
Well, I have no curiosity.
PHEDRO
That is exactly why one wishes to talk to you. Curiosity in other people
always makes me terribly suspicious. I remember suddenly the reasons
that can make me curious. Now I can talk to you, for one feels you
might not even listen, so you couldn't possibly care enough to repeat. I
was a lackey once.

URSUS
A sordid position.
PHEDRO
[Becomes slightly frenzied during his speech.]
Yes. A servant is something to absorb the spittle of their irritability. A
hand to arrange the pages of their private diary when they get stuck
together with filth; and above all a presence between them and the
mirror during those grey dawn hours when passing it, they are likely to
see themselves as they are. Ah, then one must be armed with the
eloquence of Cato to reassure these sow's ears that they are still silk
purses. Otherwise the devil has to be bought off in the morning and
with three times the effort. One thing they never count on, however.
URSUS
And that?
PHEDRO
The effect on another human being of their absurdity and the passion of
malice they rouse from a too long concealed contempt.
URSUS [looking at him curiously]
Contempt is the armour of snakes.
PHEDRO [his face undergoing a change]
Is it truly, my fine gentleman? Well, my mind has been wandering and
stumbled on a cul-de-sac as usual. Ah, the hope of being understood--it
is almost extinct. However, if I cannot be understood, I shall,
nevertheless, be felt.
URSUS

Well, what do you want of me? I am a philosopher and as such am not
occupied with any sort of facts.
PHEDRO
I suppose not. You philosophers are blind men in dark rooms looking
for the footprints of shadows, are you not?
URSUS [smiling]
Not at all. We philosophers have merely learned to practice humour in
the presence of what is commonplace. But what is it you do want of
me?
PHEDRO
What everybody wants--to talk about Gwymplane.
URSUS
Well?
PHEDRO
Have you had this gold mine with you long?
URSUS
Years and years.
PHEDRO
You bought him, I suppose, from some travelling show?
URSUS
No, he came to me of his own accord, and yet by accident.
PHEDRO

Was he riding the wind? And did it drop him by chance upon your
knees?
URSUS
He came by accident. He remains of his own accord.
PHEDRO
Curious.
URSUS
What is curious?
PHEDRO
The irrelevancy of my mind.
URSUS
Of what were you thinking?
PHEDRO
Tell me, did you--did you--ever hear of the Comprachicos?
URSUS
Yes--why?
PHEDRO
Inhuman people they must have been.
URSUS
Not more so than those who gave them their practice.
PHEDRO

They have provided most of the circuses that roam around the world
with freaks.
URSUS
They had a great knowledge of surgery.
PHEDRO
Yes. They had an amusing way of putting young children into a
press--young children whose existence it would have been very
uncomfortable to admit in certain glittering circles. This press was
shaped like a bottle so that the growth became abnormal, and when the
press was lifted the human form had already attained the shape of a
bottle. They could also print everlastingly rather strange expressions
upon the human countenance.
URSUS [starts]
Yes, yes, I have heard of that.
PHEDRO
However, even such people were afraid to die.
URSUS
During the death of the worst person his soul shines through for a
moment.
PHEDRO [rather uncomfortable]
Well, well, to go back. A strange story came under my authority
written by one of these Comprachicos.
URSUS
Really, how was that?

PHEDRO
You know I am an official.
URSUS
Of what sort?
PHEDRO
I am the examining magistrate of all the jetsam from the sea that is
washed from anywhere whatever upon our shores.
URSUS
That is an original position!
PHEDRO
It was created for me by the Queen to whom I have rendered much
service. But I was saying that a most extraordinary story happened
along in a medicine bottle