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when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | has | How many times the word 'has' appears in the text? | 2 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | kitchen | How many times the word 'kitchen' appears in the text? | 3 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | night | How many times the word 'night' appears in the text? | 2 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | greeting | How many times the word 'greeting' appears in the text? | 0 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | camera | How many times the word 'camera' appears in the text? | 3 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | play | How many times the word 'play' appears in the text? | 2 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | gets | How many times the word 'gets' appears in the text? | 3 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | drawbridge | How many times the word 'drawbridge' appears in the text? | 0 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | nearly | How many times the word 'nearly' appears in the text? | 1 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | somewhat | How many times the word 'somewhat' appears in the text? | 1 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | for | How many times the word 'for' appears in the text? | 2 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | group | How many times the word 'group' appears in the text? | 2 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | right | How many times the word 'right' appears in the text? | 3 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | laughs | How many times the word 'laughs' appears in the text? | 2 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | knows | How many times the word 'knows' appears in the text? | 2 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | fore | How many times the word 'fore' appears in the text? | 0 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | guys | How many times the word 'guys' appears in the text? | 2 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | awkwardly | How many times the word 'awkwardly' appears in the text? | 0 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | tosses | How many times the word 'tosses' appears in the text? | 3 |
when they go up into the mountains, that kind of thing. SAM Maybe... but I had mine in a smorgasbord. (CONTINUED) 53. 55 CONTINUED: (3) 55 TILLEY (laughs) Sam, you're too much. SAM I went to get myself a salad and I started to see all these vegetables, you know how they have all those salads laid out so that when it's time to get to the main course you won't eat too much... that scam to get you filled up so you don't eat too much chicken and beef and all that other stuff. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... I get the point. So? SAM So I see celery, I see the lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower... and I think, all these things come out of the ground... they just grow out of the ground. They had corn -- out of the ground... radish -- out of the ground. You say to yourself, how can all these things come out of the ground? You know what I'm talking about? All these things are out of the ground. TILLEY (not understanding) Yeah. SAM I mean, how can that be? It just happened that way? And I'm not even getting into the fruits... I'm just dealing with vegetables right now. With all those things coming out of the earth, there must be a God. TILLEY (looking at Sam) I'm not getting the same religious effect that came over you. I don't know why, but I don't feel like running to a church to pray right this second. (CONTINUED) 54. 55 CONTINUED: (4) 55 SAM You gotta admit, it's amazing. TILLEY Yeah, yeah... (he turns away and looks across the room) I don't believe it. See the guy over there? He looks in the direction of BB. TILLEY That's the son of a bitch who crsahed into my car. Sam looks over to BB. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE BB's looking through the crowd and sees Tilley. BB I don't believe it! Mr. Banana Head is here. MOE What? BB That crazy guy that banged into my car and smashed my windows in. I don't fucking believe it! I'm gonna get him. ANGLE ON TILLEY TILLEY I'm gonna get him! Both BB and Tilley weave their way through the crowd to get to one another. In the confusion of all the people, they both go right past one another and then look around for one another. They see that they're in the opposite direction, and end up going towards one another again. Moe and Sam wander over to their guys. (CONTINUED) 55. 55 CONTINUED: (5) 55 BB You got a lot of nerve banging into my car, and you've got a lot of fucking nerve smashing my windows in. TILLEY What're you talking about? Why would I want to break your windows? BB You didn't smash my windows in? TILLEY I'm a hard-working guy... I don't go around breaking windows. I've got better things to do. BB You didn't break my windows?! You didn't break my windows?! He pushes Tilley. TILLEY Push me one more time and I'm gonna have to redefine your face. BB pushes him. Tilley starts to go for BB and they scuffle about. Moe and Sam try to pull the guys apart. ANGLE ON LOONEY AND CARLY They move through the crowd to BB and Moe. The band keeps playing. Moe and Sam, with the help of Looney and Carly, pull Tilley and BB apart. BB Come on, let's go outside... let's settle this in the parking lot. TILLEY Oh, no! You're not gonna get near my car... you're not gonna kick in my headlights again... (beat) ... What am I talking about? I didn't even drive tonight. You wanna duke it? Let's go. They both head out the door. The other tin men follow, and others who have been paying attention to this alter- cation, also follow. CUT TO: 56. 56 EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT 56 Tilley and BB come out of the club and start to look for a place in the lot where there's some room to fight. The crowd eagerly follows right on the heels of BB and Tilley. BB and Tilley both take off their sports jackets. BB (seeing the people gathering around) What is this? What is this crowd here? We're charging admission? TILLEY Back away... give me some elbow room. BB and Tilley both take up fighting stances and circle one another looking to take a shot. A police car pulls into the lot. The sound of the tires on the gravel catches Moe's attention and he sees it's the police. MOE (quietly to BB and Tilley) Police! Tilley and BB immediately drop their guards and lean against a car. One cop gets out of the police car and heads into the club, the other cop stays behind in the car. No one knows quite what to do since the policeman is so nearby. TILLEY (casually leaning against the car; to BB) You're a lucky man... the police showed. BB We'll see who's the lucky one. He picks up his coat and leaves with Moe. CUT TO: 57 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - TIGHT SHOT OF LARGE CAKE 57 with lit candles on it. The cake reads "FAREWELL ADA." ANGLE ON CAKE as it passes row upon row of SECRETARIES typing in the Social Security office. (CONTINUED) 57. 57 CONTINUED: 57 All of a sudden everything goes black, the typewriters stop and all we can see are the lit candles. We hear a huge chorus from all of the Secretaries in the Social Security office: SECRETARIES (O.S.) Surprise!!! Lights go on again, and we see a group of GIRLS gathered around the cake placed on one of the desks. At the center of the group is ADA, in her late twenties, and very pregnant. ADA I never expected this. What a lovely cake. GIRL #1 Blow out the candles then. Ada blows out the candles, missing a couple, and getting help from one of the other Girls. GIRL #2 Nine candles for nine months! Everyone laughs. GIRL #3 We'll miss you, Ada... you'd better bring that baby in to visit us. GIRL #1 Register him for his social security number. A couple of girls hand around glasses of Coca-Cola. Nora stands in the midst of the girls, pleased for Ada. She yells out. NORA I love ya, Ada, and if you're smart you won't come back. The cake is being passed out, and people are talking -- it has become somewhat of a party atmosphere. Nora turns to her friend, NELLIE. NORA I've just decided... I'm going out with him. (CONTINUED) 58. 57 CONTINUED: (2) 57 NELLIE You're kidding? NORA I have to. I just want to know what it's like to be with someone else. She sips her Coke. NORA Because if what I've got with Tilley is as good as it gets, I just... (she shrugs her shoulders) ... I gotta know. NELLIE Well, how are you going to manage it? NORA Tilley doesn't get home until at least two in the morning. NELLIE I hope you know what you're doing ... you speak to some guy at the frozen food section for five minutes, you could jeopardize your whole marriage. NORA Everything I've done in my life has been safe and practical, and where's that gotten me? (she lifts her paper cup) Well, here's to who knows what. They touch their cups. CUT TO: 58 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM 58 This is a two-story apartment in a renovated building. It has high ceilings and exposed brick. It is sparsely- furnished, but what there is is decent-looking. We see Nora and BB dancing closely in the shadows of the dark- ened room. (CONTINUED) 59. 58 CONTINUED: 58 A Frank Sinatra record is playing on the RECORD PLAYER in the b.g. -- it is "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING." A bottle of wine is on the coffee table. The remains of Chinese food in containers are alongside. NORA I'm still nervous. BB Well, I guess that's to be expected. You want me to take you home? NORA No, not right now. They dance quietly for a moment. BB Every time I listen to Sinatra, I always remember when I used to work in Atlantic City back in the late 40's... you know, a busboy job... Sinatra used to play at the 500 Club, and we used to take our dates and say, 'Hey, you wanna go and hear Sinatra?' Then we'd just lean on the door of the club in the alley and listen to the music. I think the girls were looking for something a bit more uptown. Nora laughs. NORA I'd go with you and lean against the door. They dance for a bit and look at one another. He leans toward her, holds her tight and kisses her. Then the RECORD STICKS on the words "that's the time"... "that's the time"... "that's the time"... BB slips off one of his loafers, while still embracing Nora, kicks it so that it hits the side of the record table. The RECORD SLIPS a little and continues to play correctly. NORA (she looks at BB) You've got a pretty good aim. BB I sure do. CUT TO: 60. 59 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT 59 Nora is sleeping in the bed, BB slips a robe on, looks at her and then goes down the stairs to the living room. He takes a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket on the back of a chair, and dials a number on the telephone. CUT TO: 60 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR - NIGHT 60 TELEPHONE RINGS at the bar, the BARMAN picks it up. BARMAN (into phone) Yeah, he's here... just a minute. The Barman calls over to Tilley who we see sitting at a table with some of the other tin men. BARMAN Hey, Tilley, somebody wants ya on the phone. Tilley gets up from the table and goes over to the phone. TILLEY Yeah, this is Tilley... CUT TO: 61 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 61 BB on phone. BB Hey, asshole... here's the ultimate 'fuck you'... I just poked your wife! CUT TO: 62 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 62 Tilley on phone. TILLEY What are you talking about? CUT TO: 61. 63 INT. BB'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM 63 BB on phone. BB She's in my bed right now with a big smile on her face. CUT TO: 64 INT. PIMLICO HOTEL - BAR 64 Tilley on phone. TILLEY Well, that's just fine by me... she's a pain in the ass... an albatross around my neck. You're welcome to her... keep her... and may you both rot in hell! Tilley slams the phone down. CUT TO: 65 INT. LIVING ROOM 65 BB puts the phone down -- looks puzzled. BB Is this a setup? That son of a bitch... I bet he set me up... I thought I got him, and he got me. That son of a bitch! CUT TO: 66 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 66 Tilley pulls up in his car in front of his house. He runs up the front steps. 67 INT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 67 He opens the door, flips on the lights and looks around. He races upstairs and starts rifling through the closet and drawers, pulling out Nora's clothes -- her dresses, skirts, blouses, and coats -- and he opens the window wide and throws them out. He screams as he tosses underwear and the rest of her clothes. (CONTINUED) 62. 67 CONTINUED: 67 TILLEY I'm a free man! I'm a free man! He grabs Nora's shoes and throws them out onto the street. Then he goes into the bathroom and piles all of her toiletries in his arms, tosses them into a trash can. Takes a suitcase from a shelf in the bedroom, opens it, throws in the trash can. He clears out her underwear drawers and empties them into the suitcase, closes the suitcase and then throws that out of the window. He's out of breath, exhausted and sweating. He goes down- stairs into the kitchen to get himself a drink. He sees a pair of Nora's slippers under the kitchen table, he picks them up, opens the back door and tosses them outside. Locks the door. He stands there as if a motor is running inside of him. Walks out of the kitchen. 68 EXT. TILLEY'S HOUSE 68 He exits the house, gets into his car and drives away. CUT TO: 69 INT. TILLEY'S CAR - NIGHT 69 Tilley is driving. The same Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" is playing on the car RADIO. Tilley does his now familiar neck exercises to relieve tension. He's hard to read... a mixture of happiness and sadness. CUT TO: 70 EXT. DINER - NIGHT 70 THROUGH the window of the diner we see Tilley sitting alone at a table drinking a cup of coffee. The Sinatra record "IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING" plays over this. CUT TO: 71 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 71 Nora is getting out of her car in front of her house. She starts to walk toward the house and stops as she sees her clothing, shoes, etc. scattered all over the lawn. She tries to take in the scene -- coats are lying on hedges, underwear on the flower beds... she's shocked. (CONTINUED) 63. 71 CONTINUED: 71 NORA (quietly) Oh, my God! She just stands there and tears run down her face. LONG WIDE SHOT of Nora's BACK TO the CAMERA, with all her possessions strewn over the front garden of her house. CUT TO: 72 EXT. BB'S FRONT DOOR - NIGHT 72 Nora is standing at the door with her suitcase in hand. BB is at the door. NORA He must have gone crazy... I don't know what happened to him... he must have found out I was with you... I don't know... I don't know what to do. She starts to cry. She goes to hug BB. NORA Can I stay with you for a day or two? BB puts his arms around Nora. BB Sure. CUT TO: 73 INT. POOL HALL - LONG SHOT - DAY 73 of a nearly empty pool hall. One guy plays alone in the far corner of the room. Tilley comes down the stairs of the pool hall and starts to walk toward the back rooms -- CAMERA FOLLOWS him. He opens the door and goes through. 74 INT. GIBRALTAR ALUMINUM SIDING COMPANY 74 CAMERA CONTINUES TO FOLLOW him INTO the offices of Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company. (CONTINUED) 64. 74 CONTINUED: 74 We PASS BY THREE GIRLS on telephones -- they are solicit- ing jobs for the salesmen. CAMERA GOES FROM one Girl TO the other. GIRL #1 Hello, this is Gibraltar Aluminum Siding Company, we're taking a survey... GIRL #2 ... Would you be interested in our field representative giving you a home demonstration? GIRL #3 ... Home demonstration. We will have some factory representatives in your area today as it happens. A voice calls out. VOICE (O.S.) Tilley! Let me see you. Tilley walks over to the coffee machine. TILLEY Wing, give me a minute to get a cup of coffee here. Tilley passes Sam on the way to the coffee machine. Sam is looking through the sports page of the newspaper, along with Mouse and Gil. SAM What about 'Super Highway' in the seventh... it's paying 7 to 1. Ran well in its last race. Gil looking at the newspaper. GIL 'Super Highway'... TILLEY Four in the fourth... twenty bucks. SAM Who's that? TILLEY I don't know... it just came to me -- number four in the fourth. (CONTINUED) 65. 74 CONTINUED: (2) 74 SAM (looking at Tilley) Number four in the fourth -- 'Rider's Revenge' -- 60 to 1, never been in the money. Nice pick, Tilley. Why don't you just throw the twenty dollars in the trash can right now. TILLEY 'Rider's Revenge'... I like that name. I've gotta go and see Wing. (a little pissed off) Look, we can be scientific from now to doomsday, but we gotta be gutsy and go for the big one. Tilley goes through the door into Wing's office. 75 INT. WING'S OFFICE 75 His office is equally messy and thrown together as everything else in the Gibraltar offices. As Tilley closes the door, his coffee, which is filled to the top of his cup, spills over the top and starts to burn his hand. TILLEY Ah! Ah! He jumps back, and puts his coffee down on a desk, and wipes his hand on the back of his jacket. TILLEY What's up, Wing? Wing is sitting at his desk which is cluttered with papers. WING You lost a sale, Tilley. The Hudsons' loan didn't go through. TILLEY What do ya mean? They wouldn't clear the loan? (CONTINUED) 66. 75 CONTINUED: 75 WING This Mr. Hudson's some guy. He's got three outstanding shoplifting charges, failure to pay child support from a previous marriage ... guy's overdue on his mortgage, overdue on his car loan, and he was fired from his last job for misappropriation of funds. TILLEY What's wrong with this world? There are sick people out there! Thievin' son of a bitch like that takes up my time... cuts into the amount of hours I have available to deal with other people interested in my wares! There's no fucking sympathy for the working man in this country. WING They don't make our job easy, Tilley. TILLEY (lamenting) Wing, it was such a beautiful thing... you shoulda seen how I worked. Like a magician... 'this job is free'! It was my best... my best! There's no fucking justice in this world... there ain't no justice. Tilley goes to pick up his coffee off the desk. WING Did you see the paper? TILLEY What section? WING Take a look at this. He hands the newspaper to Tilley. TILLEY (reading) 'Home Improvement Commission... Hearings begin today..." Is this McCarthyism? What are they gonna see? If there are any communists? (CONTINUED) 67. 75 CONTINUED: (2) 75 WING Just cool down the scams, okay, Tilley? Tilley shrugs his shoulders. CUT TO: 76 INT. CONVERTED TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 76 An area has been set up for hearings to take place. This seems to be a temporary headquarters until something sub- stantial can be worked out. There are boxes and crates all over. There's a long table with a number of commis- sioners behind it, and a defense table a little way across the room. MICROPHONES are being used, and the sound BOOMS -- ECHOING off the walls. A small gallery of people are watching the proceedings. ANGLE ON JOHN MASTERS who is presiding over the hearings. Even though he wears a tie and a vest, he is nonetheless very sloppily dressed. To his left and right are two other home improvement commissioners. MASTERS Now, when you made your initial sales pitch, did you indicate that you would be giving free storm windows with the job? ANGLE ON MURRAY BANKS A typical aluminum sidings salesman, in his early 40's. He leans into the microphone. MURRAY Free storm windows? MASTERS Yes. That you would provide a free set of storm windows with the sale of aluminum siding. MURRAY No, sir. I wouldn't be able to make any money if I was giving away storm windows. My cost of a storm window is somewhere like... (CONTINUED) 68. 76 CONTINUED: 76 MASTERS (cutting him off) The point being that you had no intention of giving away the storm windows. ANGLE ON BB AND MOE Standing by the door at the back of the warehouse. MURRAY (O.S.) The storm windows, as I can recall, was not an issue. I mentioned that I thought the storm windows would cut down on their heating bill, and that they would obviously enhance the look of the house with the aluminum siding work we were going to do. MASTERS (O.S.) So, you weren't dangling a free set of storm windows as a come-on to selling them the aluminum siding job? Because it says here, and I'm reading from a statement from Mr. Tabaleri... MOE (to BB) What do ya make of all this? BB It's the future, Moe... it's the future. MASTERS (O.S.) 'It was my understanding that the storm windows were included in the price of the sale.' CUT TO: 77 EXT. TOBACCO WAREHOUSE - DAY 77 Moe and BB are walking away from the warehouse toward BB's car... AWAY FROM CAMERA. MOE Where do you think they're getting this information from? (CONTINUED) 69. 77 CONTINUED: 77 BB I dunno... looks like any tin man gets in that hot seat, then he's had it. MOE Then they can take your license forever... it don't seem fair. They walk by a Volkswagen "beetle" car that's parked in front of BB's Cadillac. BB stops and looks at it. BB Boy, I tell ya, I bet you could sell a ton of these things. MOE That? Too silly-looking. BB looks at the car for a few more seconds, then goes to get into his car. BB Ever see a dealership? MOE No. BB Interesting. They get in the car and drive off. CUT TO: 78 EXT. RACETRACK - ANGLE ON STARTING GATE - DAY 78 as it bolts open and the horses charge out. CUT TO: 79 INT. TURF CLUB AT RACE TRACK - ANGLE ON SAM AND TILLEY 79 - DAY Sitting at a table. Sam is studying the racing form, Tilley is studying the menu. (CONTINUED) 70. 79 CONTINUED: 79 TILLEY I keep racking my brain. I gotta find a way to really get even with this guy. It isn't enough to wreck his car... even breaking into his house and messing it up or something, that don't have enough impact. I mean, the man poked my wife! I gotta come up with something ingenious... something ingenious. Sam sees a WAITER approaching and indicates to Tilley to get off the subject. Waiter arrives at their table. SAM (to Tilley) So, what do ya think? TILLEY I think I'll take some meatloaf. WAITER (writes on check) Meatloaf. TILLEY No, I think I'll have some fish. No, no... fish doesn't fill you up. Meatloaf. He closes the menu. WAITER So, it's meatloaf? SAM (to Tilley) What do you think, 'Sally's pride' in the second? (to Waiter) Get me a Bloody Mary. WAITER (to Sam) Anything other than the Bloody Mary? TILLEY (to Sam) What number is Sally's Pride? (CONTINUED) 71. 79 CONTINUED: (2) 79 SAM Six. (to Waiter) No, I don't like to eat until the third race. Waiter walks off. TILLEY (putting his hand to his forehead) Six... six... six... six. (beat) I'm thinking one. Whose one? SAM Mr. Motor. TILLEY Then that's it, I'm going with one. SAM Tilley, this is insane. You're picking horses because you think you're clairvoyant or something. TILLEY Sam, I'm not doing too well by checking the stats, so why not. I put my hand to my forehead, I see a one -- Mr. Motor in the second... twenty bucks. They both look toward the track, the horses race to the finish line. Number nine streaks across the finish line. SAM Hallihan's Daughter. TILLEY (laughing) I got it... I got it... He picks up the racing form. TILLEY Three to one... hundred and sixty smackers. (laughs) Hand to the forehead! Hand to the forehead! (CONTINUED) 72. 79 CONTINUED: (3) 79 SAM You're not exactly talking about a long shot. Mr. Motor, for instance, is coming off at 50 to 1. Tilley taps his forehead, with his eyes closed. TILLEY Third race, I see a six... I see a three. I don't think the verdict's in on that one yet. Tilley stands up and is going through his money and race tickets. TILLEY Wing paid a hundred on number five, he loses, I got hundred and forty... next race I'll lay down the bet. (beat) What you taking in this race? SAM Thrifty's Delight -- number four -- 20 bucks. TILLEY You take Thrifty's Delight -- 20 bucks, I got 20 on Mr. Motor, Wing's got a hundred on Night Fire. What's the odds on Night Fire? SAM Twenty to one. TILLEY I don't see Night Fire winning. Fuck it, I'm not gonna even place the bet... I just made a hundred bucks. SAM What are you, crazy? What happens if he wins? TILLEY He's not gonna win... I feel it. (CONTINUED) 73. 79 CONTINUED: (4) 79 Tilley heads towards the betting booths. Wing enters near the booths, Tilley yells to him. TILLEY Hey, Wing, we're sitting just off the left of the entrance. I'm gonna lay down your bet right now. See you in a minute. You lost the first race, in case you don't know. CUT TO: 80 EXT. STREET - DAY 80 BB's Cadillac is moving along the street. CUT TO: 81 INT. BB'S CADILLAC - DAY 81 BB is behind the wheel, Moe is beside him in the passenger seat. BB I tell you something, she's getting on my nerves. MOE Who, Nora? BB Yeah, yeah... who else is it gonna be... 'who, Nora"!... who else is there? (beat) The whole idea of being with a girl on consecutive nights is new to me. It's one thing when they're with you for a night, but when they live with ya, it's stretching the point. They got a lot of things they bring with them... you go to the bathroom you see 'things' you never saw before. MOE So, what's the todo? (CONTINUED) 74. 81 CONTINUED: 81 BB Well, they move your stuff around and it's not where it used to be... I'm not used to that. MOE You mean all this time you've never lived with a girl? BB What?! Did we just meet? How long we been partners? No, I've never lived with a girl! MOE Boy, oh boy! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? BB Yes, I did. I came in last night, she was sleeping on my side of the bed. In my life I never got out of bed on the left side... in my life, never from the left. (beat; he looks out of the car window) I got close once up in the Catskills. I met this girl, Dorian. For a week we were together, but it wasn't the same because she always went to her room to change and do all that stuff. She didn't have things in my room. BB gives a big sigh. BB All this 'cos I'm trying to get even with some guy. (beat) You know what? I think I got to see her and put an end to this. CUT TO: 82 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - DAY 82 We see hundreds of secretaries typing away, and clerks sitting at desks. BB walks into the office, peeking his head around the corner, feeling a little uncomfortable. He starts to walk around trying to find Nora out of all the secretaries and clerks. (CONTINUED) 75. 82 CONTINUED: 82 ANGLE ON NELLIE Nora's friend. She looks up from the typewriter and sees BB. In his thick overcoat, huddled up, he seems a little lost, and it's obvious that he's looking for someone. NELLIE (calling across to Nora at the next desk) Is that him? NORA (looks up and and BB wandering around) Yes. (she smiles and yells) Bill! BB turns towards Nora. Nora waves to him, happily, with a twinkle in her eye. BB feels conspicuous -- people are looking at him. He gives a little wave. BB (softly) Yeah. CUT TO: 83 INT. SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE - COFFEE AREA 83 Nora gives BB a small kiss. NORA I'm glad you stopped by. This is a real surprise. BB Listen, I got a problem. NORA Oh. How can I help? BB Um... er... (realizing that she didn't quite get the point) Well, the problem is... like... is like... eh, you know... you're the problem. (CONTINUED) 76. 83 CONTINUED: 83 NORA (quietly, obviously really taken with him) Really. How so? BB There's things that are bothering me. NORA Like what? BB You know... things. NORA Things? BB You know, like things that come up... stuff... like... you know, annoyances. NORA Annoyances? BB Hard to explain... very hard. NORA Well, try. BB As an example... I came home last night, I get undressed, and I realize you're sleeping on my side of the bed. I've always slept on that side... it's something I've always done. NORA Then why didn't you just nudge me a bit and tell me to go and sleep on the other side? BB I didn't want to wake you up... I thought you might think it was kind of stupid or something. NORA Well, that's easily changed. (CONTINUED) 77. 83 CONTINUED: (2) 83 BB But there are other things... bigger things. But I realize just talking about it, they all sound petty and silly. NORA Listen, if you think all of this is going too fast, maybe I should move out. Is that what you want, Bill? BB looks around, very uncomfortable, and he shrugs. NORA I really care for you, but if you think it's best. (beat) I don't want to make you unhappy. After a long beat. BB I don't think we've got to take drastic action. Nora smiles. BB Thought I'd come by and get things off my chest... talk it out. (beat) Listen, I'm going over to Pimlico... catch the seventh race... wanna come? NORA I can't get away from work. BB I know. He goes to walk away, then turns back and gives her a quick kiss. He turns and walks away. Nora watches him as he walks by the rows and rows of secretaries and clerks. CUT TO: | company | How many times the word 'company' appears in the text? | 3 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | my | How many times the word 'my' appears in the text? | 3 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | mission | How many times the word 'mission' appears in the text? | 0 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | become | How many times the word 'become' appears in the text? | 2 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | arrogant | How many times the word 'arrogant' appears in the text? | 1 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | late | How many times the word 'late' appears in the text? | 2 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | happy | How many times the word 'happy' appears in the text? | 2 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | stronger | How many times the word 'stronger' appears in the text? | 1 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | already | How many times the word 'already' appears in the text? | 2 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | earned | How many times the word 'earned' appears in the text? | 1 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | indeed | How many times the word 'indeed' appears in the text? | 2 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | replace | How many times the word 'replace' appears in the text? | 0 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | poop | How many times the word 'poop' appears in the text? | 0 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | put | How many times the word 'put' appears in the text? | 2 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | beer | How many times the word 'beer' appears in the text? | 0 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | succeeding | How many times the word 'succeeding' appears in the text? | 1 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | magnificence | How many times the word 'magnificence' appears in the text? | 0 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | blameless | How many times the word 'blameless' appears in the text? | 1 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | le | How many times the word 'le' appears in the text? | 3 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | attention | How many times the word 'attention' appears in the text? | 0 |
when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down and make tea." She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: "My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you on Hortense!" "Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sudden invasion there. "Madame Olivier?" On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the courtyard as far as the Baron led her. "You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a notary's office, and is finishing his studies." "Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le Baron's happiness." "Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" "What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. "A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger power. "Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him before!" "What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was living in the Rue du Doyenne?" "Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----" "He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame Olivier. "He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The carriage is gone." "Did you see him go?" "As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the Embassy." This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands. "He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. "How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your son is a notary." "Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! "She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. "Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where is everybody gone?" "Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. "No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset everything--" "Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. "So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of a man to whom women have ceased to exist. The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and himself. "I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the Baron. "Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at this minute----" "And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing his cards and laying them down in front of him. A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the Mayor. "I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my dear Marneffe----" "Do you know that you are very uncivil?" "A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot look handsome in my eyes." "Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. "You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. "That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and a peer." "Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation between him and Crevel. "The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! 'Short and sweet' is my motto." "'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of conduct was at once decided on. "Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." "We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. "Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. "How long will it take you?" "Ten minutes," said Marneffe. "It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. "You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." "I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." "Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." "Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. "Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be off there--or good-night." "Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open air, and he went away. Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant glance, conveying: "Get rid of Crevel." "Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." "We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," said Crevel. "Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at once reduced to submission. "That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed look of contempt, he broke off. "What of him?" said she. "That cousin--" "Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted bread--I accepted the bargain." "But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once more. "You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a year at most, I suppose." "Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." "Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. "Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times." "Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" "Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five years' constancy--" "Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am worth six of Josepha. "Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you think of nothing but increasing it--" "For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his knees. "What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. "What are you about?" "He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed to pay me----" Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is done on the stage. "Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." "Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. "Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is adorable!" As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed them, leaving on them the traces of tears. "It shall all stand in your name," he said. "That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" "Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, his natural feeling coming to the top. "If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly come back." Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the very bottom. "My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" "Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. "Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. "Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." "Very good, madame." Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War Office chief had tried to offer her. "You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that to-morrow." Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. "By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!--Ha, there is my man!" He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he went straight up to him. "Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, and that his cloak was wet. "Who on earth told you--?" he began. "Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good friends, all the same." "Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a matter of life and death." "Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are _Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons dangereuses_!" Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. "Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at last. "That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. "Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let yourself in?" And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. "Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." "Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with exasperation. "Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw himself in after. On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge and the projecting mass of the staircase. This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should happen to meet her. As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact cost sixty thousand francs. "What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be surprised at it." He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real lady," his Valerie, his duchess. "There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." "Proof!" was all the Baron could say. Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a _bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the Baron. "Read that," said he. The Councillor read these words written in pencil: "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" "Well, is that her writing?" "Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of the little inlaid cabinet. "You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In October, two months before, this charming little place was first used." Hulot bent his head. "How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of her day." "How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands in triumph. "What then?" said Hulot, mystified. "Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your title." Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. "As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" "Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?" But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. "You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous." "I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?" "She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." "How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel. "It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha." "And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot. "And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, | really | How many times the word 'really' appears in the text? | 3 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | doctor | How many times the word 'doctor' appears in the text? | 1 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | four | How many times the word 'four' appears in the text? | 2 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | meeting | How many times the word 'meeting' appears in the text? | 2 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | school | How many times the word 'school' appears in the text? | 1 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | bucks-- | How many times the word 'bucks--' appears in the text? | 0 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | italy | How many times the word 'italy' appears in the text? | 0 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | receipt | How many times the word 'receipt' appears in the text? | 0 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | toast | How many times the word 'toast' appears in the text? | 0 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | harvard | How many times the word 'harvard' appears in the text? | 3 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | watch | How many times the word 'watch' appears in the text? | 2 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | parker | How many times the word 'parker' appears in the text? | 1 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | sleep | How many times the word 'sleep' appears in the text? | 2 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | patronage | How many times the word 'patronage' appears in the text? | 0 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | aside | How many times the word 'aside' appears in the text? | 0 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | check | How many times the word 'check' appears in the text? | 2 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | thinking | How many times the word 'thinking' appears in the text? | 0 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | courtyard | How many times the word 'courtyard' appears in the text? | 2 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | providing | How many times the word 'providing' appears in the text? | 0 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | organic | How many times the word 'organic' appears in the text? | 2 |
where a mind like Will's is given free reign. SEAN That's great, Gerry, that there's interest -- But I'm not sure he's ready for that. LAMBEAU Sean, I really don't think you understand-- SEAN What don't I understand? Timmy comes over with the sandwiches. SEAN Thanks, Timmy. LAMBEAU Excuse me, Timmy. Could you help us? We're trying to settle a bet. TIMMY Uh-oh. LAMBEAU Have you heard of Jonas Salk? TIMMY Yeah, cured polio. LAMBEAU You've heard of Albert Einstein? Timmy smiles. Gives him a look. LAMBEAU How about Gerald Lambeau? Ever heard of him? TIMMY No. LAMBEAU Okay thank you, Timmy. TIMMY So who won the bet? LAMBEAU I did. A beat. Timmy leaves. LAMBEAU This isn't about me. I'm nothing compared to this young man. (beat) Sean, in 1905 there were hundreds of Professors who were renowned for their study of the universe. But it was a 26-year-old Swiss Patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time, who changed the world, Sean. Can you imagine if Einstein had given that up? Or gotten drunk with his buddies in Vienna every night? All of us would have lost something. And I'm quite sure Timmy never would have heard of him. SEAN Isn't that a little dramatic, Gerry? LAMBEAU No, Sean. This boy has that gift. He just hasn't got the direction. We can give that to him. A beat. SEAN He married his cousin. LAMBEAU Who? SEAN Einstein. Had two marriages, both trainwrecks. The guy never saw his kids, one of whom, I think, ended up in an asylum- possible Unabomber addition-- LAMBEAU You see, Sean? That's exactly not the point. No one remembers that. They-- SEAN I do. LAMBEAU Well, you're the only one. Beat. LAMBEAU This boy can make contributions to the world. We can help him do that. SEAN Just... take it easy, Gerry. LAMBEAU Look, I don't know what else I can say. I'm not sitting at home every night, twisting my mustache and hatching a plan to ruin the boy's life. But it's important to start early. I was doing advanced mathematics at eighteen and it still took me twenty-three years to do something worthy of a Field's medal. SEAN Maybe he doesn't care about that. A beat. LAMBEAU Sean, this is important. And it's above personal rivalry-- SEAN Now wait a minute, Gerry-- LAMBEAU No, no you hear me out, Sean. This young man is a true prodigy-- SEAN Personal rivalry? I'm not getting back at you. LAMBEAU Look, you took one road and I took another. That's fine. SEAN Is it Gerry? 'Cause I don't think it's fine with you. Give him time to figure out what he wants. LAMBEAU That's a wonderful theory, Sean. It worked wonders for you. A beat. Lambeau gets up. LAMBEAU Sean, I came here today out of courtesy. I wanted to keep you in the loop. As we speak the boy is in a meeting I set up for him over at Tri-tech. CUT TO: INT. TRI-TECH LABORATORIES, OFFICE -- SAME Three well dressed TRI-TECH EXECUTIVES sit around a conference table, which is littered with promotional brochures. The executives exchange a confused look. One of them speaks. EXECUTIVE (tentative) Well, Will, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, we've already offered you a position.. Cut to reveal: Chuckie sitting across from the executives, hair combed down, wearing his Sunday best. CHUCKIE Since this is obviously not my first time in such altercations, let me say this: Chuckie rubs the tips of his fingers together, indicating "cash." The executives are baffled. CHUCKIE Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The executives are completely blank. CHUCKIE At the current time I am looking at a number of different fields from which to disseminate which offer is most pursuant aid to my benefit. (a beat) What do you want? What do I want? What does anybody want? Leniency. EXECUTIVE I'm not sure-- CHUCKIE --These circumstances are mitigated. Right now. They're mitigated. Chuckie puts his hands up, as if getting a vibe from the room. EXECUTIVE Okay... Chuckie points to the third executive. CHUCKIE He knows what I'm talking about. The third executive is baffled. CHUCKIE A retainer. Nobody in this town works without a retainer. You think you can find someone who does, you have my blessin'. But I think we all know that person isn't going to represent you as well as I can. EXECUTIVE Will, our offer starts you at eighty- four thousand a year, plus benefits. CHUCKIE Retainer... EXECUTIVE You want us to give you cash right now? CHUCKIE Allegedly, what I am saying is your situation will be concurrently improved if I had two hundred sheets in my pocket right now. The executives exchange looks and go for their wallets. EXECUTIVE I don't think I... Larry? EXECUTIVE I have about seventy-three... EXECUTIVE Will you take a check? CHUCKIE Come now... what do you think I am, a juvenile? You don't got any money on you right now. You think I'm gonna take a check? EXECUTIVE It's fine, John, I can cover the rest. CHUCKIE That's right, you know. (turns to #1) He knows. Chuckie stands up and takes the money. CHUCKIE (to exec #1) You're suspect. I don't know what your reputation is, but after the shit you tried to pull today, you can bet I'll be looking into it. Any conversations you want to have with me heretofore, you can have with my attorney. Gentlemen, keep your ears to the grindstone. CUT TO: EXT. AU BON PAIN COURTYARD, HARVARD SQUARE -- DAY Will and Skylar sit in the open courtyard of this Harvard Square eatery. Skylar is working on another O-chem lab. Will sits across from her, slightly bored watching her work. WILL How's it goin'? SKYLAR Fine. WILL Want me to take a look? SKYLAR No. WILL C'mon, give me a peek and we'll go to the battin' cages. SKYLAR It's important that I learn this. WILL Why is it important to you? If I inherited all that money, the only thing important to me would be workin' on my swing. SKYLAR Clearly. WILL You're rich. What do you have to worry about? SKYLAR Rich? I have an inheritance. It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's exactly what it'll cost me, minus about five hundred bucks, to go all the way through med school. This is what I'm doing with that money. I could have done anything I wanted. I could have expanded my wardrobe, substantially. WILL Instead you're going to bust your ass for five years so you can be broke? SKYLAR No, so I can be a doctor. A beat. Will nods. She looks down, then up. SKYLAR All right, Mr. Nosey Parker. Let me ask you a question? Do you have a photographic memory? WILL I guess. I don't know. How do you remember your phone number? SKYLAR Have you ever studied Organic Chemistry? WILL Some, a little. SKYLAR Just for fun? WILL I guess so. SKYLAR Nobody does organic chemistry for "fun." It's unnecessary. Especially for someone like you. WILL Like me? SKYLAR Yeah. Someone like you who divides his time, fairly evenly, between the batting cages and bars. Will laughs. SKYLAR How did you do that? I can't... I mean even the smartest people I know, and we do have a few at Harvard, have to study- a lot. It's hard. (beat) Listen, Will, if you don't want to tell me-- WILL Do you play the piano? SKYLAR Come one Will. I just want to know. WILL I'm trying to explain it to you. So you play the piano. When you look at the keys, you see music, you see Mozart. SKYLAR I see "Hot Cross Buns," but okay. WILL Well all right, Beethoven. He looked at a piano and saw music. The fuckin' guy was deaf when he composed the Ode to Joy. They had to turn him around to take a bow because he couldn't hear the crowd going crazy behind him. Stone deaf. He saw all of that music in his head. SKYLAR So, do you play the piano? WILL Not a lick. I look at a piano and I see black and white keys, three pedals and a box of wood. Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it just made sense to them. They saw a piano and they could play. I couldn't paint you a picture, I probably can't hit the ball out of Fenway Park and I can't play the piano-- SKYLAR But you can do my O-chem lab in under an hour, you can-- WILL When it came to stuff like that I could always just play. Skylar is awestruck with admiration for Will, the Robot-pimp. So much so that Skylar has to kiss him, then push him away. SKYLAR I can't believe it's taken me four years to meet you and I'm going to California in two months, Will. (beat) Have you ever been to California? I bet you'd like it. Will freezes. A beat. SKYLAR Maybe not. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S APARTMENT -- DAY Chuckie sits on his couch, watching cartoons in his boxers and a tee-shirt, eating cereal. The doorbell rings. He sits. CHUCKIE Get it, ma! She doesn't. He gets up. Opens door. It's Skylar. CHUCKIE (surprised) Hey. SKYLAR Hi. CHUCKIE How you doin'? SKYLAR Good. An awkward beat. CHUCKIE How'd you know where to find me? SKYLAR (smiles) You were the only Sullivan in the phone book. Chuckie smiles. SKYLAR Will and I dropped you off here, remember? CHUCKIE Oh, right. SKYLAR This is your house, right? Chuckie nods and is about to respond when he is interrupted by a nagging shriek from his mom. CHUCKIE'S MOM (O.S.) Get in here, Chuckie! CHUCKIE (calling back) Pipe down, Ma! SKYLAR I guess so. CHUCKIE What? No. This is my mother's house. I don't live with my mother. I just stop by, help out. I'm good like that. SKYLAR Is this a bad time? CHUCKIE She'll live. (beat) If she starts yelling again I might have to run in real quick and beat her with the stick again but... SKYLAR Okay. CHUCKIE Let's take a walk. EXT. CHUCKIE'S STREET -- DAY Chuckie, still in his boxers walks with Skylar who is talking. SKYLAR See, now this doesn't feel right. (beat) When I made the decision to come over here it felt right. I had all these rationalizations... I just don't understand why Will never tells me anything, he won't let me get close to him, he tells me these weird lies-- CHUCKIE You caught that, huh? SKYLAR I just wanted to find out what was going on... But now that I'm here it seems strange, doesn't it? CHUCKIE Well, I don't have no trousers on... She laughs. A beat. CHUCKIE I know why you're here. Will don't talk much. SKYLAR I don't care what his family's like or if he doesn't have any brothers, but he doesn't have to lie to me. CHUCKIE I really don't know what to say. Look, I lie to women all the time. That's just my way. (beat) Last week Morgan brought these girls down from Roslindale. I told them I was a cosmonaut. They believed me. But Will's not usually like that-- MAN ON PORCH Put some clothes on, Sullivan! CHUCKIE Take it easy father! She laughs. CHUCKIE All I can say is; I known Will a long time -- And I seen him with every girl he's ever been with. But I've never seen him like this before, ever with anyone, like how he is with you. SKYLAR Is that true? CHUCKIE Yeah, it is. CUT TO: INT. LAMBEAU'S OFFICE -- DAY Tom and Will are sitting waiting for Lambeau. TOM !!! ! WILL !!! ! Lambeau enters going over a thick proof Will has completed. LAMBEAU This is correct. I see you used Mclullen here-- WILL I don't know what it's called. LAMBEAU --This can't be right. (examining proof) This is going to be very embarrassing. Have you ever considered-- WILL I'm pretty sure it's right. Will gets up to leave. WILL (turning back) Can I ask you a favor, can we do this at Sean's from now on? 'Cause I leave work to come here and the fuckin' commute is killin' me-- LAMBEAU That's fine, but did you ever think-- WILL It's right. (a beat, heading out) Take it home with you. LAMBEAU Will, what happened at the Tri-tech meeting? WILL I couldn't go 'cause I had a date. So I sent my chief negotiator. LAMBEAU Will, on your own time, you can do what you like. When I set up a meeting, with my associates, and you don't show up it reflects poorly on me. WILL Then don't set up any more meetings. LAMBEAU I'll cancel every meeting right now. I'll give you a job myself. I just wanted you to see what was out there. WILL Maybe I don't want to spend my life sittin' around and explaining shit to people. LAMBEAU The least you can do is show me a little appreciation. WILL (indicates proof) You know how fuckin' easy this is to me? This is a joke! (crumples proof) And I'm sorry you can't do this. I really am. 'Cause if you could I wouldn't be forced to watch you fumble around and fuck it up. LAMBEAU Sure, then you'd have more time to sit around and get drunk. Think of how many fights you could have been in by now. Will turns around reveling that he's lit the PROOF ON FIRE. Will drops it on the floor. Lambeau drops to his knees and puts it out. He looks up at Will. LAMBEAU You're right, Will. I can't do that proof and you can. And when it comes to this there are only twenty people in the world that can tell the difference between you and me. But I'm one of them. WILL Well, I'm sorry. LAMBEAU So am I. (beat) Yes. That's right, Will. Most days I wish I never met you. Because then I could sleep at night. I wouldn't have to walk around with the knowledge that someone like you was out there. And I wouldn't have to watch you throw it all away. Lambeau gathers his composure and calmly walks over to the wrinkled proof. He picks it up, smooths it out. CUT TO: INT. SKYLAR'S ROOM -- NIGHT Will and Skylar lie in bed. Skylar watches Will sleep. She gets up and goes to the fridge. Returning to the bed: SKYLAR Will? Are you awake? WILL No. SKYLAR Come with me to California. WILL What? SKYLAR I want you to come with me. WILL How do you know that? SKYLAR I know. I just do. WILL Yeah, but how do you know? SKYLAR I don't know. I just feel it. WILL And you're sure about that? SKYLAR Yeah, I'm sure. WILL 'Cause that's a serious thing you're sayin'. I mean, we might be in California next week and you could find out somethin' about me that you don't like. And you might feel like "hey this is a big mistake." (getting upset) But you can't take it back, 'cause you know it's real serious and you can't take somethin' like that back. Now I'm in California, 'cause you asked me to come. But you don't really want me there. And I'm stuck in California with someone who really doesn't want me there and just wishes they had a take-back. SKYLAR "Take-back?" What is that? I don't want a take-back. I want you to come to California with me. WILL I can't go out to California. SKYLAR Why not? WILL One, because I have a job here and two because I live here-- SKYLAR (beat) Look, Will if you're not in love with me, you can say that. WILL I'm not sayin' I'm not in love with you. SKYLAR Then what are you afraid of? WILL What do you mean "What am I afraid of?" SKYLAR Why won't you come with me? What are you so scared of? WILL What am I scared of? SKYLAR Well, what aren't you scared of? You live in your safe little world where nobody challenges you and you're scared shitless to do anything else-- WILL Don't tell me about my world. You're the one that's afraid. You just want to have your little fling with the guy from the other side of town and marry-- SKYLAR Is that what you think-- WILL some prick from Stanford that your parents will approve of. Then you'll sit around with the rest of the upper crust kids and talk about how you went slummin' too. SKYLAR I inherited that money when I was thirteen, when my father died. WILL At least you have a mother. SKYLAR Fuck you! You think I want this? That money's a burden to me. Every day I wake up and I wish I could give that back. I'd give everything I have back to spend one more day with my father. But that's life. And I deal with it. So don't put that shit on me. You're the one that's afraid. WILL What the fuck am I afraid of?! SKYLAR You're afraid of me. You're afraid that I won't love you back. And guess what? I'm afraid too. But at least I have the balls to it give it a shot. At least I'm honest with you. WILL I'm not honest? SKYLAR What about your twelve brothers? WILL Oh, is that what this is about? You want to hear that I don't really have any brothers? That I'm a fuckin' orphan? Is that what you want to hear? SKYLAR Yes, Will. I didn't even know that? WILL No, you don't want to hear that. SKYLAR Yes, I do, Will. WILL You don't want to hear that I got cigarettes put out on me when I was a little kid. That this isn't surgery. Will lifts his shirt, revealing a six inch SCAR on his torso. WILL You don't want to hear that. Don't tell me you want to hear that shit!! SKYLAR Yes I do. Did you ever think that maybe I could help you? That maybe that's the point, that we're a team? WILL What, you want to come in here and save me? Is that what you want to do? Do I have a sign that says "save me" on my back? SKYLAR I don't want to "save" you. I just want to be with you. I love you. I love you! Will, full of self-loathing, raises his hand to strike her. WILL Don't bullshit me! Don't fuckin' bullshit me! SKYLAR (standing up to him) You know what I want to hear? I want to hear that you don't love me. If you tell me that, then I'll leave you alone. I won't ask any questions and I won't be in your life. A beat. Will looks Skylar dead in the eye. Lowers his hand. WILL I don't love you. He walks out. CUT TO: EXT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- NIGHT Will leaves pulling on his clothes. CUT TO: INT. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, OFFICE -- DAY Will sits across from two N.S.A. AGENTS, OLIVER DYTRESS and ROBERT TAVANO. These guys are smug, clean cut, gung-ho and looking sharp in twin navy blue suits. WILL So why do you think I should work for the National Security Agency? DYTRESS Well, you'd be working on the cutting edge. You'd be exposed to the kind of technology you couldn't see anywhere else because we've classified it. Super string theory, Chaos Math, Advanced algorithms-- WILL Codebreaking. DYTRESS That's one aspect of what we do. WILL Come on, that's what you do. You handle more than eighty percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the C.I.A. DYTRESS That's exactly right, Will. So the question as I see it isn't "why should you work for N.S.A." it's "why shouldn't you?" WILL Why shouldn't I work for the National Security Agency? That's a tough one. Will bites his tongue, trying to make this work. CUT TO: INT. CHUCKIE'S HOUSE -- DAY Chuckie, Billy, and Will sit in the Sullivan kitchen. Billy cracks open a beer and Chuckie reads the sports page. Both boys are smoking. Will drinks a beer, distractedly. We hear the faint music track and soft moans of a PORNO MOVIE emanating from a back room. After a beat, Chuckie looks up. CHUCKIE Morgan, if you're watchin' pornos in my mom's room again I'm gonna give you a fuckin' beatin'! After a beat, Morgan comes out of the back room, red-faced. MORGAN (innocently) What's up guys? CHUCKIE Why don't you beat off at your house? MORGAN I don't have a VCR at my house. Will pays no attention to this exchange CUT TO: EXT. SOUTH BOSTON PAY PHONE -- DAY Will is on pay phone talking to Skylar. WILL I just wanted to call before you left. (beat) I'm takin' all these job interviews. So I won't just be a construction worker. INT. SKYLAR'S DORM -- DAY SKYLAR I never cared about that. An awkward beat. WILL Yeah. SKYLAR I love you, Will. (pause) No take-backs. Will says nothing. SKYLAR Will? A beat. WILL Take care. SKYLAR Goodbye. Will hangs up. Hold on him for an agonizing beat. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau is scribbling away at work. Tom is taking notes. Will is tapping his fingers, waiting for him to finish. LAMBEAU I can... I'm almost there. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME Skylar stands at the gate, carry-ons in hand. Her flight is boarding. She looks for Will over the crowd. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will picks up a FRAME from Sean's desk. It is CARLTON FISK'S BASEBALL CARD. Will has to smile. Lambeau looks up. LAMBEAU What are you smiling at? WILL It's a Carlton Fisk baseball card. Will can see that Lambeau wants more. WILL Pudge Fisk. You follow baseball? LAMBEAU No. CUT TO: INT. LOGAN AIRPORT TERMINAL -- SAME The final boarding call is announced and the last passenger boards. After a beat, Skylar turns and gets on the plane. CUT BACK TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- SAME Will, holding the card, reflects for a beat and puts it down. WILL Oh, well, it's just somethin' Sean told me. It's a long story. A beat. WILL You all set? LAMBEAU I've got the first part. The rest I can do at home. Will gets up. LAMBEAU Will, the N.S.A. has been calling me just about every hour. They're very excited about how the meeting went. Lambeau is excited. Will clearly is not. WILL Yeah. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- NIGHT Will sits across from Sean. SEAN So you might be working for Uncle Sam. WILL I don't know. SEAN Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL I guess. SEAN What did you think? WILL What did I think? A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this. WILL Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. A beat. WILL So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President. SEAN Do you think you're alone? WILL What? SEAN Do you have a soul-mate? WILL Define that. SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate. WILL Yeah. Sean waits. WILL Shakespeare, Neitzche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope, Kant-- SEAN They're all dead. WILL Not to me, they're not. SEAN But you can't give back to them, Will. WILL Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no... SEAN That's what I'm saying, Will. You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step because all you're seeing are the negative things that might happen ten miles down the road. WILL Oh, what? You're going to take the professor's side on this? SEAN Don't give me your line of shit. WILL I didn't want the job. SEAN It's not about that job. I'm not saying you should work for the government. But, you could do anything you want. And there are people who work their whole lives layin' brick so their kids have a chance at the kind of opportunity you have. What do you want to do? WILL I didn't ask for this. SEAN Nobody gets what they ask for, Will. That's a cop-out. WILL Why is it a cop-out? I don't see anythin' wrong with layin' brick, that's somebody's home I'm buildin'. Or fixin' somebody's car, somebody's gonna get to work the next day 'cause of me. There's honor in that. SEAN You're right, Will. Any man who takes a forty minute train ride so those college kids can come in in the morning and their floors will be clean and their trash cans will be empty is an honorable man. A beat. Will says nothing. SEAN And when they get drunk and puke in the sink, they don't have to see it the next morning because of you. That's real work, Will. And there is honor in that. Which I'm sure is why you took the job. A beat. SEAN I just want to know why you decided to sneak around at night, writing on chalkboards and lying about it. (beat) 'Cause there's no honor in that. Will is silent. SEAN Something you want to say? Sean gets up, goes to the door and opens it. SEAN Why don't you come back when you have an answer for me. WILL What? SEAN If you won't answer my questions, you're wasting my time. WILL What? Will loses it, slams the door shut. WILL Fuck you! Sean has finally gotten to Will. WILL Who the fuck are you to lecture me about life? You fuckin' burnout! Where's your "soul-mate?!" Sean lets this play out. Possible "shepard" change. WILL Dead! She dies and you just cash in your chips. That's a fuckin' cop- out! SEAN I been there. I played my hand. WILL That's right. And you fuckin' lost! And some people would have the sack to lose a big hand like that and still come back and ante up again! SEAN Look at me. What do you want to do? A beat. Will looks up. SEAN You and your bullshit. You got an answer for everybody. But I asked you a straight question and you can't give me a straight answer. Because you don't know. Sean goes to the door and opens it. Will walks out. CUT TO: INT. MAGGIORE BUILDER'S CONSTRUCTION SITE -- DAY Will and Chuckie take crowbars to a wall. This is what they do for a living. As they routinely hammer away, Will becomes more involved in his battle with the wall. Plaster and lathing fly as Will vents his rage. Chuckie, noticing, stops working and takes a step back, watching Will. Will is oblivious. CUT TO: INT. SEAN'S OFFICE -- DAY Lambeau and Tom are in his office. Will is nowhere to be seen. Lambeau is on the phone. LAMBEAU What I mean, Sean, is that I'm sitting in your office and the boy isn't here. (beat) Well, it's ten past three. (beat) An hour and ten minutes late. (beat) Well, if he doesn't show up and I have to file a report saying he wasn't here | huh | How many times the word 'huh' appears in the text? | 1 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | image | How many times the word 'image' appears in the text? | 1 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | separatists | How many times the word 'separatists' appears in the text? | 1 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | gets | How many times the word 'gets' appears in the text? | 1 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | organa | How many times the word 'organa' appears in the text? | 3 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | woods | How many times the word 'woods' appears in the text? | 0 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | treaty | How many times the word 'treaty' appears in the text? | 2 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | hesitates | How many times the word 'hesitates' appears in the text? | 1 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | please | How many times the word 'please' appears in the text? | 2 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | made | How many times the word 'made' appears in the text? | 2 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | propose | How many times the word 'propose' appears in the text? | 3 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | two | How many times the word 'two' appears in the text? | 2 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | join | How many times the word 'join' appears in the text? | 2 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | armies | How many times the word 'armies' appears in the text? | 2 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | were | How many times the word 'were' appears in the text? | 2 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | granting | How many times the word 'granting' appears in the text? | 3 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | speaks | How many times the word 'speaks' appears in the text? | 1 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | much | How many times the word 'much' appears in the text? | 1 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | sightings | How many times the word 'sightings' appears in the text? | 0 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | formally | How many times the word 'formally' appears in the text? | 2 |
where the hologram was in disbelief. BAIL ORGANA The Commerce Guilds are preparing for war... there can be no doubt of that. PALPATINE Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them. MACE WINDU We must stop them soon before they're fully ready. SENATOR ASK AAK The debate is over, we need that clone army now! BAIL ORGANA Unfortunately, the debate is not over. The Senate will never be able to approve the use of that army before the separatists attack. Mas Amedda, who had been silent up until now suddenly speaks up. MAS AMEDDA This is a crisis! If the Senate votes the Chancellor emergency powers, he could approve the use of the army in a minute. PALPATINE Please, please, I don't wish to have emergency powers. That's too extreme a solution. It's akin to a dictatorship. We must rely on the Jedi. Master Yoda, how many are available to go to Geonosis? MACE WINDU and YODA look at one another. YODA Two Hundred,... less or more. BAIL ORGANA With all due respect for the Jedi Order, two hundred will be no match for hundreds of thousands of battle droids. MACE WINDU Patience. We should wait for Obi- Wan to report back. We don't know that Count Dooku has made a treaty with the Corporate Alliance, it's speculation. SENATOR ASK AAK But we must prepare for the worst. I'm going to propose a motion granting emergency powers to the Chancellor at the next session. We must not wait! PALPATINE Out of the question, Senator! You and I are too closely aligned. The issue will become partisan and debates will begin. The proposal must come from a neutral source. MAS AMEDDA If only Senator Amidala were here. JAR JAR steps forward from the back of the group. JAR JAR Supreme Chancellor... my august colleagues, I would be proud to propose the motion in question. This is a grave situation, and I'm sure Senator Amidala, and the Queen of Naboo would agree. SENATOR ASK AAK Thank you, Representative Binks. Silence. Then PALPATINE sighs deeply. PALPATINE If called upon, I will serve. But it will be the saddest day of my life. EXT. TATOOINE, DESERT, HOMESTEAD MOISTURE FARM - DAY All is quiet. BERU comes out of the house. She goes to a moisture line and starts to draw water. INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY PADME fixes the last piece of covering onto THREEPIO. PADME There! PADME stands back. OWEN is with her. They look at THREEPIO. He isn't the golden figure we know because PADME has had to use whatever stuff she could findin the garage. He is multi-coloured in several textures, but he is complete. C-3PO Um. How do I look? OWEN Great! You look perfect. C-3PO Perfect? Oh, Miss Padme, I'm so happy! (extending his hand to shake hers) Oh, pardon me. THREEPIO drops his hand and bows formally. THREEPIO (continuing) Thank you. He forgets formality and hugs her. PADME hugs him back, laughing. C-3PO (continuing) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! OWEN (grinning) Well, Padme, I think he should be yours from now on... I know that is what my Mom would want. C-3PO Oh, my! Then suddenly, from outside: BERU (V.O.) Come topside, everybody! He's back! He's back! PAGE 83 PAGE 84 PAGE 85 PAGE 86 PAGE 87 PAGE 88 INT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, GARAGE - DAY A rough hologram of OBI-WAN is projected onto the garage by ARTOO. ANAKIN, PADME and THREEPIO watch the flickering image. OBI-WAN ...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait!... ah... attack... I don't... make it... aaaggghhh! The hologram cuts off. ANAKIN jumps up, agitated. ANAKIN I'm going after him! PADME I thought the first thing he said was to retransmit his message to Coruscant. ANAKIN Yeah, you're right, you're right. EXT. TATOOINE, HOMESTEAD, MOISTURE FARM - LATE DAY ANAKIN, PADME, ARTOO and THREEPIO leave the homestead, waving to CLIEGG, OWEN and BERU as they go into the desert. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - SUNSET ANAKIN sits down in the cockpit with PADME. THREEPIO is behind them. ARTOO is beside him. They are watching a hologram of MACE WINDU. MACE WINDU We will deal with Count Dooku. The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your priority. ANAKIN Understood, Master. The hologram switches off. PADME is looking at the readout on the ship's control panel. PADME They'll never get there in time to save him. They have to come half way across the galaxy. Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away. PADME starts to hit buttons and flick switches. ANAKIN puts a hand over hers, stopping her. She stares at him. ANAKIN If he's still alive. PADME Annie, are you just going to sit here and let him die?? He's your friend... your mentor... ANAKIN ...He's like my father, but you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here. PADME He gave you strict orders to protect me... PADME pulls her hand free and flicks more switches. The engines fire. PADME (continuing) ...and I'm going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along. ANAKIN grins and takes the controls. EXT. TATOOINE, BLUFF OVERLOOKING HOMESTEAD - SUNSET The Naboo Starship rises from the bluff and zooms away. EXT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE - DAY TWO HUNDRED JEDI KNIGHTS are assembling outside the huge center of the Jedi Order. INT. CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE, COUNCIL CHAMBER - DAY The JEDI COUNCIL are assembled as MACE WINDU makes his plea. MACE WINDU The longer we wait, the stronger Dooku's armies become. We cannot wait for the Senate to make up its mind about granting the Chancellor emergency powers, in order to be able to use that clone army... We have the authority to go now. We must go now. All of the JEDI COUNCIL nod their approval. YODA Agreed, Master Windu. Two hundred Jedi send. Enough, let's hope they are. INT. CORUSCANT, MAIN SENATE CHAMBER - DAY Inside the great rotunda, the UPROAR is even louder. Opposing SENATOES yell furiously at one another. MAS AMEDDA Order! Order!! Finally, the uproar dies. PALPATINE In the regrettable absence of Senator Amidala, the chair recognises Senior Representative of Naboo, Jar Jar Binks. Amid the conflicting storm of CHEERS AND BOOS, JAR JAR, with TWO GUNGAN AIDES, floats on his pod to the middle of the vast space. He looks at PALPATINE nervously. PALPATINE nods. JAR JAR clears his throat. JAR JAR Senators, dellow felagates... Laughter. Jeers. JAR JAR blushes. MAS AMEDDA Order! The Senate will accord the Representative the courtesy of a hearing! Comparative quiet. JAR JAR grips the edge of the podium. JAR JAR In response to the direct threat to the Republic from the Confederacy of Independent Systems, I propose that the Senate gives immediate emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor. Uproar. JAR JAR looks a little sheepish. JAR JAR (continuing) Who can deny these are exceptional times? Exceptional times demand exceptional measures! Exceptional measures demand exceptional men! ORN FREE TAA We won't support a dictator. SHOUTS of agreement. JAR JAR That is the sentiment every one of us agrees with! And when the shadow of war has dispersed and the bright day of liberty has dawned once again, the power we now give to the Supreme Chancellor will be gladly, and swiftly returned. Out ancient liberties will be restored to us, burnished even more brightly than before! Brief silence, then a rolling wave of APPLAUSE. JAR JAR beams and bows. PALPATINE rises. PALPATINE It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy... I love the Republic. The fact that this crisis is demanding I be given absolute power to tule over you is evident. But I am mild by nature and have no desire to destroy the democratic process. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has abated, I promise you. And all I ask in return is when my current term of office is over, you allow me to reture and live out my life in peace. MAS AMEDDA We shall proceed to the vote. All those in favor of granting emergency powers to the Supreme Chancellor, signal ate at this time... those opposed? EXT. SPACE The Naboo Starship heads toward the rings of Geonosis. EXT. GEONOSIS, LANDING AREA The Naboo Starship lands. INT. COCKPIT, NAOO STARFIGHTER - DAY ANAKIN switches off the engines. ARTOO and THREEPIO are in the navigation area of the cockpit. PADME is in the co-pilot's seat. She gets up. ANAKIN Hey, where are you going? PADME To find Obi-Wan. ANAKIN gets up and goes over to her. ANAKIN No! You're not! He grabs her arm. PADME Let go of me! ANAKIN I'm not letting you go out there. It's too dangerous. PADM What?!? ANAKIN It's my job to protect you. I said it's too dangerous. You're not going, and that's final! PADM Don't you give me orders, Annie! I'm a Senator of the Galactic Republic. You have no authority to contain me, restrain me, or direct me! You remember your place, young man. (standing up) Now you can come along and protect me or stay here. It's up to you. PADME storms out of the cockpit of the Naboo Starfighter. ANAKIN stands scratching his head, then follows. ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO Yes, it is, Artoo. Most confusing. One moment they're generating a pleasant mutual attraction and the next, waves of violent hostility. Even though I'm programmed to understand them, I doubt if I ever shall. ARTOO WHISTLES a plaintive sigh. INT. GEONOSIS, CORRIDORS - DAY ANAKIN and PADME enter the stalagmite city. They stop, looking around in wonder at the emptiness. PADME (in a low voice) It's empty! They start forward. As they pass, the surface of the pillars seems to pulse slowly and move. High above WINGED CREATURES grow from the pillars and detach themselves. INT. GEONOSIS, CENTRAL SQUARE - DAY ANAKIN and PADME cross the square, reaching the middle. They stop suddenly as FOUR GEONOSIANS grabs them. ANAKIN reaches for his lightsaber. PADME Wait! TWENTY WINGED GEONOSIANS carrying weapons alight on the flagstones in front of them. The GEONOSIANS part, and COUNT DOOKU appears. He bows courteously. COUNT DOOKU Senator Amidala, I've heard so much about you. PADM Count Dooku, I assume. COUNT DOOKU I'm delighted to meet you at last. We have a great deal to discuss, Senator. I hope you can keep your young Jedi under control. PADM Don't worry he's housebroken. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM (GEONOSIS) - DAY COUNT DOOKU sits at a large conference table with PADME on the far side. ANAKIN stands behind her with FOUR GEONOSIANS GUARDS standing behind him. JANGO FETT stands behind COUNT DOOKU, and SIX GEONOSIAN GUARDS stand behind him. PADM You are holding a Jedi Knight, Obi- Wan Kenobi. I am formally requesting you turn him over to me, now. DOOKU He has been convicted of espionage, Senator, and will be executed. In just a few hours, I believe. COUNT DOOKU smiles. PADM He is an officer of the Republic. You can't do that. DOOKU We don't recognise the Republic here, Senator. But if Naboo were to join our Alliance, I could easily hear your plea for clemency. ANAKIN grabs his lightsaber but doesn't turn it on. PADM And if I don't join your rebellion, I assume this Jedi with me will also die? DOOKU I don't wish to make you to join our cause against your will, Senator, but you are a rational, honest representative of your people and I assume you want to do what's in their best interest. Aren't you fed up with the corruption, the bureaucrats, the hypocrisy of it all?.. Aren't you? Be honest, Senator. PADM The ideals are still alive, Count, even if the institution is failing. DOOKU You believe in the same ideals we believe in! The same ideals we are striving to make prominent. PADM If what you say is true, you should stay in the Republic and help Chancellor Palpatine put things right. DOOKU The Chancellor means well, M'Lady but he is incompetent. He has promised to cut the bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats are stronger than ever, no? Senator, the Republic cannot be fixed. It is time to start over. The democratic process in the Republic is a sham, a shell game played on the voters. It will not be long before the cult of greed, called the Republic, will lose even the pretext of democracy and freedom. PADM I cannot believe that. I will not forsake all I have honoured and worked for and betray the Republic. I know of your treaties with the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guilds, and the others, Count. What is happening here is not government that has been bought out by business... it's business becoming government! DOOKU Are you willing to betray your Jedi friends? Without your co-operation I can do nothing to stop their execution. PADM What is to happen to me? Am I to be executed also? DOOKU I wouldn't think of such an offence. But, there are individuals who have a strong interest in your demise, M'lady. It has nothing to do with politics, I'm afraid. It's purely personal, and they have already paid great sums to have you assassinated. I'm sure they will push hard to have you included in the executions. I'm sorry but if you are not going to co-operate, I must turn you over to the Geonosians for justice. I've done all I can for you. JANGO FETT moves over to ANAKIN. JANGO FETT I'll take that weapon. ANAKIN hesitates. DOOKU You may cause a lot of bloodshed, my young Jedi, but you will not escape. PADM Anakin... ANAKIN hands his lightsaber over to JANGO FETT. INT. GEONOSIS, HIGH AUDIENCE CHAMBER - DAY ANAKIN and PADME are standing in the centre of what looks like a courtroom. Seated before them in a tall, boxed-off area is POGGLE THE LESSER, Archduke of Geonosis. He is accompanied by his underling, SUN RIT. Off to one side the Separatist Senators PO NUDU, TESSEK, and TOONBUCK TOORA. Next to them are the Commerce Dignitaries, SHU MAI, NUTE GUNRAY, PASSEL ARGENTE, WAT TAMBOR and SAN HILL of the Intergalactic Bank Clan. Along the wall about a HUNDRED GEONOSIANS wait for a verdict. SUN RIT You have been charged and found guilty of Espionage. POGGLE Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out? PADM You are committing an act of war, Archduke. I hope you are prepared for the consequences. POGGLE laughs. COUNT DOOKU simply smiles. POGGLE We build weapons, Senator... that is our business! Of course we're prepared! NUTE GUNRAY Get on with it. Carry out the sentence. I want to see her suffer. POGGLE Your other Jedi friend is waiting for you, Senator. Take them to the arena! FOUR GUARDS take hold of PADME and ANAKIN. They are escorted out of the chamber to the sounds of chuckling. INT. GEONOSIS TUNNEL TO EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the gloomy tunnel, ANAKIN and PADME are tossed into an open cart. The murmur of a vast crowd is heard offscreen. GUARDS extend their arms along the framework and tie them so that they stand facing each other. The DRIVER gets up onto his seat. ANAKIN Don't be afraid. PADM I'm not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life. ANAKIN What are you talking about? PADM I love you. ANAKIN You love me?! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives... PADM I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Annie, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. PADME leans toward ANAKIN. By straining hard, it is just possible for their lips to meet. They kiss. ANAKIN I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you. They kiss again. The DRIVER cracks his whip over the ORRAY harnessed between the shafts. The cart jerks forward. Suddenly, there isa HUGE ROAR and blinding sunlight as they emerge into the arena INT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The great stadium is packed with tier upon tier of yelling GEONOSIANS. The cart trundles to the center, where OBI-WAN is chained to one of four upright posts thatare three feet in diameter. The cart stops. PADME and ANAKIN are taken down, dragged to posts, and chained to them. PADME is in the center. OBI-WAN I was beginning to wonder if you had gotten my message. ANAKIN I retransmitted it as you requested, Master. Then we decided to come and rescue you. OBI-WAN It looks like you're going a good job so far. Their arms are pulled high above their heads, and the cart drives away. There is another ROAR as POGGLE THE LESSER, COUNT DOOKU, NUTE GUNRAY, THE FETTS and DIGNITARIES arrive in the archducal box and take their places. SUN RIT The felons before you have been convicted of espionage against the Sovereign System of Geonosis. Their sentence of death is to be carried out in this public arena henceforth. The crowd ROARS and CHEERS. In the box, POGGLE THE LESSER rises. The crowd becomes quiet. POGGLE Let the executions begin! The crowd goes wild. ANAKIN I have a bad feeling about this. From different gates around the arena, THREE MONSTERS are driven in. One is a REEK (bull-like), one is a NEXU (lion-like), and one is an ACKLAY (a kind of dino-lobster). They are driven in by PICADORS carrying long spears and riding ORRAYS. The PICADORS poke the MONSTERS toward the center, then retire to the perimeter. The MONSTERS toss their heads, looking around, ROARING or SCREECHING. Then they catch sight of the THREE CAPTIVES and start moving toward them. OBI-WAN Take the one the left. I'll take the one on the right. ANAKIN What about Padme? PADME has turned around and is pulling herself up by the chain to the top of the post. Within a moment, she is standing on top of it, trying to pull the chain free. OBI-WAN It looks like she's already on top of things. The REEK charges ANAKIN. He jumps up, and the beast hits the post hard. ANAKIN lands onto its back, wrapping part of his chain around its horn. The REEK backs off, shaking its head angrily, which tears the chain from the post OBI-WAN ducks around the post as the ACKLAY charges. It knocks the post flat, sending OBI-WAN sprawling. The ACKLAY crunches the post between its claws, freeing the chain. OBI-WAN leaps up and runs towards ONE of the PICADORS. The ACKLAY taks off after him. The NEXU arrives at PADME'S post and rears on its hind legs. One top, PADME struggles to tear the chain free. The NEXU ROARS, displaying wicked, dripping fangs. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY beams and rubs his hands. In the arena, OBI-WAN runs at the PICADOR. The ORRAY rears up. OBI-WAN grabs the PICADOR'S long spear and pole vaults over him. The chasing ACKLAY smashes into the ORRAY. It goes down. The PICADOR tumbles onto the sand, where he is grabbed by the ACKLAY and crunched. ANAKIN's REEK starts to buck. It charges around the arena with ANAKIN hanging on for dear life. He whirls the free length of chain around his head and casts it into the REEK's mouth. Its jaws clamp hard on the chain. ANAKIN yanks hard on the chain, turning the REEK, beginning to ride it. The NEXU's claws dig deep into the post. The cat-like creature reaches the top of the post and takes a swipe at PADME. She turns and the claw barely catches her shirt ripping it off, leaving superficial claw marks across her back. She hits the creature with her chain and it backs off down the pole. Then, PADME jumps off the post into the air. She swings around on the chain and whacks the beast hard on the head with both her feet. It tumbles back onto the sand. In the archducal box: NUTE GUNRAY Foul!! She can't do that... shoot her or something! In the arena, OBI-WAN runs out from behind the fallen ORRAY and throws the spear at the ACKLAY, hitting it in the neck. It lets out a terrible SCREECH and turns on him. The NEXU springs up and makes to leap up at PADME again. She finally manages to work the chain loose. ANAKIN comes charging up on the REEK. ANAKIN You okay? PADME (nods, gasping) Sure! Well, sort of. ANAKIN Jump!!! The NEXU springs. PADME leaps from the top of the post to land on the REEK in front of ANAKIN. He hauls her upright. The REEK charges away, around the arena. The NEXU bounds after it. The REEK passes the wounded ACKLAY. The NEXU smells the blood and turns aside to attack the ACKLAY. The TWO MONSTERS fight. The crowd GROANS and BOOS. In the archducal box, NUTE GUNRAY turns angrily to COUNT DOOKU. NUTE GUNRAY This isn't how it's supposed to be! Jango, finish her off. COUNT DOOKU motions for the bounty hunter to ptay put. BOBA FETT is enjoying the spectacle. COUNT DOOKU (smiling enigmatically) Patiece, Viceroy... she will die. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to end. OBI-WAN runs and jumps on the back of the REEK behind ANAKIN. Across the arena, the NEXU, having chewed up the ACKLAY, starts to advance toward them. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY ARTOO BEEPS C-3PO Yes, it has been rather a long time. Do you suppose something's happened to them? ARTOO BEEPS and WHISTLES. C-3PO (continuing) Danger? Oh no, I shouldn't think so. It looks a very dull planet to me. They should be back shortly. Just stop worrying, Artoo. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY In the archducal box, amid the uproar, COUNT DOOKU feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see MACE WINDU standing behind him. COUNT DOOKU masks his surprise elegantly as he surveys the arena and sees JEDI KNIGHTS standing at every entrance and exit. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training. MACE WINDU Sorry to disappoint you, Dooku. This party's over. MACE WINDU signals, and at stategic places around the arena there are sudden flashes of light as about ONE HUNDRED JEDI switch on their lightsabers. The crowd is suddenly silent. COUNT DOOKU'S lips curl in slight amusement. COUNT DOOKU (to Mace Windu) Brave, but stupid, my old Jedi friend. You're impossibly outnumbered. MACE WINDU I don't think so. One Jedi has to be worth a hundred Geonosians. COUNT DOOKU looks around the great theater. His smile grows. COUNT DOOKU It wasn't the Geonosians I was thinking about. How well do you think one Jedi will hold up against a thousand battle droids? COUNT DOOKU signals. THOUSANDS OF DROIDS start to pour into all parts of the arena. MACE WINDU draws his lightsaber, JANGO FETT draws his guns and fires at MACE WINDU, who deflects the shots. JANGO FETT and MACE WINDU jump into the arena, where they fight. BOBA FETT wacthes his Dad and the Jedi Master fight. The battle beginss. GEONOSIANS fly away everywhere. DROIDS fire at JEDI, who deflect the bolts and cult down the DROIDS. The GEONOSIAN TROOPS fire ray guns that are more difficult for the JEDI to deflect. The REEK and the NEXU are spooked by the battle. The REEK bucks the riders off its back and stampedes around the arena, trampling DROIDS and JEDI that have moved into its path. PADME picks up a discarded pistol and joins the fight. SEVERAL JEDI run to the center of the arena and toss lightsabers to OBI-WAN and ANAKIN. Among the crowd, JEDI cut down swaths of GEONOSIANS and DROIDS. On the sand, JEDI fight, attacking DROIDS. OBI0WAN and ANAKIN swing their lightsabers, cutting DROIDS in half. PADME blasts away at DROIDS and GEONOSIANS. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP ARTOO whistles. C-3PO I don't hear anything. (Artoo beeps) You're scaring me! Stop imagining things! EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY Among the tiers, JEDI are slowly being driven back. They have killed heaps of GEONOSIANS and have kncoked out piles of DROIDS, but sheer numbers are telling. Individual JEDI are being cut down or blasted/ The rest are retreating into the arena. ANAKIN and PADME are back-to-back, fighting DROIDS and flying GEONOSIANS. MACE WINDU fights fiercely with JANGO FETT. Finally, the bounty hunter falls. His helmet goes flying, bouncing down the steps, tumbling and rolling, kicked here and there by random feet. The bounty hunter's body falls to the ground. MACE WINDU runs to the center of the arena and fights back-to-back with OBI-WAN, as they swipe and mangle DROIDS. OBI-WAN Someone's got to - shut down - these droids. MACE WINDU Don't worry! It's being - taken care of! EXT. GEONOSIS, FEDERATION STARSHIP - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI leads a raiding party of about TWENTY JEDI through the lines of parked Battle Starships. They cut a swath through masses of DROIDS until they arrive at the Command Starship. Some JEDI fall. The rest cut their way up the ramps and into the Command Ship. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CORRIDORS - DAY KI-ADI-MUNDI and teh surviving JEDI fight their way through the corridors of the Command Ship, deflecting laser bolts, slicing DROIDS. INT. COMMAND FEDERATION STARSHIP, CONTROL BRIDGE - DAY THEY burst onto the bridge and chop down the COMMAND DROIDS. The NEIMOIDIANS flee in all directions. KE-ADI-MUNDI leans over the control panel. He locates the illuminated master switch and punches down on it. It goes dark. Instantly, all the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena FREEZE! There is a moment of stunned silence, then the JEDI CHEER. One the bridge, PLO KOON claps KI-ADI-MUNDI on the back. PLO KOON We've done it! Now we have a chance! Suddenly, there is a harsh BEEPING SOUND. All the DROIDS on the Starship and all the DROIDS in the arena start fighting again! KI-ADI-MUNDI stares in disbelief and dismay. KI-ADI-MUNDI The system's off but they're still active. That's a new feature. They are independent of the control system. EXT. GEONOSIS, EXECUTION ARENA - DAY MACE WINDU, OBI-WAN, ANAKIN, PADME and an exhausted group of about TWENTY JEDI stand in the center of the arena surrounded by a ring of BATTLE DROIDS. The bloodied sand around them is strewn with the bodies of DEAD GEONOSIANS, SHATTERED DROIDS and JEDI. At the foot of some steps, BOBA FETT finds his father's battered helmet. He picks it up. KI-ADI-MUNDI and the SURVIVORS from the raiding party are herded into the arena by SUPERDROIDS. From the encircling tiers above, THOUSANDS OF BATTLE DROIDS level their weapons menacingly. In the archducal box, COUNT DOOKU lifts his hand. The DROIDS lower their weapons. The COUNT calls out to the JEDI. COUNT DOOKU Master Windu! Silence. COUNT DOOKU (continuing) You have fought gallantly. Worthy of recognition in the history archives of the Jedi Order. Now it is finished. (pauses briefly) Surrender - and your lives will be spared. MACE WINDU We will not be hostages for you to barter with Dooku. COUNT DOOKU Then, I'm sorry, old friend. You will have to be destroyed. The DROIDS raise their weapons. ANAKIN and PADME clasps hands tightly. COUNT DOOKU raises his hand to give the order to fire. PADME looks up suddenlt and whispers to ANAKIN. PADME Look! Above, six Gunships are descending fast through the open area in the arena ceiling. They land in a cluster around the handful of JEDI. CLONE TROOPERS spill out and start firing at the DROIDS. There is a hellstorm of laserfire that bounces off the laser shields created by the Gunships. YODA appears at the door of one of the Gunships. YODA Come on - hurry! Hurry! The SURVIVING JEDI dash to the Gunships and scramble in. MACE WINDU hangs on tight as the Gunship, firing all its weapons, rises out of the arena up and over the topmost rim. EXT. GEONOSIS, TERRAIN OUTSIDE EXECUTION ARENA - DAY The massed lines of parked Federation Starships and the DROIDS surrounding the arena, are themselves surrounded by thousands of Republic Starships, disgorging TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPERS. Beyond, more Republic Starships are landing and spewing out troops. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER ONE - DAY MACE WINDU stares at the incredible sight. YODA More battalions to the left. Encircle them we must, then divide. The CLONE TROOPERS open fire with artillery. EXPLOSIONS wreck the parked Battle Starships. CLONE TROOPERS advance, firing at the massed DROIDS. FIGHTER DROIDS fly overhead, exchanging fire with the Gunships and JEDI fighters. INT. COCKPIT, NABOO STARSHIP - DAY THREEPIO and ARTOO see flashes outside of the ship, exploding everywhere. C-3PO I'm sure I heard something, this time. Didn't you? It's probably just a celebration ARTOO lets out an EXHAUSTED BLEEP. EXT. BATTLEFIELD, GEONOSIS LANDSCAPE - DAY Gunship #2 skims the battlefield, firing down, deflecting answering fire from the droids. INT. GUNSHIP NUMBER TWO - DAY OBI-WAN, ANAKIN and PADME are at the open sides of the Gunship. CLONES fire down at the DROIDS below. The Gunship slows, circling over a droid gun-emplacement. It blasts it, but suddenly the Gunship is rocked by a near miss. It lurches violently. OBI-WAN Hold on! Look over there... Through the other side of the Gunship, they see a Geonosian Speeder racing past. In the open | entire | How many times the word 'entire' appears in the text? | 0 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | sobbing | How many times the word 'sobbing' appears in the text? | 1 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | propounded | How many times the word 'propounded' appears in the text? | 0 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | moon | How many times the word 'moon' appears in the text? | 3 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | ask | How many times the word 'ask' appears in the text? | 3 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | delaying | How many times the word 'delaying' appears in the text? | 1 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | indignation | How many times the word 'indignation' appears in the text? | 1 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | left | How many times the word 'left' appears in the text? | 3 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | dorothy | How many times the word 'dorothy' appears in the text? | 3 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | genuine | How many times the word 'genuine' appears in the text? | 0 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | release | How many times the word 'release' appears in the text? | 0 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | moment | How many times the word 'moment' appears in the text? | 2 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | assured | How many times the word 'assured' appears in the text? | 1 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | bit | How many times the word 'bit' appears in the text? | 2 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | taught | How many times the word 'taught' appears in the text? | 3 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | outrageous | How many times the word 'outrageous' appears in the text? | 1 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | bride | How many times the word 'bride' appears in the text? | 0 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | something | How many times the word 'something' appears in the text? | 3 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | craft | How many times the word 'craft' appears in the text? | 0 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | burst | How many times the word 'burst' appears in the text? | 2 |
which Mr. Gibson had adopted. And then Mr. Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt's money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him. She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. "He has come in," said Miss Stanbury. "I suppose he has had his pipe, then." "I wish he didn't smoke. I do wish he didn't smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can't prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man--in other things; does he not, Dolly?" "Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury." "And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly." "I don't think Mr. Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt." "No, no; I don't think he would. Dear me; he's not at all like what I fancied." "Everybody seemed to like him very much." "Didn't they? I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs. MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr. Gibson." "There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury." "Isn't there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening." "As it happened he was sitting next to me,--of course." "Indeed he was sitting next to you;--so much so that I thought everything would be settled." "If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn't be angry with me." "Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?" "I don't think I shall ever care for Mr. Gibson;--not in that way." "Why not, Dorothy?" "I'm sure he doesn't care for me. And I don't think he means it." "I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do. He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you to-night." "Not a word, Aunt Stanbury." "Then he will." "Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don't like him. I don't indeed." "Not like him!" "No;--I don't care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can't help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can't want me to marry a man if I don't love him." "I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn't you love him? He's a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He'll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn't you tell me before?" "I didn't know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" "I could not say all at once that I didn't care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before." "You haven't told him this?" "No, I have not told him. I couldn't begin by telling him, you know." "Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life,--so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don't answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you." So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs. Gibson. CHAPTER XXXII. THE "FULL MOON" AT ST. DIDDULPH'S. The receipt of Mrs. Trevelyan's letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr. and Mrs. Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr. Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph's. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr. Outhouse that Mrs. Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr. Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs. Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o'clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr. Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro'. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph's had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph's, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs. Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. "I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant," Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. "Angry with you, my dear;--for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?" Then the travellers were hurried up-stairs by Mrs. Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr. Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph's, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson's account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr. Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr. Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. "I suppose your brother has been told all about it," he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening. "Yes;--he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth." "You can't blame her for that, my dear." "But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can't hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,"--Lady Rowley's name was Bessy,--"till the beginning of September." "That will be in a fortnight." "But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire." "You don't think he will come at once?" "How can he, my dear? He can't come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes." The parson of St. Diddulph's sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr. Trevelyan's money? On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr. Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them,--to see her? And why was he there so long? "No doubt he has brought a message from Mr. Trevelyan," said her sister. "I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle's house." Then, at last, both Mr. Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin;--not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury's wife;--and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her! He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph's with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was up-stairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs. Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. "I am to take Louey to him," said Hugh Stanbury, "if you will allow me." "What;--to be taken away from me!" exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message--no message either of love or of instruction. "Mr. Stanbury," said the parson, "has left something in my hands for you." This "something" was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200. "And he hasn't said what I am to do with it?" Emily asked of her uncle. Mr. Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr. Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child. The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. "There's a young 'ooman has to do with that ere little game," said the potboy. "And it's two to one the young 'ooman has the worst of it," said the barmaid. "They mostly does," said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. "Here he is," said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. "My boy, there's papa." The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father's name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh's arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," said Trevelyan. [Illustration: The "Full Moon" at St. Diddulph's.] "Nonsense," said Stanbury. "He's not been taught at all. It's Nature." "Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you." "No;--as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can't tell when a child will cry, and when it won't." "My darling, my dearest, my own son!" said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. "I suppose you must take him back again," said Trevelyan, sadly. "Of course I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy." "It is cruel;--very cruel," said Trevelyan. "No man living could love his child better than I love mine;--or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel." "The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan," said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms. Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr. Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr. Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband's duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr. Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself--when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find. He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy;--but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr. Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that;--and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him,--nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him. When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr. Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. "I hope all this may come to an end soon," he said. "I hope it may, Mr. Stanbury," said the clergyman; "but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr. Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece." This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr. Outhouse could assume. "And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly." "Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr. Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her,--and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad." Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln's Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph's into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. "Trevelyan," said he, "you are wrong in all this from beginning to end." "What do you mean?" "Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right." "A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?" "A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can't you be man enough to remember that you are a man?" "Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me." "I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong." "They have talked you over to their side." "I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong." "And what would you have me do?" "Go and travel together for six months." Here was Lady Milborough's receipt again! "Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it;--or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now." But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted. Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris. CHAPTER XXXIII. HUGH STANBURY SMOKES ANOTHER PIPE. Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph's Mrs. Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. "Anything," said Lady Milborough, "is better than separation." In answer to the second letter Mrs. Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr. Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. "I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow," said Lady Rowley, "only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr. Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason." But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband's hands? Mrs. Trevelyan applied to Mr. Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan's address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr. Bozzle, although Mr. Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr. Bozzle. The replies from Mr. Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph's and carry his own answer with him. And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him,--or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr. Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone up-stairs for the boy; and Mrs. Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. "Miss Rowley," said he, getting up from his seat, "if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him." "How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?" "I would do anything--to serve your sister." This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken. "I am sure that Emily is very grateful," said Nora; "but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that." "I would do anything for your sister," he repeated, "--for your sake, Miss Rowley." This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it. And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. "Perhaps I ought not to say as much," said he; "but it is so." "Mr. Stanbury," said she, "that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking." Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph's, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan's address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln's Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. "Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him," said Mrs. Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs. Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs. Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. "If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know," he said. Then it was Nora's turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference. On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection,--and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his | on | How many times the word 'on' appears in the text? | 2 |