Robert Wilson - Julian Comstock - A Story of 22-nd Century America

Boone, overcome with feeling, eventually spoke. “Many things have changed since the end of the old world,” he said, the voice actor giving this speech all the quirks and quavers of suppressed emotion while synchronizing his words precisely with the vocal movements of the actor on the screen. “We’re embarked on a new relationship with the sacred. It’s the twilight of an old way of life, and the dawn of a new. Vows from prior times are not broken but annulled. Your marriage if you make it will surely be blessed—[a long choked pause]—despite, despite what came before.”

Eula turned her brimming eyes to his. “Thank you, Pastor,” she said; and if she said anything else it was drowned out by the sniffling in the audience.

Eula’s return to Foster was bittersweet. She accepted his attentions with an Aria: I pledge to thee, followed by scenes of a spectacular Wedding, with many poignant glances cast between Eula and the noble Pastor, and at last a lengthy Ensemble/Medley:The hand of God, not gentleWhat shines on that far hill?I pledge to thee, the cast being joined by a Chorus, with much ringing of bells, and exclamations by the trumpet section, and a triumphant final refrain over a distant image of that Christian town, its wheatfields plowed by contented indentured folk, and the Sixty Stars and Thirteen Stripes waving optimistically over it all. [An error of history, since the northern states had not yet been acquired at the time of the Fall of the Cities; but forgivable in the name of Art and Patriotism.]

There was protracted applause as the curtain fell. I applauded at least as vigorously as anyone else—perhaps more so. I had not known that the Cinematic Illusion could exist on such an exalted scale, sustained by the painstaking efforts of so many skilled performers working in close concert. It was as much a revelation to me as the plumbing in the Gentlemen’s Room.

We followed the crowd outside. The movie had generated in my mind a sort of Patriotic Glow, which was compounded by the glow of the city. It was the last quarter of the nightly four-hour Illumination of Manhattan, and artificial lights glittered along Broadway like legions of fireflies all in harness. Even the skeletal remains of the antique Sky-Scrapers seemed infused with an electric liveliness. Coaches and taxis passed in great profusion, and scarlet Banners of the Cross, draped from eaves and lintels in anticipation of Independence Day, fluttered in the pleasant breeze. I told Julian how impressed I was, and asked him to forgive me for doubting all his boasts about New York City and the movies.

“Yes, it was a tolerably good show,” he said, “a very pleasant evening out, all in all.”

“Tolerably good! Are there better?”

“I’ve seen a few that topped it.”

“Good?” Calyxa asked skeptically. “And you notorious for your agnosticism? Pretty as it might be, isn’t Eula an insult to your profoundest beliefs?”

“Thank you for asking,” Julian said, “but no, I don’t feel particularly insulted by it. If I am an agnostic, Calyxa, it’s because I’m also a realist. ”

“There was no realism in the film that I could discern—just a simple-minded version of what they print in the Dominion readers.”

“Well, yes—considered as history it was feeble and propagandistic—but it could hardly be anything else. You saw the Dominion stamp at the beginning of it. No film-maker can proceed without submitting his script to the Dominion’s cultural committees.

Realistically, these matters are exempted from art, since they’re beyond the artist’s control. But in structure, pacing, dialogue, photography, harmony between the screen and the voice performances—everything over which the film-makers did exercise a shaping influence—it was above reproach.”

“Above reproach, then,” Calyxa said, “in everything except what matters.”

“Do you mean to say the singing didn’t matter?”

“Well… the singing was fine, admittedly… and the singers didn’t write the script…”

“My point exactly.”

“So it was a beautiful, stupid thing. Wouldn’t it be even more beautiful if it were slightly less stupid?”

“I don’t disagree. I would love to make a movie that wasn’t just beautiful but also thoughtful and true. I’ve thought about it often. But the world isn’t rigged to allow such a thing. I doubt anyone on Earth has the power to overrule the Dominion in these matters, except possibly the President himself.” Then Julian, as if startled by his own thought, blinked and smiled. “Of course that’s not something we can expect of Deklan Comstock.”

“No,” Calyxa said, searching his face. “No, certainly not of Deklan Comstock.”

Come morning I let Calyxa sleep late, and took myself off to visit the publisher of the Spark and of The Adventures of Captain Commongold, Youthful Hero of the Saguenay.

I was equipped with nothing more lethal than my smoldering indignation, fueled by the scenes of courage and sacrifice I had witnessed in the movie the night before. I would confront the thieves, I thought, and the self-evident justice of my case would cause them to crumble before me. I don’t know why I expected such extravagant results from the application of mere justice. That kind of calculation is seldom borne out by worldly events.

My first trial was in finding the office I wanted. I had no trouble locating the building in which the Spark was published, since its address was printed in every issue: it turned out to be a vast stonepile near the Lexington Canal. Most of its huge space was devoted to printing, binding, warehousing, and distributing the company’s papers and pamphlets, however, and I was reduced to asking my way of a grimy press-operator who told me, “Oh, you want Editorial.”

“Editorial” was a suite of rooms at the top of a flight of stairs on the fourth floor. All the heat of the building (and it was a warm June day) had collected in that airless warren, and so had the smells of ink and solvent and machine oil. I did not know precisely to whom I ought to speak, but further inquiries led me to the door of the Editor and Publisher, a man named John Hungerford. Apparently Mr. Hungerford wasn’t accustomed to meeting visitors who hadn’t scheduled appointments; but I was firm in my entreaties to his secretary, and eventually I was allowed into his office.

Hungerford sat behind an oaken desk, in one of the few rooms on the floor that possessed an open window, though it looked out on a brick wall. He was a man of fifty years or thereabout, stern and peremptory in his manner. He asked without preamble what I wanted from him.

I said I was a writer. I had hardly pronounced that word when he interrupted me: “I can’t give you a job, if that’s what you want. We have all the writers we need—they’re thick on the ground at the moment.”

“It’s not a job I want, it’s justice! I’m a sorry to say that a man connected with your firm has robbed me, and he has done it with your collaboration.”

That silenced him for a moment. His eyebrows inched up, and he looked me over. “What’s your name, son?”

“Adam Hazzard.”

“Means nothing to me.”

“I don’t expect it would. But the thief is Mr. Theodore Dornwood—maybe you know that name.”

He evinced less surprise than I expected. “And what do you claim Dornwood stole from you? A watch, a wallet, a woman’s affections?”

“Words. Twenty thousand of them, roughly.” I had made an estimate of the length in words of The Adventures of Julian Commongold.

A word is a small thing; but twenty thousand of anything is a ponderable number. “May I explain?”