William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

— Match her up with Mister Clean.

— With what?

— Where has Maid Quiet gone to, Nodding her russet hood?

— The winds that awakened the stars Are blowing through my blood. Well! Well, we share something then don't we Mister Basic, no small thing either.

— That's good to know. Now getting back to the…

— To where we left off yes, I can see now you'll be sensitive to these nuances I tried to get in here, the Major's still talking when Thomas walks in.

THE MAJOR

(OVERBEARING, GESTURING TOWARD DOWNSTAGE RIGHT)

That and the porch there on the east front. It never was finished, just left like it is.

(ABRUPTLY VAGUE AND RESIGNED)

I never could find it there in the book. I never could figure what my father had planned there…

THE MAJOR stands abandoned with the remains of his empty gesture as THOMAS enters the parlour, directly embracing WILLIAM familiarly round the shoulders. WILLIAM behaves throughout with a hurt but heightened almost self-conscious masculinity in his presence.

WILLIAM

(WITHDRAWING FROM THE EMBRACE. HIDING HIS SHOCK AT THOMAS' SCAR)

One of those Yankee women kissed you there, Thomas?

THE MAJOR

(APPROPRIATING THOMAS)

Mister Kane, my son in law…? Mister Kane is just down here from Richmond, Thomas. He thinks he may be able to help us with that cotton we have tied up down at Wilmington. To get it all shipped over to France before it's lost like we lost that at Beaufort.

KANE

(TO THOMAS)

I understand you're acquainted in Paris? That your father ranked in the embassy there.

THE MAJOR

(HASTILY, TO THOMAS)

Yes, Thomas, I… I told Mister Kane, about your father's… ah, ambassadorial work over there, and your contacts that might help in reaching the Emperor.

THOMAS

(STARTLED)

The Emperor?

THE MAJOR

(HURRYING ON)

Mister Kane is going over himself, to France. There's a shipyard there going to build a ram that will sink the Union blockade to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The importance… you can see the importance, if we want them to see us as anything better than what they do now, a belligerent. The Emperor there can't seem to make up his mind, he wants cotton, he wants Mexico…

THOMAS

We left there seven years ago, when my father died in the year 'fifty four.

KANE

Still, you might have known some fine Bonapartists? Fleury, perhaps? Persigny…?

THOMAS

(AGITATED, LAUGHS UNCOMFORTABLY)

Fleury's wife…

KANE

(TO THE MAJOR)

You didn't tell me you had a diplomat here, and one in the very best French tradition? One who might know the boudoirs of Paris even better than the court itself?

THOMAS

I? I was brought up there in the Second Republic. Even when the Empire came back, my father had me reading Rousseau. 'The supreme guidance of the will of the people,' and the reign of universal reason.

KANE

All we heard over here from France in the 'forties was the voice of the people crying 'Get rich quick!'

THOMAS

(TURNING TO WILLIAM, AS THOUGH TO INCLUDE HIM)

Do you remember, Will? How we used to talk? 'Its power has no limits,' Its… its punishments are simply a means of 'compelling men to be free…'?

(PAUSING, AT A LOSS AT WILLIAM'S SILENCE, TURNS BACK TO KANE)

Yes, I… I came back here to America with my mind stuffed with ambitions and the Social Contract in my pocket, looking for Rousseau's noble savage and a great career in public life…

KANE

And you were disappointed?

THOMAS

Till now!

WILLIAM

(IMPULSIVELY, TO THOMAS)

It's true, then? You're going up north today, Thomas?

THOMAS

(TAKEN ABACK)

Didn't they tell you…?

THE MAJOR

(OVERBEARING, TO KANE)

Thomas got word here last night of the death of an uncle, a prominent coal magnate in Pennsylvania. The Federal government's ready to confiscate everything, what's rightfully his, if he's not there to claim it. You know how much we need coal.

WILLIAM

(IN A COMPULSIVE UNDERTONE)

If I had a chance to be up there myself…

THOMAS

(CONFUSED)

Up… north?

WILLIAM

At the war! Oh, I'm not saying a thing about you Thomas, it isn't you haven't done four men's part…

(HIS OUTBURST BECOMES A MOCKING RECRIMINATION)

To hear them tell it, you won that battle up at Ball's Bluff all by yourself, didn't he now Papa? And coming back here with a scar to show? No, just myself, if I could be up there, how I'd let anything to keep me away, missing it like I've missed it now a whole year.

THOMAS

(AFTER LOOKING FROM ONE TO THE OTHER DURING EMBARRASSED PAUSE, STUNG BY WILLIAM'S RECRIMINATION, TURNS TO HIM)

Well, you should! You should see it! Isn't that so, Major? Yes, the spectacle, isn't that so, Mister Kane? The spectacle of it? Of men before battle…? And now? Now that it's almost over, and probably never the chance again…

WILLIAM

(MORE SHARPLY)

Over? For us? The coast blockaded, our ports all closed, a hundred thousand Union troops right outside Richmond and Jackson off in the Shenandoah…?

THE MAJOR

(INTERPOSING OVERBEARINGLY, TO KANE)

Yes, you might know something of that battle, sir? The battle we fought them up at Ball's Bluff? Thomas distinguished himself up there, in a Company under my command. He's made us proud to have him in the family here.

(WITH AN AWKWARD ATTEMPT TO BE SPORTIVE)

He's from a fine family himself, of course, but it's not a Southern family, strictly speaking. This uncle that's dead up in Pennsylvania was an eminent figure in politics there, and I've told you about his father's post, that he held till the day he died.

(TO THOMAS, ARRESTING HIS DEPARTURE)

Mister Kane tells me that he was formerly an instructor in history up in Virginia, where General Jackson taught.

(WAITS FOR KANE'S RESPONSE)

I meant to point out, sir, that you had been a friend of General Jackson?

KANE

I knew him.

THE MAJOR

A totally remarkable man!

(PAUSES)

Yes… did you not find him so even then, sir! At the Virginia Military Academy?

KANE

I believe he has found his vocation.

THE MAJOR

(WARMLY)

He has indeed, sir! The God-fearing certainty with which he goes about his business? Is there anything you cannot help admiring about such a man?

KANE

(THOUGHTFULLY)

His nose. Yes, I cannot help admiring that, now you mention it.

THE MAJOR

(STARTLED)

Sir?

KANE

(TURNING TO THOMAS)

Yes, as I do yours, sir.

THE MAJOR

His… nose? We are speaking of General Jackson, sir!

KANE

Yes, yes, I can envy him, the God-driven man. I can envy the man who knows, who knows without question, and acts. But… admire him? Heroes like that can cost us all dear before we're done. What happens when they're needed?

(GESTURING, HE KNOCKS A GLASS TO FLOOR AND STARES AT BREAKAGE)

There, I'm sorry, but like that. I'm sorry, but there. Like that, it just happens, thrown from a horse, shot down when the light's bad or something else that we can call… accident.

THE MAJOR

(BETWEEN BAFFLEMENT AND INDIGNATION)

But… indeed sir!

— Mister Crease? Let me ask you, where are we going here.

— Going? I told you, give you some feel for the play before we…

— Talking about the movie. You haven't seen the movie, I haven't seen the movie, you know anybody who's seen the movie?

— If you'll just be patient yes, yes I do, and there are similarities that simply can't be explained by coincid…

— He spell them out?

— It's a she no, no except for these sexually explicit scenes she was quite clear about those but they're not in the play anyway, matter of fact she wasn't sure whether she'd actually seen certain scenes or if the words just made her think she had but the man she was with, she…