Уильям Голдман - The Princess Bride

Valerie was about to clap her hands with joy when Max said, "I never worked for anything that little in my life; you got to be joking, excuse me again; I got to belch my witch; she's done eating by now."

Valerie hurried back to the coals and waited until Max joined her. "No good," he said. "They only got twenty."

Valerie stirred away at the stove. She knew the truth but dreaded having to say it, so she tried another tack. "We're practically out of chocolate powder; twenty could sure be a help at the barterer's tomorrow."

"No chocolate powder?" Max said, visibly upset. Chocolate was one of his favorites, right after cough drops.

"Maybe if it was a good cause you could lower yourself to work for twenty," Valerie said. "Find out why they need the miracle."

"They'd probably lie."

"Use the bellows cram if you're in doubt. Look: I would hate to have it on my conscience if we didn't do a miracle when nice people were involved."

"You're a pushy lady," Max said, but he went back upstairs. "Okay," he said to the skinny guy. "What's so special I should bring back out of all the hundreds of people pestering me every day for my miracles this particular fella? And, believe me, it better be worthwhile."

Inigo was about to say "So he can tell me how to kill Count Rugen," but that didn't quite sound like the kind of thing that would strike a cranky miracle man as aiding the general betterment of mankind, so he said, "He's got a wife, he's got fifteen kids, they haven't a shred of food; if he stays dead, they'll starve, so—"

"Oh, sonny, are you a liar," Max said, and he went to the corner and got out a huge bellows. "I'll ask him," Max grunted, lifting the bellows toward Westley.

"He's a corpse; he can't talk," Inigo said.

"We got our ways" was all Max would answer, and he stuck the huge bellows way down into Westley's throat and started to pump. "You see," Max explained as he pumped, "there's different kinds of dead: there's sort of dead, mostly dead, and all dead. This fella here, he's only sort of dead, which means there's still a memory inside, there's still bits of brain. You apply a little pressure here, a little more there, sometimes you get results."

Westley was beginning to swell slightly now from all the pumping.

"What are you doing?" Fezzik said, starting to get upset.

"Never mind, I'm just filling his lungs; I guarantee you it ain't hurting him." He stopped pumping the bellows after a few moments more, and then started shouting into Westley's ear: "WHAT'S SO IMPORTANT? WHAT'S HERE WORTH COMING BACK FOR? WHAT YOU GOT WAITING FOR YOU?" Max carried the bellows back to the corner then and got out a pen and paper. "It takes a while for that to work its way out, so you might as well answer me some questions. How well do you know this guy?"

Inigo didn't much want to answer that, since it might have sounded strange admitting they'd only met once alive, and then to duel to the death. "How do you mean exactly?" he replied.

"Well, for example," Max said, "was he ticklish or not?"

"Ticklish?" Inigo exploded angrily. " Ticklish! Life and death are all around and you talk ticklish!"

"Don't you yell at me," Max exploded right back, "and don't you mock my methods—tickling can be terrific in the proper instances. I had a corpse once, worse than this fella, mostly dead he was, and I tickled him and tickled him; I tickled his toes and I tickled his armpits and his ribs and I got a peacock feather and went after his belly button; I worked all day and I worked all night and the following dawn— the following dawn, mark me— this corpse said, 'I just hate that,' and I said, 'Hate what?' and he said, 'Being tickled; I've come all the way back from the dead to ask you to stop,' and I said, 'You mean this that I'm doing now with the peacock feather, it bothers you?' and he said, 'You couldn't guess how much it bothers me,' and of course I just kept on asking him questions about tickling, making him talk back to me, answer me, because, I don't have to tell you, once you get a corpse really caught up in conversation, your battle's half over."

"Tr ... ooooo ... luv..."

Fezzik grabbed onto Inigo in panic and they both pivoted, staring at the man in black, who was silent again. " 'True love,' he said," Inigo cried. "You heard him—true love is what he wants to come back for. That's certainly worthwhile."

"Sonny, don't you tell me what's worthwhile—true love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. Everybody knows that."

"Then you'll save him?" Fezzik said.

"Yes, absolutely, I would save him, if he had said 'true love,' but you misheard, whereas I, being an expert on the bellows cram, will tell you what any qualified tongue man will only be happy to verify—namely, that the f sound is the hardest for the corpse to master, and that it therefore comes out vuh, and what your friend said was 'to blove,' by which he meant, obviously, 'to bluff'—clearly he is either involved in a shady business deal or a card game and wishes to win, and that is certainly not reason enough for a miracle. I'm sorry, I never change my mind once it's made up, good-by, take your corpse with you."

" Liar! Liar! " shrieked suddenly from the now open trap door.

Miracle Max whirled. "Back, Witch—" he commanded.

"I'm not a witch, I'm your wife—" she was advancing on him now, an ancient tiny fury—"and after what you've just done I don't think I want to be that anymore—" Miracle Max tried to calm her but she was having none of it. "He said 'true love,' Max—even I could hear it—'true love,' 'true love.'"

"Don't go on," Max said, and now there was pleading coming from somewhere.

Valerie turned toward Inigo. "He is rejecting you because he is afraid—he is afraid he's done, that the miracles are gone from his once majestic fingers—"

"Not true—" Max said.

"You're right," Valerie agreed, "it isn't true—they never were majestic, Max—you were never any good."

"The Ticklish Cure—you were there—you saw—"

"A fluke—"

"All the drowners I returned—"

"Chance—"

"Valerie, we've been married eighty years; how can you do this to me?"

"Because true love is expiring and you haven't got the decency to tell why you don't help—well I do, and I say this, Prince Humperdinck was right to fire you—"

"Don't say that name in my hut, Valerie—you made a pledge to me you'd never breathe that name—"

"Prince Humperdinck, Prince Humperdinck, Prince Humperdinck—at least he knows a phony when he sees one—"

Max fled toward the trap door, his hands going to his ears.

"But this is his fiancée's true love," Inigo said then. "If you bring him back to life, he will stop Prince Humperdinck's marriage—"

Max's hands left his ears. "This corpse here—he comes back to life, Prince Humperdinck suffers?"

"Humiliations galore," Inigo said.

"Now that's what I call a worthwhile reason," Miracle Max said. "Give me the sixty-five; I'm on the case." He knelt beside Westley. "Hmmm," he said.

"What?" Valerie said. She knew that tone.

"While you were doing all that talking, he's slipped from sort of to mostly dead."

Valerie tapped Westley in a couple of places. "Stiffening," she said. "You'll have to work around that."

Max did a few taps himself. "Do you suppose the oracle's still up?"

Valerie looked at the clock. "I don't think so, it's almost one. Besides, I don't trust her all that much anymore."

Max nodded. "I know, but it would have been nice to have a little advance hint on whether this is gonna work or not." He rubbed his eyes. "I'm tired going in; I wish I'd known in advance about the job; I'd have napped this afternoon." He shrugged. "Can't be helped, down is down. Get me my Encyclopedia of Spells and the Hex Appendix."