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| [Lights up: firelight flickers. The Prodigy enters reading a book.] | |
| PRODIGY: | [impressed by what he's just read] Franzie-boy, you got it nailed! An artist must remove himself from the world! It's all right here! [reading] 'That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence when one writes. Why not even night is night enough.' Why not even night is night enough! Now, this guy knows how to have fun! I've got to get mother to read him! [pause] Sure thing ... |
| [He wanders to the keyboard. He plays a single note, listens to it fade.] | |
| The world sleeps while I read my Kafka. | |
| [Lights up on the Puritan who reclines on his lazy-boy chair, opposite.] | |
| PURITAN: | No longer possible to play even a Bach chorale securely ... parts unbalanced, progression from note to note insecure ... |
| [The Prodigy moves again, coming closer to the Puritan. They remain unaware of one another.] | |
| PRODIGY: | Kafka smelled the rot in the world. [looking at his hands] If it weren't for this ... I'd be a writer too. Roam the blank page with my perfect pitch and my sense of contrapuntal voicing. The Longing, a novella by Glenn Gould, esquire. [performing it] 'He rose at dawn and' - no - 'he stayed up until dawn and watched light come into the land in tinctures of grey. He knew it was going to be a long day, so many stations of the cross before he ... before he -' Nah. Too slow ... |
| PURITAN: | ... an unpleasant experience, seemingly immune to ad hoc pressures ... |
| PRODIGY: | I can see the reviews: [British accent] The Longing is a precocious first novel about a great pianist near the end of his days - a brave old man seeking refuge from life's last riddle. Is Glenn Gould projecting a future for himself here? Only time will tell ... |
| [He paces, thinking.] | |
| PURITAN: | ... wrist tightness problems ... separation into bumpy groupings and a general lack of fluidity ... |
| PRODIGY: | Never mind that. Sunday painters read their reviews - onward! Let me see: [performing a line] 'The great man prowls the endless night of the city, a solitary traveller on a path that leads relentlessly inward.' |
| PURITAN: | ... right wrist unbearably sore after any ten to fifteen minute practice period ... |
| PRODIGY: | And now his mother lies dying. He has come down from the mountain to be at her side. |
| PURITAN: | ... the fingers should not be required to move ... only to be there ... |
| PRODIGY: | The squeak of the stairs as he climbs toward her room. [sotto voce] So many things he must say to the dying woman. |
| PURITAN: | Hear the blood in my brain ... the ringing ... |
| PRODIGY: | She's sitting in a reclining chair under a plaid wool throw. She seems to be asleep, or perhaps not ... |
| PURITAN: | ... nothing prevents a gradual deterioration of the mental image. |
| PRODIGY: | 'Mother?' |
| [The Puritan sits up. He has a cramp in his shoulder.] | |
| She turns to look at him. 'I am about to die,' she says, 'And that is as it should be. Why have you come to see me?? | |
| [The Puritan puts a thermometer in his mouth.] | |
| The old man exercises his legendary control. All the words must be in perfect order before he utters a syllable. He reaches into the glowing core of his being ... | |
| [The Puritan comes to his feet wearily, heads offstage] | |
| PURITAN: | I must write to the makers of Fiorinal - '... when combined with a certain state of hyperactive exhaustion your product delivers a superb waking nightmare.' |
| [Lights shift. Another note from the ground bass.] |