ACT THREE
A very gray dismal
winter afternoon some years later. The bank is no longer on the pier. It
has been replaced by Madame Placata's tent. Plastered on the side of the
tent is a faded billboard announcing The Sextup Sextet, March 11-13, Pier
Theatre. Six figures are drawn on it, but the paper is too weather-beaten
to distinguish anything more than two are black, one is a dwarf and one
may be Asian. All are dressed in thongs.
At rise, MARY ELLEN
sits on the bench alone. She is considerably older. She wears a coat which
she pulls tight about the collar to keep the wind from penetrating her
body. In a moment, MAN appears, goes to the edge of the pier, holds his
nose and jumps in the water. Then MADAME PLACATA enters from her tent,
smoking a cigar and huddling herself in a sable stole, a ludicrous contrast
to her gypsy dress. She stops near Mary Ellen, stares out toward the dark,
stormy sea.
MADAME PLACATA
It'd be just like them to
pick such a shitty day.
MARY ELLEN
Probably.
MADAME PLACATA
You'd think they'd wait for
a bright glowing one. To give people the feeling they're really losing
something. But not them.
MARY ELLEN
That's part of the suspense,
I guess. Everyone wondering will it happen on a lovely day or a gloomy
one? Will it be a whimper or a bang? According to the most recent poll,
52 percent think it'll be a whimper, 38 percent a bang, and 10 percent
are undecided. But it keeps changing from hour to hour, from poll to poll.
MADAME PLACATA
This is all that's left,
isn't it?
MARY ELLEN
Left?
MADAME PLACATA
To shock. The final ultimate
shock.
MARY ELLEN
Yes.
MADAME PLACATA
When you can only stimulate
life by shock, the shocks must become greater each time.
MARY ELLEN
I suppose it was the only
way they could have done it. To treat it quite deliberately like that.
Sort of a game of execution. With reprieves and rescinding reprieves and
reprieves again.
MADAME PLACATA
It's done wonders for my
old tent.
MARY ELLEN
You mean, they want to know
what kind of day and whether a whimper or a bang?
MADAME PLACATA
Hell, no! They want me to
tell them it won't happen at all.
MARY ELLEN
And?
MADAME PLACATA
That's what I tell them.
MARY ELLEN
But why?
MADAME PLACATA
It gives them hope and me
sable.
MARY ELLEN
The same way---years ago---you
told Fleishman…
MADAME PLACATA
Was I wrong?
MARY ELLEN
We'll have no way of knowing
now, will we?
MADAME PLACATA
I didn't tell him he'd find
them. I only told him he was. And he was, wasn't he?
MARY ELLEN
Yes, somehow I think he was.
MADAME PLACATA
And I did predict this. I
told him first. When he was at the end of his rope.
(WOMAN appears, goes
to the edge of the pier, holds her nose and jumps off.)
MARY ELLEN
Yes. That's why he went off.
But he's coming back. He is, isn't he? I couldn't face the end with just
my dull family. He will come back.
MADAME PLACATA
How the hell should I know?
Whatdya think I am a fortune-teller or something?
(laughing loudly)
I always wanted to say
that to someone. "How the hell should I know? Whatdya think I'm a fortune-teller
or something?" If you knew how many times I had to bite my tongue to keep
from saying those words! But today---today it doesn't matter anymore.
(HERMIT enters from
downstage right. He has long hair, a long beard, bare feet and wears a
frayed monk's robe. He also sports a sandwich sign reading: REPENT, YE
SINNERS! THE HOUR OF DOOM IS UPON YE! On both front and back.)
HERMIT
Repent! Repent, ye sinners!
The hour of doom is upon ye!
MADAME PLACATA
Not you again!
HERMIT
Heathen---with thy heathen
religion, thy heathen sable!
MADAME PLACATA
Now he tells me.
MARY ELLEN
(squinting at Hermit)
Huntington?
(HERMIT regards her haughtily.)
You're Huntington!
HERMIT
I know not of whom you speak.
MARY ELLEN
Don't you remember me? I
met you at the Abyssinian War Relief years ago. I introduced you to Fleishman.
You had the idea for…
HUNTINGTON
I am and always have been
a simple man of God.
MADAME PLACATA
You are and always have been
a simple little pisha.
HUNTINGTON
The foxes have holes and
the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay
his head. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves. The very
hairs of your head are all numbered. Pearl of great price.
(looking upward)
I'm a good little soldier,
aren't I?
(resuming his piety)
I am the bread of life.
Judge not according to the appearance. No man, having put his hand to the
plough, and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.
MADAME PLACATA
Huntington in the ninth house
denotes a weird and uncanny tendency to the mind, which is impressionable
and easily influenced especially when trying to save his skin.
HUNTINGTON
Wars and promises of wars.
False prophets. Wheresoever the carcass is, there will be eagles gathered
together.
MADAME PLACATA
Huntington afflicted by Pluto
in the ninth indicates a preference to go directly to Bartlett's Quotations.
HUNTINGTON
There is no fear in love,
but perfect love casteth out fear. A pale horse; and his name that sat
on him was Death.
MADAME PLACATA
Huntington in the ninth afflicted
by Mars in conjunction with Pluto is an insatiable desire to be loved by
whoever is in power.
HUNTINGTON
Bowels of compassion. Another
book was opened, which is the book of life.
MADAME PLACATA
Bad aspects from the cusp
of the eleventh indicate Huntington is a prick.
HUNTINGTON
Love is the fulfilling of
the law. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with
all men.
MADAME PLACATA
Neptune in parallel declination
with an afflicted eighth house cusp is a liability to a very strange and
peculiar death---
HUNTINGTON
Work out your own salvation.
MADAME PLACATA
---possibly at the hands
of a fortune-teller.
(FLEISHMAN enters
from the left. He looks quite different, dapper, uncommonly youthful.)
FLEISHMAN
Mary Ellen…
(SHE stares at him blankly.)
It's me!
MARY ELLEN
Fleishman! I didn't recognize
you. You look marvelous!
FLEISHMAN
Baby scallop cell injections.
Those Swiss clinics are extraordinary!
MADAME PLACATA
And so the prodigal sextup
has returned.
HUNTINGTON
I don't think that's quite
the quote. Let's take it again from the top.
FLEISHMAN
Huntington?
HUNTINGTON
Who is this Huntington? I
am a man of God.
(turning indignantly and beginning to walk off)
Let not the sun go down
upon your wrath. The peace of God which passeth all understanding. REPENT!
REPENT, I SAY! THE HOUR OF DOOM IS UPON YE!
(pausing, again glancing up at the heavens)
I am a good little
soldier.
(HE exits downstage left.)
FLEISHMAN
Huntington!?
MARY ELLEN
Huntington always did keep
abreast of the times.
FLEISHMAN
Yes, I remember the snuff
films.
(From upstage right,
COUPLE enters, moves to edge of pier, holds noses and jumps.)
MADAME PLACATA
And what a bore they turned
out to be!
MARY ELLEN
Well, they kept the children
in the house. For awhile, anyway.
FLEISHMAN
The New Wave ones are becoming
rather tiresome, too.
MARY ELLEN
Like everything else, they
keep running out of invention.
FLEISHMAN
I saw one in Salzburg. It
was all the rage. You weren't sure who snuffed who.
MADAME PLACATA
Remember the Farewell
series years ago? Farewell, My Lawyer, Farewell, My Doctor, Farewell,
My Senator…
MARY ELLEN
Oh, yes! Farewell, My
Son-in-Law was my favorite.
MADAME PLACATA
Ah, for the snuff films of
yesteryear! Well, I see they're queuing up outside my tent again. No rest
for the angels. Good to see you back, Fleishman.
(calling)
Be of good cheer, darlings,
Madame Pollyanna is coming!
(SHE disappears behind the tent.)
FLEISHMAN
There goes a great woman.
MARY ELLEN
Great?
FLEISHMAN
If she hadn't told me the
end was coming, I never would have had the courage to take the money and
learn about the world.
MARY ELLEN
Madame Placata could be called
many things, but I don't think "great" is one of them.
FLEISHMAN
Oh, Mary Ellen, why put a
minimum on greatness? She's a great woman, and you are, too.
MARY ELLEN
You must be joking.
FLEISHMAN
All women are great. All
men are, too. Why even Huntington, in his own way, is great.
MARY ELLEN
Huntington!?
FLEISHMAN
(moving to the faded poster)
Look what he accomplished!
It was all his idea.
MARY ELLEN
It was yours!
FLEISHMAN
If we're to be accurate,
Mary Ellen, it was yours.
MARY ELLEN
Only the idea for the sextet
was mine.
FLEISHMAN
And mine was simply to find
my brothers. But his was to turn it into something the public wanted. And
the public did want it, Mary Ellen.
MARY ELLEN
(derisively)
Oh, the public!
FLEISHMAN
It was a sensation.
MARY ELLEN
It was disgusting. When you
finally sent for Jeremy Bryce-Wheaton and his brothers, you discovered
once again how fraudulent people can be.
FLEISHMAN
Fraudulent? No. Misguided,
perhaps. But not fraudulent.
MARY ELLEN
Fleishman, what on earth---?
FLEISHMAN
Jeremy Bryce-Wheaton simply
longed, like so many people, to be on all the Six O'clock Newses throughout
the world.
MARY ELLEN
He never had two brothers.
That photograph he sent you was cut out of a Ghana soup ad.
FLEISHMAN
We certainly can't blame
him for seizing the opportunity. If we blame anything, we should blame
the computer in which I fed the books on trips.
MARY ELLEN
We certainly can blame him!
He cashed in the other two round-trip tickets and told you his brothers
were quarantined in the hotel with mad cow disease. And then, behind your
back, he contacted Huntington.
FLEISHMAN
That was my fault. I told
him quite openly about Huntington.
MARY ELLEN
You told him about Huntington
to show the absurdity of some people's ideas.
FLEISHMAN
I don't see how you can call
it an absurdity. After all, you introduced us, Mary Ellen, and…
MARY ELLEN
But in those days…
FLEISHMAN
…and the test of an idea,
the test of anything, is whether it works. And this worked.
(regarding the poster)
The Sextup Sextet.
MARY ELLEN
I think you would have gotten
suspicious when you first saw Jeremy Bryce-Wheaton. He was black.
FLEISHMAN
Mulatto. He still could have
been my brother. And at least it made things easier for Huntington. Jeremy
Bryce-Wheaton had a superb physique. Huntington didn't even have to send
him to a gym. And the first night in town he went to a Thai restaurant
and shacked up with a gorgeous Eurasian. That saved them all the wearisome
bother of having to search for a Choctaw Indian. You see, things work out
for the best.
MARY ELLEN
What on earth has happened
to you, Fleishman?
FLEISHMAN
Am I different?
MARY ELLEN
Impossible.
FLEISHMAN
No, realistic. Mature. I've
been away.
MARY ELLEN
Yes, and I've been longing
to hear about your trip.
FLEISHMAN
My trip? Oh, it was one mad
whirl after another. At first of course I knew no one. And it was difficult
for me to make contact the early days on the ship. After all, Mary Ellen,
most of my life was spent here---on this bench on this pier with you. Finally,
I forced myself to make contact. And it wasn't as difficult as I had imagined.
They were a charming Croatian couple. It was in the midst of the favorite
shipboard game these days. Push the Teenager Overboard.
MARY ELLEN
Push the Teenager Overboard!
FLEISHMAN
Oh, it's all harmless fun.
Each day out of port a committee of experts selects one teenager from the
passenger list and at tea time there's a big drawing to see who will get
to push him off of A Deck.
MARY ELLEN
Fleishman, really!
FLEISHMAN
I don't see why you say "really"
like that, Mary Ellen. It's the only opportunity an adult gets these days
to vent his hostility against the younger generation. On land he wouldn't
dare try such a thing. But since the little blighters are in the minority
on a ship, it does make for rather pleasurable afternoons. And I find it
a great deal less arbitrary and messy than what the Butchers used to do
years ago.
MARY ELLEN
That was entirely different.
That was inter-teenager, so to speak. Adults had nothing to do with it,
FLEISHMAN
Well, I personally find this
way safe, sanitary and healthy. And I wouldn't waste my sympathy on the
teenagers. Where do you think our great Olympic swimming champions have
been coming from? Anyway, the Croatian couple. They invited me to spend
time with them at their villa in Zagreb. I didn't know it was the thing
everyone says on shipboard, and that the further away they live, the more
insistent the invitation. Being so insecure socially, I naturally assumed
they were thoroughly sincere and this would be the only invitation I would
probably get. So, rather than disembark at Lisbon as I had originally planned,
I stayed on the ship until we got to Dubrovnik.
MARY ELLEN
What did they say when you
tailed along with them?
FLEISHMAN
They didn't say anything.
Seeing me disembark at Dubrovnik, they stayed on the ship and eventually
wound up touring Morocco.
MARY ELLEN
Oh, Fleishman.
FLEISHMAN
You needn't say "Oh, Fleishman"
like that anymore, Mary Ellen.
MARY ELLEN
I'm sorry.
FLEISHMAN
They remain a perfectly charming
couple. And it all worked out for the best. I learned a valuable lesson,
and they settled in Marrakech.
MARY ELLEN
The lesson, Fleishman? Did
you at last learn that you must never mention your missing brothers to
anyone?
FLEISHMAN
How did you know I mentioned
them?
MARY ELLEN
I know you, Fleishman.
FLEISHMAN
Well, I'd never been terribly
good at geography. And I asked them if they knew the Kabzoffs from Transylvania.
They said vaguely they knew some Kabzoffs, but they couldn't remember whether
they were Transylvanian Kabzoffs or Montenegrin Kabzoffs. One thing led
to another, and I soon found them leaving the dining room without waiting
for their dessert.
MARY ELLEN
I thought you'd learned that
lesson years ago.
FLEISHMAN
Oh, that wasn't the lesson
I learned, Mary Ellen.
MARY ELLEN
Then what?
FLEISHMAN
I learned that God is Love.
MARY ELLEN
God is Love???
FLEISHMAN
It's the lesson everyone's
learning these days.
MARY ELLEN
Fleishman, I don't understand
what's happening to you.
FLEISHMAN
Oh, I had a few mishaps after
that. I wanted so much to communicate the story of my sextuplets and make
contact with people. But when it finally occurred to me that God really
is love and only in that way could I approach people, it was lunches, dinners,
drinks, love affairs, a new face. The beach at Cannes, the casinos in Johannesburg,
the jazz festival in Helsinki. I remember, it was one evening under the
moon, the great white moon in Majunga…
MARY ELLEN
Fleishman, do you realize
that any minute now…
FLEISHMAN
Of course I realize.
MARY ELLEN
And here we sit chatting
about great white moons in Majunga!
FLEISHMAN
What else should we chat
about? Why not go down in whatever they have chosen for us to go down in
thinking of great white moons in Majunga?
MARY ELLEN
Somehow great white moons
in Majunga appear inconsequential.
FLEISHMAN
How curious coming from you,
Mary Ellen. What would you prefer us to talk about? Our love for each other?
MARY ELLEN
Why, Fleishman!
FLEISHMAN
You would prefer that, wouldn't
you? You would prefer our going down with protestations of how I've always
loved you.
MARY ELLEN
Fleishman, I…
FLEISHMAN
You see me now with my new
Swiss face and my sudden popularity after all those years of calumny and
isolation. And now you would be more than happy to have me protest my undying
love.
MARY ELLEN
That's not so! Your new Swiss
face and your sudden popularity mean nothing to me. I prefer the old Fleishman.
The one with a purpose, the one with a dream.
FLEISHMAN
Of course you prefer the
old Fleishman. You can feel superior to him.
MARY ELLEN
Don't say that! That was
never my feeling!
FLEISHMAN
Wasn't it?
MARY ELLEN
If it were that, I could
have chosen so many others.
FLEISHMAN
But never so many others
with a purpose and a dream that you could still feel superior to.
MARY ELLEN
No! It was never that! Don't
you remember---that first day years and years ago on this beach? I didn't
care about the sand suicide. I offered you a pimento cheese sandwich. And
then you went into the tent and... Oh, Fleishman, I never spent all those
years meeting you because I felt superior to you!
FLEISHMAN
You, who have always been
the realist.
MARY ELLEN
How can you say these things
to me? For the past two weeks I've come back here day after day waiting
for you to return.
FLEISHMAN
Because you loathe Farineau---
MARY ELLEN
I never said I…
FLEISHMAN
If you've never said it,
it's because as you both grew older the loathing was so gradual you never
called it loathing. And you're bored out of your mind with your children
and your grandchildren.
MARY ELLEN
I'm not denying that. But,
oh, you make it sound so---ugly.
FLEISHMAN
Isn't it, Mary Ellen?
MARY ELLEN
Not what we had! Not the
dream!
FLEISHMAN
The dream is a lie!
MARY ELLEN
No!
FLEISHMAN
The dream is a lie! Isn't
that what everyone has told us?
MARY ELLEN
I don't care what everyone
has told us!
FLEISHMAN
Look! Even now behind the
faded exterior what do you see? The Sextup Sextet.
(HE tears a piece of it from the tent.)
You see how it crumbles?
All one has to do is put it to the test. Like you and me, Mary Ellen.
MARY ELLEN
That crumbles! That Sextup
Sextet crumbles! But not ours!
FLEISHMAN
Ours never existed! This---absurd
travesty---this was the real one! Ours was the lie.
MARY ELLEN
I won't listen to you. I
can't bear to see you like this.
FLEISHMAN
Then go. Go to another pier.
Find another fool. You still might have time.
MARY ELLEN
I will go. Even if it is
the end, I can't spend it with you. I'll spend it myself. I'll erase all
that's gone between us. I'll think of Ripper, of being eleven again---eleven
and alive! But I won't spend the little time left with you.
(SHE starts to run off.)
FLEISHMAN
(quietly)
Come back.
(SHE wavers slightly, then stops, turns slowly, takes a step back.)
FLEISHMAN
You see, I've been away.
MARY ELLEN
You said you learned God
is Love.
FLEISHMAN
How do you like the worldly
Fleishman? The one no one turns away from.
MARY ELLEN
He isn't Fleishman.
FLEISHMAN
But he is.
MARY ELLEN
I don't believe going out
in the world leads to corruption---not if the seeds weren't there before.
FLEISHMAN
To survive, Mary Ellen, to
survive.
MARY ELLEN
Then all you told me…
FLEISHMAN
All I told you was true.
It was one mad whirl after another. And beneath the great white moon in
Majunga, I tasted love and passion as I had never tasted them before. Because,
within me, there was only disinterest. You see, I learned a great deal,
Mary Ellen. The worldly Fleishman tells you God is Love. He will tell you
many other things along similar lines. He will, in fact, tell you pretty
much whatever happens to be the opinion of the moment.
MARY ELLEN
But what of the other Fleishman?
FLEISHMAN
He learned other things.
He learned to give specific information and generalized emotion. He learned
that the appearance of a feeling is so much more persuasive than the feeling
itself. He learned that the slightest exposure, the tiniest fission of
truth or vulnerability, will make you a pariah. He learned people worship
a facade of strength as much as they abhor strength itself. He learned
one must never value someone higher than he values himself or else he will
hate you.
MARY ELLEN
But why tell me these thing
now---when there is such little time? Why tell me what so many have known
for so long?
FLEISHMAN
Because it's what I learned,
Mary Ellen. It's part of my being. And if I can't tell you, then there's
no one.
MARY ELLEN
You can tell me.
FLEISHMAN
Majunga, Salzburg, Baden-Baden,
Melbourne, Yokohama---so many things happened---so many people---so many
encounters---and they were meaningless.
MARY ELLEN
Isn't everything?
FLEISHMAN
No.
MARY ELLEN
But when you think that any
moment now…
FLEISHMAN
Any moment any of us could
go. Especially at our ages.
MARY ELLEN
Individually, not collectively.
FLEISHMAN
Does that change anything?
MARY ELLEN
Yes. Yes, it does.
FLEISHMAN
No, Mary Ellen. Because in
the long run, it's this…
(placing his palm to the back of his head)
It's the inner life.
That's all the reality there is. That's the only reality for us. And for
those without it, well, let them hurl themselves off the edge of the pier
holding their noses, or let them look up to the sky and plead, "I'm a good
little soldier, aren't I?" Under that great white Majunga moon, I was still
writing to the Kabzoffs, the Losorellis, the Bryce-Wheatons. And I was
still meeting you here. But most of all it was the anticipation of what
would happen before the Kabzoffs, the Losorellis, the Bryce-Wheatons arrived.
And because in all three cases it turned out so strangely, so badly, the
mind toys with other dreams---letters that were never sent, replies that
never arrived. Why are you smiling?
MARY ELLEN
I was thinking of the first
time we met. You did get on the Six O'clock Newses. Twice.
FLEISHMAN
So I did. Once as a perverted
espionage agent. And again as a perverted bank robber.
MARY ELLEN
Oh, Fleishman. I tried to
do everything I could about that.
FLEISHMAN
Yes, you did.
MARY ELLEN
But with the perversion-espionage
indictment behind you, it was impossible.
FLEISHMAN
I hardly recall the two years
in the state penitentiary. But how well I recall the letters! There was
one from Said Bakarim which always gave me hope.
MARY ELLEN
I remember.
FLEISHMAN
I always thought that when
I got out if Jeremy Bryce-Wheaton didn't come through, I could write to
Said Bakarim and send for him.
MARY ELLEN
But Jeremy Bryce-Wheaton
did come through---in a manner of speaking.
FLEISHMAN
Mary Ellen, do you think
that…
(pointing to the poster)
That travesty ended the
possibilities? It was some years ago they disbanded the act because of
the night in Madrid when Jeremy Bryce-Wheaton socked the dwarf and the
dwarf kicked the sumo wrestler and the Eurasian shot Jeremy Bryce-Wheaton.
Do you think that…?
MARY ELLEN
It isn't that, Fleishman.
It's this.
(SHE glances around her, up to the sky and out to the sea.)
FLEISHMAN
This doesn't exist, Mary
Ellen. That's what I'm trying to tell you. This exists only as a backdrop
to this.
(HE indicates his head again.)
MARY ELLEN
Well, the public has very
short memories.
FLEISHMAN
Yes.
MARY ELLEN
And they get shorter each
year.
FLEISHMAN
Of course there's not just
Said Bakarim in Cairo. When I was traveling through Brie a most interesting
thing happened.
MARY ELLEN
Yes?
FLEISHMAN
I got a curious note from
a Countess d'Avignon, Countess Gertrude Anot d'Avignon.
(HE extracts a letter from his breast pocket.)
MARY ELLEN
But there are no countesses
anymore.
FLEISHMAN
That was the first thing
that made me suspicious.
MARY ELLEN
And the second thing?
FLEISHMAN
I had won a considerable
amount at Monaco. Word travels fast. I thought she was probably another
fortune hunter.
MARY ELLEN
What does the note say?
FLEISHMAN
(reading)
"Mon Frère! I
must see you at once. I know of your missing sextuplets. Come at four tomorrow---
Tu Seur, Gertrude."
MARY ELLEN
But what did she say when
you saw her?
FLEISHMAN
I didn't go.
MARY ELLEN
You didn't go?
FLEISHMAN
I was the other Fleishman.
The one quite impervious to either "mon frère" or "tu seur".
MARY ELLEN
But I would have died to
find out!
FLEISHMAN
Ever since I embarked at
Le Havre, I've been wanting to go back.
MARY ELLEN
Oh, Fleishman! How likely
that the real one is the one you did not follow up.
FLEISHMAN
No time like the present.
MARY ELLEN
No time.
FLEISHMAN
Gertrude Anot d'Avignon,
the countess. When I was a little boy, of course, they did have countesses.
And how logical that a hostile foreign power, especially a hostile socialist
foreign power, would have chosen the children of nobility.
MARY ELLEN
Well, it wasn't just that.
It was the idea of sextuplets.
FLEISHMAN
Of course. But what I mean
is doubly so with a titled family.
MARY ELLEN
But you never wrote to her
about the sextuplets. I wonder how she knew.
FLEISHMAN
So many ways. She may have
heard it from any number of people. The Croatian couple in Marrakech. Someone
in one of the books on quints, quads or trips. Even from that article in
the Anchorage paper. You remember. The one warning Eskimos not to answer
any letter they might receive asking them if they were missing members
of a sextuplet.
MARY ELLEN
Of course! It was sent to
you by that darling Eskimo who said it was none of their fucking business.
FLEISHMAN
And well it wasn't. There
were quite a few Eskimo trips, as I recall.
MARY ELLEN
But the point is she did
hear it from someone.
FLEISHMAN
Yes. And if she's the one,
there are a few more sisters---or brothers---and all of us would have royal
blood, so I do think we should change the basic concept of The Sextup
Sextet.
MARY ELLEN
The basic concept?
FLEISHMAN
Elegant women, nobility---
Besides, at our age, we would look rather strange in thongs.
MARY ELLEN
Thongs were never our conception.
FLEISHMAN
Even so we dreamed of something
sexy. The fabric. Remember?
MARY ELLEN
Well, you'd still want something
a little sensual. Dignified, of course. Sensually dignified.
FLEISHMAN
Dignity would be paramount.
MARY ELLEN
Oh, Fleishman! I have just
the idea!
FLEISHMAN
Yes? Yes?
MARY ELLEN
If the Countess d'Avignon
should turn out to be the one, we cut out the singing bit altogether. We
teach you all violins, violas and cellos.
FLEISHMAN
Yes? Yes?
MARY ELLEN
The Sextup String Sextet!
FLEISHMAN
Mary Ellen, that's genius!
(HE rushes to her and hugs her.)
CURTAIN
