Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois (52 page)

FORSYTH: (Perplexed.) I’m not sure what you mean. A man writes because he has to. It’s in him to do it. He must express himself and the written word is a writer’s particular outlet. A writer must write as he must breathe…

MELBOURNE: (Reaching the liquor service, he takes up a bottle and pours himself a liberal portion.) Tell me, what is the object of the written word?

FORSYTH: Why to communicate ideas to others…

MELBOURNE: And would you say that some writers are better at communicating than others?

FORSYTH: Of course.

MELBOURNE: And in being better, how is that measured?

FORSYTH: (Rubbing his chin.) In the ease and clarity in which they’re able to communicate an idea to others.

MELBOURNE: Will a particular way to express an idea, through words or any other manner, ever be communicated perfectly? I mean, will the written word, for instance, ever reach a point at which a reader is able to grasp perfect understanding of an idea from it?

FORSYTH: (Pausing to think.) No, I guess it wouldn’t. Every writer is an individual, each with his own unique perspective. And because each reader is also a unique individual, each with his own life experiences, his ability to interpret a writer’s work must necessarily differ from every other reader.

MELBOURNE: So, can perfection, can the ideal, ever be attained?

FORSYTH: (Watching as Angelique approaches them from across the room.) No.

MELBOURNE: Then why bother trying? Lay bricks instead, at least building a house protects you from the rain.

ANGELIQUE: (Arriving at the liquor service and slipping her arm around Forsyth’s waist.) What is Brian filling your head with now?

FORSYTH: We were just discussing the uselessness of writing as a matter of fact.

MELBOURNE: Among other things.

ANGELIQUE: (Smiling, but with a definite air of menace in her voice.) You’re drinking too much Brian.

MELBOURNE: Am I? Well what did you expect?

ANGELIQUE: Poor boy. You used to be so much more fun. Perhaps I ought to give you more attention…

MELBOURNE: Though your charms are considerable, my dear, even they aren’t enough.

ANGELIQUE: (Laughing.) Why, Brian, what is Clifton here going to make of that?

FORSYTH: I’ve sampled your charms, Angelique, and don’t find them lacking.

ANGELIQUE: There, you see?

MELBOURNE: You’ve done enough for me already, Angelique.

ANGELIQUE: But only at your insistence, darling.

MELBOURNE: (Suddenly earnest.) How do you do it, Angelique? You’ve looked in the book as well, and yet…

ANGELIQUE: (Craning her neck suddenly.) Oh look, there is Count Orloff; I simply must run off and greet him. (She leaves the two men and moves off stage right.)

FORSYTH: It seems there was something more than passing between you and Angelique.

MELBOURNE: (Looking after Angelique and replying almost absentmindedly.) Oh yes, something more.

FORSYTH: You said something about a book…

MELBOURNE: (Starting, he downs the rest of his drink and turns back to the liquor service, speaking over his shoulder.) Did I?

FORSYTH: Yes, was it a book you shared with Angelique?

MELBOURNE: (Turning slowly.) A book…yes. I say, Clifton is it? Have you ever heard of the
Xanthic Folio
?

FORSYTH: (Frowning and shaking his head.) No.

MELBOURNE: Didn’t think so. (Sighing, he drains his glass.) Damned stuff couldn’t get an old lady tipsy… The
Xanthic Folio
is named after a Greek philosopher named Xanthes who was forced to drink poison by the Athenian authorities sometime before the fifth century BC. Or at least that’s what I’ve been able to piece together; there’s not much written about him. From what I’ve been able to find out, Xanthes had developed his own school of philosophy, much like Plato and Socrates, but there was something about his teachings that were felt to be subversive by the powers that ruled Athens at the time. All I’ve been able to discover is that it involved a variant theory of mimetics: the Greek idea of the impossibility of attaining perfection because the ideal of everything existed only in the mind, that any three dimensional construct of any idea would necessarily be inferior to its ideal. Anyway, Xanthes was put to death and his school wiped out. Except for the
Xanthic Folio
, the only source for Xanthes’ theories. Unfortunately, that work has been lost for centuries.

FORSYTH: How dangerous could a work on mimetics be; it’s studied today in every university.

MELBOURNE: (Smiling and shaking his head.) If only it were that simple. Xanthes’ theory of mimetics was revolutionary. As an example of its power, I can tell you that the Oracle of Delphi consulted a copy of the
Xanthic Folio
; how else could it make its predictions?

FORSYTH: If there was an oracle.

MELBOURNE: (Shrugging and putting his empty glass on the liquor service. He does not take another.) Believe what you will. But to finish, I’ll say that although the
Xanthic Folio
vanished sometime in the Roman era, it reemerged in the thirteenth century as the
White Codex
, a work cited by Thomas Aquinas from written materials only then emerging from Byzantium. That too, if it ever existed, was lost and, I’m not sure about anything from this point, another book came to light. I knew nothing about it, although I turned Paris, London and Berlin, even Rome, up side down trying to. When it was written, by whom and for what purpose, I still haven’t the faintest idea. (His eyes flicker toward Angelique across the room.)

FORSYTH: What is this book?

MELBOURNE: (Turning his attention back to Forsyth.)
The King In Yellow
.

FORSYTH: I never heard of it.

MELBOURNE: Thank God, if there is one, that you never have. Whoever wrote it must have been a madman, or a genius, or maybe not even mortal. It’s like a window or…like an x-ray, one reads its exquisite language, its impossible scheme of words and sees the Truth. (Melbourne begins to look past Forsyth, speaking almost to himself.) The world is stripped away and what’s left is the ideal, the blazing, staggering revelation of reality. There’s no room for self-deception or prevarication only blind acceptance or…

FORSYTH: You’re rambling, man.

MELBOURNE: (As if awakened from a trance.) Am I? Tell me, Clifton, have you ever read Mallarme?

FORSYTH: One doesn’t write in Paris and not read Stephen Mallarme.

MELBOURNE: Then you’re familiar with his ideas on the literal meaning of words? That if it could be attained, the Truth could be revealed? He once said that “having arrived at the horrible vision of the pure work, I have about lost my mind and all contact with the meaning of the most common ways of speaking.”

FORSYTH: “I am in Truth on a voyage, but in unknown lands, and if I like to evoke cold images in order to escape from torrid reality I should tell you that for a month now I have been in the purest of glaciers of Aesthetics…that after having found nothingness, I have found the beautiful…and that you cannot imagine the lucid altitudes in which I venture.”

MELBOURNE: (Nodding.) Exactly. You have it. It’s my theory that
The King In Yellow
must have been circulating in Parisian poetic circles sometime in the last century. How else to explain Mallarme and his fellow decadents? How else to explain their fates? Suicide, murder, and self-exile. Mallarme came closest to telling us what it must have been like to read those damnably illuminating words. It was literally the last word in the art of writing. In human self-expression itself. After reading it, no writer could possibly ever lift a pen again. Why bother when perfection had already been reached?

FORSYTH: (Uneasy now.) Are you saying you’ve read this book?

MELBOURNE: Yes, damn my soul, yes! (His fists clench tightly at his sides as if restraining a great internal struggle.) If you’re a real writer, you know the feeling. Nothing you’ve written is ever exactly the way you want it. No matter how many times you rewrite or polish, you’re never satisfied. Well, that’s the way I felt, and when…Angelique offered to help me, I accepted. She led me in here, this room, one night, took down the book from those shelves, (indicates bookshelves at corner of stage right), and gave it into my hands. She put me in a chair and bade me read. She may have left the room then, I don’t know, the only thing I do know is that I read the book through in a single sitting and when I was finished, dawn was breaking through the windows and Angelique was standing before me, just as she had the night before. But things were not the same. Yes, it all looked the same, but I perceived the world differently. Angelique herself…

FORSYTH: Go on, what of Angelique?

MELBOURNE: You think Angelique beautiful, desirable? She is that, oh yes, she is that. But she’s also more…so much more…Clifton, if you could see her the way I do, the way she really is, not the indistinct shadow she appears to you…

FORSYTH: (Gripping Melbourne tightly with his left hand.) Show me, Brian. Point out the book to me.

MELBOURNE: (Shrugging himself loose from Forsyth’s grip.) You don’t know what you’re asking. It’s not worth it. It’s said that ignorance is bliss, but I never knew how wonderful blind delusion could be! The Truth, Clifton, the Truth! Think about it! Do you want to know the Truth? The Truth about God? The Truth about the human Soul? The Truth about you, the human race, the Earth, or the universe? The real Truth? The Truth about…Angelique? Stop and think!

FORSYTH: (Stops a moment and appears to think hard.) I’ve thought and imagined about the worst disillusionments on those things that I could and none of it would matter to me. I don’t believe in a God or a soul, humans are mere mammals and the Earth and universe accidents of nature. But Angelique…I must know all there is about her.

MELBOURNE: (Slowly shaking his head.) You poor, blind bastard. You think your cynicism protects you from disillusionment, shields you from disappointment. You think your attitude makes you superior to the rest of humanity whom you consider no better than a rabble. You remind me of myself before… (Shrugs and looks around.) Angelique’s not here. (Turns back to Forsyth.) So you’d like to read
The King In Yellow
.

FORSYTH: Show it to me.

MELBOURNE: (Leads Forsyth across the room to the corner shelves. When they arrive there, all the lights on the stage fade except for two on each of the two men; all sounds of the party gradually cease.) Let’s see now, it was kept on the top shelf…Ah, here it is. (He reaches up and takes down a heavy volume covered in faded yellow cloth.) It’s not much to look at, but it’s still the most dangerous object in the world. Humanity must have its delusions, just as it must have its sleep, its dreams, they help man cope with life. Strip men of the outlet of dreams, and they become mad. Can you live without your dreams, Clifton?

FORSYTH: (Reaches out and takes the book.) If dreams are keeping me from seeing Angelique, then I can live without them.

MELBOURNE: (Smiling.) Then join me and be damned. (Melbourne motions Forsyth to a chair. Forsyth sits, opens the book after a slight hesitation and begins to read. His head moves slightly from side to side as he reads and his hands begin to tremble. Then, with a great effort, he slams the book shut and looks about dazedly.) Something wrong?

FORSYTH: I…don’t know. Everything seems different…it all looks the same, but now…

MELBOURNE: Now you perceive the world as it really is. Ordinary objects are burningly clear in their utter reality.

FORSYTH: The world is beautiful and terrible. There are strange moons in the sky…

MELBOURNE: It’s Carcosa you perceive. Reality as it is, not as our dulled human senses interpret it for us. (Very slowly, the lights come back on again. The party is still in progress in the same room, but there are subtle changes in the room’s look and the party-goers are clad in strange, beautiful attire. A woman approaches them.)

CASSILDA: Clifton, reading while a party is in progress?

MELBOURNE: It’s a rather riveting book, my dear.

FORSYTH: (Still appearing a bit dazed.) Angelique?

CASSILDA: Is that what the dullards call me?

MELBOURNE: The blind cannot help their blindness, Cassilda. And besides, does not the King hide his own visage behind a Pallid Mask lest we see his Face?

CASSILDA: (Visibly shaken.) Speak not of the King!

MELBOURNE: So, Truth still holds some of its terrors even in Carcosa!

CASSILDA: I must return to my guests. (She moves off.)

MELBOURNE: You see, Cassilda is not what you expected.

FORSYTH: She’s so beautiful and…

MELBOURNE: …vain, petty, fearful… (Forsyth looks down slowly and after some hesitation, reopens the book that rests on his lap and begins to read again.)

MELBOURNE: The Truth is never pretty, always disappointing. But go on, keep reading. Perhaps with more knowledge, there will come better perception…but don’t count on it!

(The spotlight on Melbourne now fades to black, leaving only Forsyth as the sole illuminated figure on the darkened stage. Forsyth sits stock still, reading for a full five minutes until the spotlight on him begins to fade, very, very slowly, to black.)

(At stage left, a lone spotlight comes on, illuminating the figure of the Chorus.)

CHORUS: There was once an Inhabitant of Carcosa who met an acquaintance he did not recognize and asked of him to “direct me, I beseech you, to Carcosa.” The familiar stranger broke into a barbarous chant in an unknown tongue and walked away. The Inhabitant could only stare after him in wonder, unaware of the depths of his own ignorance and the happy fortune that prevented him from breaching it.