Born Yesterday Page #5

to read my piece.

What are you talkin'?

Of course I read it. Twice.

What did you think?

It's the best thing I ever read.

I didn't understand one word.

What didn't you understand?

None of it.

Here, show me what.

What's so funny?

That I'm blind, practically?

"Practically" blind.

- You're wonderful.

- I'm sorry I look funny.

Don't be. They make you

look lovelier than ever.

You sound like one of those ads

for eyeglasses.

- Now, what didn't you understand?

- Well, like the name of it.

"The Yellowing Democratic Manifesto."

- Simple.

- To who?

Whom? Who?

Anyway, not to me.

- Well, you know what "yellowing" means.

- Not this time.

Well, when a piece of paper gets old,

what happens to it?

Throw it away?

No. It turns yellow.

- It does?

- Of course.

What do you know?

"Democratic."

You know what that means?

Not Republican.

Well, not exactly.

It means...

It just means, pertaining to our form

of government, which is a democracy.

Oh.

What's "pertaining"?

Has to do with.

"Pertaining."

Nice word.

- All right, "manifesto."

- I don't know.

- Why didn't you look it up?

- I did. I still don't know.

When I say "manifesto," I mean a set of

rules, principles, ideals and hopes...

on which

the United States is based.

The ideas of those men

who wrote that Constitution up there.

- So you think it's turning yellow?

- Yes.

A lot of the original inspiration

has been neglected and forgotten.

- And that's bad.

- And that's bad.

"Even a cursory...

examination of contemporary...

society in terms of the Greek...

philosophy,

which defines the whole...

as a representation of its parts...

sends one immediately

to the consideration...

of the individual as a citizen...

and the citizen as an individual."

- Well?

- I looked up every word!

Listen.

Thousands of years ago

a Greek philosopher said...

that the world could only be as good

as the people who lived in it.

Makes sense.

So I said, you take one look

at America today...

and you figure you'd better look

at the people in it, one by one.

- Yeah?

- That's all.

- That's this?

- Sure.

Well, why didn't you say so?

What's the name of this number,

did you say?

"Beethoven's Second Symphony,

Opus 38."

I didn't ask you who made it up.

I just asked you what's the name of it.

Here, wait a minute.

- There.

- Thanks.

I can't get over it.

Music that bad?

The music?

No, it was swell.

Well, then what?

I got a letter today

from my father.

- New York?

- Yeah.

- I can't get over it.

- Why?

It's the first time he ever wrote me

in about eight years.

We had a fight, sort of.

He didn't want me to go with Harry.

What does he do?

- My father?

- Yeah.

Gas company.

He used to read meters, but he

can't get around so good anymore...

so they gave him a different job...

elevator man.

He's a goofy old guy.

He used to take a frying pan and Sterno

to work every day to cook his own lunch.

He said everybody

should have a hot lunch.

I don't know how he did it.

There were four of us... me and my three

brothers. He had to do everything.

My mother died.

I never knew her.

He used to feed us and give us

our baths and buy our clothes.

Everything.

All my life I used to think

I'd like to pay him back.

It's funny how it worked out.

One night I brought home $100

and gave it to him.

You know what he did?

Well, it sure didn't

do the plumbing no good.

I thought he was gonna hit me,

but he didn't.

In his whole life

he never hit me once.

How'd he happen to write you

after all this time?

- 'Cause I wrote him.

- Oh?

He says he's thought about me

every day.

Gosh.

I haven't thought about him once,

even, in five years.

That's nothin' against him.

I haven't thought of anything.

Be nice to see him, maybe.

I guess so.

He says I should write him again

and have a hot lunch every day...

and I should let him know

how I am.

But he doesn't want to see me if

I'm still living in any way unethical.

I looked it up.

He always said, "Never do nothin'

you wouldn't want printed...

on the front page

of the New York Times."

I just realized I practically told you

the whole story of my life, practically.

I enjoyed it very much.

How about the story of your life?

Oh, no.

Much too tong.

And mostly untrue.

Hey, this is even more gorgeous

than the Radio City Music Hall, even.

And you notice, it smells nice.

It does!

- Come on, sit down.

- No.

You're tired.

I'm not a hit tired.

See?

You know that thing you gave me

about Napoleon?

- No. What?

- By Robert G. Ingersoll?

- Oh, yes.

- I'm not sure I get that.

- There's no deep meaning there.

- There must be.

He says about how goes

and looks in Napoleons tomb...

and he thinks of Napoleon's

whole sad life...

and then in the end he says he himself

would've rather been a happy farmer.

"I said I would rather have been

a French peasant and worn wooden shoes.

I would rather have lived in a hut

with a vine growing over the door...

and the grapes growing purple

in the kisses of the autumn sun.

I would rather have been

that poor peasant...

with my loving wife by my side...

knitting as the day

died out of the sky...

with my children upon my knee

and their arms about me.

I would rather have been

that man...

and gone down to the tongueless silence

of the dreamless dust...

that to have been that imperial

impersonation of force and murder...

known as Napoleon the Great."

How do you remember all that stuff?

So he'd rather have been a happy peasant

than Napoleon. So who wouldn't?

So Harry wouldn't, for one.

- What makes you think that?

- Ask him.

He probably never heard

of Napoleon.

What's worse, he probably

never heard of a peasant.

Do you hate him like poison?

- Who, Harry?

- Yeah.

- No.

- You don't like him.

- On account of me and him?

- One reason.

- There are lots more.

- What?

Think about it.

You'll see Harry's a menace.

He's not so had.

I seen worse.

Has he ever thought of anyone

but himself?

- Who does?

- Millions of people, Billie.

The history of the world is the struggle

between the selfish and unselfish.

I can hear you.

All that's bad around us

is bred by selfishness.

Sometimes selfishness

can even get to he a cause...

an organized force,

even a government.

Then it's called fascism.

Can you understand that?

Sort of.

Well, think about it.

You're crazy about me,

aren't ya?

- Yes.

- That's why you're so mad at Harry.

Listen, I hate his life, what he does,

what he stands for, not him.

He just doesn't know any better.

I go for you too.

I'm glad of it.

"I have sworn upon

the altar of God...

eternal hostility

against every form of tyranny...

over the mind of man."

So that's Thomas Jefferson, huh?

I heard quite a bit about him.

I mean, even before

I hit town, even.

Come in.

What are you trying to do

with those books, hatch 'em?

Blue?

Nice, huh?

Beethoven, Op. 36.

What's up, Billie?

It's all on account of you

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