Dogville Page #12

that you could be so human.

"No, I'm not afraid of that.

Not in the least."

Good.

Let tomorrow bring that it's gonna bring.

"It's not a crime to doubt yourself, Tom.."

but it's wonderful that you don't.

I can't find the rest.

Maybe I should go out

for a couple of minutes.

Take a walk or something...

I don't know.

To get it all out of my system.

Trudge the streets..

Listen to the wind as it passes through

the woods up through the valley

and all that.

"You go to sleep, though..."

You go to sleep

and I will be back very soon.

[Narrator] Of course it was all a load of nonsense.

"If anybody was capable of keeping track

of ideals and reality, he was."

"After all, it was his job.

Moral issues were his home ground."

To think that he might doubt his own purity

was really to think very little of him.

Tom was angry.

"And in the midst of it all,

he discovered why."

"It was not because of he'd been wrongly accused,"

but because the charges were true!

His anger consisted of a most unpleasant

feeling of being found out!

It was all quite a blow to the young philosopher!

"And realistically enough, he thought

that if the doubt was already present, it could grow."

Perhaps so great that one day it would prove

detrimental to his entire moral mission.

Tom stopped.

He almost began to shake when the threat

to his career as a writer dawned upon him.

It didn't take him long to agree with himself

that the risk was too great to run.

The danger Grace was to the town

she was also to him!

Tom did not like it.

And he was man enough

to take action to prevent it.

Fortunately Tom was as conscientious

as regards his future profession as he was practical.

"He allowed sincerity and ideals

plenty of room in his life,"

"without getting ""sentimental"" about it,

as he would put it."

"Throwing away a document that might be

of significance to Tom and with him future generation

of readers as the basis of a novel or indeed a trilogy,"

"was not an act he was so stupid to commit,"

although he had to admit that in a moment

of weakness he might have said he would.

"Before returning to the meeting that night

Tom opened the little drawer he had open

the night of Grace's arrival,"

and found it still there:

the card from the gangster in the car.

"[Narrator] The next day the sun was shining

in the brisk autumn sky,"

and the snow was long since gone.

For the first time for ages the pile driver

could be heard in the marshlands

as it hammered in the piles for what might

or what might not be a penitentiary.

"Grace opened her eyes after an almost

unconscious sleep, and was confused."

"Judging by the light coming through the cracks

in the walls, it had to be nearly midday."

"The grey hour as Jack McKay

for some reason called noon in Dogville,"

"being a man of many ideas and proclivities,

quite a few of which Grace would prefer to remain ignorant of."

But why had nobody roused her?

Nobody had hammered furiously at her door.

Not a child had thrown mud into her bed

or broken her remaining windowpanes.

Now she remembered.

"She recalled the meeting the previous day,

and puzzled still more."

Why had she not been confronted with

the outcome of that meeting? Or even killed?

It was quite unlike Dogville to restrain

its indignation at any point.

Perhaps things had turned out well after all?

"- Good morning, Mrs. Henson.

- Oh.. good morning?"

I would have come earlier. I overslept.

"Oh, never mind.

Liz put her back into it htis morning."

We thought some time off would be good for you.

That was quite a speech you made yesterday.

It gave us all something to think about.

"- Hello, Liz!

- Hi, Grace.."

I overslept.

- Good morning Miss Grace?

- Good morning..

- How are you this morning?

- I overslept.

"Oh, that's all right."

"Tom. Tom, I think it's Grace."

"Hello, Grace. Two seconds..

Good news."

I went back to the meeting last night.

I wasn't going to let them get off so easily.

But I'll be damned if the mood hadn't changed.

"I wouldn't say we won exactly, not exactly,

but I think something very good can come out of this,"

- something very good.

- Why didn't you come back and tell me?

"I did, but you were asleep."

"And you know,

you looked like you needed it.."

and that made me suggest

that maybe you should have some time off.

"And you know,

not one single person objected."

That sounds wonderful.

"I know it does, doesn't it?"

The people of this town

they surprise me again and again.

I might even have to revise

my theories a little bit.

You know how much I hate

doing that kind of thing.

"You know, Grace, last night when I came back

and I saw you lying there asleep so sweetly,"

I was suddenly inspired.

I wrote the first chapter of a story.

A story about a small town.

Guess where I got the inspiration?

But I haven't come up with a name

for the town yet.

- Why not just call it Dogville?

- Wouldn't work.

"No, it wouldn't work. It's got to be universal.

Lot of writers make that mistake, you see."

"Hey, do you want me to read it to you?"

"If there is any love in it, it comes from you..."

"Would you be offended, if I said no?"

"- No.

- If I really do have the day to myself, I..."

No. No..

Two people only hurt each other if they

doubt the love they have for one another.

You can read it some other time.

You sit down some place

and gaze out at the mountains.

It's what the girl in my novel does.

- I'll see you later.

- I'll see you. Good news!

"[Narrator] Sensibly, Grace chose to hope

for the best rather than fear the worst,"

"and planned to spend the day calmly

washing her clothes and herself,"

"which, for some reason or another, she was sure

none of the characters from Tom's

fictitious township would dream of doing."

And then it was as if Dogville just waited.

"Even the wind dropped,

leaving the town in an unfamiliar calm."

"as if somebody had put a large

cheese dish cover over it,"

and created the kind of quietness

that descends while you are awaiting visitors.

"After two days off Grace had been put back

to work, but the quietness remained."

Indeed it intensified until on the fifth day

it swelled into a strange mood

"that, all of a sudden, brought all the citizens

to the street to listen."

"They asked each other

if the phone was really still down,"

or if they'd heard about Ben having had to turn

his truck around on his way to Georgetown

that very morning on account

of a large tree blocking the road.

They were not worried.

"worried was not the right word,

and then Tom spotted the cars."

Tom has binoculars.

But you can see 'em with the naked eyes.

There must be at least eight!

I thought the road was blocked.

They must have come through

before the tree came down.

June's bed! The sheets need changing.

I'll be there in a minute.

"Hello, June."

"[Narrator] Grace had just started on the bed,

which June had soiled yet again,"

when an irritating feeling of wasting her time

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