Goltzius and the Pelican Company Page #4

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and then maybe even divorce her.

Susannah's thinking of marriage?

My god that woman is a fool.

Try telling her that.

All right, erm,

how do you want to do it?

Boethius can be very inventive.

I don't want to do it,

least not in public.

Boethius will think of something suitable,

so you don't look totally exposed.

How about a suit of armour?

For you or for Portia?

Could be exciting,

the metal and the flesh.

Quadfrey was the master technician.

I always thought, curiously,

that Quadfrey was a masculine woman

in a celibate's neuter clothing.

Whenever possible,

he went as naked

as normal decency permitted.

Though naked as an innocent child

went naked in the nursery.

Look, you have a decent sized prick!

Beautiful! And... And...

You... get your buttocks shaved, huh?

And you can show us a kingly arse

with some rich royal treasure

dangling beneath.

I'm not doing it and neither is Portia.

I remember in the dunes near Noordwijk,

you were happy to show

all the world what you had.

Exposure was a happy

stale of affairs for you then.

I was drunk and younger.

Be drunk again.

David was a Jew and circumcised.

Make sure you keep it erect, huh?

Pull the foreskin back hard

and you could wear a phallic ring.

- I've seen them in Brussels.

- F*** you! F*** you! F*** you!

I want a Hungarian Elephant Press

with the whale-boards on the front plates.

I don't know what that is exactly,

but, by God, I will get you one,

even if I have to drag it

from Hungary myself.

And small-bore sliders

with the cusps

facing the right-hand side.

My God, Hendrick,

for small-bore right-handed sliders,

you had better show us

a good trumpet.

And Portia had better be

a good strumpet.

Jesus Christus, Hendrick,

a Hungarian Elephant Press

for the sight of your willy?

You know, all this could do your marriage

some good, Hendrick.

We have to f*** in public.

We hardly ever f*** in private

so why should we have

to f*** in public?

To excite the Margrave

to cough up enough money

to keep us all working

for the next five years.

F***ing for money?

Maybe that will turn you on.

How much?

It's said that the only difference

between a whore and a wife

is that the first plainly asks

to be paid straight away.

And, er, babies'?

What about babies?

Will they be part of the equation?

Good lord! Could be.

- If we had any.

- And we don't.

And why? Because you can't.

Unproven.

Well, it might work!

Maybe some public exposure

will stiffen up your lust again.

And... Eduard could watch me!

B*tch! That talentless, lecherous youth.

He has been asking after me, you know?

He's been asking after most women.

And some men, I have heard.

You give me a son

and Eduard disappears from view.

- A challenge?

- I want a child, Quadfrey.

I want a child.

You said it would set us up

for five years?

Yes.

I'll do it.

If you'll do it.

But... I want a house

with red and white shutters in The Hague

with a yard of pleached beech trees

and, um...

ten potted orange bushes,

and a red tulip garden,

and a 20-foot long

lavender hedge

with a path of crushed shells

to a gazebo

overlooking a silent canal.

With swans.

- Whore.

- Pimp.

We now bring to your attention

the true biblical tale

of David and Bathsheba.

David and Bathsheba were later

to become the parents

of the most esteemed King of the Jews.

Solomon, the wisest man,

it was to be said,

in the whole civilised world.

Madam?

Sir?

I know your husband.

I hope you should.

He's a loyal officer to all your efforts.

A brave man.

He serves me well.

Very well.

Like a true subject.

Like a true subject should.

Like all my subjects should.

You are one of my subjects.

I am indeed, Your Majesty.

And you, too, will serve me well?

I am obliged to.

Obligation?

Your husband, it is true,

serves me from obligation.

But, I am convinced,

for he has given me copious proof,

from also out of love

and affection and true personal loyalty.

He is eager to please me,

for he knows if he pleases me,

he pleases his country

and therefore, he pleases himself.

You see how we all benefit?

The areas of pleasing, Your Majesty,

I suspect might not be quite the same.

He's a soldier fighting your battles.

You, too, can be a soldier

fighting my battles.

Battles, Your Majesty?

The battle of my heart.

We did arrange for the exhibition

of the mutilated bloody corpse

of Bathsheba's husband

slain in the centre of battle

in which David had placed him.

The Old Testament authors

being persuaded to condone

adultery abetted by murder.

Or was it murder abetted by adultery?

No more talk about your husband.

He is very, very far away.

Absent.

Unknowledgeable of our meeting.

Ignorant that we are together.

Innocent of our intimacy.

Proceed.

One last thing.

If you intend to impregnate me

with your seed,

lam, at this time,

at the peak of my receptivity.

Then, madam,

you make yourself and your body

even more deliciously

and vulnerably desirable.

The thought

that my seed could penetrate,

re-arrange,

activate and decidedly change

the intimate and warm, moist,

interior secret spaces

of your delightful body

fills me with a very great desire indeed.

Madam, you should prepare yourself.

Take off your clothes.

Here then was the exposition

of the third sexual taboo -

adultery, crime against property.

Nature could not care less

about the proposition of adultery.

A child is a child, however conceived.

And nature has succeeded

with adultery admirably,

since it is accompanied

by extremes of excitement

that augur well

for a successful outcome - a child.

I haven't seen your prick rise

so high or so hard

in a very long time.

You, too, opened up for the occasion.

Perhaps Portia,

we should again find a way

to perform in private

like we performed in public.

David cannot have used

such spite and deceitfulness

with Bathsheba.

God would never have let him

be so predatory.

David is the glory of Judaism,

great King of the Jews.

I intensely dislike

the role of the dramaturge,

telling you all the time

what you have done wrong,

how you could do that better,

that it is not true to life.

That it did not really happen like that.

How on earth do they know?

Were they there at the foot of the cross?

When they rolled in the Trojan Horse?

When Eva ate the apple?

When Lot f***ed his daughters?

When David watched Bathsheba

at her bath?

When Potiphar's wife f***ed

or did not f*** Joseph?

When Samson had a haircut?

And here in Colmar

were too many dramaturges -

academics of the church, elders, judges,

knowing their Bibles

like the back of their hands,

dogmatically declaring

that what they knew

was what the bible knew

and therefore was the truth!

First, seduction.

Then, conception.

Then the death of the child.

Solomon could not have been

conceived out of wedlock.

So the first bastard child had to go.

Have you considered

it might have been

infanticide perpetuated by him?

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