Nightwatching Page #10

f***ing hands dirty,

it's your f***ing problem!!!

Now, f*** off!!

This is my wife's funeral!!

F*** off!

F*** off!

F***ing queer fat Polish c*nt!

F*** off!

It is curious, gentlemen, is it not,

that paintings are normally silent?

Now, however,

we can give this painting,

this picture,

this image...

sound.

(disembodied voices

and military drums)

(military drums)

(voices)

"The Calling out of the Militia

for the Fifth Company

of the Musketeers,

Amsterdam."

There is, of course...

another sound.

Steady...

Aim...

Fire!

(gunshot)

(all exclaiming)

I and this painting

accuse you gentlemen

of being responsible...

for the painting's major sound,

a musket shot.

(gunshot)

Where...

did... the bullet go?

I accuse you gentlemen...

of murder!

(murmuring)

- What bloody f***ing arrogance.

You arrogant little dauber!

- F***! Bloody hell!

- Rembrandt,

you're being absurd!

You agreed, we agreed...

- You have a bloody cheek!

- Yes, you go too f***ing far!

- You simply have not fulfilled

the terms of the contract.

- 18 members of this guild

paid you good money

to see ourselves represented suitably

in a group portrait.

- You couldn't even

accomplish that.

- Yes, where is Willemsen,

Leijdeckers and Cruysbergen?

- And who the hell is that?

If I'm not mistaken,

that looks like bloody Egremont.

He wasn't there!

- Oh, shut up, you fool,

of course he was there!

- No, he wasn't.

He was drunk and incapable,

and screwing some washerwoman

on the mess-tent floor!

- And him with his hat

on goddamn backwards?

- And what is that little ugly girl

doing there?!

Dressed for a party

I wasn't invited to?!

- You do not load a flintlock

like that,

making me look like a real prat!

- It's so goddamned dark,

you can't see anything anyway!

- Bring on some candles!

(laughter)

- That does not resemble shadow

so much as simply dirt!

- You not trying

to be Italian on us,

are you, Rembrandt?

- Where's Uylenburgh?

He ought to be here.

He's to blame.

He's the f***ing producer!

- That's right!

- Why don't you bloody well

go to Italy

and look at some paintings

like everybody else?

And if you haven't been to Italy,

what the f*** do you know

about Italian paintings anyway?

- Look at Wormsditch!

Look at the way you've done him up!

He looks like a clown

in a commedia dell arte farce!

- That is Bloemfelt!

That's Wormskerck,

not Wormsditch!

And I'm dressed in red,

with tassels,

that look as though

they decorate my wife's bed!

- And look at Ockersen!

Look, where did he get

that helmet from?

- It belongs to Rembrandt.

Ockersen is so broke,

he could never even afford

a helmet.

- It's out of Rembrandt's

little cabinet of curios,

bought in some flea market

on the Jordaan.

All his clothes are out of date.

No one wears a helmet like that

except outside of a theatre.

We are meant to be the militia

coming to defend the city,

and it looks like we look like

a bunch of f***ing

out-of-work actors

trying on the wardrobe!

I say...

let's burn the f***ing thing!

(murmuring)

- You are for it, dauber.

Your credit has been blasted.

- So...

what then, Mr. Painter,

is this little painting telling us?

That Banning-Cocq is a f*ggot

itching to get his hand

on Willem's prick?

That Willem is a womaniser

with a big cock?

That Kemp has

a bastard daughter,

maybe two,

and there is a murder

in our midst?

Not bad. Not bad.

Not bad. Not bad.

Can you hold that for me?

Four "not bads,"

but what, I wonder,

have you done in the end?

You've pushed a bunch

of ordinary and fallible

and undistinguished citizens

out of the guardroom

and onto the streets.

(laughing)

But in the end, the effect

is just...

well... silly.

Unless, of course,

that's what you wanted to do

all along.

Are you being satirical,

van Rijn?

Is this a satire?

You refused to go to Italy,

because you could not stand

the heroics of Italian painting.

Are you mocking us, Rembrandt,

by bringing

empty Italian heroics to us?

You must know

that our little Dutch Republic

just can't handle this sort of stuff.

We want to hear Dutch

spoken in our streets.

We want foreigners to behave,

and a Republic

tempered by assassination

is not the Dutch way.

We do not assassinate like this.

Like, like...

like Italians, like Romans.

Or do we?

Will we?

In your attempt

to make an accusation,

you've made

a silly, messy caricature,

which everyone is going to forget,

or no longer understand.

The context, as always,

is rapidly going to disappear,

even if they ever understood it

in the first place.

You can depend that,

despite all this,

there will be no justice here.

Captain Hasselburg remains dead,

his wife remains grief-stricken,

his son, Carl, bitter,

and the public verdict is?

"Accidental death

during artillery practice."

Three of those accidental deaths

have happened every week in Holland

for the last three generations.

You can settle scores privately

by painting evil

and chicanery and murder,

but, watch out,

they will certainly try

to settle scores privately

with you, too.

Watch out, Rembrandt.

- Just look what that little

Leiden bastard has done!

- Who's the child?

- Oh, Marieke,

Kemp's illegitimate,

carrying the pot

of scalding coffee

that ruined her sister's face.

She carries

the musketeer's cockerel,

hanging upside down

ready for plucking and f***ing.

- Oh, cock-a-doodle-doo!

- St. Peter Kemp in the farmyard

denying Christ three times,

but there's never any denying

of Kemp's little peter.

- Three squawking birds:

Engelen, Jongkind and Kemp.

- Cock-a-doodle-do!

- My dame has lost her shoe!

- My master's lost his piddling stick!

- And doesn't know what to do!

- I'm sure I cannot piss

forward or backward,

and yet I am wet before and behind.

- We're going to pretend

to like it,

because the deeper accusations

are far more dangerous.

He has made the militia company

look incompetent,

holding their muskets like...

well, like fairies.

- You're going to like this painting,

and everybody

is going to remember

how much you like this painting,

and all of those who make a case

that nobody complained

about this painting

are going to be right!

No buts!

- No disagreements.

- Ah...

- Listen!

We stick together in this,

or we are found out and ruined!

- This is not the way to do it.

One for all and all for one.

- Shut up, Wormskerck.

- It's going to hang

in the militia hall as planned,

and everybody is going to say

how much we like it.

- Hang a painting on a wall,

and in three weeks,

it will be forgotten.

- Everything

it's supposed to say

will be forgotten as well.

- So I have paid 60 guilders

for the privilege

of being forgotten?

- I'll give you your money back.

Make a fuss, you're likely

to lose everything.

Rembrandt may be

cock of the roost just now,

but he's unstable.

- Expensive unfashionable house

falling down around him.

He's going to have difficulty

selling it.

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