Secret Ceremony Page #3

- I could see it coming.

- It was inevitable.

- I don't want to hear about it.

- A randy bastard.

True.

Poor Margaret found them in the kitchen,

his hands on Cenci, like this.

And poor Margaret yelling,

"Albert, get out of the house! Get out!"

But Cenci's still a child!

- Cenci a child?

- Cenci is 22 if she's a day.

Well, she'll...

always be a baby to me.

Crazy people never look their age.

That's disgusting!

You're all disgusting! Why didn't you

stop it? Why didn't you do something?

You've all let her down. You've abandoned

that child, all of you, for the...

Well, her mother, she had no business

to die and leave her alone.

Why didn't you call someone,

a doctor or the police?

- What do you think we'd have gained by it?

- On the contrary. You'd have lost.

- Lost?

- What do you mean, lost?

Lost the chance

to go on stealing things at that house.

- I beg your pardon!

- I don't know what you mean!

If that girl has come

to you, telling tales...

- She has said nothing.

- Well, then, come to the point.

To come to the point,

I'm talking about a number of valuables,

missing from that house.

To come to the point, I'm talking about

several of "poor Margaret's" dresses.

Oh, rubbish. Well, Cenci doesn't

appreciate family heirlooms.

To come to the point,

I'm talking about this doll.

Look what you've done! You killer!

If ever you dare drag your ass around

to that house on any excuse whatsoever,

I'll set the cops on you.

You keep it.

Is your goddamn mother home?

I'm not going to eat you, you silly b*tch.

May I come in?

These are for you.

Where's Mom?

- Gone out.

- Oh?

Whatever happened

to the unmentionable disease?

Oh, er... she... made a remarkable recovery.

Oh, well, what do you know?

After all that fuss

about... "abdominal anguish".

Plain spastic colon,

that's what it was, you know,

brought on

by her unhealthy disrespect for sex.

You know, love...

she never really forgave me for

treating her as though she were a woman.

The first time I touched her hair,

she called me a pervert.

I was usually pleased.

"Albert... Why, whatever

are you doing, Albert?"

And how's Daddy Gustav?

- May I say hello to him?

- The door's locked.

Oh, I've got a knack for opening doors.

There's absolutely no need to fear the dead.

They're no longer in the majority, you know.

They used to outnumber us, I suppose,

ten to one,

but we're catching up.

We're dancing on their graves.

I'm very fond of life, myself.

Look at him.

I'm rather good at laying ghosts.

Hello, Gussie.

Come on.

Say it. Repeat after me, "Hello, Gussie. "

- I can't.

- Say it. "Hello, Gussie. "

Hello, Gussie.

Hello, Gussie!

Do you like my beard?

No.

We'll cut it off. Right now.

Come on, you cut it off.

Go on, into the kitchen.

Why don't you like it?

It's so... scraggly,

so vile.

My sheep's clothing, kid.

I grew up in the City of Brotherly Love.

Fools everybody.

Kids get up and give me their seats

on the bus, cops call me sir.

All the little sophomores think

I'm just a benign old poof from England

dabbling in cybernetics

until we get to the parking lot

and I grab them.

Ploughed into the groves of Academe.

The wretched lecher they call me.

Still a virgin, are you, Cenci?

Are you still a virgin?

- Yes, Father.

- Yeah, me too.

Total celibacy.

No, that's not true.

Why can't I be honest with you?

In the past 12 months,

there's been a masseuse,

two faculty wives,

a tiny little black lady

majoring in political science, except...

Never mind. Let's get on with it.

Except for your portraits everywhere -

on the mantel,

over the kitchen range, facing the tub.

I sit, staring at them all night.

It's my own closed-circuit system.

I look at your goddamn face

and I make up soap operas about it.

They always end up happily in bed.

I've talked it over with Grabscheid.

He's head of the psychology department.

He says that incest is a rather boring

symptom of the private property system.

Do you realise that, right now,

all over the Australian bush,

fathers are bashing their daughters.

Still got your freckles?

- Yes.

- Let's have a look.

No.

Would you like me to take you to the circus?

- No.

- To the zoo?

- No.

- All right, you're fired. You're through.

I don't need you any more.

London is filled with stray daughters.

I'm staying at the Cadogan.

That's where Oscar Wilde got caught.

If you don't watch out,

I might turn into a fag or worse.

- Come on, say something nice.

- I won't.

You punk. You bow-legged little pisher.

You... You've never really understood

my longings, have you,

the extraordinary purity of my longings?

No, Father, I haven't.

The first time I ever saw you, you were 11.

You came sliding down the banister

in blue jeans.

I thought, "That's for me. "

Let me hear that sound at least.

- No.

- Come on, let me hear that sound.

After all, I'm only your stepfather.

No.

Let me hear that sound!

I can't help myself.

Please give me strength

to go back to that house.

It's not the money, you understand.

For three years, I've been wandering

from place to place like a Jew.

Do you think I like sitting

on that park bench...

as the cars come cruising by, waiting for

some bastard nobody else will sleep with?

Oh, God...

I want that child.

I'd cherish her to my dying hour.

I already lost a little angel once

on a spring day out of neglect.

How can anyone kill so casually,

just by looking away,

just simply by not being there?

This time, I will not be careless.

Oh, please, God...

No! No!

Please! No!

Cenci?

Cenci!

Cenci?

Cenci!

Are you hurt?

- Where have you been?!

- Who was he?!

Albert.

Cenci...

Never mind. I can afford it.

They've made me a full professor.

Americans are boobies, aren't they?

Imagine making you a professor.

What is it that you teach, Albert?

Well, we have this enormous auditorium

with 3,000 seats,

completely wired, taped, bugged.

We fill it with human guinea pigs

and we plug them all in,

their armpits, their salivary glands,

their tear ducts...

We run these old Jean Harlow movies

and then we measure the humidity,

the salivation, tumescence...

- The what?

- There's a genius of a professor in the lab.

He's invented a tiny camera which we insert

in all sorts of private places to photograph...

- What?!

- Love.

What sort of stone is this?

What is it, pumice? Limestone?

Couldn't you have been more generous?

- Why didn't someone let me know?

- The address you left was 172 Spring St.

- Well?

- You omitted to say what city.

You know, she wasn't half bad,

poor Margaret.

Lovely, soft, dark raven hair,

and so bloody proud of her breasts,

those fantastic, opulent,

mother-of-pearly globes.

I want marble for Margaret.

Do you hear?

I want a marble stone for her!

Hey, wake up, lazybones.

Who do you think you are, Sleeping Beauty?

It's 9:
30 and the cleaners have been here

for half an hour.

Now, come on, get up. Come on, get up!

Now, come on. There's a good girl.

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