The Bridge of San Luis Rey Page #5

...that much is wrong with our world.

Precisely why I persisted

with the project...

...to explain why such stories

hold no difficulties for faith.

And this was not the first time...

...that brother Juniper had resorted

to experiment.

Often, on the long trips he had to make

between his far-flung parishes...

...he would fall to dreaming of ways

to justify the existence of God.

For instance, a complete record

of the prayers for rain and their results.

Splendid rituals, but not a cloud

in the horizon reported.

For further tabulated proof

of his convictions...

...when a pestilence visited

his dear village of Puerto...

...and carried off

a large number of peasants...

...he secretly drew up a diagram...

...of the characteristics

of 15 survivors.

Here is a fragment

of that ambitious chart.

So, brother Juniper,

when you add up the total for victims...

...and compare it

with the totals for survivors...

...you discover that... that what...

...that the dead are five times more

or less won'th saving?

Yes.

But the pestilence seemed

to have been directed...

...against all the really valuable people

in the village of Puerto...

...thus totally confounding your theory.

What do you extrapolate

from this finding?

Only that the discrepancy

between faith and the facts...

...is greater than is generally assumed...

...though there are some who say

we shall never know...

...and that like flies to wanton boys,

so are we to the gods.

They kill us fortheir sport.

La Perichole wants Manuel.

There are some who say,

on the contrary...

She needs a letter.

Urgently!

...that the very sparrows

do not lose a feather...

...that has not been brushed away

by the finger of God.

Where is he?

"Manuel respectfully

informs the actress...

...regretfully, that he can write

no more letters for her. "

How dare he?

Get rid of them!

Who?

Those dumb, half-wit orphan freaks...

...with their insane sniveling!

How dare he deign

to disrespect me in this way?

It's disgusting!

Get them out of my house!

Out of this theater!

And they're never to darken

this door again! Out! Out!

Do you hear me?!

Captain!

You, you. You.

Come with me!

Will these do?

We will be unloading until dawn.

Double quick, double time.

Come on, come on!

Quickly! Quickly!

Get all that aboard!

Heave!

Come on!

Come on, come on!

Hey!

Every hour on the hour...

...until the pain subsides.

Do your work well,

and the miracle of science...

...will work wonders on his leg.

Don't forget the prescriptive order

for each of the ointments in drafts.

In nomine Patris, et Filii...

Although always

they had been silent...

Amen.

...all the world was remote

and strange and hostile...

...without one's brother.

La Perichole had cast a shadow

across his path, too.

The coincidences were so extraordinary

that one would suspect an intention.

Perhaps it was just an accident.

Perhaps!

Perhaps it was the devil's own work.

Perhaps this too

was the devil's own work...

...where you, brother Juniper,

were his willing accomplice...

...in mind, body, and spirit.

This is why we are here, is it not...

...to protect the fundamental

theological tenets of faith?

Without question, this book of yours...

...is undoubtedly

the work of the devil!

Evil! A feeble Franciscan composition...

...exalting the incidence

of coincidental facts over faith...

...belief in an act of God...

...subversive at best...

...superstitious at the very least.

It invites an Inquisition

at the highest level...

...every copy... every copy...

to be burned at dusk.

This task of memorization,

it's too much!

Camilla!

And I cannot depend

on the prompter's box!

Camilla, come to walk with me.

Are you not the most memorable

actress in all Lima...

...far above the attention-seeking

tantrums of a mediocre talent?

I've had enough of this life.

And... what of the Moreto

I brought back from Spain?

Here's the thing...

...La Perichole is wretchedly unhappy.

Actresses!

What now?

In the wake of all her humiliations...

...her humor has left her.

We will need to produce

a pair of parents...

...perhaps a cousin or two,

if they can be procured.

And pray, what possible business

is this of mine...

...or of yours, for that matter?

Have you not indiscretions

enough for your fees?

Well, you see, she is about to bear

the Viceroy a brat.

And he knows nothing of it.

This play is closed,

by order of the Viceroy!

I can find nothing nowadays

more nourishing to the soul...

...than the notion or anecdote...

...that the poor,

never having known happiness...

...are insensible to misfortune.

Look at their houses

and their clothes.

Only the widely cultivated could be

said to know that they are unhappy.

There's a fashionable

watering place in the hills.

It's not far from...

...from Santa Maria de Oluxambuqua.

It's reached by

the bridge of San Luis Rey.

I will give her...

...La Perichole...

...a little Vichy villa

...in that vicinity...

...and she can sip the hateful waters

during herconfinement...

...until her health returns.

Let me!

Come, my dear.

My dear!

We won't be raising the curtain tonight.

Inform the company.

We can't compete

with the carnival...

...and neither can I countenance

that we play to yet another empty house.

Your indiscretion

is really trying my patience.

Perhaps I could spend my hour

in the nursery with Don Jaime.

You are mad, Uncle Pio...

...if you think you can make me

come back to the stage.

I look back on those days

with horror...

...the daily payment of insults

in that filthy place.

You're wasting your time.

Dear Camilla, just suffer me

for a few moments.

I would be no good to you now,

Uncle Pio.

You never even come

to see the theater...

...and they all notice it.

The audiences

are falling away now, too.

They only put on

the Old Masters twice a week.

We were foolish to try

and keep alive the Old Masters.

Wonderful Camilla...

...I was not just to you

when you were on the stage.

It was some foolish pride in me.

You have always been

a great artist.

If you come to see that you are

not happy among these people...

...you might think about

going to Madrid.

You could have

such a triumph there.

No. I shall never see Spain.

All the world is alike...

...Madrid or Lima.

Oh, if we could only go to an island...

...where the people

would know you for yourself.

And love you.

You are 50 years old, and you

are still dreaming of such islands?

There is no such thing

as that kind of island...

...or that kind of love, Uncle Pio.

It's only in the theater

that you find such things.

I must go in.

Now he discovered that secret

from which one neverquite recovers...

...that even in the most perfect love...

...one person loves

less profoundly than the other.

There may never be two people...

...that love one another equally well.

Some sorrowful secret escaped me

in the piecing together of their lives.

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