The Immortal Story Page #2

Oh, no.

At least he is strong enough

to make up new schemes.

With your permission,

I'll tell you one of them.

He dislikes pretense.

He dislikes prophecies.

He likes facts.

- Facts?

- Yes.

But 50 years ago, on a ship,

he heard a story told.

A sailor was walking by himself near the harbor

when a rich old gentleman drove up

in a carriage and said to him:

"You are a fine looking sailor.

Do you want earn 5 Guineas tonight?"

- That was in Benin.

- Yes?

Not here in Macao.

I heard it from a friend of mine,

an Englishman, merchant captain.

It happened to a sailor that he knew

when he first went to sea.

Miss Virginie, this is a story that lives

on ships. All sailors have told it.

It might have been left on sea and never

come ashore if it hadn't been for Mr. Clay.

He made up his mind to have it

happen in real life to real people

in order that one sailor in the world

shall be able to tell it, from begining

to end, as it actually happened to him.

If he wants to play a comedy,

a comedy with the devil,

it's a matter between the two of them.

- What's it to me?

- Yes! A comedy. I'd forgotten the word.

There are three people in Mr. Clay's comedy.

The old gentleman, he will play himself

and the young sailor...

he will himself find by the harbor.

But if an English merchant captain has

told you this, Miss Virginie,

he will have told you that besides these

two there's also a beautiful, young lady.

On Mr. Clay's behalf, I am now looking

for this beautiful, young lady.

If she will come into this comedy

and finish it for him,

Mr. Clay will pay her 100 Guineas.

Old Clay has got some pretty

strange ideas of a comedy.

In a comedy, the actors pretend

to kill one another... or to die...

or to go to bed with their lovers.

They don't really do any of these things.

You're master's like

the Emperor Nero of Rome

who had people eaten up by lions.

- Yes?

- Yes. Just to amuse himself.

- But since then it hasn't been done.

- And was the Emperor Nero very rich?

Oh... he owned all the world.

- And were his comedies good?

- He liked them himself, I suppose.

But nowadays, who would

he get to play in them?

If he owned all the world, he would

get people to play in them.

What does he pay you?

30 pieces of silver?

I am in Mr. Clay's employ. I cannot

dare go anywhere but with him.

But you, Miss Virginie, you

can go wherever you like.

- Yes. I suppose so.

- Yes. You suppose so.

But you have been able to go

wherever you like all your life.

I was so angry with my life today

that I was planning to end it.

But now you are angry with me.

Miss Virginie,

Mr. Clay is prepared

to pay 100 Guineas

if on the night appointed by him,

you will come to his house.

- To his house?

- Yes. To his house.

Do you know what house that is?

It's my father's house.

I played in it when I was a little girl.

That house was the only

thing left me from the time

when I was rich and pretty and innocent.

The heroine of Mr. Clay's story

is rich, pretty, and innocent.

All of these years,

whenever I walked past it,

I've dreamt of how

I'd enter it once more.

You are to enter it again, Miss Virginie.

No.

I will not go

into this house, Mr. Levinsky.

You've been here before. It's

not very much of a place, is it?

No.

I shouldn't think you'd

be used to much better.

I live by the harbor near

the company quarters.

Mr. Clay's company!

It's true.

- You're an important man

- No! Miss Virginie.

You run the old man's office for him.

You have all of his affairs

in your own hands.

You live in a house on the Praia Grande?

- A room.

- A room.

I wonder what it's like.

Did you have a home

when you were a child?

- No.

- I thought so.

- You knew him, didn't you?

- No, Miss Virginie.

His name was Ducrot.

He was my father.

It's not the name you

use now, Miss Virginie.

Your father died before I came to China.

He killed himself.

That's not my mother.

It's the Empress Eugenia of France.

We used to talk, my father and I,

of great, splendid, noble things.

He told me how the Empress

wore her white satin shoes

one single time only

then made a present of them

to the common schools

for the little girls to wear

to their first communion.

I was to have done the same thing.

Papa was so proud of my small feet.

The Empress made a great

career for herself.

She said to the Emperor

that the way to her bedroom

ran through the cathedral of Notre Dame.

And the way to my bedroom?

Lately, it's been through

offices and counting houses.

We go where we are told, Miss Virginie.

- What does he really want, the old man?

- To demonstrate his omnipotence,

to do the thing which cannot be done.

And yet, you said the Emperor of Rome

owned all of the world.

But the people down there,

going north, south, east, west,

How many would be going at all

if they hadn't been told to go

by Mr. Clay and the other

rich merchants like him?

Now, Mr. Clay has told you

to go to his house

and you will have to go.

I suppose that nobody could

insult you even if they tried.

Why should I let them?

And if I told you to

get out of this house?

When I'd gone. you'd sit here

and think of the things for

which you sent me away.

Didn't you say you had

no family in Europe?

There was a pogrom, Miss Virginie.

They were killed in the pogrom.

- But you escaped and came to China?

- I was in many places first:

Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Lisbon...

- Well, you're here now.

- Yes, Miss Virginie.

I see now...

who you are.

I thought you were a small rat

out of Mr. Clay's storehouse.

Et toi, tu es le juif errant.

I travelled once, myself... for a while.

Que se o marinheiro...

An English captain...

the one who told me your story.

He took me to Japan.

On our first night,

there was an earthquake.

The earth trembled and shook

at the loss of my innocence.

- In the shawls, Miss Virginie...

- In the shawls?

Yes. In the other I once brought

here for you to choose from...

in each, there is a pattern.

A pattern in all of them.

Only sometimes the line goes the other way

from what you expect.

As in a looking glass.

With money to travel with,

you can make a career for yourself.

No less than the Empress of France.

Only on this pattern, the road

runs around the other way.

And, why not, Miss Virginie?

And you said you didn't know my father?

Or anything about him?

This is the motto on

our family's coat of arms:

"Pourquoi pas"

That means, "Why not," Miss Virginie?

Tell Mr. Clay for me that I won't

come for the price he's offered me.

My price is 300 Guineas.

That's the pattern.

Or in terms he'll understand,

the known debt.

- Is that your last word, Miss Virginie?

- Yes.

- Your very last word?

- Yes.

Here is 300 Guineas.

He was sure to go mad at the end

with all his sins.

Rich traders and merchants,

they're all mad.

In one way or the other,

this thing will be the end of him.

- Yes?

- Yes, Miss Virginie.

But now he may think

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