The Petrified Forest Page #3

But he preferred to

remain inarticulate.

- And you've left your wife now?

- Yes.

That's swell.

I left her at her suggestion.

See, she'd taken up with a Brazilian

painter, also a major artist.

There was nothing left to do but travel.

I decided to set forth and discover America.

And I've come this

far on my journey...

thanks to the power of the thumb.

What are you looking for?

I don't know.

I suppose I was looking for something to

believe in, worth living for and dying for.

What have you found?

Nothing half so interesting as an old

man who was missed by Billy the Kid...

and a fair young

lady who reads Villon.

Well, I do other things

that'd surprise you.

- Yes, I'm sure you do.

- I paint pictures.

- No. Any good?

- Nope.

- Let me see them.

- They're kind of crazy.

Well, so much the better.

Please let me see them.

Perhaps you're a genius and I'm

to introduce you to posterity.

- You're not kidding me?

- No, Gabrielle.

I've never kidded

anybody, outside of myself.

Well, all right. If you'll promise

not to tell anybody about them.

I give you my word of honor.

- You got to climb a ladder to see.

- Come on.

Give me some water

and gas. Fill it up.

Right.

That's Paula, our Mexican cook.

It isn't much of a likeness.

I'm sure it wasn't

intended to be photographic.

That's the one that

I like the best.

I wanted to show how the clouds look

when they roll down the mountains.

Gabrielle, tell me, what on earth

made you paint in that strange manner?

Oh, it's just how I see and feel.

Oh, yes.

Are they any good?

I tell you, Gabrielle, I can

say I'm tremendously impressed.

I could improve if I could get to France.

They have marvelous art schools there.

Do you realize there are thousands

of artists in France saying:

"If only I could get to Arizona"?

I know. A lot of people go crazy

about this desert when they see it.

They seem to think it's full of

mystery and haunted and all that.

- Well, so it is.

- Well, maybe it is...

but there's something in me

that wants something different.

I know there's something in you.

Wish I could figure out what it is.

Maybe it's the French in my blood.

You know, sometimes I feel as

if I was sparkling all over...

and I wanna go out and do something

absolutely crazy and marvelous.

Then the American part of me

speaks up and spoils everything.

And I go back to work and

figure out my dull accounts.

So much coffee, so many rolls...

so many hamburgers, sugar.

Do you keep the accounts correctly?

If I didn't, we'd go broke.

Well, that's the

French part of you.

That sparkle, that must

be 100-percent American.

- Would you like to marry a Frenchman?

- I don't wanna marry.

- No?

- I wanna be always free.

I see. How about that stalwart youth

down there in the football jersey?

What makes you think

I'd take notice of him?

- I don't know. When I came in just now, I...

- Sure, I know. He was kissing me.

- That's nothing.

- There's always room for development.

- He's after me, all right.

- He is?

- Think he'll succeed?

- I haven't decided yet.

- What's your advice?

- Oh, no. Don't ask me, Gabrielle.

Let your French blood guide you.

It's infallible in those matters.

- You ought to know something.

- I don't know anything.

The trouble with me is I belong to a

vanishing race. I am one of the intellectuals.

That means you got brains.

Yeah, brains without purpose.

Noise without sound,

shape without substance.

Have you ever read

"The Hollow Men"?

Don't. Very discouraging

because it's true.

It refers to intellectuals who thought

they'd conquered nature, dammed it...

and irrigated the wastelands.

Built streamlined monstrosities

to penetrate its resistance.

They wrapped it up in

cellophane, sold it in drugstores.

They were so certain they

had it subdued, and now...

Do you realize what it is

that's causing world chaos?

You don't? Well, I'm probably the

only living man who can tell you.

It's nature hitting back.

She's fighting with new

instruments called neuroses.

She's deliberately afflicting

mankind with the jitters.

Nature's proving she can't be

beaten, not by the likes of us.

She's taking the world away from the

intellectuals and giving it back to the apes.

Well, forgive me, Gabrielle.

It's such a luxury to

have somebody to talk to.

Don't you pay any attention to me.

I was born in 1901,

the year Victoria died.

I was just too late for the Great

War and too soon for the new order.

You may be a new

species, for all I know.

You can be one of

nature's children...

therefore able to understand her and

enjoy her, depending upon how you feel.

Only you can decide whether or not to

yield to the ardors of number 42 out there.

You know, you talk

like a darn fool.

I know it. I know it.

It's no wonder your

wife kicked you out.

But it's no wonder

she fell for you first.

- That sounds alarmingly like a compliment.

- It is a compliment.

Thanks.

- What did you say your name was?

- Alan Squier.

But I've been calling you Gabrielle,

so you'd better call me Alan.

All right, Alan.

Petrified Forest is dead trees in

the desert that turned to stone.

Here's a good specimen.

So that was once a tree.

Petrified Forest?

A suitable haven for me.

Perhaps that's what I'm destined to become,

an interesting fossil for future study.

I'd like to see France with you.

Oh, no, Gabrielle, I never

could retrace my footsteps.

- Haven't you got enough money?

- Well...

even that is an understatement.

I haven't either, but I can

do this as well as you can.

I'm afraid we'd reach a

point on the Atlantic coast...

where even that gesture

would be unavailing.

There's something

appealing about you.

Appealing? That's been my downfall.

Do you know how much money Gramps

has in the bank at Santa Fe?

$22,000 in liberty bonds,

and it's all willed to me.

- I guess we could go pretty far on that.

- Oh, too far.

And then when we got to France,

why, you could show me everything.

That's a startling proposal. I didn't expect

to receive anything like that in this desert.

Oh, we'd have to wait, maybe

years, but I could get Boze fired...

- and give you the gas-station job.

- You'd like me for a companion?

I know I would. And I

don't make many mistakes.

You're no ape-man,

Alan, but you're lovable.

Lovable? The next

grade below appealing.

Wouldn't you like someone

to be in love with you?

Yes, Gabrielle, I would

like someone in love with me.

Do you think I'm attractive?

There are better words

than that for what you are.

Then why not stay here? You

have nothing better to do.

That's the trouble. You'd get tired of a

man who had nothing to do but worship you.

That's a dull kind

of love, Gabrielle.

It's the kind of love that

makes people old too soon.

But I thank you for the suggestion.

It's opened up a new

channel in my imagination...

which it'll be interesting to

explore during my lonely wanderings.

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