ï»¿The Project Gutenberg EBook of West Indian Fables by James Anthony FroudeExplained by J. J. Thomas, by J. J. (John Jacob) ThomasThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost norestrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.netTitle: West Indian Fables by James AnthonyFroude Explained by J. J. ThomasAuthor: J. J. (John Jacob) ThomasPosting Date: June 13, 2009 [EBook #4068]Release Date: May, 2003First Posted: November 1, 2001Language: English*** START OF THIS PROJECTGUTENBERG EBOOK WEST INDIAN FABLES ***Produced by Alfred J. Drake.  HTML version by Al Haines.FROUDACITY (1889)J.J. ThomasWEST INDIAN FABLES BY JAMES ANTHONY FROUDEEXPLAINED BY J. J.THOMASContentsPreface by J.J. ThomasBOOK I.  Introduction: 27-33  Voyage out: 34-41  Barbados: 41-44  St. Vincent: 44-48  Grenada: 48-50BOOK II.  Trinidad: 53-55  Reform in Trinidad: 55-80  Negro Felicity inthe West Indies: 81-110BOOK III.  Social Revolution: 113-174  West Indian Confederation: 175-200  The Negro as a Worker: 201-206  Religion for Negroes: 207-230BOOK IV.  Historical Summary or RÃ©sumÃ©:233-261, endFROUDACITYPREFACE[5] Last year had well advanced towards its middle--in fact it wasalready April, 1888--before Mr. Froude's book of travels in the WestIndies became known and generally accessible toreaders in thoseColonies.My perusal of it in Grenada about the period above mentioned disclosed,thinly draped with rhetorical flowers, the dark outlines of a scheme tothwart political aspiration in the Antilles.  Thatproject is sought tobe realized by deterring the home authorities from granting an electivelocal legislature, however restricted in character, to any of theColonies not yet enjoying such an advantage. An argument basedon thecomposition of the inhabitants of those Colonies is confidently reliedupon to confirm the inexorable mood of Downing Street.[6] Over-large and ever-increasing,--so runs the argument,--the Africanelement in thepopulation of the West Indies is, from its past historyand its actual tendencies, a standing menace to the continuance ofcivilization and religion.  An immediate catastrophe, social,political, and moral, would mostassuredly be brought about by thegranting of full elective rights to dependencies thus inhabited.Enlightened statesmanship should at once perceive the immense benefitthat would ultimately result from such refusal ofthe franchise.  Thecardinal recommendation of that refusal is that it would avertdefinitively the political domination of the Blacks, which mustinevitably be the outcome of any concession of the modicum of rightsoearnestly desired.  The exclusion of the Negro vote being inexpedient,if not impossible, the exercise of electoral powers by the Blacks mustlead to their returning candidates of their own race to the locallegislatures,and that, too, in numbers preponderating according to themajority of the Negro electors.  The Negro legislators thus supreme inthe councils of the Colonies would straightway proceed to passvindictive and retaliatorylaws against their white fellow- [7]colonists.  For it is only fifty years since the White man and theBlack man stood in the reciprocal relations of master and slave.Whilst those relations subsisted, the white mastersinflicted, and theblack slaves had to endure, the hideous atrocities that are inseparablefrom the system of slavery.  Since Emancipation, the enormous stridesmade in self-advancement by the ex-slaves have only hadthe effect ofprovoking a resentful uneasiness in the bosoms of the ex-masters.  Theformer bondsmen, on their side, and like their brethren of Hayti, areeaten up with implacable, blood-thirsty rancour against theirformerlords and owners.  The annals of Hayti form quite a cabinet ofpolitical and social object lessons which, in the eyes of Britishstatesmen, should be invaluable in showing the true method of dealingwith Ethiopicsubjects of the Crown.  The Negro race in Hayti, in orderto obtain and to guard what it calls its freedom, has outraged everyhumane instinct and falsified every benevolent hope.  The slave-ownersthere had not been awhit more cruel than slave-owners in the otherislands.  But, in spite of this, how ferocious, how sanguinary, [8] howrelentless against them has the vengeance of the Blacks been in theirhour of mastery!  A century haspassed away since then, and,notwithstanding that, the hatred of Whites still rankles in theirsouls, and is cherished and yielded to as a national creed and guide ofconduct.  Colonial administrators of the mighty BritishEmpire, thelesson which History has taught and yet continues to teach you in Haytias to the best mode of dealing with your Ethiopic colonists liespatent, blood-stained and terrible before you, and should betakendefinitively to heart.  But if you are willing that Civilization andReligion--in short, all the highest developments of individual andsocial life--should at once be swept away by a desolating vandalism ofAfrican birth; ifyou do not recoil from the blood-guiltiness thatwould stain your consciences through the massacre of ourfellow-countrymen in the West Indies, on account of their race,complexion and enlightenment; finally, if youdesire those modernHesperides to revert into primeval jungle, horrent lairs wherein theBlacks, who, but a short while before, had been ostensibly civilized,shall be revellers, as high-priests and [9] devotees, in orgiesofdevil-worship, cannibalism, and obeah--dare to give the franchise tothose West Indian Colonies, and then rue the consequences of yourinfatuation!...Alas, if the foregoing summary of the ghastly imaginings of Mr.Froudewere true, in what a fool's paradise had the wisest and best amongst usbeen living, moving, and having our being!  Up to the date of thesuggestion by him as above of the alleged facts and possibilities ofWestIndian life, we had believed (even granting the correctness of hisgloomy account of the past and present positions of the two races) thatto no well-thinking West Indian White, whose ancestors may have,innocently orculpably, participated in the gains as well as the guiltof slavery, would the remembrance of its palmy days be otherwise thanone of regret.  We Negroes, on the other hand, after a lapse of timeextending over nearly twogenerations, could be indebted only toprecarious tradition or scarcely accessible documents for any knowledgewe might chance upon of the sufferings endured in these Islands of theWest by those of our race who havegone before us.  Death, withundiscriminating hand, had gathered [10] in the human harvest ofmasters and slaves alike, according to or out of the normal laws ofnature; while Time had been letting down on the stage ofour existencedrop-scene after drop-scene of years, to the number of something likefifty, which had been curtaining off the tragic incidents of the pastfrom the peaceful activities of the present.  Being thuscircumstanced,thought we, what rational elements of mutual hatred should now continueto exist in the bosoms of the two races?With regard to the perpetual reference to Hayti, because of our onenesswith itsinhabitants in origin and complexion, as a criterion for theexact forecast of our future conduct under given circumstances, thisappeared to us, looking at actual facts, perversity gone wild in themanufacture ofanalogies.  The founders of the Black Republic, we hadall along understood, were not in any sense whatever equipped, as Mr.Froude assures us they were, when starting on their self-governingcareer, with the civil andintellectual advantages that had beentransplanted from Europe.  On the contrary, we had been taught toregard them as most unfortunate in the circumstances under which [11]they so gloriously conquered theirmerited freedom.  We saw them free,but perfectly illiterate barbarians, impotent to use the intellectualresources of which their valour had made them possessors, in the shapeof books on the spirit and technical detailsof a highly developednational existence.  We had learnt also, until this new interpreter ofhistory had contradicted the accepted record, that the continuedfailure of Hayti to realize the dreams of Toussaint was due tothefatal want of confidence subsisting between the fairer and darkersections of the inhabitants, which had its sinister and disastrousorigin in the action of the Mulattoes in attempting to secure freedomfor themselves, inconjunction with the Whites, at the sacrifice oftheir darker-hued kinsmen.  Finally, it had been explained to us thatthe remembrance of this abnormal treason had been underlying andperniciously influencing the wholecourse of Haytian national history.All this established knowledge we are called upon to throw overboard,and accept the baseless assertions of this conjuror-up of inconceivablefables!  He calls upon us to believe that, inspite of being free,educated, progressive, and at peace with [12] all men, we West IndianBlacks, were we ever to become constitutionally dominant in our nativeislands, would emulate in savagery our Haytianfellow-Blacks who, atthe time of retaliating upon their actual masters, were torturedslaves, bleeding and rendered desperate under the oppressors' lash--andall this simply and merely because of the sameness of ourancestry andthe colour of our skin!  One would have thought that Liberia would havebeen a fitter standard of comparison in respect of a colouredpopulation starting a national life, really and truly equipped withtherequisites and essentials of civilized existence.  But such a referencewould have been fatal to Mr. Froude's object: the annals of Liberiabeing a persistent refutation of the old pro-slavery prophecies whichour authorso feelingly rehearses.Let us revert, however, to Grenada and the newly-published "Bow ofUlysses," which had come into my hands in April, 1888.It seemed to me, on reading that book, and deducing therefromtheforegoing essential summary, that a critic would have little more todo, in order to effectually exorcise this negrophobic politicalhobgoblin, than to appeal to [13] impartial history, as well as tocommon sense, in itsapplication to human nature in general, and to theactual facts of West Indian life in particular.History, as against the hard and fast White-master and Black-slavetheory so recklessly invented and confidently built uponby Mr. Froude,would show incontestably--(a) that for upwards of two hundred yearsbefore the Negro Emancipation, in 1838, there had never existed in oneof those then British Colonies, which had been originallydiscoveredand settled for Spain by the great Columbus or by his successors, theConquistadores, any prohibition whatsoever, on the ground of race orcolour, against the owning of slaves by any free person possessingthenecessary means, and desirous of doing so; (b) that, as a consequenceof this non-restriction, and from causes notoriously historical,numbers of blacks, half-breeds, and other non-Europeans, besides suchof them ashad become possessed of their "property" by inheritance,availed themselves of this virtual license, and in course of timeconstituted a very considerable proportion of the slave-holding sectionof those communities; (c)that these [14] dusky plantation-ownersenjoyed and used in every possible sense the identical rights andprivileges which were enjoyed and used by their pure-blooded Caucasianbrother-slaveowners.  The abovestatements are attested by writtendocuments, oral tradition, and, better still perhaps, by the livingpresence in those islands of numerous lineal representatives of thoseonce opulent and flourishing non-Europeanplanter-families.Common sense, here stepping in, must, from the above data, deduce somesuch conclusions as the following.  First that, on the hypothesis thatthe slaves who were freed in 1838--full fifty yearsago--were all on anaverage fifteen years old, those vengeful ex-slaves of to-day will beall men of sixty-five years of age; and, allowing for the delay ingetting the franchise, somewhat further advanced towards thehumanlife-term of threescore and ten years. Again, in order to organize andcarry out any scheme of legislative and social retaliation of the kindset forth in the "Bow of Ulysses," there must be (whichunquestionablythere is not) a considerable, well-educated, and very influentialnumber surviving of those who had actually [15] been in bondage.Moreover, the vengeance of these people (also assuming theforegoingnonexistent condition) would have, in case of opportunity, to wreakitself far more largely and vigorously upon members of their own racethan upon Whites, seeing that the increase of the Blacks, ascorrectlyrepresented in the "Bow of Ulysses," is just as rapid as the diminutionof the White population.  And therefore, Mr. Froude's"Danger-to-the-Whites" cry in support of his anti-reform manifestowould not appear,after all, to be quite so justifiable as he possiblythinks.Feeling keenly that something in the shape of the foregoing programmemight be successfully worked up for a public defence of the malignedpeople, I disregardedthe bodily and mental obstacles that have besetand clouded my career during the last twelve years, and cheerfullyundertook the task, stimulated thereto by what I thought weightyconsiderations.  I saw that norepresentative of Her Majesty's EthiopicWest Indian subjects cared to come forward to perform this work in themore permanent shape that I felt to be not only desirable but essentialfor our self-vindication.  [16] I alsorealized the fact that the "Bowof Ulysses" was not likely to have the same ephemeral existence andeffect as the newspaper and other periodical discussions of itscontents, which had poured from the press in GreatBritain, the UnitedStates, and very notably, of course, in all the English Colonies of theWestern Hemisphere.  In the West Indian papers the best writers of ourrace had written masterly refutations, but it was clear howdifficultthe task would be in future to procure and refer to them wheneveroccasion should require.  Such productions, however, fully satisfiedthose qualified men of our people, because they were legitimatelyconvinced(even as I myself am convinced) that the political destiniesof the people of colour could not run one tittle of risk from anythingthat it pleased Mr. Froude to write or say on the subject.  But,meditating further on thequestion, the reflection forced itself uponme that, beyond the mere political personages in the circle moredirectly addressed by Mr. Froude's volume, there were individuals whoseinfluence or possible sympathy we couldnot afford to disregard, or toesteem lightly.  So I deemed it right and a patriotic duty to attempt[17] the enterprise myself, in obedience to the above stated motives.At this point I must pause to express on behalf of theentire colouredpopulation of the West Indies our most heartfelt acknowledgments to Mr.C. Salmon for the luminous and effective vindication of us, in hisvolume on "West Indian Confederation," against Mr. Froude'slibels.The service thus rendered by Mr. Salmon possesses a double significanceand value in my estimation.  In the first place, as being the work of aEuropean of high position, quite independent of us (whotestifiesconcerning Negroes, not through having gazed at them from balconies,decks of steamers, or the seats of moving carriages, but from actualand long personal intercourse with them, which the internal evidenceofhis book plainly proves to have been as sympathetic as it wasfamiliar), and, secondly, as the work of an individual entirely outsideof our race, it has been gratefully accepted by myself as an incentiveto self-help, onthe same more formal and permanent lines, in a matterso important to the status which we can justly claim as a progressive,law-abiding, and self-respecting section of Her Majesty's liegesubjects.[18] It behoves menow to say a few words respecting this book as amere literary production.Alexander Pope, who, next to Shakespeare and perhaps Butler, was themost copious contributor to the current stock of English maxims,says:     "True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance,     As those move easiest who have learnt to dance."A whole dozen years of bodily sickness and mental tribulation have notbeen conducive to that regularity ofpractice in composition whichalone can ensure the "true ease" spoken of by the poet; and thereforeis it that my style leaves so much to be desired, and exhibits,perhaps, still, more to be pardoned.  Happily, a quarrelsuch as ourswith the author of "The English in the West Indies" cannot be finallyor even approximately settled on the score of superior literarycompetency, whether of aggressor or defender.  I feel free toignorewhatever verdict might be grounded on a consideration so purelyartificial.  There ought to be enough, if not in these pages, at anyrate in whatever else I have heretofore published, that should prove menot sohopelessly stupid and wanting in [19] self-respect, as would beimplied by my undertaking a contest in artistic phrase-weaving with onewho, even among the foremost of his literary countrymen, is confessedlya masterin that craft.  The judges to whom I do submit our case arethose Englishmen and others whose conscience blends with theirjudgment, and who determine such questions as this on their essentialrightness which hasclaim to the first and decisive consideration.  Formuch that is irregular in the arrangement and sequence of thesubject-matter, some blame fairly attaches to our assailant.  Theerratic manner in which lie launches hisinjurious statements againstthe hapless Blacks, even in the course of passages which no more led upto them than to any other section of mankind, is a very notable featureof his anti-Negro production.  As he frequentlyrepeats, very oftenwith cynical aggravations, his charges and sinister prophecies againstthe sable objects of his aversion, I could see no other course open tome than to take him up on the points whereto I demurred,exactly how,when, and where I found them.My purpose could not be attained up without direct mention of, orreference to, certain public [20] employÃ©s in the Colonies whoseofficial conduct has often been the subjectof criticism in the publicpress of the West Indies.  Though fully aware that such criticism hason many occasions been much more severe than my own strictures, yet, itbeing possible that some special responsibility mayattach to what Ihere reproduce in a more permanent shape, I most cheerfully accept, inthe interests of public justice, any consequence which may result.A remark or two concerning the publication of this rejoinder.  Ithasbeen hinted to me that the issue of it has been too long delayed tosecure for it any attention in England, owing to the fact that the WestIndies are but little known, and of less interest, to the generality ofEnglishreaders.  Whilst admitting, as in duty bound, the possiblecorrectness of this forecast, and regretting the oft-recurringhindrances which occasioned such frequent and, sometimes, longsuspension of my labour; andnoting, too, the additional delay causedthrough my unacquaintance with English publishing usages, I must,notwithstanding, plead guilty to a lurking hope that some smallfraction of Mr. Froude's readers will yet befound, [21] whose interestin the West Indies will be temporarily revived on behalf of this essay,owing to its direct bearing on Mr. Froude and his statements relativeto these Islands, contained in his recent book oftravels in them.This I am led to hope will be more particularly the case when it isborne in mind that the rejoinder has been attempted by a member of thatvery same race which he has, with such eloquent recklessnessof allmoral considerations, held up to public contempt and disfavour.  Inshort, I can scarcely permit myself to believe it possible that concernregarding a popular author, on his being questioned by an adversecritic ofhowever restricted powers, can be so utterly dead within atwelvemonth as to be incapable of rekindling.  Mr. Froude's "Oceana,"which had been published long before its author voyaged to the WestIndies, in order totreat the Queen's subjects there in the same morethan questionable fashion as that in which he had treated those of theSouthern Hemisphere, had what was in the main a formal rejoinder to itsmisrepresentationspublished only three months ago in this city.  Iventure to believe that no serious work in defence of an [22] importantcause or community can lose much, if anything, of its intrinsic valuethrough some delay in its issue;especially when written in thevindication of Truth, whose eternal principles are beyond and above theinfluence of time and its changes.At any rate, this attempt to answer some of Mr. Froude's mainallegations againstthe people of the West Indies cannot fail to be ofgrave importance and lively interest to the inhabitants of thoseColonies.  In this opinion I am happy in being able to record the fullconcurrence of a numerous and


ï»¿The Project Gutenberg EBook of Degeneration, by Max NordauThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and mostother parts of the world at no cost and with almost norestrictionswhatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms ofthe Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online atwww.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States,you'll haveto check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.Title: DegenerationAuthor: Max NordauRelease Date: February 9, 2016 [EBook #51161]Language: EnglishCharacter setencoding: UTF-8*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEGENERATION ***Produced by Giovanni Fini, David Edwards and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.netTRANSCRIBERâS NOTES:--Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.--Whereas adequate characters are not available, superscript has beenrendered as a^b anda^{bc}.                             DEGENERATION                          BY THE SAME AUTHOR.                      _Uniform with this Volume._                         CONVENTIONAL LIES OF                           OURCIVILIZATION.                   PARADOXES.                      LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN.                             DEGENERATION                                  BY                              MAX NORDAU                               AUTHOROF      âCONVENTIONAL LIES OF OUR CIVILIZATION,â âPARADOXES,â ETC.                  Translated from the Second Edition                          of the German Work                            PopularEdition                                LONDON                           WILLIAM HEINEMANN                                 1898                        [_All rights reserved_]                _First Edition_      _February, 1895._                 _NewImpressions, March 4, 1895;                     March 22, 1895; April, 1895; May,                     1895; June, 1895; August, 1895;                     November, 1895; (Popular Edition),                     September,1898._                               Dedicated                                  TO                            CÃSAR LOMBROSO,           PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY AND FORENSIC MEDICINE AT                    THE ROYAL UNIVERSITY OFTURIN,                                  BY                              THE AUTHOR.                                  TO                       PROFESSOR CÃSAR LOMBROSO,                               _TURIN_.      _DEAR AND HONOURED MASTER_ ,_Idedicate this book to you, in open and joyful recognition of thefact that without your labours it could never have been written.__The notion of degeneracy, first introduced into science by Morel, anddeveloped with somuch genius by yourself, has in your hands alreadyshown itself extremely fertile in the most diverse directions. Onnumerous obscure points of psychiatry, criminal law, politics, andsociology, you have poured a veritableflood of light, which thosealone have not perceived who obdurately close their eyes, or who aretoo short-sighted to derive benefit from any enlightenment whatsoever.__But there is a vast and important domain intowhich neither you noryour disciples have hitherto borne the torch of your method--the domainof art and literature.__Degenerates are not always criminals, prostitutes, anarchists, andpronounced lunatics; they areoften authors and artists. These,however, manifest the same mental characteristics, and for the mostpart the same somatic features, as the members of the above-mentionedanthropological family, who satisfy theirunhealthy impulses with theknife of the assassin or the bomb of the dynamiter, instead of with penand pencil.__Some among these degenerates in literature, music, and painting havein recent years come intoextraordinary prominence, and are revered bynumerous admirers as creators of a new art, and heralds of the comingcenturies.__This phenomenon is not to be disregarded. Books and works of artexercise a powerfulsuggestion on the masses. It is from theseproductions that an age derives its ideals of morality and beauty. Ifthey are absurd and anti-social, they exert a disturbing and corruptinginfluence on the views of a wholegeneration. Hence the latter,especially the impressionable youth, easily excited to enthusiasm forall that is strange and seemingly new, must be warned and enlightenedas to the real nature of the creations so blindlyadmired. This warningthe ordinary critic does not give. Exclusively literary and Ã¦stheticculture is, moreover, the worst preparation conceivable for a trueknowledge of the pathological character of the works ofdegenerates.The verbose rhetorician exposes with more or less grace, or cleverness,the subjective impressions received from the works he criticises,but is incapable of judging if these works are the productions ofashattered brain, and also the nature of the mental disturbanceexpressing itself by them.__Now I have undertaken the work of investigating (as much as possibleafter your method), the tendencies of the fashions in artandliterature; of proving that they have their source in the degeneracyof their authors, and that the enthusiasm of their admirers is formanifestations of more or less pronounced moral insanity, imbecility,anddementia.__Thus, this book is an attempt at a really scientific criticism, whichdoes not base its judgment of a book upon the purely accidental,capricious and variable emotions it awakens--emotions depending onthetemperament and mood of the individual reader--but upon thepsycho-physiological elements from which it sprang. At the same time itventures to fill a void still existing in your powerful system.__I have no doubt as tothe consequences to myself of my initiative.There is at the present day no danger in attacking the Church, forit no longer has the stake at its disposal. To write against rulersand governments is likewise nothingventuresome, for at the worstnothing more than imprisonment could follow, with compensating gloryof martyrdom. But grievous is the fate of him who has the audacity tocharacterize Ã¦sthetic fashions as forms ofmental decay. The author orartist attacked never pardons a man for recognising in him a lunaticor a charlatan; the subjectively garrulous critics are furious when itis pointed out how shallow and incompetent they are,or how cowardlyin swimming with the stream; and even the public is angered whenforced to see that it has been running after fools, quack dentists,and mountebanks, as so many prophets. Now, the graphomaniacs andtheircritical bodyguard dominate nearly the entire press, and in the latterpossess an instrument of torture by which, in Indian fashion, they canrack the troublesome spoiler of sport, to his lifeâs end.__The danger,however, to which he exposes himself cannot deter a manfrom doing that which he regards as his duty. When a scientific truthhas been discovered, he owes it to humanity, and has no right towithhold it. Moreover, it isas little possible to do this as for awoman voluntarily to prevent the birth of the mature fruit of her womb.__Without aspiring to the most distant comparison of myself with you,one of the loftiest mental phenomena ofthe century, I may yet take formy example the smiling serenity with which you pursue your own way,indifferent to ingratitude, insult, and misunderstanding.__Pray remain, dear and honoured master, ever favourablydisposedtowards your gratefully devoted_      _MAX NORDAU_.CONTENTS  BOOK I.  _FIN-DE-SIÃCLE._  CHAPTER I.                                                        PAGE  THE DUSK OF THENATIONS                                  1  CHAPTER II.  THE SYMPTOMS                                             7  CHAPTER III.  DIAGNOSIS                                               15  CHAPTERIV.  ETIOLOGY                                                34  BOOK II.  _MYSTICISM._  CHAPTER I.  THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MYSTICISM                             45  CHAPTER II.  THEPRE-RAPHAELITES                                     67  CHAPTER III.  SYMBOLISM      100  CHAPTER IV.  TOLSTOISM                                              144  CHAPTER V.  THE RICHARD WAGNERCULT                                171  CHAPTER VI.  PARODIES OF MYSTICISM                                  214  BOOK III.  _EGO-MANIA._  CHAPTER I.  THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EGO-MANIA                            241  CHAPTERII.  PARNASSIANS AND DIABOLISTS                             266  CHAPTER III.  DECADENTS AND ÃSTHETES                                 296  CHAPTER IV.  IBSENISM                                               338  CHAPTERV.  FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE                                    415  BOOK IV.  _REALISM._  CHAPTER I.  ZOLA AND HIS SCHOOL                                    473  CHAPTER II.  THE âYOUNG GERMANâPLAGIARISTS                         506  BOOK V.  _THE TWENTIETH CENTURY._  CHAPTER I.  PROGNOSIS                                              536  CHAPTERII.  THERAPEUTICS                                           550                       DEGENERATIONBOOK I._FIN-DE-SIÃCLE_.CHAPTER I.THE DUSK OF THE NATIONS.FIN-DE-SIÃCLE is a name covering both what is characteristicof manymodern phenomena, and also the underlying mood which in them findsexpression. Experience has long shown that an idea usually derivesits designation from the language of the nation which first formedit.This, indeed, is a law of constant application when historians ofmanners and customs inquire into language, for the purpose of obtainingsome notion, through the origins of some verbal root, respecting thehome of theearliest inventions and the line of evolution in differenthuman races. _Fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ is French, for it was in France that themental state so entitled was first consciously realized. The word hasflown from onehemisphere to the other, and found its way into allcivilized languages. A proof this that the need of it existed. The_fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ state of mind is to-day everywhere to be met with;nevertheless, it is in many cases amere imitation of a foreign fashiongaining vogue, and not an organic evolution. It is in the land of itsbirth that it appears in its most genuine form, and Paris is the rightplace in which to observe its manifoldexpressions.No proof is needed of the extreme silliness of the term. Only thebrain of a child or of a savage could form the clumsy idea that thecentury is a kind of living being, born like a beast or a man, passingthroughall the stages of existence, gradually ageing and decliningafter blooming childhood, joyous youth, and vigorous maturity, to diewith the expiration of the hundredth year, after being afflicted inits last decade with all theinfirmities of mournful senility. Sucha childish anthropomorphism or zoomorphism never stops to considerthat the arbitrary division of time, rolling ever continuously along,is not identical amongst all civilized beings,and that while thisnineteenth century of Christendom is held to be a creature reeling toits death presumptively in dire exhaustion, the fourteenth century ofthe Mahommedan world is tripping along in the baby-shoes ofits firstdecade, and the fifteenth century of the Jews strides gallantly by inthe full maturity of its fifty-second year. Every day on our globe130,000 human beings are born, for whom the world begins with this sameday,and the young citizen of the world is neither feebler nor fresherfor leaping into life in the midst of the death-throes of 1900, nor onthe birthday of the twentieth century. But it is a habit of the humanmind to projectexternally its own subjective states. And it is inaccordance with this naÃ¯vely egoistic tendency that the French ascribetheir own senility to the century, and speak of _fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ whenthey ought correctly to say_fin-de-race_.[1]But however silly a term _fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ may be, the mentalconstitution which it indicates is actually present in influentialcircles. The disposition of the times is curiously confused, a compoundoffeverish restlessness and blunted discouragement, of fearful presageand hang-dog renunciation. The prevalent feeling is that of imminentperdition and extinction. _Fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ is at once a confession andacomplaint. The old Northern faith contained the fearsome doctrineof the Dusk of the Gods. In our days there have arisen in morehighly-developed minds vague qualms of a Dusk of the Nations, in whichall suns and allstars are gradually waning, and mankind with all itsinstitutions and creations is perishing in the midst of a dying world.It is not for the first time in the course of history that the horrorof world-annihilation has laid hold ofmenâs minds. A similar sentimenttook possession of the Christian peoples at the approach of the year1000. But there is an essential difference between chiliastic panicand _fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ excitement. The despairat the turn of the firstmillennium of Christian chronology proceeded from a feeling of fulnessof life and joy of life. Men were aware of throbbing pulses, theywere conscious of unweakened capacity for enjoyment, andfound itunmitigatedly appalling to perish together with the world, when therewere yet so many flagons to drain and so many lips to kiss, and whenthey could yet rejoice so vigorously in both love and wine. Of allthis inthe _fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ feeling there is nothing. Neither has itanything in common with the impressive twilight-melancholy of an agedFaust, surveying the work of a lifetime, and who, proud of what hasbeen achieved, andcontemplating what is begun but not completed, isseized with vehement desire to finish his work, and, awakened fromsleep by haunting unrest, leaps up with the cry: âWas ich gedacht, icheilâ es zuvollbringen.â[2]Quite otherwise is the _fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ mood. It is the impotent despairof a sick man, who feels himself dying by inches in the midst of aneternally living nature blooming insolently for ever. It is theenvy ofa rich, hoary voluptuary, who sees a pair of young lovers making fora sequestered forest nook; it is the mortification of the exhaustedand impotent refugee from a Florentine plague, seeking in anenchantedgarden the experiences of a Decamerone, but striving in vain to snatchone more pleasure of sense from the uncertain hour. The reader ofTurgenieffâs _A Nest of Nobles_ will remember the end of thatbeautifulwork. The hero, Lavretzky, comes as a man advanced in years to visit atthe house where, in his young days, he had lived his romance of love.All is unchanged. The garden is fragrant with flowers. In thegreattrees the happy birds are chirping; on the fresh turf the children rompand shout. Lavretzky alone has grown old, and contemplates, in mournfulexclusion, a scene where nature holds on its joyous way, caringnoughtthat Lisa the beloved is vanished, and Lavretzky, a broken-down man,weary of life. Lavretzkyâs admission that, amidst all this ever-young,ever-blooming nature, for him alone there comes no morrow;Alvingâsdying cry for âThe sun--the sun!â in Ibsenâs _Ghosts_--these expressrightly the _fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ attitude of to-day.This fashionable term has the necessary vagueness which fits it toconvey allthe half-conscious and indistinct drift of current ideas.Just as the words âfreedom,â âideal,â âprogressâ seem to expressnotions, but actually are only sounds, so in itself _fin-de-siÃ¨cle_meansnothing, and receives a varying signification according to thediverse mental horizons of those who use it.The surest way of knowing what _fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ implies, is to considera series of particular instances where theword has been applied. Thosewhich I shall adduce are drawn from French books and periodicals of thelast two years.[3]A king abdicates, leaves his country, and takes up his residence inParis, having reserved certainpolitical rights. One day he loses muchmoney at play, and is in a dilemma. He therefore makes an agreementwith the Government of his country, by which, on receipt of a millionfrancs, he renounces for ever every title,official position andprivilege remaining to him. _Fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ king.A bishop is prosecuted for insulting the minister of public worship.The proceedings terminated, his attendant canons distribute amongstthe reportersin court a defence, copies of which he has preparedbeforehand. When condemned to pay a fine, he gets up a publiccollection, which brings in tenfold the amount of the penalty. Hepublishes a justificatory volumecontaining all the expressions ofsupport which have reached him. He makes a tour through the country,exhibits himself in every cathedral to the mob curious to see thecelebrity of the hour, and takes the opportunity ofsending round theplate. _Fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ bishop.The corpse of the murderer Pranzini after execution underwent autopsy.The head of the secret police cuts off a large piece of skin, hasit tanned, and the leather madeinto cigar-cases and card-cases forhimself and some of his friends. _Fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ official.An American weds his bride in a gas-factory, then gets with her intoa balloon held in readiness, and enters on a honeymoon inthe clouds._Fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ wedding.An _attachÃ©_ of the Chinese Embassy publishes high-class works inFrench under his own name. He negotiates with banks respecting alarge loan for his Government, and drawslarge advances for himselfon the unfinished contract. Later it comes out that the books werecomposed by his French secretary, and that he has swindled the banks._Fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ diplomatist.A public schoolboywalking with a chum passes the gaol where hisfather, a rich banker, has repeatedly been imprisoned for fraudulentbankruptcy, embezzlement and similar lucrative misdemeanours. Pointingto the building, he tells hisfriend with a smile: âLook, thatâs thegovernorâs school.â _Fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ son.Two young ladies of good family, and school friends, are chattingtogether. One heaves a sigh. âWhatâs thematter?â asks the other. âIâmin love with Raoul, and he with me.â âOh, thatâs lovely! Heâs handsome,young, elegant; and yet youâre sad?â âYes, but he has nothing, andisnothing, and my parents want me to marry the baron, who is fat,bald, and ugly, but has a huge lot of money.â âWell, marry the baronwithout any fuss, and make Raoul acquainted with him, yougoose.â_Fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ girls.Such test-cases show how the word is understood in the land of itsbirth. Germans who ape Paris fashions, and apply _fin-de-siÃ¨cle_almost exclusively to mean what is indecent andimproper, misuse theword in their coarse ignorance as much as, in a previous generation,they vulgarized the expression _demi-monde_, misunderstanding itsproper meaning, and giving it the sense of _fille de joie_,whereasits creator Dumas intended it to denote persons whose lives containedsome dark period, for which they were excluded from the circle to whichthey belong by birth, education, or profession, but who do not bytheirmanner betray, at least to the inexperienced, that they are no longeracknowledged as members of their own caste._Prima facie_, a king who sells his sovereign rights for a big chequeseems to have little in commonwith a newly-wedded pair who make theirwedding-trip in a balloon, nor is the connection at once obviousbetween an episcopal Barnum and a well-brought-up young lady whoadvises her friend to a wealthy marriagemitigated by a _cicisbeo_. Allthese _fin-de-siÃ¨cle_ cases have, nevertheless, a common feature, towit, a contempt for traditional views of custom and morality.Such is the notion underlying the word _fin-de-siÃ¨cle_.It means apractical emancipation from traditional discipline, which theoreticallyis still in force. To the voluptuary this means unbridled lewdness, theunchaining of the beast in man; to the withered heart of theegoist,disdain of all consideration for his fellow-men, the trampling underfoot of all barriers which enclose brutal greed of lucre and lustof pleasure; to the contemner of the world it means the shamelessascendency ofbase impulses and motives, which were, if not virtuouslysuppressed, at least hypocritically hidden; to the believer it meansthe repudiation of dogma, the negation of a supersensuous world, thedescent into flatphenomenalism; to the sensitive nature yearning forÃ¦sthetic thrills, it means the vanishing of ideals in art, and no morepower in its accepted forms to arouse emotion. And to all, it means theend of an establishedorder, which for thousands of years has satisfiedlogic, fettered depravity, and in every art matured something of beauty.One epoch of history is unmistakably in its decline, and anotheris announcing its approach. Thereis a sound of rending in everytradition, and it is as though the morrow would not link itself withto-day. Things as they are totter and plunge, and they are suffered toreel and fall, because man is weary, and there is no


ï»¿The Project Gutenberg EBook of Coming Attraction, by Fritz LeiberThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and mostother parts of the world at no cost and with almost norestrictionswhatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms ofthe Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online atwww.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States,you'll haveto check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.Title: Coming AttractionAuthor: Fritz LeiberRelease Date: January 30, 2016 [EBook #51082]Language: English*** START OFTHIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMING ATTRACTION ***Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net                           ComingAttraction                            BY FRITZ LEIBER                       Illustrated by Paul Calle           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from                 Galaxy Science Fiction November 1950.         Extensiveresearch did not uncover any evidence that         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]           Women will always go on trying to attract men ...             even when the future seems to have no future!Thecoupe with the fishhooks welded to the fender shouldered up overthe curb like the nose of a nightmare. The girl in its path stoodfrozen, her face probably stiff with fright under her mask. For once myreflexes weren'tshy. I took a fast step toward her, grabbed her elbow,yanked her back. Her black skirt swirled out.The big coupe shot by, its turbine humming. I glimpsed three faces.Something ripped. I felt the hot exhaust on myankles as the bigcoupe swerved back into the street. A thick cloud like a black flowerblossomed from its jouncing rear end, while from the fishhooks flew ablack shimmering rag."Did they get you?" I asked the girl.Shehad twisted around to look where the side of her skirt was tornaway. She was wearing nylon tights."The hooks didn't touch me," she said shakily. "I guess I'm lucky."I heard voices around us:"Those kids! What'll theythink up next?""They're a menace. They ought to be arrested."Sirens screamed at a rising pitch as two motor-police, theirrocket-assist jets full on, came whizzing toward us after the coupe.But the black flower hadbecome a thick fog obscuring the whole street.The motor-police switched from rocket assists to rocket brakes andswerved to a stop near the smoke cloud."Are you English?" the girl asked me. "You have an Englishaccent."Her voice came shudderingly from behind the sleek black satin mask.I fancied her teeth must be chattering. Eyes that were perhaps bluesearched my face from behind the black gauze covering the eyeholesofthe mask. I told her she'd guessed right. She stood close to me. "Willyou come to my place tonight?" she asked rapidly. "I can't thank younow. And there's something you can help me about."My arm, still lightlycircling her waist, felt her body trembling. Iwas answering the plea in that as much as in her voice when I said,"Certainly." She gave me an address south of Inferno, an apartmentnumber and a time. She asked me myname and I told her."Hey, you!"I turned obediently to the policeman's shout. He shooed away the smallclucking crowd of masked women and barefaced men. Coughing from thesmoke that the black coupe had thrownout, he asked for my papers. Ihanded him the essential ones.       *       *       *       *       *He looked at them and then at me. "British Barter? How long will you bein New York?"Suppressing the urge to say, "For asshort a time as possible," I toldhim I'd be here for a week or so."May need you as a witness," he explained. "Those kids can't use smokeon us. When they do that, we pull them in."He seemed to think the smoke was thebad thing. "They tried to kill thelady," I pointed out.He shook his head wisely. "They always pretend they're going to, butactually they just want to snag skirts. I've picked up rippers withas many as fifty skirt-snagstacked up in their rooms. Of course,sometimes they come a little too close."I explained that if I hadn't yanked her out of the way, she'd have beenhit by more than hooks. But he interrupted, "If she'd thought it wasareal murder attempt, she'd have stayed here."I looked around. It was true. She was gone."She was fearfully frightened," I told him."Who wouldn't be? Those kids would have scared old Stalin himself.""I meanfrightened of more than 'kids.' They didn't look like 'kids.'""What did they look like?"I tried without much success to describe the three faces. A vagueimpression of viciousness and effeminacy doesn't mean much."Well,I could be wrong," he said finally. "Do you know the girl? Whereshe lives?""No," I half lied.The other policeman hung up his radiophone and ambled toward us,kicking at the tendrils of dissipating smoke. The black cloudno longerhid the dingy facades with their five-year-old radiation flash-burns,and I could begin to make out the distant stump of the Empire StateBuilding, thrusting up out of Inferno like a mangled finger."They haven'tbeen picked up so far," the approaching policemangrumbled. "Left smoke for five blocks, from what Ryan says."The first policeman shook his head. "That's bad," he observed solemnly.I was feeling a bit uneasy andashamed. An Englishman shouldn't lie, atleast not on impulse."They sound like nasty customers," the first policeman continued in thesame grim tone. "We'll need witnesses. Looks as if you may have to stayin New Yorklonger than you expect."I got the point. I said, "I forgot to show you all my papers," andhanded him a few others, making sure there was a five dollar bill inamong them.       *       *       *       *       *When he handedthem back a bit later, his voice was no longer ominous.My feelings of guilt vanished. To cement our relationship, I chattedwith the two of them about their job."I suppose the masks give you some trouble," I observed."Over inEngland we've been reading about your new crop of masked femalebandits.""Those things get exaggerated," the first policeman assured me. "It'sthe men masking as women that really mix us up. But, brother,when wenab them, we jump on them with both feet.""And you get so you can spot women almost as well as if they had nakedfaces," the second policeman volunteered. "You know, hands and allthat.""Especially allthat," the first agreed with a chuckle. "Say, is ittrue that some girls don't mask over in England?""A number of them have picked up the fashion," I told him. "Only a few,though--the ones who always adopt the lateststyle, however extreme.""They're usually masked in the British newscasts.""I imagine it's arranged that way out of deference to American taste,"I confessed. "Actually, not very many do mask."The second policemanconsidered that. "Girls going down the street barefrom the neck up." It was not clear whether he viewed the prospect withrelish or moral distaste. Likely both."A few members keep trying to persuade Parliament toenact a lawforbidding all masking," I continued, talking perhaps a bit too much.The second policeman shook his head. "What an idea. You know, masks area pretty good thing, brother. Couple of years more and I'mgoing tomake my wife wear hers around the house."The first policeman shrugged. "If women were to stop wearing masks, insix weeks you wouldn't know the difference. You get used to anything,if enough people do ordon't do it."I agreed, rather regretfully, and left them. I turned north on Broadway(old Tenth Avenue, I believe) and walked rapidly until I was beyondInferno. Passing such an area of undecontaminated radioactivityalwaysmakes a person queasy. I thanked God there weren't any such in England,as yet.The street was almost empty, though I was accosted by a couple ofbeggars with faces tunneled by H-bomb scars, whether real orof makeupputty, I couldn't tell. A fat woman held out a baby with webbed fingersand toes. I told myself it would have been deformed anyway and that shewas only capitalizing on our fear of bomb-induced mutations.Still,I gave her a seven-and-a-half-cent piece. Her mask made me feel I waspaying tribute to an African fetish."May all your children be blessed with one head and two eyes, sir.""Thanks," I said, shuddering, and hurriedpast her."... There's only trash behind the mask, so turn your head, stick toyour task: Stay away, stay away--from--the--girls!"       *       *       *       *       *This last was the end of an anti-sex song being sung bysomereligionists half a block from the circle-and-cross insignia of afemalist temple. They reminded me only faintly of our small tribeof British monastics. Above their heads was a jumble of billboardsadvertisingpredigested foods, wrestling instruction, radio handies andthe like.I stared at the hysterical slogans with disagreeable fascination. Sincethe female face and form have been banned on American signs, the veryletters ofthe advertiser's alphabet have begun to crawl with sex--thefat-bellied, big-breasted capital B, the lascivious double O. However,I reminded myself, it is chiefly the mask that so strangely accents sexin America.A Britishanthropologist has pointed out, that, while it took morethan 5,000 years to shift the chief point of sexual interest from thehips to the breasts, the next transition to the face has taken lessthan 50 years. Comparing theAmerican style with Moslem tradition isnot valid; Moslem women are compelled to wear veils, the purpose ofwhich is concealment, while American women have only the compulsion offashion and use masks to createmystery.Theory aside, the actual origins of the trend are to be found inthe anti-radiation clothing of World War III, which led to maskedwrestling, now a fantastically popular sport, and that in turn led tothe currentfemale fashion. Only a wild style at first, masks quicklybecame as necessary as brassieres and lipsticks had been earlier in thecentury.I finally realized that I was not speculating about masks in general,but about whatlay behind one in particular. That's the devil of thethings; you're never sure whether a girl is heightening lovelinessor hiding ugliness. I pictured a cool, pretty face in which fearshowed only in widened eyes. Then Iremembered her blonde hair, richagainst the blackness of the satin mask. She'd told me to come at thetwenty-second hour--ten p.m.I climbed to my apartment near the British Consulate; the elevatorshaft had beenshoved out of plumb by an old blast, a nuisance in thesetall New York buildings. Before it occurred to me that I would begoing out again, I automatically tore a tab from the film strip undermy shirt. I developed it just tobe sure. It showed that the totalradiation I'd taken that day was still within the safety limit. I'mnot phobic about it, as so many people are these days, but there's nopoint in taking chances.I flopped down on the day bedand stared at the silent speaker and thedark screen of the video set. As always, they made me think, somewhatbitterly, of the two great nations of the world. Mutilated by eachother, yet still strong, they were crippledgiants poisoning the planetwith their dreams of an impossible equality and an impossible success.I fretfully switched on the speaker. By luck, the newscaster wastalking excitedly of the prospects of a bumper wheatcrop, sown byplanes across a dust bowl moistened by seeded rains. I listenedcarefully to the rest of the program (it was remarkably clear ofRussian telejamming) but there was no further news of interest tome. And, ofcourse, no mention of the Moon, though everyone knowsthat America and Russia are racing to develop their primary basesinto fortresses capable of mutual assault and the launching ofalphabet-bombs toward Earth. Imyself knew perfectly well that theBritish electronic equipment I was helping trade for American wheat wasdestined for use in spaceships.       *       *       *       *       *I switched off the newscast. It was growing darkand once again Ipictured a tender, frightened face behind a mask. I hadn't had a datesince England. It's exceedingly difficult to become acquainted with agirl in America, where as little as a smile, often, can set one ofthemyelping for the police--to say nothing of the increasing puritanicalmorality and the roving gangs that keep most women indoors after dark.And naturally, the masks which are definitely not, as the Sovietsclaim, alast invention of capitalist degeneracy, but a sign of greatpsychological insecurity. The Russians have no masks, but they havetheir own signs of stress.I went to the window and impatiently watched the darknessgather. I wasgetting very restless. After a while a ghostly violet cloud appeared tothe south. My hair rose. Then I laughed. I had momentarily fancied it aradiation from the crater of the Hell-bomb, though I shouldinstantlyhave known it was only the radio-induced glow in the sky over theamusement and residential area south of Inferno.Promptly at twenty-two hours I stood before the door of my unknown girlfriend's apartment.The electronic say-who-please said just that. Ianswered clearly, "Wysten Turner," wondering if she'd given my name tothe mechanism. She evidently had, for the door opened. I walked into asmall empty living room,my heart pounding a bit.The room was expensively furnished with the latest pneumatic hassocksand sprawlers. There were some midgie books on the table. The one Ipicked up was the standard hard-boiled detectivestory in which twofemale murderers go gunning for each other.The television was on. A masked girl in green was crooning a love song.Her right hand held something that blurred off into the foreground.I saw the sethad a handie, which we haven't in England as yet, andcuriously thrust my hand into the handie orifice beside the screen.Contrary to my expectations, it was not like slipping into a pulsingrubber glove, but rather as ifthe girl on the screen actually held myhand.A door opened behind me. I jerked out my hand with as guilty a reactionas if I'd been caught peering through a keyhole.She stood in the bedroom doorway. I think she wastrembling. She waswearing a gray fur coat, white-speckled, and a gray velvet eveningmask with shirred gray lace around the eyes and mouth. Her fingernailstwinkled like silver.It hadn't occurred to me that she'dexpect us to go out."I should have told you," she said softly. Her mask veered nervouslytoward the books and the screen and the room's dark corners. "But Ican't possibly talk to you here."I said doubtfully, "There's aplace near the Consulate....""I know where we can be together and talk," she said rapidly. "If youdon't mind."As we entered the elevator I said, "I'm afraid I dismissed the cab."       *       *       *       *       *But the cabdriver hadn't gone for some reason of his own. He jumpedout and smirkingly held the front door open for us. I told him wepreferred to sit in back. He sulkily opened the rear door, slammed itafter us, jumped in frontand slammed the door behind him.My companion leaned forward. "Heaven," she said.The driver switched on the turbine and televisor."Why did you ask if I were a British subject?" I said, to start theconversation.Sheleaned away from me, tilting her mask close to the window. "See theMoon," she said in a quick, dreamy voice."But why, really?" I pressed, conscious of an irritation that hadnothing to do with her."It's edging up intothe purple of the sky.""And what's your name?""The purple makes it look yellower."       *       *       *       *       *Just then I became aware of the source of my irritation. It lay in thesquare of writhing light in the frontof the cab beside the driver.I don't object to ordinary wrestling matches, though they bore me, butI simply detest watching a man wrestle a woman. The fact that the boutsare generally "on the level," with the mangreatly outclassed in weightand reach and the masked females young and personable, only makes themseem worse to me."Please turn off the screen," I requested the driver.He shook his head without looking around."Uh-uh, man," he said."They've been grooming that babe for weeks for this bout with LittleZirk."Infuriated, I reached forward, but my companion caught my arm."Please," she whispered frightenedly, shaking her head.Isettled back, frustrated. She was closer to me now, but silent andfor a few moments I watched the heaves and contortions of the powerfulmasked girl and her wiry masked opponent on the screen. His franticscramblingat her reminded me of a male spider.I jerked around, facing my companion. "Why did those three men want tokill you?" I asked sharply.The eyeholes of her mask faced the screen. "Because they're jealous ofme," shewhispered."Why are they jealous?"She still didn't look at me. "Because of him.""Who?"She didn't answer.I put my arm around her shoulders. "Are you afraid to tell me?" Iasked. "What _is_ the matter?"She still didn'tlook my way. She smelled nice."See here," I said laughingly, changing my tactics, "you really shouldtell me something about yourself. I don't even know what you look like."I half playfully lifted my hand to the band ofher neck. She gave it anastonishingly swift slap. I pulled it away in sudden pain. There werefour tiny indentations on the back. From one of them a tiny bead ofblood welled out as I watched. I looked at her silverfingernails andsaw they were actually delicate and pointed metal caps."I'm dreadfully sorry," I heard her say, "but you frightened me. Ithought for a moment you were going to...."At last she turned to me. Her coat hadfallen open. Her evening dresswas Cretan Revival, a bodice of lace beneath and supporting the breastswithout covering them."Don't be angry," she said, putting her arms around my neck. "You werewonderful thisafternoon."The soft gray velvet of her mask, molding itself to her cheek, pressedmine. Through the mask's lace the wet warm tip of her tongue touched mychin."I'm not angry," I said. "Just puzzled and anxious tohelp."The cab stopped. To either side were black windows bordered by spearsof broken glass. The sickly purple light showed a few ragged figuresslowly moving toward us.The driver muttered, "It's the turbine, man.We're grounded." He satthere hunched and motionless. "Wish it had happened somewhere else."My companion whispered, "Five dollars is the usual amount."She looked out so shudderingly at the congregating figuresthat Isuppressed my indignation and did as she suggested. The driver took thebill without a word. As he started up, he put his hand out the windowand I heard a few coins clink on the pavement.My companion cameback into my arms, but her mask faced the televisionscreen, where the tall girl had just pinned the convulsively kickingLittle Zirk."I'm so frightened," she breathed.       *       *       *       *       *Heaven turned out to bean equally ruinous neighborhood, but it had aclub with an awning and a huge doorman uniformed like a spaceman, butin gaudy colors. In my sensuous daze I rather liked it all. We steppedout of the cab just as adrunken old woman came down the sidewalk,her mask awry. A couple ahead of us turned their heads from the halfrevealed face, as if from an ugly body at the beach. As we followedthem in I heard the doorman say,"Get along, grandma, and watchyourself."Inside, everything was dimness and blue glows. She had said we couldtalk here, but I didn't see how. Besides the inevitable chorus ofsneezes and coughs (they say America isfifty per cent allergicthese days), there was a band going full blast in the latest robopstyle, in which an electronic composing machine selects an arbitrarysequence of tones into which the musicians weave their raucouslittleindividualities.Most of the people were in booths. The band was behind the bar. On asmall platform beside them, a girl was dancing, stripped to her mask.The little cluster of men at the shadowy far end of the barweren'tlooking at her.We inspected the menu in gold script on the wall and pushed the buttonsfor breast of chicken, fried shrimps and two scotches. Moments later,the serving bell tinkled. I opened the gleaming paneland took out ourdrinks.       *       *       *       *       *The cluster of men at the bar filed off toward the door, but first theystared around the room. My companion had just thrown back her coat.Their look lingered on ourbooth. I noticed that there were three ofthem.The band chased off the dancing girl with growls. I handed my companiona straw and we sipped our drinks."You wanted me to help you about something," I said."Incidentally, Ithink you're lovely."She nodded quick thanks, looked around, leaned forward. "Would it behard for me to get to England?""No," I replied, a bit taken aback. "Provided you have an Americanpassport.""Arethey difficult to get?""Rather," I said, surprised at her lack of information. "Your countrydoesn't like its nationals to travel, though it isn't quite asstringent as Russia.""Could the British Consulate help me get apassport?""It's hardly their....""Could you?"I realized we were being inspected. A man and two girls had pausedopposite our table. The girls were tall and wolfish-looking, withspangled masks. The man stood jauntily


ï»¿The Project Gutenberg EBook of Heartbreak House, by George Bernard ShawThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it awayorre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.orgTitle: Heartbreak HouseAuthor: George Bernard ShawPosting Date: January 13, 2009 [EBook#3543]Release Date: November, 2002Language: English*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEARTBREAK HOUSE ***Produced by Eve SobolHEARTBREAK HOUSEA FANTASIA IN THE RUSSIAN MANNERON ENGLISH THEMESBy Bernard Shaw1913-1916HEARTBREAK HOUSE AND HORSEBACK HALLWhere Heartbreak House StandsHeartbreak House is not merely the name of the play which follows thispreface. It iscultured, leisured Europe before the war. When theplay was begun not a shot had been fired; and only the professionaldiplomatists and the very few amateurs whose hobby is foreign policyeven knew that the gunswere loaded. A Russian playwright, Tchekov, hadproduced four fascinating dramatic studies of Heartbreak House, ofwhich three, The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, and The Seagull, had beenperformed in England.Tolstoy, in his Fruits of Enlightenment, had shownus through it in his most ferociously contemptuous manner. Tolstoy didnot waste any sympathy on it: it was to him the house in which Europewas stifling its soul; andhe knew that our utter enervation andfutilization in that overheated drawingroom atmosphere was deliveringthe world over to the control of ignorant and soulless cunning andenergy, with the frightful consequenceswhich have now overtakenit. Tolstoy was no pessimist: he was not disposed to leave the housestanding if he could bring it down about the ears of its pretty andamiable voluptuaries; and he wielded the pickaxe with awill. He treatedthe case of the inmates as one of opium poisoning, to be dealt with byseizing the patients roughly and exercising them violently until theywere broad awake. Tchekov, more of a fatalist, had no faith inthesecharming people extricating themselves. They would, he thought, be soldup and sent adrift by the bailiffs; and he therefore had no scruple inexploiting and even flattering their charm.The InhabitantsTchekov'splays, being less lucrative than swings and roundabouts,got no further in England, where theatres are only ordinary commercialaffairs, than a couple of performances by the Stage Society. We staredand said, "HowRussian!" They did not strike me in that way. Justas Ibsen's intensely Norwegian plays exactly fitted every middle andprofessional class suburb in Europe, these intensely Russian playsfitted all the country houses inEurope in which the pleasures of music,art, literature, and the theatre had supplanted hunting, shooting,fishing, flirting, eating, and drinking. The same nice people, the sameutter futility. The nice people could read;some of them couldwrite; and they were the sole repositories of culture who had socialopportunities of contact with our politicians, administrators, andnewspaper proprietors, or any chance of sharing or influencingtheiractivities. But they shrank from that contact. They hated politics. Theydid not wish to realize Utopia for the common people: they wished torealize their favorite fictions and poems in their own lives; and, whentheycould, they lived without scruple on incomes which they did nothingto earn. The women in their girlhood made themselves look like varietytheatre stars, and settled down later into the types of beauty imaginedby theprevious generation of painters. They took the only part of oursociety in which there was leisure for high culture, and made it aneconomic, political and; as far as practicable, a moral vacuum; and asNature, abhorringthe vacuum, immediately filled it up with sex and withall sorts of refined pleasures, it was a very delightful place at itsbest for moments of relaxation. In other moments it was disastrous. Forprime ministers and theirlike, it was a veritable Capua.Horseback HallBut where were our front benchers to nest if not here? The alternativeto Heartbreak House was Horseback Hall, consisting of a prison forhorses with an annex for the ladiesand gentlemen who rode them, huntedthem, talked about them, bought them and sold them, and gave nine-tenthsof their lives to them, dividing the other tenth between charity,churchgoing (as a substitute forreligion), and conservativeelectioneering (as a substitute for politics). It is true that the twoestablishments got mixed at the edges. Exiles from the library, themusic room, and the picture gallery would be foundlanguishing among thestables, miserably discontented; and hardy horsewomen who slept at thefirst chord of Schumann were born, horribly misplaced, into the gardenof Klingsor; but sometimes one came uponhorsebreakers and heartbreakerswho could make the best of both worlds. As a rule, however, the two wereapart and knew little of one another; so the prime minister folk hadto choose between barbarism and Capua.And of the two atmospheres it ishard to say which was the more fatal to statesmanship.Revolution on the ShelfHeartbreak House was quite familiar with revolutionary ideas on paper.It aimed at being advanced andfreethinking, and hardly ever went tochurch or kept the Sabbath except by a little extra fun at weekends.When you spent a Friday to Tuesday in it you found on the shelf in yourbedroom not only the books of poets andnovelists, but of revolutionarybiologists and even economists. Without at least a few plays by myselfand Mr Granville Barker, and a few stories by Mr H. G. Wells, Mr ArnoldBennett, and Mr John Galsworthy, the housewould have been out of themovement. You would find Blake among the poets, and beside him Bergson,Butler, Scott Haldane, the poems of Meredith and Thomas Hardy, and,generally speaking, all the literaryimplements for forming the mind ofthe perfect modern Socialist and Creative Evolutionist. It was a curiousexperience to spend Sunday in dipping into these books, and the Mondaymorning to read in the daily paper thatthe country had just beenbrought to the verge of anarchy because a new Home Secretary or chief ofpolice without an idea in his head that his great-grandmother mightnot have had to apologize for, had refused to"recognize" some powerfulTrade Union, just as a gondola might refuse to recognize a 20,000-tonliner.In short, power and culture were in separate compartments. Thebarbarians were not only literally in the saddle, buton the frontbench in the House of commons, with nobody to correct their incredibleignorance of modern thought and political science but upstarts fromthe counting-house, who had spent their lives furnishing theirpocketsinstead of their minds. Both, however, were practised in dealing withmoney and with men, as far as acquiring the one and exploiting the otherwent; and although this is as undesirable an expertness as that ofthemedieval robber baron, it qualifies men to keep an estate or a businessgoing in its old routine without necessarily understanding it, just asBond Street tradesmen and domestic servants keep fashionable societygoingwithout any instruction in sociology.The Cherry OrchardThe Heartbreak people neither could nor would do anything of the sort.With their heads as full of the Anticipations of Mr H. G. Wells asthe heads of our actualrulers were empty even of the anticipations ofErasmus or Sir Thomas More, they refused the drudgery of politics, andwould have made a very poor job of it if they had changed their minds.Not that they would havebeen allowed to meddle anyhow, as only throughthe accident of being a hereditary peer can anyone in these days ofVotes for Everybody get into parliament if handicapped by a seriousmodern cultural equipment; but ifthey had, their habit of living in avacuum would have left them helpless end ineffective in publicaffairs. Even in private life they were often helpless wasters of theirinheritance, like the people in Tchekov's CherryOrchard. Even those wholived within their incomes were really kept going by their solicitorsand agents, being unable to manage an estate or run a business withoutcontinual prompting from those who have to learn howto do such thingsor starve.From what is called Democracy no corrective to this state of thingscould be hoped. It is said that every people has the Governmentit deserves. It is more to the point that every Governmenthas theelectorate it deserves; for the orators of the front bench can edify ordebauch an ignorant electorate at will. Thus our democracy moves in avicious circle of reciprocal worthiness and unworthiness.Nature's LongCreditsNature's way of dealing with unhealthy conditions is unfortunately notone that compels us to conduct a solvent hygiene on a cash basis. Shedemoralizes us with long credits and reckless overdrafts, and thenpullsus up cruelly with catastrophic bankruptcies. Take, for example, commondomestic sanitation. A whole city generation may neglect it utterlyand scandalously, if not with absolute impunity, yet without anyevilconsequences that anyone thinks of tracing to it. In a hospital twogenerations of medical students way tolerate dirt and carelessness, andthen go out into general practice to spread the doctrine that freshair is a fad,and sanitation an imposture set up to make profits forplumbers. Then suddenly Nature takes her revenge. She strikes at thecity with a pestilence and at the hospital with an epidemic of hospitalgangrene, slaughteringright and left until the innocent young have paidfor the guilty old, and the account is balanced. And then she goes tosleep again and gives another period of credit, with the same result.This is what has just happened inour political hygiene. Politicalscience has been as recklessly neglected by Governments and electoratesduring my lifetime as sanitary science was in the days of Charles theSecond. In international relations diplomacyhas been a boyishly lawlessaffair of family intrigues, commercial and territorial brigandage,torpors of pseudo-goodnature produced by laziness and spasms offerocious activity produced by terror. But in these islands wemuddledthrough. Nature gave us a longer credit than she gave to France orGermany or Russia. To British centenarians who died in their beds in1914, any dread of having to hide underground in London from theshellsof an enemy seemed more remote and fantastic than a dread of theappearance of a colony of cobras and rattlesnakes in Kensington Gardens.In the prophetic works of Charles Dickens we were warned againstmanyevils which have since come to pass; but of the evil of beingslaughtered by a foreign foe on our own doorsteps there was no shadow.Nature gave us a very long credit; and we abused it to the utmost. Butwhen shestruck at last she struck with a vengeance. For four yearsshe smote our firstborn and heaped on us plagues of which Egypt neverdreamed. They were all as preventable as the great Plague of London, andcame solelybecause they had not been prevented. They were not undone bywinning the war. The earth is still bursting with the dead bodies of thevictors.The Wicked Half CenturyIt is difficult to say whether indifference and neglectare worse thanfalse doctrine; but Heartbreak House and Horseback Hall unfortunatelysuffered from both. For half a century before the war civilization hadbeen going to the devil very precipitately under the influence ofapseudo-science as disastrous as the blackest Calvinism. Calvinism taughtthat as we are predestinately saved or damned, nothing that we can docan alter our destiny. Still, as Calvinism gave the individual no clueas towhether he had drawn a lucky number or an unlucky one, it lefthim a fairly strong interest in encouraging his hopes of salvation andallaying his fear of damnation by behaving as one of the elect mightbe expected tobehave rather than as one of the reprobate. But in themiddle of the nineteenth century naturalists and physicists assuredthe world, in the name of Science, that salvation and damnation areall nonsense, and thatpredestination is the central truth of religion,inasmuch as human beings are produced by their environment, their sinsand good deeds being only a series of chemical and mechanical reactionsover which they have nocontrol. Such figments as mind, choice, purpose,conscience, will, and so forth, are, they taught, mere illusions,produced because they are useful in the continual struggle of the humanmachine to maintain itsenvironment in a favorable condition, a processincidentally involving the ruthless destruction or subjection of itscompetitors for the supply (assumed to be limited) of subsistenceavailable. We taught Prussia thisreligion; and Prussia bettered ourinstruction so effectively that we presently found ourselves confrontedwith the necessity of destroying Prussia to prevent Prussia destroyingus. And that has just ended in eachdestroying the other to an extentdoubtfully reparable in our time.It may be asked how so imbecile and dangerous a creed ever came to beaccepted by intelligent beings. I will answer that question more fullyin my nextvolume of plays, which will be entirely devoted to thesubject. For the present I will only say that there were better reasonsthan the obvious one that such sham science as this opened a scientificcareer to very stupidmen, and all the other careers to shamelessrascals, provided they were industrious enough. It is true thatthis motive operated very powerfully; but when the new departure inscientific doctrine which is associated withthe name of the greatnaturalist Charles Darwin began, it was not only a reaction against abarbarous pseudo-evangelical teleology intolerably obstructive to allscientific progress, but was accompanied, as it happened,by discoveriesof extraordinary interest in physics, chemistry, and that lifelessmethod of evolution which its investigators called Natural Selection.Howbeit, there was only one result possible in the ethical sphere, andthatwas the banishment of conscience from human affairs, or, as SamuelButler vehemently put it, "of mind from the universe."HypochondriaNow Heartbreak House, with Butler and Bergson and Scott HaldanealongsideBlake and the other major poets on its shelves (to say nothingof Wagner and the tone poets), was not so completely blinded by thedoltish materialism of the laboratories as the uncultured world outside.But being an idlehouse it was a hypochondriacal house, always runningafter cures. It would stop eating meat, not on valid Shelleyan grounds,but in order to get rid of a bogey called Uric Acid; and it wouldactually let you pull all its teethout to exorcise another demonnamed Pyorrhea. It was superstitious, and addicted to table-rapping,materialization seances, clairvoyance, palmistry, crystal-gazing and thelike to such an extent that it may be doubtedwhether ever before inthe history of the world did soothsayers, astrologers, and unregisteredtherapeutic specialists of all sorts flourish as they did during thishalf century of the drift to the abyss. The registered doctorsandsurgeons were hard put to it to compete with the unregistered. They werenot clever enough to appeal to the imagination and sociability ofthe Heartbreakers by the arts of the actor, the orator, the poet, thewinningconversationalist. They had to fall back coarsely on the terrorof infection and death. They prescribed inoculations and operations.Whatever part of a human being could be cut out without necessarilykilling him they cutout; and he often died (unnecessarily of course)in consequence. From such trifles as uvulas and tonsils they went onto ovaries and appendices until at last no one's inside was safe. Theyexplained that the humanintestine was too long, and that nothing couldmake a child of Adam healthy except short circuiting the pylorus bycutting a length out of the lower intestine and fastening it directly tothe stomach. As their mechanisttheory taught them that medicine wasthe business of the chemist's laboratory, and surgery of the carpenter'sshop, and also that Science (by which they meant their practices) wasso important that no consideration forthe interests of any individualcreature, whether frog or philosopher, much less the vulgar commonplacesof sentimental ethics, could weigh for a moment against the remotestoff-chance of an addition to the body ofscientific knowledge, theyoperated and vivisected and inoculated and lied on a stupendous scale,clamoring for and actually acquiring such legal powers over the bodiesof their fellow-citizens as neither king, pope, norparliament dare everhave claimed. The Inquisition itself was a Liberal institution comparedto the General Medical Council.Those who do not know how to live must make a Merit of DyingHeartbreak House was far toolazy and shallow to extricate itself fromthis palace of evil enchantment. It rhapsodized about love; but itbelieved in cruelty. It was afraid of the cruel people; and it saw thatcruelty was at least effective. Cruelty didthings that made money,whereas Love did nothing but prove the soundness of Larochefoucauld'ssaying that very few people would fall in love if they had never readabout it. Heartbreak House, in short, did not knowhow to live, at whichpoint all that was left to it was the boast that at least it knew howto die: a melancholy accomplishment which the outbreak of war presentlygave it practically unlimited opportunities of displaying.Thus were thefirstborn of Heartbreak House smitten; and the young, the innocent, thehopeful, expiated the folly and worthlessness of their elders.War DeliriumOnly those who have lived through a first-rate war, not inthefield, but at home, and kept their heads, can possibly understandthe bitterness of Shakespeare and Swift, who both went through thisexperience. The horror of Peer Gynt in the madhouse, when the lunatics,exaltedby illusions of splendid talent and visions of a dawningmillennium, crowned him as their emperor, was tame in comparison. I donot know whether anyone really kept his head completely except thosewho had to keep itbecause they had to conduct the war at first hand.I should not have kept my own (as far as I did keep it) if I had not atonce understood that as a scribe and speaker I too was under the mostserious public obligation tokeep my grip on realities; but this didnot save me from a considerable degree of hyperaesthesia. There were ofcourse some happy people to whom the war meant nothing: all politicaland general matters lying outsidetheir little circle of interest. Butthe ordinary war-conscious civilian went mad, the main symptom being aconviction that the whole order of nature had been reversed. Allfoods, he felt, must now be adulterated. Allschools must be closed.No advertisements must be sent to the newspapers, of which new editionsmust appear and be bought up every ten minutes. Travelling must bestopped, or, that being impossible, greatlyhindered. All pretencesabout fine art and culture and the like must be flung off as anintolerable affectation; and the picture galleries and museums andschools at once occupied by war workers. The British Museum itselfwassaved only by a hair's breadth. The sincerity of all this, and of muchmore which would not be believed if I chronicled it, may be establishedby one conclusive instance of the general craziness. Men were seizedwiththe illusion that they could win the war by giving away money.And they not only subscribed millions to Funds of all sorts with nodiscoverable object, and to ridiculous voluntary organizations for doingwhat was plainlythe business of the civil and military authorities,but actually handed out money to any thief in the street who had thepresence of mind to pretend that he (or she) was "collecting" it for theannihilation of the enemy.Swindlers were emboldened to take offices;label themselves Anti-Enemy Leagues; and simply pocket the money thatwas heaped on them. Attractively dressed young women found that they hadnothing to do butparade the streets, collecting-box in hand, and livegloriously on the profits. Many months elapsed before, as a first signof returning sanity, the police swept an Anti-Enemy secretary intoprison pour encourages lesautres, and the passionate penny collectingof the Flag Days was brought under some sort of regulation.Madness in CourtThe demoralization did not spare the Law Courts. Soldiers wereacquitted, even on fully provedindictments for wilful murder, until atlast the judges and magistrates had to announce that what was called theUnwritten Law, which meant simply that a soldier could do what he likedwith impunity in civil life, was notthe law of the land, and that aVictoria Cross did not carry with it a perpetual plenary indulgence.Unfortunately the insanity of the juries and magistrates did not alwaysmanifest itself in indulgence. No person unluckyenough to be chargedwith any sort of conduct, however reasonable and salutary, that did notsmack of war delirium, had the slightest chance of acquittal. There werein the country, too, a certain number of people who


<title>Monkeybone Script at IMSDb.</title><meta name="description" content="Monkeybone script at the Internet Movie Script Database."><meta name="keywords" content="Monkeybone script,Monkeybone movie script, Monkeybone film script"><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" /><meta name="HandheldFriendly" content="true"><meta http-equiv="content-type"content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"><meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="EN"><meta name=objecttype CONTENT=Document><meta name=ROBOTS CONTENT="INDEX, FOLLOW"><metaname=Subject CONTENT="Movie scripts, Film scripts"><meta name=rating CONTENT=General><meta name=distribution content=Global><meta name=revisit-after CONTENT="2 days"><link href="/style.css"rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb)

 Theweb's largest
movie script resource!

           Search IMSDb
<form method="post" action="/search.php">            <tdwidth="180">
                <input type="text" name="search_query" maxlength="255" size="15">                <input type="submit" value="Go!"name="submit">
	</form>

Alphabetical<tralign="center">        #         A        B        C        <ahref="/alphabetical/D">D        E        F        G        H<tralign="center">         I        J        K        L        <ahref="/alphabetical/M">M        N        O        P        Q<tralign="center">         R        S        T        U        <ahref="/alphabetical/V">V        W        X        Y        <ahref="/alphabetical/Z">Z

Genre
 ActionAdventure Animation
 Comedy Crime <ahref="/genre/Drama">Drama
 Family Fantasy Film-Noir
 <ahref="/genre/Horror">Horror Musical Mystery
 Romance <ahref="/genre/Sci-Fi">Sci-Fi Short
 Thriller War <ahref="/genre/Western">Western

  Sponsor

TV Transcripts
Futurama
 Seinfeld
 South Park
 Stargate SG-1
 Lost
 The 4400

International
 French scripts

MovieSoftware

 Rip from DVD
 <ahref="/software/rip-blu-ray">Rip Blu-Ray

Latest Comments
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith10/10
Star Wars: The ForceAwakens10/10
Batman Begins9/10
Collateral10/10
Jackie Brown8/10

Movie Chat
 <tdalign="center"><form class="yellbox" action="https://www.yellbox.com/addmessage.php" method="post" target="ybframe"name="yellform">  <input type="hidden" name="sub_username" value="imsdb"> <input class="yellbox" name="sub_name" value="Name" size=21 maxlength=10 onFocus="if(this.value == 'Name')this.value = '';return;">
 <textarea class="yellbox" cols=15 rows=4 name="sub_message" wrap onFocus="if(this.value == 'Message')this.value = ''; return;">Message</textarea>

 <buttononClick="javascript:makeNewWindow(); return false;"></button> <button type="submit" value="Post" onClick="returnclearMessageBox();">Yell !</button>
</form>

      ALL SCRIPTS

	<tdvalign="top">

                               MONKEYBONE                               Written by                                Sam Hamm                based on the comicbook "Dark Town" by                    Kaja Blackley and Vanessa Chong                                                           SEVENTH DRAFT                                                         3 FEBRUARY 1999FADEIN:MAIN CREDITS ROLLover BLACK SCREEN, with PORTENTOUS SPOOKY MUSIC underneath. Just as themusic reaches its crescendo, we hear a simian SCREECH.A BUCK-TOOTHED CARTOON MONKEYswings past on a vine. TITLE WIPES IN withhim:                             MONKEYBONE(tm)                                   in                            "FREUD CHICKEN!"TIGHT CLOSEUP - STANLEY (ANIMATED)APOCKETWATCH swings back and forth in F.G. Gaping at it is a goofy,bespectacled CARTOON CHARACTER, sucking his thumb as his EYES move backand forth. After a moment, the LEFT EYE freezes in place - but therighteye keeps going back and forth with the watch.                           SHRINK'S VOICE (o.s.)            Back, Stanley...you're going back...back to when            it all began. Are you going back yet? Come on,            getback, ve haven't got all day.Now BOTH EYES are locked in place. The patient is hypnotized.INT. SCHOOLROOM - DAY (ANIMATED)A squat, lumpy TEACHER, MISS HUDLAPP, is straining to erase theGettysburgAddress, which is written along the very top of theblackboard. There's an obtrusive, rhythmic BANGING noice in B.G.                           STANLEY (V.O.)            It was third grade. The teacher wasMiss            Hudlapp. She was kinda squat and lumpy - she            smelled funny - but she was kind.                           MISS HUDLAPP            CLASS!                 (turning aroundsuddenly)            How many times have I told you? In this class we            do not pound tenpenny nails into Stanley's head!REVERSE ANGLE - ON STANLEYHapless ten-year-old STANLEY, still goofy andbespectacled, in hisfront-row desk. NAILS stick out of his head. The FOUR MEAN KIDS poisedaround him lower their hammers and return to their seats, grumbling.A dreamy SMILE crosses STANLEY's face as he gazes atMISS HUDLAPP.                           STANLEY (V.O.)            You know how some teachers have those, kind of,            flaps on their arms - those big sacks of limp            flab that like, dangle?As MISSHUDLAPP pulls her sweater off, TWO MASSIVE ARM-FLAPS - fiftygallons of flab apiece - SPILL OUT and SMACK INTO THE FLOOR.MISS HUDDLAPP claps two erasers together, kicking up a cloud of dust.Young STANLEYwatches, transfixed by her massive ARM FLAPS. We TRACK INon the gigantic ARM FLAPS as they swing hypnotically back and forth,with a loud SLAP each time they collide.                           STANLEY(V.O.)            It sounds weird...but for some reason, as I            watched those big old flaps of hers, I began to            feel...well...oddly...Now we TRACK IN on the mesmerized STANLEY. A SONG comes upunderneath:Donna Summer, "I FEEL LOVE."                           STANLEY (V.O.)            ...aroused.                 (beat)            And then the horror began.DOINK! STANLEY looks down at his LAP in horror. Theboys and girlsaround him are pointing and tittering.Grimacing in embarrassment, he discreetly places a heavy TEXTBOOK ontohis lap, suppressing the bulge in his pants. But SPROING!! - the BOOKgoes flying across theroom. The BULGE is fighting back!The kids DUCK AND COVER beneath their desks as STANLEY slams a STACK oftextbooks onto his lap. It's no use - the WHOLE STACK goes flying, andBOOKS come raining down on theentire class! Now MISS HUDLAPP is staringdirectly at him...                           MISS HUDLAPP            Young man. What's that in your lap?She marches toward him. STANLEY pulls his BACKPACK over hislap.                           STANLEY (V.O.)            It was useless. Like putting a baseball cap on            the Washington Monument. And then...all at once            ...there he was.The BACKPACK bucks andwriggles, as if something inside is trying to GETOUT. And then - with a flourish of rousing disco strings - IT DOES!                           STANLEY (V.O.)            Monkeybone!!The libidinous cartoon monkeyBURSTS OUT of the backpack, POINTS at MISSHUDLAPP - and announces, in his Barry White baritone:                           MONKEYBONE            Oooo-oo-ooh, baby. I love your way.KC and the SUNSHINEBAND comes up underneath as MONKEYBONE DANCES to thefront of the class. He grabs MISS HUDLAPP by the hands and beginsdancing The Bump with her ARM FLAPS. Butt left, WHAP. Butt right, WHAP.The KIDS arebug-eyed - agog. With each WHAP their little heads turnback and forth as if they're watching a nude tennis match.INT. SCREENING ROOM - ON AUDIENCE (LIVE-ACTION)A roomful of LIVE HUMANS watchingthe cartoon, heads turning in syncwith the kids onscreen. TV-INDUSTRY HIPSTERS, AD EXECS, MANUFACTURER'SREPS...they're all guests at this sneak preview of the Monkeybone show,and they're LAUGHINGUPROARIOUSLY.In the midst of the crowd is a handsome young couple: JULIE McELROY andSTU MILEY. JULIE's a research scientist, brainy, professional,abnormally well-adjusted - and pretty enough that she'd beintimidatingif it weren't for a prominent goofy streak.STU is the one guy in the auditorium who isn't laughing at the cartoonon the screen. In fact, he's solemn as a judge - peering nervouslyaround to see how the rest ofthe audience is responding.Why? Because he's the cartoonist who created the characters on screen.In his looks (gangly, disheveled) and manner (sardonic, self-deprecating), he's the obvious model for the character ofSTANLEY.INT. CLASSROOM (ANIMATED)As the monkey dance continues, we ZOOM IN on the mortified face ofLITTLE STANLEY. His eyes begin doing the familiar HYPNO-SWIRL...INT. SHRINK'S OFFICE(ANIMATED)A CUCKOO pops out of a wall clock. ADULT STANLEY'S THUMB pops out of hismouth. He awakens from his trance in a cold sweat.                           STANLEY            How about it, Doc? Canyou help me?                           SHRINK            Not overnight. These imaginary monkey cases take            time. I vould estimate...roughly...On the desk is a CATALOGUE, open to a two-page spread depictinga 40-foot CABIN CRUISER. "NEW FOR SUMMER! ONLY $229,999.95!" With his freehand, the SHRINK is working a CALCULATOR...                           SHRINK            Twelve years and three months ought to doit.The SHRINK hustles STANLEY to the door and shakes his hand.                           STANLEY            One question, doc - what did you mean when you            said"imaginary"?                           SHRINK            All in good time, my boy. All in good time.The SHRINK shoves STANLEY out and slams the door behind him. Two beats.Then he doubles over, WEEPING withLAUGHTER.                           SHRINK            Vot a crackpot! Monkey on ze back - HAH!! ROLL            OUT ZE WACKY WAGON!!Now he notices a BACKPACK, which STANLEY has left on the couch.ItTWITCHES slightly - of its own free will.                           VOICE IN BACKPACK            Imaginary, huh? You quack.EXT. SHRINK'S BUILDING (ANIMATED)A WINDOW shatters. The SHRINK comeshurtling out. MONKEYBONE STRADDLESHIM like Slim Pickens riding an H-bomb, hootin' and hollerin' all theway down to the street.SPLAT! A gob of gore hits STANLEY in the face as he exits the building.He kneels on thesidewalk - finding a PIPE and a GOATEE.                           STANLEY            Aw, Monkeybone! At this rate I'll never find a            good shrink.                           MONKEYBONE            Those guys area waste of money! I'll show you            how to stop sucking your thumb...MONKEYBONE sticks his thumb in his butt as he and STANLEY toddle offinto the sunset.INT. SCREENING ROOM - THATMOMENTSTANDING O from the crowd as the cartoon ends and the lights come up.HERB, an all-purpose sidekick type, appears at the podium:                           HERB            Thank you...that's ourpilot...the good news is,            Comedy Channel has just picked us up with an            order for six new episodes!HERB leads a round of APPLAUSE. JULIE nudges STU - the only guy in theroom who's still in hisseat.                           HERB            Now, let's give it up for the guy who started it            all. Creator of America's most disturbed comic            strip...the man behind the monkey...Mister Stu            Miley!ASPOTLIGHT hits him, and he STANDS to tumultuous applause. He looksgenuinely stunned. He can't believe it's happening.JULIE surreptitiously PINCHES him on the bottom, giving him a start. SheWINKS at him. Heshoots her a small private smile - then turns to WAVEat the adoring crowd.INT. LOBBY - HALF-HOUR LATER - NIGHTSTU working his way through a crowd of well-wishers andFANS.                           STU            I don't actually draw all the animation, no. We            have sweatshop workers who couldn't get jobs at            Nike doing that.A beautiful, heavily-pierced FEMALE FANhands STU a marker.                           BEAUTIFUL FAN            Mr. Miley, would you draw Monkeybone on my            belly? As aguide?                           STU            Guide...?                           BEAUTIFUL FAN            For my tattoo artist?She exposes her taut midriff. STU thinks for a moment, then goes towork. When he'sdone, Monkeybone appears to be climbing out of thegirl's pants and WAVING to her. Nearby FANS APPLAUD.                           BEAUTIFUL FAN            Wait! You have to draw the rest of him -She beginsunbuckling her belt so STU will have enough room to drawMonkeybone's bottom half. STU demurs...                           STU            I - I have to, uh, check in with my doctor. DO-            OCCCC!!Hewanders across the room, finds JULIE deep in conversation with abunch of other GUESTS, and pulls her aside.                           STU            Hey, Doc. Come here. There's something really            cool I wantto show you.He grabs her by the sleeve, pulls her across the floor to -INT. ALCOVE - OFF LOBBY - CONTINUOUSThere's nothing "cool" about it - it's a stairway landing, with metalfire doors that open onto theparking lot outside.                           STU            See these doors? The cool thing is, you go out            ...they close...you can't get back in!He opens one door and holds it forJULIE.                           JULIE            You want to leave? But Stu - you're a big hit!            Everyone loves you!                           STU            They don't love me. They loveMonkeybone.                           JULIE            It was you who got the standing O. It was you            drawing on the belly over there...                           STU            That was especially Monkeybone.Come on, Doc, I            don't want to be stuck here with this bunch of            media creeps. I just want to be us. Home. Alone!                 (conspiratorially)            I have something I have to give