Chapter 11: Screenwriter

 Joseph's life thereafter was indeed as hard as Darcy estimated, living from day to day on nothing but black bread and a glass of water. This went on for about two months, and Joseph managed to get himself into a more bamboo-like shape.

 "Joseph, there is a theater troupe that has recently been preparing a comedy called "The Island Governor." Well, this story is from Don Quixote. I think your current figure is very suitable to appear in this comedy. As Don Quixote, the star in this comedy," Darcy smiled and said to Joseph.

 "Damn!" Joseph said. "Surely Don Quixote is not the main character in this play, is he? The main character should be Sancho."

 When he said that, he looked at Darcy up and down again and said, "I have to say, you need to make a big effort to be cast in a leading role."

 "Who says I'm playing the main protagonist? How is this possible?" Darcy said. "Sancho is a short, fat man, and I, though slightly shorter than you by a tiny bit, have nothing to do with me, either short or fat. Joseph, are you out of your mind or is there something wrong with your eye's? Or maybe it's because you're so fully in character that you can already see windmills as giants?"

 Joseph listened and laughed out loud, "Ah, Darcy, why is your brain so rigid? Isn't it the absurdity of comedy that makes it comedy? Darcy, you have to realize that the world is absurd and life is painful. That, my friend, is the reality of the world.

 In the old days, King Midas had looked long and hard in the forest for the companion of a wine god, the wise Silenus, but he could not find him. When Silenus finally fell into his hands, he asked him, "What is the best and most wonderful thing for people?" The wine god was dumbfounded and didn't say a word, and when King Midas forced him, he finally said this in magnificent laughter: 'Wretch of the morning and evening, son of changeless and sorrow, why do you force me to say what you had better not hear? The absolute best thing in the world is something you can never get—that is, don't descend, don't exist, become nothing. But for you, the next best thing you still have time to find is to hurry up and die! ' What a terrible story it is, and what do we see when we lift the mists that shroud the towering Olympus and expose its foundations to our eyes? We find ourselves confronted with the overwhelming fear of violence in the nation, the fate that reigns mercilessly over all knowledge, the eagle that torments Prometheus, the great lover of mankind. The terrible fate of the wise Oedipus, and the plague of the Atreus family that drove Orestes to matriculate. We see that behind the sacred solemnity of the Greek gods lurks, in fact, none other than the terrifying Titans. In order to be able to live due to this urgent crisis, the sensitive Greeks had to create a dream world with which to counteract the horrible reality. It's like Apollo holding Medusa's head high, thus making all sorts of horrible monsters retreat. At the same time, comedy and, indeed, all kinds of art are my dreams.

 Dreams can be absurd, and they even can be. Only the terrifying Medusa can scare off other scary monsters. So why are you stuck on Sancho being short and fat?"

 "Joseph, you abomination," Darcy said. "You are purely fooling people with your own learning. My head is spinning from you. While there seems to be some truth to what you're saying, the audience needs a beautiful dream, not a nightmare that scares them out of their wits. I don't think they would accept a tall, handsome Sanscho like me."

 "Indeed, Sancho's image and his intelligence create an interesting contrast, a contrast that elicits pleasure from the audience. It's true that there's no such contrast when you go straight up, but my friend, haven't you forgotten that there is one that, while it doesn't yet turn a Graeae (the three gray withes in Greek mythology who shared one eye and one tooth and were ugly to look at) into Helen. It does turn Helen into a Graeae, Joseph said as he smiled.

 "You're talking about makeup, right? But makeup changes a person's appearance at best, and how can you take a tall person and make them into a short person?" Darcy said suspiciously.

 "How can it not work? There's never a shortage of solutions to problems in this world, only a shortage of smart heads who can think of them," Joseph said as he fumbled with a pencil and a piece of sketch paper filled with math problems from a nearby table.

 "Look, let's make a whale blubber sketch," Joseph said as he drew on the manuscript paper.

 "This is..." Darcy's eyes widened. "Huw, that seems like it would work really well, but it's just too tiring for an actor to act that out."

 "It's a little difficult, but it's hard to find midgets who can act. But actors who can act and suffer a little difficulty can be easy to find, aren't they?" Joseph gave Darcy a look and said, "Of course, a guy like you who loves art but lacks the spirit to sacrifice for it certainly can't suffer like this. Besides, it would have the advantage that when the play was over and the actors came up to the stage for the curtain call, the actor who played the dwarf suddenly stood up straight, and the effect must have been very amusing."

 "Hehe, hehe..." Darcy laughed while storing the piece of paper Joseph drew and stuffed it into his pocket. "Joseph, you should apply for a patent in England for this design. But there's no point in applying it because France doesn't recognize British patents, and there's no legislation on patents in France."

 "So England is superior to France in technological invention," Joseph replied.

.....

 Two more days passed after this conversation. Darcy ran to Joseph and said again, "Joseph, that was a good idea you had last time. Especially the one at the end of the curtain call, when there was a lot of laughter down there. It works so well. I think Joseph you could still be a screenwriter. You know, those plays of the Greeks, the Romans, while they were good, a lot of them are too old and not really suited to today's stage. And the more recent ones from the Renaissance era, too. In addition, even the works of modern literary figure are often imitative of the ancients that they cannot really be performed on the stage without modification. So many theater troupes need a screenwriter. Most of these writers came from the ranks of ordinary actors who knew the stage well, but had a very low level of knowledge of the arts. So many theater troupes, in addition to having a writer who is an actor by trade, will go out and find a writer who has enough taste in the arts for them to collaborate with each other. Like that 'Dragon and Rose theater troupe that performed 'The Island Governor' last time, they'd like to hire one of those writers nowadays. Also, many artists get their start in this position. But, you know, I'm busy, and it's just that time of the year you need the money. It's just that Joseph, my friend, do you have the energy, the time to do this work now?"

 "Ah, thank you so much, my friend, my friend," Joseph said gratefully. "As for energy and time, my friend, these two things, like water inside a sponge, can always be squeezed out a little with a hard squeeze."

 "Joseph, you know what? One of the fun things about talking to you is that there are always some extraordinarily philosophical things to hear from you. You're actually a very interesting guy, and if you didn't intentionally act like a clergyman, you'd be a hit with the girls. Of course, it may still be a little worse than me, but it's definitely better than Rafa. You see, Lucien already has a mistress."

 "Rafa has a mistress too?" The sudden news had taken Joseph by surprise. For a while, Rafa's family was quite a bit richer; he had very little money at his disposal that he could move, and his father wouldn't have supported him in keeping a mistress by any stretch of the imagination.

 "Of course," Darcy said with a frown. "Just know I met Rafa's with his new coat and hat and his shiny new shoes, wrapped up within his clothes, near the church of St. Genevieve, with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, and so woodsy that he didn't hear me when I said hello to him. I saw that apprehensive yet expectant look on his face, both like he was going to a thesis defense and like a general preparing to head off to war. Ah, that look is so familiar to me—because I've seen it so much. I have given this state a biological name, 'estrus'. Well, that's what Rafa is stuck today. I'm sure he's got a little mistress. There's absolutely nothing denying that!"

 "By the sound of that, you're not sure?" Joseph said. "That's not lying to you. Did you not sneak up behind Rafat to see what sort of girl it was that could charm him once?"

 "Of course I went along; I had thought the fellow would go into the little garden at the back of the church to have a rendezvous with his little mistress. At the time I thought, "This kid really knows how to find a place. 'I didn't realize he actually got into a public carriage over there and..."

 "And then you lost them, didn't you?" Joseph laughed.

 "That's right. But I'll be sure to find out what kind of grace could charm our Rafa like that." Darcy laughed.

 "Ah yes, the head of the Dragon and Rose troupe, Mr. Denardi, would like to meet you sometime and buy you a cup of coffee. See when you can find the time."

 "How about Sunday afternoon? I don't have much to do that afternoon," Joseph replied.

 "Well, then, I'' go and make an appointment with Mr. Denardi. Uh, do you have any requirements for the location?"

 "I'm okay with any place," Joseph replied.