IT IS LATE evening in the big, low dining-room of a Montana ranch-house. The lighting is dim and issues mainly from concealed sections along the top of the walls. At the end of the room is an enormous fire-place in which a small inferno is raging and beside it, reading steadily with the aid of heavy horn-rimmed glasses, sits Bertha Ramshorn. She is dressed in a yellow sweater and pair of brown corduroy slacks. The room itself points the character of its owner. The walls are lined half way up from the floor with shelf after shelf of books and above these are mounted the stuffed heads of innumerable hunting trophies each bearing a small plaque with the name of the animal and the place where it was shot. Above the fireplace are crossed guns and swords and above these crossed fishing rods and a fishing creel mounted on a shield. The books in the bookcases are arranged alphabetically and beside the seated figure of Bertha Ramshorn is the P section. This section is filled with copies of ’Here and Now,’ ‘Sinner Take All,’ ‘Siesta,’ ‘To Shave or Shave Not,’ ‘Good-bye to Radius and Ulna,’ each book bearing under the title the writer’s name—Art Passaway.
Bertha Ramshorn looks startled as the door bursts open and Art Passaway enters the room waving a thick wad of paper above his head. His dress is informal and his eye is wild.
A.P. (calling excitedly): ‘Bertha, I say, Bertha. Where the devil are you, Bertha?’
B.R.: ‘Here Art. What is it?’
A.: ‘Look, Bertha, it’s finished … finished.’
B.: ‘Oh, Art! you mean … ‘
A.: ‘Yes, Bertha, here it is, the final draft of “Monotonously Tolls the Little Bell.” Ain’t that somethin’ to celebrate.’
B.: ‘Oh Art, how wonderful. And the title, why Art that’s superb. I didn’t know that you had found it. You must give it to me this very minute, the whole wonderful manuscript, and I’ll go and start typing it. You are wonderful you know, Art.’
A. (obviously inflamed): ‘Huh?’
B.: ‘Is it as good as “Siesta,” Art? You remember what I thought of that, Art, and how it brought us together and how Segment Missen called it one of the greatest prose works in any language. Is it as good as that, Art?’
A.: ‘As good as … what do you mean? As good as nuthin’. It’s better than … it’s the best, the all-time high in any language. It’s better than Woody Anderson or Johnny Come Lately Steinbeck or Bill Faulkner or Gertie Stein or that little runt someone was talking about the other day, what’s his name?’
B. (timidly): ‘Saroyan?’
A.: ‘Yeah, that’s the guy, Saroyan. What a name for a crap shooter. Hell, it’s better than Saroyan, it’s better than all those writers rolled into one. It’s a one man revolution of the Word.’
B.: ‘No one knows it better than me … than I, Art. And no one loves you better than (hesitating)… I.’
A. (emotionally): ‘Huh?’
B.: ‘Do you think the critics will like it, Art?’
A.: ‘Like it? Ha, they’ll love it. It’ll take us fishing in Florida and the Gulf Stream, it’ll take us hunting in Africa. (Sentimentally) It’ll be good to see old Kilimanjaro again with snow on the top. It’ll build us a bigger trophy room. This book will take us drinking in England and Paris, it’ll set old Tom Eliot on his ear, it’ll buy the kids a new pony each … it’ll set my name in mile high lights right down the middle of Broadway. Let’s have a drink, Bert.’
B. (setting out Scotch and soda): ‘Oh! Art, it sounds wonderful. Just wait a minute and I’ll get some ice from the ice-box. (Returning with ice-cubes and a pair of silver tongs). Go on Art.’
A.: ‘I guess it will get us just whatever we like to name, Bert. Gowns for you … Molyneaux, Worth, Schiaparelli, Perc Westmore down from Hollywood to fix your face and your hair, diamonds from Cartier … this is IT, Bert.’
B.: ‘Art!’
A. ‘And do you know what it finishes on … the book, I mean … do you know what the last words are, Bert?’
B. ‘No, Art, do tell me.’
A. (taking a seat near the fire): ‘Here, I’ll read it to you. Senta, Bertha, senta.’(Reading).
Bobby Noman lay behind the splintered log and the waves of pain made him sick and he couldn’t see the trail any more only hear the horses moving up through the snow with the sudden snorts as they stumbled over the broken ground. He waited for his head to clear. It had to clear. He had to see. Think of Camilla, he thought. And suddenly he found himself looking at the grey patch of snow and the heavy cavalry horses crossing it and he shifted the muzzle of the maquina slightly to the left aiming so that he wouldn’t hit the horses. Not the horses, he kept saying to himself, not the horses. The cartridge belt across his shoulder dug into him. He shifted slightly until he was lying square on the floor of the forest. (Laying down the manuscript). ‘That’s it, Bertha.’
B.: ‘It’s genius, Art. You know I’m not just saying that… I know how the word gets pushed around … but it’s just genius and there’s no other name for it.’
A.: ‘Do you get it though, Bert. Do you get the suggestion, the hidden implication?’
B.: ‘Yes, Art, oh, yes. I get it and it’s wonderful.’
A. (surprised): ‘You do? Gee, thanks rabbit. But let me expand it a piece for you. You see it really means a time of going back, of finding the old emotions, the old things of feeling, the primeval wonder, the mystery of blood, a rebirth, a twentieth century renaissance, grief perhaps, violence … but it’s not pessimism, Bert, it’s not that. It’s hope really, it’s something we have got to find for all time, it’s something shining on everyone, it’ll probably even shine on that two-bit hack whatsisname—what is his name?’
B. (timidly again): ‘Saroyan?’
A.: ‘Yeah, Saroyan. It’ll probably shine on Saroyan, too. Say why don’t we have him out here sometime? It’d shift some of that sawdust out of him to see these trophies—but, no—wait ‘til I get back from my next safari. Hunting with you in Africa. (Emotionally) Guapa.(They embrace).
(A.P. fills two glasses, squirts in soda and drops in cubes of ice with the shining silver ice-tongs. He hands one glass to B.R).
A.: ‘Well here’s a toast, Bert; here’s to “Monotonously Tolls the Little Bell”.’
B.: ‘Here’s to a great book, Art.’
A.: (examining her face to be sure that they are both speaking of the same book): ‘Down the creek, Bert.’
B.: ‘Down the creek, Art.’
A.: (murmuring): ‘HOLLYWOOD.’
B.: ‘What’s that, Art?’
A.: ‘Oh, nuthin’ Bert, just thinking.’
B.: ‘Oh.’