PARTISAN REVIEW
491
PETER: Photographs show us the flatness of our bodies. They're
really two-dimensional, our bodies. They would be one-dimensional
if they could be, but unfortunately one-dimensional things are
invisible. The soul is one-dimensional, if it exists. That's why I like
photographs and the apparatus that makes photographs possible.
I'm grateful to you for coming here this afternoon!
FATHER
(abruptly):
Get away from there!
PETER
(cringing, fawning, mocking)
:
Are you afraid I'll contaminate
your machine?
FATHER: I don't want you touching it.
PETER: My fingers are absolutely clean. I'm sterile inside and out.
You're a doctor and you think people must be crawling with germs,
and only you can save them. But I'm absolutely clean.
FATHER
(confused):
I'm sorry ... for losing my temper. ... I
haven't slept for a while.... And what
is
that, that noise? I keep
hearing a noise. . . .
PETER: Just a faucet. Does it make you nervous?
FATHER: A faucet ...?
SHELLEY
runs to the sink. She tries to stop the water by sticking
her finger up the faucet.
SHELLEY
(laughing):
Nothing can stop this! We need a plumber
up here. It's been dripping for weeks, it's made the sink rusty,
there's a rust-colored ring in the sink. ... In a few more weeks it
will wear the sink away and leak out onto the floor.
FATHER: I'm a little nervous, my hands are shaky....
PETER: It's too bad you haven't slept. Would you like to sleep here,
on our mattress? We'd be very quiet - we'd tiptoe around and
speak only in whispers.
FATHER: No ... no.... I want to ... I want to show Shelley these
things, and then I'll leave if she wants me to....
FATHER
sets up the apparatus, moving clumsily.
PETER
(goes briskly to the right to turn off the lights, so that the
stage is dim but not dark; he returns to center stage, rubbing his
hands):
I'll turn off the lights! Excellent! So you want to interfere
with our souls, eh? You want to display yourself to us? You know,
in antiquity the gods did not interfere with souls; they were content
to maim bodies. You might be walking out in ordinary sunlight and
a hand would grab your hair and lift you up into the sky - no
surprise! You had to expect such things. Or, because two gods
loved you, you might be gored to death by an animal with fabulous
