PARTISAN REVIEW
JOAN: Wish him back.
COHN:
If
life were only so simple.
JOAN: The first wish worked.
COHN: A trick.
JOAN: Are you afraid?
233
COHN:
(smiles)
Afraid? Of what? Of wishes? Of voices? The only
thing I'm afraid of us insanity. And that's a losing battle. Also
death. I'm afraid of death a little. Also age. Of all the possible
choices is that so much to be afraid of?
JOAN:
I
believe
in
your wishes!
COHN: That's reassuring.
JOAN: I do!
COHN:
(shakes his head sadly)
What do you know? Nothing. No
background. I'll make a bet, no education. What do you have for
credentials? Nothing!
FIRST AND SECOND VOICES:
Us!
CoHN: Less than nothing!
JOAN: I was once very much like you.
COHN:
(enraged)
Noone was
ever
like me!
(calms himself)
Don't
be presumptuous.
JOAN: I was sad all the time.
COHN: I'm not sad.
JOAN: In despair.
COHN: This isn't despair.
JOAN: What do you call it?
COHN: Realism.
JOAN: Then why is it so much like despair?
COHN: I didn't say they're not connected. But they're not the same.
With despair you fed there's rio hope so you might as well die;
with realism you feel there's no hope but you get a kick out of
it.
JOAN: I wanted to die!
COHN: See? We're oceans apart.
JOAN: I lived in a sea of despair–
COHN: Not the same!
JOAN: - with my wicked stepmother and her three wicked daugh-
ters.
COHN: Wait. You're confused. That's Cinderella.
JOAN: Exactly.
COHN: You're Joan of Arc.
