The Immortal Story (Une histoire immortelle)

THE IMMORTAL STORY

In China...

in the Portuguese island of Macao...

there lived, toward the end of the last century,

an immensely rich merchant...

...whose name was Mister Clay.

He had a magnificent house

and a splendid equippage.

And he sat in the midst of both,

erect, silent...

...and alone.

Among the other Europeans he had the name of an iron hard man,

who had broken with his partner, a man called Louis Ducrot,

and then bankrupted him, and thrown him and his family into the street.

It would be a little manner of 300 Guineas.

But Louis Ducrot couldn't pay...

- And that was the end of it. - It was the end of Louis.

- He committed suicide. - And his family?

Well, there was a daughter some place but she ran away with a sea captain.

And, of course, old Clay had taken over the house. Poor Louis!

- He'd been proud of that house. - Proud? The objects of art in it.

He smashed and burned up every one of them before he left.

He said that nothing meant for the embellishment of life

would ever consent to live with the new master of that house.

Except the looking glasses... the ones he brought from France.

Those mirrors had reflected only happy and affectionate scenes

It would be his murderer's punishment, he said,

to meet, wherever he went, the portrait of a hangman.

Mr. Clay sat down to dine in solitude.

Face to face with his portrait.

He was not aware of any lack of friendliness in his surroundings.

The idea of friendliness

had never entered his scheme of life.

It was only natural that things should be as they were

because he had willed them to be so...

When he was seventy, he had fallen ill with the gout.

He couldn't sleep at night. His head clerk would sit up with him and read aloud

the bills, estimates and contracts of his business.

I have read to you all of the old account books twice over.

Shall I start again?

There are other kinds of books.

- Haven't you heard of them? - Other kinds of books?

Besides account books there are other things which people sometimes read.

What's that?

In the party of Jews who took me with them fleeing from Poland

there was a very old man.

Before he died, he gave me this.

Here, Mr. Clay, is something that I shall read to you.

"The wilderness and the solitary places shall be glad,

"and the desert shall rejoice and blossom

- "In synch even with joy ..." - That's not a book.

- "Strengthen ye the weak hand ..." - That's not a book at all.

It's what you have asked for. Something beside the account books.

"Strengthen ye their weak hands and confirm their feeble knees"

- Where'd you get it? - "say to them that are fearful hearted:

"'Behold your God will come with a recompense.'

"and in the wilderness shall waters break out."

What was all that?

Has it happened?

No.

Is it happening now?

No.

- Who put that thing together? - The prophet Isaiah.

The prophet!

I don't like prophecies.

People should only record things

when they've already happened.

This prophet of yours, when did he live?

Oh, about a thousand years ago, Mr. Clay.

People can record things, which have already happened.

Do you know what such a record is called?

- A story. - Yes, Mr. Clay.

I heard a story once when I first came out here to China.

One of the sailors told the others about a thing which had happened to him.

He told them a story.

A sailor was walking by himself near a harbor

when a carriage drove up and a rich old gentleman said to him.

"You are a fine looking sailor. Would you like to earn 5 Guineas?"

The sailor naturally answered yes and the rich old gentleman drove him to his house

and gave him food and wine

and said to him: "I am very rich.

"I'm very old and I don't trust the people

"who will inherit what I've saved up all my life.

"Three years ago I married a young wife.

"But she's been no good to me.

"I've got no child."

With your permission, Mr. Clay, I also can tell that story.

What's that?

The old gentleman led the sailor to a bedroom

which was lighted with candlesticks of pure gold.

Was it not so, Mr. Clay?

In the room there was a bed and in the bed there was a lady.

The old gentleman took from his purse a piece of gold.

A 5 Guinea piece, Mr. Clay, and handed it to the sailor.

How do you come to know this story?

Coming here to China, Mr. Clay, you travelled on only one ship.

So you heard the story only once.

- What's that got to do with my story? - From Gravesend to Lisbon,

there was a sailor on that ship who told the story.

On my way to Singapore, I heard another sailor tell that story.

The story they tell never happended

and that's why it is told. It never will happen, Mr. Clay.

I don't like prophecies.

Yes, Mr. Clay.

Goodnight, Mr. Clay.

I don't like pretense. I don't like prophecies.

I like facts!

If this story has never happened now.

Yes, Mr. Clay.

I want it to happen in real life

to real people.

Yes, Mr. Clay. To real people.

- Where do you want it to happen. - Here. In my own house.

I want to see it all with my own eyes.

I want to dine with the sailor in my dining room

I want to pick him out myself in the street by the harbor.

- It will involve expenses. - Yes. It's going to cost us some money.

You remember there's a woman in the story.

The young miss, I shall not be able to get you.

I'm paying you to do this work for me...

and it will be part of your work to find me this woman.

Yes, Mr. Clay.

This clerk might well have been a highly dangerous person

except that ambition, desire, in any form

had been washed and bleached and burnt out of him.

He was like some kind of insect: hard to crush,

even to the heel of a boot.

And yet, there were things not yet to be recounted

which moved like big deep water fish

in the depths of his dark mind.

He had only one passion:

a craving to be left alone.

His soul was concentrated on this one request,

that he might he might enter his little room and shut his door

with the security that, here, no one in the world could possibly follow him.

By the next day, he had decided on the heroine for the story.

In the town, she was called Virginie.

She was the mistress of another clerk in Mr. Clay's establishment,

- A young man named Simpson. - Charlie?

You remember, he asked me to buy you a shawl.

So I brought you some of them so you could choose the one you like.

Yes. Charlie didn't want to be seen in the shops buying such things for a woman.

Word of that might have got back to his family in Europe. So he sent you.

I don't suppose you've got a family in Europe? What's your name?

Levinsky. Elishama Levinsky.

I won't ask you what you want of me. You can tell me when you feel like it.

If you know Charlie, I suppose you work with him at the office...

- for the old American? - Yes, Miss Virgine.

How is he? The old man? I heard he was sick.

He's no well, Miss Virginie. He does not leave his house.

Good. Is he going to die?

Oh, no.

At least he is strong enough to make up new schemes.

With your permission, I'll tell you one of them.

He dislikes pretense. He dislikes prophecies.

He likes facts.

- Facts? - Yes.

But 50 years ago, on a ship, he heard a story told.

A sailor was walking by himself near the harbor

when a rich old gentleman drove up in a carriage and said to him:

"You are a fine looking sailor. Do you want earn 5 Guineas tonight?"

- That was in Benin. - Yes?

Not here in Macao.

I heard it from a friend of mine, an Englishman, merchant captain.

It happened to a sailor that he knew when he first went to sea.

Miss Virginie, this is a story that lives on ships. All sailors have told it.

It might have been left on sea and never come ashore if it hadn't been for Mr. Clay.

He made up his mind to have it happen in real life to real people

in order that one sailor in the world

shall be able to tell it, from begining to end, as it actually happened to him.

If he wants to play a comedy,

a comedy with the devil, it's a matter between the two of them.

- What's it to me? - Yes! A comedy. I'd forgotten the word.

There are three people in Mr. Clay's comedy.

The old gentleman, he will play himself and the young sailor...

he will himself find by the harbor.

But if an English merchant captain has told you this, Miss Virginie,

he will have told you that besides these two there's also a beautiful, young lady.

On Mr. Clay's behalf, I am now looking for this beautiful, young lady.

If she will come into this comedy and finish it for him,

Mr. Clay will pay her 100 Guineas.

Old Clay has got some pretty strange ideas of a comedy.

In a comedy, the actors pretend to kill one another... or to die...

or to go to bed with their lovers.

They don't really do any of these things.

You're master's like the Emperor Nero of Rome

who had people eaten up by lions.

- Yes? - Yes. Just to amuse himself.

- But since then it hasn't been done. - And was the Emperor Nero very rich?

Oh... he owned all the world.

- And were his comedies good? - He liked them himself, I suppose.

But nowadays, who would he get to play in them?

If he owned all the world, he would get people to play in them.

What does he pay you? 30 pieces of silver?

I am in Mr. Clay's employ. I cannot dare go anywhere but with him.

But you, Miss Virginie, you can go wherever you like.

- Yes. I suppose so. - Yes. You suppose so.

But you have been able to go wherever you like all your life.

I was so angry with my life today that I was planning to end it.

But now you are angry with me.