(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell)
...after a word from the American Duct Tape Council. (QUACKS)
(THEME)
TR: A hundred years ago, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, stood the mansion of the Astors, William and Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, the couple who defined New York society in the Gilded Age. (TEACUPS AND SAUCERS. MR. AND MRS. ASTOR SIT AT OPPOSITE ENDS OF A LONG TABLE, IN THOUGHT.)
SS: Did you enjoy your lunch, dear?
GK: Very much, thank you. It was lovely.
SS: I didn't know you cared for halibut.
GK: No, I do.
SS: You do?
GK: I do. Very much so. Yes, indeed.
SS: And you enjoyed the sauce, too?
GK: Very much so.
SS: Do you wish coffee, my love?
GK: No, I was thinking I might take a nap.
SS: A nap!
GK: Yes, a nap.
SS: I didn't know you enjoyed naps!
GK: I do.
SS: You do?
GK: Yes, I do. Absolutely. Love naps.
SS: Shouldn't you be on your way to the office, dear? It's past two o'clock.
GK: I think I might rather take a nap. Would you care to take a nap?
SS: I was intending to sit upstairs and read my book. It's a new one by Edith Wharton.
GK: You could take a nap first and then read your book.
SS: What has gotten into you that all you can think about is naps!!
GK: I thought it would be nice, since we're attending the opera tonight----
SS: Naps leave me feeling so irritable afterward.
GK: You could lie down and I could read Edith Wharton to you.
SS: I don't understand why we're discussing naps.
GK: It was only a thought. I'm sorry.
SS: What did you say?
GK: I said, I apologize.
SS: Oh.
GK: Would you consider coming down to this end of the table and sitting here next to me for awhile?
SS: You wish me to sit down at your end?
GK: Yes. So I don't have to shout. I hate shouting.
SS: I rather like this end. I'm more used to the light up here.
GK: Then do you mind if I come up to your end and sit there? Just for a moment?
SS: If you insist. (TWENTY OR SO FOOTSTEPS. SCRAPE OF CHAIR.)
GK: There. How's that?
SS: (TWO BEATS)
GK: There. How's that.
SS: I didn't know you had a mustache.
GK: I do. Of course I do.
SS: How long have you had that?
GK: Ten years.
SS: Oh, my.
GK: If we didn't have our own bedrooms in separate wings, my love, maybe we'd know each other better.
SS: Don't be silly. Every woman I know has her own bedroom, William.
GK: But yours has a moat, darling.
SS: With a bridge.....
GK: And a dog on the bridge. (SIGHS) Oh, never mind. Which opera are we attending this evening, my love?
SS: "Faust," my darling. By Gounod. Charles Gounod.
GK: Yes, right. ----- You don't suppose the Vanderbilts will be there?
SS:: The opera's in French. The Vanderbilts can barely speak English. They're railroad people, you know. I heard Mrs. Vanderbilt attempting to speak French once and it sounded like Dutch! (THEY LAUGH, BRITTLY) Dutch. Tres paysans. Imbeciles. Cochon.
GK: Cochon?
SS: Pigs.
GK: Oh. Cochon. Pigs. Of course. (LIGHT LAUGHTER) I do think my own French is passable, no?
SS: Quel superb, mon cher.
GK: Je pense un francais, ma femme. Mon bijou. (SS FLUTTER) Ma poulette (SS GIGGLE). Quelle est dormir, mon petit chou?
SS: What?
GK: Quelle est dormir, mon petit chou.
SS: What is that supposed to mean?
GK: Would you like to take a nap, my little cabbage?
SS: Cabbage is pronounced "shoe". Mon petit shoe.
GK: Ah. Pardon. Mon petit shoe. Would you like to take a nap?
SS: You're not going to your office this afternoon?
GK: I don't know. ---- What's the point? We have so much money. A person can only sleep in one bed at a time. (PAUSE TWO BEATS)
SS: I was speaking with Edith Wharton yesterday.
GK: Oh, really.
SS: She said that the Vanderbilts' mansion cost $1,750,000 to build and furnish.
GK: Really.
SS: They had entire rooms from chateaus and palaces brought over by boat from Paris and Venice. It is so nouveau-riche. So gauche. But they're railroad people. Baggage handlers. Porters.
GK: Paysans.
SS: You can take baggage handlers and put them into a Fifth Avenue mansion and they're still ---- baggage handlers.
GK: Yes, I'm sure you're right.
SS: Edith says they hauled over quite an art collection, too. She says they have a Rembrandt, a Rubens, a Van Dyke ----Dutch painters. Flatheads.
GK: ---- I heard they have a Botticelli.
SS: A Botticelli?
GK: A Botticelli.
SS: The Vanderbilts? They do?
GK: They do.
SS: A Botticelli?
GK: Yes. A Botticelli.
SS: It must be a very early Botticelli. An immature Botticelli. From his Dutch period. (THEY CHUCKLE TOGETHER) Listen to the traffic outside. I swear it gets worse and worse.
GK: It's quiet upstairs in my bedroom.
SS: Fifth Avenue used to be such a pleasant thoroughfare. And then the Vanderbilts came along with their carriages the size of meat wagons ----- and now it's nothing but a vulgar show of wealth. You may as well have people walking around waving fistfuls of money! It nauseates me.
GK: Perhaps you should lie down.
SS: I can't lie down, I invited Edith Wharton to drop in for tea.
GK: Today?
SS: Yes.
GK: When?
SS: In an hour or so. Do you care for her novels?
GK: I do indeed.
SS: You do?
GK: Yes, I do.
SS: I thought you didn't fancy her writing.
GK: I do fancy it. Some of it, I do. She does strike me as ironical, but it has a certain soupcon' of wit, surely.
SS: When she is being ironical, it's the Vanderbilts she's being ironical about. She told me so. She is devastating on the subject of the Vanderbilts and their provinciality. Edith is rather European in her taste. Very French.
GK: It's customary to take naps in France, is it not? It seems to me I read that.
SS: ---- William?
GK: Yes, my dear.
SS: I am much too upset to lie down now. I had to pass a socialist rally on my walk this morning.
GK: I'm sorry to hear that.
SS: A whole gaggle of them. A man on a soapbox shouting. Terrible things about the rich and so forth.
GK: Yes, I can imagine.
SS: A hairy little man in a dreadful suit, waving his arms and denouncing us. By name.
GK: They're moving up from Union Square. The police are helpless to prevent it.------ Mr. Vanderbilt was accosted by a socialist last week at the train station who jostled him and threw food at him.
SS: Really.
GK: Nobody could do a thing about it.
SS: Did he knock Mr. Vanderbilt to the ground?
GK: Yes.
SS: In the mud?
GK: There was a great large puddle right there.
SS: Oh my. Did he get quite soaked then?
GK: He was soaked with mud and manure.
SS: Lovely. And the man threw food at him?
GK: Yes.
SS: What sort of food?
GK: A pie. A cream pie. Hit him in the face.
SS: Lovely.
GK: Hmmmmm. The neighborhood is going downhill. ----What should we do if we see the Vanderbilts at the opera?
SS: They will not be at the opera. They haven't the French to understand a children's nursery rhyme, let alone an entire opera by Charles Gounod. They are cretins. Imbeciles.
GK: What if they should be there? What if Mr. Vanderbilt should come towards us with his hand outstretched? What do we do?
SS: Give him a quarter and say, "Bring me a cognac." (THEY CHUCKLE)
GK: Would you care for a cognac?
SS: Now? It's only two o'clock.
GK: You seem over-excited. It might relax you.
SS: Miss Wharton will be here, soon.
GK: We could rest for half an hour or so. It would do you good. To relax.
SS: You think so?
GK: I do.
SS: Well. If you wish.
GK: I'll have Andre bring the cognac. (HE RINGS A SMALL BELL. DOOR OPEN, CLOSE. FOOTSTEPS. CLICK OF HEELS.)
TR (FRENCH): Oui, monsieur.
GK: Andre, s'il vous plait ---- ce soir j'ai envie d'un cognac?
TR: Eh? Pardon? (RAPID FRENCH GIBBERISH)
GK: Deux glas cognac.
TR: (FRENCH GIBBERISH)
GK: Excusez-moi?
TR: Excuse me, monsieur, I thought that you spoke French.
GK: Andre. I speak excellent French. J'ai appris a parle a Paris. Pour qui vous prenez-vous? Vous rigolez! Bring the cognac upstairs. Two glasses, Andre. To my bedroom, please. And just leave them by the door. Thank you. (FOOTSTEPS, DOOR OPEN, CLOSE)
SS: I can't believe that you have a moustache.
GK: Do you like it?
SS: I do. Very much. I do.
GK: Mon cher----- mon petit chou. Shall we enchante???
SS: But only until Miss Wharton arrives.
GK: Of course.
SS: What's that noise outside like hammering?
GK: What noise?
SS: I can't sleep with that going on.
GK: Excuse me, love. (FOOTSTEPS. DOOR OPEN, CLOSE. FOOTSTEPS. DOOR OPEN. JACKHAMMER) Hey! Hey, shut that off! Hey, you! Shut it off! (JACKHAMMER STOP) (OUTDOOR CITY AMBIANCE)
TR (NYER): What's the problem? I'll be done in a couple hours. I'm just busting up the pavement.
GK: You can't do that. That's our driveway. That's where our carriage goes. Where is our carriage? And you've cut down my tree. My tree is gone.
TR (NYER): The tree was in the way. So was the driveway. We gotta building goin in here. I thought you people moved out months ago.
GK: Sir. I am William Astor.
TR (NYER): Never heard of it.
GK: A-s-t-o-r. Astor.
TR (NYER): I thought aster was a flower.
GK: Don't touch that driveway, I'm calling my lawyer immediately. I'll see you in court. (DOOR CLOSE) (FOOTSTEPS. DOOR OPEN, CLOSE. FOOTSTEPS)
SS: What is it? What's going on out there?
GK: It's nothing.
SS: Are the socialists marching on us?
GK: No, love.
SS: Are there crowds of people from Iowa standing at the gate taking flash photographs?
GK: No, there's a building going up in our front yard.
SS: What????
GK: The sign says, Trump.
SS: Trump!!!
GK: Trump.
SS: The Germans???
GK: Oui.
SS: Le sauvage!
GK: Exactement.
SS: Impossible!!!
GK: Le sauvage.
SS: The neighborhood is lost. It's gone.
GK: Come, my love. Mon amour! A couchette!
SS: La vie degenere.
GK: Liberte! Come to me, mon petit sauvage! (SHE GIGGLES AND LETS OUT A SHRIEK OF SURPRISE AS HE CARRIES HER) J'taime mon sauvage.
(MUSIC OUT)
Tape Council. (QUACKS) (GUITAR FINGERPICK BUTTON)
(c) 2000 by Garrison Keillor