FREDDY: All our enemies are dead. I am the Sultan of Bakou. I take possession of this mountain.

ANNIE: Long live the Sultan of Bakou! Say it, Roy, say it.

ROY: Long live the Sultan of Bakou!

FREDDY: You will be my Sultana.

ANNIE: Give me the rings.

FREDDY: Here they are.  And you, you must bless us.

ROY: Kneel (the cat escapes from the bag.)  My cat! Help me catch it. Annie, come on. Help me catch it.

FREDDY: You'll find another.  Calm down, Roy.  Come do the wedding.

ROY: I have to catch my cat. I promised the Chinaman. Each time, he gives me a buck. Wait for me, this won't take long. (He exits.)

ANNIE: It's always like that with him.

FREDDY: Well, the wedding is done. What do we do now?

FREDDY: Where to?

ANNIE: Turkestan, Pakistan, Kurdistan, Balouchistan, Afghanistan … the Bahamas.

FREDDY: O.K. honey! All of the Earth is ours.

ANNIE: Get on the jet plane.

ANNIE: We're gonna go, huh, Freddy! It starts in the feet. My toes tingle. I'm a little scared. I'm scared. But willing. Hold me tight, my Sultan, it's my first time. My knees hurt. My stomach's upside down. I'm all wet. I must catch my breath … Let's go home? No, I want to, I want to, I want to for real. Ah! There we go, the big engines are starting up. They make an unbelievable racket. Everything shakes, shakes. My belly shakes. Stop. No don't stop. We can't stop. It quickens. I'm pushed on my back, my legs tighten. I can no longer escape. I'm trapped. It's moving forward, such force, faster and faster, it pushes through and … lift off. I can't hear a thing. I can't see a thing. I can't feel a thing. I'm scared. I wanna go home. No. No. No. No… Yes! That's it. We're off. It's over.
‍
I am far, very far, far above. Look! There's my house with its backyard? No bigger than a matchbox. The big ash trees on my street are like so many blades of grass all in a row. My whole neighbourhood [is nothing but] a crossword grid.  [And] The city is a big birthday cake with square candles. The river? A silver belt. I see the mountains flatten out. I see the fields, the forests, the lakes, the glaciers. They all fit snug against each other and bedeck the globe with multicoloured drawings. O but the clouds! Cotton, softness, bed. We descend. We plunge through. Oum! A storm. Waoum! Lightening. It's magnificent. Everything lights up and fuses in firework. And now everything goes quiet. The descent is smooth. We alight in the desert. I already feel the dry wind upon my face, the hot wind of Azerbaïdjan. We've arrived. (They descend from their mount.) Now, help me pull our ship under the palm trees.

MADAME ROBERGE: Won't they get it over with all this damn construction? There's sand everywhere, on all the staircases.

JUDITH: It's not so bad. The children play in it, which is better than their fighting on the balcony.

MADAME ROBERGE: What about me? I got to vacuum twice a day!

JUDITH: Oh you're just not in a good mood this morning, Emma.

MADAME ROBERGE: Why did she have to redo her whole first floor? What's got into her? It's her widowhood, for sure, made her so ambitious! Who does she think she is, Lady Ragone, the Queen mother renovating her palace. She wants to humiliate us with all this construction.

JUDITH: Give it a rest, Emma Roberge. You know very well that it was all falling apart. Government inspectors came by last winter. They said that the fire exit wasn't safe.

MADAME ROBERGE: Ah, that's a good one! Catherine Ragone scared of fire! But the fire in her belly, that doesn't scare her much. No sirree . I saw her yesterday at the Provigo with her cousin Leopold and let me tell you, my girl, it looked like they were getting along just fine. Hand in hand, starry eyed, wet lips …

JUDITH: O come on, Emma, he's her cousin!

MADAME ROBERGE: All the more reason. Vice is in their blood. The Ragone vice. The vice that killed our sister Angela.

JUDITH: Now, don't start up with that story. Angela died years ago.

MADAME ROBERGE: For me, she's still here. I dream about her every night.

JUDITH: Come on. I'm pressed for time. Now, what are you waiting for?

MADAME ROBERGE: Her own Buckingham Palace, as Peter Williams would say, your parson of a husband. Her own royal palace! One day or another, I'll set fire to it, emergency exit or no, government inspectors or no.  O how I would love for their house to fall about their ears and see them both out on the street, Catherine Ragone and her little runt.

JUDITH: Why do you hate them so much? Whatever did she do to you? She's your niece, after all.

MADAME ROBERGE: She's no longer my niece. From the moment she got laid by that captain of dragoons, she stopped being my niece. I warned her. She shouldn't have done it. She had no right to strengthen the house of Ragone. She betrayed Angela, she betrayed her entire family the day she gave birth to that whelp.  Her little shit, Richard. I see him growing like a foul weed in our backyard. His mind is as twisted as his body. He'll kill us all, I tell you. He'll kill you, me and your children.

JUDITH: My children can fend for themselves. Don't you worry.

MADAME ROBERGE: They can't even imagine how evil he is.

JUDITH: Roy is no choirboy, either. You can bet on it.

MADAME ROBERGE: And Annie? Aren't you afraid for her?  Annie is such a sweet, simple little girl. You better kake sure that Richard doesn't get his hands on her.

JUDITH: O come on, don't exaggerate. They're kids. They play in the yard, between cousins. That's all.

MADAME ROBERGE: Ah but that vice! That Ragone Vice! It's a family thing. It passes down the line. And what is the line of Filippo Ragone? Do you know? Well, I'll tell you if you don't. It's worse than the Indian plague, the Hong Kong flu, the High-plains itch. It gets into everything like grains of  sand. Slips in through all the cracks, blown by an ill wind. It multiplies and proliferates. It's a rising tide, a ground swell of rats invading cities in rows twelve broad. That vile race swarming on the surface of the globe with its needs, its stench, its weapons held high, all snickering. Stop all this, females of the world! Plug up your holes. Drop all of your eggs grade-A and extra large. Halt! Stop! Strike! We're through. There are too many cockroaches in the pantry. There are too many buttered up piston thrusts in the bedroom. And for what? A swarm of cockroaches.

JUDITH: Catch your breath, Emma! Calm yourself a bit. You're all upside down. Maybe you're saying all this because you've never had children yourself.

MADAME ROBERGE: I've had some. They all croaked in my belly.  I didn't have that magic touch. I wasn't the right size meat bag for them. But I don't regret it, hell no. Because of that, I can see more clearly. In any case, more clearly than any of you mother hens do, all of you roosting chicks in the close confines of your coop. And I've had two men as well. Both died. I don't want to think of it. I don't want to know nothing. I'm through with men. They've crossed my life like an April storm: mud everywhere but it don't last long. I am Emma Roberge. They call me Madame Roberge, and nobody ever got that wrong. I've never been a Madame Couillard or Missus Widow Marchessault. Couillard and Marchessault are both in their graves underground. While I still walk on top in my 8 1/2.

JUDITH: Roy and Annie are alive. They are the children of Peter Williams, my husband. When he comes back from Brazil, he'll say "Look how they've grown!" and then we'll go, all four of us in a row, praise the Lord in the Methodist church with 3-voice hymns. I always loved music.

MADAME ROBERGE: Peter Williams is never around. It's his one advantage.

JUDITH: He'll come back soon.

MADAME ROBERGE: You're pretty smug!

JUDITH: Yes, I am.

MADAME ROBERGE: What's the matter with you all, by Saint-Christopher's sacristy? What's itching you so — you, of all people, Judith Roberge, my sister — what urges you like so much sauerkraut to line your innards with wieners? Was that what you had in mind when you sang your ballads at the Café Spartacus! You could have been a star, the queen of western yodeling. You could have stood tall on your highwire. But no! You had to go horizontal! and from horizontal to rotund! all in the space of a fortnight. For shame!

JUDITH: Stop it. You're upsetting me.

MADAME ROBERGE: Don't say that I ain't right. Don't say that it ain't your little tryst with Marc Lemieux that ended your singing career. And for what?

JUDITH: My son went down the river in his wicker basket. And now Moses is king of an island.

MADAME ROBERGE: And what about you? You're still here, nothing but a slave, peeling potatoes while waiting for the return of your crusader.

JUDITH: Emma, I'm leaving you now. You are too cross. I'll go make dinner.

MADAME ROBERGE: Richard's reign has already begun and you don't realize it. So keep dreaming of your Moses, your long lost child: yet another avenger, yet another tyrant. Whilst I, I won't let myself be crushed by nobody.

FREDDY: It is morning. The sun arises on our victory.

ANNIE: Our troops conducted themselves admirably. The dragoons are all dead, the old cathedrals are destroyed, the tyrant has fled and won't come back.

FREDDY: We should have strung him up from the top of the minaret.

ANNIE: No. It is good that our new realm does not begin with a killing. Everything must change, even justice, even death.

FREDDY: Death no longer exists.

ANNIE: We, the guiding-couple, brother and sister, children of Ptolemy, extending our gaze over the whole inhabited earth, our call spreading out as far as the farthest caravan pushing out into the surrounding desert, we propose, rule and proclaim the inexistence of death!

FREDDY: Each day is eternal! Each place, immense! Each being, irreplaceable.

ANNIE: We have now come to the origin, the root of all things, the Eden betwixt the two rivers, the Tiger (sic) and the Euphrates which, like two tamed monsters, mix their waters to invigorate the luxuriant garden.

FREDDY: Look around you, there is nothing but dry sand.

ANNIE: It will re-flower. We will summon our brothers and cousins from the Caspian sea and the Ural.

FREDDY: Our sisters and aunts, our companies from the shores of the Indus where the mysterious flower grows.

ANNIE: The peoples clad in black that on yam and manioc feed.

FREDDY: And the fisherfolk of the islands riding their dugout canoes with outriggers.

ANNIE: And the silent women pointing out the face of the Andes whereon each day the morning sun reappears.

FREDDY: The bespectacled Japanese.

ANNIE: The honey-breasted Swedes.

FREDDY: And the natives of the great archipelago whose entire body - from their darkish toes to their almond eyes - joyously call out: "Philippines".

ANNIE: The Amazons!

FREDDY: The polygamous Indians!

ANNIE: The Zulu and the Kafir with their tattooed genitals.

FREDDY: The mountain dwelling Meos in their poppy fields.

ANNIE: The dreamy Mongols, descendants of Genghis Khan.

FREDDY: The pastors, the settlers, the warriors, the hunters, the scholars and the philosophers.

ANNIE: The bearers, the midwives, the givers, the nursemaids, the wise women, the witches, the priestesses and empresses.

FREDDY: All the mouths of the whole wide world that eat, drink, salivate, kiss, bite, breath and — supreme destiny — speak.

ANNIE: All those hands made to grasp and caress, to hold in and push out, to bind, sow and knead; hands outstretched to the call, softened by absence, chapped by frost, soothed in oil, gloved in ignorance, or armed with pikes and needles; all those hands joined by desire or in prayer; tense with fear; hands of sleep, of defiance, of pleasure, of loss; welcoming hands, working hands; we summon you all!

FREDDY: Let the trumpets blow. The camp of the Golden field is set, and in our tent we await our allies.

FREDDY: The Queen of Sheba!

MARIE-JEANNE: I heard your call. I have come.

ANNIE: You are very beautiful.

MARIE-JEANNE: Yes, I am beautiful. The new world begins. I had to be here. I left my dead city at the calling of the trumpet. At every gate, the watch slept. They did not see me escape. My people, made up of old men, might perhaps miss me, but they could not hold me. My beauty was no longer for them. Of what use is beauty if not to join with the youth of world? As I walked in the desert, all the stones straightened before me. They showed me the way. They said "Over there!" I obeyed.  And so this is the appointed place, the central knot, the omphalos of the world, the meeting place and starting point of pure hope. Everything is possible. Nothing yet exists.

ANNIE: And here comes my brother from the North. His sword shines in the sun.

FREDDY: Why do you come thus armed? You have no enemies among us.

RICHARD: My sword is not for war. It is a ray of light. It is made to cut through what is muddled, to slice through restraints. It points to the mean and is called justice. Straight, pointing to the sky, without fail. It is the needle between the scales that indicates the true weight of deeds, the keeper of equipoise. It extends my hand and provides it with a tip unique and minuscule. My sword, with its blade chops through all my doubts and concentrates my strength in its extremity.

MARIE-JEANNE: King of the North, I heard tell of your wisdom and these words confirms your reputation. But I ask: just for a moment — to please me — won't you stick your sword in the sand and bury its point so acute. I want your open hand, spread-fingered like a banana leaf. The shade is cool beneath it.

RICHARD: You are beautiful, my beloved, like a desert gazelle, like the panther of our forests.

MARIE-JEANNE: You are beautiful, my beloved, like the baobab and the breadfruit.

RICHARD: Your eyes are the two golden pins that enhance the silken veils of the women of Cappadocia.

MARIE-JEANNE: Your bare chest is as the watchtower of the palace of Babylon. Smooth and tall.

RICHARD: Your breasts are clusters of grapes. Their skin is soft and warm.

MARIE-JEANNE: Your arms are two [long]bows at rest.

RICHARD: Your belly is a smooth dune surrounding a dry well.

MARIE-JEANNE: Your two thighs are pillars holding up the frame.

RICHARD: Your hips are the hills hiding the valley.

MARIE-JEANNE: Your sex is a scaleless fish.

RICHARD: Your garden harbours all aromas. Who could explore it without delight or drunkeness?

MARIE-JEANNE: I have escaped from the city, shoes in hand. None of the guards who watched over the gates could stop me. My shy sister saw me up on the battlements. She called to me "Where goest thou? Whither dost thou flee like a thief making off with her treasure?" My shy sister wept on the battlements — Silence, shy sister, I go to join with my beloved, the treasure I take with me cannot be spent nor depleted. Come morning, tell the guards, climb up the tallest tower and tell the people: "My sister has vanished into the night, she has taken her treasure. Do not seek to catch her, for she is fleeter than the doe, more ardent than the southern wind, subtler than the serpent. My sister has escaped from our walls never to return. Lock yourselves now into your homes and tell her story".

RICHARD: I come from the highlands, where forests fail to climb up the slopes and touch the sky. Each evening, at the hour when the light reddens, I gazed at the broad southern plains in the distance stretching away through the gloaming, long before us. Then fires would light up here and there as so many flecks of life fighting off the shadows. And I waited for the signal. Each evening, desire violently swelled within my breast, full of expectation and tireless hope. I was akin to that astronomer who, tiring of the well-ordered universe, secretly prays for a dazzling comet.  Then, one night, I saw the hill facing me suddenly set ablaze; and, further, another, and farther still another one. A chain of lights making straight for me, intensifying, showing me the way. And: Ohyayhoowaoomatiyoleya! My cry made me tumble from the [rocky] spur. I laughed, I cried, I jumped, I danced.  With only my sword I descended to the pastures, I crossed the forests, cutting my way through the bushes, I forded the rivers, ran through the savanas. I confronted the Minotaur who watches over the mountain passes of the Rockies. Islew him. At last, I covered the sandy paths that lead to you.

MARIE-JEANNE: My king!

RICHARD: My queen of Araby!

FREDDY: Fair is the meeting of these two singular souls, let heaven rain blessings upon them.

ANNIE: We celebrate you compact as a joyful presage of universal harmony.

FREDDY: But I see coming toward us our cousin from the western shores. (Roy enters carrying his bag. He salutes everyone.)

ROY: Here is my gift.

ANNIE: O beauty of untarnished things! O coolness of metal! O light!

FREDDY: And now, let our dancers delight us, so that our meeting end with joy.

CATHERINE: What do you think it is you're doing, you kids? Hurry up and put away your junk. It's time to go home.

RICHARD: Come on, mom, we still got time.

MARIE-JEANNE: We're just having fun, Missus Premier.

CATHERINE: Go home, I tell you! And, Richard, you can start by putting your shoe back on. The doctor said that you shouldn't walk barefoot. Get going now, Marie-Jeanne, your parents will be worried. Come back tomorrow. (Richard puts on his orthopedic shoe. Catherine uncovers the twins who rush to put their clothes back on.) Well well well, what do we have here, the twins! What's this? What were you doing? All nikked! What are you playing at? You put your clothes back on right this minute. What kind of behaviour is this? Will you look at that, just look at that! Don't you even dare think that you can play your dirty games in my backyard!

SANDY: We weren't doing nothing wrong, Missus Premier.

NELSON: That's right, Missus Premier, we weren't doing nothing wrong. We were just having fun.

CATHERINE: Fun or no fun, that's enough! I'll tell you're aunt, you hear me, I'll tell your aunt. In any case, it's over, it's all over, I don't want to ever see you back here again. You go play your dirty games in your own place. Marie-Jeanne, go on home. (Richard exits.) And the same goes for you two Williamses and your vile Roberge clan, understand? Get out. And as for you, Roy, I saw you, got it, I saw you. You're the one who mutilated Missus Dubois's cat. When he came home, he only had one ear left.

ROY: It wasn't me, Missus Premier.

CATHERINE: Don't you talk back to me, you little shit! I don't want to ever see you back here again, understand? Everybody out! Go play out on the street! You dirty kids, dirty kids, dirty, dirty, dirty. Goddamn fucking dirty kids.

RICHARD: I, I Richard Premier, son of François who died at war! (He plays in the sand, traces mysterious lines in it.) I, Richard, son of François Premier and of Catherine Ragone, the queen mother, herself daughter of Filippo Ragone,  known as "the Moron", the immortal one. (He plays in the sand, traces other lines.) I, the grandson of Filippo Ragone and Angela Roberge, daughter of the gold King, old man Roberge, Lord of Abitibi (He traces more lines.). I, me, I, Richard here, the present Richard, the only Richard! What means these lines in the sand? They all lead to me [is what]. They all point me out. Safe one. [This one] The line that extends out the belly of Augustine Labelle who died in childbirth, my father's first wife. The insufferable line that bears a name at it tip like a poacher's fish on a rod: Alcides Premier.
It is not right that my father being dead there remain two Premier on earth. I cannot bear another Premier. The name of Alcides burns my tongue like unripened fruit, like bitter lemon. Alcides Premier cannot live when Richard lives. And Richard will be second to none.
Hold, my heart! What's done is done. But this link that injurious nature as wrought, slow cunning and resolve can sever again. (He plays again in the sand.)
Alcides! What does he have that I don't? The privilege of having been born first into the world? Et alors! What does that mean? From the day of my birth arises the ladder of my own time. My eye and my hand alone create the world wherein I live. Nothing existed before me and nothing exists without me. All that matters is the mark I leave upon the ground. (With his orthopedic shoe, he rubs out the sand drawings.)
They say that he is strong. That he is handsome. So? What's that all about? Is it so glorious for him to have untimely ripped his mother's womb, Augustine Labelle who died in childbirth? What credit does it lend him? in what bank? That of a brute with oversized shoulders.
Some call him Hercules. They tell prodigious tales about him. They speak of his exploits, of his conquests. They tell of the snakes he strangled in his cradle, of the Cretan ox he tamed, of the giant he choked on the shores of lake Memphrémagog, of the women he charmed all over the place…
Well I, Richard Premier, I who was born stunted, ugly, twisted and disgraced, I, the son of Catherine Ragone, through my cunning will re-conquer the throne that by nature and ill fortune I have been dispossessed.
Come, sun, cease not to light up this crippled body of Richard, for Richard will one day rival thy radiance!

MARIE-JEANNE: Come on Richard. Come with us. We're leaving.

RICHARD: And where's you all going?

MARIE-JEANNE: To Azerbaijan. We're the gang of the Sultan of Bakou.

RICHARD: And who is the Sultan of Bakou?

MARIE-JEANNE: It's Freddy. Huh, Freddy, aren't you the Sultan of Bakou?

FREDDY: Call my troops to a halt! I see on this mound our brother in arms, the emir of Tabriz whom we almost had forgotten. The more numerous we are, the better it will be. Come with us, emir.

RICHARD: I don't feel like it.

MARIE-JEANNE: You don't feel like it! You prefer your mother's skirts! Playing with your turtle! O my friends! He does not much resemble his brother, my legitimate husband Alcides the great, Alcides the strong. Always the first to lead, the first to fight, the first on his horse riding through the plains. Alcides would never answer "I don't feel like it" when the caravan calls to him from below his window. Stay warm at home, poltroon! You are not worthy of accompanying the legitimate spouse of Alcides Premier!

RICHARD: I am the emir of Tabriz. Beware all! Don't you step on my foot: it is of steel. Robert, you'll be my second. March on! And you, my sword, point the way!

FREDDY: We welcome the emir of Tabriz! March on!

JUDITH: You have greatly wronged me, Queen Catherine, by spreading such unfavourable rumours about my children, Roy and Annie.

LOU BIRKANIAN: You have greatly wronged me, Catherine, by dismissing from your court my wards, Sandy and Nelson, two children whom the heavens have entrusted into my care. I thought you more generous.

MADAME ROBERGE: You have greatly wronged me, Catherine Ragone, daughter of Filippo Ragone, known as the Moron, by saying that the children of my sister are of the "vile Roberge clan". I want reparation.

CATHERINE: You are all wronging me, Ladies, assembled thus as so many gurgling turkeys, screeching like crows, all three of you slobbering out of spite, jealousy and hate. Do you think that this display impresses me. Think again.  I will reply to your insults by borrowing a saying from you ancestors, Lou Birkanian, a saying still current in Asia Minor: "The dog barks, the caravan passes".

LOU BIRKANIAN: Make fun of my ancestors, why don't you, Catherine, but do not wrong the children. I say this with neither spite, nor hate.

JUDITH: No doubt the queen mother was all too happy to belittle her kin.

MADAME ROBERGE: Once again, lady Ragone snubs the Roberge children.

CATHERINE: Williams!

MADAME ROBERGE: Roberge!

CATHERINE: They are Williams! The children of Peter Williams! That hollow blesser, prayer mutterer, tithe sweeper, Peter Williams in his clerical collar, that priest-husband [of yours] off on his missionary work in Brazil. There are no Roberge children. There had been only one before the miraculous apparition of Peter Williams, only one and you know it, Judith. And you know what you did with it.

JUDITH: Viper!

CATHERINE: Slut!

LOU BIRKANIAN: Come, my sisters, stop here. Your words go beyond your thoughts.

MADAME ROBERGE: O! How I wish my words were venom to spit in your face.

CATHERINE: An apt discharge from a sewer-mouth.

JUDITH: May you die of envy, queen mother of trash! May you rip your eyes out of rage as you see our children grow tall as the birch, fleet as the stag, and stand as pillars beside the shrivelled trunk of your vertically-challenged Richard, limping, lame monster: Richard the crippled.

CATHERINE: Don't you dare mention Richard, you whore, or I'll show you my claws!

MADAME ROBERGE: Show them! Let's see the real rabid Ragone bitch.

CATHERINE: Why don't you eat your own stillbirths, you man-less woman.  You, from whose stench all slink away for fear of being skunked.

LOU BIRKANIAN: (howls, while the others carry on) O misery! Grojnek bourilass capra sebastigrad. Owouch Owouchalameka!

JUDITH: Bitch with your misshapen pup! Go out on the streets, you'll find only blind legless cripple to fill your hole.

CATHERINE: Don't mention streets, it's where you belong.

MADAME ROBERGE: You're the one sent her husband off to war. You killed him and didn't even mourn his death. You're the one sent Alcides, first son of François and of Augustine Labelle (who died in childbirth), off into exile. It's your father, known as the Moron, the shame of our century, who killed my sister Angela. It's her unnatural marriage caused the death of my father, the king of Abitibi. The Ragone have overwhelmed us with their sins. But revenge will one day fall on the Ragone clan. And on that day, I'll laugh over the corpses of my enemies.

JUDITH: Though you fill yourself up with arrogance, Catherine, you're [nothing but] a widow. And a widow is powerless, an empty shell, a name without security. A widow like yourself has eyes only to weep, and a tongue only to curse. So learn to bow your head and weep.  It is the lot of widows. Find comfort in washing the underpants of your runt. The reign of Catherine Ragone won't last much longer.

CATHERINE: Screech-on you women! You faded owls! Scream out through the night. Your wails are but the show of your impotence.

LOU BIRKANIAN: Allargounian féschlouss!

ANNIE: What's the matter? Is everything ok? What's wrong?

SANDY: Oh boy, did we have fun.

ROBERT HOULE: Yes siree! Missus Premier, we had a hell-of-a-lot of fun.

ANNIE: Richard's the emir of Tabriz and Freddy's the sultan. Me, I'm the sultana. But Richard has abducted me.

ROBERT HOULE: And me, I'm the emir's second in command.

RICHARD: What's going on here? You look pretty pissed off?

ANNIE: Mom. You look all upset.  Are you angry?  But we didn't make much noise. We went to the Dubois' garden.  Marie-Jeanne, she calls it the bay of Djan.

ROBERT HOULE: Asebeidjan.

LOU BIRKANIAN: Aiaiai! Azerbaijan!

ANNIE: Yes, that's it. Just as you say. It's fun, Aberdjan.

RICHARD: Well. Say something! You all look upset. Did you have an argument?

CATHERINE: No, my dear, we were discussing.

JUDITH: We were talking about things.

RICHARD: What things?

LOU BIRKANIAN: Family business.  Don't you worry yourself about it, my child. You're too young.

RICHARD: You [really] think so?

SANDY: And now, we're going to abduct Marie-Jeanne Larose. You coming, Richard?

MADAME ROBERGE: There you go! Of course he had to drop in, that cursed Filippo Ragone. Well, now everybody's here. No one's missing the party.

JUDITH: A letter from Brazil. It's Peter. And a telegram. It's from him! It's Peter Williams. It's Peter …

LOU BIRKANIAN: Oh! Karak ravoy. La mazonia kebab.

CATHERINE: What is it? What's going on?

LOU BIRKANIAN: (handing over the telegram.) Peter Williams …

CATHERINE: (reading) How awful!

LOU BIRKANIAN: The letter has taken a month to get here. The telegram caught up to it.

ANNIE: What is it, Lou Birkanian? What does the telegram say?

LOU BIRKANIAN: My little girl … It's your father. He died in Amazonia.

FREDDY: The emir of Tabriz has revolted and taken off with my sultana. Attack!

MARIE-JEANNE, NELSON and ROY: Attack!

LOU BIRKANIAN: Be quiet, children! Go play elsewhere. Don't make so much noise. Missus Williams is unwell.

MADAME ROBERGE: We must take her inside.

RICHARD: Hey grandad!

FILIPPO RAGONE: Yeh!

RICHARD: You're old. You gotta be a hundred.

FILIPPO RAGONE: Yeh!

RICHARD: Did you fight in the Hundred Years War? You can't answer me. You're senile. Everybody knows it. You don't talk, you drool, you shit yourself. Why do you live? Huh? Of what use is it? What pleasure do you take in living? You no longer desire anything. You don't do nothing. They say you're a vegetable. What vegetable [I wonder]? Cauliflower? Turnip? Carrot? A potato? A beet? Huh grandad? Oh gosh, you can't even  hear me!

FILIPPO RAGONE: I hear you just fine, my child. What? Don't look so surprised! I hear everything, I see everything. I understand everything. It's my secret. Wait, come here, raise your right hand. You're going to swear to tell no one. Say: I swear.

RICHARD: I swear.

FILIPPO RAGONE: I know I can trust you. I've observed you. I see how you run your business. You got a small head, but with a lot inside. Come closer.  Closer, so that the others don't catch us. I stopped talking when my wife died. Your grandmother. A 14th of April, a long time ago. What got into her, I never could find out. What went through her head? That day, she got in her car and drove straight into a stone wall. From thereon in, I shut up, didn't say a word (He laughs.) They all thought it was a seizure of some sort. Psychological trauma they called it. But I just decided I wanted nothing more to do with those Roberge sisters and all their crap. Those parasites. Of course, they thought I was responsible. They accused me. "It's Filippo Ragone killed our sister Angela". Bawling it out everywhere. When people kill themselves, they always look for a murderer. That's why I decided to get off the train. Officially. I no longer spoke, but I watched, I listened. I put it all away in my head. And in the end, I won. It brings in a lot, passing yourself off as a moron.

RICHARD: And what did it bring you, grandad?

FILIPPO RAGONE: A carefree life. I enjoy each day, each minute of everyday that comes. Like when I was a child. I've become a little bairn again. But in my head, my whole entire life comes back to me. It organizes itself, everything is logical and necessary and — well — not so unhappy as all that. In any case, It's my life, my own life. My life still. It's the same for everyone. We bustle about, shoot right, left, go out and conquer the world, we become king and fight to remain so … Then, one day, the great doors open up. The pretendants are all there, all in a row, with their boiled fish faces. And you're on the top step, facing the oncoming night, feeling entirely at a loss. You, the great king, suddenly find out that you never had anything. You just filled up your days and your days are now suddenly all behind you. So you stop doing all your tricks. You don't call your servants, you don't search through books. No. You send away your astrologers, your philosophers, your biologists, your notaries, priests, scholars and sages. They can't teach you nothing. When faced with death, a dog knows as much. And that's justice. It's the great, great, great equalizing of all beings.

FILIPPO RAGONE: I know. Not yet. Not yet. Nice day today.

RICHARD: Me, I've got things to do. I'm no vegetable. I've no time to lie in the sun; I just want it to shine on my triumphs. First, I must crush the sultan of Bakou, that effeminate monarch who pretends to rule over me. I'll humiliate his sultana, she'll lick my feet. I'll settle in their palace surrounded by Circassian slaves, amid coffers filled with petrodollars acquired through my assets. Then, I'll eliminate my half-brother Alcides and win over his wife, thus taking possession of Armenia. Finally, and most difficult of all, I'll dethrone my own mother Catherine Ragone, your daughter, who bears the crown of my father François Premier. I must take my revenge on it all: on life, on mine own, on others, on the world and on nature who injured me in my crib. Nothing is impossible, all in good time.

FILIPPO RAGONE: Yeh!

RICHARD: Go back to your ruminations [, grandad,] and drool over your vegetable garden. Plunge back into your carefree life, old man. That's not my line. For me, time is no tepid bathwater in which to stew, it is a mountain torrent flowing to the river and the boundless sea. For it is on such boundless seas that, one day, Richard's caravel will sail.

FILIPPO RAGONE: Richard!

RICHARD: What do you want, Moron?

FILIPPO RAGONE : (He makes a sign.) Mum's the word.

RICHARD: Go fuck yourself!

FILIPPO RAGONE :(Satisfied.) Yeh!

JUDITH: Go away, birds of the night. Draw back from the widow who'll rival with you. (She laughs wildly.) I heard a scream in the night. It is the coyote prowling about the encampment. The boat slips through the river and the watchmen see nothing. They had eaten and drunk too much the night before. The savages draw near. The Brazilian soldier dies without a sound, a red arrow through his heart. They advance. They make no sound. They are naked, painted with the colours of night: dark blue, ash grey, black. Genitals covered with leather pouches tied around their hips with twine. They are enormous, armed with spears and bows. They pass by the embers of the fire and I see their shadows. Anon they come to the hammock with the man inside it, like a caterpillar in its cocoon. [They do nothing.] For a moment, they do nothing. Make no sound. No movement. A silence in the heavens. Grace before the meal. Then they raise their spears, breathing as one, and strike. AAAAH!  And then… And then…  And then…  Machetes, razorblades and axes fall, mincing the meat. Blood everywhere. Horribly feasting. The tender flesh falls to the ground.  Men and dogs fight over the choice pieces, gnaw the bones. I am tied to the stake, legs apart fastened to the ground with vines. Men approach. They encircle me, snickering, taking their time. They call each other out, dare each other. They swell, tumid and red. They come closer. They stink. Wake me up! They strike me with their chests, their hips. I fall into a well. Wake me up! A wall of flesh surrounds me. It shrinks around me, bristling with poisonous spines. Wake up. Wake up, Judith. A red hot iron is driven into me, pinning me against the stake. It smokes and smells like burnt meat. My teeth fall out, my hair falls out, my flesh falls away. I am naked. Totally naked. Flayed, toothless, bald. This all takes place at a formal reception held at the embassy. Women in evening gowns all stare at me. I am so so ashamed.

JUDITH: Let me be, Annie. I had a nightmare is all. Let me be. Where's Roy? No, don't tell me. I don't want to know. I don't want to know anything. Nothing at all. I am a widow. But Moses is alive. I sent him down the river. The Egyptians won't kill him. He'll come back. One day, he'll come back. And he'll be king.

RICHARD: OK, that'll do! Go get the boxes.

SANDY: Where's Freddy?

RICHARD: We don't need him.  You just obey me. Robert, go with her.

ROBERT HOULE: Yes, boss.

RICHARD: Marie-Jeanne, in your attic there's a big carpet and some curtains. Take Nelson with you and bring them over here. It's for the roof.

NELSON: OK, boss.

ANNIE: And I, what do I do?

RICHARD: You? You just stay with me. And you sweep.

JUDITH: Can I play too.

RICHARD: You're too old. Get lost.

RICHARD: As you see.

MARIE-JEANNE: Me, my dad's alive. He comes home every night. I don't see him much but I know he's around. I know it. When I wake up some nights, I can hear them, my mum and dad in their room. They talk, they laugh, they make funny noises, they shake up the house. My dad, he snores real loud. No one snores as loud as my dad.

SANDY and NELSON, together: Me, I never knew my dad. Lou Birkanian says he went through Panama on his way to conquer the Pacific Islands. It's pretty far away that, the Pacific.

ROBERT HOULE: Me my dad's inside. He'll get out when he's eighteen.  It's pretty old that, eighteen.

ANNIE: Me my dad got eaten by cannibals. In Amazonia.

FREDDY: Me my dad sells vegetable at the Jean-Talon market.

ROY: I don't got a dad no more. I kinda like it that he's dead.  He prayed all the time, it was a bore. He was always bugging me. He didn't want me to sell my cats to the Chinaman. Well, he won't bug me now. My dad, he went on a mission to Brazil and got eaten by Indians. Not everybody can say that about their dad.

RICHARD: Me, my dad was the king. He died at war. In Azerbaijan. He had conquered it all, right up to the Persian Gulf.  Right now, I'm the emir of Tabriz but one day I'll be as great a king as my dad. My mom's the Queen mother.

ROBERT HOULE: I don't want to talk about my mom.

ANNIE: My mom, she's crazy.

MARIE-JEANNE: My mom, she's really beautiful. She's always got rings, necklaces. She paints her face all kinds of colours. The people across the street, they say she's sexy.

RICHARD: My mom, she's the Queen mother.

FREDDY: My mom, she sells vegetable at the Jean-Talon market.

ROBERT HOULE: I don't want to talk about my mom.

ROY: My mom's my mom. She's stark raving mad. But she's my mom.

RICHARD: We all got a bum deal. God damn it!

ANNIE: Say, Richard! Does everybody have to die? How do you die?

RICHARD: Death doesn't exist!

FREDDY: Your games are boring.

RICHARD: getting up suddenly Up, everybody! Take hold of the sultan of Bakou. Ah!Ah! My plot has worked. You thought to charm me with the delights of your encampment. But did not take into account my vigilance. Take him away and grill him over a slow fire.

ANNIE: Freddy!

RICHARD: restraining her Silence, sultana! Lick my feet. I am the emir of Tabriz and from now on Tabriz will rule over all of Azerbaijan. Bow down before me.

ANNIE: Never!

RICHARD: makes as if he holds a revolver Pow! You're dead. Fall down. Come on, now, fall down.

ANNIE: I am not dead.

RICHARD: Pow! Pow! Pow! You're dead, I tell you!

RICHARD: You're just a sore loser! (She exits.) The sultana is dead, she threw herself from the top of the battlements and was impaled on the fence posts. Let's drink.

SANDY: twisting her arms Oh Richard do not drink from the cup. It is poisoned. I repent. Fire burns my gut. Damn it! A razor rips through my body bit by bit. It really isn't pleasant. The sultan had seduced me. For him, I betrayed you. For him, I lost my immortal soul. Go tell the elders of my tribe that their child died for love. (She dies.)

FREDDY: My life has now run its full course. And you shan't humble me much longer, Richard. The sultan of Bakou shall perish consumed by the tyranny of Tabriz. The wandering shades peopling the night know they must vanish with the dawn, thus like a shade having lived but in a dream I must also be eclipsed by this sun of Richard.  (He kills himself.)

MARIE-JEANNE: Let this unfortunate woman be given a place of honour in our procession! She has loved. She is dead. Let our compassion shield, as a veil, the star-crossed lovers. Let us doubly venerate them.

RICHARD: See how even our irreconcilable queens join with our mournful dirge, as if their hatred had to pause.
‍(Enter Lou Birkanian, Catherine Ragone and Madame Roberge on their stilts. They also take up the hymn.)
‍And neither does the venerable founder of our race — Filippo Ragone, known as the Moron — want to be left behind though his voice, buried in the recesses of his soul, can no longer be heard.
(Filippo Ragone joins the procession. All sing.)
Strange procession! Who is it we bear thus to burial to the rhythm of our funereal dirge? Who is it vanishes forever more in the fog of time? Thus recedes in the distance the white sail on the river. Thus fades our step on the wind blown sands. Thus dissolves the season's last snowfall. Thus ends the boyhood of Richard.