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An Excerpt from "Le Griffon," a tale of supernatural lovePlace: New Orleans, Louisiana Time: 1803-10 PROLOGUE (Music under. Lights up on Saint Louis Cemetery. During the following monologue, a funeral takes place. A small group of mourners weep and then move away slowly as FRANCOIS and PAULE1TE creep into the scene. TANTE Honoree appears. She addresses the audience.) . TANTE
I'm good and dead now, if dead be good. I seen everything before I died away. Even the dead who walk again. But I ain't no living dead. No, no. This ain't my oId body you see before you now, but something lighter than the flesh. In my condition, I can only say what I know to be true. Got no reason to do otherwise. I was born not far from here in April of 17 hundred and 40. Nobody wrote down the day since in those times my mother was bonded to the house of Monsieur Jean-Pierre Treme. My papa, to tell the truth as I must, was a freeman and a fool. At 12 I was sold into the house of Monsieur August Le Favorite the undertaker. Monsieur trained me as a hairdresser for the dead ones. I got pretty good at my work and did it up till the time Monsieur died and freed me to go about my business. I bore 12 children, eight of them lived, one daughter was named Cecile. A bad luck name in truth, since she up and died after giving birth to her own daughter Paulette. Time passed. I raised up that child as best I could but the young Monsieur Julian Le Favorite, heir to his papa's fortune and trade, give Paulette as a gift to his son Francois. The two of them grew up together, thick as thieves. Francois and Paulette, came to this cemetery over and over, looking for fresh bodies to steal. They were doing dangerous work. Though it was necessary, it will no doubt end with both of them in hell. God help us. Some things must be done even if eternal damnation be the cost... (When the mourners are gone, FRANCOIS and PAULETTE approach a fresh crypt and remove the corpse. The hand of Jacob is 'highlighted' and removed from corpse by Francois. He crosses with it into lab area then begins to attach it to a prone body on slab. The body is obscured. Paulette crosses into lab area.) SCENE 1 FRANCOIS All my life, I have been surrounded by death. PAULETTE Yes, Francois. FRANCOIS The son and grandson of undertakers does not posses the luxury of viewing death as a thing exotic... PAULETTE Yes, you are right, Francois. FRANCOIS My first memory is that of watching my father work on the body of a little girl of five. PAULETTE As you have said before... FRANCOIS Then came the deaths of my entire family when I was barely ten... PAULETTE Oui, Cher; your dear maman, Marie-Louise, your granpere, your sister and both your little brothers dead of yellow fever within a month; may-their- souls-find-rest. (PAULETTE lights candles and assists FRANCOIS.) FRANCOIS I fear that death and I share an appalling intimacy. PAULETTE No doubt, as you say, appalling indeed. FRANCOIS What could possibly counterbalance such ill fortune? PAULETTE Nothing could, Francois, but Monsieur must not forget that to die and thus fall into the everlasting arms of the Almighty is quite the only compensation for traversing this vale of tears. FRANCOIS Dear Paulette, your faith in immortality is far greater than my own. (He finishes attaching the hand.) There. Help me move this away ... PAULETTE Remember when you were a little boy and you would make little dolls and we would play with them. Remember? Sweet little dolls they were, out of rags and twine and horsehair. What a dear child you were then. FRANCOIS I don't remember that. PAULETTE Well it's true. Whether you admit it or not. You used to crawl into my bed with your doll and try to snuggle me. How marvelous. FRANCOIS Help me put the blood back into him. (They begin business) PAULETTE What wonderful doll have you made for us now? FRANCOIS If only my father had lived to see him. And my grandfather. PAULETTE Yes, cheri, they would be quite proud. They could only make the dead appear to be glamorously at rest, while you have resurrected Lazarus from the tomb. But he will be quite the harlequin man, no, sewn together like a patchwork. This will cause him much confusion, I suspect; seeing his one hand darkly brown and the other yellow-white? FRANCOIS On the contrary. He will likely be clearer about these things than most. (Francois reveals the creature. He is both alluring and grotesque. Nude except for a loincloth, his stitches are visible and his eyes are closed.) Behold! The new man of the new century. (Lights fade )
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