Ethel Hook opens her eyes and looks around her. An expression of distress appears on her pale face.
«You’re not going to sail away and leave him?» she says. «But you can’t, you can’t!» She makes an effort to raise herself from the stretcher; but the movement causes so much pain that she falls back again, with a groan.
«Quiet, quiet,» says the doctor soothingly, as he swabs her arm with alcohol.
«But he may still be alive,» she feebly protests. «They can’t desert him; they can’t just wash their hands of him.»
«Hold still,» says the doctor and, taking the syringe from his orderly, he drives the needle into the flesh.
The clanking of the anchor chain rises to a crescendo as we dissolve to Loola and Dr. Poole.
«I’m hungry,» says Loola, sitting up.
Reaching for her knapsack, she takes out what is left of the bread, breaks it in two, hands the larger fragment to Dr. Poole and sinks her teeth into the other. She finishes her mouthful and is about to start on another, when she changes her mind. Turning to her companion, she takes his hand and kisses it.
«What’s that for?» he asks.
Loola shrugs her shoulders.
«I don’t know. I just suddenly felt like that.» She eats some more bread, then, after a ruminative silence, turns to him with the air of one who has just made an important and unexpected discovery.
«Alfie,» she announces, «I believe I shall never want to say Yes to anyone except you.»
Greatly moved, Dr. Poole leans forward, takes her hand and presses it to his heart.
«I feel I’ve only just discovered what life’s all about,» he says.
«Me too.»
She leans against him, and like a miser irresistibly drawn to count his treasure yet once more, Dr. Poole runs his fingers through her hair, separating lock from thick lock, lifting a curl and letting it fall back noiselessly into its place.
NARRATOR
And so, by the dialectic of sentiment, these two have rediscovered for themselves that synthesis of the chemical and the personal, to which we give the names of monogamy and romantic love. In her case it was the hormone that excluded the person; in his, the person that could not come to terms with the hormone. But now there is the beginning of a larger wholeness.
Dr. Poole reaches into his pocket and pulls out the little volume which he rescued yesterday from the furnace. He opens it, turns the pages and begins to read aloud.
«‘Warm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress
And her loose hair; and where some heavy tress
The air of her own speed has disentwined,
The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind;
And in the soul a wild odour is felt
Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt
Into the bosom of a frozen bud.'»
«What’s that?» Loola asks.
«You!» He bends down and kisses her hair. «‘And in the soul,'» he whispers, » ‘a wild odour is felt beyond the sense.’ In the soul,» he repeats.
«What’s the soul?» Loola asks.
«Well. . .» He hesitates; then, deciding to let Shelley give the answer, he resumes his reading.
«‘See where she stands, a mortal shape indued
With love and life and light and deity,
And motion which may change, but never die,
An image of some bright Eternity,
A shadow of some golden dream; a Splendour
Leaving the third sphere pilotless; a tender
Reflection of the eternal Moon of Love. . .'»
«But I don’t understand a word of it,» Loola complains.
«And until today,» says Dr. Poole, smiling down at her, «until today, neither did I.»
We dissolve to the exterior of the Unholy of Unholies, two weeks later. Several hundreds of bearded men and slatternly women are queued up, in double file, awaiting their turn to enter the shrine. The Camera passes down the long line of dull and dirty faces, then holds on Loola and Dr. Poole, who are in the act of passing through the sliding doors.
Within all is gloom and silence. Two by two the nymphs and prancing satyrs of a few short days ago shuffle despondently past an altar, whose mighty candle is now eclipsed by a tin extinguisher. At the foot of the Arch-Vicar’s empty throne lies the heap of discarded Seventh Commandments. As the procession slowly passes, the Archimandrite in charge of Public Morals hands out to every male an apron and to every female an apron and four round patches.
«Out through the side door,» he repeats to each recipient.
And out through the side door, when their turn comes, Loola and Dr. Poole duly go. There, in the sunshine, a score of Postulants are busily at work, with thread and needle, stitching aprons to waistbands, patches to trouser seats and shirt fronts.
The Camera holds on Loola. Three young seminarists in Toggenberg cassocks accost her as she emerges into the open air.
She hands her apron to the first, a patch to each of the others. All three set to work simultaneously and with extraordinary rapidity. NO, NO and NO.
«Turn around, please.»
Handing over her last patches, she obeys; and, while the apron specialist moves away to attend to Dr. Poole, the others ply their needles so diligently that, in half a minute, she is no less forbidding from behind than when seen from in front
«There!»
«And there!»
The two clerical tailors step aside and reveal a close shot of their handiwork. NO NO. Cut back to the Postulants, who express their sentiments by spitting in unison, then turn toward the door of the shrine.
«Next lady, please.»
Wearing a look of extreme dejection, the two inseparable mulatto girls step forward together.
Cut to Dr. Poole. Aproned and bearded with a fortnight’s growth of hair, he walks over to where Loola is waiting for him.
«This way, please,» says a shrill voice.
In silence they take their places at the end of yet another queue. Resignedly, two or three hundred persons are waiting to be assigned their tasks by the Grand Inquisitor’s Chief Assistant in charge of Public Works. Three-horned and robed impressively in a white Saanen soutane, the great man is sitting with a couple of two-horned Familiars at a large table, on which stand several steel filing cabinets salvaged from the offices of the Providential Life Insurance Company.
A series of montage shots exhibits, in twenty seconds, the slow, hour-long advance of Loola and Dr. Poole towards the well-spring of Authority. And now at last they have reached their destination. Close shot of the Grand Inquisitor’s Special Assistant as he tells Dr. Poole to report to the Director of Food Production at his office in the ruins of the Administration Building of the University of Southern California. This gentleman will see that the botanist gets a laboratory, a plot of ground for his experimental planting, and up to four labourers to perform the manual work.
«Up to four labourers,» the prelate repeats, «Though at ordinary times. . .»
Unauthorised, Loola breaks into the conversation.
«Oh, let me be one of the labourers,» she begs. «Please.»
The Grand Inquisitor’s Special Assistant gives her a long withering look, then turns to his Familiars.
«And who, pray, is this young vessel of the Unholy Spirit?» he asks.
One of the Familiars extracts Loola’s card from the file and provides the relevant information. Aged eighteen and hitherto sterile, the vessel in question is reported to have associated during one off-season with a notorious Hot, who was later liquidated while trying to resist arrest. Nothing however was ever proved against the said vessel and its conduct has been generally satisfactory. Said vessel has been employed, for the past year, as a miner of cemeteries and is to be similarly employed during the coming season.
«But I want to work with Alfie,» she protests.
«You seem to forget,» says the first Familiar, «that this is a Democracy. . .»
«A Democracy,» adds his colleague, «in which every proletarian enjoys perfect freedom.»
«True freedom.»
«Freely doing the will of the Proletariat.»
«And vox proletariate, vox Diaboli.»
«While, of course, vox Diaboli, vox Ecclesiae.»
«And we here are the Church’s representatives.»
«So you see.»
«But I’m tired of cemeteries,» the girl insists. «I’d like to dig up live things for a change.»
There is a brief silence. Then the Grand Inquisitor’s Special Assistant bends down and, from under his chair, produces a very large consecrated bull’s pizzle, which he lays on the table before him. Then he turns to his subordinates.
«Correct me if I’m wrong,» he says. «But my impression is that any vessel rejecting proletarian liberty is liable to twenty-five lashes for each and every such offence.»
There is another silence. Pale and wide-eyed, Loola stares at the instrument of torture, then looks away, makes an effort to speak, finds herself voiceless and, swallowing hard, tries again.
«I won’t resist,» she manages to bring out. «I really want to be free.»
«Free to go on mining cemeteries?»
She nods affirmatively.
«There’s a good vessel!» says the Special Assistant.
Loola turns to Dr. Poole and, for a few seconds, they look into one another’s eyes without speaking.
«Good-by, Alfie,» she whispers at last.
«Good-by, Loola.»
Two more seconds pass; then she drops her eyes and walks away.
«And now,» says the Special Assistant to Dr. Poole, «we can get back to business. At ordinary times, as I was saying, you would be expected to make use of not more than two labourers. Do I make myself clear?»
Dr. Poole inclines his head.
We dissolve to a laboratory in which the sophomores of the University of Southern California once pursued the study of Elementary Biology. There are the usual sinks and tables, Bunsen burners and balances, cages for mice and guinea pigs, glass tanks for tadpoles. But the dust is thick over everything and scattered about the room lie half a dozen skeletons, still associated
