Tales of the Black Widowers - Asimov Isaac - Страница 27

"He didn't have much of a formal education, I suppose."

"None at all," said Levy. "He went to work in a tailor shop, eventually got his own establishment, and stayed a tailor till he retired. No education at all, except for the usual religious education Jews gave each other in Tsarist Russia."

"Well, then," said Avalon, "how do you expect him to indicate clues in Shakespeare's plays? He wouldn't know anything about them."

Levy frowned and leaned back in his chair. He hadn't touched the small brandy glass Henry had put in front of him some time before. Now he picked it up, twirled the stem gently in his fingers, and put it down again.

"You're quite wrong, Jeff," he said, a little distantly. "He may have been uneducated but he was quite intelligent and quite well-read. He knew the Bible by heart, and he'd read War and Peace as a teen-ager. He read Shakespeare, too. Listen, we once went to see a production of Hamlet in the park and he got more out of it than I did."

Rubin suddenly broke in energetically, "I have no intention of ever seeing Hamlet again till they get a Hamlet who looks as Hamlet is supposed to look. Fat!"

"Fat!" said Trumbull indignantly.

"Yes, fat. The Queen says of Hamlet in the last scene, 'He's fat, and scant of breath.' If Shakespeare says Hamlet is fat-"

"That's his mother talking, not Shakespeare. It's the typical motherly oversolicitousness of a not-bright woman-"

Avalon banged the table. "Not now, gentlemen!"

He turned to Levy. "In what language did your grandfather read the Bible?"

"In Hebrew, of course," Levy said coldly.

"And War and Peace?"

"In Russian. But Shakespeare, if you don't mind, he read in English."

"Which is not his native tongue. I imagine he spoke with an accent."

Levy's coolness had descended into the frigid. "What are you getting at, Jeff?"

Avalon harumphed. "I'm not being anti-Semitic. I'm just pointing out the obvious fact that if your wife's grandfather was not at home with the language, there was

a limit to how subtly he could use Shakespeare as a reference. He's not likely to use the phrase 'and there the an-tick sits' from Richard II because, however well-read he is, he isn't likely to know what an antick is."

"What is it?" asked Gonzalo.

"Never mind," said Avalon impatiently. "If your grandfather used Shakespeare, it would have to be some perfectly obvious reference."

"What was your father's favorite play?" asked Trum-bull.

"He liked Hamlet of course. I know he didn't like the comedies," said Levy, "because he felt the humor undignified, and the histories meant nothing to him. Wait, he liked Othello."

"All right," said Avalon. "We ought to concentrate on Hamlet and Othello."

"I read them," said Levy. "You don't think I left them out, do you?"

"And it would have to be some well-known passage," Avalon went on, paying no attention. "No one would think that just pointing to Shakespeare would be a useful hint if it were some obscure line that were intended."

"The only reason he just pointed," said Levy, "was that he couldn't talk. It might have been something very obscure which he would have explained if he could have talked."

"If he could have talked," said Drake reasonably, "he wouldn't have had to explain anything. He would just have told you where the bonds were."

"Exactly," said Avalon. "A good point, Jim. You said, Simon, that after the old man pointed to Shakespeare, his face relaxed and he stopped trying to speak. He felt that he had given you all you needed to know."

"Well, he didn't," said Levy morosely.

"Let's reason it out, then," said Avalon.

"Do we have to?" said Drake. "Why not ask Henry now?… Henry, which verse in Shakespeare would suit our purpose?"

Henry, who was noiselessly taking up the dessert dishes, said, "I have an average knowledge of the plays of Shakespeare, sir, but I must admit that no appropriate verse occurs to me."

Drake looked disappointed, but Avalon said, "Come on, Jim. Henry has done very well on past occasions but there's no need to feel that we are helpless without him. I flatter myself I know Shakespeare pretty well." "I'm no novice, either," said Rubin. "Then between the two of us, let's solve this. Suppose we consider Hamlet first. If it's Hamlet, then it has to be one of the soliloquies, because they're the best-known portions of the play."

"In fact," said Rubin, "the line 'To be or not to be, that is the question' is the best-known line of Shakespeare. It epitomizes him as the 'Quartet' from Rigoletto typifies opera."

"I agree," said Avalon, "and that soliloquy talks of dying, and the old man was dying. 'To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is-' "

"Yes, but what good does that do?" said Levy impatiently. "Where does it get us?"

Avalon, who always recited Shakespeare in what he insisted was Shakespearean pronunciation (which sounded remarkably like an Irish brogue), said, "Well, I'm not sure."

Gonzalo said suddenly, "Is it in Hamlet where Shakespeare says, 'The play's the thing'?"

"Yes," said Avalon. " 'The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.' "

"Well," said Gonzalo, "if the old man was pointing out a book of plays, maybe that's the line. Do you have a picture of a king, or a carving, or a deck of cards, maybe."

Levy shrugged. "That doesn't bring anything to mind." "What about Othello?" asked Rubin. "Listen. The best-known part of the play is Iago's speech on reputation, 'Good name in man and woman, dear my lord…' " "So?" said Avalon.

"And the most famous line in it, and one which the old man was sure to know because it's the one everyone knows, even Mario, is 'Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'twas mine, 'tis his…' and so on."

"So?" said Avalon again.

"So it sounds as though it applies to the legacy. ' 'Twas mine, 'tis his,' and it also sounds as though the legacy were gone. 'Who steals my purse steals trash.'"

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" said Levy.

"After you found the bonds in the clothes hamper, you lost track of them, you said. Maybe the old man took them off somewhere to be safe and doesn't remember where. Or maybe he mislaid them or gave them away or lost them to some confidence scheme. Whatever it was, he could no longer explain it to you without speech. So to die in peace, he pointed to the works of Shakespeare. You would remember the best-known line of his favorite play, which tells you that his purse is only trash-and that is why you have found nothing."

"I don't believe that," said Levy. "I asked him if he wanted us to have the bonds and he nodded."

"All he could do was nod, and he did want you to have them, but that was impossible… Do you agree with me, Henry?"

Henry, who had completed his tasks and was quietly listening, said, "I'm afraid I don't, Mr. Rubin."

"I don't, either," said Levy.

But Gonzalo was snapping his fingers. "Wait, wait. Doesn't Shakespeare say anything about bonds?"

"Not in his time," said Drake, smilmg.

"I'm sure of it," said Gonzalo. "Something about bonds being nominated."

Avalon said, "Ah! You mean 'Is it so nominated in the bond?' The bond is a legal contract, and the question was whether something was a requirement of the contract."

Drake said, "Wait a bit. Didn't that bond involve a sum of three thousand ducats?"

"By Heaven, so it did," said Avalon.

Gonzalo's grin split his head from ear to ear. "I think I've got something there: bonds involving three thousand units of money. That's the play to look into."

Henry interrupted softly. "I scarcely think so, gentlemen. The play in question is The Merchant oj Venice and the person asking whether something was nominated in the bond was the Jew, Shylock, intent on a cruel revenge. Surely the old man would not enjoy this play."