Hamlet (8 page)

“Too much cider,” Hamlet thought. He gathered himself up. “Ladies and gentlemen, the play is about to begin. The name — well, I am calling it
The Mousetrap.
But don’t take that too literally. It is the story of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the name of the duke, and his wife is Baptista. It’s a nasty story, but what if it is? It won’t affect us. Let the pained horse cringe when the saddle goes on him again: we are still unridden. We are all innocents here. Now be silent, please, so that these good fellows who have come so far can entertain us.”

He led the audience in a meager round of clapping, which petered out as soon as Hamlet stopped.

“Come and sit by me, Hamlet,” Gertrude called.

“No, mother, here’s a more attractive bush where a man can pitch his tent.” One of the servant girls giggled immoderately from the dark rear of the room and got a quick smack from a housekeeper. Hamlet strode to where Ophelia sat. He ignored the empty seat on her left and instead crouched beside her. “May I put myself between your legs?” he whispered.

The beautiful girl blushed. “No, my lord.”

“I meant, sit on the floor here, in front of you.”

“No, my lord.”

Polonius leaned across and muttered to the king, “He’s in love with her, all right.”

But neither of the young people heard him. Hamlet was too engrossed in flirting with Ophelia. “When I talked about pitching a tent,” he asked her teasingly, “did you think I meant in the country?”

She either did not understand or refused to play the game. “I thought nothing, my lord.”

Hamlet sighed theatrically. “And going between your legs, what did you think I had in mind?”

“Again, I say nothing, my lord.”

“You are right. And it’s a pretty piece of scenery to have between a maiden’s legs.”

“What is, my lord?”

“Nothing. Though there are some things I would not like to find. Indeed, a nothing can be a something, and the nothing something can be sweet indeed. As can the something nothing. But the something something — ah, I could tell you a story I heard of Rosencrantz in Copenhagen, and how one night he found a something something where he expected to find a something nothing.”

Ophelia could not help giggling, earning a glare from Polonius and a “shhh” from Gertrude. While the two young people were whispering, the play had begun, but so far all was in mime. Now a new actor took the stage and launched into a long speech, which quickly bored both Hamlet and Ophelia. They resumed their surreptitious conversation.

“You are in a good mood tonight, my lord,” murmured Ophelia.

“What should I do but be merry? Look at my mother, and her cheerful face. And it’s only two hours since my father died. Obviously there’s no reason for anyone to be sad about anything.”

“Oh no! It has been a long time since the king died, my lord.”

“A long time? A long time, you say? Well, then, let the devil wear the black, for I’ll get out my party clothes. A long time! And not forgotten yet! There must be hope that the memory of a great man may outlive him by a few years, then. If he’s so greedy that he wants more, then he’d better build a pyramid and put his name on it.”

“Ssssssshhhhhhhh,” hissed the queen.

Hamlet lapsed into silence again, leaning against Ophelia.

He always comes back to the same obsessions, she thought. Why can’t he let it go? Why can’t he just enjoy life?

By the time Ophelia could work out the story of the play, it was well advanced, although she soon decided it was too wordy. Ophelia’s intelligence was that of instinct and emotion; Hamlet’s was of books and science. The actor playing a king who has been married to his queen a long time tells her that he feels his life will soon be over. He starts to speak of the husband who will replace him when he is gone. At this point the queen becomes violently emotional and swears that she won’t be marrying anybody else. She strides around the stage, waving her arms, and declaiming so quickly that it is hard to understand the words.

Ophelia yawned. Whatever the boy playing the queen was using for bosoms was not working very well; they were slipping down his front. Ophelia looked at Hamlet. The light from the fireplace reflecting from his white hair made it shine like the halos of the holy family in the paintings. Was that sacrilege, she wondered, to compare Hamlet to Christ? Would it be too flirtatious of her to stroke his hair? She knew what her father would say. Polonius would already be furious at the way they were sitting. She could expect a stinging lecture tonight, and banishment to her room for a few days probably, as well. Why couldn’t he understand how she felt? Why did he have to be so horrible and strict . . . Not like other girls’ fathers.

Ophelia decided she had better not run her hand through Hamlet’s hair. Not yet, anyway. A glance from the tiniest corner of her eye gave her the sense that Polonius was watching. She dared not look at him directly. Instead, she turned her attention back to the stage.

There the queen was still proclaiming her love for her husband. “I would kill my husband a second time,” she vowed, “were I to marry someone else after you have gone. Earth shall not feed me, nor heaven give me light, games shall not amuse me, nor sleep give me rest, if I bestow my attention on anyone but you. I would rather live as a hermit in a cave than be with another man.”

Ophelia whispered to Hamlet, “She takes a long time to say she loves him.”

“A woman’s love lasts no longer than her words,” he whispered.

She sat back, angry. Is that all he thought of women, then? Would he treat her love as mere trash? Did he not understand the power of the lifelong gift she had for him?

The young boy playing the role of the queen finally came to a halt. He stood in the center of the stage and announced, with an impressively deep voice, “Let my life be nothing but strife, if once a widow, I become a wife!”

His bosom had settled at a point just above his navel.

Hamlet, whom Ophelia decided may have had too much beer, called out to the queen, “What do you think, Mother?”

“What do I think? I think the more people talk about love, the less they feel it.”

But suddenly Claudius was interrupting both them and the play. “Is this thing some sort of insult to Her Majesty and me?” he demanded.

Ophelia stiffened, wishing then that she had paid more attention to the discussion onstage.

Gamely the actors struggled on, as Hamlet replied to his uncle, “No, no, it’s all a joke. Relax, sir. There’s no offense in the world.”

Onstage the king was “asleep” on a grassy bank, a rather unreliable-looking prop covered with a green blanket and a scattering of flowers. Prowling around him was a new character. No sooner did Ophelia wonder who he was than Hamlet whispered, “That’s Lucianus, nephew to the king.”

Ophelia whispered back, “You make a good commentator, my lord.”

The nephew came to the front of the stage. Ophelia felt the excitement quivering through Hamlet. She wondered at the cause. Could it be her? What strange creatures men were. What powerful passions they seemed to feel. She felt intense passions too, but men seemed hot and cold, whereas she was always hot. It never occurred to her that Hamlet was trembling with the tension of a first-time author who is about to hear his lines uttered in front of an audience.

Glaring first at the audience and then at the recumbent king, the nephew made his evil intentions clear.

Before the actor was able to carry out his attack on the sleeping king, Hamlet leaped to his feet in wild excitement. “He poisons him in the garden to get the estate! He poisoned him, I tell you. He poured it in his ear! He murdered him in the garden, murdered him, and stole his wife. Stole everything he owned.”

Is he drunk or mad? Ophelia wondered, frightened. She did not understand what was happening, but she felt the ferocity of the moment. Leaning forward, she saw the king stirring to his feet. She whispered to Hamlet, “My lord, I think the king is offended.”

“Stop the play!” Claudius shouted, trembling with rage and fear.

“What?” Hamlet exulted. “Frightened by false fire? It’s only a play, after all.”

Behind Ophelia, Osric struggled to get out of his seat. “Shame, shame,” he brayed.

Gertrude was standing. “Are you all right, my lord?” she begged her husband.

“Stop the play,” Polonius called.

All was confusion. The actors had already melted back behind the curtains, where their manager was cursing Hamlet. “He’s dropped us right in it,” he muttered. “Hurry back and pack your bags, lads. Pack everything. We might have to do a fast exit.”

“Give me some light,” roared the king. “Fetch a light.”

“Lights, lights,” Polonius called to no one in particular. A candle was brought from the rear of the hall, and more candles were lit from it. The king was stumbling about like a wounded bear. He walked right over Osric, who had fallen forward, narrowly missing Ophelia, and was lying facedown on the floor. “Shame, shame!” he called again, feeling the king’s heavy boot in his back. Then he vomited.

Claudius could now see a clear path to the door. The servants, trying to flee, had to stand back; they bowed low as he passed, hoping he would not see their faces. The two young gardeners were scared out of their wits. They both had the same thought: Old Garath was right. Should have listened to old Garath. He knows a thing or two, that one.

Claudius was out the door. Hamlet, listening, heard the clatter of his heavy boots on the staircase. The king was followed closely by Gertrude, then Polonius, who forgot his daughter in his haste to catch up with the king. Ophelia hovered for a minute, her eyes fixed on Hamlet, before she too fled. The others took their cue and made hurried departures. Though no one understood what had happened, there was a strong feeling that it would be best to lie low and stay away. So off they scurried. In a remarkably short time, Hamlet and Horatio were left alone.

There was complete silence behind the curtain. “Well, well,” Hamlet gloated. “Do you think I could get a job writing for actors, if all else goes sour for me?”

“Half a job, perhaps,” said Horatio.

“Oh, a full one, I think. I wrote that whole speech about the serpent. And it got a better reaction than the rest of the play put together.”

“It didn’t make sense,” Horatio objected. “How is a serpent supposed to gather venom from the ground?”

“Don’t be so literal. It’s poetry. It isn’t supposed to make sense. But oh, Horatio, did you see the king’s face?”

“I did indeed.”

“The ghost knew what he was talking about, all right. Did you see Claudius’s reaction to the talk of poisoning?”

“I did, though I wish I could say I did not.”

“Now my path becomes clearer. But hello, who’s this? Why, a couple of good fellows. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, if I’m not mistaken. A pair of fiddlers, are you not? Let’s have some music from you.”

The two courtiers, both of whom had become rather stout in recent times, looked hot and flustered. Hamlet’s greeting threw them into an even worse state. “Your Royal Highness, we are not fiddlers,” Rosencrantz began.

“No, indeed,” Guildenstern agreed. “The king, sir, the king . . .”

“Yes, what of the king? Let us hear news of the king.”

Hamlet was still in a wild state. Horatio, who had once seen an overexcited colt run into a fence and kill himself, wanted to calm him before he did something truly dangerous. Committed an act that could not be recalled. No act can be recalled, but Hamlet looked ready to precipitate a landslide, without a thought as to who might be buried in its path.

“Good sir, let me have a word with you,” Rosencrantz tried again.

“Not only a word, my dear fellow, you can have an entire book. And you may pick the topic.”

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern glanced at each other. Their lips flickered in a silent signal: He’s hopeless — what can be done with him?