Deception Page #4

CHRISTINE:
Music, please.

[PLAYS BADLY]...

...[LAUGHTER]...

...[LAUGHTER STOPS]

A party indeed.

Hollenius.

- Madame. How do you do, Harnitz?

Thank you.

- Crispin, I'm delighted to see you.

Well, I hope I'm welcome, my dear.

You look as if you were seeing a ghost.

How did you get here so quickly?

Quickly?

I have the impression I'm too late.

That object, I presume, is a wedding cake.

Champagne, all very fitting.

I infer a husband.

Make me acquainted with him.

Karel. My husband, Karel Novak.

My dear sir...

...I wish you all the joys that we less

fortunate men must be content to imagine.

Thank you.

- This, of course, is Hollenius.

Thank you.

- You do us a great honor, Mr. Hollenius.

oh, no, she's my daughter,

my ewe lamb. Heh.

It'd look very odd if I

were not at her wedding.

Uh-huh.

The Louis Roederer, no?

Yes, we opened it for

this evening. - Mm- hm.

For all and sundry.

I don't know where there's another

dozen of that year procurable.

Still, it's a great occasion.

[ICE CUBES RATTLING]

A great occasion.

And yet I wish she'd put it off a little.

- Put it off?

Why?

- oh, so that I might have given her away.

Pollard.

- Don't go.

So to speak, her nearest male relation.

After all, what could be closer than

the relationship of master and pupil?

Except, of course, husband and wife.

Are you gonna give me that champagne...

...I went to such incredible

trouble to get hold of?

Yes.

They tell me that bridegrooms

are a very nervous kind of cattle.

You look extremely

nervous, if I may say so.

Do I?

- Mm-hm.

My dear, you know I never

drink on an empty stomach.

Get me something to eat, my child.

- Cake?

HOLLENIUS:
No, no, no,

not that ridiculous thing.

Now, if there's some caviar? Hmm?

Yes, yes, in here.

Is it decently chilled?

And I abused the poor creature

so abominably over the telephone.

You did? - Mm-hm.

An outburst of fury.

Uncontrolled possessiveness.

Call it jealousy, if you will.

You know, I remember well the

day when she first came to me.

Four years ago, wasn't it, Christine?

CHRISTINE:
Yes.

- Hmm.

All eyes and talent.

You can't imagine how

skinny she was then.

oh, but of course, you knew her. Yeah.

You were in love already.

The little minx concealed it from me.

Why should I have interested

myself in such a creature?

I ask you. Why?

- Well, why?

You said I had promise.

- And I was right.

Four years of coaxing, bullying,

pleading, suggesting, implanting...

...and there's a quality.

She's... She's an artist.

It was no trifle to be told, just as she

was coming into existence musically...

...that she's in love, she's marrying...

You haven't any champagne.

- Nothing else matters to her.

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