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A monologue from the play by Arthur Kopit
Jonathan
Well, I made it out of lenses and tubing. The lenses I had, because Ma-Ma-Mother gave me a set of lenses so I could see my stamps better.
I have a fabulous collection of stamps, as well as a fantastic collection of coins and a simply unbelievable collection of books.
Well sir, Ma-Ma-Mother gave me these lenses so I could see my stamps better. She suspected that some were fake so she gave me the lenses so I might be…able to see. You see?
Well, sir I happen to have nearly a billion sta-stamps. And so far I’ve looked closely at 1,352,769. I’ve discovered three actual fakes!
Number 1,352,767 was a fake. Number 1,352,768 was a fake, and number 1,352,769 was a fake. They were stuck together.
Ma-Mother, she made me feed them im-mediately to her flytraps. Well… (He whispers.) one day, when Mother wasn’t looking…that is, when she was out, I heard an airplane flying.
An airplane … somewhere … far away. It wasn’t very loud, but still I heard it. An airplane. Flying … some-where, far away.
And I ran outside to the porch so that I might see what it looked like. The airplane. With hundreds of people inside it. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people.
And I thought to myself, if I could just see … if I could just see what they looked like, the people, sitting at their windows looking out … and flying.
If I could see … just once … if I could see just once what they looked like … then I might … know what I …. what I … (Slight pause.)
So I … built a telescope in case the plane ever … came back again. The tubing came from an old blowgun (He reaches behind the bureau and produces a huge blowgun, easily a foot larger than he.)
Mother brought back from her last hunting trip to Zanzibar. The lenses were the lenses she had given me for my stamps, So I built it.
My telescope. A telescope so I might be able to see. And … (He walks out to the porch.) and … and I could see!
I could! I COULD! I really could. For miles and miles I could see. For miles and miles and miles! (He begins to lift it up to look through but stops, for some reason, before he’s brought it up to his eye.)
Only … (He hands it to Rosalie. She takes it eagerly and scans the horizon and the sky. She hands it back to him.) […]
(Sadly.) I know. That’s the trouble. You take the time to build a telescope that can sa-see for miles, then there’s nothing out there to see.
Ma-Mother says it’s a lesson in Life. (Pause.) But I’m not sorry I built my telescope. And you know why? Because I saw you.
Even if I didn’t see anything else, I did see you. And … and I’m … very glad. (Rosalie moves slightly closer to him on the couch. She moistens her lips.)
I … I remember, you were standing across the way in your penthouse garden playing blind man’s buff with ten little children.
(After a short pause, fearfully.) Are … are they by any chance … yours?
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