— Nothing to do with madness no, or even religion, the Church of England's just a framework for the comedy of manners holding together the ruling class with a social caste system that…
— What any organized religion is isn't it, old boy? But go to the Old Catholics for top drawer snobbism and your real streak of madness, the Anglicans are just the bastard child, perfidious Albion and all the rest of it, you want a taste of the social caste system in all its cruelty and duplicity? Such, such were the joys, try boarding at an English public school, you've got its pale offspring right here haven't you? your bankrupt Protestant Episcopal refuge for old families and old money?
— That's just what I'm saying! Good God look at Harry's Pop and Glow case, nothing to do with madness or religion, the only true Christian faces you'll see in this country are black and I don't mean your mad to begin with theory either, how anyone can grow up black in America and stay halfway sane is beyond me.
— Not arguing that with you, am I? The demands for being a true Christian what can you expect, give up all and follow me? They had nothing to give up in the first place, for everybody else this love thy neighbor as thyself s a plain oxymoron, turned the whole country into a cradle of hypocrisy.
— Fine yes, and when the bough breaks the whole thing comes crashing down baby and all, that's what I…
— What you're talking about's organized religion, the established churches, Episcopals, Presbyterians, Congregational losing members right and left out there fighting for market share in what's left of their elite spiritual supplyside economy but the blood of the martyrs, Tertullian wasn't it? the seed of the church? And there's your forty million to the rescue mad from the start and ready to spill it killing in defense of the right to life, no bleeding heart accommodation like your Roman Catholic confessional's end run around the seventh commandment, say a few Paternosters and Hail Marys and go and sin no more till the next time, try that in Islam and they'll stone her to death so there won't be a next time, steal a loaf and they'll lop off your hand. Remember T E Lawrence calling his Arabs a people of primary colours seeing everything in black and white? either truth or untruth? despising this doubt he called our modern crown of thorns, our hesitating retinue of finer shades, true believers go forth to war says the Koran. Turn your faces toward Mecca's what your young blacks are doing, throwing off the Christian names they were baptised with and calling themselves Ali and Muhammad reminds me, I looked into your Cratylus.
— My what?
— Plato's dialogue Cratylus, haven't forgotten the last time we talked have you? when you said you'd no more change your name than the shape of your nose? Cratylus claiming your name signifies your essential nature, if it doesn't it's not really a name at all and even if it is it's probably somebody else's with a real claim to the qualities it expresses like our friend Basic there, he's your perfect Hermogenes isn't he? His cheery I'll take the Fifth on that, seeing names as nothing more than conveniences? change them any way you like?
— Can you blame him? His own real name lost back in some African savannah when the slave traders came through and what about yours then, would you change it?
— Tell you the truth when I was a boy I, Pai is an old name in the south of India but in England, I told you the cruelty of schoolboys and I hated it, needn't tell you what they called me and I swore I'd change it when I grew up, some of the finest old names going back to the battle of Hastings in sixth form there and even the future Duke of Wellington was called Washrag but all due respect old sport, I don't really trust your Plato, said that before haven't I? Look at his record on slavery, subjugation of women and the welcome mat out on Queer Street you get the feeling in this Cratylus that it's all really just a game he's playing, cardboard characters and their arguments so full of holes the whole thing ends in confusion and the flaws in his method show right through, your plea in your deposition back there as homage? as timely and timeless? In the end he's pretty much a dictator isn't he, a censor, can't trust him any more than your Major who's a sort of cardboard Cratylus himself isn't he? No more change his name than he would Quantness and the more chaotic things get the more he clings to them till they destroy him.
— That's the whole point isn't it? And there's Bagby, is he a cardboard Hermogenes? He's all expediency, change his name in a minute like your client Livingston changing his name to Siegal it was probably Siegal in the first place, and then Kiester? Constantine Kiester it's just a convenience, for Cratylus Socrates in the dialogue is really Socrates and the name Cratylus is the essence of Cratylus himself like the character Kane in the play, he's the Cratylus in the play and whatever gave you the idea he's some broken down peddler who…
— He's a free spirit Oscar, probably changed it from Kaminsky the point is he's a free spirit. Only thing he owns is a mule and his pots and pans till the day he sells them, up against the Major there with his slaves and real estate and illusions of permanence he…
— He did not change his name from Kaminsky! He's the…
— He's a free spirit! That's our friend Basic isn't it? freed himself of these illusions of absolutes? takes the name Basic because he likes the swing of it even if it was someone else's with more claim as its essence, the courage to live in a contingent universe, to accept a relative world, he's thrown out those Christian fictions that got his forebears through slavery, helped retain their humanity and turn it into the strength to survive the ones who'd used it to subjugate them, to accept misery in this world for peace and equality in some imaginary next one like the job you did on the old woman in your play, you know all this better than anyone, sitting there with poor John Israel at her knee, given into my keeping and all the rest of it you really did quite a job on her.
— What do you mean quite a job, she's a devout old Christian woman who's been embittered by…
— That's funny now, isn't it. You know I read her as whining grasping old hypocrite?
— That's not what I…
— A mean, lying old hypocrite, may have builded better than you knew, old man.
— No that's not what I, listen…
— Listen!
— Oscar! The glass doors crashed open — where are you!
— We, here, what is it? hurrying toward her, both of them, down the veranda — what…
— Hurry!
— But what's happened!
— Just hurry will you! back inside now, — I've got to leave as soon as we, we have to leave.
— But Christina wait, what…
— Where's my purse, he's had an accident why didn't they tell me, Lily? My coat, have you seen it? and my purse, whenever I've called they've just said he's in court, he's in court, that idiot secretary of his why didn't you tell me!
— But who Christina, what…
— My God Oscar will you stop asking stupid questions and, Lily, help Lily find my purse will you? instead of standing there like a, will you get rid of that cigar! A sweater, that tan cashmere, it's down here somewhere sitting here all this time talking about God knows what till Trish finally just happens to mention he's honestly Trish, honestly!
— But Teen, we thought you knew Teen, we thought you knew.
— Didn't want to pry you know, talked about it driving out here Trishy thought we could cheer you up, take your mind off it, really marveled at how you were handling it, stiff upper lip and all the rest between you and Harry after all, didn't want to seem to pry into your…