The Tragedy of Christophe, The King
Scene 3
originally written by Aime Cesaire
translated by Gabrielle Parent

List Of Characters

Henry Christophe -Former slave, former chef, former general, the king of Haiti

Madame Christophe - Former hotel maid, the queen.

Vastey - Baron, Christophe’s secretary

Corneille Brelle - Duke of Anse, Archbishop of the Capital

Magny - Duke of Pleasure, general.

Guerrier - General, Duke of the Advancement.

Martial Besse - Engineer

Hugonin - A melange of clown, parasite and politician.

Richard - Count of the Northern band.

Stewart - Englishman, the king’s doctor.

Juan de Dios - Archbishop of the Capital after the death of Corneille Brelle.

Pages. Men and women peasantry. Soldiers.

The scene is in Haiti, in the first decade of the 19^th century.


SCENE 3

In the Palace

MASTER OF CEREMONIES

Hurry, gentlemen, get going! Sorry to rush you but the King can show up at any time and we must begin with the roll call. I will call out the names and do the reminding about the general principles of the ceremony. An important ceremony. It’s capital, gentlemen, where the eyes of the world are turned.

(Contortionists, simiesques, and ironies of the courtisans)

FIRST COURTISAN

Sir the duke!

SECOND COURTISAN

Sir the count!

THIRD COURTISAN

Oh! My prince!

(Explosion of laughter)

FIRST COURTISAN

What history! This king, this kingdom, this crowning, we can not even begin to believe it!

SECOND COURTISAN

We don’t believe it, but we feel it. It’s tiring.

VASTEY

This black king, a blue story, is it not? This black kingdom, this court, a perfect replication in black of what ol’ Europe did better in matters of the court!

MAGNY, duke of Pleasure

My dear Vastey, I am an old soldier. I commanded under Toussaint and Dessalines and I will tell you frankly that I am hurt by these courtesanesque ways you seem to be using to make your delights.

VASTEY (dignified)

My dear colleague !Magny! Duke of Pleasure! Hear those words!

SECOND COURTESAN

With our snooty titles, Duke of Lemonade, Duke of Marmalade, Count Candy Hole, we have bottomless pit of them. What are you thinking! The French are holding their sides.

VASTEY (ironic)

Ye of little faith! Come on now! The laughter of the French doesn’t make me nervous! Marmalade, why not? Why not Lemonade? They are names that fill the mouth! Wishfully gastronomic! After all, the French have the Duke of Liver and the Duke of Bouillon. Are those more appetizing? There are precedents, you see! As far as you’re concerned, Magny, let’s get serious. Have you not noticed who Europe sent us when we appealed for aid to International Technical Assistance? Not an engineer. Not a soldier. Not a professor. A Master of Ceremonies! Form, that’s what it is, my dear, civilization! Forming men! Think about it, think! Form, the die on which the very stuff, the being of man is cast. Last of all. The void, but a prodigious void, a generator, a creator?

MAGNY

What does this gabbledy-gook mean?

VASTEY

They are some that understand it instinctively. Christophe, with his fabulous potter’s hands, shaping the Haitian clay, himself not least. I don’t know if he realizes, but better yet, he senses it, scents the line snaking in from the future, the shape to it! That’s something, believe you me, in a country like ours.

MAGNY

To hell with your dream of a gourmet esthete. If he had heeded me, instead of getting daubed with a drop of cocoa oil and his head strapped into a crown, he’d be harnessed into a sword and buckler, and the sword in his fist, we’d use to giddy him up toward Port-au-Prince, where there’s so much lovely land for the taking and so many bandits to attack.

HUGONIN

I am not a black smith...Oh! no not a saber dragger...not an officer...But I nevertheless have a little idea on the question...Genius, you hear me, genius this idea of inventing a royalty...? It is a way for the King to baptize those he wanted and to be the guardian of everybody!
It’s true that if the wives let him, he would have been not the godfather of all Haitians but the father! It I had been minister I know well the proposal I would have made in Council, to the King.

MAGNY

Look where we are, Vastey. A court, some nobles_ and a royal joker!

HUGONIN

Since the last while the titles have been raining everywhere. My god, that one there deserves another, so I collect it and I accept it. And the gift for the new year, that child our King made for the big lady that you know, I would have suggested calling it the duke of varieties.

VASTEY

Riddles may well be a national passtime, but I swear that this one surpasses my understanding.

HUGONIN

You see that you do not know everything!
(big laugh from the courtesans)
But attention! Here he is_! Devil! The small of my back is damaging me!
(the courtesans rectify their positions)

MASTER OF CEREMONIES

(noticing Christophe)
Sirs, I beg you, Sirs a bit of quiet. I will do the role call:
His Great Eminence the Duke of Lemonade
His Great Eminence the Duke of Pleasure.
His Serene Highness the Marquis of Swallowing/Gulping/Swigs
His Great Eminence the Duke of Grand Dames/Great Dames
His Greatness Sir the Duke of Marmalade
Sir the Count of the Candy Hole
Sir the Count of Dirty Hole/Ass
Ecuyers:
Jean-Louis Lamour
Tonton Cimetiere
Jean-Jaques Sever
Etienne Registre
Solide Cupidon
Joseph Almanzor
Sir Jupiter
Sir Pierre Pompee
Sir Lolo Jolicoeur.
Good! Everyone is here. Mister Paravire in terms of store-guard, careful of the crown jewels_And according to tradition, as I remember it, they go in this order: the ring, the sword, the cloak, the hand of justice, the scepter!

Go on Sirs!

CHRISTOPHE

Well, well! Good! But the women are awfully absent. Let these ladies come forward and assign to each her rightful place in the ceremony (The ladies enter: big-bottomed black women, all gussied up.) - (Christophe pats a few of their bottoms). Come on my lady marquises, my lady duchesses, my dearest jewels. (The ladies take their places.)_ Lady Syringe, Lady Little-Hole, Lady Blink! My dear gossip monger!

(The courtisans make themselves look busy and engage in a sort of general clumsy bufoonery)

MASTER OF CEREMONIES

The Procession! Have a care for the procession! No strutting, sharp- elbowed gestures...Rounded movements! Nor the stiff air of a soldier on parade, nor cavalier nonchalance, the feet—African, and the arm -- Creole. An air at once dignified and natural... Lofty and natural...

CHRISTOPHE (exploding)

In the name of God! How did I get fouled up and foiled by a bunch of coconuts like these? Dirty Ass—what the devil! Parading like that, just to sass me, you can go on straight to hell! (Grabbing Candy Hole by the collar)... It doesn’t look at all like you’re going to present me with a scepter! I’m not going to eat you! It’s as if…he’s a banana being held out for an elephant!

MASTER OF CEREMONIES

Gentlemen, start again! Take some care with the walk! It’s all in the stride!

(Doctorly and technical)

Look, to walk well, a man has to be straight but not stiff, set his two legs in line, let his bearing be neither to the right nor the left of his axis, involve his whole body imperceptibly in the overall motion.

(The courtesans put this into operation.)

CHRISTOPHE

(relaxed then little by little more animated)

It is a lofty thought, Sir, and I take pleasure in seeing that you have seized the thing wholeheartedly. All its deep seriousness! These new names, these noble titles, this coronation!
In times past, our names were stolen from us!
Our pride!
Our nobility—us, I say. It was us who stole them from ourselves!
Pierre, Paul, Jacques, Toussaint! Look at the humiliating seals under which we intend to stamp out our real names.
Me myself,
your king
can you feel the pain of a man who doesn’t know by what name he is to be called? What will his name call him to? Alas, only Mother Africa can tell.
Ah well, to claw or not tol claw, it’s all there. My answer is “claw”. Us—we must be the “claws”. Not just the torn, but tearers, too. Us and our names, would that we could rip them from the past that they might be ripe for the future!

(tenderly)

Come now, I want to cover your slave names with glorious names, shameful names with proud ones, orphaned names with unfettered names.
It’s a new birth, Messieurs, stirring.

(Contemplating the crown jewels)

A toy rattle or two, toy rattles…without a doubt
To shake as well.
A small stony island, half-naked Negroes in their thousands
that the waves vomited up one night.
Where from! With their stench of beasts—hunted,
On the run.
Shake, shake, white savanna
As my ancestors from Bambaras would say
Shake up the power of speaking,
doing, of constructing, building,
being, naming, of connecting, of remaking
then, I will take them on
I know the weight of them
And will carry it.

(The lights go out. When they come back on: Cathédral du Cap)