with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in
somersaults through the gathering darkness.)
ALL
What?
Fake Tattoos THE HOBGOBLIN
(Fake Tattoos his jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his eyes, squeaking,
kangaroohopping with outstretched clutching arms, then all at once thrusts
his lipless face through the fork of his thighs) Fake Tattoos Il vient! C'est moi! L'homme
qui rit! L'homme primigŠne! (he whirls round and round with dervish
howls) Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux! (He crouches juggling Tiny
roulette planets fly from his hands.) Les jeux Fake Tattoos sont faits! (the planets rush
together, Fake Tattoos uttering crepitant cracks) Rien va plus! (The planets, buoyant
balloons, Fake Tattoos sail swollen
up and away. He springs off into vacuum.)
FLORRY
(sinking into torpor, crossing herself Fake Tattoos secretly) The end of the world!
(A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her. Fake Tattoos nebulous obscurity
occupies space. Through the Fake Tattoos drifting fog without the gramophone
blares over coughs and feetshuffling.)
THE GRAMOPHONE
Jerusalem!
Fake Tattoos Open your Fake Tattoos gates and sing
Hosanna ....
(A rocket rushes up the sky and bursts. A white Fake Tattoos star fills from it,
proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of
Elijah. Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir
the End of the World, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby
and tartan filibegs, whirls through the murk, head Fake Tattoos over heels, Fake Tattoos in the
form of the Three Legs of Man.)
<*page*>
THE END OF THE WORLD
(with a Scotch accent) Wha'll dance the keel Fake Tattoos row, the keel Fake Tattoos row, the keel
row?
(Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice,
harsh as a corncrake's, jars on high. Perspiring in a loose lawn
surplice with funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced,