Gormenghast

Steerpike:
Help me, I'm starving.

Lady Fuchsia:
Don't touch me.

Steerpike:
Listen to me...

Lady Fuchsia:
Don't touch!

Steerpike:
Listen to me. Please! I did it; I admit it. I killed Flay. You know that, don't you? I killed your aunts, I burnt the library... It was me! I burnt your father's books. I drove him mad - He killed himself because of me. But I did it all for you...

Lady Fuchsia:
I hate you.

Steerpike:
I did it all so I could be in a place where you would see me.

Lady Fuchsia:
I don't want to see you!

Steerpike:
You love me! I'm ugly and I'm disgusting and you love me. You love me because I'm the only one who can see you. You're so lonely, My Lady... I'm the only one who knows who you are and what you are.

Lady Fuchsia:
Go away from me.

Steerpike:
I know what you dream about.

Lady Fuchsia:
You do not!

Steerpike:
I do. You know I do.

Lady Fuchsia:
I have my family!

Steerpike:
Your mother? Is that a mother? She hardly looks at you. And do you have a real brother? He's so wrapped up in himself, he can't tell. He's even too weak to take what's given him! Does he love you? Does he even see who you are? [pause] I'm sorry about your father... I didn't think that would happen to him. I thought you were all so strong! I thought you were much stronger than me. I wanted to rescue you so you'd like me... Believe me, My Lady, I'm yours! You'll never know a love like mine. I will die for you. Look at me! I'm dying for you now. But I'll win... They can't stop me, because now I know: I'm stronger than all of them! For you I am... With you I am...

Lady Fuchsia:
You're so ugly.

Steerpike:
That doesn't matter anymore, does it? I will make you my queen. I will give you everything you need...

Lady Fuchsia:
Yes...

Steerpike:
Everything! Oh, Fuchsia...

Lady Fuchsia:
How dare you call me that. I am LADY Fuchsia! You call me very familiar... Kitchen boy! Guard! Guard! He's here! The kitchen brat!

Steerpike:
No, Lady Fuchsia!

Lady Fuchsia:
Do not touch me! You have no RIGHT to touch me! Guard! Guard, he's here! The rat is here!

Steerpike:
I could have given you everything... Remember that! I could have made you everything you'd ever dreamt of... [disappears through the window]

Steerpike:
I understand!

Lady Fuchsia:
No, you don't!

Steerpike:
If I understand anything, I understand anger. And that's because I understand what it feels like to be rejected. And don't think I don't understand loneliness too.

Lady Fuchsia:
I'm sorry! [throws herself in his arms before soon after jerking away from him again] No! No, this is horrible! YOU'RE horrible! You leave me alone! Never come near me! [runs off]

Steerpike:
[to himself] I can wait...

Steerpike:
Why is it that some people starve and others have so much they waste it?

Barquentine:
Damn his Lordship! Where is he?

Irma:
[shouts] Why do you never listen to me?

Steerpike:
I'm lost and I am dying of heat from the kitchens!

Lady Fuchsia:
[re. Titus, her baby brother] He's ugly.

Lady Gertrude:
So are you.

Lady Fuchsia:
I'm going to have a dream, and it's going to be a long one!

Lady Fuchsia:
[dancing along] I am Fuchsia! I am me! Don't be frightened, wait and see!

Swelter:
Why should I sing to you, a creature of no more consequence than a stoat's sh*t?

Dr. Prunesquallor:
Heave, Your Ladyship. As the brute in pursuit of the oval ball...

Lady Gertrude:
Shut up, Squallor!

Dr. Prunesquallor:
Heave-ho! As the matelot with the hempen rope... Heave!

Lady Gertrude:
Prunesquallor! Will you shut up!

Dr. Prunesquallor:
I see genitalia. It is of a sex, Ladyship.

Lady Gertrude:
What kind? Which sex?

Dr. Prunesquallor:
A brand new Groan!

Lady Gertrude:
Squallor, what is it?

Dr. Prunesquallor:
I spy testiclia, and thereabouts also a tinkle! It's a... An heir, Ladyship. An heir to the glory of Gormenghast! It's a boy!

Lord Groan:
Did you notice anything unusual about the boy?

Dr. Prunesquallor:
Oh structurally a sound child my lord, sound as a bell.

Lord Groan:
Damn the structure, did you see his face?

Dr. Prunesquallor:
I noticed his face, sir. I definitely noticed it if that's of any help.

Lord Groan:
Did you notice anything strange? Don't be afraid to speak out.

Dr. Prunesquallor:
Strange, Lordship?

Lord Groan:
The face, Prunesquallor, the face!

Dr. Prunesquallor:
Speaking professionally I should say his face was irregular, sir but not...

Lord Groan:
Unnatural?

Dr. Prunesquallor:
i'd say Irregular sir.

Lord Groan:
Ugly?

Dr. Prunesquallor:
I'd say unnatural.

Lord Groan:
Why must you hedge doctor? When I say ugly, have the goodness to use the word. HAVE YOU EVER DELIVERED A MORE HIDEOUS CHILD?

Dr. Prunesquallor:
Never, my lord! Never! And he has such extraordinary eyes!

Lord Groan:
Eyes? What's wrong with them?

Dr. Prunesquallor:
They are violet, my lord!

Dr. Prunesquallor:
Have a heart and swim away. We are so tired of the sight of your abdomen.

Steerpike:
Forgive its magnetism.

Barquentine:
Oh, wonderful. He's behaving his damn self.

Irma:
You are... magnificent.

Steerpike:
Thank you, madame. At your service.

Steerpike:
They all have to go sooner or later...

Lord Groan:
[despairingly] Gormenghast!

Barquentine:
Nine days! Nine days, no ceremony, no obeisance, no authority! No daily rite and passage. No heart pumping the blood of rule. We are disrupted. His Lordship is gone. Long live His Lordship.

Lady Gertrude:
What did you say?

Lady Fuchsia:
Titus?

Barquentine:
Exactly.

Lady Gertrude:
Titus is barely a year.

Barquentine:
Long may he live. We shall prepare the earling for next Thursday. The longest day, it is propitious.

Lady Gertrude:
Barquentine!

Barquentine:
An earling, Your Ladyship. There is much to be done.

Lady Gertrude:
[pause] Lord Groan?

Barquentine:
He's gone. History.

Flay:
[despairingly] Gormenghast!

Lord Groan:
As I say, Master Secretary, this day two months hence - my lady, the bird - I say - Nurse, the child - I want a breakfast for him, it's that simple. He is my son, isn't he?

Flay:
No! out, fart! This not for you! Back to vile kitchen!

Barquentine:
Nothing! Nothing! Have you never seen a fork before? It goes here, here! How can I be expected to lay the table for a feast that isn't even in the damned book! Huh? And will the ass come? Having put us to all this, will he come? Thinks he's a bird! Woo! Woo! You can button your lip, asswipe! Anything I say here is not for repetition by you! Do you understand? Damned breakfast!

Barquentine:
Searched nine days! and not one has ever gone missing. They die, abdicate, go mad, take up arms, kill each other, eat their children, mutilate themselves, split, shrink, decompose, but never, never disappear!

Barquentine:
Oh don't try and rook me, Sneershite! I see through you, bones and brain! Your master is the doctor! Doubtless he'll be pleased. No more here and there. Here by me. Do you understand? I'm now your master.

Steerpike:
Your throats are white and long for strangling! Sisters of a brother sent mad by burning! You shall hang, you shall hang!

Barquentine:
For God's sake! Pick it up! Pick it up, one of you! Give the little runt his stone back! And the ivy!

Prof. Bellgrove:
Damn it, boy! Don't you even know how to spell your own name?

Steerpike:
[singing to the starving, half-dead twins] I'm as mad as mad can be. Watch me get your whole family! I'm as mad as mad can be. And you two and me make three...

[Irma wants to throw a party in her honor to find a suitor]

Dr. Prunesquallor:
A party, my dear? Are you the type to give a party? Indeed, are you the type to go to one?

[Irma brandishes a knife at him]

Dr. Prunesquallor:
[startled] Oh, but I see that you are determined.

Lady Fuchsia:
I hate them for locking you up and I hate them for ignoring me!

[speaking to himself, after his colleagues have suggested that Irma Prunesquallor desires him]

Prof. Bellgrove:
Well, tonight's the night. Will I or won't I... Irma Prunesquallor? Statement made in the staffroom: She's passionate about me. Consider. One: It's poppycock. Two: My damned staff are damned interferers. Call themselves teachers! They lie to add zest to the party. Three: I haven't questioned their lie, so they don't know that I've seen through it. Four: So far, so good. Five: How do I turn the tables against these spoilers of all that is young and wonderful and, let's face it, lamblike? Six: What's wrong with Irma Prunesquallor, anyway? Noses must be some shape or other, or, as that damned idiot Shred would say, they wouldn't exist at all. Seven: No bosoms to speak of, true... but then, what are bosoms, weighed against... hm, quite. Eight: I'm lonely. Oh, Bellgrove, such scouring, not to say moving, honesty! Nine: What a catch I am for any woman. Ten: Oh God, please make her mine!

Lady Fuchsia:
I don't feel anything. Am I wicked?

Professor Mule:
Make way for Death! Make way for Death!

Dr. Prunesquallor:
My only thought, my Arabic one, is that having so precisely positioned such protuberances is it not spitting in the face of the divine to conceal them?

Irma:
You're going to ruin it. I knew you were!

Dr. Prunesquallor:
The vivacity of the visage, sweet necotine, and the twin peaks of paradise are, shall we say, hidden beneath net.

Irma:
Paradise? Hidden? Oh, never! It is I, Irma! Oh, let them come! My men from the mountains!

Steerpike:
[to Titus, Steerpike's last words] You were lucky!

Titus:
He was right, mother. He should have been your son. At least HE would have appreciated it.

Steerpike:
I'm going to make them wish they were never born! Or at least never born where they were. Maybe they should try the kitchens next time.

Lady Fuchsia:
The rain is nice, Nannie. I can pretend I'm not crying.

Titus:
Mr Flay, wait! I hate Gormenghast...

Flay:
Oh, no, Lordship! No, no, no. Can't be! Can't be.

[walks away]

Titus:
[to himself] But I do, Mr Flay. I do.

Steerpike:
Don't be frightened, My Lord. It is only a boy from the kitchens...

Steerpike:
[dejected, playing the syrinx to his monkey] It's just you and me now, Satan.

Steerpike:
I could have made you everything you've ever dreamt of. Remember that!

Steerpike:
[to Lady Fuchsia] I know I'm a grotesque. I know I come from no-where. But I love you...

Lady Fuchsia:
I am so sorry, Nannie. I don't know what to do. No one loves me... What shall I do? I can't dream forever...