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Chapter One. In which the seeds of adventure are sown.
I am born—in Paris—to parents of Swiss extraction.
My early years are spent in London, in the island country known as the United Kingdom.
It is there where my story begins, a long, long time ago . . . in the year 1860.
(He wraps himself in a blanket.)
I am a sickly child of eight, a pale and pasty-faced boy, prone to coughs and sneezes.
(He sneezes and clutches a stuffed animal, a dog.)
While other little children frolic in the out-of-doors, I am confined to my little bed in my little blue room.
(Children sing and play in the distance.)
CHILDREN’S VOICES
Ring around the rosey . . .
Come out, come out, wherever you are!
Olly olly oxen free! (Etc.)
LOUIS
I can see them from my window, playing in the sun! Oh how I long to be with them!
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(To his mother) Mother, why must I stay indoors? Why can’t I go out and play?
MOTHER
Dear child, you’re a fragile boy with a delicate constitution. Exposure to heaven-knows-what nastiness lurks out there in the world would only bring harm. Best to stay indoors, darling boy. Where Mother can protect you.
(Mother hums her theme, a haunting lullaby.)
LOUIS
(To us) Father, incidentally, doesn’t figure in my story; he is largely absent, off conducting business in exotic places.
Oh, but my devoted mother is there, always, at my bedside.
She is there at nightfall to tuck me in and blow out the lamp.
(She does as he describes.)
She is there in the morning, to let the sunlight wash over me.
(She opens curtains. Shadows of windowpanes fall across his bed.)
If I should drift off for a nap in the afternoon, when I awaken, she is there then, too.
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MOTHER
Hello, dearest.
(She presents him with a hot scone.)
LOUIS
Often with the gift of a scone, fresh from the cooker.
MOTHER
Careful.
(She blows on the scone; he eats it.)
LOUIS
(To Mother) Mmm. Golden raisins! My favorite!
(To us) Mother reads to me, constantly, for hours on end.
(She reads, sotto voce, from Robinson Crusoe. He plays with a toy boat.)
MOTHER
(Simultaneously with Louis) “I was born in the year 1632 . . . in the city of York . . . of a good family . . . but not of that country . . .”
LOUIS
(Simultaneously with Mother) Adventure stories.
Fantastic tales.
The great, timeless tomes.
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Arabian Nights.
The Odyssey.
Robinson Crusoe.
Wondrous journeys, each and every one of them.
MOTHER
(Reads audibly) “After we had rowed about a league and a half . . .”
LOUIS
Books break down the walls of my infirmary-prison.
MOTHER
“ . . . a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern, and took us with such a fury, that it overset the boat at once!”
(Sounds of a raging storm.)
LOUIS
My bed becomes a raft on the rocky ocean.
(He rides waves on his bed.)
MOTHER
“I saw the sea come after me as high as a great hil...
