Romance

The mezzanine.

Are your philosophers having fun, do you think? Lea asks.

My philosophers?

You’re the Head, aren’t you? You run the show … They’ll be wondering where you went.

What about your husband: won’t he be wondering where you went?

He won’t have noticed.

I’ll bet he has.

He’s preparing for his speech – there’ll be a welcome Philosophy speech, you know. Are you looking foreward to it? … Anyway, I do my own thing. He knows that. He’s used to me disappearing. Wouldn’t you love to be married to me? I make everything … unpredictable.

The madwoman in the O.M. attic?

Exactly.

Looking down from the railing.

I like watching a party from outside, Lea says. Musing upon all the things that might happen. All the romances that might start. I suppose philosophers despise romance …

Romance is a honey trap.

Whose honey trap?

Nature’s. It’s supposed to lure you in. Nature wants us trapped. Confined. Seeking all our salvation from romantic love …

And where should we be seeking it from? Philosophy?

Philosophy’s a search for salvation, too.

But it’s a lot less fun … You could write a philosophy of romantic love. It might make your name.

Plato did that already. In, like, 500 BC. Socrates was supposed to be in love with this beautiful youth called Alcibiades. But when Alcibiades offered himself to him, Socrates refused.

Because he had his mind on higher things …

On true beauty. Which is the visible aspect of the good.

Is that what you believe in: the good?

I believe in evil. There’s too much evil.

And how about the beautiful?

Beauty can be a false promise.

Like romance?

Like romance.