Hamlet (10 page)

“Go on,” Ophelia said again. “It’s all right. It’s the only thing to do. Look at its face. It can’t survive.”

“I . . .” Hamlet said. “I don’t think it’s big enough.”

“Of course it is,” Ophelia said. She had not yet understood the problem. Hamlet could not do it in front of anyone, only on his own. “Please, Hamlet. The pain it is . . . you must put it out of its misery. Nothing in such pain should live.”

Hamlet jerked and swallowed. “You . . . I can’t . . .” he said. “Why should I? Oh, all right, then.” And he stabbed angrily at the badger, missing the heart by such a margin that the sword went in somewhere along the back of the spine, near the tail. The badger grunted and flailed its legs. Hamlet realized the enormity of his mistake and stabbed wildly now, three, four times, until blood was everywhere across the ground and breath was leaving the spasming animal.

For every breath the badger lost, Hamlet breathed harder, and now that the creature had nothing left, the boy panted, as if somehow breathing for them both. Soon, it was over. In anger and embarrassment he looked around for his two friends. They had backed away and were behind him now, Ophelia with averted eyes, Horatio frowning.

“It’s different with bow and arrow,” Hamlet said. His anger felt like scarlet fever. If I were here on my own, I would stab myself, he thought. That would be easy. But I wouldn’t do it in front of anyone. I’d probably mess that up too.

The best swordsman in the castle, for his age! Horatio was thinking. Probably the best in the country! But he went to water. I would have done it with one clean stroke. I’ll be better than him one day.

And as they walked home in silence, Horatio trailing behind the other two, he practiced huge stabbing strokes at the prince’s back, realizing with terror as he did that such a thing was tantamount to treason.

Claudius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern met in the library moments after the play finished. The king strode up and down the room, past the heavy ranks of books that muffled all sound, pulling at his beard, wild-eyed and sweating. “I just don’t like him,” he said. “I don’t care whether he’s disturbed in his mind or what his problem is. I’m not going to have him rampaging around the place like a madman. He’ll have to go away for a while. Under escort. And you can take him. Yes, that’s it. You two shall take him somewhere, shall shepherd him.”

Rosencrantz nodded solemnly. “Your Majesty, in a family, the father influences his wife and his children and those others who live in the house. But in the family of a whole country, millions of people rely upon your good government. Whatever it takes to help the security of Denmark, depend on us to do it.”

“Truly, when a king sighs,” Guildenstern joined in, “the whole nation groans. Any person must have an effect on himself and others, but the impact of a king is magnified a multitude of times.”

There was a time when Claudius dreamed of hearing such things, when he had imagined that the flattery of courtiers would be sweet to the ears and like roses to the nose. But in the heat generated by Hamlet’s trick with the play, he had no patience with such talk. He snapped his fingers at the two men and nodded dismissal, just as Polonius bustled in through the little doorway beside the fireplace.

“Majesty,” he said, pink-faced with the excitement of a new plot. “Majesty,” he repeated, “he’s on his way to his mother’s suite.”

No need to say who “he” was. Hamlet dominated Elsinore tonight, as so often before, even during times when he hadn’t done much. This night, with an attack on the king that could hardly have been more direct, he strode the castle stage with unassailable power.

“I’ll hide myself behind the screen to hear what’s going on,” Polonius volunteered. “As you said to me just the other day, and no disrespect to Her Majesty of course, sometimes it’s wise not to rely on a mother’s account. It is natural for her to be biased, and therefore best for an independent witness to be present.”

Claudius betrayed his wife without a second thought. It was just another business matter, another precaution, one more hole in the fence to be checked. All measures were justified if Hamlet was planning a coup. “Good, very good, my friend, tell me everything. I have just arranged with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to take Hamlet away somewhere. They will escort him and keep him safe — and, by the way, keep me safe at the same time. Now make haste.”

The old man, glowing with the righteousness that only the rudest know, hurried away to his self-appointed task.

Now at last the king was left alone. It was not common for him to be alone these days. He stood still for a full minute after Polonius closed the door. Then, unexpectedly, he sank to his knees. He was even surprised at himself. He was always strong in front of others, but suddenly there was no mask to be kept in place. Take away the mask and what is left? Take away the façade of a building and the interior is exposed. And sometimes the building is empty.

A deep sob arose in him, and he realized he would not be able to hold it back. It was like a huge bubble in a hot mud pool, coming to the surface and flowering in black. “Oh!” he half grunted, half groaned, as it burst from his mouth. “Oh! My crime is foul. It smells to the highest heaven. A brother’s murder. The earliest of crimes, the worst of crimes. Cain killed Abel, and I have followed in his path. I want to pray! I feel such a desire to pray. Yet I cannot. Forgiveness might be mine, if I could pray. The whitening rain of heaven might fall upon me and wash me clean. But I can’t find the words. ‘Forgive the awful crime I have committed’? How can I say that when I am in possession of all that I gained from my bloody deed? My crown, my queen, and the life I coveted. Can one be pardoned yet still retain the profits? On earth, yes, perhaps, maybe, with a word here and a payment there, but in heaven, no. There the sight is keen and the understanding perfect. What is there to hope for?”

The long lines of leather-bound books looked down on him impassively. Behind Claudius came Hamlet, on his way to his mother but entering the library in search of a lavatory. By the dying light of the coals in the fireplace, surrounded by shelves of Bibles and religious commentaries, he saw a dark shape crouched on the moth-holed carpet. He crept forward and was transfixed to see his enemy delivered up to him, kneeling with his back turned, like a target at the archers’ range. He was mumbling away to himself, but Hamlet could not make out the words above the scream of the wind at the windows. The prince stood in an ecstasy of shock. This was the very thing he wanted, the moment he had longed for. If ever a time offered itself up to be seized, this was it. King on a plate, and Hamlet had the cutlery. His hand flew to the hilt of his sword. For so long now, he had lain awake or walked the castle’s ramparts with his hand on that sword, dreaming of killing the monster. The uproar at the play had brought matters to a head. Blood must be spilled.

Now I can do it, Hamlet exulted. Now he is mine. Revenge is mine. He was creeping forward even as his mind formed the thoughts. He knew his sword would make a sound as he withdrew it from its scabbard; therefore he resolved not to draw it until he was within a few steps of the praying king. It would be done with perfect speed. The king, mumbling prayers that Hamlet could not hear, was lost in his devotions, and so he would lose his life.

Yet suddenly an awful thought gripped the young prince. Prayers! Praying! What was he thinking? A man in the middle of his prayers is a man in the presence of God. Such a man, were he to die at that moment, must fly to heaven, surely? Hamlet was about to send the murderer of his father to heaven! What kind of revenge was that?

Eyes staring in horror, the prince began to retreat, as noiselessly as he had advanced. This was not the moment to execute his uncle. He would wait until the man was in a drunken sleep, or a violent rage, or in the bed of sin he shared with Hamlet’s mother. He would wait until he was gambling or swearing or flirting with one of the maids. Then the slain Claudius would go to the blackest, deepest corner of hell, the place where he belonged.

Hamlet left the room. A moment later the king staggered to his feet, head throbbing. “My words go to heaven, but my thoughts stay here,” he whispered to himself. “And words without thoughts bump upon the ceiling.”

Hamlet went down the stairs uneasily, still consumed by the memory ten minutes earlier of the king at prayer. He had found a lavatory and sat on it, emptying his bowels in an exhausted rush. Perhaps he should have struck the king as he knelt, and left it to God to do the rest. But when it came to carrying out the duties his father had set him, Hamlet knew there must be no mistake. His father had been a hard taskmaster. Critical whenever the boy had acted rashly or shown poor judgment, he would never forgive any error in this, the greatest challenge he had ever set his son, the greatest challenge any man could set his child.

As Hamlet walked along the corridor, his feet slowed. He had the sense that he was walking toward feathers, and they would not be the comforting feathers contained within a mattress but rather they would be loose and uncontrolled. The air would be full of them, and he would get them in his lungs every time he breathed. He had experienced this before, down in the poultry yard, and the memories slowed him further, until, about ten meters from his mother’s door, he stopped and leaned against the wall, hugging himself with both hands under his armpits. His hands felt sticky with blood, and yet they were clean and pale.

He could hear his mother talking and a man’s voice replying. The king! His uncle! Now the hotness of his thoughts just minutes earlier was cooling and starting to confuse him. He began to regret this trip down the cold corridor. He could not bear to face both of them in her suite. He would not! His uncle had no business there, no right. He was the usurper. The son had more right than the husband. The prince’s hand went to his sword again. Was this the right moment? Was it time? Could he do it in front of his mother?

The voices were quiet.

Trembling, Hamlet called out, “Mother!” He wanted to warn the pair of them that he was coming. He wanted to avoid any scene that would disturb him further. He called again, “Mother! Mother!” Even to himself he sounded querulous.

He opened the door and walked in. There she stood, one hand to her throat. Only four candles were lit in the great chandelier. The room was dim, the gold furniture glowed, the vases on the shelves were empty. She looked flushed. Hamlet was enraged by the sight of her but kept his face icy.

“Why did you send for me?” he asked. He looked around the room. No sign of the king, who must have gone through the other door into the boudoir, the innermost chamber. Hamlet was blackened by rage. He was staggered by his own rage. That the uncle should be in there, while the mother talked to her son as though she had no thoughts of the usurper, as though she were pretending she did not know what was going on.

He looked back at her. He no longer trembled. He was sustained now by his sense of righteousness. He could see the great effort she made to speak to him calmly.

“Hamlet, you have much offended your father.”

Father? The lie had come so easily to her lips. That man had cuckolded his true father, the only one who had the right to the title.

“Mother, you have much offended my father.”

“Come, come,” she said, “you answer with an idle tongue.”

“Go, go, you question with a wicked one.”

It was childish, but he had never openly defied her before. The words almost stuck in his teeth. His mouth felt dry.

She was uneasy and embarrassed, and held her throat more tightly, as if to keep something in.

“What do you mean, Hamlet? You are not yourself. This is not the Hamlet I know.”

“You? Who are you? Do you know me?”

“Have you forgotten me?”

“No.” He spoke slowly, wanting her to remember every cut that he was about to inflict, every stinging slash across her face. “No, I know who you are. You are Gertrude, the queen, your husband’s brother’s wife. And — I wish it were not so! — you are my mother.”

“That is enough. You have said enough.”

“I thought of you once as the soul of virtue,” he continued deliberately. “I thought of you as the woman who modeled virtue. Now I know you for who you are. And I will tell you what you are.”