Saturday, October 25, 2008

Thomas Harris's first draft that just didn't work.

Hannibal Lecter: I will listen now. After your father's murder, you were orphaned. You were ten years old. You went to live with cousins on a vegetable patch in Montana. And...?
Clarice Starling: [tears begin forming in her eyes] And one morning, I just ran away.
Hannibal Lecter: No "just", Clarice. What set you off? You started at what time?
Clarice Starling: Early, still dark.
Hannibal Lecter: Then something woke you, didn't it? Was it a dream? What was it?
Clarice Starling: I heard a strange noise.
Hannibal Lecter: What was it?
Clarice Starling: It was... screaming. Some kind of screaming, like a child's voice.
Hannibal Lecter: What did you do?
Clarice Starling: I went downstairs, outside. I crept up into the barn. I was so scared to look inside, but I had to.
Hannibal Lecter: And what did you see, Clarice? What did you see?
Clarice Starling: Lejumes. A big barrel of lentils. And they were screaming.
Hannibal Lecter: They were shelling the lentils and what else?
Clarice Starling: And they were screaming.
Hannibal Lecter: And you ran away?
Clarice Starling: No. First I tried to free them. I... I turned the barrel on it side, but they wouldn't roll away. They just lay there, confused. They wouldn't run.
Hannibal Lecter: But you could and you did, didn't you?
Clarice Starling: Yes. I took one spoonful of lejumes, and I ran away as fast as I could.
Hannibal Lecter: Where were you going, Clarice?
Clarice Starling: I don't know. I didn't have any food, any water and it was very cold, very cold. I thought, I thought if I could save just one, but... they was so awkward. So awkward. I didn't get more than a few miles when the sheriff's car picked me up. The farmer was so angry he sent me to live at the Lutheran orphanage in Bozeman. I never saw the farm again.
Hannibal Lecter: What became of your lejumes, Clarice?
Clarice Starling: They made them into a lentil soup.
(Silence of the Lejumes, Thomas Harris first draft, 1982)

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