Summary of Emmanuel Arago's Diary Play

SUMMARY
EMMANUEL ARAGO’S DIARY

A Play of Two Acts
By Mehmet Murat İldan

In Act I, Scene One, we see Gregory’s wife, Elizabeth, coming to see him in his study room at their manor house in 1865. Gregory, a novelist, has just started writing a mystery novel after a long interval so he is interested in death and murder. Elizabeth suggests that he should talk to a real murderer.

In Scene Two, Gregory, disguised as a priest, visits Milton, a tailor condemned to death because of murder in his cell in the prison. Milton gives Gregory Emmanuel Arago’s name as a master killer. Emmanuel Arago is a mysterious antique dealer who does not leave any traces behind him after the murders he commits.

In Scene Three, Gregory, under the guise of a sea captain, goes to Emmanuel Arago’s antique shop to sell a dagger and there he meets Malaparte, Arago’s dwarf apprentice, who pretends to be Arago. Then Arago arrives and has an interesting discussion with Gregory about daggers, the art of selling antiques and of killing with daggers. When Gregory leaves, Arago gets suspicious and asks his apprentice, Malaparte, to follow him.

In Scene Four, we see Gregory visiting his sister-in-law, Catherine, in the mental hospital she is kept in. Although Gregory always felt nice things for Catherine, a very beautiful, intelligent and strong woman, he married Elizabeth, Catherine’s sister. Catherine took refuge in this mental hospital, because she wanted to keep “sane” so as to be able to cope with her great disappointment in her love for Gregory. Gregory has actually come to take her out of the hospital. In the meantime, we see Alfred, an inmate, bringing Catherine a cut-off frog’s head.

In Scene Five, while the formalities for Catherine’s release are being completed, Gregory learns that Malaparte has also been hospitalised. He sees an “imitation” painting on the wall given to the hospital by Emmanuel Arago and so learns that the head doctor already knows Arago.

In Scene Six, Arago is having a hunting party, in which Gregory joined him, again as Captain Bruckner. Meanwhile, they have a discussion about the psychology of killing animals and people. Gregory learns that Arago thinks killers feel like God and also that he is planning to marry Catherine.

Scene Seven begins with Malaparte telling that he has been hit on the head while following Gregory, whom they suspected to be a detective. From their conversation we learn that Arago is training Malaparte as a master-killer and he had actually been put in hospital to kill a certain inmate John Gaskell. Instead, Malaparte killed an innocent woman, Margaret. Malaparte tries very hard to be raised to the status of a master-killer from being just an apprentice.

In Act Two, Scene One, we see Elizabeth talking to Allan, their housekeeper, whom she sent out to spy on her husband. Allan tells her about Gregory’s visit to the mental hospital to see Catherine and how they left the hospital together. Elizabeth is jealous of her husband and fears that he will divorce her. Allan suggests that she should fight for her love and that she should try to keep her husband. He also wants to stay on the farm and decides to fight on Elizabeth’s side.

In Scene Two, we see Arago, dressed up, waiting for Catherine to visit him. Catherine enters wearing a red wig on her shaved head. Arago proposes to her and Catherine accepts it on the one condition that he will kill her sister. They drink to their future happiness together. Catherine wants to take her revenge from her sister for taking away the man she loved from her. She asks Arago to do away with Elizabeth. Arago sees himself as a “knight”, whose mission is to save the world from “evil” persons. As Elizabeth is not an “evil” person in his definition, he refuses to kill her.

In Scene Three, Catherine and Gregory are visiting the cemetery, where Gregory shows her the grave of a man who had been murdered. He tells her that the murderer who sent to kill that man was Arago, Catherine’s future husband. However, as Catherine learns from Alfred, the frog-man, the person who had killed Margaret was not Graham but Malaparte, Arago’s apprentice, trained in the art of killing. Catherine tells Gregory that she asked Arago to kill his sister to be able to catch him red-handed but that Arago refused to do so. Gregory, not believing in Arago’s honesty, rushes away to find Elizabeth immediately.

In Scene Four, Elizabeth is sitting in the manor house, having a long “internal monologue” in which she goes over the things that have happened in her life. Believing that Gregory will divorce her in order to marry her sister, she decides to take her life with the sharp dagger hanging on the wall.

In Scene Five, Gregory enters the manor house and finds Elizabeth dead. He thinks that Arago killed her and decides to go after him.

In Scene Six, at Elizabeth’s funeral in the cemetery, Gregory blames Catherine for getting Arago to kill his wife. Catherine tells him to continue writing to be able to go on living in spite of his great pain.

In Scene Seven, Gregory goes to the antique shop to see Arago and tells him about his real identity, that he is not Captain Bruckner, or a detective, but Elizabeth’s husband. Arago tells him that it was not him who killed Elizabeth and also that his apprentice, Malaparte, has poisoned him by pouring poison into the wine. Gregory accuses Arago of being a liar as well as a murderer, and stabs him with the dagger; then he also drinks from the poisonous wine.

In Scene Eight, Catherine comes into the antique shop, and seeing Arago lying on the floor, accuses Gregory of killing him and Arago of killing Elizabeth. Before dying, Arago tells her that he recorded all his murders in a notebook, but he did not kill Elizabeth. After he dies, Catherine learns by reading Arago’s diary that he did not kill her sister. She decides that Elizabeth must have committed suicide.

In Scene Nine, Housekeeper Allan meets Malaparte in the street, whom he takes to be a thief. Allan tells Malaparte that it was himself who hit him on the head, seeing him following Gregory, that is Captain Bruckner. He tells Malaparte that he left the manor house after his lady died. He also confesses that he used to love her and intended to kill her sister. Malaparte offers Allan, who has lost his job, a job. He wants to train him as a killer that murders “good people”.

In Scene Ten, Catherine is sitting at Gregory’s writing table in the manor house, feeling lonely and seeing her life as empty and meaningless. While she is reading Arago’s diary, the frog-man Alfred comes in with a present in his hand, a bunch of flowers. He takes the diary and recognizes Malaparte, the dwarf, and his master Arago as the killers of Margaret. He throws the diary into the fire. Catherine cries, saying that now Arago will be forgotten forever.

In Scene Eleven, it is sixty-five years later, in 1930. At an antique market in the street, we see a seller offering his customer, a printer, a copy of Arago’s diary, in which all the murders he committed in Colchester were recorded. When the customer decides to buy the diary, the seller says that Emmanuel Arago’s soul must be grateful to them, for his noble name will go on living forever.