You won't prove it that way. I have no… physical existence, I admit that. (He reaches out a hand to touch that of Dennis. Their hands pass through each other, occupying the same space.) Do you feel anything?
DENNIS
No… yes, something… cold.
THE EMPEROR
Sad, isn't it? Something so full of hot life as myself, and I can only be felt as cold.
DENNIS
What… are you?
THE EMPEROR
Your creation. Your child, born of your performance. Born of its strength and its reality.
DENNIS
My creation? How… how could that happen?
THE EMPEROR
You created the Emperor, Dennis. On stage. Year after year, night after night, the strength of your performance formed me. You were never, as you have said to that woman who thinks she teaches acting, an interpreter. You were always a creator.
DENNIS
(Confused and upset) I don't see… I still don't see how such a thing… how you could come to be. Outside of my mind. That's where you belong – in my mind, nowhere else!
THE EMPEROR
Perhaps I'm the first of my kind. A… what shall I say? A histrion, perhaps?
DENNIS
But how?
THE EMPEROR
You became another person so many times, and so effectively, that that person became an independent entity. Me. (He smiles. There is no trace of menace in it)
DENNIS
That can't happen – there's no way that can happen. It would take more than a… a performance to bring something like… like you to life.
THE EMPEROR
Oh, of course. Of course it took more. Do you have any idea of the power that lives in a theatre? Any conception of the emotions remaining after years and years of people viewing plays, films, becoming involved with what they see on that stage or screen?
DENNIS
(Slowly understanding) Catharsis.
THE EMPEROR
Exactly! Catharsis! And it remains where it is shed, remains as what one might call energy. And the result? Cogito, ergo sum!
I have gone insane, Dennis Hamilton thought, looking at the person, the creature, the ghost, the thing standing near him, there in his living room.
It was there. He saw it, he heard it, he knew he was not dreaming. He may have created it, yes, but if so, he had created it only in his mind. His fingers had slipped right through those of the thing. Wasn't that proof that it was not real?
Wasn't that proof, he thought in a miserable panic, that he was crazy?
THE EMPEROR
(Shaking his head sadly) You don't believe me. You think I'm nothing but an hallucination.
DENNIS
(Firmly) Yes. Yes, that's right.
THE EMPEROR
I can prove I'm not.
DENNIS
How?
THE EMPEROR
If I'm your hallucination, I can only know what you know. Isn't that true?
DENNIS
Yes. That seems… logical. If any of this is logical.
THE EMPEROR
It is. Supremely. (He smiles) Royally. I know the answers.
DENNIS
What answers?
THE EMPEROR
I know why Robin died. And Tommy Werton. I'm sad to say I know why Tommy died too.
DENNIS
(His hands tremble) Why? Why Robin?
THE EMPEROR
(His face is wreathed with deep sadness) She wanted to kill Ann. (Dennis's eyes squeeze shut. He clasps his hands over his ears.) I know. I know, it's difficult to believe. But I can see into hearts. I can see what even the finest actors, those scholars of human emotion, cannot. Robin hated Ann Deems. She took her up among the stars to kill her. She had found a pin that belonged to Ann, a pin that you had given her many years ago. She intended to drop it as Ann fell through the ceiling, and then tell people that it had come off her blouse and she had stepped down after it, not realizing the danger. But the light went on. An unforeseen accident. And Robin fell instead of her intended victim.
DENNIS
(Whispering) No… oh dear God, no…
THE EMPEROR
If it will comfort you to know, she did it for love of you. (An inarticulate cry comes from Dennis.) She loved you very much.
DENNIS
(After a moment his sobs subside.) And Tommy… what about Tommy?
THE EMPEROR
That, I fear, was partially my fault. It was me he saw backstage. I unintentionally distracted him. He saw me, thought I was you.
DENNIS
Did you… did you call him onto the stage?
THE EMPEROR
I did, Dennis, yes. I saw that things were wrong, and I wanted only to help. I had no idea that the fire curtain would fall.
DENNIS
You didn't?
THE EMPEROR
(Spreading his fingers) Could I have pulled the pin? (He attempts to pick up one of the Tony Awards, but his hand passes through it.) An accident. A tragic accident.
DENNIS
Harry…
THE EMPEROR
Harry Ruhl? He was disturbed, Dennis. A simple and disturbed young man. It was terrible, but it was self- inflicted.
DENNIS
