November 15, 1615
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gain I sleepwalk, from room to room, standing in doorways, waiting before windows: I wake and there I am, unseeing, window, door or wall in front of me, the crime of myself, the assassination of my past confronting me. All the perfumes...all the words...all the concern defeat their purpose and I ask myself when will I get up next time and walk the floor, to disturb and be disturbed—for what reasons? Reasons for the unreasonable, reasons for the sickness of a mind—how can they be called reasons?
I wake to remember a dream, or wake to find the moment as bare as slate, or I feel that I am somewhere in the past, with my father, bending over people stricken by the plague, the plague bell tolling, the rain streaming over my face, someone weeping.
“Where is my new cap...where’s my new cap?” The dying boy pleads, huddled against the church wall.
Alleyn—on the stage at the Globe—informs me of the plague and warns me in his stentorian voice to leave off helping people, let them die; then, he carries away Puck.
Alleyn stalks across the stage, his voice cutting the dark, my sleep, my sleepwalker’s darkness. Dressed for Tambourlaine, forked beard over red cloak, he swings through lines, a torch gleaming, smoking behind his shoulder.
Henley Street
November 18, 1615