Original subtitles

Good evening.

I came down here because I understand that the current year is a very good

for wine.

For drinking it, that is. I'm looking for some champagne.

Not to be taken internally.

Oh.

For bathing only.

Fortunately, my tastes aren't so expensive.

I bathe in ginger beer.

That way one doesn't have to add a softener.

All this is by way of introducing tonight's play.

It is called, by an extraordinary coincidence, A Bottle of Wine.

Great.

Hello, Judge.

I came to get my clothes.

So you're going.

You're already going after all.

I won't be long. Grace, isn't there... Nothing.

I see.

Ten years, and one word seems to take care of it all.

Nothing. Such a merciless word. Judge, we've been through all this. Have we,

Grace?

Or is it just that I've been doing all the talking?

And all the listening, too?

If you'll excuse me, please.

Why is it that the less use people have for another human being, the politer

they become to him?

Relentlessly politer.

Really, Judge, I don't have time right now for any of your handy pocket

philosophy.

I see.

Where's Wallace?

Waiting for you?

Counting the seconds at some adjacent bar?

Go ahead.

Tear him down.

See if I care.

Forgive me. I didn't mean to be ungracious.

Well, he's not in a bar. He's... He's outside in the car.

Of course.

You need someone to help you with your luggage.

Oh, that's just about what I'd expect you to say.

Oh, you're gracious, all right, Judge.

Believe me, you are gracious.

Mr. Donaldson, come wait inside.

The sun's too hot out there.

It's all right. I can wait here. Oh, don't be foolish. This heat will kill

Afternoon. Afternoon.

It's, uh...

Hot, isn't it?

You are the judge.

I mean, Judge Condon.

Grace's... Grace's husband.

Does it always get this hot in town?

Not always, just mostly. Mostly August, around this time of year.

I didn't want to come here.

I can imagine.

But... Grace said that it would be all right that she wouldn't be very long.

You're young.

Younger than I thought you'd be.

And money, I dare say you have money.

Whatever you're saying to me.

I think I'd better wait in the car. Nonsense.

This isn't an everyday occasion.

A perfectly civilized conversation while one's wife gathers the wardrobe of ten

years.

Actually, this is a new experience for me. One wonders what to say exactly.

Certainly there should be something in common we could talk about.

Well, for example, Grace.

Let's go inside. It's cooler there.

You don't know Grace.

She's not quite as well as I do. She'll be a good five or ten minutes yet.

Let's wait in the library. It's the only room in the house with a fan.

Sit down, young man.

You stand there like a buck I once shot in Wisconsin, feeling the wind for

danger.

And after all, you're virtually one of the family now.

I'm sorry we had to meet.

Oh?

Yes, I'm not up to this sort of thing. I can see you're not.

Well, if it'll make you feel any easier, I don't feel much up to it myself.

Oh, sit down. It's an old habit of mine to be on a slightly higher level than

the court.

Good. And while you wait, we'll have a little sherry.

I've some very good sherry outside here in the cabinet.

Very dry.

By the way, Mr. Donaldson, what do you do for a living?

I'm an architect.

What, here in Cartersville?

No, my father's firm in Chicago.

I came here on a job.

Now we can relax.

This is a very old wine.

Very old.

Very good.

And special.

Amontillado.

Yes.

We shall not taste its like again.

To Grace.

Can you propose a more fitting toast?

To Grace. To Grace.

It is good.

Rich and smooth.

Yes, we've been saving it for quite a long time, Grace and I.

For our 10th anniversary.

I bought it for her in Spain.

On our honeymoon. Quite a story.

Ten years from now, we told each other, we'll share this wine.

The wine of a decade.

Sir. Oh, it's quite all right. Grace doesn't touch alcohol anymore.

We may as well drink it, you and I.

Sir, I think it's better that I wait. Not that she ever did drink very much,

really. She takes pretty good care of herself, given the diet, the sound.

Oh, mind you, she likes an occasional glass of sherry. Something like this,

example.

She got to like it on our honeymoon.

I'm sorry, Judge.

I'm just not comfortable.

I mean, all this.

It's one thing to... To take a man's wife and quite another to drink a toast

doing it. Is that it?

I just don't feel I should stay. I should have waited in the car.

Thanks for the drink.

Goodbye.

But I would like to say again, I'm sorry.

You know, you disappoint me.

Disappoint you?

Yes, I thought you loved Grace.

I do.

If I loved a woman, I should be curious about her. I should want to know

everything about her.

I know all I need to know about her.

You do?

You'll stay because there are things about Grace you want to know.

I love her.

That's enough.

No, that's not enough.

You have questions you will never dare ask her yourself. Questions to which

you'll never get the answers, except for me.

You must hate her.

Hate her?

I'm an old man with a young wife.

And I love her with all the foolishness the young never know.

Oh, they know ecstasy, they know desire.

But they never know the wondrous foolishness of an old man in love for

time.

The young never know.

They never understand.

Believe me, sir, I'm sorry.

I wish it were otherwise.

This is a small town.

I've lived here all my life. My father and grandfather before me.

I'm the lawyer here.

I'm the judge.

Yes, I've been the judge for a long time.

Have you read Aristotle, Mr. Donaldson?

No.

When people dispute, Aristotle wrote, they take

refuge in the judge.

Oh, incidentally, do pour yourself some more wine.

He also said, Aristotle, to go to the judge is to go to justice.

The judge restores equality.

It is as though there were a line divided into unequal parts.

And he took away that by which the greater segment exceeds the half and

it the smaller segment.

Therefore, that just consists in having equal amounts before and after the

transaction.

Would you follow me, Mr. Donaldson?

What, only half finished?

Help yourself, Mr. Donaldson.

No, sir, I think I've had enough.

Help yourself.

This is one bottle of wine that deserves to be appreciated.

And we're going to finish it.

Every last drop of it, Mr. Donaldson.

I

could

shoot you, Mr. Donaldson, and get off scot -free.

You couldn't find 12 men among our 33 ,000.

who would convict a man for shooting his wives.

Well, that's the way it is. That's not the law.

That's just the way it is.

For a long time, I believed I'd kill you.

If I ever set eyes on him for one instant, I told myself, I'll kill him.

Strike him down in the street without mercy.

I spent nights wrestling with it.

Nights when Grace was out and this house was empty of everything except my

thoughts.

But I'm a weak and foolish old man and I haven't the will to pull the trigger.

I can't make myself do it.

You respect the law.

I respect the law.

But I despise myself.

Had you ever planned to come to me, face me, tell me your intentions?

I mentioned it to Grace.

Well, she didn't think it was necessary, and neither did you, huh?

Well, I guess I was afraid.

Well, not so much physically, but of a scene.

In a situation like this, any man would be.

You know, you really had me going there a minute back.

It never occurred to me that you might misunderstand and be afraid.

After all, the magistrate is the guardian of justice.

But now that I see how reasonable you are and your approach... Oh, I don't

how to say what I mean. You're trying to say that all we most needed was to

drink a bottle of old wine between ourselves, eh?

Yes.

Yes, that's it.

And that's the way I felt about it.

Now, one more each.

Grace should be down by then.

No label?

No,

no label.

What kind of sherry did you say that was?

Amontillado, from Spain.

Yes, when Grace and I were married, we went to Europe for our honeymoon.

Well, it was...

one of her conditions.

She'd never traveled and she wanted to.

I was 54 when I met Grace.

Incredibly enough, I'd never been in love before.

Grace was my secretary.

She was young and she was very beautiful.

From the moment I saw her, I loved her.

And I wanted her.

Any way I could get her, I...

Wanted her.

A year it went on like that.

And I'm longing for her.

A year, Mr. Donaldson.

An eternally long, long time.

One bag's ready from the sound of it. Won't be too long now.

Grace was new in town, but she knew exactly what she wanted.

Marriage and a name.

And money.

I doubt if she ever looked on me as a man with a man's feelings and desires.

No, no, I was just the judge.

And I loved her, even though she had no pity for my love.

I didn't know this then, understand? I learned it slowly over these past ten

years. She's not like that, what you're saying.

She's different now, isn't she? I mean, you think she's different.

She's the most understanding woman I've ever known.

Sympathetic, helpful.

It was in my office one morning we agreed to marry.

Well, much as you'd settle a case on a court.

She closed her bargain, I closed mine.

You don't love her.

Everything you say proves you don't.

I keep reminding myself when I sit in judgment of her.

She was an ambitious girl.

You may not be able to understand this, or to believe it, but I love her. Of

course, of course.

But you're not the first young man, nor will you be the last.

I don't intend to listen to this.

Grace began to drift about two years ago. I saw it coming, but I couldn't

it.

She was searching for someone to love.

Someone to leave me for.

The right man, the right step up. It's you.

You're the one.

I wonder what it is you have that she wants. I wonder.

And I believe I know.

It's youth.

She wants the youngness of you.

Just as I wanted her youngness a long time ago. I don't know.

I don't know.

But whatever it is, youth or money or whatever it is, if I can give it to her,

will.

You will?

If I say it, I will.

Look, I know this is rough on you, but these things happen. Nobody plans them,

they just happen.

Sometimes somebody gets hurt.

I asked you about Aristotle before.

Now I ask you about Socrates.

Are you familiar with his story?

No. Oh, then you're not familiar with his last words to his judges, a panel of

Athenian noblemen who had just sentenced him to death.

I really think I ought to run up and help her. I know, Grace.

She'd not be even close to being ready.

She'll call when she wants him.

Socrates took poison.

Hemlock juice.

Very deadly.

It's rather stuffy in here, don't you feel it?

No, it's for wine. It's just the wine, not the heat.

I did gulp it.

One should sip one. I drank it rather fast.

Socrates, Mr. Donaldson, listen to what a wise man, facing death, had to say.

Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know of a certainty

no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

He and his are not neglected by the gods, nor has my own approaching end

happened by mere chance.

But I see clearly that the time had arrived when it was better for me to die

be released from trouble.

The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways.

One of us to die and one to live.

Which is better?

God only knows.

Yes, I feel it too.

I suggest you sit down. The pain will be less severe that way.

Pain? What pain?

The wine, Mr. Donaldson, the wine.

What about the wine?

You'll recall I went out of the room to get it.

But I heard you open the bottle. You couldn't have possibly put anything in

while you were outside.

You heard me open a bottle, but not that one. I opened another one just to

deceive you.

I prepared that bottle days ago.

I've been saving it.

For us.

It's impossible.

You have two, maybe three minutes to live.

But you drank the wine too, glass for glass.

You're sure? No pain yet?

I shall remember that and be grateful I didn't cause you any suffering.

It's too late to call a doctor.

Why don't you feel it? I do.

And that's why I leave you now.

So you may die alone and in peace.

Particularly as I don't intend to join you.

You said you'd give her anything, Donaldson.

What more can you give her than your life?

Help me! Help me!

I've laid out the various items which I'll now go to take.

The metrics, antidotes.

They're not pleasant, but they'll save me from accompanying you, young man, on

your long, long voyage.

Help me, Judge, please.

Please, don't let me die in here by myself.

I seem to remember you and my wife are ready to leave me to live and die by

myself. I'll go away.

I'll go away, but help me, please.

Help me!

I say to you, Donaldson, what I have had to say to other condemned men.

May God have mercy on your soul.

I'll never bother you in great again.

Judge!

What are you doing to him?

Just having a little fun, my pound of flesh, my moment of glory.

Judge! You see, my dear, your man turns out to be not a man after all, but an

hysterical child.

I have to prove it to you.

Listen to him!

The man you prefer to me.

Listen!

Grace! Grace, open the door!

Grace!

Grace, he's poisoned me.

Poisoned. You think the judge could... Yes, I know it.

No.

No, he couldn't.

Why, in 20 years, he never once sentenced a man to death. But he told

The bottle of wine, the one he bought for you in Spain on your honeymoon.

We'd never had a honeymoon in Spain, Wallace.

There was nothing wrong with that bottle of sherry.

forsooth. Such knavery.

Naturally, the police apprehended Wallace, and he paid for his

conduct.

After all, one should not shoot one's host before dinner.

This concludes our little preachment on the evils of drink.

Tune in next time, when we shall again present a charming little horrific fairy

tale.

Good night.