The artist Gringonneur has been commissioned by the King of France to paint a set of tarot cards, using as his model an old, tattered set the King has stolen from some gypsies. Shortly afterwards, the King begins to lose his mind, and as Gringonneur paints, he becomes, like the King before him, obsessed with the cards. The images on them seem to come alive in his mind, and step by step he loses his sense of what is real, and even of who he is. Do these cards drive everyone who touches them mad? Or are they the key to understanding a deeper reality? A strange, eerie and powerful monologue.
Published in Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening and Other Plays.