Something Rotten (Thursday Next 4)

'Of me?'

'Yes,' I said, 'of you.'

For it was, of course, a Hamlet Will-Speak machine, and the mannequin Hamlet sat looking blankly out at the flesh-and-blood Hamlet standing next to me.

'Can we hear a bit?' asked Hamlet excitedly.

'If you want. Here.'

I dug out a coin and placed it in the machine. There was a whirring and clicking as the dummy came to life.

'To be, or not to be,' began the mannequin in a hollow metallic voice. The machine had been built in the thirties and was now pretty much worn out. 'That is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind—'

Hamlet was fascinated, like a child listening to a tape recording of their own voice for the first time.

'Is that really me?' he asked.

'The words are yours – but actors do it a lot better.'

'—or to take arms against a sea of troubles—'

'Actors?'

'Yes. Actors, playing Hamlet.'

He looked confused.

'—That flesh is heir to—'

'I don't understand.'

'Well,' I began, looking around to check that no one was listening, 'you know that you are Hamlet, from Shakespeare's Hamlet?

'Yes?'

'—To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream—'

'Well, that's a play, and out here in the Outland, people act out that play.'

'With me?'

'Of you. Pretending to be you.'

'But I'm the real me?'

'—Who would fardels bear—'

'In a manner of speaking.'

'Ahhh,' he said after a few moments of deep thought, 'I see. Like the whole Murder of Gonzago thing. I wondered how it all worked. Can we go and see me some time?'

'I . . . suppose,' I answered uneasily. 'Do you really want to?'

'—from whose bourn No traveller returns—'

'Of course. I've heard that some people in the Outland think I am a dithering twit unable to make up his mind rather than a dynamic leader of men, and these "play" things you describe will prove it to me one way or the other.'

I tried to think of the movie in which he prevaricates the least.