Summary

Pages 185 – 213. In the aftermath of his telling of the story of the boy's killing of Beatrice and Virgil, the taxidermist tells Henry that he has been working on a new scene – about a character named Gustav, a dead naked body discovered by Beatrice and Virgil that Virgil decides to dignify with a name. The taxidermist comments that rather than burying Gustav, Beatrice and Virgil decide to play games near the body, imagining that Gustav would enjoy them if he were still alive: “playing games is a way of celebrating life,” he says (186). He then adds that he wants Henry’s help in coming up with the games.

Henry then changes the subject, asking what the horrible deeds were that Beatrice and Virgil had seen the boy involved in. The taxidermist speaks at length (on his own: this not an excerpt from the play) of...