Plays of William E. Henley and R.L. Stevenson Part 52

ERNESTINE. Yes, this minute!

GORIOT. I'll go. I don't mind getting advice, but I wun't take it.

MACAIRE. My friends, one word: I perceive by your downcast looks that you have not recognised the true nature of your responsibility as citizens of time. What is care? impiety. Joy? the whole duty of man.

Here is an opportunity of duty it were sinful to forego. With a word, I could lighten your hearts; but I prefer to quicken your heels, and send you forth on your ingenuous errand with happy faces and smiling thoughts, the physicians of your own recovery. Fiddlers, to your catgut! Up, Bertrand, and show them how one foots it in society; forward, girls, and choose me every one the lad she loves; Dumont, benign old man, lead forth our blus.h.i.+ng Curate; and you, O bride, embrace the uniform of your beloved, and help us dance in your wedding-day. (_Dance_, _in the course of which_ MACAIRE _picks_ DUMONT'S _pocket of his keys_, _selects the key of the cash-box_, _and returns the others to his pocket_. _In the end_, _all dance out_: _the wedding-party_, _headed by_ FIDDLERS, _L. C._; _the_ MAIDS _and_ ALINE _into the inn_, _R. U. E._ _Manet_ BERTRAND _and_ MACAIRE.)

SCENE VIII

MACAIRE, BERTRAND, _who instantly takes a bottle from the wedding-table_, _and sits with it_, _L._

MACAIRE. Bertrand, there's a devil of a want of a father here.

BERTRAND. Ay, if we only knew where to find him.

MACAIRE. Bertrand, look at me: I am Macaire; I am that father.

BERTRAND. You, Macaire? you a father?

MACAIRE. Not yet, but in five minutes. I am capable of anything.

(_Producing key_.) What think you of this?

BERTRAND. That? Is it a key?

MACAIRE. Ay, boy, and what besides? my diploma of respectability, my patent of fatherhood. I prigged it-in the ardour of the dance I prigged it; I change it beyond recognition, thus (_twists the handle of the key_); and now . . .? Where is my long-lost child? produce my young policeman! show me my gallant boy!

BERTRAND. I don't understand.

MACAIRE. Dear innocence, how should you? Your brains are in your fists.

Go and keep watch. (_He goes into the office and returns with the cash-box_.) Keep watch, I say.

BERTRAND. Where?

MACAIRE. Everywhere. (_He opens box_.)

BERTRAND. Gold.

MACAIRE. Hands off! Keep watch. (BERTRAND _at back of stage_.) Beat slower, my paternal heart! The third compartment; let me see.

BERTRAND. S'st! (MACAIRE _shuts box_.) No; false alarm.

MACAIRE. The third compartment. Ay, here t-

BERTRAND. S'st! (_Same business_.) No: fire away.

MACAIRE. The third compartment: it must be this.

BERTRAND. S'st! (MACAIRE, _keeps box open_, _watching_ BERTRAND.) All serene; it's the wind.

MACAIRE. Now, see here! (_He darts his knife into the stage_.) I will either be backed as a man should be, or from this minute out I'll work alone. Do you understand? I said alone.

BERTRAND. For the Lord's sake, Macaire!-

MACAIRE. Ay, here it is. (_Reading letter_). 'Preserve this letter secretly; its terms are known only to you and me: hence when the time comes, I shall repeat them, and my son will recognise his father.'

Signed: 'Your Unknown Benefactor.' (_He turns it over twice and replaces it_. _Then_, _fingering the gold_) Gold! The yellow enchantress, happiness ready-made and laughing in my face! Gold: what is gold? The world; the term of ills; the empery of all; the mult.i.tudinous babble of the change, the sailing from all ports of freighted argosies; music, wine, a palace; the doors of the bright theatre, the key of consciences, and love-love's whistle! All this below my itching fingers; and to set this by, turn a deaf ear upon the siren present, and condescend once more, naked, into the ring with fortune-Macaire, how few would do it!

But you, Macaire, you are compacted of more subtile clay. No cheap immediate pilfering: no retail trade of petty larceny; but swoop at the heart of the position, and clutch all!

BERTRAND (_at his shoulder_). Halves!

MACAIRE. Halves? (_He locks the box_.) Bertrand, I am a father.

(_Replaces box in office_.)

BERTRAND (_looking after him_). Well, I-am-d.a.m.ned!

DROP.

ACT II.

_When the curtain rises_, _the night has come_. _A hanging cl.u.s.ter of lighted lamps over each table_, _R. and L._ MACAIRE, _R._, _smoking a cigarette_; BERTRAND, _L._, _with a church-warden_: _each with bottle and gla.s.s_

SCENE I

MACAIRE, BERTRAND

MACAIRE. Bertrand, I am content: a child might play with me. Does your pipe draw well?

BERTRAND. Like a factory chimney. This is my notion of life: liquor, a chair, a table to put my feet on, a fine clean pipe, and no police.

MACAIRE. Bertrand, do you see these changing exhalations? do you see these blue rings and spirals, weaving their dance, like a round of fairies, on the footless air?

BERTRAND. I see 'em right enough.

MACAIRE. Man of little vision, expound me these meteors! what do they signify, O wooden-head? Clod, of what do they consist?

BERTRAND. d.a.m.ned bad tobacco.

MACAIRE. I will give you a little course of science. Everything, Bertrand (much as it may surprise you), has three states: a vapour, a liquid, a solid. These are fortune in the vapour: these are ideas. What are ideas? the protoplasm of wealth. To your head-which, by the way, is a solid, Bertrand-what are they but foul air? To mine, to my prehensile and constructive intellects, see, as I grasp and work them, to what lineaments of the future they transform themselves: a palace, a barouche, a pair of luminous footmen, plate, wine, respect, and to be honest!

BERTRAND. But what's the sense in honesty?