The Road to Damascus, a Trilogy Part 32

STRANGER. But not two days ago! (Reading the letter.) Well, I'll forgive her now, with the magnanimity of the victor.

MOTHER. Of the victor?

STRANGER. Yes. For I've done something no one's ever done before.

MOTHER. You mean the gold....?

STRANGER. Here's a certificate from the greatest living authority. Now I'll go and see him myself.

MOTHER. Now!

STRANGER. At your request.

MAID (to the STRANGER). The Lady asks you to come in.

MOTHER. You hear?

STRANGER. No, now I don't want to! You've made your own daughter, my wife, into a wh.o.r.e; and branded my unborn child a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. You can keep them both. You've murdered my honour. There's nothing for me to do but to revive it elsewhere.

MOTHER. You can never forgive!

STRANGER. I can. I forgive you--and I shall leave you. (He puts on the brown cloak and hat, picks up his stick and travelling bag.) For if I were to stay, I'd soon grow worse than I am now. The innocent child, whose mission was to enn.o.ble our warped relations.h.i.+p, has been defiled by you in his mother's womb and made an apple of discord and a source of punishment a revenge. Why should I stay here to be torn to pieces?

MOTHER. For you, duties don't exist.

STRANGER. Oh yes, they do! And the first of them's this: To protect myself from total destruction. Farewell!

Curtain.

ACT III

SCENE I

THE BANQUETING HALL

[Room in a hotel prepared for a banquet. There are long tables laden with flowers and candelabra. Dishes with peac.o.c.ks, pheasants in full plumage, boars' heads, entire lobsters, oysters, salmon, bundles of asparagus, melons and grapes. There is a musicians' gallery with eight players in the right-hand corner at the back.]

[At the high table: the STRANGER in a frock coat; next to him a Civil Uniform with orders; a professorial Frock Coat with an order; and other black Frock Coats with orders of a more or less striking kind. At the second table a few Frock Coats between black Morning Coats. At the third table clean every-day costumes. At the fourth table dirty and ragged figures of strange appearance.]

[The tables are so arranged that the first is furthest to the left and the fourth furthest to the right, so that the people sitting at the fourth table cannot be seen by the STRANGER. At the fourth table CAESAR and the DOCTOR are seated, in shabby clothes. They are the farthest down stage. Dessert has just been handed round and the guests have golden goblets in front of them. The band is playing a pa.s.sage in the middle of Mendelssohn's Dead March pianissimo. The guests are talking to one another quietly.]

DOCTOR (to CAESAR). The company seems rather depressed and the dessert came too soon!

CAESAR. By the way, the whole thing look's like a swindle! He hasn't made any gold, that's merely a lie, like everything else.

DOCTOR. I don't know, but that's what's being said. But in our enlightened age anything whatever may be expected.

CAESAR. There's a professor at the high table, who's supposed to be an authority. But what subject is he professor of?

DOCTOR: I've no idea. It must be metallurgy and applied chemistry.

CAESAR. Can you see what order he's wearing?

DOCTOR. I don't know it. I expect it's some tenth rate foreign order.

CAESAR. Well, at a subscription dinner like this the company's always rather mixed.

DOCTOR. Hm!

CAESAR. You mean, that we... hm.... I admit we're not well dressed, but as far as intelligence goes....

DOCTOR. Listen, Caesar, you're a lunatic in my charge, and you must avoid speaking about intelligence as much as you can.

CAESAR. That's the greatest impertinence I've heard for a long time.

Don't you realise, idiot, that I've been engaged to look after you, since you lost your wits?

PROFESSOR (taping his goblet). Gentlemen!

CAESAR. Hear, hear!

PROFESSOR. Gentlemen! Our small society is to-day honoured by the presence of the great man, who is our guest of honour, and when the committee...

CAESAR (to the DOCTOR). That's the government, you know!

PROFESSOR.... and when the committee asked me to act as interpreter and to explain the motives that prompted them I was at first doubtful whether I could accept the honour. But when I compared my own incapacity with that of others, I discovered that neither lost in the comparison.

VOICES. Bravo!

PROFESSOR. Gentlemen! A century of discovery is ending with the greatest of all discoveries--foreseen by Pythagoras, prepared for by Albertus and Paracelsus and first carried out by our guest of honour. You will permit me to give this feeble expression of our admiration for the greatest man of a great century. A laurel crown from the society! (He places a laurel frown on the STRANGER'S head.) And from the committee: this! (He hangs a s.h.i.+ning order round the STRANGER'S neck.) Gentlemen! Three cheers for the Great Man who has made gold!

ALL (with the exception of the STRANGER). Hurrah!

(The band plays chords from Mendelssohn's Dead March. During the last part of the foregoing speech servants have exchanged the golden goblets for dull tin ones, and they now begin to take away the pheasants, peac.o.c.ks, etc. The music plays softly. General conversation.)

CAESAR. Oughtn't we to taste these things before they take them away?

DOCTOR. It all seems humbug, except that about making gold.

STRANGER (knocking on the table). Gentlemen! I've always been proud of the fact that I'm not easy to deceive...

CAESAR. Hear, hear!

STRANGER.... that I'm not easily carried away, but I am touched at the sincerity so obvious in the great tribute you've just paid me; and when I say touched, I mean it.

CAESAR. Bravo!