Magic

Conjurer. [Doing whatever passionate things people do on the stage.] I am a man. And you are a woman. And all the elves have gone to elfland, and all the devils to hell. And you and I will walk out of this great vulgar house and be married… Every one is crazy in this house to-night, I think. What am I saying? As if you could marry me! O my God!

Patricia. This is the first time you have failed in courage.

Conjurer. What do you mean?

Patricia. I mean to draw your attention to the fact that you have recently made an offer, I accept it.

Conjurer. Oh, it's nonsense, it's nonsense. How can a man marry an archangel, let alone a lady. My mother was a lady and she married a dying fiddler who tramped the roads; and the mixture plays the cat and banjo with my body and soul. I can see my mother now cooking food in dirtier and dirtier lodgings, darning socks with weaker and weaker eyes when she might have worn pearls by consenting to be a rational person.

Patricia. And she might have grown pearls, by consenting to be an oyster.

Conjurer. [Seriously.] There was little pleasure in her life.

Patricia. There is little, a very little, in everybody's. The question is, what kind? We can't turn life into a pleasure. But we can choose such pleasures as are worthy of us and our immortal souls. Your mother chose and I have chosen.

Conjurer. [Staring.] Immortal souls!.. And I suppose if I knelt down to worship you, you and every one else would laugh.

Patricia. [With a smile of perversity.] Well, I think this is a more comfortable way. [She sits down suddenly beside him in a sort of domestic way and goes on talking.] Yes. I'll do everything your mother did, not so well, of course; I'll darn that conjurer's hat – does one darn hats? – and cook the Conjurer's dinner. By the way, what is a Conjurer's dinner? There's always the goldfish, of course…

Conjurer. [With a groan.] Carrots.

Patricia. And, of course, now I come to think of it, you can always take rabbits out of the hat. Why, what a cheap life it must be! How do you cook rabbits? The Duke is always talking about poached rabbits. Really, we shall be as happy as is good for us. We'll have confidence in each other at least, and no secrets. I insist on knowing all the tricks.

Conjurer. I don't think I know whether I'm on my head or my heels.

Patricia. And now, as we're going to be so confidential and comfortable, you'll just tell me the real, practical, tricky little way you did that last trick.

Conjurer. [Rising, rigid with horror.] How I did that trick? I did it by devils. [Turning furiously on Patricia.] You could believe in fairies. Can't you believe in devils?

Patricia. [Seriously.] No, I can't believe in devils.

Conjurer. Well, this room is full of them.

Patricia. What does it all mean?

Conjurer. It only means that I have done what many men have done; but few, I think, have thriven by. [He sits down and talks thoughtfully.] I told you I had mixed with many queer sets of people. Among others, I mixed with those who pretend, truly and falsely, to do our tricks by the aid of spirits. I dabbled a little in table-rapping and table-turning. But I soon had reason to give it up.

Patricia. Why did you give it up?

Conjurer. It began by giving me headaches. And I found that every morning after a Spiritualist séance I had a queer feeling of lowness and degradation, of having been soiled; much like the feeling, I suppose, that people have the morning after they have been drunk. But I happen to have what people call a strong head; and I have never been really drunk.

Patricia. I am glad of that.

Conjurer. It hasn't been for want of trying. But it wasn't long before the spirits with whom I had been playing at table-turning, did what I think they generally do at the end of all such table-turning.

Patricia. What did they do?

Conjurer. They turned the tables. They turned the tables upon me. I don't wonder at your believing in fairies. As long as these things were my servants they seemed to me like fairies. When they tried to be my masters… I found they were not fairies. I found the spirits with whom I at least had come in contact were evil … awfully, unnaturally evil.

Patricia. Did they say so?

Conjurer. Don't talk of what they said. I was a loose fellow, but I had not fallen so low as such things. I resisted them; and after a pretty bad time, psychologically speaking, I cut the connexion. But they were always tempting me to use the supernatural power I had got from them. It was not very great, but it was enough to move things about, to alter lights, and so on. I don't know whether you realize that it's rather a strain on a man to drink bad coffee at a coffee-stall when he knows he has just enough magic in him to make a bottle of champagne walk out of an empty shop.

Patricia. I think you behaved very well.

Conjurer. [Bitterly.] And when I fell at last it was for nothing half so clean and Christian as champagne. In black blind pride and anger and all kinds of heathenry, because of the impudence of a schoolboy, I called on the fiends and they obeyed.

Patricia. [Touches his arm.] Poor fellow!

Conjurer. Your goodness is the only goodness that never goes wrong.

Patricia. And what are we to do with Morris? I – I believe you now, my dear. But he – he will never believe.

Conjurer. There is no bigot like the atheist. I must think.

    [Walks towards the garden windows. The other men reappear to arrest his movement.

Doctor. Where are you going?

Conjurer. I am going to ask the God whose enemies I have served if I am still worthy to save a child.

    [Exit into garden. He paces up and down exactly as Morris has done. As he does so, Patricia slowly goes out; and a long silence follows, during which the remaining men stir and stamp very restlessly. The darkness increases. It is long before anyone speaks.

Doctor. [Abruptly.] Remarkable man that Conjurer. Clever man. Curious man. Very curious man. A kind of man, you know… Lord bless us! What's that?

Duke. What's what, eh? What's what?

Doctor. I swear I heard a footstep.

Enter Hastings with papers

Duke. Why, Hastings – Hastings – we thought you were a ghost. You must be – er – looking white or something.

Hastings. I have brought back the answer of the Anti-Vegetarians … I mean the Vegetarians.

    [Drops one or two papers.

Duke. Why, Hastings, you are looking white.

Hastings. I ask your Grace's pardon. I had a slight shock on entering the room.

Doctor. A shock? What shock?

Hastings. It is the first time, I think, that your Grace's work has been disturbed by any private feelings of mine. I shall not trouble your Grace with them. It will not occur again.

    [Exit Hastings.

Duke. What an extraordinary fellow. I wonder if…