The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 15

ACT II

When the curtain rises, the night has come. A hanging cluster of lighted lamps over each table, R. and L. Macaire, R., smoking a cigarette; Bertrand, L., with a churchwarden: each with bottle and glass

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. Damned 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 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?

Macaire. The sense? You see me: Macaire: elegant, immoral, invincible in cunning; well, Bertrand, much as it may surprise you, I am simply damned by my dishonesty.

Bertrand. No!

Macaire. The honest man, Bertrand, that’s God’s noblest work. He carries the bag, my boy. Would you have me define honesty? the strategic point for theft. Bertrand, if I’d three hundred a year, I’d be honest to-morrow.

Bertrand. Ah! don’t you wish you may get it!

Macaire. Bertrand, I will bet you my head against your own – the longest odds I can imagine – that with honesty for my spring-board, I leap through history like a paper hoop, and come out among posterity heroic and immortal.

SCENE II

To these, all the former characters, less the Notary. The fiddles are heard without playing dolefully. Air: “O dear, what can the matter be?” in time to which the procession enters

Macaire. Well, friends, what cheer?

Curate. The facts have justified the worst anticipations of our absent friend, the Notary.

Macaire. I perceive I must reveal myself.

Dumont. God bless me, no!

Macaire. My friends, I had meant to preserve a strict incognito, for I was ashamed (I own it!) of this poor accoutrement; but when I see a face that I can render happy, say, my old Dumont, should I hesitate to work the change? Hear me, then, and you (to the others) prepare a smiling countenance. (Repeating.) “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. – Your Unknown Benefactor.”

Dumont. The words! the letter! Charles, alas! it is your father!

Charles. Good Lord! (General consternation.)

Bertrand (aside; smiting his brow). I see it now; sublime!

Curate. A highly singular eventuality.

Goriot. Him? O well, then, I wun’t. (Goes up.)

Macaire. Charles, to my arms! (Business.) Ernestine, your second father waits to welcome you. (Business.) Goriot, noble old man, I grasp your hand. (He doesn’t.) And you, Dumont, how shall your unknown benefactor thank you for your kindness to his boy? (A dead pause.) Charles, to my arms!

Charles. My father, you are still something of a stranger. I hope – er – in the course of time – I hope that may be somewhat mended. But I confess that I have so long regarded Mr. Dumont —

Macaire. Love him still, dear boy, love him still. I have not returned to be a burden on your heart, nor much, comparatively, on your pocket. A place by the fire, dear boy, a crust for my friend, Bertrand. (A dead pause.) Ah, well, this is a different home-coming from that I fancied when I left the letter: I dreamed to grow rich. Charles, you remind me of your sainted mother.

Charles. I trust, sir, you do not think yourself less welcome for your poverty.

Macaire. Nay, nay – more welcome, more welcome. O, I know your – (business) backs! Besides, my poverty is noble. Political… Dumont, what are your politics?

Dumont. A plain old republican, my lord.

Macaire. And yours, my good Goriot?

Goriot. I be a royalist, I be, and so be my daater.

Macaire. How strange is the coincidence! The party that I sought to found combined the peculiarities of both; a patriotic enterprise in which I fell. This humble fellow … have I introduced him? You behold in us the embodiment of aristocracy and democracy. Bertrand, shake hands with my family. (Bertrand is rebuffed by one and the other in dead silence.)

Bertrand. Sold again!

Macaire. Charles, to my arms! (Business.)

Ernestine. Well, but now that he has a father of some kind, cannot the marriage go on?

Macaire. Angel, this very night: I burn to take my grandchild on my knees.

Goriot. Be you that young man’s veyther?

Macaire. Ay, and what a father!

Goriot. Then all I’ve got to say is, I shan’t and I wun’t.

Macaire. Ah, friends, friends, what a satisfaction it is, what a sight is virtue! I came among you in this poor attire to test you; how nobly have you borne the test! But my disguise begins to irk me: who will lend me a good suit? (Business.)

SCENE III

To these, the Marquis, L.C

Marquis. Is this the house of John Paul Dumont, once of Lyons?

Dumont. It is, sir, and I am he, at your disposal.