The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

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 multitudinous 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 – damned!

Drop.

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 church-warden: 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 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?

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 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?

(All speak together.

Aline. No wedding, no wedding!

Goriot. I told ’ee he can’t and he can’t.

Dumont. Dear, dear me!

Ernestine. They won’t let us marry.

Charles. No wife, no father, no nothing!

.. )

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