Faustus (5 page)

FRIEND:
(
Entering
) Faustus.

FAUSTUS:
Stop. He has purloined the manuscript.

FRIEND:
Faustus, the child cries …

FAUSTUS:
Are you a thief?

MAGUS:
I am not.

FAUSTUS:
Then how have you divined my thesis’s burden?

MAGUS:
I cannot debase my trade to the uninitiated.

FAUSTUS:
Is it then, mere manipulation?

MAGUS:
That is the charge I must withhold.

FAUSTUS:
Who bids you? Are you a
spy?

MAGUS:
I assure you I am not.

FAUSTUS:
Are you a telepath, sir, no, then I say you are a thief…

FRIEND:
Faustus …

FAUSTUS:
… one moment. (
The
FRIEND
exits
.) Ah, well done. I had insulted you, and wronged your craft. And though we kissed rings must you not have your revenge. And, now, you have had your revenge … Now you have bested me. Now we may cry quits. Now. You quote my conclusions in my actual language. This is an effect which …

MAGUS:
But if it is not an effect…

FAUSTUS:
You vex me with fooling, sir. Howe’er you call it, effect, illusion, nay, a miracle: Induct me, but for the one circumstance. I will not reveal your art. I plead not from mere curiosity but from material concern. For the security of my work, of my manuscript…

MAGUS:
But what if the manuscript… were to contain a fault.

FAUSTUS:
… please.

MAGUS:
Grant it hypothetically.

FAUSTUS:
Is that your precondition?

MAGUS:
What if your manuscript contained a disqualificatory error? (
Pause
)

FAUSTUS:
I would amend it.

MAGUS:
And if to do so were to unpick its essential fiber … (
Pause
) To unsay the Work entire …?

FAUSTUS:
I cannot imagine such a fault.

MAGUS:
But if such were revealed to you … a fault which were, to all succeeding age, to cast your work as a by-word, and a jest.

FAUSTUS:
Instance an example of such error.

MAGUS:
If it were stolen from another. (
Pause
)

FAUSTUS:
But it is not.

MAGUS:
But if it were. That would, of course, set it as an example of that error which might not be put aright.

FAUSTUS:
Deservedly.

MAGUS:
If it were purloined.

FAUSTUS:
Yes.

MAGUS:
In whole or part.

FAUSTUS:
As I have said. Thus?

MAGUS:
You asked me to instance a category of error. I have done so.

FAUSTUS:
Yes, there’s your small casuistic victory. I grant the category. My work, however, is unblemished.

MAGUS:
So you say.

FAUSTUS:
I do.

MAGUS:
But would you swear an oath?

FAUSTUS:
I do not follow you, sir.

MAGUS:
Indeed you do, but cannot overtake me … You press me to reveal the occult. To protect, as you say, the sanctity of your creation, you ask me to unclothe my own. I reply: swear it is yours entire.

FAUSTUS:
It is.

MAGUS:
Upon your family. (
Pause
) And yet you will not assert it.

FAUSTUS:
The thoughtful hesitate to take an oath.

MAGUS:
The thoughtful.

FAUSTUS:
It is from a sense of probity

MAGUS:
Not from fear …?

FAUSTUS:
I think not.

MAGUS:
As who would say “I swear on my life,” or “on my children’s life” …

FAUSTUS:
But who would proffer such an oath?

MAGUS:
What is the risk?

FAUSTUS:
Not risk, but impropriety As who would sully the name of his wife, say, in a tavern; of his children, in the street. These practices are private, not to be profanely uttered.

MAGUS:
And yet we swear to God, and account it a jest.

FAUSTUS:
With respect, this is a disquisition not on the notional Dark Forces, but on the vagaries of language.

MAGUS:
Ah, language is all.

FAUSTUS:
The cries of birds may communicate some little-more-than-instinct, one to the next, but are to the higher order, nothing more than song. As must our plaintive imprecations be to those chimerical Powers above.

MAGUS:
And yet we hesitate before them.

FAUSTUS:
Again, what does it signify?

MAGUS:
That is my question, sir, to you.

FAUSTUS:
I swear the work is mine.

MAGUS:
Upon your family.

FAUSTUS:
Were I proved in default.

MAGUS:
… by whom?

FAUSTUS:
I swear the work is of my invention complete, entire.

MAGUS:
Upon the lives of your wife and child.

FAUSTUS:
Tell how you knew of my formula.

MAGUS:
I will not reveal myself to one unbound. Will you swear? (
Pause
) Will you swear?

(
Pause
)

FAUSTUS:
I will.

MAGUS:
Upon the dirk. (
He draws the dirk and holds it in front of
FAUSTUS
.) Grasp it.

(
FAUSTUS
takes the dirk
.)

FAUSTUS:
I swear upon the lives of my wife and child. The manuscript is mine entire. Are you content? Am I now sworn?

MAGUS:
You are.

FAUSTUS:
Then divulge to me how you came to know of my work’s conclusion.

MAGUS:
I overheard your shortsighted friend, muttering the phrases to himself as he perused it. Now see my poor magic’s operation, and trade consternation for contempt. Do you despise me?

FAUSTUS:
Howe’er that may be. Good day, sir. I must take my leave.

MAGUS:
Is time so short?

FAUSTUS:
My child …

MAGUS:
You note his cries have ceased.

FAUSTUS:
Which need not trouble you. Adieu.

MAGUS:
But tarry.

(
FAUSTUS
starts toward the upstage doors to his home
.)

FAUSTUS:
My family bids me.

MAGUS:
They have no more need of you. They are long dead. You are forsworn, and your false oath has consigned them to Hell.

(
The
MAGUS
gestures, we hear the far-off ringing of a bell. The doors blow open violently to reveal, a scene of gray desolation, remnants of a building, a low mist upon the ground
.)

(
FAUSTUS
turns from looking at the scene, to confront the
MAGUS
who, we find, has vanished
.)

The portals which led to
FAUSTUS
’s
home are opened, to reveal an expanse, upstage, of gray ruin
.

FAUSTUS
comes onto the stage, and looks around him. We hear a far-off bell ringing, and see an old man walking in the ruins
.
FAUSTUS
turns to encounter him. We see it is his
FRIEND
,
Fabian, now greatly aged
.

FAUSTUS:
Where do we find ourselves?

FRIEND:
I’ve often thought that it is Hell.

FAUSTUS:
In truth?

FRIEND:
I am grown so old it nor diverts nor profits me to lie.

FAUSTUS:
Have you grown old?

FRIEND:
As you observe.

FAUSTUS:
But we are of an age.

FRIEND:
If you assert it.

FAUSTUS:
Do you not know me?

FRIEND:
Your voice is not unfamiliar, but perhaps it merely pleases.

FAUSTUS:
Turn to me, look on me.

FRIEND:
It would not profit, no, for I am blind.

FAUSTUS:
Blind.

FRIEND:
Yes.

FAUSTUS:
What has befallen you? How came you to age?

FRIEND:
Sir, I assure you, it was the passage of time.

FAUSTUS:
(
Pause
) Are you mad? (
Pause
) Can you not answer me? Can you not aid me?

FRIEND:
Not the first, sir, but, perhaps, the second.

FAUSTUS:
I do not understand.

FRIEND:
A sundial may offer information, but you remark, it withholds comment. (
Pause
)

FAUSTUS:
Do you not know me?

FRIEND:
I beg pardon.

FAUSTUS:
I am Faustus.

FRIEND:
Ask again if I am mad, I shall return the favor.

FAUSTUS:
You suggest the debility is mine?

FRIEND:
You have said that you are Faustus.

FAUSTUS:
I am he.

FRIEND:
What sane being would assert it?

FAUSTUS:
I do not understand.

FRIEND:
Then you are mad. (
HE STARTS OFF
.) Or perverse, merely. I mean no offense. Whom could I dare offend?

FAUSTUS:
Do not desert me.

FRIEND:
Aid me then. Would you oblige, in description of the scene?

FAUSTUS:
Near the conjunction of two roads.

FRIEND:
I shall no further trouble you. (
The man walks off
.)

FAUSTUS:
Stay, for I am unmoored; the pawl has clicked, the wheel come round, but I am baffled by the revolution. I beg you. Fabian. What is this charade? I do not understand its nature.

FRIEND:
Nor I. Could I have creditably done so, would I not have resigned, long ago. But we understand, that is a crime, for which the criminals, self-punished, are additionally, damned. And their bones to an unmarked grave, at a crossroads.

FAUSTUS:
Do I dream?

FRIEND:
Should you, then I felicitate you.

FAUSTUS:
Where is the family of Faustus?

FRIEND:
Do I in fact remark your voice, sir? Or is it but th’ association, summon’d by your questionings? But it is the same whate’er, and as the world draws in, as sight, sound, and action erode, what remains, but self-absorption? Where all is made fast to decay.

FAUSTUS:
How came this to be so?

FRIEND:
Through time and effort, as most things.

FAUSTUS:
But how? The house is vanished, you are aged, yet time has not passed.

FRIEND:
Then how am I grown old?

FAUSTUS:
Indeed, who are but one day older than we found you yesterday.

FRIEND:
Bless you, I must accept it, but, yesterday, I was old. I was old and blind.

FAUSTUS:
You have gone blind from drink.

FRIEND:
Thanks, good physician. But the cause was ne’er in doubt. (
Pause
) I wondered at the cure, though, those years. Til it grew plain, you see, like a far-off disturbing shape, which, upon approach, resolves itself, until we say, ’tis but a fault in the treeline.

FAUSTUS:
And it resolved, to you, the cure for your disease …?

FRIEND:
’Twas, of course, death. Which occupied decades of schooling. But I was blessed in my exemplars.

FAUSTUS:
To wit?

FRIEND:
I watched a family sicken and die, first the young lad, and then the woman, from grief. As she cried, over the years, for wisdom, then for fortitude, and, as any invalid, for this or that drug, in the hope it offered hope, ’til it was burned out of her.

FAUSTUS:
Say on.

FRIEND:
Her beauty, her desire, even for understanding, ebbed, ’til she was like the hollow tree, which at
length falls, of which we say, how not to’ve remarked, it died long ago. On the one hand, she had a long life. On the other, poor angel, she lived it anguished.

FAUSTUS:
Where is the family lives here?

FRIEND:
They have preceded us.

FAUSTUS:
A prosperous family once controlled the land.

FRIEND:
They own it still, though somewhat less of it. Perhaps you’d aid me, sir, to seek that freehold.

FAUSTUS:
Whose grave do you seek?

FRIEND:
It were a crime, they say, to name it.

FAUSTUS:
The boy.

FRIEND:
The boy?

FAUSTUS:
Faust’s son.

FRIEND:
Bless you, no, sir.

FAUSTUS:
Then tell me he lives.

FRIEND:
To please you, sir, I will. But in effect his crypt lies yonder.

FAUSTUS:
His crypt.

FRIEND:
Untended these long years.

FAUSTUS:
Not by his mother …? (
Pause
)

FRIEND:
One may not speak of her.

FAUSTUS:
Why?

FRIEND:
Have I not told you? (
Pause
)

FAUSTUS:
Do you say she is dead?

FRIEND:
You will forgive me, sir, my thoughts, absent direction, take their own lead.

FAUSTUS:
Where is the woman’s grave?

FRIEND:
One may not know, sir, the grave of a suicide, who are damned to Hell. Do you feign ignorance of that gentle law? It extends e’en to those fair angels, on the earth, e’en those whose being cleansed and chastened. Whose each movement spoke of patience and grace, who were the anodyne to a life of dull disappointment, in whose very existence one found comfort for the, will I say, cruel impossibility of her possession. Fair, wasted angel. Self-slain, ne’er consummated love. O distance and O blessed death. Shall I requite your queries, sir? Those who impertinently
usurp the divine, rest in an unmarked grave. What matter. When eternity wastes all.

FAUSTUS:
Some say God is immortal.

FRIEND:
Some say the sinful dead writhe in perpetual torment.

FAUSTUS:
How did the boy die?

FRIEND:
In an ague. Taken in a cold night. In a vain and protracted search, for another. In despair, at his abandonment.

FAUSTUS:
Abandonment, you say.

FRIEND:
By the man.

FAUSTUS:
You will not say his name?

FRIEND:
He died in grief, at his father’s disappearance. It is a difficulty, as you may come to know, in age, to guard an undiminished hatred. After a time. That which once burned as molten iron. Becomes a mere fixed habit of the mind. Til one wakes one day, to find its very exercise an enervation.

FAUSTUS:
Hatred.

FRIEND:
Yes. But some does not die.

FAUSTUS:
Must not all feeling change with time?

FRIEND:
The truly wronged know otherwise.
FAUSTUS:
Who has wronged you?

(
We hear the sound of a bell, and the man starts off
.)

FRIEND:
I must go, for he hunts for me. Do you not find, we feel most beholden, sir, to those supplying an unnecessary service …?

FAUSTUS:
Who wronged you?

FRIEND:
Who, indeed. He whom we indulged. To our cost. Our petted philosopher—who burned with the thirst for truth. Who betrayed those who trusted him, parsing their love to tribute and then to oblivion. Our sick creation. False friend, inconstant husband, engorged obscene digest of self-reference. We nurtured, for the entertainment, for the reflected glory—for which we shall not be forgiven. Who abided him, who, in his diffidence, subjected those he loved first to danger, then, to destruction, as I watched. I might have acted. I feared reproof, and classed it as respect for the proprieties. ’Twas not he, then, but I, sir, as you see, who was the criminal—to have subjected them to him. I must go. (
He starts off
.)

FAUSTUS:
Stay: may I beg a service?

FRIEND:
From one unfit as myself?

FAUSTUS:
Where does she lie?

FRIEND:
Act as I: Elect a spot, devote your obsequies, pray that it is her grave.

(
The
FRIEND
starts off
.)

FAUSTUS
:
(
TO THE DEPARTING
FRIEND
) No, it offends sense. Say the man vanished, would not his family first misdoubt, accident, or illness, a man so beloved.

FRIEND:
He fled in cowardice. Who would not brave public ridicule.

FAUSTUS:
Ridicule?

FRIEND:
Of his mis-envisioned, uncompleted work.

FAUSTUS:
… uncompleted …?

(
We hear the bell. The
FRIEND
goes off
.)

FAUSTUS:
Am I unmanned to’ve lost the basic rudiments of reason?

(
The
MAGUS
appears onstage, carrying a large book
.)

FAUSTUS:
Where is my family? (
Pause
) I have addressed you sir.

MAGUS:
I’ve noted it.

FAUSTUS:
Where is my family?

MAGUS:
As is the destiny of all seed, they have been dispersed.

FAUSTUS:
By what authority?

MAGUS:
The less evolved would enquire by what mechanism. Good.

FAUSTUS:
It is an illusion.

MAGUS:
What is not? As have you not thrilled to teach us?

FAUSTUS:
It is delusion, it is mesmeric projection, I lack the term to name the method, the motive is plain.

MAGUS:
To wit?

FAUSTUS:
A vicious act of envy. I have detractors, as must any prominent man. Indeed, I must have enemies. Have they employed you to drive me mad? To play upon my doubts? Have they told you of my shortcomings? Of my pride, of my unchecked imagination? Are you a tool of enmity? Of spite? Are you that inevitable assassin the elevated must fear, whose lack they themselves supply in counterpoise to their election …? Are you madness …? What are you? I conjure you …

MAGUS:
By what? I shall not press you.

FAUSTUS:
Damn your impertinence, sir, and damn your illusion. I demand that you cease, restore, and revert all various aspects of the pantomime. The joke pales shockingly. And farewell, now farewell. Name and receive your payment, sir, for this diversion.

MAGUS:
I have both named and received it.

FAUSTUS:
It is a trick.

MAGUS:
Pray accept this in compensation. (
He hands
FAUSTUS
the volume he has been holding in his hands
.
FAUSTUS
takes it.)

FAUSTUS:
What pretends this to be?

MAGUS:
It is your manuscript.

FAUSTUS:
But it is aged …

MAGUS:
… indeed …

(
FAUSTUS
takes the book and reads
.)

FAUSTUS:
“A discovery of the philosophic principles of Periodicity…”

(
FAUSTUS
continues to leaf through the book
.)

FAUSTUS:
The book is aged.

MAGUS:
It is.

FAUSTUS:
My friend, also, and decayed. (
Pause
) That which appears to be the remnant of my home bespeaks a passage of years.