[#A COMEDY# (Oxford University Press Paperback ed.1969) CHARACTERS #(in order of their appearance)# RICHARD, #an orphaned clerk # THOMAS MENDIP, a #discharged soldier# ALIZON ELIOT NICHOLAS DEVIZE MARGARET DEVIZE, #mother of Nicholas# HUMPHREY DEVIZE, #brother of Nicholas# HEBBLE TYSON, #the Mayor# JENNET JOURDEMAYNE THE CHAPLAIN EDWARD TAPPERCOOM, #a Justice# MATTHEW SKIPPS

SCENE #A room in the house of Hebble Tyson, Mayor# #of the small market-town of Cool Clary# TIME 1400 #either more or less or exactly#] [#The Scene (the house# of HEEBLE TYSON, #the Mayor of the little Market# #town of Cool Clary) and the appearance of the characters are as# #much fifteenth century as anything.# RICHARD, a #young copying-clerk, stands working at a desk.# THOMAS MENDIP, #less young, in his late twenties perhaps, and less re-# #spectable, looks in through a great window from the garden.#] THOMAS. Soul! RICHARD. --and the plasterer, that's fifteen groats--- THOMAS. Hey, soul! RICHARD. --for stopping the draught in the privy--- THOMAS. Body! You calculating piece of clay! RICHARD. Damnation. THOMAS. Don't mention it. I've never seen a world So festering with damnation. I have left Rings of beer on every alehouse table From the salt sea-coast across half a dozen counties, But each time I thought I was on the way To a faintly festive hiccup The sight of the damned world sobered me up again. Where is the Mayor? I've business with His Worship. RICHARD. Where have you come from? THOMAS. Straight from your local. Damnation 's pretty active there this afternoon, Licking her lips over gossip of murder and witchcraft; There 's mischief brewing for someone. Where's the Mayor?

RICHARD. I'm the mayor's clerk. THOMAS. How are you? RICHARD. Can I have your name? THOMAS. It's yours. RICHARD. Now, look--- THOMAS. It's no earthly Use to me. I travel light ; as light, That is, as a man can travel who will Still carry his body around because Of its sentimental value. Flesh Weighs like a thousand years, and every morning Wakes heavier for an intake of uproariously Comical dreams which smell of henbane. Guts, humours, ventricles, nerves, fibres And fat--the arterial labyrinth, body's hell. Still, it was the first thing my mother gave me, God rest her soul. What were you saying? RICHARD. Name And business. THOMAS. Thomas Mendip. My well-born father, If birth can ever be said to be well, maintains A castle as draughty as a tree. At every sunset, It falls into the river and fish swim through its walls. They swim into the bosom of my grandmother Who sits late, watching for the constellation of Orion Because my dead grandfather, she believes, Is situated somewhere in the Belt. That is part of the glory of my childhood. RICHARD. I like you as much as I've liked anybody. Perhaps you're a little drunk. But here, I'm afraid, They may not take to you.

THOMAS. That's what I hope. RICHARD. Who told you to come here? You couldn't have chosen a less fortunate afternoon. They're expecting company--well, a girl. Excuse me, I must get back to the books. THOMAS. I'll wait. RICHARD. He'll not See anybody; I'm sure of it. THOMAS. Dear boy I only want to be hanged. What possible Objection can he have to that? RICHARD. Why, no I- To be--#want# to be hanged? How very drunk you are After all. Who ever would want to be hanged? THOMAS. You don't Make any allowance for individuality. How do you know that out there, in the day or night According to latitude, the entire world Isn't wanting to be hanged? Now you, for instance, Still damp from your cocoon, you're desperate To fly into any noose of the sun that should dangle Down from the sky. Life, forbye, is the way We fatten for the Michaelmas of our own particular Gallows. What a wonderful thing is metaphor. RICHARD. Was that a knock? THOMAS. The girl. She knocks. I saw her Walking through the garden beside a substantial nun. Whsst! Revelation! [#Enter# ALIZON ELIOT, #aged seventeen, talking to herself.#]

ALIZON. Two steps down, she said. One, two, The floor. Now I begin to be altogether Different-I suppose. RICHARD. O God, God, God, God, God. I can see such trouble! Is life sending a flame to nest in my flax? For pity's sake! THOMAS. Sweet pretty noose, nice noose- RICHARD. Will you step in? ALIZON. They told me no one was here. RICHARD. It would be me they meant. ALIZON. Oh, would it be? Coming in from the light, I am all out at the eyes. Such white doves were paddling in the sunshine And the trees were as bright as a shower of broken glass. Out there, in the sparkling air, the sun and the rain Clash together like the cymbals clashing When David did his dance. I've an April blindness. You're hidden in a cloud of crimson catherine-wheels. RICHARD. It doesn't really matter. Sit in the shadow. THOMAS. There are plenty to choose from. ALIZON. Oh, there are three of us! Forgive me. RICHARD. He's waiting--he wants--he says--- THOMAS. I breathe I spit, I am. But take no further notice. I'll just nod in at the window like a rose; I'm a black and frosted rosebud whom the good God Has preserved since last October. Take no notice.

ALIZON. Men, to me, are a world to themselves. RICHARD. Do you think so? ALIZON. I am going to be married to one of them, almost at once. I have met him already. RICHARD. Humphrey. ALIZON. Are you his brother? RICHARD. No. All I can claim as my flesh and blood Is what I stand up in. I wasn't born, I was come-across. In the dusk of one Septuagesima A priest found an infant, about ten inches long, Crammed into the poor-box. The money had all Been taken. Nothing was there except myself, I was the baby, as it turned out. The priest, Thinking I might have eaten the money, held me Upside down and shook me, which encouraged me To live, I suppose, and I lived. ALIZON. No father or mother? RICHARD. Not noticeably. ALIZON. You mustn't let it make you Conceited. Pride is one of the deadly sins. THOMAS. And it's better to go for the lively ones. ALIZON. Which ones Do you mean? THOMAS. Pay no heed. I was nodding in. ALIZON. I am quite usual, with five elder sisters. My birth Was a great surprise to my parents, I think. There had been A misunderstanding and I appeared overnight As mushrooms do. My father thought He would never be able to find enough husbands

For six of us, and so he made up his mind To simplify matters and let me marry God. He gave me to a convent. RICHARD. What showing did he think he would make as God's Father-in-law? ALIZON. He let his beard grow longer. But he found that husbands fell into my sisters' laps. So then he stopped thinking of God as eligible-- No prospects, he thought. And so he looked round and found me Humphrey Devize. Do you think he will do? RICHARD. Maybe. He isn't God, of course. ALIZON. No, he isn't. He's very nearly black. RICHARD. Swart. ALIZON. Is that it? When he dies it may be hard to picture him Agreeable to the utter white of heaven. Now you, you are--- RICHARD. Purgatory-colour. ALIZON. It's on the way to grace. Who are you? RICHARD. Richard, The mayor's copying-clerk. ALIZON. The mayor is Humphrey's Uncle. Humphrey's mother is the mayor's sister. And then, again, there's Nicholas, Humphrey's brother. Is he sensible? RICHARD. He knows his way about THOMAS. O enviable Nick, RICHARD. He's nodding in.

ALIZON. I'll tell you a strange thing. Humphrey Devize Came to the convent to see me, bringing a present For his almost immediate wife, he said, which is me, Of barley-sugar and a cross of seed-pearls. Next day Nicholas came, with a little cold pie, to say He had a message from Humphrey. And then he sat And stared and said nothing until he got up to go. I asked him for the message, but by then It had gone out of his head. Quite gone, you see. It was curious.--Now you're not speaking either. RICHARD. Yes, of course ; of course it was curious. ALIZON. Men are strange. It's almost unexpected To find they speak English. Do you think so too? RICHARD. Things happen to them. ALIZON. What things? RICHARD. Machinations of nature; As April does to the earth. ALIZON. I wish it were true! Show me daffodils happening to a man! RICHARD. Very easily. THOMAS. And thistles as well, and ladies' Bedstraw and deadly nightshade and the need For rhubarb. ALIZON. Is it a riddle? RICHARD. Very likely. Certainly a considerable complication. [#Enter# NICHOLAS DEVIZE, #muddy, dishevelled.#] NICHOLAS. Where are you, Alizon? Alizon, what do you think? I've won you from him! I've destroyed my brother!

It's me you're going to marry. What do you think Of that? RICHARD. You have mud in your mouth. NICHOLAS. You canter off. ALIZON. No, Nicholas. That's untrue. I have to be The wife of Humphrey. NICHOLAS. Heaven says no. Heaven And all the nodding angels say Alizon for Nicholas, Nicholas for Alizon. You must come to know me; not so much now, because now I'm excited, but I have at least three virtues. How many have you got? RICHARD. Are you mad? Why don't you Go and clean yourself up? NICHOLAS. What shall I do With this nattering wheygoose, Alizon? Shall I knock him down? ALIZON. His name is Richard, he says; And I think he might knock you down. THOMAS. Nicholas He might. There you have a might, for once, That's right. Forgive me ; an unwarranted interruption. NICHOLAS. Come in, come in.--Alizon, dear, this Richard Is all very well. But I was conceived the night The church was struck by lightning And born in the great gale. I apologize For boasting, but once you know my qualities I can drop back into a quite brilliant

Humility. God have mercy upon me, You have such little hands. I knew I should love you. RICHARD. Just tell me: am I to knock him down? You have only To say so. ALIZON. No, oh no. We only have To be patient and unweave him. He is mixed, Aren't you, Nicholas? NICHOLAS. Compounded of explosives Like the world's inside. I'm the receipt God followed In the creation. It took the roof off his oven. How long will it be before you love me, Alizon? Let's go. [#He picks her up in his arms.# #Enter# MARGARET DEVIZE.] MARGARET. Where are you taking Alizon, Nicholas? NICHOLAS. Out into the air, mother. MARGARET. Unnecessary. She's in the air already. This room is full of it. Put her down, Nicholas. You look As though you had come straight out of a wheelbarrow; And not even straight out. NICHOLAS. I have to tell you I've just been reborn. MARGARET. Nicholas, you always think You can do things better than your mother. You can be sure You were born quite adequately on the first occasion. There is someone here I don't know. Who is it, Alizon? Did he come with you? ALIZON. Oh, no. A rosebud, he says, He budded in October.

MARGARET He's not speaking the truth.--Tch! more rain! This is properly April.--And you're eager to see Your handsome Humphrey. Nicholas will fetch him. They're inseparable, really twin natures, utterly Brothers like the two ends of the same thought.-- Nicholas, dear, call Humphrey. NICHOLAs. I can't. I've killed him MARGARET. Fetch Humphrey, Nicholas dear. NICHOLAS. I've killed him, dearest Mother. MARGARET. Well, never mind. Call Humphrey, dear. THOMAS. Is that the other end of this happy thought, There, prone in the flower-bed? RICHARD. Yes, it's Humphrey Lying in the rain. MARGARET. One day I shall burst my bud Of calm, and blossom into hysteria. Tell him to get up. What on earth is he doing Lying in the rain? THOMAS. All flesh is grass. ALIZON. Have you really killed Humphrey? MARGARET. Nicholas, Your smile is no pleasure to me. NICHOLAS. We fought for possession Of Alizon Eliot. What could be more natural? What he loves, I love. And if existence will Disturb a man with beauty, how can he help Trying to impose on her the boundary

Of his two bare arms?--Pandemonium, what a fight! What a fight! Humphrey went hurtling Like Lucifer into the daffodils. When Babylon fell there wasn't a better thump. MARGARET. Are you standing there letting your brother be rained on? Haven't you any love for him? NICHOLAS. Yes, mother But wet as well as dry. MARGARET. Can Richard carry him Single-handed? NICHOLAS. Why can't he use both hands? And how did I know it was going to rain? [#Exit# NICHOLAS #with# RICHARD.] MARGARET. I would rather have to plait the tails of unbroken Ponies than try to understand Nicholas. Oh! it's bell-ringing practice. Their ding-dong rocks me Till my head feels like the belfry, and makes blisters All along my nerves. Dear God, a cuckoo As well! THOMAS. By God, a cuckoo! Grief and God, A canting cuckoo, that laugh with no smile! A world unable to die sits on and on In spring sunlight, hatching egg after egg, Hoping against hope that out of one of them Will come the reason for it all; and always Out pops the arid chuckle and centuries Of cuckoo-spit. MARGARET. I don't really think we need

To let that worry us now. I don't know why you're waiting, Or who brought you, or whether I could even Begin to like you but I know it would be agreeable If you left us. There 's enough going on already. THOMAS. There is certainly enough going on. Madam, watch Hell come As a gleam into the eye of the wholesome cat When philip-sparrow flips his wing. I see a gleam of Hell in #you,# madam. You understand those bells perfectly. I understand them, too. What is it that, out there in the mellow street, The soft rain is raining on? Is it only on the little sour grass, madam? MARGARET. Out in the street? What could it be? THOMAS. It could be, And it is, a witch-hunt. MARGAkET. Oh!--dear ; another? THOMAS. Your innocence is on at such a rakish angle It gives you quite an air of iniquity. Hadn't you better answer that bell? With a mere Clouding of your unoccupied eyes, madam, Or a twitch of the neck: what better use can we put Our faces to than to have them express kindness While we're thinking of something else? Oh, be disturbed, Be disturbed, madam, to the extent of a tut And I will thank God for civilization. This is my last throw, my last poor gamble On the human heart. MARGARET. If I knew who you were I should ask you to sit down. But while you're on

Your feet, would you be kind enough to see How Humphrey is doing? THOMAS. If we listened, we could hear How the hunters, having washed the dinner things, Are now toiling up and down the blind alleys Which they think are their immortal souls, To scour themselves in the blood of a grandmother. They, of course, will feel all the better for it. But she? Grandma? Is it possible She may be wishing she had died yesterday, The wicked sobbing old body of a woman? MARGARET. At the moment, as you know, I'm trying hard to be patient with my sons. You really mustn't expect me to be Christian In two directions at once. THOMAS. What, after all, Is a halo? It's only one more thing to keep clean. Richard and Nicholas Have been trying to persuade the body to stand up. ALIZON. Why, yes, he isn't dead. He's lying on his back Picking the daffodils. And now they are trying To lift him. MARGARET. Let me look over your shoulder. They mustn't see me taking an interest. Oh, the poor boy looks like a shock Of bedraggled oats.--But you will see, Alizon, What a nice boy he can be when he wears a clean shirt. I more than once lost my heart to clean linen When I was a young creature, even to linen That hung on the hedges without a man inside it. Do I seem composed, sufficiently placid and unmotherly?

ALIZON. Altogether except that your ear-ring Trembles a little. MARGARET. It's always our touches of vanity That manage to betray us. THOMAS. When shall I see the mayor? I've had enough of the horror beating in the belfry. Where is the mayor? [#Re-enter# RICHARD #and# NICHOLAS #carrying# HUMPHREY #who has a# #bunch of daffodils in his hand.#] NICHOLAS. Here's Humphrey. Where would you like him? MARGARET. Humphrey, why do you have to be carried? HUMPHREY. My dear Mother, I didn't knock myself down. Why Should I pick myself up?--Daffodils For my future wife. NICHOLAS. You swindling half-cock alderman ! Do I have to kill you a second time? I've proved my right to have her. HUMPHREY. Nothing of the sort. Officially Alizon is mine. What is official Is incontestable.--Without disrespect either To you, mother, or to my officially Dear one, I shall lie down.--Who is playing the viol? MARGARET. The Chaplain is tuning his G string by the bells. It must be time for prayers. It must be time For something. You're both transfigured with dirt. THOMAS. Where in thunder is the mayor? Are you deaf to the baying

Of those human bloodhounds out in the street? I want to be hanged. NICHOLAS [#to# HUMPHREY.] You dismal coprolite ! It's in my stars I should have her. Wait Till it's dark, and go out if you dare Bareheaded under the flash of my star Mercury. Ignore the universe if you can. Go on, Ignore it!--Alizon, who's going to marry you? MARGARET. He deserves no answer. RICHARD. Can you tell us, Alizon? ALIZON. I am not very used to things happening rapidly. The nuns, you see, were very quiet, especially In the afternoon. They say I shall marry Humphrey. MARGARET. Certainly so. Now, Nicholas, go and get clean. NICHOLAS. She never shall! THOMAS. Will someone fetch the mayor? Will no one make the least effort to let me Out of the world? NICHOLAS. Let Humphrey go and officially Bury himself. She's not for him. What does love understand about hereinafter- Called-the-bride-contracted? An April anarchy, she is, with a dragon's breath, An angel on a tiger, The jaws and maw of a kind of heaven, though hell Sleeps there with one open eye ; an onslaught Unpredictable made by a benefactor Armed to the teeth--- THOMAS. Who benefits, before God

By this collision of the sexes, This paroxysm of the flesh? Let me get out! I'll find the mayor myself And let you go on with your psalm of love. [#He makes for the door.#] HUMPHREY. Who the hell's that? RICHARD. The man about the gallows. [#Enter# HEBLE TYSON #the mayor, afflicted with office.#] MARGARET. Now here's your uncle. Do, for the sake of calm, Go and sweeten yourselves. THOMAS. Is this the man I long for? TYSON. Pest, who has stolen my handkerchief? MARGARET. Use this one, Hebble.--Go and get under the pump. [#Exit# HUMPHREY #and# NICHOLAS.] TYSON [#blowing his nose.#] Noses, noses. THOMAS. Mr. Mayor, it's a joy to see you, You're about to become my gateway to eternal Rest. TYSON. Dear sir, I haven't yet been notified Of your existence. As far as I'm concerned You don't exist. Therefore you are not entitled To any rest at all, eternal or temporary, And I would be obliged if you'd sit down. MARGARET. Here is Alizon Eliot, Humphrey's bride To be. THOMAS. I have come to be hanged, do you hear? TYSON. Have you filled in the necessary forms?--

So this is the young lady? Very nice, very charming.-- And a very pretty-dress. Splendid material, a florin a yard If a groat. I'm only sorry you had to come On a troubled evening such as this promises To be. The bells, you know. Richard, my boy, What is it this importunate fellow wants? RICHARD. He says he wants to be hanged, sir. TYSON. Out of the question It's a most immodest suggestion, which I know Of no precedent for. Cannot be entertained. I suspect an element of mockery Directed at the ordinary decencies Of life.--Tiresome catarrh.--A sense of humour Incompatible with good citizenship And I wish you a good evening. Are we all Assembled together for evening prayers? THOMAS. Oh no! You can't postpone me. Since opening-time I've been Propped up at the bar of heaven and earth, between The wall-eye of the moon and the brandy-cask of the sun, Growling thick songs about jolly good fellows In a mumping pub where the ceiling drips humanity, Until I've drunk myself sick, and now, by Christ, I mean to sleep it off in a stupor of dust Till the morning after the day of judgement. So put me on the waiting-list for your gallows With a note recommending preferential treatment. TYSON. Go away; you're an unappetizing young man With a tongue too big for your brains. I'm not at all sure It would be amiss to suppose you to be a vagrant,

In which case an unfortunate experience At the cart's tail-- THOMAS. Unacceptable. Hanging or nothing. TYSON. Get this man away from here! Good gracious, do you imagine the gallows to be A charitable institution? Very mad, Wishes to draw attention to himself; The brain a delicate mechanism; Almighty God more precise than a clockmaker; Grant us all a steady pendulum. ALL, Amen. THOMAS. Listen! The wild music of the spheres: Tick-tock. RICHARD. Come on; you've got to go. THOMAS. Does Justice with her sweet, impartial sword Never come to this place? Do you mean There's no recognition given to murder here? MARGARET. Murder? TYSON. Now what is it? THOMAS. I'm not a fool. I didn't suppose you would do me a favour for nothing. No crime, no hanging ; I quite understand the rules. But I've made that all right. I managed to do-in A rag-and-bone merchant at the bottom of Leapfrog Lane. TYSON [#staring.#] Utterly unhinged. MARGARET. Hebble, they're all In the same April fit of exasperating nonsense.

Nicholas, too. He said he had killed Humphrey But of course he hadn't. If he had I should have told you. THOMAS. It was such a monotonous cry, that 'Raga-boa!' Like the damned cuckoo. It was more than time He should see something of another world. But, poor old man, he wasn't anxious to go. He picked on his rags and his bones as love Picks upon hearts, he with an eye to profit And love with an eye to pain. RICHARD. #Sanctus fumus!# TYSON. Get a complete denial of everything He has said. I don't want to be bothered with you. You don't belong to this parish. I'm perfectly satisfied He hasn't killed a man. THOMAS. I've killed two men If you want me to be exact. The other I thought scarcely worth mentioning: A quite unprepossessing pig-man with a birthmark. He couldn't have had any affection for himself. So I pulped him first and knocked him into the river Where the water gives those girlish giggles around The ford, and held him under with my foot Until he was safely in Abram's bosom, birthmark And all. You see, it still isn't properly dry. TYSON. What a confounded thing! Who do people Think they are, coming here without Identity, and putting us to considerable Trouble and expense to have them punished? You don't deserve to be listened to. THOMAS. It's habit. I've been unidentifiably

Floundering in Flanders for the past seven years, Prising open ribs to let men go On the indefinite leave which needs no pass. And now all roads are uncommonly flat, and all hair Stands on end. [#Enter# NICHOLAS.] NICHOLAS. I'm sorry to interrupt But there 's a witch to see you, uncle. TYSON. To see me? A witch to see me? I will not be the toy Of irresponsible events. Is that clear To you all? NICHOLAS. Yes. But she's here. TYSON. A witch to see me! Do I have to tell you what to do with her? NICHOLAS. Don't tell me. My eyes do that only too well. She is the one, of witches she's the one Who most of all disturbs Hell's heart. Jimminy! How she must make Torment sigh To have her to add to its torment! How the flames Must burn to lay their tongues about her. If evil has a soul it's here outside, The flower of sin, Satan's latest Button-hole. Shall I ask her in? THOMAS. She's young, O God, she's young. TYSON. I stare at you, Nicholas, With no word of condemnation. I stare, Astonished at your behaviour.

MARGARET. Ask her in? In here? Nicholas--- NICHOLAS. She's the glorious Undercoat of this painted world--- [JENNET JOURDEMAYNE #stands in the doorway.#] ---You see: It comes through, however much of our whiteness We paint over it. TYSON. What is the meaning of this? What is the meaning of this? THOMAS. That's the most relevant Question in the world. JENNET. Will someone say Come in? And understand that I don't every day Break in on the quiet circle of a family At prayers? Not quite so unceremoniously, Or so shamefully near a flood of tears, Or looking as unruly as I surely do. Will you Forgive me? TYSON. You'll find I can't be disarmed With pretty talk, young woman. You have no business At all in this house. JENNET. Do you know how many walls There are between the garden of the Magpie, Past Lazer's field, Slink Alley and Poorsoul Pond To the gate of your paddock? TYSON. I'm not to be seduced. I'm not attending. JENNET. Eight. I've come over them all. MARGARET. How could she have done?

THOMAS. Her broomstick's In the hall. MARGARET. Come over to this side of the room, Nicholas. NICHOLAS. Don't worry, mother, I have my fingers crossed. TYSON. Never before in the whole term of my office Have I met such extraordinary ignorance Of what is permitted--- JENNET. Indeed, I was ignorant. They were hooting and howling for me, as though echoes Could kill me. So I started to run. Thank God I only passed one small girl in a ditch Telling the beads of her daisy-chain. And a rumpled idiot-boy who smiled at me. They say I have turned a man into a dog. TYSON. This will all be gone into At the proper time--- JENNET. But it isn't a dog at all, It's a bitch; a rather appealing brindle bitch With many fleas. Are you a gentleman Full of ripe, friendly wisdom? TYSON. This Will all be gone into at the proper--- JENNET. If so I will sit at your feet. I will sit anyway ; I am tired. Eight walls are enough. MARGARET. What do we do? I can almost feel the rustling-in of some Kind of enchantment already. TYSON. She will have To be put in charge.

ALIZON. Oh, must she, must she? THOMAS. He can see she's a girl of property, And the property goes to the town if she 's a witch; She couldn't have been more timely. NICHOLAS. Curious, crooked Beauty of the earth. Fascinating. TYSON [#to# JENNET.] Get up at once, you undisciplined girl. Have you never Heard of law and order? NICHOLAS. Won't you use This chair? JENNET. Thank you. Oh, this is the reasonable World again! I promise not to leave behind me Any flymarks of black magic, or any familiars Such as mice or beetles which might preach Demonology in your skirting-board. It's unbelievable, the quite fantastic Tales they tell! TYSON. This will be discussed At the proper time--- THOMAS. When we have finished talking About my murders. MARGARET. Are they both asking to be punished? Has death Become the fashionable way to live? Nothing would surprise me in their generation. JENNET. Asking to be punished? Why, no, I have come Here to have the protection of your laughter. They accuse me of such a brainstorm of absurdities That all my fear dissolves in the humour of it. If I could perform what they say I #can# perform

I should have got safely away from here As fast as you bat your eyelid. TYSON. Oh, indeed; Could you indeed? JENNET. They say I have only To crack a twig, and over the springtime weathercocks Cloudburst, hail and gale, whatever you will, Come leaping fury-foremost. TYSON. The report May be exaggerated, of course, but where there's smoke... JENNET. They also say that I bring back the paSt; For instance, Helen comes, Brushing the maggots from her eyes, And, clearing her throat of several thousand years, She says 'I loved ...'; but cannot any longer Remember names. Sad Helen. Or Alexander, wearing His imperial cobwebs and breastplate of shining worms Wakens and looks for his glasses, to find the empire Which he knows he put beside his bed. TYSON. Whatever you say will be taken down in evidence Against you ; am I making myself clear? JENNET. They tell one tale, that once, when the moon Was gibbous and in a high dazed state Of nimbus love, I shook a jonquil's dew On to a pearl and let a cricket chirp Three times, thinking of pale Peter: And there Titania was, vexed by a cloud Of pollen, using the sting of a bee to clean Her nails and singing, as drearily as a gnat, 'Why try to keep clean?' THOMAS. 'The earth is all of earth'--

So sang the queen: So the queen sung, Crumbling her crownet into clods of dung. JENNET. You heard her, too, Captain? Bravo. Is that A world you've got there, hidden under your hat? THOMAs. Bedlam, ma'am, and the battlefield Uncle Adam died on. He was shot To bits with the core of an apple Which some fool of a serpent in the artillery Had shoved into God's cannon. TYSON. That's enough! Terrible frivolity, terrible blasphemy, Awful unorthodoxy. I can't understand Anything that is being said. Fetch a constable. The woman's tongue clearly knows the flavour Of #spiritu maligno.# The man must be Drummed out of the town. THOMAS. Oh, #must# he be? RICHARD. Are you certain, sir? The constable? The lady Was laughing. She laughed at the very idea Of being a witch, sir. TYSON. Yes, just it, just it. Giving us a rigmarole of her dreams: Probably dreams : but intentionally Recollected, intentionally consented to, Intentionally delighted in. And so As dangerous as the act. Fetch the constable. NICHOLAS. Sad, how things always are. We get one gulp Of dubious air from our hellmost origins And we have to bung up the draught with a constable. It's a terribly decontaminating life.

TYSON. I'll not have any frivolity. The town goes in terror. I have told you, Richard, twice, what to do. About it? RICHARD. No, sir. Not yet. TYSON. Did you speak to me? Now be careful how you answer. JENNET. Can you be serious? I am Jennet Jourdemayne And I believe in the human mind. Why play with me And make me afraid of you, as you did for a moment, When the centuries of the world are piled so high-- You'll not believe what, in their innocence, Those old credulous children in the street Imagine of me? THOMAS. Innocence! Dear girl, Before the world was, innocence Was beaten by a lion all round the town. And liked it. JENNET. What, does everyone still knuckle And suckle at the big breast of irrational fears? Do they really think I charm a sweat from Tagus, Or lure an Amazonian gnat to fasten On William Brown and shake him till he rattles? Can they think and then think like this? TYSON. Will be Gone into at the proper time. Disturbing The peace. In every way. Have to arrest you. JENNET. No! THOMAS. You bubble-mouthing, fog-blathering,

Chin-chuntering, chap-flapping liturgical Turgidical, base old man! What about my murders? What goes round in #your# head, What funny little murders and fornications Chatting up and down in three-four time Afraid to come out? What bliss to sin by proxy And do penance by way of someone else! But we'll not talk about you. It will make the outlook So dark. Neither about this exquisitely Mad young woman. Nor about this congenital Generator, your nephew here ; Nor about anyone but me. I'm due To be hanged. Good Lord, aren't two murders enough To win me the medals of damnation? Must I put Half a dozen children on a spit And toast them at the flame that comes out of my mouth? You let the fairies fox you while the devil Does you. Concentrate on me. TYSON. I'll not Have it--I'll--I'll--- THOMAS. Power of Job! Must I wait for a stammer? Your life, sir, is propelled By a dream of the fear of having nightmares ; your love Is the fear of being alone; your world's history The fear of a possible leap by a possible antagonist Out of a possible shadow, or a not-improbable Skeleton out of your dead-certain cupboard. But here am I, the true phenomenon Of acknowledged guilt, steaming with the blood Of the pig-man and the rag-and-bone man, Crime Transparent. What the hell are we waiting for? TYSON. Will you attend to me? Will you be silent?

JENNET. Are you doing this to save me? THOMAS. You flatter my powers, My sweet; you're too much a woman. But if you wish You can go down to the dinner of damnation On my arm. JENNET. I dine elsewhere. TYSON. Am I invisible? Am I inaudible? Do I merely festoon The room with my presence? Richard, wretched boy, If you don't wish to incur considerable punishment Do yourself the kindness to fetch the constable. I don't care for these unexpurgated persons. I shall lose my patience. MARGARET. I shall lose my faith In the good-breeding of providence. Wouldn't this happen Now: to-day: within an hour or two Of everyone coming to congratulate Humphrey and Alizon. Arrangements were made A month ago, long before this gentleman's Murders were even thought off. TYSON. They don't exist, I say--- [#Enter# HUMPHREY.] HUMPHREY. Uncle, there's a sizeable rumpus, Without exaggeration a how-do-you-do Taking place in the street. I thought you should know. TYSON. Rumpus? HUMPHREY. Perhaps rumpus isn't the word A minor kind of bloody revolution. It's this damned rascal, this half-pay half-wit.

I should say he's certifiable. It seems He's spreading all around the town the some tale About drowning some pig-man and murdering old Skipps The rag-and-bone man. THOMAS. Ah, old Skipps, old Skipps, What a surplus of bones you'll have where you've gone to now! JENNET. Old Skipps? But he's the man--- TYSON. Will you both be silent? I won't have every Tom, Dick, and Harry Laying information against himself before He's got written authority from me. HUMPHREY. Quite right. As it is, the town is hell's delight. They've looked For the drowned pig-man and they've looked for Skipps And they've looked in the places where he says he left them And can't find either. NICHOLAS. Can't find either? HUMPHREY. Can't find either. MARGARET. Of course they can't. When he first Mentioned murders I knew he had got hold Of a quite wrong end of the stick. HUMPHREY. They say he's the Devil. MARGARET. I can imagine who started #that# story. HUMPHREY. But are we so sure he isn't? Outside in the street They're convinced he's the Devil. And none of us ever having Seen the Devil, how can we know? They say He killed the old men and spirited them into the Limbo. We can't search there. I don't even know where it is.

THOMAS. Sir it's between me and the deep blue sea. The wind of conscience blows straight from its plains. HUMPHREY. Shut up.--If you're the Devil I beg your pardon.-- They also have the idea He's got a girl in his toils, a witch called--- JENNET. Jennet. I am she. HUMPHREY. God. TYSON. Well, Humphrey, well? Is that the end of your information? NICHOLAS. Humphrey, Have you spoken to your little future wife Lately? THOMAS. Tinder, easy tinder. HUMPHREY. In fact-- In fact--- NICHOLAS. In fact it's all a bloody revolution. TYSON. I'm being played with, I'm sure of it; something tells me There is irresponsibility somewhere. Richard, You'll not get out of this lightly. Where's the constable? Why isn't he standing before me? RICHARD. I can see No need for the constable, sir. TYSON. No need? No need? [#Enter the# CHAPLAIN #with his viol.#] CHAPLAIN. I am late for prayers, I know; I know you think me A broken reed, and my instrument too, my better half, You lacked it, I'm afraid. But life has such Diversity, I sometimes remarkably lose

Eternity in the passing moment. Just now In the street there's a certain boisterous interest In a spiritual matter. They say--- TYSON. I know what they say. CHAPLAIN. Ah yes; you know. Sin, as well as God, Moves in a most mysterious way. It is hard to imagine Why the poor girl should turn Skipps into a dog. NICHOLAS. Skipps? Skipps into a dog? HUMPHREY. But Skipps--- THOMAS. Skipps trundles in another place, calling His raga-boa in gutters without end, Transfigured by the spatial light Of Garbage Indestructible. And I Ought to know since I sent him there. A dog? Come, come; don't let's be fanciful. TYSON. They say one thing and another thing and both at once; I don't know. It will all have to be gone into At the proper time--- HUMPHREY. But this is a contradiction--- CHAPLAIN. Ah, isn't that life all over? And is this The young assassin? If he is the doer of the damage Can it be she also? My flock are employing Fisticuffs over this very question. HUMPHREY. But if he could be the Devil-- THOMAS. Good boy! Shall I set Your minds at rest and give you proof? Come here. [#He whispers in# HUMPHREY's #ear.#] HUMPHREY. That's not funny. THOMAS. Not funny for the goats.

HUMPHREY. I've heard it before. He says the Day of Judgement Is fixed for to-night. MARGARET. Oh no. I have always been sure That when it comes it will come in the autumn. Heaven, I am quite sure, wouldn't disappoint The bulbs. THOMAS. Consider: vastiness lusted, mother ; A huge heaving desire, overwhelming solitude, And the mountain belly of Time laboured And brought forth man, the mouse. The spheres churned on, Hoping to charm our ears With sufficient organ-music, sadly sent out On the wrong wave of sound ; but still they roll Fabulous and fine, a roundabout Of doomed and golden notes. And on beyond, Profound with thunder of oceanic power, Lie the morose dynamics of our dumb friend Jehovah. Why should these omnipotent bombinations Go on with the deadly human anecdote, which From the first was never more than remotely funny? No; the time has come for tombs to tip Their refuse; for the involving ivy, the briar, The convolutions of convolvulus, To disentangle and make way For the last great ascendancy of dust, Sucked into judgement by a cosmic yawn Of boredom. The Last Trump Is timed for twenty-two forty hours precisely. TYSON. This will all be gone into at the proper---

THOMAS. Time Will soon be most improper. Why not hang me Before it's too late? MARGARET. I shall go and change my dress; Then I shall both be ready for our guests And whatever else may come upon the world. HUMPHREY. I'm sure he's mad. CHAPLAIN . And his information, of course, Is in opposition to what we are plainly told In the Scriptures : that the hour will come--- NICHOLAS. Do you think He means it? I've an idea he's up to something None of us knows about, not one of us. ALIZON [#who has found her way to# RICHARD.] Quiet Richard, son of nobody. RICHARD [#whispering.#] It isn't always like this, I promise it isn't. JENNET. May I, Jennet Jourdemayne, the daughter Of a man who believed the universe was governed By certain laws, be allowed to speak? Here is such a storm of superstition And humbug and curious passions, where will you start To look for the truth? Am I in fact An enchantress bemused into collaboration With the enemy of man? Is this the enemy, This eccentric young gentleman never seen by me Before? I say I am not. He says perhaps He is. You say I am. You say he is not. And now the eccentric young gentleman threatens us all With imminent cataclysm. If, as a living creature, I wish in all good faith to continue living, Where do you suggest I should lodge my application?

TYSON. That is perfectly clear. You are both under arrest. THOMAS. Into Pandora's box with all the ills. But not if that little hell-cat Hope's Already in possession. I've hoped enough. I gave the best years of my life to that girl, But I'm walking out with Damnation now, and she 's A flame who's got finality. JENNET. Do you want no hope for me either? No compassion To lift suspicion off me? THOMAS. Lift? Compassion Has a rupture, lady. To hell with lifting. JENNET. Listen, please listen to me! THOMAS. Let the world Go, lady; it isn't worth the candle. TYSON. Take her, Richard ; down to the cellars. THOMAS. You see? He has the key to every perplexity. Kiss your illusions for me before they go. JENNET. But what will happen? THOMAS. That's something even old nosedrip doesn't know. [RICHARD #leads# JENNET #away#] TYSON. Take him away! THOMAS. Mr. Mayor, hang me for pity's sake, For God's sake hang me, before I love that woman! [CURTAIN ON ACT ONE]

[#The same room, about an hour later. The# CHAPLAIN #in a chair# #sleeping.# TYSON #surrounded with papers.# EDWARD TAPPERCOOM, #the town's Justice, mountainously rolling up and down the room.#] TAPPERCOOM. Well, it 's poss-ss-ible, it's poss-ss-ible. I #may# have been putting the Devil to the torture. But can you smell scorching?--not a singe For my sins--that's from yesterday: I leaned Across a candle. For all practical purposes I feel as unblasted as on the day I was born. And God knows I'm a target. Cupid scarcely Needs to aim, and no devil could miss me. TYSON. But his action may be delayed. We really must Feel our way. We don't want to put ourselves wrong With anything as positive as evil. TAPPERCOOM. We have put him to the merest thumbscrew, Tyson, Courteously and impartially, the purest Cajolery to coax him to deny These cock-and-bull murders for which there isn't a scrap Of evidence. TYSON. Ah; ah. How does he take it? Has he denied them? TAPPERCOOM. On the contrary. He says he has also committed petty larceny, Abaction, peculation and incendiarism. As for the woman Jourdemayne---

TYSON Ah, yes, Jourdemayne; what are we to make of her? Wealthy they tell me. But on the other hand Quite affectingly handsome. Sad, you know. We see where the eye can't come, eh, Tappercoom? And all's not glorious within; no use Saying it is.--I had a handkerchief. Ah yes ; buried amongst all this evidence. TAPPERCOOM. Now, no poetics, Tyson. Blow your nose And avoid lechery. Keep your eye on the evidence Against her ; there's plenty of it there. Religion Has made an honest woman of the supernatural And we won't have it kicking over the traces again, Will we, Chaplain?--In the Land of Nod. Admirable man. TYSON. Humanity, That's all, Tappercoom ; it's perfectly proper. No one is going to let it interfere With anything serious. I use it with great Discretion, I assure you.--Has she confessed? TAPPERCOOM. Not at all. Though we administer persuasion With great patience, she admits nothing. And the man Won't stop admitting. It really makes one lose All faith in human nature. [#Enter# MARGARET, #without her placidity.#] MARGARET. Who has the tongs? The tongs, Hebble, the tongs, dear ! Sweet Elijah, we shall all go up in flames! TYSON. Flames? Did you hear that, Tappercoom? Flames! My sister said flames!

MARGARET. A log the size of a cheese Has fallen off the fire! Well, where are they? What men of action ! Tongs, I said !--Chaplain, They're under your feet. Very simple you'd look As a pile of ashes. [#Exit.#] TYSON. Oh. I beg your pardon, Tappercoom. A blazing log. CHAPLAIN. Would there be something I could do? I was asleep, you know. TYSON. All this evidence from the witchfinder.... TAPPERCOOM. The advent of a woman cannot be Too gradual. I am not a nervous man But I like to be predisposed to an order of events. CHAPLAIN. It was very interesting : I was dreaming I stood On Jacob's ladder, waiting for the Gates to open. And the ladder was made entirely of diminished sevenths. I was surprised but not put out. Nothing Is altogether what we suppose it to be. TAPPERCOOM. As for the Day of Judgement, we can be sure It's not due yet. What are we told the world Will be like? 'Boasters, blasphemers, without natural Affection, traitors, trucebreakers,' and the rest of it. Come, we've still a lot of backsliding ahead of us. TYSON. Are you uneasy, Tappercoom? TAPPERCOOM. No, Tyson. The whole thing's a lot of amphigourious Stultiloquential fiddle-faddle. [#Re-enter# MARGARET, #head-first.#] MARGARET. Hebble!

TAPPERCOOM. For God's sake! TYSON What is it now? What is it? MARGARET. The street's gone mad. They've seen a shooting star! TYSON. They? Who? What of it? MARGARET. I'm sure I m sorry, But the number of people gone mad in the street Is particularly excessive. They were shaking Our gate, and knocking off each other's hats And six fights simultaneously, and some Were singing psalm a hundred and forty--I think It's a hundred and forty--and the rest of them shouting 'The Devil's in there!' (pointing at this house) 'Safety from Satan!' and 'Where's the woman? Where's The witch? Send her out!'; and using words That are only fit for the Bible. And I'm sure There was blood in the gutter from somebody's head Or else it was the sunset in a puddle, But Jobby Pinnock was prising up cobblestones, Roaring like the north wind, and you know What he is in church when he starts on the responses. And that old Habbakuk Brown using our wall As it was never meant to be used. And then They saw the star fall over our roof somewhere And followed its course with a downrush of whistling And Ohs and Ahs and groans and screams; and Jobby Pinnock dropped a stone on his own foot And roared 'Almighty God, it's a sign !' and some Went down on their knees and others fell over them And they've started to fight again, and the hundred and fortieth Psalm has begun again louder and faster than ever. Hebble dear, isn't it time they went home?

TYSON. All right, yes, all right, all right. Now why Can't people mind their own business? This shooting star Has got nothing to do with us, I am quite happy In my mind about that. It probably went past Perfectly preoccupied with some astral anxiety or other Without giving us a second thought. Eh, Tappercoom? One of those quaint astrological holus-boluses, Quite all right. TAPPERCOOM. Quite. An excess of phlegm In the solar system. It was on its way To a heavenly spittoon. How is that, How is that? On its way--- TYSON. I consider it unwise To tempt providence with humour, Tappercoom. MARGARET. And on the one evening when we expect company! What company is going to venture to get here Through all that heathen hullabaloo in the road? Except the glorious company of the Apostles, And we haven't enough glasses for all that number. TAPPERCOOM. Doomsday or not, we must keep our integrity. We cannot set up dangerous precedents Of speed. We shall sincerely hope, of course, That Doomsday will refrain from precipitous action ; But the way we have gone must be the way we arrive. CHAPLAIN. I wish I were a thinking man, very much. Of course I feel a good deal, but that's no help to you. TYSON. I'm not bewildered, I assure you I'm not Bewildered. As a matter of fact a plan Is almost certainly forming itself in my head At this very moment. It may even be adequate.

CHAPLAIN Where did I put my better half? I laid it Aside. I could take it down to the gate and perhaps Disperse them with a skirmish or two of the bow. Orpheus, you know, was very successful in that way, But of course I haven't his talent, not nearly his talent. TYSON. If you would allow me to follow my train of thought--- TAPPERCOOM. It's my belief the woman Jourdemayne Got hold of the male prisoner by unlawful Supernatural soliciting And bewitched him into a confession of murder To draw attention away from herself. But the more We coax him to withdraw his confession, the more Crimes he confesses to. CHAPLAIN. I know I am not A practical person ; legal matters and so forth Are Greek to me, except, of course, That I understand Greek. And what may seem nonsensical To men of affairs like yourselves might not seem so To me, since everything astonishes me, Myself most of all. When I think of myself I can scarcely believe my senses. But there it is, All my friends tell me I actually exist And by an act of faith I have come to believe them. But this fellow who is being such a trouble to us, He, on the contrary, is so convinced He #is# that he wishes he was NOT. Now why Should that be? TAPPERCOOM. I believe you mean to tell us, Chaplain. MARGARET. I might as well sit down, for all The good that standing up does.

CHAPLAIN. I imagine He finds the world not entirely salubrious. If he cannot be stayed with flagons, or comforted With apples--I quote, of course--or the light, the ocean, The ever-changing ... I mean and stars, extraordinary How many, or some instrument or other--I am afraid I appear rhapsodical--but perhaps the addition Of your thumbscrew will not succeed either. The point I'm attempting to make is this one: he might be wooed From his aptitude for death by being happier; And what I was going to suggest, quite irresponsibly, Is that he might be invited to partake Of our festivities this evening. No, I see it astonishes you. MARGARET. Do you mean ask him--- TYSON. I have heard very little of what you have said, Chaplain, Being concerned, as I am, with a certain Thought, But am I to believe that you recommend our inviting This undesirable character to rub shoulders With my sister? CHAPLAIN. Ah; rubbing shoulders. I hadn't exactly Anticipated that. It was really in relation to the soul That the possibility crossed my mind--- TAPPERCOOM. As a criminal the boy is a liability. I doubt very much if he could supply a farthing Towards the cost of his execution. So You suggest, Chaplain, we let him bibulate From glass to glass this evening, help him to A denial of his guilt and get him off our hands Before daybreak gets the town on its feet again? MARGARET. I wish I could like the look of the immediate Future, but I don't.

TYSON. I'm glad to tell you An idea has formed in my mind a possible solution. [#Enter# RICHARD.] RICHARD. Sir, if you please--- TYSON. Well, Richard? RICHARD. I should like to admit That I've drunk some of the wine put out for the guests. TYSON. Well, that's a pretty thing, I must say. RICHARD. I was feeling Low ; abominably ; about the prisoners, And the row in the street that's getting out of hand-- And certain inner things. And I saw the wine And I thought Well, here goes, and I drank Three glassesful. TYSON. I trust you feel better for it. RICHARD. I feel much worse. Those two, sir, the prisoners, What are you doing with them? I don't know why I keep calling you Sir. I'm not feeling respectful. If only inflicted pain could be as contagious As a plague, you might use it more sparingly. TAPPERCOOM. Who's this cub of a boy? MARGARET. Richard, be sensible. He's a dear boy but a green boy, and I'm sure He'll apologize in a minute or two. TYSON. The boy Is a silly boy, he's a silly boy; and I'm going To punish him. MARGARET. Where are Humphrey and Nicholas? TYSON. Now, Margaret---

RICHARD. They were where the prisoners are, Down in the cellars. MARGARET. Not talking to that witch? RICHARD. There isn't a witch. They were sitting about on barrels. It seemed that neither would speak while the other was there And neither would go away. Half an hour ago. They may be there still. TYSON. I must remind you, Margaret I was speaking to this very stupid boy. He is going to scrub the floor. Yes, scrub it. Scrub this floor this evening before our guests Put in an appearance. Mulish tasks for a mulish Fellow. I haven't forgotten his refusal To fetch the constable. RICHARD. Has Alizon Eliot Been left sitting alone? MARGARET. Alizon Eliot Is not for you to be concerned with, Richard. TYSON. Am I supposed to be merely exercising my tongue Or am I being listened to? Do you hear me? RICHARD. Yes ; scrub the floor.--No, she is not; I know that. TYSON. Furthermore, you'll relegate Yourself to the kitchen to-night, fetching and carrying. If you wish to be a mule you shall be a mule. [#He hands# RICHARD #a note.#] And take this to whatever splendid fellow's On duty. You will return with the prisoners And tell them to remain in this room till I send for them.

--Tactics, Tappercoom : the idea that came to me. You'll think it very good.--You may go, Richard. TAPPERCOOM. I am nothing but the Justice here, of course, But perhaps, even allowing for that, you could tell me What the devil you're up to, [#Enter# NICHOLAS #with a gash on his forehead, followed more slowly# #by# HUMPHREY.] NICHOLAS. Look, Chaplain : blood. Fee, fi, fo, fum. Can you smell it? MARGARET. Now what have you been doing? NICHOLAS. Isn't it beautiful? A splash from the cherry-red river that drives my mill! CHAPLAIN . Well, yes, it has a cheerful appearance, But isn't it painful? MARGARET. I am sure It's painful. How did you--- HUMPHREY. Mother, I make it known publicly: I'm tired of my little brother. Will you please Give him to some charity? NICHOLAS. Give me to faith And hope and the revolution of our native town. I've been hit on the head by two-thirds of a brick. HUMPHREY. The young fool climbed on the wall and addressed the crowd. NICHOLAS. They were getting discouraged. I told them how happy it made me To see them interested in world affairs

And how the conquest of evil was being openly Discussed in this house at that very moment And then unfortunately I was hit by a brick. MARGARET. What in the world have world affairs To do with anything? But we won't argue. TYSON. I believe that brick to have been divinely delivered And richly deserved. And am I to understand You boys have also attempted conversation With the prisoners? HUMPHREY. Now surely, uncle, As one of the Town Council I should be allowed To get a grasp of whatever concerns the welfare Of the population? Nicholas, I agree, Had no business on earth to be down thcre. NICHOLAS. I was on Business of the soul, my sweetheart, business Of the soul. MARGARET. You may use that word once too often, Nicholas. Heaven or someone will take you seriously And then you #would# look foolish. Come with me And have your forehead seen to. NlCHOLAS. But my big brother Was on business of the flesh, by all the fires Of Venus, weren't you, Humphrey? HUMPHREY. What the hell Do you mean by that, you little death-watch beetle? MARGARET. Nicholas, will you come? NICHOLAS. Certainly, mother. [#Exit# MARGARET #and# NICHOLAS.]

TYSON. How very remarkably insufferable Young fellows can sometimes be. One would expect them To care to model themselves on riper minds Such as our own, Tappercoom. But really We might as well have not existed, you know. TAPPERCOOM. Am I to hear your plan, Tyson, or am I Just to look quietly forward to old age? TYSON. My plan, ah, yes. Conclusive and humane. The two are brought together into this room.-- How does that strike you? TAPPERCOOM. It makes a complete sentence: Subject: they. Predicate: are brought together--- TYSON. Ah, you will say 'with what object?' I'll tell you. We, That is: ourselves, the Chaplain, and my elder nephew--- Will remain unobserved in the adjoining room With the communicating door ajar.--And how Does that strike you? TAPPERCOOM. With a dull thud, Tyson, If I may say so. TYSON. I see the idea has eluded you. A hypothetical Devil, Tappercoom, Brought into conversation with a witch. A dialogue of Hell, perhaps, and conclusive. Or one or other by their exchange of words Will prove to be innocent, or we shall have proof Positive of guilt. Does that seem good? TAPPERCOOM. Good is as good results. HUMPHREY. I should never have thought You would have done anything so undignified As to stoop to keyholes, uncle.

TYSON. No, no, no. The door will be ajar, my boy. HUMPHREY. Ah yes, That will make us upright.--I can hear them coming. TYSON [#going.#] Come along, come along. CHAPLAIN. 'The ears of them that hear Shall hearken.' The prophet Isaiah. TYSON. Come along, Chaplain. TAPPERCOOM [#following.#] A drink, Tyson. I wish to slake the dryness Of my disbelief. [#They go in. The# CHAPLAIN #returns.#] CHAPLAIN. I musn't leave my mistress. Where are you, angel? Just where chucklehead left her. [#Enter# RICHARD #with# JENNET #and# THOMAS.] RICHARD. He wants you to wait here till he sends for you. If in some way--I wish--! I must fetch the scrubbers. [#Exit# RICHARD.] CHAPLAIN. Ah ... ah ... I'm not really here. I came For my angel, a foolish way to speak of it, This instrument. May I say, a happy issue Out of all your afflictions? I hope so.--Well, I'm away now. THOMAS. God bless you, in case you sneeze. CHAPLAIN. Yes; thank you. I may. And God bless you. [#Exit# CHAPLAIN.] THOMAS [#at the window.#] You would think by the holy scent of it Our friend Had been baptizing the garden. But it's only The heathen rainfall.

JENNET. Do you think he knows What has been happening to us? THOMAS. Old angel-scraper? He knows all right. But he's subdued To the cloth he works in. JENNET. How tired I am. THOMAS. And palingenesis has come again With a hey and a ho. The indomitable Perseverance of Persephone Became ludicrous long ago. JENNET. What can you see Out there? THOMAS. Out here? Out here is a sky so gentle Five stars are ventured on it. I can see The sky's pale belly glowing and growing big, Soon to deliver the moon. And I can see A glittering smear, the snail-trail of the sun Where it crawled with its golden shell into the hills. A darkening land sunken into prayer Lucidly in dewdrops of one syllable, Nunc dimittis. I see twilight, madam. JENNET. But what can you hear? THOMAS. The howl of human jackals. [#Enter# RICHARD #with pail and scrubbing-brush.#] RICHARD. Do you mind? I have to scrub the floor. THOMAS. A good old custom. Always fornicate Between clean sheets and spit on a well-scrubbed floor. JENNET. Twilight, double, treble, in and out! If I try to find my way I bark my brain On shadows sharp as rocks where half a day Ago was a soft world, a world of warm

Straw, whispering every now and then With rats, but possible, possible, not this This where I'm lost. The morning came, and left The sunlight on my step like any normal Tradesman. But now every spark Of likelihood has gone. The light draws off As easily as though no one could die To-morrow. THOMAS. Are you going to be so serious About such a mean allowance of breath as life is? We'll suppose ourselves to be caddis-flies Who live one day. Do we waste the evening Commiserating with each other about The unhygienic condition of our worm-cases? For God's sake, shall we laugh? JENNET. For what reason? THOMAS. For the reason of laughter, since laughter is surely The surest touch of genius in creation. Would #you# ever have thought of it, I ask you, If you had been making man, stuffing him full Of such hopping greeds and passions that he has To blow himself to pieces as often as he Conveniently can manage it--would it also Have occurred to you to make him burst himself With such a phenomenon as cachinnation? That same laughter, madam, is an irrelevancy Which almost amounts to revelation. JENNET. I laughed Earlier this evening, and where am I now? THOMAS. Between The past and the future which is where you were Before.

JENNET. Was it for laughter's sake you told them You were the Devil? Or why did you? THOMAS. Honesty, Madam, common honesty. JENNET. Honesty common With the Devil? THOMAS. Gloriously common. It's Evil, for once Not travelling incognito. It is what it is, The Great Unspurious. JENNET. Thank you for that. You speak of the world I thought I was waking to This morning. But horror is walking round me here Because nothing is as it appears to be. That's the deep water my childhood had to swim in. My father was drowned in it. THOMAS. He was drowned in what? In hypocrisy? JENNET. In the pursuit of alchemy. In refusing to accept your dictum 'It is What it is'. Poor father. In the end he walked In Science like the densest night. And yet He was greatly gifted. When he was born he gave an algebraic Cry; at one glance measured the cubic content Of that ivory cone his mother's breast And multiplied his appetite by five. So he matured by a progression, gained Experience by correlation, expanded Into a marriage by contraction, and by Certain physical dynamics Formulated me. And on he went Still deeper into the calculating twilight

Under the twinkling of five-pointed figures Till Truth became for him the sum of sums And Death the long division. My poor father. What years and powers he wasted. He thought he could change the matter of the world From the poles to the simultaneous equator By strange experiment and by describing Numerical parabolas. THOMAS. To change The matter of the world! Magnificent Intention. And so he died deluded. JENNET. As a matter of fact, it wasn't a delusion. As a matter of fact, after his death When I was dusting the laboratory I knocked over a crucible which knocked Over another which rocked a third, and they poured And spattered over some copper coins which two days later By impregnation had turned into solid gold. THOMAS. Tell that to some sailor on a horse! If you had such a secret, I And all my fiendish flock, my incubi, Succubi, imps and cacodemons, would have leapt Out of our bath of brimming brimstone, crying #Eureka, cherchez la femme!--# Emperors Would be colonizing you, their mistresses Patronizing you, ministers of state Governmentalizing you. And you Would be eulogized, lionized, probably Canonized for your divine mishap. JENNET. But I never had such a secret. It's a secret Still. What it was I spilt, or to what extent, Or in what proportion; whether the atmosphere

Was hot, cold, moist or dry, I've never known. And someone else can discolour their fingers, tease Their brains and spoil their eyesight to discover it. My father broke on the wheel of a dream; he was lost In a search. And so, for me, the actual! What I touch, what I see, what I know; the essential fact. THOMAS. In other words, the bare untruth. JENNET. And, if I may say it Without appearing rude, absolutely No devils. THOMAS. How in the miserable world, in that case, Do you come to be here, pursued by the local consignment Of fear and guilt? What possible cause--- JENNET. Your thumbs. I'm sure they're giving you pain. THOMAS. Listen! by both My cloven hooves! if you put us to the rack Of an exchange of sympathy, I'll fell you to the ground. Answer my question. JENNET. Why do they call me a witch? Remember my father was an alchemist. I live alone, preferring loneliness To the companionable suffocation of an aunt. I still amuse myself with simple experiments In my father's laboratory. Also I speak French to my poodle. Then you must know I have a peacock which on Sundays Dines with me indoors. Not long ago A new little serving maid carrying the food Heard its cry, dropped everything and ran, Never to come back, and told all whom she met That the Devil was dining with me.

THOMAS. It really is Beyond the limit of respectable superstition To confuse my voice with a peacock's. Don't they know I sing solo bass in Hell's Madrigal Club? --And as for you, you with no eyes, no ears, No senses, you the most superstitious Of all-(for what greater superstition Is there than the mumbo-jumbo of believing In reality?)--you should be swallowed whole by Time In the way that you swallow appearances. Horns, what a waste of effort it has been To give you Creation's vast and exquisite Dilemma! where altercation thrums In every granule of the Milky Way, Persisting still in the dead-sleep of the moon, And heckling itself hoarse in that hot-head The sun. And as for here, each acorn drops Arguing to earth, and pollen 's all polemic.-- We have given you a world as contradictory As a female, as cabbalistic as the male, A conscienceless hermaphrodite who plays Heaven off against hell, hell off against heaven, Revolving in the ballroom of the skies Glittering with conflict as with diamonds: We have wasted paradox and mystery on you When all you ask us for, is cause and effect!-- A copy of your birth-certificate was all you needed To make you at peace with Creation. How uneconomical The whole thing's been. JENNET. This is a fine time To scold me for keeping myself to myself and out of the clutch of chaos. I was already

You leave me no escape except Out on a stream of tears. THOMAS [#falling over# RICHARD #scrubbing.#] Now, none of that !-- Hell ! RICHARD. I beg your pardon. THOMAS. Now that I'm down On my knees I may as well stay here. In the name Of all who ever were drowned at sea, don't weep ! I never learnt to swim. May God keep you From being my Hellespont. JENNET. What I do With my own tears is for me to decide. THOMAS. That's all very well. You get rid of them. But on whose defenceless head are they going to fall? JENNET. I had no idea you were so afraid of water. I'll put them away. THOMAS. O Pete, I don't know which Is worse; to have you crying or to have you behaving Like Catharine of Aix, who never wept Until after she had been beheaded, and then The accumulation of the tears of a long lifetime Burst from her eyes with such force, they practic'ly winded Three onlookers and floated the parish priest Two hundred yards into the entrance-hall Of a brothel. JENNET. Poor Catharine! THOMAS. Not at all. It made her life in retrospect infinitely More tolerable, and when she got to Purgatory She was laughing so much they had to give her a sedative.

JENNET. Why should you want to be hanged? THOMAS. Madam I owe it to myself. But I can leave it Until the last moment. It will keep While the light still lasts. JENNET. What can we see in this light? Nothing, I think, except flakes of drifting fear, The promise of oblivion. THOMAS. Nothing can be seen In the thistle-down, but the rough-head thistle comes. Rest in that riddle. I can pass to you Generations of roses in this wrinkled berry. There: now you hold in your hand a race Of summer gardens, it lies under centuries Of petals. What is not, you have in your palm. Rest in the riddle, rest; why not? This evening Is a ridiculous wisp of down Blowing in the air as disconsolately as dust. Which at this moment I could well do without. JENNET. I know of none. I'm an unhappy fact Fearing death. This is a strange moment To feel my life increasing, when this moment And a little more may be for both of us The end of time. You've cast your fishing-net Of eccentricity, Caught me when I was already lost And landed me with despairing gills on your own Strange beach. That's too inhuman of you. THOMAS. Inhuman? If I dared to know what you meant it would sound disastrous!

JENNET. It means I care whether you live or die. THOMAS. Will you stop frightening me to death? Do you want our spirits to hobble out of their graves Enduring twinges of hopeless human affection As long as death shall last? Still to suffer Pain in the amputated limb! To feel Passion #in vacuo!# That is the sort of thing That causes sun-spots, and the lord knows what Infirmities in the firmament. I tell you The heart is worthless, Nothing more than a pomander's perfume In the sewerage. And a nosegay of private emotion Won't distract me from the stench of the plague-pit, You needn't think it will.--Excuse me, Richard.-- Don't entertain the mildest interest in me Or you'll have me die screaming. JENNET. Why should that be? If you're afraid of your shadow falling across Another life, shine less brightly upon yourself, Step back into the rank and file of men, Instead of preserving the magnetism of mystery And your curious passion for death. You are making yourself A breeding-ground for love and must take the consequences. But what are you afraid of, since in a little While neither of us may exist? Either or both May be altogether transmuted into memory, And then the heart's obscure indeed.--Richard, There's a tear rolling out of your eye. What is it? RICHARD. Oh, that? I don't really know. I have things on my mind. JENNET. Not us? RICHARD. Not only.

THOMAS. If it's a woman Richard Apply yourself to the scrubbing-brush. It's all A trick of the light. JENNET. The light of a fire. THOMAS. And, Richard, Make this woman understand that I Am a figure of vice and crime--- JENNET. Guilty of--- THOMAS. Guilty Of mankind. I have perpetrated human nature. My father and mother were accessaries before the fact, But there'll be no accessaries after the fact, By my virility there won't! Just see me As I am, me like a perambulating Vegetable, patched with inconsequential Hair, looking out of two small jellies for the means Of life, balanced on folding bones, my sex No beauty but a blemish to be hidden Behind judicious rags, driven and scorched By boomerang rages and lunacies which never Touch the accommodating artichoke Or the seraphic strawberry beaming in its bed: I defend myself against pain and death by pain And death, and make the world go round, they tell me, By one of my less lethal appetites : Half this grotesque life I spend in a state Of slow decomposition, using The name of unconsidered God as a pedestal On which I stand and bray that I'm best Of beasts, until under some patient Moon or other I fall to pieces, like

A cake of dung. Is there a slut would hold This in her arms and put her lips against it? JENNET. Sluts are only human. By a quirk Of unastonished nature, your obscene Decaying figure of vegetable fun Can drag upon a woman's heart, as though Heaven were dragging up the roots of hell. What is to be done? Something compels us into The terrible fallacy that man is desirable And there is no escaping into truth. The crimes And cruelties leave us longing, and campaigning Love still pitches his tent of light among The suns and moons. You may be decay and a platitude Of flesh, but I have no other such memory of life. You may be corrupt as ancient apples, well then Corruption is what I most willingly harvest, You are Evil, Hell, the Father of Lies; if so Hell is my home and my days of good were a holiday: Hell is my hill and the world slopes away from it Into insignificance. I have come suddenly Upon my heart and where it is I see no help for. THOMAS . We're lost, both irretrievably lost--- [#Enter# TYSON, TAPPERCOOM, HUMPHREY, #and the# CHAPLAIN.] TAPPERCOOM. Certainly. The woman has confessed. #Spargere auras# #Per vulgum ambiguas.# The town can go to bed. TYSON. It was a happy idea, eh, Tappercoom? This will be A great relief to my sister, and everybody Concerned. A very nice confession, my dear. THOMAS. What is this popping-noise? Now what's the matter?

JENNET. Do they think I've confessed to witchcraft? TAPPERCOOM. Admirably. CHAPLAIN [#to# JENNET.] Bother such sadness. You understand, I'm sure: Those in authority over us. I should like To have been a musician but others decreed otherwise. And sin, whatever we might prefer, cannot Go altogether unregarded. TAPPERCOOM. Now, Now, Chaplain, don't get out of hand. Pieties come later.--Young Devize Had better go and calm the populace. Tell them faggots will be lit to-morrow at noon. HUMPHREY. Have a heart, Mr. Tappercoom ; they're hurling bricks. JENNET. What do they mean? Am I at noon to go To the fire? Oh, for pity! Why must they brand Themselves with me? THOMAS. She has bribed you to procure Her death ! Graft! Graft! Oh, the corruption Of this town when only the rich can get to kingdom- Come and a poor man is left to groan In the full possession of his powers. And she's Not even guilty! I demand fair play For the criminal classes ! TYSON. Terrible state of mind. Humphrey, go at once to the gate--- HUMPHREY. Ah well, I can But try to dodge. THOMAS [#knocking him down.#] You didn't try soon enough. Who else is going to cheat me out of my death?

Whee, ecclesiastic, let me brain you With your wife! [#He snatches the# CHAPLAIN's #viol and offers to hit him on# #the head.#] CHAPLAIN. No, no! With something else--oh, please Hit me with something else. THOMAS. Exchange it For a harp and hurry off to heaven.--Am I dangerous? Will you give me thc gallows?--Now, #now,# Mr. Mayor! Richard, I'll drown him in your bucket. [#JENNET faints.#] RICHARD [#running to support her.#] Look, she has fallen ! CHAPLAIN. Air! Air! TYSON. Water ! THOMAS. But no fire, do you hear? No fire !--How is she, Richard? Oh, the delicate mistiming of women ! She has carefully Snapped in half my jawbone of an ass. RICHARD. Life is coming back. THOMAS . Importunate life. It should have something better to do Than to hang about at a chronic street-corner In dirty weather and worse company. TAPPERCOOM. It is my duty as Justice to deliver Sentence on you as well. THOMAS. Ah! TAPPERCOOM. Found guilty Of jaundice, misanthropy, suicidal tendencies And spreading gloom and despondency. You will spend The evening joyously, sociably, taking part In the pleasures of your fellow men.

THOMAS. Not Until you've hanged me. I'll be amenable then. JENNET. Have I come back to consciousness to hear That still?--Richard, help me to stand.--You see, Preacher to the caddis-fly, I return To live my allotted span of insect hours. But if you batter my wings with talk of death I'll drop to the ground again. THOMAS. Ah! One Concession to your courage and then no more. Gentlemen, I'll accept your most inhuman Sentence. I'll not disturb the indolence Of your gallows yet. But on one condition : That this lady shall take her share to-night Of awful festivity. She shall suffer too. TYSON. Out of the question, quite out of the question, Absolutely out of the question. What, what? TAPPERCOOM. What? THOMAS. Then you shall spend your night in searching For the bodies of my victims, or else the Lord Chief Justice of England shall know you let a murderer Go free. I'll raise the country. JENNET. Do you think I can go in gaiety to-night Under the threat of to-morrow? If I could sleep--- THOMAS. That is the heaven to come. We should be like stars now that it's dark: Use ourselves up to the last bright dregs And vanish in the morning. Shall we not Suffer as wittily as we can? Now, come, Don't purse your lips like a little prude at the humour

Of annihilation. It is somewhat broad I admit, but we're not children. JENNET. I am such A girl of habit. I had got into the way Of being alive. I will live as well as I can This evening. THOMAS. And I'll live too, if it kills me. HUMPHREY. Well, uncle? If you're going to let this clumsy- Fisted cut-throat loose on the house to-night, Why not the witch-girl, too? CHAPLAIN. Foolishly I can't help saying it, I should like To see them dancing. TYSON. We have reached a decision. The circumstances compel us to agree To your most unorthodox request. THOMAS. Wisdom At last. But listen, woman: after this evening I have no further interest in the world. JENNET. My interest also will not be great, I imagine, After this evening. [CURTAIN ON ACT TWO]

[#Later the same night. The same room, by torchlight and moonlight.# HUMPHREY #at the window. Enter# THOMAS, #who talks to himself# #until he notices# HUMPHREY.] THOMAS. O tedium, tedium, tedium. The frenzied Ceremonial drumming of the humdrum ! Where in this small-talking world can I find A longitude with no platitude?--I must Apologize. That was no joke to be heard Making to myself in the full face of the moon. If only I had been born flame, a flame Poised, say, on the flighty head of a candle, I could have stood in this draught and gone out, Whip, through the door of my exasperation. But I remain, like the possibility Of water in a desert. HUMPHREY. I'm sure nobody Keeps you here. There's a road outside if you want it. THOMAS. What on earth should I do with a road, that furrow On the forehead of imbecility, a road? I would as soon be up there, walking in the moon's White unmolared gums. I'll sit on the world And rotate with you till we roll into the morning. HUMPHREY. You're a pestering parasite. If I had my way You'd be got rid of. You're mad and you're violent, And I strongly resent finding you slightly pleasant. THOMAS. O God, yes, so do I. [#Enter# NICHOLAS.]

NICHOLAS. As things turn out I want to commit an offence. THOMAS. Does something prevent you? NICHOLAS. I don't know what offence to commit. THOMAS. What abysmal Poverty of mind! NICHOLAS. This is a night Of the most asphyxiating enjoyment that ever Sapped my youth. HUMPHREY. I think I remember The stars gave you certain rights and interest In a little blonde religious, How is she, Nicholas? NICHOLAS. Your future wife, Humphrey, if that is who You mean, is pale, tearful, and nibbling a walnut. I loved her once--earlier to-day-- Loved her with a passionate misapprehension. I thought you wanted her, and I'm always deeply Devoted to your affairs. But now I'm bored, As bored as the face of a fish, In spite of the sunlit barley of her hair. HUMPHREY. Aren't I ready to marry her? I thought that was why We were mooning around celebrating. What more Can I do to make you take her off my hands? And I'm more than ready for the Last Trump as well. It will stop old Mrs. Cartwright talking. NICHOLAS. Never. She's doom itself. She could talk a tombstone off anybody. [#Enter# MARGARET.] MARGARET. Oh, there you are. Whatever's wrong? You both Go wandering off, as though our guests could be gay

Of their own accord (the few who could bring themselves To bring themselves, practically in the teeth Of the recording angel). They're very nervous And need considerable jollying. Goose liver, Cold larks, cranberry tarts and sucking pig, And now everyone looks as though they only Wanted to eat each other, which might in the circumstances Be the best possible thing. Your uncle sent me To find you. I can tell he's put out; he's as vexed As a hen's hind feathers in a wind. And for that Matter so am I. Go back inside And be jolly like anyone else's children. NICHOLAS. Mother, I'd as soon kiss the bottom of a Barbary ape. The faces of our friends may be enchantment To some, but they wrap my spirits in a shroud.-- For the sake of my unborn children, I have to avoid them. Oh now, be brave, mother. They'll go in the course of nature. MARGARET. It 's unfortunate, considering the wide Choice of living matter on this globe, That I should have managed to be a mother. I can't Imagine what I was thinking of, Your uncle Has made me shake out the lavender From one of my first gowns which has hung in the wardrobe Four-and-twenty unencouraging years, To lend to this Jennet girl, who in my opinion Should not be here. And I said to her flatly 'The course of events is incredible. Make free 'With my jewel box.' Where is she now? THOMAS. No doubt Still making free. Off she has gone, Away to the melting moody horizons of opal,

Moonstone, bloodstone ; now moving in lazy Amber, now sheltering in the shade Of jade from a brief rainfall of diamonds. Able to think to-morrow has an even Brighter air, a glitter less moderate, A quite unparalleled freedom in the fire: A death, no bounds to it. Where is she now? She is dressing, I imagine. MARGARET. Yes, I suppose so. I don't like to think of her. And as for you I should like to think of you as someone I knew Many years ago, and, alas, wouldn't see again, That would be charming. I beg you to come, Humphrey. Give your brother a good example. HUMPHREY. Mother, I'm unwell. MARGARET. Oh, Humphrey! NICHOLAS. Mother, He is officially sick and actually bored. The two together are as bad as a dropsy. MARGARET. I must keep my mind as concentrated as possible On such pleasant things as the summer I spent at Stoke D'Abernon. Your uncle must do what he will. I've done what I can. [#Exit# MARGARET.] NICHOLAS. Our mother isn't Pleased. HUMPHREY. She has never learnt to yawn And so she hasn't the smallest comprehension Of those who can. THOMAS. Benighted brothers in boredom, Let us unite ourselves in a toast of ennui.

I give you a yawn-- to this evening, especially remembering Mrs. Cartwright. [#They all yawn.#] To mortal life women All government, wars, art, science, ambitions, And the entire fallacy of human emotions! [#As they painfully yawn again, enter# JENNET, #bright with# #jewels, and twenty years exquisitely out of fashion.#] JENNET. And wake us in the morning with an ambrosial Breakfast, amen, amen. NICHOLAS. Humphrey, poppin, Draw back the curtains. I have a sense of daylight. HUMPHREY. It seems we're facing east. THOMAS. You've come too late. Romulus, Remus and I have just buried the world Under a heavy snowfall of disinterest. There's nothing left of life but cranberry tarts, Goose's liver, sucking pig, cold larks, And Mrs. Cartwright. JENNET. That's riches running mad. What about the have-not moon? Not a goose, not a pig, And yet she manages to be the wit Of heaven, and roused the envious Queen of Sheba To wash in mercury so that the Sheban fountains Should splash deliriously in the light of her breast. But she died, poor Queen, shining less Than the milk of her thousand shorthorn cows. THOMAS. What's this? Where has the girl I spoke to this evening gone With her Essential Fact? Surely she knows, If she is true to herself, the moon is nothing But a circumambulating aphrodisiac Divinely subsidized to provoke the world

Into a rising birth-rate--a veneer Of sheerest Venus on the planks of Time Which may fool the ocean but which fools not me. JENNET. So no moon. THOMAS. No moon. NICHOLAS. Let her have the last quarter. JENNET. No; If he says no moon then of course there can be no moon. Otherwise we destroy his system of thought And confuse the quest for truth. THOMAS. You see, Nicholas? JENNET. I've only one small silver night to spend So show me no luxuries. It will be enough If you spare me a spider, and when it spins I'll see The six days of Creation in a web And a fly caught on the seventh. And if the dew Should rise in the web, I may well die a Christian. THOMAS . I must shorten my sail. We're into a strange wind. This evening you insisted on what you see, What you touch, what you know. Where did this weather blow from? JENNET. Off the moors of mortality: that might Be so. Or there's that inland sea, the heart-- But you mustn't hinder me, not now. I come Of a long-lived family, and I have Some sixty years to use up almost immediately. I shall join the sucking pig. NICHOLAS. Please take my arm, I'll guide you there. HUMPHREY. He shall do no such thing. Who's the host here?

THOMAS They have impeccable manners When they reach a certain temperature. HUMPHREY. A word More from you, and you go out of this house. THOMAS. Like the heart going out of me, by which it avoids Having to break. JENNET. Be quiet for a moment. I hear A gay modulating anguish, rather like music. NICHOLAS. It's the Chaplain, extorting lightness of heart From the guts of his viol, to the greater glory of God. [#Enter# HEBBLE TYSON.] TYSON. What I hear from your mother isn't agreeable to me In the smallest--a draught, quite noticeable. I'm a victim to air.--I expect members of my family--- THOMAS. Is this courtesy, Mr. Mayor, to turn your back On a guest? JENNET. Why should I be welcome? I am wearing His days gone by. I rustle with his memories! I, the little heretic as he thinks, The all unhallows Eve to his poor Adam; And nearly stubbing my toes against my grave In his sister's shoes, the grave he has ordered for me. Don't ask impossibilities of the gentleman. TYSON. Humphrey, will you explain yourself? HUMPHREY. Uncle, I came to cool my brow. I was on my way back. NICHOLAS. Don't keep us talking. I need to plunge again Into that ice-cap of pleasure in the next room. I repeat, my arm.

HUMPHREY I repeat that I'm the host. I have the right--- JENNET. He has the right, Nicholas. Let me commit no solecism so near To eternity. Please open the door for us. We must go in as smoothly as old friends. [#Exeunt# JENNET, HUMPHREY, #and# NICHOLAS.] THOMAS. Well, does your blood run deep enough to run Cold, or have you none? TYSON. That's enough. Get away. THOMAS. Are you going to cry-off the burning? TYSON. Worthless creatures, Both; I call you clutter. The standard soul Must mercilessly be maintained. No Two ways of life. One God, one point of view. A general acquiescence to the mean. THOMAS. And God knows when you say the mean, you mean The mean. You'd be surprised to see the number Of cloven hoof-marks in the yellow snow of your soul. And so you'll kill her. Time would have done it for her too, of course, But more cautiously, and with a pretence of charm. Am I allowed on bail into your garden? TYSON. Tiresome catarrh. I haven't any wish to see you, Not in the slightest degree: go where you like. THOMAS. That's nowhere in this world. But still maybe I can make myself useful and catch mice for an owl. [#Exit# THOMAS. #Enter# TAPPERCOOM.]

TAPPERCOOM. The young lunatic slipping off is he? Cheered up and gone? So much the less trouble for us. Very jolly evening, Tyson. Are you sober? TYSON. Yes, yes, yes TAPPERCOOM. You shouldn't say that, you know. You're in tears, Tyson. I know tears when I see them, My wife has them. You've drunk too deep, my boy. Now I'm sober as a judge, perhaps a judge A little on circuit, but still sober. Tyson, You're in tears, old fellow, two little wandering Jews of tears getting 'emselves embrangled In your beard. TYSON. I won't stand it, Tappercoom : I won't have it, I won't have evil things Looking so distinguished. I'm no longer Young, and I should be given protection. TAPPERCOOM. What Do you want protecting from now? TYSON. We must burn her, Before she destroys our reason. Damnable glitter. Tappercoom, we musn't become bewildered At our time of life. Too unusual Not to be corrupt. Must be burnt Immediately, burnt, burnt, Tappercoom, Immediately. TAPPERCOOM. Are you trying to get rid of temptation, Tyson? A belated visit of the wanton flesh After all these years? You've got to be dispassionate. Calm and civilized. I am civilized. I know, frinstance, that Beauty is not an Absolute. Beauty is a Condition. As you might say

Hey nonny no or Hey nonny yes. But the Law's about as absolute an Absolute-- Hello, feeling dicky, Chaplain? [#The# CHAPLAIN #has# entered, crying.] CHAPLAIN. It would be So kind if you didn't notice me. I have Upset myself. I have no right to exist, Not in any form, I think. TAPPERCOOM. I hope you won't Think me unsociable if I don't cry myself. What's the matter? Here's the pair of you Dripping like newly weighed anchors. Let the butterflies come to you, Chaplain, Or you'll never be pollinated into a Bishop. CHAPLAIN. No, it's right and it's just I should be cast down. I've treated her with an abomination That maketh desolate :--the words, the words Are from Daniel--- TAPPERCOOM. Hey, what's this? The young woman again? CHAPLAIN. My patient instrument. I made my viol Commit such sins of sound--and I didn't mind: No, I laughed. I was trying to play a dance. I'm too unaccomplished to play with any jollity. I shouldn't venture beyond religious pieces. TYSON. There's no question of jollity. We've got To burn her, for our peace of mind. TAPPERCOOM. You must wait Until to-morrow, like a reasonable chap. And to-morrow, remember, you'll have her property Instead of your present longing for impropriety. And her house, now I come to think of it,

Will suit me nicely. A large mug of small beer for both of you. Leave it to me. CHAPLAIN. No, no, no, I should become delighted again. I wish For repentance--- [#Enter# RICHARD.] TAPPERCOOM. You shall have it. I'll pour it out Myself. You'll see: it shall bring you to your knees. CHAPLAIN. I'm too unaccomplished. I haven't the talent, But I hoped I should see them dancing. And after all They didn't dance--- TAPPERCOOM. They shall, dear saint, they shall, [#Exit# TAPPERCOOM #and the# CHAPLAIN.] RICHARD. I was to tell you, Mr. Tyson--- TYSON. I'm not To be found. I'm fully occupied elsewhere. If you wish to find me I shall be in my study. You can knock, but I shall give you no reply. I wish to be alone with my own convictions. Good-night. [#Exit# TYSON. THOMAS #looks through the window.# #Enter# ALIZON.] THOMAS [#to# RICHARD.] The Great Bear is looking so geometrical One would think that something or other could be proved. Are you sad, Richard? RICHARD. Certainly. THOMAS. I also. I've been cast adrift on a raft of melancholy. The night-wind passed me, like a sail across A blind man's eye. There it is,

The interminable tumbling of the great grey Main of moonlight, washing over The little oyster-shell of this month of April: Among the raven-quills of the shadows And on the white pillows of men asleep: The night's a boundless pastureland of peace, And something condones the world, incorrigibly. But what in fact, #is# this vaporous charm? We're softened by a nice conglomeration Of the earth's uneven surface, refraction of light, Obstruction of light, condensation, distance, And that sappy upshot of self-centred vegetablism The trees of the garden. How is it we come To see this as a heaven in the eye? Why should we hawk and spit out ecstasy As though we were nightingales, and call these quite Casual degrees and differences Beauty? What guile recommends the world And gives our eyes the special sense to be Deluded, above all animals?--Stone me, Richard! I've begun to talk like that soulless girl, and she May at this moment be talking like me! I shall go Back into the garden, and choke myself with the seven Sobs I managed to bring with me from the wreck. RICHARD. To hear her you would think her feet had almost Left the ground. The evening which began So blackly, now, as though it were a kettle Set over her flame, has started to sing. And all The time I find myself praying under my breath That something will save her. THOMAS. You might do worse. Tides turn with a similar sort of whisper.

ALIZON. Richard. RICHARD. Alizon! ALIZON. I've come to be with you. RICHARD. Not with me. I'm the to-and-fro fellow To-night. You have to be with Humphrey. ALIZON. I think I have never met Humphrey. I have met him less And less the more I have seen him. THOMAS. You will forgive me. I was mousing for a small Dutch Owl. If it has said towoo t-wice it has said it A thousand times. [#He disappears into the garden.#] RICHARD. Hey! Thomas--! Ah well.-- The crickets are singing well with their legs to night. ALIZON. It sounds as though the night-air is riding On a creaking saddle. RICHARD. You must go back to the others. ALIZON. Let me stay. I'm not able to love them. Have you forgotten what they mean to do To-morrow? RICHARD. How could I forget? But there are laws And if someone fails them--- ALIZON. I shall run Away from laws if laws can't live in the heart. I shall be gone to-morrow. RICHARD. You make the room Suddenly cold. Where will you go? ALIZON. Where Will you come to find me?

Look you've pulled the thread In your sleeve. Is it honest for me to believe You would be unhappy? ALIZON. When? RICHARD. If you marry Humphrey? ALlZON. Humphrey's a winter in my head. But whenever my thoughts are cold and I lay them Against Richard's name, they seem to rest On the warm ground where summer sits As golden as a humblebee. So I did very little but think of you Until I ran out of the room. RICHARD. Do you come to me Because you can never love the others? ALIZON. Our father God moved many lives to show you to me. I think that is the way it must have happened. It was complicated, but very kind. RICHARD. If I asked you If you could ever love me, I should know For certain that I was no longer rational. ALIZON. I love you quite as much as I love St. Anthony And rather more than I love St. John Chrysostom. RICHARD. But putting haloes on one side, as a man Could you love me, Alizon? ALIZON. I have become A woman, Richard, because I love you. I know I was a child three hours ago. And yet I love you as deeply as many years could make me, But less deeply than many years will make me.

RICHARD. I think I may never speak steadily again. What have I done or said to make it possible That you should love me? ALIZON. Everything I loved Before has come to one meeting place in you And you have gone out into everything I love. RICHARD. Happiness seems to be weeping in me, as I suppose it should, being newly born. ALIZON. We must never leave each other now, or else We should perplex the kindness of God. RICHARD. The kindness Of God in itself is not a little perplexing. What do we do? ALIZON. We cleave to each other, Richard. That is what is proper for us to do. RICHARD. But you were promised to Humphrey, Alizon. And I'm hardly more than a servant here Tied to my own apron-strings. They'll never Let us love each other. ALIZON. Then they will have To outwit all that ever went to create us. RICHARD. So they will. I believe it. Let them storm. We're lovers in a deep and safe place And never lonely any more.--Alizon, Shall we make the future, however much it roars, Lie down with our happiness? Are you ready To forgo custom and escape with me? ALIZON. Shall we go now, before anyone prevents us? RICHARD. I'll take you to the old priest who first found me. He is as near to being my father

As putting his hand into a poor-box could make him. He'll help us. Oh, Alizon, I so Love you. Let yourself quietly out and wait for me Somewhere near the gate but in a shadow. I must fetch my savings. Are you afraid? ALIZON. In some Part of me, not all; and while I wait I can have a word with the saints Theresa and Christopher: They may have some suggestions. RICHARD. Yes, do that. Now: like a mouse. [#When she has gone he goes to the window.#] Only let me spell No disillusion for her, safety, peace, And a good world, as good as she has made it! [RICHARD #starts to fetch his money.# #Enter# MARGARET.] MARGARET. Now, Richard : have you found Mr. Tyson? RICHARD. Yes; He's busy with his convictions. MARGARET. He has no business To be busy now. How am I to prevent This girl, condemned as a heretic, from charming us With gentleness, consideration and gaiety? It makes orthodoxy seem almost irrelevant. But I expect they would tell us the soul can be as lost In loving-kindness as in anything else. Well, well; we must scramble for grace as best we can. Where is Alizon? RICHARD. I must--I must---

MARGARET. The poor child has gone away to cry. See if you can find her, will you, Richard? RICHARD. I have to--have to--- MARGARET. Very well. I will go In search of the sad little soul myself. Oh dear, I could do with a splendid holiday In a complete vacuum. [#Exit# MARGARET #one way,# RICHARD, #hastily, another.# #Enter# JENNET. #She seems for a moment exhausted, but crosses to the# #window. Enter# NICHOLAS #and# HUMPHREY. NICHOLAS. Are you tired of us? HUMPHREY. Why on earth Can't you stop following her? NICHOLAS. Stop following me. JENNET. I am troubled to find Thomas Mendip. NICHOLAS. He's far gone-- As mad as the nature of man. HUMPHREY. As rude and crude As an act of God. He'll burn your house. JENNET. So he has.-- Are you kind to mention burning? HUMPHREY I beg your pardon. NICHOLAS. Couldn't you to-morrow by some elementary spell Reverse the direction of the flames and make them burn down- wards? It would save you unpleasantness and increase at the same Time the heat below, which would please Equally heaven and hell. I feel such a tenderness for you, not only because I think you've bewitched my brother, which would be

A most salutary thing but because, even more Than other women, you carry a sense of that cavernous Night folded in night where Creation sleeps And dreams of men. If only we loved each other Down the pitshaft of love I could go To the motive mysteries under the soul's floor. Well drenched in damnation I should be as pure As a limewashed wall. HUMPHREY. Get out! JENNET, He does no harm.-- Is it possible he still might make for death Even on this open-hearted night? HUMPHREY. Who might? JENNET. Thomas Mendip. He's sick of the world, but the world Has a right to him. HUMPHREY. Damn Thomas Mendip. NICHOLAS. Nothing Easier. [#Enter# RICHARD, #upset to see his escape cut off.#] You're just the fellow, Richard : We need some more Canary, say five bottles More. And before we go in, we'll drink here, privately, To beauty and the sombre sultry waters Where beauty haunts. RICHARD. I have to find--to find--- NICHOLAS. Five bottles of Canary. I'll come to the cellars And help you bring them. Quick, before our mother Calls us back to evaporate into duty. [#Exit# NICHOLAS, #taking# RICHARD #with him.#]

HUMPHREY. He's right. You have bewitched me. But not by brews And incantations. For all I know You may have had some traffic with the Devil And made some sinister agreement with him To your soul's cost. If so, you will agree The fire is fair, as fair goes: You have to burn. JENNET. It's hard enough to live These last few hours as the earth deserves. Do you have to remind me how soon the night Will leave me unprotected, at the daylight's mercy? I'm tired, trying to fight those thoughts away. HUMPHREY. But need you? These few hours of the night Might be lived in a way which wouldn't end In fire. It would be insufferable If you were burned before I could know you. I should never sit at ease in my body again. JENNET. Must we talk of this? All there is To be said has been said, and all in a heavy sentence. There's nothing to add, except a grave silence. HUMPHREY. Listen, will you listen? There is more to say. I'm able to save you, since all official action Can be given official hesitation. I happen To be on the Council, and a dozen reasons Can be found to postpone the moment of execution: Legal reasons, monetary reasons-- They've confiscated your property, and I can question Whether your affairs may not be too disordered. And once postponed, a great congestion of quibbles Can be let loose over the Council table---

JENNET Hope can break the heart Humphrey. Hope Can be too strong. HUMPHREY But this is true: actual As my body is. And as for that--now, impartially, Look what I risk. If in fact you have Done anything to undermine our fairly Workable righteousness, and they say you have, Then my status in both this town and the after-life Will be gone if either suspect me of having helped you. I have to be given a considerable reason For risking that. JENNET. I fondly hope I'm beginning To misconstrue you. HUMPHREY. Later on to-night When they're all bedded-down in their beauty-sleep I'll procure the key and come to your cell. Is that Agreeable? JENNET. Is it so to you? Aren't you building your castles in foul air? HUMPHREY. Foul? No; it's give and take, the basis Of all understanding. JENNET. You mean you give me a choice: To sleep with you, or to-morrow to sleep with my fathers. And if I value the gift of life, Which, dear heaven, I do, I can scarcely refuse. HUMPHREY. Isn't that sense? JENNET. Admirable sense. Oh, why, why am I not sensible? Oddly enough, I hesitate. Can I So dislike being cornered by a young lecher That I should rather die? That would be

The maniac pitch of pride. Indeed, it might Even be sin. Can I believe my ears? I seem to be considering heaven. And heaven, From this angle, seems considerable. HUMPHREY. Now, please, we're not going to confuse the soul and the body. This, speaking bodily, is merely an exchange Of compliments. JENNET. And surely throwing away My life for the sake of pride would seem to heaven A bodily blasphemy, a suicide? HUMPHREY. Even if heaven were interested. Or even If you cared for heaven. Am I unattractive to you? JENNET. Except that you have the manners of a sparrowhawk, With less reason, no, you are not. But even so I no more run to your arms than I wish to run To death. I ask myself why. Surely I'm not Mesmerized by some snake of chastity? HUMPHREY. This isn't the time--- JENNET. Don't speak, contemptible boy, I'll tell you : I am not. We have To look elsewhere--for instance, into my heart Where recently I heard begin A bell of longing which calls no one to church. But need that, ringing anyway in vain, Drown the milkmaid singing in my blood And freeze into the tolling of my knell? That would be pretty, indeed, but unproductive. No, it's not that. HUMPHREY. Jennet, before they come And interrupt us---

JENNET. I am interested In my feelings. I seem to wish to have some importance In the play of time. If not, Then sad was my mother's pain my breath, my bones, My web of nerves, my wondering brain, To be shaped and quickened with such anticipation Only to feed the swamp of space. What is deep, as love is deep, I'll have Deeply. What is good, as love is good, I'll have well. Then if time and space Have any purpose, I shall belong to it. If not, if all is a pretty fiction To distract the cherubim and seraphim Who so continually do cry, the least I can do is to fill the curled shell of the world With human deep-sea sound, and hold it to The ear of God, until he has appetite To taste our salt sorrow on his lips. And so you see it might be better to die. Though, on the other hand, I admit it might Be immensely foolish.--Listen ! What Can all that thundering from the cellars be? HUMPHREY. I don't know at all. You're simply playing for time. Why can't you answer me, before I'm thrown By the bucking of my pulse, before Nicholas Interrupts us? Will it be all right? JENNET. Doesn't my plight seem pitiable to you? HUMPHREY. Pitiable, yes. It makes me long for you Intolerably. Now, be a saint, and tell me I may come to your cell. JENNET. I wish I could believe

My freedom was not in the flames. O God, I wish The ground would open. [THOMAS #climbs in through the window.#] THOMAS. Allow me to open it for you. Admit I was right. Man's a mistake. Lug-worms, the lot of us. HUMPHREY. Wipe your filthy boots Before you start trespassing. THOMAS. And as for you I'll make you the climax to my murders. You can die a martyr to the cause Of bureaucratic pollution. JENNET. Oh dear, Is this lug-worms at war? And by what right, will you tell me, Do you come moralizing in, dictating What I should do? THOMAS. Woman, what are you saying? Are you trying to tell me you'd even consider--- JENNET. I might prefer the dragon to St. George. HUMPHREY. If he wants to fight me, let him. Come out into the garden. If he kills me Remember I thought you unfairly beautiful And, to balance your sins, you should be encouraged To spend your beauty in a proper way, On someone who knows its worth. THOMAS. Sound the trumpets ! JENNET. Yes why not? And a roll

Of drums. You, if you remember, failed Even to give me a choice. You have only said 'Die, woman, and look as though you liked it.' So you'll agree this can hardly be said to concern you. THOMAS. All right! You've done your worst. You force me to tell you The disastrous truth. I love you. A misadventure So intolerable, hell could not do more. Nothing in the world could touch me And you have to come and be the damnable Exception. I was nicely tucked up for the night Of eternity, and, like a restless dream Of a fool's paradise, you, with a rainbow where Your face is and an #ignis*fatuus# Worn like a rose in your girdle, come pursued By fire, and presto! the bedclothes are on the floor And I, the tomfool, love you. Don't say again That this doesn't concern me, or I shall say That you needn't concern yourself with to-morrow's burning. [#Enter# NICHOLAS.] NICHOLAS. Do you know what that little bastard Richard did? He locked me in the cellars. THOMAS. Don't complicate The situation.--I love you, perfectly knowing You're nothing but a word out of the mouth Of that same planet of almighty blemish Which I long to leave. But the word so sings With an empty promise.--I shall lie in my grave With my hands clapped over my ears, to stop your music From riddling me as much as the meddling worms. Still, that's beside the point. We have to settle This other matter---

NICHOLAS. Yes I was telling you. I went into the cellar to get the wine, And the door swung after me, and that little son Of a crossbow turned the key--- THOMAS [#to# JENNET.] Can we find somewhere To talk where there isn't quite so much insect life? NICHOLAS. And there I was, in cobwebs up to my armpits Hammering the door and yelling like a slaughter-house, Until the cook came and let me out. Where is he? JENNET. What should we talk of? You mean to be hanged. Am I to understand that your tongue-tied dust Will slip a ring on the finger of my ashes And we'll both die happily ever after? Surely The other suggestion, though more conventional, Has fewer flaws? THOMAS. But you said, like a ray of truth Itself, that you'd rather burn. JENNET. My heart, my mind Would rather burn. But may not the casting vote Be with my body? And is the body necessarily Always ill-advised? NICHOLAS. Something has happened Since I made the descent into those hellish cobwebs. I'm adrift. What is it? THOMAS. Let me speak to her. You've destroyed my defences, the laborious contrivance Of hours, the precious pair of you. O Jennet, Jennet, you should have let me go, before I confessed a word of this damned word love. I'll not Reconcile myself to a dark world For the sake of five-feet six of wavering light,

For the sake of a woman who goes no higher Than my bottom lip. NICHOLAS. I'll strip and fly my shirt At the masthead unless someone picks me up. What has been going on? THOMAS. Ask that neighing Horse-box-kicker there, your matchless brother. NICHOLAS. Ah, Humphrey darling, have there been Some official natural instincts? HUMPHREY. I've had enough. The whole thing's become unrecognizable. JENNET [#to# THOMAS.] Have I a too uncertain virtue to keep you On the earth? THOMAS. I ask nothing, nothing. Stop Barracking my heart. Save yourself His way if you must. There will always be Your moment of hesitation, which I shall chalk All over the walls of purgatory. Never mind That, loving you, I've trodden the garden threadbare Completing a way to save you. JENNET. If you saved me Without wishing to save yourself, you might have saved Your trouble. NICHOLAS. I imagine it's all over with us, Humphrey. I shall go and lie with my own thoughts And conceive reciprocity. Come on, you boy of gloom. The high seas for us. HUMPHREY. Oh go and drown yourself And me with you. NICHOLAS. There's no need to drown. We'll take the tails off mermaids.

[#Enter# MARGARET.] MARGARET. Have any of you Seen that poor child Alizon? I think She must be lost. NICHOLAS. Who isn't? The best Thing we can do is to make wherever we're lost in Look as much like home as we can. Now don't Be worried. She can't be more lost than she was with us. HUMPHREY. I can't marry her, mother. Could you think Of something else to do with her? I'm going to bed. NICHOLAS. I think Humphrey has been Improperly making a proper suggestion, mother. He wishes to be drowned. MARGARET [#to# THOMAS.] They find it impossible To concentrate. Have you seen the little Fair-haired girl? NICHOLAS. He wishes to be hanged. MARGARET [#to# JENNET.] Have you hidden the child? NICHOLAS. She wishes to be burned Rather than sleep with my brother. MARGARET. She should be thankful She can sleep at all. For years I have woken up Every quarter of an hour. I must sit down, I'm too tired to know what anyone's saying. JENNET. I think none of us knows where to look for Alizon. Or for anything else. But shall we, while we wait For news of her, as two dispirited women Ask this man to admit he did no murders?

THOMAS. You think not? JENNET. I know. There was a soldier, Discharged and centreless, with a towering pride In his sensibility, and an endearing Disposition to be a hero, who wanted To make an example of himself to all Erring mankind, and falling in with a witch-hunt His good heart took the opportunity Of providing a diversion. O Thomas, It was very theatrical of you to choose the gallows. THOMAS. Mother, we won't listen to this girl. She is jealous, because of my intimate relations With damnation. But damnation knows I love her. RICHARD [#appearing in the doorway.#] We have come back. NICHOLAS. I want to talk to you. Who locked me in the cellars? MARGARET [#as# ALIZON #enters.#] Alizon, where have you been? ALIZON. We had to come back. MARGARET. Back? From where? RICHARD. We came across old Skipps. ALIZON. We were running away. We wanted to be happy. NICHOLAS. Skipps? HUMPHREY. The body of old Skipps? We'd better Find Tappercoom. [#Exit# HUMPHREY.] MARGARET. Alizon, what do you mean, Running away? RICHARD. He is rather drunk. Shall I bring him In? He had been to see his daughter.

JENNET [#to# THOMAS.] Who Will trouble to hang you now? [#She goes up the stairs.#] THOMAS [#calling after her.#] He couldn't lie quiet Among so many bones. He had to come back To fetch his barrow. TAPPERCOOM [#entering with# HUMPHREY.] What's all this I'm told? I was hoping to hang on my bough for the rest of the evening Ripe and undisturbed. What is it? Murder Not such a fabrication after all? ALIZON. We had to come back, you see, because nobody now Will be able to burn her. RICHARD. Nobody now will be able To say she turned him into a dog, Come in, Mr. Skipps. [#Enter# SKIPPS, #unsteady.#] TAPPERCOOM. It looks uncommonly to me As though someone has been tampering with the evidence. Where's Tyson? I'm too amiable to-night To controvert any course of events whatsoever. SKIPPS. Your young gentleman says Come in, so I comes in. Youse only has to say muck off, and I goes, wivout argument. TAPPERCOOM. Splendid, of course. Are you the rag-and-bone merchant of this town, name of Matthew Skipps? SKIPPS. Who give me that name? My granfathers and gran- mothers and all in authorority undrim. Baptized I blaming was, and I says to youse, baptized I am, and I says to youse, baptized I will be, wiv holy weeping and washing of teeth. And immer- sion upon us miserable offenders. Miserable offenders all--no offence meant. And if any of youse is not a miserable offender, as he's told to be by almighty and mercerable God, then I says to him Hands off my daughter, you bloody-minded heathen.

TAPPERCOOM. All right, all right--- SKIPPS And I'm not quarrelling mind; I'm not quarrelling. Peace on earth and good tall women. And give us our trespassers as trespassers will be prosecuted for us. I'm not perfect, mind. But I'm as good a miserable offender as any man here present, ladies excepted. THOMAS. Here now, Matt, aren't you forgetting yourself? You're dead: you've been dead for hours. SKIPPS. Dead, am I? I has the respect to ask you to give me coabberation of that. I says mucking liar to nobody. But I seen my daughter three hours back, and she'd have said fair and to my face Dad, you're dead. She don't stand for no nonsense. NICHOLAS. The whole town knows it, Skipps, old man. You've been dead since this morning. SKIPPS. Dead. Well, you take my breaf away. Do I begin to stink, then? HUMPHREY. You do. SKIPPS. Fair enough. That's coabberation. I'm among the blessed saints. TAPPERCOOM. He floats in the heaven of the grape. Someone take him home to his hovel. SKIPPS [#roaring.#] Alleluia!. Alleluia! Alleluia! TAPPERCOOM. Now, stop that, Skipps. Keep your hosannas for the cold light of morning or we shall lock you up. SKIPPS. Alleluia! TAPPERCOOM. He'll wake your guests and spoil their pleasure. They're all sitting half sunk in a reef of collars. Even the dear good Chaplain has taken so many glassesful of repentance he's almost unconscious of the existence of sin.

SKIPPS. Glory, amen ! Glory, glory, amen, amen! MARGARET. Richard will take this old man home. Richard-- Where is Richard? Where is Alizon? Have they gone again? NICHOLAS. Yes; Humphrey's future wife, Blown clean away. MARGARET. Yes ; that's all very well; But she mustn't think she can let herself be blown Away whenever she likes. THOMAS. What better time Than when she likes? SKIPPS. As it was in the begining, Ever and ever, amen, al-leluia ! MARGARET. Take the old man to his home. Now that you've made him Think he's dead we shall never have any peace. HUMPHREY. Nor shall we when he's gone. NICHOLAS. Spread your wings, Matthew; we're going to teach you to fly. SKIPPS. I has the respect to ask to sit down. Youse blessed saints Don't realize: it takes it out of you, this life everlasting. Alleluia ! NICHOLAS. Come on. Your second wind can blow where no one listens. [#Exeunt# HUMPHREY, NICHOLAS, #and# SKIPPS.] TAPPERCOOM. That's more pleasant. What was the thread, now, which the rascal broke? Do I have to collect my thoughts any further? MARGARET. Yes: Or I must. That poor child Alizon

Is too young to go throwing herself under the wheels Of happiness. She should have wrapped up warmly first, Hebble must know, in any case. I must tell him, Though he's locked himself in, and only blows his nose When I knock. TAPPERCOOM. Yes, get him on to a horse; It will do him good. MARGARET. Hebble on a horse is a man Delivered neck and crop to the will of God. But he'll have to do it, [#Exit# MARGARET.] TAPPERCOOM. Ah yes, he'll have to do it. He's a dear little man.--What's to be the end of you? I take it the male prisoner is sufficiently Deflated not to plague us with his person Any longer? THOMAS. Deflated? I'm overblown With the knowledge of my villainy. TAPPERCOOM. Your guilt, my boy, Is a confounded bore. THOMAS. Then let it bore me to extinction, [JENNET #returns, wearing her own dress.#] TAPPERCOOM. The woman prisoner may notice, without My mentioning it, that there's a certain mildness In the night, a kind of somnolent inattention. If she wishes to return to her cell, no one Can object. On the other hand--How very empty The streets must be just now.--You will forgive A yawn in an overworked and elderly man.--

The moon is full, of course. To leave the town Unobserved, one would have to use caution. As for me I shall go and be a burden to my bed. Good night. JENNET. Good night. THOMAS. Good night. [#Exit# TAPPERCOOM.] THOMAS. So much for me. JENNET. Thomas, only another Fifty years or so and then I promise To let you go. THOMAS. Do you see those roofs and spires? There sleep hypocrisy, porcous pomposity, greed, Lust, vulgarity, cruelty, trickery, sham And all possible nitwittery--are you suggesting fifty Years of that? JENNET. I was only suggesting fifty Years of me. THOMAS. Girl, you haven't changed the world. Glimmer as you will, the world's not changed. I love you, but the world's not changed. Perhaps I could draw you up over my eyes for a time But the world sickens me still. JENNET. And do you think Your gesture of death is going to change it? Except For me. THOMAS. Oh, the unholy mantrap of love! JENNET. I have put on my own gown again, But otherwise everything that is familiar, My house, my poodle, peacock, and possessions,

I have to leave. The world is looking frozen And forbidding under the moon; but I must be Out of this town before daylight comes, and somewhere, Who knows where, begin again. THOMAS. Brilliant! So you fall back on the darkness to defeat me. You gamble on the possibility That I was well-brought-up. And, of course, you're right. I have to see you home, though neither of us Knows where on earth it is. JENNET. Thomas, can you mean to let The world go on? THOMAS. I know my limitations. When the landscape goes to seed, the wind is obsessed By to-morrow. JENNET. I shall have to hurry. That was the pickaxe voice of a cock, beginning To break up the night. Am I an inconvenience To you? THOMAS. As inevitably as original sin. And I shall be loath to forgo one day of you, Even for the sake of my ultimate friendly death. JENNET. I am friendly too. THOMAS. Then let me wish us both Good morning.--And God have mercy on our souls. [THE CURTAIN FALLS]