Faustus

by David Mamet

FAUSTUS: Oh, best of magicians. Are you then skilled to banish all disruption?

  MAGUS: Sir, on the instant.

  (The MAGUS prepares to perform a magical pass.)

  (The WIFE enters.)

  MAGUS: Watch here.

  WIFE: Faustus.

  FAUSTUS: Of course. Sir: with my apologies, to stunt your effect.

  MAGUS: Your servant.

  FAUSTUS: And here take my leave—but with the one question.

  MAGUS: Please …

  FAUSTUS: Where is the newspaper?

  MAGUS: Sir, it is gone.

  FAUSTUS: Can matter be annihilated?

  MAGUS: Alas.

  FAUSTUS: No, but reveal me the trick.

  MAGUS: My revelation could not bring delight.

  FAUSTUS: May I not judge?

  MAGUS: In my profession, as in yours, that given free must be despised.

  FAUSTUS: Indeed?

  MAGUS: It is the one sure, certain law of life.

  FAUSTUS: Name me your forfeit.

  MAGUS: Your respect, for I am asked to do that which can but cause disillusion.

  FAUSTUS: You have my respect. I swear it.

  MAGUS: (The MAGUS magically produces the newspaper.) Ecco:

  (FAUSTUS takes the newspaper.)

  FAUSTUS: But this is not the gazette. The page is blank …

  WIFE: The child is unwell.

  FAUSTUS: He is but overset.

  WIFE: Yes.

  FRIEND: Must we annul the entertainment?

  WIFE: Come with me now, Faustus. Enough.

  FAUSTUS: One moment, while I close with the jester. (To FRIEND) Would you fetch my purse?

  FRIEND: (AS HE HANDS FAUSTUS a purse) Here is mine.

  FAUSTUS: (AS HE HANDS A SHEET OF PAPER TO HIS FRIEND) Thank you, please, and be so good as to return this page to my manuscript. You remark, it is the final page …

  FRIEND: … great honor.

  FAUSTUS: Go with my wife. Do not fret for the child. Surfeit must be released. Heavy air weighs on the lungs, the storms discharge it.

  (The FRIEND exits.)

  FAUSTUS: (TO THE MAGUS) Maestro, my pardon. Take this (Of the purse), and with my thanks, I would not for the world release you, but as you perceive …

  MAGUS: Servant, sir.

  FAUSTUS: I pray but for the restoration of the gazette.

  MAGUS: I beg your pardon?

  FAUSTUS: Where is the journal?

  MAGUS: Sir, it is vanished.

  FAUSTUS: Quite. But where? Shall I turn my back?

  MAGUS: Sir, I have made the incantation, and the component atoms of the subject article …

  FAUSTUS: Indeed, then, I must class myself with those who, doubtless, importune you to reveal the secrets of your worthy craft.

  MAGUS: Would you, again, sir, trade delight for disillusionment … ?

  FAUSTUS: I do not seek delight, but restoration. I require the journal.

  MAGUS: Sir, I am at a stand.

  FAUSTUS: Sir: did you have me swear? Did you tax me to swear?

  MAGUS: I do not know, how, in faith, I may unclothe my craft.

  FAUSTUS: Did you not have me mime a ceremony, to do just that?

  MAGUS: Indeed, it was but to augment th’ effect… ’tis not for the uninitiated …

  FAUSTUS: Oh. Do I transgress a magical divide? Do I encroach upon the netherworld …? Shall I avert my unschooled gaze lest it be seared by the mysteries …? Poor uninitiate, to wander, sightless in the sacred grove. Do I offend? I beg pardon; but have I not contracted for your energy? And now have you, as comes to any artist, o’er reached yourself? Must you renounce your excellence, and crawl to kennel like a beaten dog, your poor trick revealed? How unlike the omnipotent priest you impersonate. (Pause) Have you not been paid? Why do you hesitate?

  MAGUS: I held, sir, but the one moment to compose my thought. For onlookers, discovering an illusion, fall into self-contempt, and, indeed, oft, to anger. I strove but for a happy way to effect the restoration. I assure you I intended no disrespect. (Of purse) You have over-rewarded me, who did not, in fact, perform. If I, in my search for a graceful exit, caused offense, I humbly beg your pardon. Please guard this pledge of my sincerity. (The MAGUS restores the purse to FAUSTUS.) The journal may be found beneath your feet.

  (The MAGUS begins to exit.)

  FAUSTUS: Wait, friend, wait, I beg you hear me, though, indeed, I have no merit to plead. I have, I second you, traduced whatever claim upon your gracious-ness. And I have mocked you. In giddy self-absorption. I have no excuse, and can but beg your pardon.

  MAGUS: I do not comprehend you, sir.

  FAUSTUS: Indeed you do, oh, stay, and forgive me. Wait, while I delineate it: We had engaged you. To perform, who bought your time, and owe you, in return, attention …

  MAGUS: Not were my play to fail…

  FAUSTUS: In any case, civility. From which we may not be exempted. I am in breach. And plead, not as your contractor, but as one man to his like, you feign a god, and I a philosopher. Forgive me. Who most completely regrets his offense.

  MAGUS: (Pause) It were above me to forgive you.

  FAUSTUS: Oh no, naught but our parity wipes the slate clean.

  MAGUS: None but you has the power to suggest it.

  FAUSTUS: Must that debar me from my suit?

  MAGUS: You plead your right to waive preferment.

  FAUSTUS: I do.

  MAGUS: And yet, I cannot waive my subordination.

  FAUSTUS: Oh, my friend. Which makes my gaffe the less excusable. I am ashamed of my intemperate speech and offer my sincere apology. (Pause)

  MAGUS: You entice me to my better self.

  FAUSTUS: I ask your pardon.

  MAGUS: Were I to forward but its simulacrum?

  FAUSTUS: Come, sir, finally, let us be friends. Shall we not be friends? Mired together, in this what shall we say …? Aid me … in …?

  MAGUS: In a dark wood.

  FAUSTUS: In this underworld. Which you and I know as the world’s nickname. Two philosophers, two showmen, seeking to astound, are we not?

  MAGUS: You, sir, through your perception, I through trickery…

  FAUSTUS: Each though, libel to frightened slander. Do I tax the conceit? My yokemate, as we pull the world on?

  MAGUS: You o’er flatter me …

  FAUSTUS: As we: reason and folly, two paired oxen, wrestle the wagon of the world … ah, you smile, and now, encouraged by your approbation, having tapped its depth shall I now try its elasticity? Where did I leave my burden?

  MAGUS: In a dark wood …

  FAUSTUS: In the dark wood, yes, our rough conveyance, fast in the mire, no purchase, night coming on …

  MAGUS: You have neglected the storm.

  FAUSTUS: I stipulate it per tradition. And the cart, aid me, my friend.

  MAGUS: Upon whose side we daub the name Humanity …

  FAUSTUS: … oh, precious perishable cargo … left to the strength …

  MAGUS: Abandoned to the faltering strength …

  FAUSTUS: Of its mismatched beasts of travail: philosophy and Magic … its castrated fattened cattle: Amuse me from this Wood, oh, Magus. From this dark wood. From loneliness, my brother. Oh, poor souls—who would begrudge us our self-pity—alone empowered, are we not?

  MAGUS: Are we, sir?

  FAUSTUS: Possessors of that Secret Knowledge. And unable to discharge the burden.

  MAGUS: To the which end, the paired oxen must pull together.

  FAUSTUS: There you are, my friend. A meeting in the dark wood. For it doth turn a burden, now and then …

  MAGUS: In any pursuit…

  FAUSTUS: I would imagine, the uncertainty, the need to please …

  MAGUS: Recurring, periodic self-doubt, sir, as we, increasing, master the few tricks, and, daily, doubt their worth.

  FAUSTUS: You speak, sir, for the company. (Pause)

  MAGUS: Who drives your figure?

  FAUSTUS: Eh?

  MAGUS: You speak of the oxen, and their cart…
who is it directs them?

  FAUSTUS: Ah, yes, whom may we say? Who is the goad?

  MAGUS: Perhaps, the family …

  FAUSTUS: The family.

  MAGUS: Perhaps one toils for their comfort, their safety and education.

  FAUSTUS: Perhaps.

  MAGUS: Is it not so?

  FAUSTUS: Though, oft in our secret selves, we indict them, do we not?

  MAGUS: Indict them, you say, sir?

  FAUSTUS: For their claim upon us.

  MAGUS: A legitimate claim.

  FAUSTUS: How much the more oppressive?

  MAGUS: When is a man content?

  FAUSTUS: I ask you. When may one be content? When work, and admiration, family, fame, nay, and posterity continually importune for acknowledgment. What poor conflicted souls. Who falsely name their pursuit “liberty ”

  MAGUS: What is its secret name? (Pause)

  FAUSTUS: Revenge. Those with whom I contend, are phantoms. Those I instruct fools, or e’er either to avoid, or e’er applaud the obvious. I fear failure, I sicken of success, my sinews set in the mold in which work has stiffened them. I am unfitted even to unbend. I beg thee, brother, purge my soul of its self-content, show me the upper world, and I will follow. Poor, petted Faustus implores thee.

  MAGUS: I scarce know how to take you, sir.

  FAUSTUS: No, no, induct me. Blister my flesh upon the candle, cause me to proffer oaths.

  MAGUS: What oaths?

  FAUSTUS: Whate’er is traditional…

  (Offstage cries are heard.)

  MAGUS: The child cries.

  FAUSTUS: Its cries will cease. Shrive me. Bid me renounce th’ immaterial world. I regret my preferment and beg for the chance to begin anew.

  MAGUS: Ah: That is a plea I recognize.

  FAUSTUS: Then pity me. Ultimate physician.

  MAGUS: Another bears that name.

  FAUSTUS: Perhaps you are his servant?

  MAGUS: All are within his thrall.

  FAUSTUS: Indeed?

  MAGUS: Is there not said to be salvation?

  FAUSTUS: Who returns to demonstrate it? (Pause) What powers shall we importune?

  MAGUS: I cede to you the choice.

  FAUSTUS: Teach me a trick.

  MAGUS: I shall reveal a trick, in fact, the greatest of illusions: (The MAGUS prepares to perform a magical flourish.)

  (The FRIEND appears.)

  FRIEND: Faustus.

  MAGUS: … Behold.

  FRIEND: Your wife sends to summon you.

  FAUSTUS: It is the child.

  FRIEND: It is.

  MAGUS: May all its trials be transient.

  FAUSTUS: It cries from excitement. It cries for a bruise at play. Its cries are sweet, for it may be comforted.

  FRIEND: Your wife bids you attend immediately. (Pause) Faustus.

  FAUSTUS: (TO THE MAGUS) Sir, I would not for the world, again, offend you. But, as you see. Sadly, as you see.

  MAGUS: Of course.

  FAUSTUS: (To the FRIEND) I come on the instant. (The FRIEND exits. To the MAGUS) My thanks, sir, from the heart, for your companionship. I forestall, until that day, the renewed delight of our continued brotherhood.

  MAGUS: You asked to be taught a trick.

  FAUSTUS: I must plead a postponement.

  MAGUS: E’en to discover the most complete effect?

  FAUSTUS: I do not doubt your skill. Howe’er, my duties abrogate even your power, O Magus, to transfix me. Servant, sir.

  (FAUSTUS starts to depart.)

  MAGUS: Your manuscript contains an error.

  FAUSTUS: (Pause) What?

  MAGUS: As I have said.

  FAUSTUS: Ah. Yes. Well done. My manuscript. An overheard exchange prompts an improvisation. A misplaced punctuation mark, an orthographic fault.

  MAGUS: It hides an error, which, to posterity serves to nullify the work entire.

  FAUSTUS: Have you then seen the future?

  MAGUS: It is one with the past.

  FAUSTUS: Absent the provoking generalities.

  MAGUS: Do you challenge me?

  FAUSTUS: I do. What do you know of my philosophy?

  MAGUS:’Tis said you are like Adam, before whom were brought all God’s creation, and whate’er he chose to call them, so they were called. And now you are complete. Your long years journey summarized in mathematical perfection.

  FAUSTUS: You speak of my new work?

  MAGUS: I do.

  FAUSTUS: I penned the last page but this afternoon.

  MAGUS: You wish me to quote it to you.

  FAUSTUS: I do.

  MAGUS:“Wherein we find that number …”

  FAUSTUS: No …

  MAGUS: Indeed, “is not, and signifies not a quantity, but a progression.” Shall I continue? Shall I quote the formula?

  FRIEND: (Entering) Faustus.

  FAUSTUS: Stop. He has purloined the manuscript.

  FRIEND: Faustus, the child cries …

  FAUSTUS: Are you a thief?

  MAGUS: I am not.

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

  MAGUS: I cannot debase my trade to the uninitiated.

  FAUSTUS: Is it then, mere manipulation?

  MAGUS: That is the charge I must withhold.

  FAUSTUS: Who bids you? Are you a spy?

  MAGUS: I assure you I am not.

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

  FRIEND: Faustus …

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

  MAGUS: But if it is not an effect…

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

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

  FAUSTUS: … please.

  MAGUS: Grant it hypothetically.

  FAUSTUS: Is that your precondition?

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

  FAUSTUS: I would amend it.

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

  FAUSTUS: I cannot imagine such a fault.

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

  FAUSTUS: Instance an example of such error.

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

  FAUSTUS: But it is not.

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

  FAUSTUS: Deservedly.

  MAGUS: If it were purloined.

  FAUSTUS: Yes.

  MAGUS: In whole or part.

  FAUSTUS: As I have said. Thus?

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

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

  MAGUS: So you say.

  FAUSTUS: I do.

  MAGUS: But would you swear an oath?

  FAUSTUS: I do not follow you, sir.

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

  FAUSTUS: It is.

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

  FAUSTUS: The thoughtful hesitate to take an oath.

  MAGUS: The thoughtful.

  FAUSTUS: It is from a sense of probity

  MAGUS: Not from fe
ar …?

  FAUSTUS: I think not.

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

  FAUSTUS: But who would proffer such an oath?

  MAGUS: What is the risk?

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

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

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

  MAGUS: Ah, language is all.

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

  MAGUS: And yet we hesitate before them.

  FAUSTUS: Again, what does it signify?

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

  FAUSTUS: I swear the work is mine.

  MAGUS: Upon your family.

  FAUSTUS: Were I proved in default.

  MAGUS: … by whom?

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

  MAGUS: Upon the lives of your wife and child.

  FAUSTUS: Tell how you knew of my formula.

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

  (Pause)

  FAUSTUS: I will.

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

  (FAUSTUS takes the dirk.)

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

  MAGUS: You are.

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

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

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

  MAGUS: Is time so short?

  FAUSTUS: My child …

  MAGUS: You note his cries have ceased.

  FAUSTUS: Which need not trouble you. Adieu.

  MAGUS: But tarry.

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

  FAUSTUS: My family bids me.

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

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