by Tom Stoppard
TOM STOPPARD
Arcadia
ACT ONE
SCENE ONE
A room on the garden front of a very large country house in Derbyshire in April
1809. Nowadays, the house would be called a stately home. The upstage wall is
mainly tall, shapely, uncurtained windows, one or more of which work as doors.
Nothing much need be said or seen of the exterior beyond. We come to learn that
the house stands in the typical English park of the time. Perhaps we see an
indication of this, perhaps only light and air and sky.
The room looks bare despite the large table which occupies the centre of it. The
table, the straight-backed chairs and, the only other item of furniture, the architects
stand or reading stand, would all be collectable pieces now but here, on an
uncarpeted wood floor, they have no more pretension than a schoolroom, whi ch is
indeed the main use of this room at this time. What elegance there is, is
architectural, and nothing is impressive but the scale. There is a door in each of the
side walls. These are closed, but one of the french windows is open to a bright but
sunless morning.
There are two people, each busy with books and paper and pen and ink, separately
occupied. The pupil is Thomasina Coverley, aged 13. The tutor is Septimus Hodge,
aged 22. Each has an open book. Hers is a slim mathematics primer. His is a
handsome thick quarto, brand new, a vanity production, with little tapes to tie when
the book is closed. His loose papers, etc, are kept in a stiff-backed portfolio which
also ties up with tapes.
Septimus has a tortoise which is sleepy enough to serve as a paperweight.
Elsewhere on the table there is an old-fashioned theodolite and also some other
books stacked up.
Thomasina: Septimus, what is carnal embrace?
Septimus: Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one's arms around a side of
beef.
Thomasina: Is that all?
Septimus: No ... a shoulder of mutton, a haunch of venison well hugged, an
embrace of grouse . . . caro, carnis; feminine; flesh.
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Thomasina: Is it a sin?
Septimus: Not necessarily, my lady, but when carnal embrace is sinful it is a sin of
the flesh, QED. We had caro in our Gallic Wars - 'The Britons live on milk and
meat' - 'lacte et carne vivunt. I am sorry that the seed fell on stony ground.
Thomasina: That was the sin of Onan, wasn't it, Septimus?
Septimus: Yes. He was giving his brother's wife a Latin lesson and she was hardly
the wiser after it than before. I thought you were finding a proof for Fermat's last
theorem.
Thomasina: It is very difficult, Septimus. You will have to show me how.
Septimus: If I knew how, there would be no need to ask you. Fermat's last theorem
has kept people busy for a hundred and fifty years, and I hoped it would keep you
busy long enough for me to read Mr Chater's poem in praise of love with only the
distraction of its own absurdities.
Thomasina: Our Mr Chater has written a poem?
Septimus: He believes he has written a poem, yes. I can see that there might be
more carnality in your algebra than in Mr Chater's 'Couch of Eros'.
Thomasina: Oh, it was not my algebra. I heard Jellaby telling the cook that Mrs
Chater was discovered in carnal embrace in the gazebo.
Septimus: (Pause) Really? With whom, did Jellaby happen to say?
Thomasina considers this with a puzzled frown.) What do you mean, with whom?
Septimus: With what? Exactly so. The idea is absurd. Where did this story come
from?
Thomasina: Mr Noakes.
Septimus: Mr Noakes!
Thomasina: Papa's landskip gardener. He was taking bearings in the garden when
he saw - through his spyglass - Mrs Chater in the gazebo in carnal embrace.
Septimus: And do you mean to tell me that Mr Noakes told the butler?
Thomasina: No. Mr Noakes told Mr Chater .Jellaby was told by the groom, who overheard Mr Noakes telling Mr Chater, in the stable yard.
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Septimus: Mr Chater being engaged in closing the stable door.
Thomasina: What do you mean, Septimus?
Septimus: So, thus far, the only people who know about this are Mr Noakes the
landskip architect, the groom, the butler, the cook and, of course, Mrs Chater's
husband, the poet.
Thomasina: And Arthur who was cleaning the silver, and the bootboy. And now
you.
Septimus: Of course. What else did he say?
Thomasina: Mr Noakes?
Septimus: No, not Mr Noakes. Jellaby. You heard Jellaby telling the cook.
Thomasina: Cook hushed him almost as soon as he started. Jellaby did not see that
I was being allowed to finish yesterday's upstairs' rabbit pie before I came to my
lesson. I think you have not been candid with me, Septimus. A gazebo is not, after
all,a meat larder.
Septimus: I never said my definition was complete.
Thomasina: Is carnal embrace kissing?
Septimus: Yes.
Thomasina: And throwing one's arms around Mrs Chater?
Septimus: Yes. Now, Fermat's last theorem-
Thomasina: I thought as much. I hope you are ashamed.
Septimus: I, my lady?
Thomasina: If you do not teach me the true meaning of things, who will?
Septimus: Ah. Yes, I am ashamed. Carnal embrace is sexual congress, which is the
insertion of the male genital organ into the female genital organ for purposes of
procreation and pleasure. Fermat's last theorem, by contrast, asserts that
when x,y and z are whole numbers each raised to power of n, the sum of the first two can never equal the third when n is greater than 2. (Pause.)
Thomasina: Eurghhh!
Septimus: Nevertheless, that is the theorem.
Thomasina: It is disGusting and incomprehensible. Now when I am grown to
practise it myself I shall never do so without thinking of you.
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Septimus: Thank you very much, my lady. Was Mrs Chater down this morning?
Thomasina: No. Tell me more about sexual congress.
Septimus: There is nothing more to be said about sexual congress.
Thomasina: Is it the same as love?
Septimus: Oh no, it is much nicer than that.
(One of the side doors leads to the music room. It is the other side door which now
opens to admit Jellaby, the butler.)
Septimus: I am teaching, Jellaby.
Jellaby: Beg your pardon, Mr Hodge, Mr Chater said it was urgent you receive his
letter.
Septimus: Oh, very well, (Septimus takes the letter.) Thank you. (And to
dismiss Jellaby.) Thank you.
Jellaby: (Holding his ground) Mr Chater asked me to bring him your answer.
Septimus: My answer? (He opens the letter. There is no envelope as such, but there
is a 'cover' which, folded and sealed, does the same service. Septimus tosses the cover negligently aside and reads.) Well, my answer is that as is my custom and
my duty to his lordship I am engaged until a quarter to twelve in the education of
his daughter. When I am done, and if Mr Chater is still there, I will be happy to
wait upon him in - (he checks the letter) - in the gunroom.
Jellaby: I will tell him so, thank you, sir.
(Septimus folds the letter and places it between the pages of 'The Couch of Eros'.)
Thomasina: What is for dinner, Jellaby?
Jellaby: Boiled ham and cabbages, my lady, and a rice pudding.
Thomasina: Oh, goody. (Jellaby leaves.)
Septimus: Well, so much for Mr Noakes. He puts himself forward as a gentleman, a
philosopher of the picturesque, a visionary who can move mountains and cause
lakes, but in the scheme of the garden he is as the serpent.
Thomasina: When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam
spreads itself round making red trails like
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the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backward, the jam
will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to
turn pink just as before. Do you think this is odd?
Septimus: No.
Thomasina: Well, I do. You cannot stir things apart.
Septimus: No more you can, time must needs run backward, and since it will not,
we must stir our way onward mixing as we go, disorder out of disorder into
disorder until pink is complete, unchanging and unchangeable, and we are done
with it for ever. This is known as free will or self-determination. (He picks up the
tortoise and moves it a few inches as though it had strayed, on top of some loose
papers, and admonishes it.) Sit!
Thomasina: Septimus, do you think God is a Newtonian?
Septimus: An Etonian? Almost certainly, I'm afraid. We must ask your brother to
make it his first enquiry.
Thomasina: No, Septimus, a Newtonian. Septimus! Am I the first person to have
thought of this?
Septimus: No.
Thomasina: I have not said yet.
Septimus: 'If everything from the furthest planet to the smallest atom of our brain
acts according to Newton's law of motion, what becomes of free will?'
Thomasina: No.
Septimus: God's will.
Thomasina: No.
Septimus: Sin.
Thomasina: (Derisively) No!
Septimus: Very well.
Thomasina: If you could stop every atom in its position and direction, and if your
mind could comprehend all the actions thus suspended, then if you were
really, really good at algebra you could write the formula for all the future; and although nobody can be so clever as to do it, the formula must exist just as if one
could.
Septimus: (Pause) Yes. (Pause.) Yes, as far as I know, you are
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the first person to have thought of this. (Pause. With an effort.) In the margin of his copy of Arithmetical Fermat wrote that he had discovered a wonderful proof of his
theorem but, the margin being too narrow for his purpose, did not have room to
write it down. The note was found after his death, and from that day to this -
Thomasina: Oh! I see now! The answer is perfectly obvious.
Septimus: This time you may have overreached yourself. (The door is opened,
somewhat violently. Chater enters.) Mr Chater! Perhaps my message miscarried. I will be at liberty at a quarter to twelve, if that is convenient.
Chater: It is not convenient, sir. My business will not wait.
Septimus: Then I suppose you have Lord Croom's opinion that your business is
more important than his daughter's lesson.
Chater: I do not, but, if you like, I will ask his lordship to settle the point.
Septimus: (Pause) My lady, take Fermat into the music room. There will be an
extra spoonful of jam if you find his proof.
Thomasina: There is no proof, Septimus. The thing that is perfectly obvious is that
the note in the margin was a joke to make you all mad. (Thomasina leaves.)
Septimus: Now, sir, what is this business that cannot wait?
Chater: I think you know it, sir. You have insulted my wife.
Septimus: Insulted her? That would deny my nature, my conduct, and the
admiration in which I hold Mrs Chater.
Chater: I have heard of your admiration, sir! You insulted my wife in the gazebo
yesterday evening!
Septimus: You are mistaken. I made love to your wife in the gazebo. She asked me
to meet her there, I have her note somewhere, I dare say I could find it for you, and
if someone is putting it about that I did not turn up, by God, sir, it is a slander.
Chater: You damned lecher! You would drag down a lady's reputation to make a
refuge for your cowardice. It will not do! I am calling you out!
Septimus: Chater! Chater, Chater, Chater! My dear friend!
Chater: You dare to call me that. I demand satisfaction!
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Septimus: Mrs Chater demanded satisfaction and now you are demanding
satisfaction. I cannot spend my time day and night satisfying the demands of the
Chater family. As for your wife's reputation, it stands where it ever stood.
Chater: You blackguard!
Septimus: I assure you. Mrs Chater is charming and spirited, with a pleasing voice
and a dainty step, she is the epitome of all the qualities society applauds in her sex -
and yet her chief renown is for a readiness that keeps her in a state of tropical
humidity as would grow orchids in her drawers in January.
Chater: Damn you, Hodge, I will not listen to this! Will you fight or not?
Septimus: (Definitively) Not! There are no more than two or three poets of the first rank now living, and I will not shoot one of them dead over a perpendicular poke in
a gazebo with a woman whose reputation could not be adequately defended with a
platoon of musketry deployed by rota.
Chater: Ha! You say so! Who are the others? In your opinion? -no-no -! - this goes
very ill, Hodge. I will not be flattered out of my course. You say so, do you?
Septimus: I do. And I would say the same to Milton were he not already dead. Not
the part about his wife, of course -
Chater: But among the living? Mr Southey?
Septimus: Southey I would have shot on sight.
Chater: (Shaking his head sadly) Yes, he has fallen off. I admired
Thalaba' quite, but 'Madoc', (he chuckles) oh dear me! - but we are straying from the business here - you took advantage of Mrs Chater, and if that were not bad
enough, it appears every stableboy and scullery maid on the strength -
Septimus: Damn me! Have you not listened to a word I said?
Chater: I have heard you, sir, and I will not deny I welcome your regard, God
knows one is little appreciated if one stands outside the coterie of hacks and
placemen who surround Jeffrey and the Edinburgh -
Septimus: My dear Chater, they judge a poet by the seating plan of Lord Holland's
table!
Chater: By heaven, you are right! And I would very much like to know the name of
the scoundrel who slandered my verse
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drama 'The Maid of Turkey' in the Piccadilly Recreation, too!
Septimus: The Maid of Turkey'! I have it by my bedside! When I cannot sleep I
take up The Maid of Turkey' like an old friend!
Chater: (Gratified) There you are! And the scoundrel wrote he would not give it to his dog for dinner were it covered in bread sauce and stuffed with chestnuts. When
Mrs Chater read that, she wept, sir, and would not give herself to me for a fortnight
- which recalls me to my purpose -
Septimus: The new poem, however, will make your name perpetual -
Chater: Whether it do or not -
Septimus: It is not a question, sir. No coterie can oppose the acclamation of the
reading public. The Couch of Eros' will take the town.
Chater: Is that your estimation?
Septimus: It is my intent.
Chater: Is it, is it? Well, well! I do not understand you.
Septimus: You see I have an early copy - sent to me for review. I say review, but I speak of an extensive appreciation of your gifts and your rightful place in English
literature.
Chater: Well, I must say. That is certainly . . . You have written it?
Septimus: (Crisply) Not yet.
Chater: Ah. And how long does . . . ?
Septimus: To be done right, it first requires a careful re-reading of your book, of
both your books, several readings, together with outlying works for an exhibition of
deference or disdain as the case merits. I make notes, of course, I order my
thoughts, and finally, when all is ready and I am calm in my mind...
Chater: (Shrewdly) Did Mrs Chater know of this before she -before you -
Septimus: I think she very likely did.
Chater: (Triumphantly) There is nothing that woman would not do for me! Now
you have an insight to her character. Yes, by God, she is a wife to me, sir!
Septimus: For that alone, I would not make her a widow.
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Chater: Captain Brice once made the same observation!
Septimus: Captain Brice did?
Chater: Mr Hodge, allow me to inscribe your copy in happy anticipation. Lady
Thomasina's pen will serve us.
Septimus: Your connection with Lord and Lady Croom you owe to your fighting
her ladyship's brother?
Chater: No! It was all nonsense, sir - a canard! But a fortunate mistake, sir. It
brought me the patronage of a Captain of His Majesty's Navy and the brother of a
countess. I do not think Mr Walter Scott can say as much, and here I am, a
respected guest at Sidley Park.
Septimus: Well, sir, you can say you have received satisfaction. (Chater is already
inscribing the book, using the pen and ink-pot on the table. Noakes enters through
the door used by Chater. He carries rolled-up plans, Chater, inscribing, ignores
Noakes. Noakes on seeing the occupants, panics.)
Noakes: Oh!
Septimus: Ah, Mr Noakes! - my muddy-mettled rascal! Where's your spyglass?
Noakes: I beg your leave -I thought her ladyship - excuse me - (He is beating an
embarrassed retreat when he becomes rooted by Chater's voice. Chater reads his