Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Arcadia

by Tom Stoppard

  will drive me distracted. I may have to return to town to

  escape it. Septimus: Your ladyship could remain in the country and let

  Count Zelinsky return to town where you would not hear him. lady croom: I mean Mr Noakes's engine! (Semi-aside to

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  Septimus.) Would you sulk? I will not have my daughter study sulking. thomasina: (Not listening) What, mama?

  (thomasina remains lost in her book, lady croom returns to close the garden door and the noise of the steam engine subsides.

  HANNAH closes one of the 'garden books', and opens the next. She is making occasional notes.

  The piano ceases.) lady croom: (To thomasina) What are we learning today?

  (Pause.) Well, not manners. Septimus: We are drawing today.

  (lady croom negligently examines what thomasina had

  started to draw.) lady croom: Geometry. I approve of geometry. Septimus: Your ladyship's approval is my constant object. lady croom: Well, do not despair of it. (Returning to the window

  impatiently.) Where is 'Culpability' Noakes? (She looks out

  and is annoyed.) Oh! - he has gone for his hat so that he may

  remove it.

  (She returns to the table and touches the bowl of dahlias.

  HANNAH sits back in her chair, caught by what she is reading.) For the widow's dowry of dahlias I can almost forgive my brother's marriage. We must be thankful the monkey bit the husband. If it had bit the wife the monkey would be dead and we would not be first in the kingdom to show a dahlia. (HANNAH, still reading the garden book, stands up.) I sent one potted to Chatsworth. The Duchess was most satisfactorily put out by it when I called at Devonshire House. Your friend was there lording it as a poet.

  (HANNAH leaves through the door, following valentine and CHLOE.)

  Meanwhile, thomasina thumps the book down on the table.) thomasina: Well! Just as I said! Newton's machine which would knock our atoms from cradle to grave by the laws of motion is incomplete! Determinism leaves the road at every corner, as I knew all along, and the cause is very likely

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  hidden in this gentleman's observation. lady croom: Of what? thomasina: The action of bodies in heat. lady croom: Is this geometry? thomasina: This? No, I despise geometry!

  (Touching the dahlias she adds, almost to herself.) The

  Chater would overthrow the Newtonian system in a

  weekend. Septimus: Geometry, Hobbes assures us in the Leviathan, is the

  only science God has been pleased to bestow on mankind. lady croom: And what does he mean by it? Septimus: Mr Hobbes or God?

  lady croom: I am sure I do not know what either means by it. thomasina: Oh, pooh to Hobbes! Mountains are not pyramids

  and trees are not cones. God must love gunnery and

  architecture if Euclid is his only geometry. There is another

  geometry which I am engaged in discovering by trial and

  error, am I not, Septimus? Septimus: Trial and error perfectly describes your enthusiasm,

  my lady. lady croom: How old are you today? thomasina: Sixteen years and eleven months, mama, and three

  weeks. lady croom: Sixteen years and eleven months. We must have

  you married before you are educated beyond eligibility. thomasina: I am going to marry Lord Byron. lady croom: Are you? He did not have the manners to mention

  it. thomasina: You have spoken to him?! lady croom: Certainly not. thomasina: Where did you see him? lady croom: (With some bitterness) Everywhere. thomasina: Did you, Septimus? Septimus: At the Royal Academy where I had the honour to

  accompany your mother and Count Zelinsky. thomasina: What was Lord Byron doing? lady croom: Posing. Septimus: (Tactfully) He was being sketched during his visit. . .

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  by the Professor of Painting ... Mr Fuseli.

  lady croom: There was more posing at the pictures than in them. His companion likewise reversed the custom of the Academy that the ladies viewing wear more than the ladies viewed - well, enough! Let him be hanged there for a Lamb. I have enough with Mr Noakes, who is to a garden what a bull is to a china shop. (This as noakes enters.)

  thomasina: The Emperor of Irregularity!

  (She settles down to drawing the diagram which is to be the third item in the surviving portfolio.)

  lady croom: Mr Noakes!

  noakes: Your ladyship -

  lady croom: What have you done to me!

  noakes: Everything is satisfactory, I assure you. A little behind, to be sure, but my dam will be repaired within the month -

  lady croom: (Banging the table) Hush!

  (In the silence, the steam engine thumps in the distance.) Can you hear, Mr Noakes?

  noakes: (Pleased and proud) The Improved Newcomen steam pump - the only one in England!

  lady croom: That is what I object to. If everybody had his own I would bear my portion of the agony without complaint. But to have been singled out by the only Improved Newcomen steam pump in England, this is hard, sir, this is not to be borne.

  noakes: Your lady-

  lady croom: And for what? My lake is drained to a ditch for no purpose I can understand, unless it be that snipe and curlew have deserted three counties so that they may be shot in our swamp. What you painted as forest is a mean plantation, your greenery is mud, your waterfall is wet mud, and your mount is an opencast mine for the mud that was lacking in the dell. (Pointing through the window.) What is that cowshed?

  noakes: The hermitage, my lady?

  lady croom: It is a cowshed.

  noakes: Madam, it is, I assure you, a very habitable cottage,

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  properly founded and drained, two rooms and a closet under

  a slate roof and a stone chimney -lady croom: And who is to live in it? noakes: Why, the hermit. lady croom: Where is he? noakes: Madam? lady croom: You surely do not supply a hermitage without a

  hermit? noakes: Indeed, madam-lady croom: Come, come, Mr Noakes. If I am promised a

  fountain I expect it to come with water. What hermits do you

  have? noakes: I have no hermits, my lady. lady croom: Not one? I am speechless. noakes: I am sure a hermit can be found. One could advertise. lady croom: Advertise? noakes: In the newspapers. lady croom: But surely a hermit who takes a newspaper is not a

  hermit in whom one can have complete confidence. noakes: I do not know what to suggest, my lady. Septimus: Is there room for a piano? noakes: (Baffled) A piano? lady croom: We are intruding here - this will not do, Mr

  Hodge. Evidently, nothing is being learned. (To noakes)

  Come along, sir! thomasina: Mr Noakes - bad news from Paris! noakes: Is it the Emperor Napoleon? THOMASINA: No. (She tears the page off her drawing blocky with her

  'diagram' on it.) It concerns your heat engine. Improve it as

  you will, you can never get out of it what you put in. It

  repays eleven pence in the shilling at most. The penny is for

  this author's thoughts.

  (She gives the diagram to SEPTIMUS who looks at it.) noakes: (Baffled again) Thank you, my lady.

  (noakes goes out into the garden.) lady croom: (To Septimus) Do you understand her? Septimus: No. lady croom: Then this business is over. I was married at

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  seventeen. Ce soir ilfaut qu'on parlefrangais,je te demande, Thomasina, as a courtesy to the Count. Wear your green velvet, please, I will send Briggs to do your hair. Sixteen and eleven months . . .! (She follows noakes out of view.)

  thomasina: Lord Byron was with a lady?

  Septimus: Yes.

  thomasina: Huh!

  (Now Septimus retrieves his book from thomasina. He turns the pages, and also continues to study Thomasina3s diagram. He strokes the tortoise absently as he reads, thomasina takes up pencil and paper and starts to draw Septimus with Plautus.)

  Septimus: Why does it mean Mr Noakes's engine pays eleven pence in the shilling? Where does he say it?

  thomasina: Nowhere. I noticed
it by the way. I cannot remember now.

  Septimus: Nor is he interested by determinism -

  thomasina: Oh . .. yes. Newton's equations go forwards and backwards, they do not care which way. But the heat equation cares very much, it goes only one way. That is the reason Mr Noakes's engine cannot give the power to drive Mr Noakes's engine.

  Septimus: Everybody knows that.

  thomasina: Yes, Septimus, they know it about engines!

  SEPTIMUS: (Pause. He looks at his watch.) A quarter to twelve. For your essay this week, explicate your diagram.

  thomasina: I cannot. I do not know the mathematics.

  Septimus: Without mathematics, then.

  (thomasina has continued to draw. She tears the top page from her drawing pad and gives it to SEPTIMUS.)

  thomasina: There. I have made a drawing of you and Plautus.

  SEPTIMUS: (Looking at it) Excellent likeness. Not so good of me. (thomasina laughs, and leaves the room. AUGUSTUS appears at the garden door. His manner cautious and diffident. SEPTIMUS does not notice him for a moment. SEPTIMUS gathers his papers together.)

  Augustus: Sir .. .

  Septimus: My lord . . . ?

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  AUGUSTUS: I gave you offence, sir, and I am sorry for it. Septimus: I took none, my lord, but you are kind to mention it. Augustus: I would like to ask you a question, Mr Hodge.

  (Pause.) You have an elder brother, I dare say, being a

  Septimus? Septimus: Yes, my lord. He lives in London. He is the editor of

  a newspaper, the Piccadilly Recreation. (Pause.) Was that

  your question?

  (AUGUSTUS, evidently embarrassed about something, picks up

  the drawing of Septimus.) Augustus: No. Oh ... it is you? ... I would like to keep it.

  (Septimus inclines his head in assent.) There are things a

  fellow cannot ask his friends. Carnal things. My sister has

  told me ... my sister believes such things as I cannot, I

  assure you, bring myself to repeat. Septimus: You must not repeat them, then. The walk between

  here and dinner will suffice to put us straight, if we stroll by

  the garden. It is an easy business. And then I must rely on

  you to correct your sister's state of ignorance.

  (A commotion is heard outside - Bernard's loud voice in a sort

  of agony.) Bernard: (outside the door) Oh no - no - no - oh, bloody hell! -Augustus: Thank you, Mr Hodge, I will.

  (Taking the drawing with him, Augustus allows himself to be

  shown out through the garden door, and SEPTIMUS follows him.

  BERNARD enters the room, through the door HANNAH left by. VALENTINE comes in with him, leaving the door open and they are followed by HANNAH who is holding the 'garden book'.)

  Bernard: Oh, no - no -

  hannah: I'm sorry, Bernard.

  Bernard: Fucked by a dahlia! Do you think? Is it open and shut? Am I fucked? What does it really amount to? When all's said and done? Am I fucked? What do you think, Valentine? Tell me the truth.

  valentine: You're fucked.

  Bernard: Oh God! Does it mean that?

  hannah: Yes, Bernard, it does.

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  Bernard: I'm not sure. Show me where it says. I want to see it. No - read it - no, wait. . .

  (Bernard sits at the table. He prepares to listen as though listening were an oriental art.) Right.

  HANNAH: (Reading) 'October ist, 1810. Today under the direction of Mr Noakes, a parterre was dug on the south lawn and will be a handsome show next year, a consolation for the picturesque catastrophe of the second and third distances. The dahlia having propagated under glass with no ill effect from the sea voyage, is named by Captain Brice 'Charity' for his bride, though the honour properly belongs to the husband who exchanged beds with my dahlia, and an English summer for everlasting night in the Indies.' (Pause.)

  Bernard: Well it's so round the houses, isn't it? Who's to say what it means?

  hannah: (Patiently) It means that Ezra Chater of the Sidley Park connection is the same Chater who described a dwarf dahlia in Martinique in 1810 and died there, of a monkey bite.

  Bernard: (Wildly) Ezra wasn't a botanist! He was a poet!

  hannah: He was not much of either, but he was both.

  valentine: It's not a disaster.

  Bernard: Of course it's a disaster! I was on 'The Breakfast Hour'!

  valentine: It doesn't mean Byron didn't fight a duel, it only means Chater wasn't killed in it.

  BERNARD: Oh, pull yourself together! - do you think I'd have been on 'The Breakfast Hour' if Byron had missedl

  hannah: Calm down, Bernard. Valentine's right.

  BERNARD: (Grasping at straws) Do you think so? You mean the Piccadilly reviews? Yes, two completely unknown Byron essays - and my discovery of the lines he added to 'English Bards'. That counts for something.

  hannah: (Tactfully) Very possible - persuasive, indeed.

  Bernard: Oh, bugger persuasive! I've proved Byron was here and as far as I'm concerned he wrote those lines as sure as he shot that hare. If only I hadn't somehow . . . made it all

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  about killing Chater. Why didn't you stop me?! It's bound to

  get out, you know -1 mean this - this gloss on my discovery -

  I mean how long do you think it'll be before some botanical

  pedant blows the whistle on me? HANNAH: The day after tomorrow. A letter in The Times, Bernard: You wouldn't. HANNAH: It's a dirty job but somebody -Bernard: Darling. Sorry. Hannah-hannah: - and, after all, it is my discovery. Bernard: Hannah. hannah: Bernard. Bernard: Hannah. hannah: Oh, shut up. It'll be very short, very dry, absolutely

  gloat-free. Would you rather it were one of your friends? Bernard: (Fervently) Oh God, no! hannah: And then inyour letter to The Times-Bernard: Mine? hannah: Well, of course. Dignified congratulations to a

  colleague, in the language of scholars, I trust. Bernard: Oh, eat shit, you mean? hannah: Think of it as a breakthrough in dahlia studies.

  (CHLOfi hurries in from the garden.) chloE: Why aren't you coming?! - Bernard! And you're not

  dressed! How long have you been back?

  (Bernard looks at her and then at valentine and realizes for

  the first time that valentine is unusually dressed.) Bernard: Why are you wearing those clothes? chloE: Do be quick!

  (She is already digging into the basket and producing odd

  garments for BERNARD.)

  Just put anything on. We're all being photographed. Except

  Hannah. hannah: I'll come and watch.

  (valentine and chloE help Bernard into a decorative coat

  and fix a lace collar round his neck.) chloE: (To hannah) Mummy says have you got the theodolite? valentine: What are you supposed to be, Chlo? Bo-Peep? chloE: Jane Austen!

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  valentine: Of course.

  HANNAH: {To CHLOfi) Oh - it's in the hermitage! Sorry. Bernard: I thought it wasn't till this evening. What photograph? chloE: The local paper of course - they always come before we

  start. We want a good crowd of us - Gus looks gorgeous -Bernard: {Aghast) The newspaper!

  {He grabs something like a bishop's mitre from the basket and

  pulls it down completely over his face.

  (Muffled) I'm ready!

  {And he staggers out with valentine and chloE, followed by

  HANNAH.

  A light change to evening. The paper lanterns outside begin to glow. Piano music from the next room.

  SEPTIMUS enters with an oil lamp. He carries Thomasina}s

  algebra primer, and also her essay on loose sheen. He settles

  down to read at the table. It is nearly dark outside, despite the

  lanterns.

  THOMASINA enters, in a nightgown and barefoot, holding a

  candlestick. Her manner is secretive and excited.) Septimus: My lady! What is it? thomasina: Septimus! Shush!

  {She closes the door quiet
ly.)

  Now is our chance! Septimus: For what, dear God?

  {She blows out the candle and puts the candlestick on the table.) thomasina: Do not act the innocent! Tomorrow I will be

  seventeen!

  {She kisses septimus/h// on the mouth.)

  There! Septimus: Dear Christ!

  thomasina: Now you must show me, you are paid in advance. SEPTIMUS: {Understanding) Oh! thomasina: The Count plays for us, it is God-given! I cannot be

  seventeen and not waltz. Septimus: But your mother -thomasina: While she swoons, we can dance. The house is all

  abed. I heard the Broadwood. Oh, Septimus, teach me now!

  9i

  Septimus: Hush! I cannot now!

  thomasina: Indeed you can, and I am come barefoot so mind

  my toes. Septimus: I cannot because it is not a waltz. thomasina: It is not? Septimus: No, it is too slow for waltzing. thomasina: Oh! Then we will wait for him to play quickly. Septimus: My lady -thomasina: Mr Hodge!

  (She takes a chair next to him and looks at his work.)

  Are you reading my essay? Why do you work here so late? Septimus: To save my candles. thomasina: You have my old primer. Septimus: It is mine again. You should not have written in it.

  (She takes it, looks at the open page.) thomasina: It was a joke. Septimus: It will make me mad as you promised. Sit over there.

  You will have us in disgrace.

  (thomasina gets up and goes to the furthest chair.) thomasina: If mama comes I will tell her we only met to kiss,

  not to waltz. Septimus: Silence or bed. thomasina: Silence!

  (SEPTIMUS pours himself some more wine. He continues to read

  her essay.

  The music changes to party music from the marquee. And there

  are fireworks - small against the sky, distant flares of light like

  exploding meteors.

  Hannah enters. She has dressed for the party. The difference is not, however, dramatic. She closes the door and crosses to leave by the garden door. But as she gets there, valentine is entering. He has a glass of wine in his hand.)

  HANNAH: Oh . . .

  (But valentine merely brushes past her, intent on something,

  and half-drunk.) valentine: (To her) Got it!

  (He goes straight to the table and roots about in what is now a

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  considerable mess of papers, books and objects. HANNAH turns back, puzzled by his manner. He finds what he has been looking for - the 'diagram'.