by Tom Stoppard
ARCHIE: I don’t see the point. If he caught on, you’d kill for him, too. (Suddenly remembering.) Ah!—I knew there was something!—McFee’s dead.
GEORGE: What?!!
ARCHIE: Shot himself this morning, in the park, in a plastic bag.
GEORGE: My God! Why?
ARCHIE: It’s hard to say. He was always tidy.
GEORGE: But to shoot himself…
ARCHIE: Oh, he could be very violent, you know… In fact we had a furious row last night—perhaps the Inspector had asked you about that…?
GEORGE: No…
ARCHIE: It was a purely trivial matter. He took offence at my description of Edinburgh as the Reykjavik of the South.
(GEORGE is not listening.)
GEORGE:… Where did he find the despair…? I thought the whole point of denying the Absolute was to reduce the scale, instantly, to the inconsequential behaviour of inconsequential animals; that nothing could ever be that important…
ARCHIE: Including, I suppose, death…. It’s an interesting view of atheism, as a sort of crutch for those who can’t bear the reality of God…
GEORGE (still away): I wonder if McFee was afraid of death?
And if he was, what was it that he would have been afraid of: surely not the chemical change in the material that was his body. I suppose he would have said, as so many do, that it is only the dying he feared, yes, the physical process of giving out. But it’s not the dying with me—one knows about pain. It’s death that I’m afraid of. (Pause.)
ARCHIE: Incidentally, since his paper has of course been circulated to everyone, it must remain the basis of the symposium.
GEORGE: Yes, indeed, I have spent weeks preparing my commentary on it.
ARCHIE: We shall begin with a two-minute silence. That will give me a chance to prepare mine.
GEORGE: You will be replying, Vice-Chancellor?
ARCHIE: At such short notice I don’t see who else could stand in. I’ll relinquish the chair, of course, and we’ll get a new chairman, someone of good standing; he won’t have to know much philosophy. Just enough for a tribute to Duncan.
GEORGE: Poor Duncan… I like to think he’ll be there in spirit.
ARCHIE: If only to make sure the materialistic argument is properly represented.
DOTTY (off): Darling!
(Both men respond automatically, and both halt and look at each other.)
GEORGE: How do I know? You’re the doctor.
ARCHIE: That’s true.
(ARCHIE moves out of the Study, GEORGE with him; into the Hall.)
I naturally try to get her to open up, but one can’t assume she tells me everything, or even that it’s the truth.
GEORGE: Well, I don’t know what’s the matter with her. She’s like a cat on hot bricks, and doesn’t emerge from her room. All she says is, she’s all right in bed.
ARCHIE: Yes, well there’s something in that.
GEORGE (restraining his going; edgily): What exactly do you do in there?
ARCHIE: Therapy takes many forms.
GEORGE: I had no idea you were still practising.
ARCHIE: Oh yes… a bit of law, a bit of philosophy, a bit of medicine, a bit of gym…. A bit of one and then a bit of the other.
GEORGE: You examine her?
ARCHIE: Oh yes, I like to keep my hand in. You must understand, my dear Moore, that when I’m examining Dorothy I’m not a lawyer or a philosopher. Or a gymnast, of course. Oh, I know, my dear fellow—you think that when I’m examining Dorothy I see her eyes as cornflowers, her lips as rubies, her skin as soft and warm as velvet—you think that when I run my hands over her back I am carried away by the delicate contours that flow like a sea-shore from shoulder to heel—oh yes, you think my mind turns to ripe pears as soon as I press——
GEORGE (viciously): No, I don’t!
ARCHIE: But to us medical men, the human body is just an imperfect machine. As it is to most of us philosophers. And to us gymnasts, of course.
DOTTY (off; urgently): Rape! (Pause.) Ra——!
(ARCHIE smiles at GEORGE, and quickly lets himself into the Bedroom, closing the door behind him.
The BEDROOM lights up. The dermatograph and the lights have been put away. The bed is revealed as before, DOTTY is sobbing
across the bed.
BONES standing by as though paralysed. A wild slow smile spreads over his face as he turns to ARCHIE, the smile of a man
pleading, ‘It’s not what you think.’ ARCHIE moves in slowly.)
ARCHIE: Tsk tsk… Inspector, I am shocked… deeply shocked. What a tragic end to an incorruptible career…
BONES:… I never touched her——
ARCHIE: Do not despair. I’m sure we can come to some arrangement….
(GEORGE has returned to the study.)
GEORGE: How the hell does one know what to believe?
(Fade out on Bedroom, to BLACKOUT.
The SECRETARY has taken down the last sentence.)
GEORGE: No, no——(Changes mind.) Well, all right. (Dictating.) How does one know what it is one believes when it’s so difficult to know what it is one knows. I don’t claim to know that God exists, I only claim that he does without my knowing it, and while I claim as much I do not claim to know as much; indeed I cannot know and God knows I cannot. (Pause.) And yet I tell you that, now and again, not necessarily in the contemplation of polygons or new-born babes, nor in extremities of pain or joy, but more probably ambushed by some quite trivial moment—say the exchange of signals between two long-distance lorry-drivers in the black sleet of a god-awful night on the old Ai—then, in that dip-flash, dip-flash of headlights in the rain that seems to affirm some common ground that is not animal and not long-distance lorry-driving—then I tell you I know—I sound like a joke vicar, new paragraph.
(The light is fading to a spot on GEORGE, sufficiently to put the Hall and Front door into blackout if they are not black already.) There is in mathematics a concept known as a limiting curve, that is the curve defined as the limit of a polygon with an infinite number of sides. For example, if I had never seen a circle and didn’t know how to draw one, I could nevertheless postulate the existence of circles by thinking of them as regular polygons with numberless edges, so that an old threepennybit would be a bumpy imperfect circle which would approach perfection if I kept doubling the number of its sides: at infinity the result would be the circle which I have never seen and do not know how to draw, and which is logically implied by the existence of polygons. And now and again, not necessarily in the contemplation of rainbows or new-born babes, nor in extremities of pain or joy, but more probably in some quite trivial moment, it seems to me that life itself is the mundane figure which argues perfection at its limiting curve. And if I doubt it, the ability to doubt, to question, to think seems to be the curve itself. Cogito ergo deus est. (Pause.) The fact that I cut a ludicrous figure in the academic world is largely due to my aptitude for traducing a complex and logical thesis to a mysticism of staggering banality. McFee never made that mistake, never put himself at risk by finding mystery in the clockwork, never looked for trouble or over his shoulder, and I’m sorry he’s gone but what can be his complaint? McFee jumped, and left nothing behind but a vacancy.
(There is a delicious unraped laugh from DOTTY in the dark.
The Study light comes on again; only the Bedroom is blacked as GEORGE strides out of the Study; then the Bedroom is lit.
ARCHIE and DOTTY are sitting at the trolley eating a very civilized lunch.
BONES has gone.)
DOTTY: I must say, I do find mashed potatoes and gravy very consoling.
(GEORGE enters without knocking.)
GEORGE: I’m sorry to interrupt your inquiries——
(He looks round for the Inspector.
ARCHIE smoothly takes a silver-backed notebook from his pocket, and a silver pencil from another.)
ARCHIE: When did you first become aware of these feelings?
DOTTY (gaily): I don’t know—I’ve
always found mashed potatoes and gravy very consoling.
GEORGE: Where’s the Inspector?
ARCHIE: The inquiries have been completed. Did you want him?
GEORGE: Well no…. As a matter of fact, I came to ask you… Vice-Chancellor, about the Chair of Logic.
(GEORGE is unsettled by the lunch-party atmosphere. Nothing about ARCHIE or DOTTY suggests that there is anything unusual
about it. They continue to eat and drink.)
ARCHIE: Yes?
GEORGE: You probably have had very little time to think about
McFee’s successor….
ARCHIE: The appointment to the Chair of Logic is of course a matter for the gravest consideration. We’ve always been a happy team and I shall be looking for someone who will fit in, someone with a bit of bounce.
GEORGE: Yes. Well, it just seemed to me that as the senior professor——
ARCHIE: The oldest——
GEORGE: The longest-serving professor——
ARCHIE: Oh yes.
GEORGE: Well, Logic has traditionally been considered the senior Chair….
ARCHIE (pause): Yes, well, there you are; you have made your request. But I’m not too happy about your Ethics.
GEORGE: I’m not seeking any favours——
ARCHIE: No, no, I mean Ethics has always been your department—what will happen to Ethics?
GEORGE: There’s no conflict there. My work on moral philosophy has always been based on logical principles, and it would do no harm at all if the Chair of Logic applied itself occasionally to the activities of the human race.
ARCHIE: Yes… yes…. But you see, the Chair of Logic is considered the leading edge of philosophical inquiry here, and your strong point is, how shall I put it, well, many of the students are under the impression that you are the author of Principia Ethica.
GEORGE: But he’s dead.
ARCHIE: That is why I take a serious view of the mistake.
GEORGE (pause): I see. (Moves towards door.) Incidentally, what do you psychiatrists call this form of therapy?
ARCHIE: Lunch. I don’t wish to make a fetish of denying you chairs, but you will appreciate that I can’t ask you to sit down—a psychiatrist is akin to a priest taking confession.
DOTTY: Well, it wasn’t me.
ARCHIE: Absolute privacy, absolute trust.
DOTTY: I didn’t do it. I thought you did it.
GEORGE: What is she talking about? Where’s the Inspector?
DOTTY: He’s gone. Dishonour is even. (Giggles.)
GEORGE: Without taking his record?
DOTTY: Oh yes, we must send it on. I signed it with a most moving dedication, I thought. I forgot what it was, but it was most moving.
(GEORGE can’t put his finger on it, but something is bothering him. He starts to wander towards the Bathroom.)
GEORGE: I’m surprised he just… went… like that.
(GEORGE enters the Bathroom.)
DOTTY: Oh yes!——‘To Evelyn Bones, the Sweetheart of the Force!’
GEORGE (off; horrified): My God!
(GEORGE enters from the Bathroom, white, shaking with rage.) You murderous bitchl… You might have put some water in the bath!
(He is holding a dead goldfish.)
DOTTY: Oh dear… I am sorry. I forgot about it.
GEORGE: Poor little Arch——(Catches himself.)
(ARCHIE raises his head a fraction.)
GEORGE: Murdered for a charade!
DOTTY (angrily): Murdered? Don’t you dare splash me with your sentimental rhetoric! It’s a bloody goldfish! Do you think every sole meunière comes to you untouched by suffering?
GEORGE: The monk who won’t walk in the garden for fear of treading on an ant does not have to be a vegetarian…. There is an irrational difference which has a rational value.
DOTTY: Brilliant! You must publish your findings in some suitable place like the Good Food Guide.
GEORGE: No doubt your rebuttal would look well in the
Meccano Magazine.
DOTTY: You bloody humbug!—the last of the metaphysical egocentrics! You’re probably still shaking from the four-hundred-year-old news that the sun doesn’t go round you!
GEORGE: We are all still shaking. Copernicus cracked our confidence, and Einstein smashed it: for if one can no longer believe that a twelve-inch ruler is always a foot long, how can one be sure of relatively less certain propositions, such as that God made the Heaven and the Earth….
DOTTY (dry, drained): Well, it’s all over now. Not only are we no longer the still centre of God’s universe, we’re not even uniquely graced by his footprint in man’s image…. Man is on the Moon, his feet on solid ground, and he has seen us whole, all in one go, little—local… and all our absolutes, the thou-shalts and the thou-shalt-nots that seemed to be the very condition of our existence, how did they look to two moonmen with a single neck to save between them? Like the local customs of another place. When that thought drips through to the bottom, people won’t just carry on. There is going to be such… breakage, such gnashing of unclean meats, such covetting of neighbours’ oxen and knowing of neighbours’ wives, such dishonourings of mothers and fathers, and bowings and scrapings to images graven and incarnate, such killing of goldfish and maybe more——(Looks up, tear-stained.) Because the truths that have been taken on trust, they’ve never had edges before, there was no vantage point to stand on and see where they stopped. (And weeps.)
ARCHIE (pause): When did you first become aware of these feelings?
DOTTY: Georgie….
(But GEORGE won’t or can’t….)
GEORGE (facing away, out front, emotionless): Meeting a friend in a corridor, Wittgenstein said: ‘Tell me, why do people always say it was natural for men to assume that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?’ His friend said, ‘Well, obviously, because it just looks as if the sun is going round the earth.’ To which the philosopher replied, ‘Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth was rotating?’
ARCHIE: I really can’t conduct a consultation under these conditions! You might as well join us.
GEORGE (moving): No, thank you.
ARCHIE: Do… This, whatever it is, makes a very good casserole.
DOTTY (dry-eyed revenge): It’s not casseroled. It’s jugged.
(GEORGE freezes. Pause.
Doorbell.)
GEORGE: Dorothy….
DOTTY: Somebody at the door.
(It’s CROUCH, who rings the bell out of formality and let’s himself in with his master key, pausing in the door so as not to intrude on anything, announcing himself: ‘Crouch!’)
GEORGE: Dorothy You didn’t…?
CROUCH: Hello!
(He closes the Front Door behind him.
GEORGE turns abruptly and walks swiftly out, to his Study. In the Hall he passes by CROUCH.)
CROUCH: Excuse me, sir….
GEORGE (shouts viciously): You seem to be taking out the rubbish at any time that suits you!!
(CROUCH is dumbfounded.
GEORGE walks into the Study, leaving the door open, and slumps into his chair.
The SECRETARY is patient and discreet.
CROUCH timidly enters the Study.)
CROUCH: I haven’t come for the rubbish, sir.
GEORGE: I’m sorry, Mr. Crouch… I’m very sorry. I was upset.
It’s just been the most awful day. (He comforts himself with the tortoise.)
CROUCH: I quite understand, sir. I’m upset myself. I just came up to see if there was anything I could do, I knew you’d be upset….
(GEORGE looks at him.)
I got to know him quite well, you know… made quite a friend of him.
GEORGE: You knew about it?
CROUCH: I was there, sir. Doing the drinks. It shocked me, I can tell you.
GEORGE: Who killed him?
CROUCH: Well, I wouldn’t like to say for certain… I mean, I heard a bang, and when I looked, there he was cra
wling on the floor…
(GEORGE winces.)… and there was Miss Moore… well——
GEORGE: Do you realize she’s in there now, eating him?
CROUCH (pause): You mean—raw?
GEORGE (crossly): No, of course not!—cooked— with gravy and mashed potatoes.
CROUCH (pause): I thought she was on the mend, sir.
GEORGE: Do you think I’m being too sentimental about the whole thing?
CROUCH (firmly): I do not, sir. I think it’s a police matter.
GEORGE: They’d laugh at me…. There was a policeman here, but he’s gone.
CROUCH: Yes, sir, I saw him leave. I thought that would be him.
You were wondering, sir, who brought them round.
GEORGE: No. I telephoned them myself.
CROUCH: You’re an honest man, sir. In the circumstances I don’t mind telling you I also phoned them myself, anonymous.
GEORGE: Did you?… Well, it’s all right now, he’s gone.
Lot of fuss about nothing. I know things got a bit out of hand but… I’m surprised at your puritanism, Mr. Crouch…. A little wine, women and song….
CROUCH: Yes, sir. Of course, it was the murder of Professor
McFee that was the main thing. (Long pause, GEORGE sits perfectly still, and continues to do so, sightless, deaf, while CROUCH speaks.)
By the way, sir…. (Picking up the tortoise.) I hope you don’t mind my taking the opportunity, but as you know, no pets allowed in the flats—I don’t mind turning a blind eye to this little fellow, but I’ve seen a rabbit around the place of a morning, and it’s as much as my job’s worth—I hope you don’t mind, sir…. (Pause.) Will Miss Moore be… leaving, sir?
GEORGE (blinking awake): She’s in bed with the doctor. Not literally, of course.
(Small pause. He jumps up and strides into the Bedroom.
ARCHIE and DOTTY are calmly watching the TV. The big screen shows us what they see—the read-back of DOTTY’s naked body.)
GEORGE: Crouch says—(he is momentarily taken aback by the fact that they are watching TV)—Crouch says——
(ARCHIE and DOTTY go ‘Sssssh!’ and continue to watch the screen.)
GEORGE (advancing): Crouch says——
(Then GEORGE sees the TV and the naked body on it. He