Death and Taxes: Hydriotaphia and Other Plays
Page 10
(Babbo rushes out.)
DR. BROWNE
Maccabbee!
MACCABBEE
You want me ta weigh Chicken C again?
DR. BROWNE
Precisely.
MACCABBEE
I already hanticipate da houtcome. ’Tis verra wirret stoof.
(Babbo and Maccabbbe leave.)
DR. BROWNE
I am going to bathe. In the river.
DR. SCHADENFREUDE
I forbid it, Sir Thomas, there is still ice in the water, it’s barely spring.
DR. BROWNE
(Trying to stand) Help me up, Dorothy.
DAME DOROTHY
You want to die.
(Browne stares at her.)
DR. BROWNE
Of course not.
Maybe not.
Maybe . . . I do.
Old woman, you help me.
THE WEAVER/THE ABBESS OF X
Ah no, Sir Thomas, da Lord ferbids us ta hasten da moment a our death. Ya haveta wait fer His hand. I han’t help ya.
(The Washer/Doña Estrelita enters.)
DR. BROWNE
It’s my last request. Must I beg for everything?
THE WASHER/DOÑA ESTRELITA
No.
(All turn to her.)
THE WASHER/DOÑA ESTRELITA
Secuse da interruptet. I come ta help.
I preparet da moriens (), I bin a washer a da dying and da dead. I purify. I bin sent fer.
DAME DOROTHY
Sent for by whom?
THE WASHER/DOÑA ESTRELITA
By him.
(They look to Thomas, who is staring hard at the Washer.)
DAME DOROTHY
You’re mistaken you have the wrong address.
THE WASHER/DOÑA ESTRELITA
Sir Thomas Browne.
DAME DOROTHY
He didn’t send for a washer of corpses, he wouldn’t, he’s too afraid of . . .
THE WASHER/DOÑA ESTRELITA
’N’ you bin Dame Dorothy Browne, his wife.
Please ta meetchoo. Now I taket him to da river fer his bath. You bin right, he bin verra much afraidet. Help him ta die, Missus, quench da fires dat sear him.
DAME DOROTHY
No! He doesn’t . . . You’re wrong.
THE WASHER/DOÑA ESTRELITA
Ast him yerself.
(Everyone looks at Browne again. He nods.)
DR. BROWNE
I sent for her; she’s come. She knows what I want, can’t you hear that?
DAME DOROTHY
Thomas. Not yet.
DR. BROWNE
I did not live well. That was true. I never intended harm. That was true.
DAME DOROTHY
You heard.
DR. BROWNE
Tell the children . . . No. Don’t tell them anything.
(Dorothy leaves.)
DR. SCHADENFREUDE
Death’s little cottage industries. Are you a vigorous scrubber?
THE WASHER/DOÑA ESTRELITA
Da skin glows where I scrubet; it blush ’n’ glow.
DR. SCHADENFREUDE
When my time comes, will you scrub for me?
THE WASHER/DOÑA ESTRELITA
Someone will.
DR. SCHADENFREUDE
Thomas, enjoy your bath. Shall I have a servant carry him?
THE WASHER/DOÑA ESTRELITA
No need, I have strong arms.
(Schadenfreude leaves, smiling.
The Weaver gathers her things and starts to leave.
At the last minute she throws a little holy water on Browne and exits, muttering Latin.)
DR. BROWNE
(Wiping water off his face) The bath’s already begun.
How did I know you were coming to me? The ship, the warm seas . . .
THE WASHER/DOÑA ESTRELITA
Hush, don’t try to understand.
DR. BROWNE
Across the wide, calm, bathwater sea, pearly pink or moon-dappled, you sailed to me, to my deathbed, how mysterious, with candle-flickering eyes and cool, pale arms . . .
THE WASHER/DOÑA ESTRELITA
You never understood, Thomas.
DR. BROWNE
I think now I never thought enough about love.
THE WASHER/DOÑA ESTRELITA
You never did. Come.
(She lifts him in her arms.)
THE WASHER/DOÑA ESTRELITA
Easy. To the river.
(They exit. His Soul sits up.)
HIS SOUL
(Sings:)
And do you love me, darling one?
To touch your face is lots of fun.
Your skin so clear and waist so trim:
“I cannot get enough of him!”
“I cannot get enough of her,
I want to eat the stuff of her!”
Ooh ah ooh ah,
The Heavens wheel and spin.
The Heavens wheel and spin.
And will you love me when I’m dead?
When hair and skin are off my head?
When bone is bared, and viscera,
Will you, my dear, still kisscera?
Oh will the little games we played
Still tempt us when we’re both decayed?
Mortal love, mortal love,
Stabbed in the heart with mortal love.
Yesterday morn your breath was bad,
And truth to tell, it made me sad
To smell the hint upon that breath
Of the work of corruption
And the progress of Death.
(Intermission.)
Act Three
THE DANCE OF DEATH
Glorious Golden Country Sunshine, Late Afternoon
Browne’s bed is empty, as at the end of Act Two.
Maccabbee enters, carrying a very swollen strangled Chicken C.
MACCABBEE
’Tis a new age a scientiftic wondrament. Hemprical hobserva-tions’n’ da careful hexamination a seemingly insignifticant phenomenas. Who knows where it all leadet?
Dis chicken weighet three ’n’ halfet pounds when it bin alive. Aftah death, it weighet eight pounds, like I told him. Now it weigh thirteen pounds. ’N’ I suspeck ’n’ predick it han’t done haccumulating mass, neiver.
(He puts the strangled chicken on Browne’s pillow) I leavet here’n’ he can see fer himself, when he bin finishet wif his baptism. (Little pause)
I wanna die inna grand style, wif a sense of pompet ’n’ cir-cumfrence, but I bin probably gonna die hignominious, all loathesome ’n’ wacket a da clap inna poorhouse hovel. He coulda hadda nicet kind a death, he got da money fer it, but he always bin knacky. Evah readet one a his books? I tried, oncet. I han’t followet da narrative. Strucket me as hover-written.
(His Soul’s voice is heard.)
HIS SOUL
You! Amanuensis! Hireling! Water boy!
MACCABBEE
A voicet! (He turns around) A disembloodet voicet! Verra creepet. Must be a hecho. (Turns back)
HIS SOUL
MACCABBEEEEEEEE!
(Maccabbee turns again. His Soul rises slowly.)
MACCABBEE
Wirret. A miniscule homunculus. Who you be, babbie, da toof fairy?
HIS SOUL
I’m . . . I’m Browne’s soul.
MACCABBEE
Aw, hang dat up ta dry. You han’t his soul. He han’t got one.
HIS SOUL
He’d like to believe that, but here I am, a casualty of his crisis of faith.
MACCABBEE
Ef you bin da verra soul a Browne, how come you han’t down by da rivah, watching him get washet by dat knacky old bat he sent fer?
HIS SOUL
I expected to go with him, like before, but there was only a tug. You . . . you see me.
MACCABBEE
Hobviously.
HIS SOUL
Something’s wrong. He ought to be dead soon, and I should be well-nigh to weightless, but . . .
Touc
h me.
MACCABBEE
What fer?
HIS SOUL
Just . . . the tip of my finger. Just a quick touch.
(Maccabbee does it. His Soul draws back in horror and disgust.)
HIS SOUL
Oh God! How revolting!
MACCABBEE
Dat’s a mighty shitten thing ta say. Han’t you got manners?
HIS SOUL
Oh God you touched me. I’ve been touched.
MACCABBEE
Calm yerself, ya han’t catch it just by touching.
HIS SOUL
Catch what?
MACCABBEE
Da clap.
HIS SOUL
The . . . ?
Oh God, I’ve become . . . meat. Oh god I have a skin. Oh, but that’s imposs . . .
The clap. What’s “the clap”?
MACCABBEE
A venereal hinfection. A disease constracted by fornicating hindiscriminately.
HIS SOUL
I feel sick.
MACCABBEE
Well how ya think I feel? It consumet my nose. It’s a harful hembarrassment. Dis bronze prophylactus han’t foolet no one, though it bin more decorative dan a wood one, don’t ya think?
HIS SOUL
Kill him.
MACCABBEE
Secuse me?
HIS SOUL
Kill him! Browne! Kill kill kill him! He has to die soon! Look, look at me!
MACCABBEE
You look OK. A little wirret, but . . .
HIS SOUL
You shouldn’t be able to look at me at all! I’m METAPHYSICAL! Three weeks ago even he couldn’t see me, and now I’m being fingered by his manservant. I’m doomed unless he dies! I want to climb! Save me, kill the bastard—it’s your duty as a Christian.
MACCABBEE
I dunno, dat be hard ta sell ta a judge ’n’ jury.
HIS SOUL
I’ll give you something.
MACCABBEE
Like what, fer instance?
HIS SOUL
Well, like . . . oh anything, WHATEVER, I don’t care.
MACCABBEE
I’ll do it if ya get inna bed with me.
HIS SOUL
If I do . . . what?
MACCABBEE
I han’t ever made it with a metaphysical hactuality before.
HIS SOUL
I’ll burn in Hell first.
MACCABBEE
Ah, yoop. Well, lemme think.
You bin going ta Heaven aftah he dies?
HIS SOUL
Yes! Heaven! If he dies soon!
MACCABBEE
When you arrivet in Heaven, talket to da Blesstet Virgin ’r someone with charitable hinclinations. Rid me a da clap. Bringet back my nose.
HIS SOUL
I couldn’t . . . guarantee anything, of course, but I . . . might . . .
MACCABBEE
Ef ya gimme yer wordet, I kill him onna gamble.
HIS SOUL
You’d kill your master on a gamble?
MACCABBEE
It bin sumpin I always wannet ta do anyway. ’N’ ef it gets me a miracleous restoration on my nose, so much da more da merrier,’tis what I say.
HIS SOUL
Deal. But nothing painful, and . . . try not to enjoy it too much. (Looking upward) Forgive me, Father, I don’t know what I’m doing. Well, I do know, but . . . Oh God, skin, meat, blood, oh help me, help me, I think I’m starting to . . . to smell . . .
(His Soul vanishes as Babbo enters, splotchy with various fruit jellies.)
BABBO
I bin distresset. I searchet through evah one a dem hot baket tarts,’n’ I hant find da one with dat papah. Maybe it burnet hup.
MACCABBEE
I gotta a remedy fer when things feelet upset-down.
BABBO
What?
(They look at each other.)
BABBO
Now?
MACCABBEE
’N’ look! Da bed bin unoccupied.
BABBO
Ah, nope, not dere, da linens on dat bed bin soilet to da verra point a crawling.
MACCABBEE
It’s da smella weariness ’n’ fear. Maket me wanna do da Molloch.
BABBO
Probably a mordal sin . . . Ah, well, I gotta coupla minnits.
(They hop into bed and begin to fuck. Dame Dorothy enters, carrying a candle; Maccabbee throws the covers over them just in time and they lie very still, but Chicken C is left lying atop the bedclothes. Dorothy goes to the desk and begins searching through the papers. Maccabbee sits up, tosses Chicken C behind the headboard and goes back under the covers.)
DAME DOROTHY
Oh why bother searching? He obviously didn’t write a Will. Punish the world for continuing after, keep everyone worrying until he’s gone: it would be so like Thomas to die intestate.
(From her bodice she produces a document looking very much like the document Dr. Browne gave Babbo in Act One. She looks to make sure she’s alone, then reads it, audibly, but to herself.)
DAME DOROTHY
“I Sir Thomas Browne being of sound mind etcetera etcetera etcetera do hereby bequeath etcetera etcetera all my shares in the Walsingham Quarry to my beloved wife Dame Dorothy etcetera . . .”
(She goes to Browne’s desk, places the fake Will in the desk drawer. Pumpkin enters with a corpse wrapped in a shroud. She doesn’t hear him. He drops the corpse on the floor near her. She spins, badly startled.)
PUMPKIN
Afternoon, Dorfy.
(She sees the corpse and screams.)
PUMPKIN
’Tis a client a mine.
DAME DOROTHY
Oh mercy, I thought it was Thomas.
PUMPKIN
Ah, nope, bin some poor old sot dey give me ta bury inna pauper’s field. I bringet him to da German doctah in hexchange fer a nominous recompensideration.
(Dorothy bends close to the corpse to see it more clearly, holding her candle. When she gets too close, the candle flares wildly!! Dorothy jumps back.)
PUMPKIN
Could you put out dat candle, Dorfy?
(Dorothy blows out the candle.)
PUMPKIN
Thanks, da earfly remains a dis doof bin so fulla gin and cheap brandy combustiples a spark might hignite a hexplosion.
DAME DOROTHY
Could we . . . could you put him somewhere? Under the bed, or . . . it’s unnerving.
PUMPKIN
Ah, yup. Secuset.
(He stows the corpse under the bed.)
PUMPKIN
A man gotta be henterprising. Han’t catchet me passing by a chance ta supplement my yearning.
DAME DOROTHY
You’re an ambitious man, Leonard.
PUMPKIN
You still bin broodet, my love.
DAME DOROTHY
I . . . I’ve made a difficult decision, Leonard. I have to tell you something.