ACT
TWO SCENE FOUR
The same Vulpes
and Marguerite in bedroom. Marguerite still stifling laughter. Jasper
crosses and approaches.
Jasper
(returning)
That lawyer's head
is full of windy schemes:
All waffle and weird
nonsense. Does he think
That I am such a
lightly hoodwinked fool?
I'll show that cheat
he won't cheat me with ease,
For all the shabby
tricks that he can muster.
He's hangman-ripe,
the rotten heretic.
(Jasper knocks
loudly on Vulpes' door)
Hey you! Hey, hey,
come let me in!
Marguerite
Oh,
no!
He's heard me
laughing. Now he'll be aflame.
Vulpes
Don't drop your part
before the critic's gaze.
I'll play delirious
pretence upon
A broader stage and
so convince the sceptic
Who wavers still
between belief and doubt.
Go, open wide the
door.
Marguerite
(coming
to the door)
Quiet,
quiet, you hothead!
What's this
unmindful racket you're creating?
Enough to fright a
ghost from graveyard sleep,
Or summon all the
demons of the deep.
Jasper (as
she opens the ‘door’)
You laugh, you
laugh, do you?
Marguerite
What!
Are you mad?
Do you suppose I
find amusement here?
I’ve nothing, no,
no, nothing, nothing, nothing,
No, not a single
thing, to laugh about.
By all the saints
who guard celestial paths,
I'd sooner spin upon
my sorry head.
My poor, poor dear
has almost passed away!
Such raving, oh,
such raging! Deliriums!
Mad singing! Such a
flow of crazy scenes!
Trapped in
delusions- caught in strangest dreams!
He gabbles half a
dozen, senseless tongues
With wild and
meaningless sincerity.
Indeed, I doubt
he'll live another hour.
It's quite enough to
make me weep and laugh
Together now.
Jasper
(firmly)
Not
one jot do I care!
It's less to me than
babble at a fair.
For he can speak in
every speech that springs
Beneath the sun, for
all it bothers me.
I owe but one
essential speech to give,
One thing to utter
now while you both live-
You give me back my
cloth or pay my fee!
(Vulpes enters
looking dishevelled)
Vulpes (wildly)
Stand for her
Majesty! Salute and bow.
The Queen of Lutes!
Sir, have you lost your lute?
I know she recently
gave painful birth
To four and twenty
bright lutettes. They are
All children of the
cloth. Their father is
Good Jasper, the
archbishop. That would mean
That I, good sir,
must be their guardian.
Jasper (stepping
back)
What rubbish is he
gabbling now? Come on,
I wish for payment
for my cloth you've taken.
Marguerite
(to
Jasper)
Is not the one
mistake sufficiency?
Vulpes
(singing
and capering)
Oh payment, payment.
Oh, how shall we pay
The Great Lord on
that last and judgement day?
Oh, owing, owing. O
heart, what shall we owe
When He from high
looks down on us below?
Jasper
Dear lady...I must
say...I don't suppose...
(suddenly
growing angry)
No, no! I know what
I have known today.
Come! Pay up or be
hanged! Mistaken, eh?
What makes me so
mistaken, may I ask,
In simply asking you
for what I'm owed?
Marguerite
A
plague on you, you loud-mouthed lunatic!
It's clear your mind
has lost all clarity
And you are
stumbling in a mist of error.
(Marguerite
shoves Jasper so vigorously that he staggers)
Indeed, you are
demented, quite insane!
Oh, were I not a
female, slender, frail,
And quite devoid of
brute ability,
(she shoves him
again)
I'd bravely bind you
up for you're quite mad.
Jasper (regaining
his balance)
I must insist you
pay! I must! I must!
Marguerite
(advancing
on him)
Oh, such a sterling
way for you to act,
So suitable for such
a man of stature:
Wild-shouting loud
and moon-touched accusations
As if to carry to
the clouds above.
Jasper (moving
back)
Well, strike me dead
if ever I, again,
Give credit to a
customer of mine.
Vulpes (mockingly
in broad Scots)
Oh, whare ye be, my
guid, guid gauld?
I canna, canna mair
ye hauld.
An' nae mair, nae
mair in my e'e,
Will ye glitter, rit
sparklin'ly.
I canna, canna mair
ye hauld.
Oh, whare ye be, my
guid, guid gauld?
Jasper (backing
further as Vulpes and Marguerite advance on him)
The dark-souled
devil! Why he's sneaking off
Into far regions of
the other world
With all my lovely
cloth beneath his arm.
Vulpes
(didactically)
Oh, Renard,
red-brushed, vulpine visitant, distant,
On verges of the
vision, keeps fine guardians
Of fowl domestic
ever vigilant-
Yet on occasion
time’s spinners favour
Celerity of instant,
brash obtrusion.
Jasper (turning
to Marguerite)
What utter nonsense
is he uttering?
Vulpes
Ach, seh' ich
Renard, kluges Füchslein!
Jasper
How does he gabble
in so many tongues?
It seems the
murkiest, strange matter that
I've ever stumbled
on- mad-minded frenzy.
Yet by the sun's
sane light, I was so certain
He visited this
morning, feverless,
And full of wit and
sense and healthful spirits-
As whole as any in
the seeing day.
Could he be so
transformed before light’s eye
Has even started
sinking slowly towards
The westward line of
golden dusk?
Marguerite
Do
you
Believe me now at
last?
Jasper
I
do not know.
But there is surely
something most amiss.
Vulpes
(grabbing
a broom and using it as a witch's broomstick)
I'm mad, I’m mad,
mad as the mottled moon;
I'm mad, I’m mad,
mad as the rushing broom!
With pure nonsense
sense finds no debate.
So pray, do not
quodlibetificate!
Kadarabraba,
kadarabraba! So!
A fortiori, a
fortiori ! Oh!!!
Jasper
Good lord, he's
sinking fast! That spluttering,
Wild-whirling
witchcraft's moony, midnight madness,
Was certainly no
normal speech.
Marguerite
It
must
Be near the hour now
when the holy father
Should visit him, I
fear, one final time.
The dreadful clock
will strike, the hands will fall,
And that, for him
will be the end of all.
Vulpes (dashing
around)
Good day, good day,
good day, good sir, to you.
Pray, deliquesce
before delirium!
And oh, good holy
pater, how we caper.
Tell me, good sir,
good sir, what is the matter?
Are you, good sir,
just fat and getting fatter?
So gooselessness is
my good comity,
My thinning help, if
you can follow me!
Ahhhhr!
(Vulpes sinks to
the ground with phoney death rattles)
Marguerite
(flinging
herself on Jasper)
By all the sacred
powers above- he's dying.
He's dying now. See,
see! His living breath
Is leaving him. His
mouth is frothing so.
And I shall be
alone; left all alone,
Alone, poor me,
alone and sorrowing.
Jasper (hastily
extracting
himself)
I'd best be off
before he leaves this life.
He would not want me
witness to the last
Confession of his
sins. Please pardon, please,
Good lady, I have
made some sorry error-
May God forgive me!
Marguerite
And
amen to that.
May God forgive his
sorry wife as well.
Jasper
(crossing
back to his shop as Marguerite continues to mourn over Vulpes)
Some pretty puzzle
all of this has been.
Perplexing to all
sense and reasoning!
He seems, indeed,
doomed in grave illness, just
A few, bare inches
from that final threshold
That none would
willingly be crossing. Yet,
If it be so and he
were not the one
Who came by buying
but a while ago,
Who was it then? His
double as disguise?
He’s twinned by
none, I'm sure, in all the world.
(Jasper pauses,
struck by a sudden idea)
Oh, no! Oh, no!
Alas, alas, I know!
For now I think on
it I’m sure I’ve heard
A dark, side whisper
on such things- that is
That when some
sinner's in his final hours,
The ancient enemy of
good may steal
His customed form
and walk abroad to add
More final weight to
his soul’s troubling load,
Thus piling more bad
deeds upon his name.
But even if this be
an honest tale,
Why choose my mind
as victim to deceive,
False-featured in a
dying lawyer's form?
I never have been
haunted so before;
Nor dogged by demons
or dissembling visions.
Although… it
could be warning that my craft,
My double-dealing
ways, will drag me down!
Well, what the
devil's taken let him keep!
I do not wish to
fight him in the deep!
(Jasper exitsvia
his shop, shaking his head)
Vulpes
(bouncing
up)
How's that? We’ve
rid ourselves of one fool draper.
His mind's so
mottled by my seeming madness
He'll wake as like
with nightmares from his sleep,
And leave us quite
alone till later times
When I've recovered-
miracle to sight,
And vanished cloth
has vanished in time's night.
Marguerite
(agreeing)
Oh, yes. I think
that's surely cooked his goose-
Well done both
sides. Was not my part true-played?
Vulpes
It was a fine and
natural performance,
In playing more
persuasive than are most
Upon the creaking
stage. Indeed, my dear,
No clever critic
could distinguish it
From actuality- you
acted out
So smooth a
simulacrum of real woe.
(Vulpes looks
about carefully)
I do not think we’re
called for curtain call,
And so we take our
own performing fee-
The cloth for
clothes for both of us for free!
(Vulpes takes the
bundle from under the bed and tosses it to
Marguerite.
Pulling a curtain to hide the interior, they exit.)
