Faustus (3 page)

FAUSTUS:
Yes. Not religion, which to the scientific mind cannot be quantified.

FRIEND:
Is it, then, worthless?

FAUSTUS:
To the scientist.

FRIEND:
Then how comes religion to cleanse?

FAUSTUS:
A candle gains in power as we still warring illumination. Were we to flood the room with light, the object of our interest, of our longing, of our worship is forgot. For it is nothing. (
Pause
)

FRIEND:
It is salvation.

FAUSTUS:
Then seek it. As each man seeks himself, in all things. This is the law of life.

FRIEND:
I understand, of course, your enthusiasm.

FAUSTUS:
… your mitigating clause?

FRIEND:
I simply suggest reserve of speech.

FAUSTUS:
Speech cannot alter the unfolding of the natural order.

FRIEND:
And what of miracle?

FAUSTUS:
Instance it—

FRIEND:
Many invoke Salvation.

FAUSTUS:
And many believe in war, yet remark that they do not fight.

FRIEND:
But:

FAUSTUS:
Say on.

FRIEND:
To impugn. The power of the Church to save …

FAUSTUS:
Proclaimed by whom but man?

FRIEND:
Christ’s word is divine.

FAUSTUS:
Proclaimed … ?

FRIEND:
By the Council of Nicaea.

FAUSTUS:
Who, if I do not err, were men.

FRIEND:
But this is heresy.

FAUSTUS:
Greater than theirs? (
Pause
) Greater than theirs?

FRIEND:
I do believe it.

FAUSTUS:
This too is an equation. There are but two paths by which men may thrive: the direct pursuit of power, and the propitiation of its possessors.

FRIEND:
But some do good.

FAUSTUS:
Yes?

FRIEND:
Do you grant it?

FAUSTUS:
If it amuses you.

(
FAUSTUS
’
s
WIFE
enters
.)

WIFE:
Faustus.

FAUSTUS:
One moment. (
Pause
) Do I vex you? Do I confound? All of your adjurations, to recant, are but reminders to speak hypocritically, as all men speak. (
Pause
) You fear the impending limit of the circumscribed. You cling to: tradition, reason, custom, common sense, an intelligent submission. And I ask: to what?

FRIEND:
Then what is not to be despised?

WIFE:
Our love for a child, which seeks nothing for itself.

FAUSTUS:
Save immortality.

WIFE:
I was bid announce your arrival. We take you at your word—he waits for you. I do not mean to vex you in your happy completion …

FAUSTUS:
No, no. The fault is mine. (
She exits
) Well, then, you see, the poor philosopher, jerked from his native element of disputation, struggles on the bank. I must go.

FRIEND:
But is there no excellence?

FAUSTUS:
Yes. I have troubled you.

FRIEND:
Is all but
number?
I understand you to speak hyperbolically…

FAUSTUS:
I do not.

FRIEND:
But does naught exist, absent your formula?

FAUSTUS:
Else, of what worth the equation?

FRIEND:
But, the ineffable: hope, courage …

FAUSTUS:
Show it to me.

FRIEND:
In the military.

FAUSTUS:
They hone the scabbard while the saber rusts. Bravo the generals.

FRIEND:
Say in the private soldier?

FAUSTUS:
He fights from rage, fear, or shame—who does not?

FRIEND:
In the devotion of the pedagogue.

FAUSTUS:
To drill the young to say five things about seven books.

FRIEND:
Say, in the law, in jurisprudence.

FAUSTUS:
Many remark justice is blind; pity those in her sway, shocked to discover she is also deaf.

FRIEND:
Then in the service of the State.

FAUSTUS:
In what consists the State? A salubrity of climate or geography, o’erlaid by the posturings of the suborned; unwashed cupidity, license for murder… Oh, if I were king.

FRIEND:
Be still, they might elect you.

FAUSTUS:
Heaven forfend.

FRIEND:
And, e’en a king’s power is circumscribed.

FAUSTUS:
As whose is not.

FRIEND:
God’s, people say.

FAUSTUS:
Then how explain human suffering?

FRIEND:
His power is limitless to do. Ours is curtailed to understand.

FAUSTUS:
A good, traditional response.

(
The
MAGUS
appears, with a flourish of drums. He carries a valise marked with a devil’s head
.)

FAUSTUS:
Selah. Who have we here? Is it the Devil… Sir, are you the Devil?

MAGUS:
His counterfeit, my lord, upon the earth.

WIFE:
(
Drawn by the sound
) Faustus, who has engaged the entertainer?

FAUSTUS:
Right welcome. Are we not told, of periodic riots of inversion, where we find license to resolve our various superfluities? Heathen societies knew it as orgy, we, their ailing, decadent descendants call it holiday. Here is the last pagan survival welcome, sir—what do you bring?

MAGUS:
Signor, we bring a carnival.

FAUSTUS:
Bravo.

WIFE:
I fear the boy unequal to the entertainment.

FAUSTUS:
Then I shall bear the shock. (
The
WIFE
retires
.) Dare we hope that you come to subvert the natural order?

MAGUS:
As you may judge. Vouchsafe the moment for our preparation, and we shall reveal the occult, and set at defiance: time, space, and logic, law, and decorum.

FAUSTUS:
Proceed—proceed, sir, are we not yours?

(The
MAGUS
performs a magical flourish, and then intones:
)

MAGUS:

Jubio!

(
The
MAGUS
does a magical trick
)

FAUSTUS:
Oh, sir. Need we fear?

MAGUS:
Naught but the mysteries …

(
FAUSTUS
applauds
.)

FAUSTUS:
All reverence to the lord of misrule. Honor, of course, to the Creator, but to the inverter, ten thousand times more. Poor ignorant folk, here below, we’ve glimpsed the world the wrong way, round, now may we stare, delighted at the back of the tapestry. Or have we gazed, all our lives, at its inversion? (
To
MAGUS
) What do you say?

MAGUS:
I have prayed for a man to understand me.

FAUSTUS:
Am I that man?

MAGUS:
From your speech, sir, I’d have took you for one of the confraternity

FAUSTUS:
No, I am but a poor projector. Yours is the core of accomplishment.

MAGUS:
The core, sir?

FAUSTUS:
Are we not told, the jesters of a wiser day, made all whole in shaking a skull at their masters? Have you heard that tale?

MAGUS:
I have, but cannot credit it.

FAUSTUS:
Nor I, for where, among the great, do we find self-depreciation? (
FAUSTUS
takes up the gazette
) Nor should one feel the need, when these exist, detractors by profession—eunuch compilers, swine … (
Reads
)“Our petted savant… fat on the leavings of a prior fame.” … Another trick, sir, loose me a diverting marvel.

FRIEND:
Shall we not await the child?

FAUSTUS:
Do not subvert the flow of the performance. Charm me, from the world.

MAGUS:
I can but conjure, sir, as I am skilled, which extends but to the distraction of the uninformed …

FRIEND:
Behold another of your confraternity: (
Of the paper
) Continue.

MAGUS:
Bid me.

FAUSTUS:
(
Of the newspaper
) Make this foul indictment disappear.

MAGUS:
(
Takes the newspaper, and, with a flourish, disappears it) Ecco
. It vanishes.

FAUSTUS:
No!

MAGUS:
Sir, to the contrary.

FAUSTUS:
Oh, bravo.

MAGUS:
I did not o’erextend my brief… ?

FAUSTUS:
Indeed you did. Well done and excellently improvised. My hand.

MAGUS:
Most honored.

FAUSTUS:
To have fooled the philosopher.

MAGUS:
One finds, in my profession, sir, the greater the intellect, the more ease in its misdirection.

FAUSTUS:
One finds the same in mine. Oh, well done. To have shrunk that canker. It lacks but the one dimension, your trick.

MAGUS:
… servant, sir.

FAUSTUS:
Cleanse it from memory.

(
Pause
)

MAGUS:
Give me but time.

FAUSTUS:
Bravo. Bravo, sir. Well said.

(
The
WIFE
again appears
.)

FAUSTUS:
… one moment. Here’s a worthy adversary, which is to say, companion … godlike, makes matter dissipate, the savant smile with content…

(
The
FRIEND
comes over to
FAUSTUS
and whispers to him
.)

FAUSTUS:
Yes, aid her. With thanks.

(
The two exit, leaving
FAUSTUS
and the
MAGUS
.)

FAUSTUS:
With the one word. You win me to your cause, I abjure philosophy and embrace prestidigitation. Where do we part? Each utters a meaningless phrase to allow the mass to ascribe to them a power not their own. In your case, thaumaturgy, in mine, wisdom. Another effect. (
The
MAGUS
takes out a large silk
) No—improvise …

MAGUS:
Direct me.

FAUSTUS:
Cure me my autumn cold.

MAGUS:
Are you unwell?

FAUSTUS:
But with the change of season.

MAGUS:
Take to your bed, and meditate upon a yellow light.

FAUSTUS:
Shall I be thus cured?

MAGUS:
Within the quarter hour. But you in no event must allow your mind freedom from this curative fluorescence. One tenth, one twentieth second of impertinence, the cure is null. And the disease shall worsen.

FAUSTUS:
Unto death?

MAGUS:
Unless your will be of the strongest, I would forgo the test.

FAUSTUS:
Physician-philosopher. May we suppose your powers have no end?

MAGUS:
Try me.

FAUSTUS:
What is the engine of the world?

MAGUS:
The engine of the world’s regret.

FAUSTUS:
Then, as you are a magus, proof me from it.

MAGUS:
Here is a sovereign talisman against regret: never do that which might engender it.

FAUSTUS:
Oh, best of magicians. Are you then skilled to banish all disruption?

MAGUS:
Sir, on the instant.

(
The
MAGUS
prepares to perform a magical pass
.)

(
The
WIFE
enters
.)

MAGUS:
Watch here.

WIFE:
Faustus.

FAUSTUS:
Of course. Sir: with my apologies, to stunt your effect.

MAGUS:
Your servant.

FAUSTUS:
And here take my leave—but with the one question.

MAGUS:
Please …

FAUSTUS:
Where is the newspaper?

MAGUS:
Sir, it is gone.

FAUSTUS:
Can matter be annihilated?

MAGUS:
Alas.

FAUSTUS:
No, but reveal me the trick.

MAGUS:
My revelation could not bring delight.

FAUSTUS:
May I not judge?

MAGUS:
In my profession, as in yours, that given free must be despised.

FAUSTUS:
Indeed?

MAGUS:
It is the one sure, certain law of life.

FAUSTUS:
Name me your forfeit.

MAGUS:
Your respect, for I am asked to do that which can but cause disillusion.

FAUSTUS:
You have my respect. I swear it.

MAGUS:
(
The
MAGUS
magically produces the newspaper.) Ecco: