Faustus by David Mamet Read Free Book Online Page B

(
Pause
)
    FAUSTUS: … my son.
    CHILD: Am I your son?
    FAUSTUS: Surely there’s a residuary memory. An ineradicable memory.
    CHILD: Of?
    FAUSTUS: Of love. Between a father and son. Which transcends death. I know it. In my soul. It is an attribute of God. Our love.
    CHILD: And did I love you?
    FAUSTUS: Oh, my son.
    CHILD: Tell me of love.
    FAUSTUS: … no, can you doubt me?
    CHILD: I am unfitted to perceive duplicity I ask as for a gift.
    FAUSTUS: Yes, I shall tell you of love.
    CHILD: In this particular: the better to fit me to plead your case. It is the hour of audience.
    FAUSTUS: Yes.
    CHILD: When the bell toll, and until the bell cease. And the gates have closed.
    FAUSTUS: A man, a family begs to be reunited. In love … you wrote of it.
    CHILD: Tell me.
    FAUSTUS: You wrote a poem. You composed me a poem. Bear it on high. Attend:
    “Heavy Heavy the Hired man
Weary, how weary the willing hand…”
    CHILD: But this is a sad recital.
    FAUSTUS: ’Tis but the preamble.
    CHILD: It awakens memory.
    FAUSTUS: Yes.
    CHILD: But, ’tis memory of pain.
    FAUSTUS: Of pain …
    CHILD: Yes …
    FAUSTUS: No, but let me continue.
    CHILD: ’Tis a sad song.
    FAUSTUS: It turns. Wait… see: at the end …
    CHILD: You say it speaks of love.
    FAUSTUS: It does.
    CHILD: Complete it for me. (
Pause
) Why do you hesitate? (
Pause. We hear a bell tolling
) I must go. It is the hour of intercession. Until the bell cease. Give me the poem, and it shall plead for you.
    FAUSTUS: Wait… (
The
CHILD
begins to disappear. The
MAGUS
appears
.)
    FAUSTUS: Return me my book.
    MAGUS: You have renounced it.
    FAUSTUS: Give me the poem.
    MAGUS: You remark I bid you peruse it.
    FAUSTUS: I am summoned to approach the Throne.
    MAGUS: And you are debarred. (
Pause
) The biddable ape, whose antics delight in their travesty of understanding. His fist closed tight around the nut in the glass jar. He rallies heaven for an explanation. He invokeshis merit and his ancestry. See now his simian face contort in travesty of philosophic consternation. You wonder why you are pursued? For entertainment.
    FAUSTUS: I am to you but a diversion.
    MAGUS: In fine.
    FAUSTUS: Then pay me.
    MAGUS: Pay you?
    FAUSTUS: For the one thing’s true, in heaven or hell, and by your own admission, one must pay for entertainment. Pay me, then, who has entertained you. Give me my poem. Give me my poem.
    MAGUS: Who has vexed me since you first besought me.
    ( FAUSTUS
is handed the poem—starts to leave
.)
    FAUSTUS: I ne’er besought you, sir, my friend besought you.
    MAGUS: I was summoned by your o’erweening pride.
    FAUSTUS: My pride …
    MAGUS: And your impertinence.
    FAUSTUS: And have I not prevailed?
    MAGUS: Then go boast of your victory. I tire of you.
    FAUSTUS: Or do you fear me.
    MAGUS: … fear you …
    FAUSTUS: Or do I see, in your capitulation, a man taken at his word. His word ratified by the respect, which attends his approach.
    (
A bell rings
.)
    MAGUS: The gates are closing.
    FAUSTUS: And that you, with your trumpery scorn, seek to dismiss him who had bested you. Who wrenched from you license to see heav’n and hell and walk free. Who has Probed the Center.
    (
A bell rings
.)
    MAGUS: … to have found …?
    FAUSTUS: … the Secret Engine of the World. O sacred light, the signs congeal, you are come to induct me …
    (
A bell rings
.)
    MAGUS: The gates are closing.
    FAUSTUS: I am become as God.
    MAGUS: And now the gates are closed.
    FAUSTUS: I am completed.
    MAGUS: As, My Lord, am I.

A VINTAGE ORIGINAL, JULY 2004
    Copyright © 2004 by David Mamet
    All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
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