Chapter 2

_Scene: Faust's Studio_.

SERVANT. Well, if you have no further use for me, I will go make our preparation.

FAUST. If anybody calls, say I am out; I must have time to see how I will act. As to the form in which I shall be written, I must decide whether in prose or verse. My thoughts I'll bend. Give me at once the _Times_: Walkley I always find inspiriting-- And really I learn much about the drama (Even the German drama) from his pen, More curious than that of Paracelsus. (_Reads_) 'Sic vos non vobis, Bernard Shaw might say, Dieu et mon droit. Ich dien. Et taceat Femina in ecclesia. Ellen Terry, La plus belle femme de toutes les femmes Du monde.' Archer, I have observed, Writes no more for the World, but for himself. Then I forgot; he's writing for the _Leader_, That highly independent Liberal paper.

[FAUST _muses_. _Bell heard_.

The Elixir of Life, is it a play Which runs a thousand nights? Is it a dream Precipitated into some alembic Or glass retort by Ex-ray Lankester?

_Enter_ SERVANT.

SERVANT. A gentleman has called.

FAUST. Say I am out.

SERVANT. He will take no denial.

FAUST. Show him in. Most probably 'tis Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Who long has planned a play of Doctor Faustus.

_Enter_ MEPHISTOPHELES.

MEPHISTOPHELES. Ah! my dear Doctor, here we are again! Micawber-like, I never will desert you. How do you feel? Your house I see myself In perfect order. Ah! how much has past Since those Lyceum days when you and I Climbed up the Brocken on Walpurgis night. That times have changed I realise myself; No longer through the chimney I descend; I enter like a super from the side. Widowers' Houses dramas have become; Morals and sentiment and Clement Scott No more seem adjuncts of the English stage.

FAUST. Oh, Mephistopheles, you come in time To save the English drama from a deadlock! Like Mahmud's coffin hung 'twixt Heaven and Earth, It falters up to verse and down to prose. Tell us, then, how to act, how consummate The aspirations of our Stephen Phillips!

MEPHISTO. Ah, Alexander Faustus! young as ever, Still unabashed by Paolo and Francesca, You long for plays with literary motives, Plots oft attempted both in prose and rhyme.

FAUST. As ever, you are timid and old-fashioned.

MEPHISTO. Hark you! One thing I know above all others, The English drama of the century past. Though English critics have consigned to me The plays of Ibsen, Maeterlinck, and Shaw, And Wilde's _Salome_, none has ever reached me. Back to their native land they must have gone, Or else you have them here in Germany. Only to me come down real British plays, The mid-Victorian twaddle, the false gems Which on the stretched forefinger of oblivion Glitter a moment, and then perish paste.

FAUST (_drily_). Well, if I learn of any critic's death Leaving a vacant place upon the Press, You'll hear from me; meanwhile, Mephisto mine, As we must needs play out our little play, Whom would you cast for Margaret, _alias_ Gretchen? Kindly sketch out an inexpensive _Faust_, Modelled on the Vedrenne and Barker style Once much in favour at the English Court.

MEPHISTO. The stage is now an auditorium, And all the audiences are amateurs, First-nighters at the bottom of their heart. What do they care for drama in the least? All that they need are complimentary stalls, To know the leading actor, to be round At dress rehearsals, or behind the scenes, To hear the row the actor-manager Had with the author or the leading lady, Then to recount the story at the Garrick, Where, lingering lovingly on kippered lies, They babble over chestnuts and their punch And stale round-table jests of years ago.

FAUST. So Mephistopheles is growing old! Kindly omit your stage philosophy, And tell me all your plans about the play.

MEPHISTO. First we must make you young and fresh as paint, Philters and elixirs are out of date. A week in London--that is what you want; London Society is our objective. There you will find a not unlikely Gretchen, For actresses are all the rage just now; Countesses quarrel over Edna May, And Mrs. Patrick Campbell is received In the best houses. I shall introduce you As a philosopher from Tubingen. A sort of Nordau, no? Then Doctor Reich-- Advocates polyandry, children suffrage-- One man, one pianola; the usual thing That will secure success: here is a card For Thursday next--Lady Walpurge 'At Home' From nine till twelve--a really charming hostess. Her ladyship is intellectual, The husband rich, dishonest, a collector Of _objets d'art_, especially old masters. He got his title for his promises To England in the war; financed the raid, A patriot millionaire within whose veins Imperial pints of German-Jewish blood Must make the English think imperially, And rather bear with all the ills they have Than fly to others that they know not of.

FAUST. Excellent plan! Except at Covent Garden, I've hardly been in England since the 'eighties.