Chapter 110

_To these_, KIT

(_He leaps through window_, _R._, _and cuts_ PEW _down_. _At the same moment_, GAUNT, _who has been staring helplessly at his daughter’s peril_, _fully awakes_.)

GAUNT. Death and blood! (KIT, _helping_ ARETHUSA, _has let fall the cutlass_. GAUNT_ picks it up and runs on_ PEW.) Damned mutineer, I’ll have your heart out! (_He stops_, _stands staring_, _drops cutlass_, _falls upon his knees_.) God forgive me! Ah, foul sins, would you blaze forth again? Lord, close your ears! Hester, Hester, hear me not! Shall all these years and tears be unavailing?

ARETHUSA. Father, I am not hurt.

GAUNT. Ay, daughter, but my soul—my lost soul!

PEW (_rising on his elbow_). Rum? You’ve done me. For God’s sake, rum. (ARETHUSA _pours out a glass_, _which_ KIT _gives to him_.) Rum? This ain’t rum; it’s fire! (_With great excitement_.) What’s this? I don’t like rum? (_Feebly_.) Ay, then, I’m a dead man, and give me water.

GAUNT. Now even his sins desert him.

PEW (_drinking water_). Jack Gaunt, you’ve always been my rock ahead. It’s thanks to you I’ve got my papers, and this time I’m shipped for Fiddler’s Green. Admiral, we ain’t like to meet again, and I’ll give you a toast: Here’s Fiddler’s Green, and damn all lubbers! (_Seizing_ GAUNT’S _arm_.) I say—fair dealings, Jack!—none of that heaven business: Fiddler’s Green’s my port, now, ain’t it?

GAUNT. David, you’ve hove short up, and God forbid that I deceive you. Pray, man, pray; for in the place to which you are bound there is no mercy and no hope.

PEW. Ay, my lass, you’re black, but your blood’s red, and I’m all a-muck with it. Pass the rum, and be damned to you. (_Trying to sing_)—

‘Time for us to go, Time for us—’

(_He dies_.)

GAUNT. But for the grace of God, there lies John Gaunt! Christopher, you have saved my child; and I, I, that was blinded with self-righteousness, have fallen. Take her, Christopher; but O, walk humbly!

* * * * *

CURTAIN

MACAIRE A MELODRAMATIC FARCE IN THREE ACTS

PERSONS REPRESENTED

ROBERT MACAIRE.

BERTRAND.

DUMONT, Landlord of the _Auberge des Adrets_.

CHARLES, a Gendarme, Dumont’s supposed son.

GORIOT.

THE MARQUIS, Charles’s Father.

THE BRIGADIER of Gendarmerie.

THE CURATE.

THE NOTARY.

A WAITER.

ERNESTINE, Goriot’s Daughter.

ALINE.

MAIDS, PEASANTS (_Male and Female_), GENDARMES.

The Scene is laid in the Courtyard of the _Auberge des Adrets_, on the frontier of France and Savoy. The time 1800. The action occupies an interval of from twelve to fourteen hours: from four in the afternoon till about five in the morning.

* * * * *

NOTE.—_The time between the acts should be as brief as possible_, _and the piece played_, _where it is merely comic_, _in a vein of patter_.