Chapter 114

_The Stage remains vacant_. _Enter_, _by door L. C._, MACAIRE, _followed by_ BERTRAND _with bundle_; _in the traditional costume_

MACAIRE. Good! No police.

BERTRAND (_looking off_, _L. C._). Sold again!

MACAIRE. This is a favoured spot, Bertrand: ten minutes from the frontier: ten minutes from escape. Blessings on that frontier line! The criminal hops across, and lo! the reputable man. (_Reading_) ‘_Auberge des Adrets_, by John Paul Dumont.’ A table set for company; this is fate: Bertrand, are we the first arrivals? An office; a cabinet; a cash-box—aha! and a cash-box, golden within. A money-box is like a Quaker beauty: demure without, but what a figure of a woman! Outside gallery: an architectural feature I approve; I count it a convenience both for love and war: the troubadour—twang-twang; the craftsmen—(_makes as if turning key_.) The kitchen window: humming with cookery; truffles, before Jove! I was born for truffles. Cock your hat: meat, wine, rest, and occupation; men to gull, women to fool, and still the door open, the great unbolted door of the frontier!

BERTRAND. Macaire, I’m hungry.

MACAIRE. Bertrand, excuse me, you are a sensualist. I should have left you in the stone-yard at Lyons, and written no passport but my own. Your soul is incorporate with your stomach. Am I not hungry, too? My body, thanks to immortal Jupiter, is but the boy that holds the kite-string; my aspirations and designs swim like the kite sky-high, and overlook an empire.

BERTRAND. If I could get a full meal and a pound in my pocket I would hold my tongue.

MACAIRE. Dreams, dreams! We are what we are; and what are we? Who are you? who cares? Who am I? myself. What do we come from? an accident. What’s a mother? an old woman. A father? the gentleman who beats her. What is crime? discovery. Virtue? opportunity. Politics? a pretext. Affection? an affectation. Morality? an affair of latitude. Punishment? this side the frontier. Reward? the other. Property? plunder. Business? other people’s money—not mine, by God! and the end of life to live till we are hanged.

BERTRAND. Macaire, I came into this place with my tail between my legs already, and hungry besides; and then you get to flourishing, and it depresses me worse than the chaplain in the jail.

MACAIRE. What is a chaplain? A man they pay to say what you don’t want to hear.

BERTRAND. And who are you after all? and what right have you to talk like that? By what I can hear, you’ve been the best part of your life in quod; and as for me, since I’ve followed you, what sort of luck have I had? Sold again! A boose, a blue fright, two years’ hard, and the police hot-foot after us even now.

MACAIRE. What is life? A boose and the police.

BERTRAND. Of course, I know you’re clever; I admire you down to the ground, and I’ll starve without you. But I can’t stand it, and I’m off. Good-bye: good luck to you, old man! and if you want the bundle—

MACAIRE. I am a gentleman of a mild disposition and, I thank my maker, elegant manners; but rather than be betrayed by such a thing as you are, with the courage of a hare, and the manners, by the Lord Harry, of a jumping-Jack—(_He shows his knife_.)

BERTRAND. Put it up, put it up: I’ll do what you want.

MACAIRE. What is obedience? fear. So march straight, or look for mischief. It’s not _bon ton_, I know, and far from friendly. But what is friendship? convenience. But we lose time in this amiable dalliance. Come, now an effort of deportment: the head thrown back, a jaunty carriage of the leg; crook gracefully the elbow. Thus. ’Tis better. (_Calling_.) House, house here!

BERTRAND. Are you mad? We haven’t a brass farthing.

MACAIRE. Now!—But before we leave!