Chapter 111

_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!

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 1820. 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_

MACAIRE