Short Plays · Preface (3/6) (2/2) (2/2)

| Cashel | To me, perfection. Oh, they condescend With a rare grace. Your duke, who condescends Almost to the whole world, might for a Man Pass in the eyes of those who never saw The duke capped with a prince. See then, ye gods, The duke turn footman, and his eager dame Sink the great lady in the obsequious housemaid! Oh, at such moments I could wish the Court Had but one breadbasket, that with my fist I could make all its windy vanity Gasp itself out on the gravel. Fare you well. I did not choose my calling; but at least I can refrain from being a gentleman. | | Lydia | You say farewell to me without a pang. | | Cashel | My calling hath apprenticed me to pangs. This is a rib-bender; but I can bear it. It is a lonely thing to be a champion. | | Lydia | It is a lonelier thing to be a woman. | | Cashel | Be lonely then. Shall it be said of thee That for his brawn thou misalliance mad’st Wi’ the Prince of Ruffians? Never. Go thy ways; Or, if thou hast nostalgia of the mud, Wed some bedoggéd wretch that on the slot Of gilded snobbery, ventre à terre, Will hunt through life with eager nose on earth And hang thee thick with diamonds. I am rich; But all my gold was fought for with my hands. | | Lydia | What dost thou mean by rich? | | Cashel | There is a man, Hight Paradise, vaunted unconquerable, Hath dared to say he will be glad to hear from me. I have replied that none can hear from me Until a thousand solid pounds be staked. His friends have confidently found the money. Ere fall of leaf that money shall be mine; And then I shall possess ten thousand pounds. I had hoped to tempt thee with that monstrous sum. | | Lydia | Thou silly Cashel, ’tis but a week’s income. I did propose to give thee three times that For pocket money when we two were wed. | | Cashel | Give me my hat. I have been fooling here. Now, by the Hebrew lawgiver, I thought That only in America such revenues Were decent deemed. Enough. My dream is dreamed. Your gold weighs like a mountain on my chest. Farewell. | | Lydia | The golden mountain shall be thine The day thou quit’st thy horrible profession. | | Cashel | Tempt me not, woman. It is honor calls. Slave to the Ring I rest until the face Of Paradise be changed. | | | Enter Bashville. | | Bashville | Madam, your carriage, Ordered by you at two. ’Tis now half-past. | | Cashel | Sdeath! is it half-past two? The king! the king! | | Lydia | The king! What mean you? | | Cashel | I must meet a monarch This very afternoon at Islington. | | Lydia | At Islington! You must be mad. | | Cashel | A cab! Go call a cab; and let a cab be called; And let the man that calls it be thy footman. | | Lydia | You are not well. You shall not go alone. My carriage waits. I must accompany you. I go to find my hat. Exit. | | Cashel | Like Paracelsus, Who went to find his soul. To Bashville. And now, young man, How comes it that a fellow of your inches, So deft a wrestler and so bold a spirit, Can stoop to be a flunkey? Call on me On your next evening out. I’ll make a man of you. Surely you are ambitious and aspire⁠— | | Bashville | To be a butler and draw corks; wherefore, By Heaven, I will draw yours. | | | He hits Cashel on the nose, and runs out. | | Cashel | Thoughtfully putting the side of his forefinger to his nose, and studying the blood on it. Too quick for me! There’s money in this youth. | | | Reenter Lydia, hatted and gloved. | | Lydia | O Heaven! you bleed. | | Cashel | Lend me a key or other frigid object, That I may put it down my back, and staunch The welling life stream. | | Lydia | Giving him her keys. Oh, what have you done? | | Cashel | Flush on the boko napped your footman’s left. | | Lydia | I do not understand. | | Cashel | True. Pardon me. I have received a blow upon the nose In sport from Bashville. Next, ablution; else I shall be total gules. He hurries out. | | Lydia | How well he speaks! There is a silver trumpet in his lips That stirs me to the finger ends. His nose Dropt lovely color: ’tis a perfect blood. I would ’twere mingled with mine own! | | | Enter Bashville. | | | What now? | | Bashville | Madam, the coachman can no longer wait: The horses will take cold. | | Lydia | I do beseech him A moment’s grace. Oh, mockery of wealth! The third class passenger unchidden rides Whither and when he will: obsequious trams Await him hourly: subterranean tubes With tireless coursers whisk him through the town; But we, the rich, are slaves to Houyhnhnms: We wait upon their colds, and frowst all day Indoors, if they but cough or spurn their hay. | | Bashville | Madam, an omnibus to Euston Road, And thence t’ th’ Angel⁠— | | | Enter Cashel. | | Lydia | Let us haste, my love: The coachman is impatient. | | Cashel | Did he guess He stays for Cashel Byron, he’d outwait Pompei’s sentinel. Let us away. This day of deeds, as yet but half begun, Must ended be in merrie Islington. | | | Exeunt Lydia and Cashel. | | Bashville | Gods! how she hangs on’s arm! I am alone. Now let me lift the cover from my soul. O wasted humbleness! Deluded diffidence! How often have I said, Lie down, poor footman: She’ll never stoop to thee, rear as thou wilt Thy powder to the sky. And now, by Heaven, She stoops below me; condescends upon This hero of the pothouse, whose exploits, Writ in my character from my last place, Would damn me into ostlerdom. And yet There’s an eternal justice in it; for By so much as the ne’er subduèd Indian Excels the servile Negro, doth this ruffian Precedence take of me. “Ich dien.” Damnation! I serve. My motto should have been, “I scalp.” And yet I do not bear the yoke for gold. Because I love her I have blacked her boots; Because I love her I have cleaned her knives, Doing in this the office of a boy, Whilst, like the celebrated maid that milks And does the meanest chares, I’ve shared the passions Of Cleopatra. It has been my pride To give her place the greater altitude By lowering mine, and of her dignity To be so jealous that my cheek has flamed Even at the thought of such a deep disgrace As love for such a one as I would be For such a one as she; and now! and now! A prizefighter! O irony! O bathos! To have made way for this! Oh, Bashville, Bashville: Why hast thou thought so lowly of thyself, So heavenly high of her? Let what will come, My love must speak: ’twas my respect was dumb. |