hannah: I won't say another word -
valentine: Yes, go on, Bernard - we promise.
BERNARD: {Finally) Well, only if you stop feeding tortoisesl
valentine: Well, it's his lunch time.
Bernard: And on condition that I am afforded the common courtesy of a scholar among scholars -
hannah: Absolutely mum till you're finished -
BERNARD: After which, any comments are to be couched in terms of accepted academic -
hannah: Dignity - you're right, Bernard.
Bernard: - respect.
hannah: Respect. Absolutely. The language of scholars. Count on it.
(Having made a great show of putting his pages away, BERNARD reassembles them and finds his place, glancing suspiciously at the other three for signs of levity.)
Bernard: Last paragraph. 'Without question, Ezra Chater issued a challenge to somebody. If a duel was fought in the dawn mist of Sidley Park in April 1809, his opponent, on the evidence, was a critic with a gift for ridicule and a taste for seduction. Do we need to look far? Without question, Mrs Chater was a widow by 1810. If we seek the occasion of Ezra Chater's early and unrecorded death, do we need to look far? Without question, Lord Byron, in the very season of his emergence as a literary figure, quit the country in a cloud of panic and mystery, and stayed abroad for two years at a time when Continental travel was unusual and dangerous. If we seek his reason - do we need to look far?
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(No mean performer, he is pleased with the effect of his peroration. There is a significant silence.)
hannah: Bollocks.
chlo?: Well, I think it's true.
hannah: You've left out everything which doesn't fit. Byron had been banging on for months about leaving England - there's a letter in February -
BERNARD: But he didn't go, did he?
hannah: And then he didn't sail until the beginning of July!
Bernard: Everything moved more slowly then. Time was
different. He was two weeks in Falmouth waiting for wind or something -
hannah: Bernard, I don't know why I'm bothering - you're arrogant, greedy and reckless. You've gone from a glint in your eye to a sure thing in a hop, skip and a jump. You deserve what you get and I think you're mad. But I can't help myself, you're like some exasperating child pedalling its tricycle towards the edge of a cliff, and I have to do something. So listen to me. If Byron killed Chater in a duel I'm Marie of Romania. You'll end up with so much fame you won't leave the house without a paper bag over your head.
valentine: Actually, Bernard, as a scientist, your theory is incomplete.
Bernard: But I'm not a scientist.
valentine: (Patiently) No, as a scientist-
BERNARD: (Beginning to shout) I have yet to hear a proper argument.
hannah: Nobody would kill a man and then pan his book. I
mean, not in that order. So he must have borrowed the book, written the review, posted it, seduced Mrs Chater, fought a duel and departed, all in the space of two or three days. Who would do that?
BERNARD: Byron.
hannah: It's hopeless.
Bernard: You've never understood him, as you've shown in your novelette.
hannah: In my what?
BERNARD: Oh, sorry - did you think it was a work of historical
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revisionism? Byron the spoilt child promoted beyond his
gifts by the spirit of the age! And Caroline the closet
intellectual shafted by a male society! valentine: I read that somewhere -hannah: It's his review. Bernard: And bloody well said, too!
(Things are turning a little ugly and Bernard seems in a mood
to push them that way.)
You got them backwards, darling. Caroline was Romantic
waffle on wheels with no talent, and Byron was an
eighteenth-century Rationalist touched by genius. And he
killed Chater. hannah: (Pause) If it's not too late to change my mind, I'd like
you to go ahead. Bernard: I intend to. Look to the mote in your own eye! - you
even had the wrong bloke on the dust-jacket! hannah: Dust-jacket? valentine: What about my computer model? Aren't you going
to mention it? Bernard: It's inconclusive. valentine: (To hannah) The Piccadilly reviews aren't a very
good fit with Byron's other reviews, you see. hannah: (To Bernard) What do you mean, the wrong bloke? Bernard: (Ignoring her) The other reviews aren't a very good fit
for each other, are they? valentine: No, but differently. The parameters -Bernard: (Jeering) Parameters! You can't stick Byron's head in
your laptop! Genius isn't like your average grouse. valentine: (Casually) Well, it's all trivial anyway. Bernard: What is? valentine: Who wrote what when ... Bernard: Trivial? valentine: Personalities. Bernard: I'm sorry - did you say trivial? valentine: It's a technical term. Bernard: Not where I come from, it isn't. valentine: The questions you're asking don't matter, you see.
It's like arguing who got there first with the calculus. The
60
English say Newton, the Germans say Leibnitz. But it doesn't matter. Personalities. What matters is the calculus. Scientific progress. Knowledge.
Bernard: Really? Why?
valentine: Why what?
BERNARD: Why does scientific progress matter more than personalities?
valentine: Is he serious?
Hannah: No, he's trivial. Bernard-
valentine: (Interrupting, to BERNARD) Do yourself a favour, you're on a loser.
BERNARD: Oh, you're going to zap me with penicillin and pesticides. Spare me that and I'll spare you the bomb and aerosols. But don't confuse progress with perfectibility. A great poet is always timely. A great philosopher is an urgent need. There's no rush for Isaac Newton. We were quite happy with Aristotle's cosmos. Personally, I preferred it. Fifty-five crystal spheres geared to God's crankshaft is my idea of a satisfying universe. I can't think of anything more trivial than the speed of light. Quarks, quasars - big bangs, black holes - who gives a shit? How did you people con us out of all that status? All that money? And why are you so pleased with yourselves?
CHLOE: Are you against penicillin, Bernard?
Bernard: Don't feed the animals. (Back to valentine) I'd push the lot of you over a cliff myself. Except the one in the wheelchair, I think I'd lose the sympathy vote before people had time to think it through.
hannah: (Loudly) What the hell do you mean, the dust-jacket?
Bernard: (Ignoring her) If knowledge isn't self-knowledge it isn't doing much, mate. Is the universe expanding? Is it contracting? Is it standing on one leg and singing 'When Father Painted the Parlour'? Leave me out. I can expand my universe without you. 'She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies, and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes.' There you are, he wrote it after coming home from a party. (With offensive politeness.) What is it that you're doing with
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grouse, Valentine, I'd love to know?
(valentine stands up and it is suddenly apparent that he is
shaking and close to tears.) valentine: (To chloE) He's not against penicillin, and he knows
I'm not against poetry. (To Bernard) I've given up on the
grouse. hannah: You haven't, Valentine! valentine: (Leaving) I can't do it. HANNAH: Why? valentine: Too much noise. There's just too much bloody noisel
(On which, valentine leaves the room. chloE, upset and in
tears, jumps up and briefly pummels BERNARD ineffectually with
her fists.) chloE: You bastard, Bernard!
(She follows valentine out and is followed at a run by GUS.
Pause.) HANNAH: Well, I think that's everybody. You can leave now, give
Lightning a kick on your way out. Bernard: Yes, I'm sorry about that. It's no fun when it's not
among pros, is it? hannah: No. BERNARD: Oh, well. . . (he begins to put his lecture sheets away in his