Faustus by David Mamet

Author:David Mamet [Mamet, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Drama, General
ISBN: 9780307484710
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2004-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

ACT TWO

The portals which led to FAUSTUS’s home are opened, to reveal an expanse, upstage, of gray ruin.

FAUSTUS comes onto the stage, and looks around him. We hear a far-off bell ringing, and see an old man walking in the ruins. FAUSTUS turns to encounter him. We see it is his FRIEND, Fabian, now greatly aged.

FAUSTUS: Where do we find ourselves?

FRIEND: I’ve often thought that it is Hell.

FAUSTUS: In truth?

FRIEND: I am grown so old it nor diverts nor profits me to lie.

FAUSTUS: Have you grown old?

FRIEND: As you observe.

FAUSTUS: But we are of an age.

FRIEND: If you assert it.

FAUSTUS: Do you not know me?

FRIEND: Your voice is not unfamiliar, but perhaps it merely pleases.

FAUSTUS: Turn to me, look on me.

FRIEND: It would not profit, no, for I am blind.

FAUSTUS: Blind.

FRIEND: Yes.

FAUSTUS: What has befallen you? How came you to age?

FRIEND: Sir, I assure you, it was the passage of time.

FAUSTUS: (Pause) Are you mad? (Pause) Can you not answer me? Can you not aid me?

FRIEND: Not the first, sir, but, perhaps, the second.

FAUSTUS: I do not understand.

FRIEND: A sundial may offer information, but you remark, it withholds comment. (Pause)

FAUSTUS: Do you not know me?

FRIEND: I beg pardon.

FAUSTUS: I am Faustus.

FRIEND: Ask again if I am mad, I shall return the favor.

FAUSTUS: You suggest the debility is mine?

FRIEND: You have said that you are Faustus.

FAUSTUS: I am he.

FRIEND: What sane being would assert it?

FAUSTUS: I do not understand.

FRIEND: Then you are mad. (HE STARTS OFF.) Or perverse, merely. I mean no offense. Whom could I dare offend?

FAUSTUS: Do not desert me.

FRIEND: Aid me then. Would you oblige, in description of the scene?

FAUSTUS: Near the conjunction of two roads.

FRIEND: I shall no further trouble you. (The man walks off.)

FAUSTUS: Stay, for I am unmoored; the pawl has clicked, the wheel come round, but I am baffled by the revolution. I beg you. Fabian. What is this charade? I do not understand its nature.

FRIEND: Nor I. Could I have creditably done so, would I not have resigned, long ago. But we understand, that is a crime, for which the criminals, self-punished, are additionally, damned. And their bones to an unmarked grave, at a crossroads.

FAUSTUS: Do I dream?

FRIEND: Should you, then I felicitate you.

FAUSTUS: Where is the family of Faustus?

FRIEND: Do I in fact remark your voice, sir? Or is it but th’ association, summon’d by your questionings? But it is the same whate’er, and as the world draws in, as sight, sound, and action erode, what remains, but self-absorption? Where all is made fast to decay.

FAUSTUS: How came this to be so?

FRIEND: Through time and effort, as most things.

FAUSTUS: But how? The house is vanished, you are aged, yet time has not passed.

FRIEND: Then how am I grown old?

FAUSTUS: Indeed, who are but one day older than we found you yesterday.

FRIEND: Bless you, I must accept it, but, yesterday, I was old. I was old and blind.

FAUSTUS: You have gone blind from drink.

FRIEND: Thanks, good physician. But the cause was ne’er in doubt.

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