Tim Pratt - Sympathy for the Devil

Lights go down on exterior and up on interior. Robin rushes in through the common room door and races to the bedroom. Inside he skids to a stop when he sees Dicolini and Helen on the bed. Helen has the upper hand. She’s got her foot on his neck and is about to bash him with the chamber pot. Dicolini sees Robin.

Dicolini: Faustus!

Robin looks over his shoulder. Helen releases Dicolini, who runs from the room. She smiles tentatively at Robin. Robin smiles back. She throws her arms around his neck.

Helen: Darling!

Robin leaps atop her, horn honking.

In the commons, Dicolini is heading toward the door when Mephistopheles materializes in light and smoke directly in front of him. They collide and sprawl across the dining table, scattering crockery and candlesticks.

Mephisto: You time is nigh, mortal. You will pay dearly for your sins.

Dicolini: I never touched her, boss. Shesa better man than I am.

Mephisto: You insist on playing the fool, even now?

Dicolini: No. Hesa still down inna alley.

Mephistopheles, furious, stomps into the bedroom to talk to Helen. He finds her with Robin on the bed. Once again she has the upper hand, stomping on his horn, which honks. Robin looks up to see Mephisto’s glowing eyes. He leaps from the bed and hides in the closet.

Mephisto: It will avail Faustus nothing to hide.

Helen: I don’t think that’s Faustus.

Mephisto: Who is it, then?

Helen: I don’t know, but I’ve seen a lot of him lately.

Mephisto: Don’t tell me you’ve succumbed to Faustus. Are you doing his bidding?

Helen: You find him and I’ll try.

Mephisto: Where is he?

Helen: Hang around a while. He’ll turn up. Or else somebody just as good.

Mephisto: This Faustus is devilishly clever and these dopplegangers make my job harder. I don’t want to get the wrong man.

Helen: In my experience, not many men aren’t the wrong one.

Mephisto: “Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.” Ha!

Mephistopheles renders himself invisible, then goes into the commons, deep in thought. Meanwhile, Dicolini has fled from the commons to the study. Faustus, seeing his double enter, gets up from behind the table.

Faustus: So it’s you, is it?

Dicolini: Atsa crazy. Itsa no me. Itsa you.

Faustus: How do I know it’s me?

Dicolini: I just told you. I’m not here.

Faustus: If you’re me, how come you’re not smoking a cigar?

Dicolini: You no give me one.

Faustus whips out a cigar and gives it to him.

Faustus: There you go. Let’s see you get out of that one.

Dicolini: You got a match?

Faustus: Never mind.

Faustus takes back the cigar. Wagner, meanwhile, is trying to crawl out while they bicker. Faustus spots him.

Faustus: Hold on there! I can’t get away from me that easily!

Wagner gets up and runs out of the room. Faustus tries to chase him, but gets tangled up with Dicolini. Meanwhile, Albergus sneaks out of the common room in the confusion. In the course of the next action he is searching through the room for Faustus’s magic book, which he finally finds, just before the climax, with the assistance of Robin’s imp. Mephistopheles, invisible, observes him doing this.

Wagner rushes through the commons directly into the bedroom, He shoves the door open and, not seeing Helen, jumps into the closet, tearing off his clothes. He embraces Robin.

Wagner: Dearest, I couldn’t find the book, but-

Robin’s horn honks. Wagner is nonplussed.

Helen: What are you doing in there?

Wagner opens the door and pulls Robin out by his collar. Robin’s face splits in a shy smile of love. Wagner pushes him out the bedroom door and turns to Helen.

Wagner: Helen?

Helen: Darling!

She throws her arms around his neck and draws him toward the bed.

Clock: ELEVEN FORTY-FIVE. LATE LATE LATE.

Mephistopheles, roused by the clock, makes a decision. He goes from the commons into the study. The instant he enters, Faustus and Dicolini speak as one.

Faustus & Dicolini: Oh, so you’re back, eh?

Mephisto: Your doom is at hand.

Faustus fans out his deck of tarot cards.

Faustus: Never mind that. Pick a card.

Dicolini (taking one): So, what am I got?

Faustus: You’ve got one, I’ve still got seventy-seven.

Dicolini: You wrong. Itsa ace of wands.

Faustus: Wandaful. (gesturing to Mephistopheles) Does your wormy friend want to try his luck?

Dicolini: Hesa outside in the alley.

At this, Robin enters munching a slice of bread. He goes to the alchemical table and smears the bread with some noxious chemicals, takes a bite. He offers the bread to Faustus.

Faustus: No, thanks. It’s bad enough being damned. Indigestion I don’t need.

Clock: IT’S MIDNIGHT. BONG. BONG. BONG… (continues throughout following action.)

Mephisto: Enough! Which one of you is the real Faustus?

At that moment, Albergus, who has found the magic book, strides into the room.

Albergus: Ha ha! Fools! Now at last ultimate knowledge is mine! My time has come, and I am become the true Faustus!

Mephisto: Good enough for me.

With that he snaps his fingers and a horde of misshapen demons erupt from the corners of the room. They seize Albergus, and in an explosion of light and smoke, drag him off to Hell. As the air clears the last stroke of midnight dies away. In the next room, the clock moves for the first time in the play. It stretches, shakes its aching legs and arms, gives a little hop of exhilaration.

Clock exits. In the bedroom, Wagner finds he is embracing empty air. He stumbles to the closet, but it is empty.

Wagner: Helen?

Following the smell of smoke, he enters the study. Faustus and Dicolini are seated around a bonfire smoking cigars. Robin, using Mephistopheles’s pitchfork, is shoveling books into the fire.

Dicolini: Atsa good smoke.

Wagner: Where is she?

Faustus gestures at Wagner’s drooping trousers.

Faustus: Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight.

He pulls the sweaty contract off Wagner’s chest and adds it to the fire.

Wagner: What have you done with her?

Dicolini: She was one helluva wrestler, eh, partner?

Robin leans on his pitchfork and gives a long, low whistle.

Wagner: But it’s not fair! We were only getting to know each other!

Faustus: My boy, she was a scarlet woman and you’re nothing but a green student. She would have made you blue someday.

Dicolini: If you didn’t turn yellow first.

Faustus (offering a hot dog): Meanwhile, how about a little roast scholar?

Dicolini: Atsa no roast, atsa friar.

Wagner stumbles from the room. Lights go down.

Lights come up on the Boar’s Bollocks, where Wagner, moping, is seated at a table telling his story to the barmaid. At the next table a man sits with his back to the audience.

Wagner:… and when I came to, she was gone! Did my master Faustus care? Did Dicolini and Robin, my closest friends, care?

Barmaid: I care.

Wagner: The story of mankind is a sad story. The saddest story I know.

Barmaid: Poor Wagner! Were you hurt?

Wagner: Emotional loss means nothing to the true intellectual.

Barmaid (touching his chest): Let me help you.

Wagner: The world is a cold place.

Barmaid: But you told me you were hot.

Wagner (standing, beginning to orate): And I’ve learned much from all this. The beginning of wisdom is mine. I’ve learned that despite the centuries that have passed since the beginning of time, despite the wars, heresies and degradations, the corruptions of institutions and loss of faith, the ages of bad behavior, one thing remains. People are, for better or worse, still human. That has not changed. Good and evil co-exist. Some souls are saved, others are lost. The appetites of the body and the mind conflict. Men aspire to the stars, women abandon them, scholars seek knowledge, students…