Читать книгу Five European Plays - Tom Stoppard - Страница 14
ACT ONE
ОглавлениеZangler’s shop.
In which customers are served with great panache by WEINBERL and CHRISTOPHER. MARIE is the cashier in a gilded cage. Old-fashioned spring-loaded canisters travel on wires between the cage and the counters. A chute delivers a large sack of flour from up above to a position behind Weinberl’s counter. There is a trap door to a cellar. SONDERS, incognito, is among the customers.
A town clock chimes the hour. Customers are being ushered out by Christopher. Sonders remains. Shop closing for lunch.
Zangler’s room can occupy the stage with the shop, the action moving between the two.
ZANGLER and GERTRUD. Zangler is usually worked up, as now. Gertrud never is.
ZANGLER My tailor has let me down again.
GERTRUD Yes, I can see.
ZANGLER No, you damned well can’t. I’m referring to my new uniform which hasn’t arrived yet, and today is the grand annual parade with the massed bands of the Sporting and Benevolent Societies of the Grocers’ Company. It’s enough to make one burst a bratwurst. I’ll feel such a fool … There I’ll be, president-elect and honorary whipper-in of the Friends of the Opera Fur and Feather Club, three times winner of the Johann Strauss Memorial Shield for duck-shooting, and I’ll have to appear before the public in my old uniform. Perhaps I’d better not go out at all. That fortune-hunter Sonders is after my ward.
GERTRUD My word.
ZANGLER My ward! I won’t rest easy until Marie is safely out of his reach. Now, don’t forget, Marie’s luggage is to be sent ahead to my sister-in-law’s, Miss Blumenblatt at twenty-three Carlstrasse.
GERTRUD Miss Blumenblatt’s.
ZANGLER What is the address?
GERTRUD Twenty-three Carlstrasse.
ZANGLER What is it?
GERTRUD Twenty-three Carlstrasse.
ZANGLER Very well. Marie can stay with her until Sonders finds some other innocent girl to pursue, and furthermore it will stop the little slut from chasing after him. I’m damned sure they’re sending messages to each other but I can’t work out how they’re doing it.
Zing! In the shop—now closed—a cash-canister zings along the wire to Marie in her gilded cage.
Zangler’s shop.
The shop is closed. Weinberl and Christopher are absent. Sonders, half hidden, has sent the canister. Zangler is on to him.
ZANGLER Sonders!
MARIE Uncle!
SONDERS Herr Zangler!
ZANGLER Unhand my foot, sir!
SONDERS I love your niece!
ZANGLER (outraged) My knees, sir? (mollified) Oh, my niece. (outraged) Well, my niece and I are not to be prised apart so easily, and nor are hers, I hope I make my meaning clear?
SONDERS Marie must be mine!
ZANGLER Never! She is a star out of thy firmament, Sonders! I am a Zangler, provision merchant to the beau-monde, top board for the Cheesemongers and number three in the Small Bore Club.
SONDERS Only three?
ZANGLER Do you suppose I’d let my airedale be hounded up hill and—my heiress be mounted up hill and bank by a truffle-hound—be trifled with and hounded by a mountebank?! Not for all the tea in China! Well, I might for all the tea in China, or the rice—no, that’s ridiculous—the preserved ginger then—no, let’s say half the tea, the ginger, a shipment of shark-fin soup double-discounted just to take it off your hands—
SONDERS All you think about is money!
ZANGLER All I think about is money! As far as I’m concerned any man who interferes with my Marie might as well have his hand in my till!
SONDERS I make no secret of the fact that I am not the éminence grise of Oriental trade, but I have expectations, and no outstanding debts.
A man, a FOREIGNER, visible in the street, starts knocking on the shop door. Marie has emerged from her cage and goes to deal with it.
FOREIGNER Grus Grott! (He enters and shakes hands all round.)
ZANGLER We’re closed for lunch. What expectations?
FOREIGNER Enshuldigen!
ZANGLER Closed!
FOREIGNER Mein heren! Ich nicht ein customer …
ZANGLER What did he say?
MARIE I don’t know, Uncle, I think he’s a foreigner.
FOREIGNER Gut morgen—geshstattensie—bitte shorn—danke shorn …
ZANGLER We’re closed! Open two o’clock!
FOREIGNER Ich comen looken finden Herr Sonders.
ZANGLER Here! Sonders!
FOREIGNER Herr Sonders?
ZANGLER No, there Sonders.
FOREIGNER Herr Sonders? Ich haben ein document.
ZANGLER He’s a creditor!
FOREIGNER Herr Sonders!
ZANGLER No debts, eh?
FOREIGNER Ja—dett!—
SONDERS Nein, nein—I’m busy. Comen backen in the morgen.
Sonders ushers the foreigner out of the shop. The foreigner is in fact a legal messenger who has come from Belgium to announce the death of Sonders’s rich aunt. He succeeds in this endeavour at the end of the play.
ZANGLER I thought you said you had no debts!
SONDERS No outstanding debts—run-of-the-mill debts I may have. I probably overlooked my hatter, who is a bit short. But as for my expectations, Herr Zangler, I have the honour to inform you that I have a rich aunt in Brussels.
ZANGLER A rich aunt in Brussels! I reel, I totter, I am routed from the field! A rich aunt in Brussels—I’m standing here with my buttons undone and he has a rich aunt in Brussels.
SONDERS She’s going to leave me all her money.
ZANGLER When is that?
SONDERS When she’s dead, of course.
ZANGLER Listen, I know Brussels. Your auntie will be sitting up in bed in a lace cap when Belgium produces a composer.
SONDERS I hope so because while she lives I know she’ll make me a liberal allowance.
ZANGLER A liberal allowance!? How much is that in Brussels? I’m afraid I never do business on the basis of grandiloquent coinage, and in the lexicon of the false prospectus ‘a liberal allowance’ is the alpha and oh my God, how many times do I have to tell you?—I will not allow my ward to go off and marry abroad.
SONDERS Then I’ll stay here and marry her, if that’s your wont.
ZANGLER And meanwhile in Brussels your inheritance will be eaten to the bone by codicils letting my wont wait upon her will like the poor cat with the haddock.
SONDERS The what?
ZANGLER Look to the aunt! Don’t waste your time mooning and skulking around my emporium—I’m sending Marie away to a secret address where you will never find her, search how you will. (to Gertrud who has entered with Zangler’s old uniform) What is it?!
GERTRUD Twenty-three Carlstrasse, Miss Blumenblatt’s.
SONDERS Twenty-three Carlstrasse …! Miss Blumenblatt’s!
ZANGLER (spluttering) You old—you stupid—
GERTRUD Should I let Marie have the new travelling case?
ZANGLER —old baggage!
GERTRUD Not the new travelling case …
SONDERS (leaving) My humble respects …
GERTRUD Here is your old uniform. And the new servant has arrived.
SONDERS Your servant, ma’am!
GERTRUD His.
Sonders goes.
ZANGLER You prattling old fool, who asked you to open your big mouth?
GERTRUD You’re upset. I can tell.
ZANGLER Where is Marie?
GERTRUD She’s upstairs trying on her Scottish travelling outfit you got her cheap from your fancy.
ZANGLER My fancy? My fiancée! A respectable widow and the Madame of ‘Madame Knorr’s Fashion House.’
GERTRUD I thought as much—so it’s a betrothal.
ZANGLER No it isn’t, damn your nerve, it’s a hat and coat shop! Now get out and send in the new servant. And don’t let Marie out of your sight. If she and Sonders exchange so much as a glance while I’m gone I’ll put you on cabbage-water till you can pass it back into the souppot without knowing the difference.
Exit Gertrud.
This place is beginning to lose its chic for me. I bestride the mercantile trade of this parish like a colossus, and run a bachelor establishment second to none as far as the eye can see, and I’m surrounded by village idiots and nincompetent poops of every stripe. It’s an uphill struggle trying to instil a little tone into this place.
There is a knock on the door.
Entrez!
There is a knock on the door.
(Furiously) Come in!
Enter MELCHIOR.
MELCHIOR Excuse me, are you the shopkeeper, my lord?
ZANGLER You do me too much honour and not enough. I am Herr Zangler, purveyor of high-class provisions.
MELCHIOR I understand you are in desperate need of a servant.
ZANGLER You understand wrong. There’s no shortage of rogues like you, only of masters like me to give them gainful employment.
MELCHIOR That’s classic. And very true. A good servant will keep for years, while masters like you are being ruined every day. How’s business by the way?—highly provisional, I trust?
ZANGLER You strike me as rather impertinent.
MELCHIOR I was just talking shop. Please disregard it as the inexperience of blushful youth, as the poet said.
ZANGLER Do you have a reference?
MELCHIOR No, I just read it somewhere.
ZANGLER Have you got a testimonial?
MELCHIOR (producing a tattered paper) I have, sir. And it’s a classic, if I say so myself.
ZANGLER Do you have any experience in the field of mixed merchandise?
MELCHIOR Definitely, I’m always mixing it.
ZANGLER Well, I must say, I have never seen a testimonial like it.
MELCHIOR It’s just a bit creased, that’s all.
ZANGLER ‘Honest, industrious, enterprising, intelligent, responsible, cheerful, imaginative, witty, well-spoken, modest, in a word classic …’
MELCHIOR When do you want me to start?
ZANGLER Just a moment, aren’t you forgetting the interview?
MELCHIOR So I am—how much are you paying?
ZANGLER Six guilders a week, including laundry.
MELCHIOR I don’t do laundry.
ZANGLER I mean the housekeeper will wash your shirts.
MELCHIOR That’s classic. I like to be clean.
ZANGLER And board, of course.
MELCHIOR Clean and bored.
ZANGLER And lodging.
MELCHIOR Clean and bored and lodging—
ZANGLER All included.
MELCHIOR Ah, board and lodging. How about sharing a bed?
ZANGLER I won’t countenance immorality.
MELCHIOR Own bed. As for the board, at my last place it was groaning fit to bust, the neighbours used to bang on the walls.
ZANGLER I assure you, no one goes hungry here: soup, beef, pudding, all the trimmings.
MELCHIOR Classic. I always have coffee with my breakfast.
ZANGLER It has never been the custom here for the servant to have coffee.
MELCHIOR You wouldn’t like me to drink liquor from the stock.
ZANGLER Certainly not.
MELCHIOR I should prefer to avoid the temptation.
ZANGLER I’m glad to hear it.
MELCHIOR Agreed, then.
ZANGLER What? Well, if you do a good job … coffee then.
MELCHIOR From the pot?
ZANGLER Ad liberandum.
MELCHIOR Is that yes or no?
ZANGLER Yes.
MELCHIOR Sounds classic. Was there anything else you wanted to ask me?
ZANGLER No … I don’t think so.
MELCHIOR Well, that seems satisfactory. You won’t regret this, sir—I have always parted with my employers on the best of terms.
ZANGLER You have never been sacked?
MELCHIOR Technically, yes, but only after I have let it be known by subtle neglect of my duties that the job has run its course.
ZANGLER That’s very considerate.
MELCHIOR I don’t like to cause offence by giving notice—in a servant it looks presumptuous.
ZANGLER That shows modesty.
MELCHIOR Your humble servant, sir.
ZANGLER Yes, all right.
MELCHIOR Classic!
ZANGLER Only you’ll have to stop using that word. It’s stupid.
MELCHIOR There’s nothing stupid about the word. It’s just the way some people use it without discrimination.
ZANGLER Do they?
MELCHIOR Oh yes. It’s absolutely classic. What are my duties?
ZANGLER Your duties are the duties of a servant. To begin with you can make my old uniform look like new—and if that tailor shows his face tell him to go to hell.
Enter tailor, HUPFER. Hupfer brings with him Zangler’s new uniform on a tailor’s dummy. The complete rig-out includes a ridiculous hat with feathers etc., polished riding boots with monstrous shining and very audible spurs, and the uniform itself which is top heavy with gold buttons and braid etc. Leather strapping supports holsters for knife, gun, sword … The general effect is sporting and musical. The new uniform is brighter than the old, which is bright. The tailor is only responsible for the clothes. The rest of the stuff is already in the room.
HUPFER Here we are—the masterpiece is ready.
ZANGLER You managed it, my dear Hupfer! In the nick of time.
MELCHIOR Go to hell.
ZANGLER Shut up!
MELCHIOR (to the dummy) Shut up!
HUPFER Well, with the help of two journeyman tailors I have done the impossible—let me help you into it.
MELCHIOR Too small.
HUPFER (reacts to Melchior) I see you have a new servant, Herr Zangler.
ZANGLER (cheerfully) Oh yes. I woke up this morning feeling like a new man. So I got one.
HUPFER Trousers.
MELCHIOR Too tight.
HUPFER (wary distaste) He’s a personal servant, is he?
ZANGLER Yes, he is a bit, but I like to give youth a chance and then I like to kick it down the stairs if it doesn’t watch its lip.
MELCHIOR I worked for a tailor once. I cooked his goose for him.
HUPFER There we are.
MELCHIOR Everything went well until I got confused and goosed his cook.
ZANGLER Pay attention. You may learn something.
MELCHIOR After that he got a valet stand.
ZANGLER You’ll see how a trouser should fit … except it’s a bit tight isn’t it?
It is more than a bit tight.
HUPFER Snug.
ZANGLER Snug? I’d be in trouble if I knelt down. I’m thinking of my nuptials.
HUPFER It’s the pressing.
ZANGLER Exactly. I don’t want them pressed.
HUPFER Try the tunic.
ZANGLER I like the frogging.
HUPFER Can we please keep our minds on the tunic. Now let me help you.
ZANGLER It’s somewhat constricted, surely.
HUPFER That’s the style.
ZANGLER But it’s cutting me under the arms, the buttons will fly off when I sit down, and I can’t breathe.
HUPFER It’s a uniform, it is not supposed to be a nightshirt.
ZANGLER I don’t understand it. You took my measurements.
MELCHIOR Well that explains it. If God had been a tailor there’d be two and a half feet to the yard and the world would look like a three-cornered hat …
ZANGLER And it’s a day late.
MELCHIOR And it would have been a day late. We’d all be on an eight-day week.
ZANGLER Shut up.
MELCHIOR (to the dummy) Shut up.
ZANGLER I suppose it will have to do, at a pinch. How do I look?
MELCHIOR I’d rather not say.
ZANGLER I order you—how do I look?
MELCHIOR Classic.
ZANGLER Shut up!
MELCHIOR (to Hupfer) Shut up!
HUPFER You dare to let your servant speak to me like that?
MELCHIOR In the livery of the Zanglers I am no man’s minion.
ZANGLER That’s well said. What’s your name?
MELCHIOR Melchior.
ZANGLER Melchior, throw this man out.
HUPFER Don’t touch me! You, sir, received your measurements from nature. The tailor’s art is to interpret them to your best advantage, and move the buttons later. My humble respects. I will leave my bill.
MELCHIOR (thrusting the dummy at Hupfer) Oh no you won’t—you’ll take him with you!
Exit Hupfer with dummy.
What should I do next?
ZANGLER There’s a coach leaving for town in five minutes. I want you to be on it.
MELCHIOR It’s been a pleasure. I usually get a week’s money.
ZANGLER No, no, my dear fellow, I want you to go to Vienna and engage a private room at the Black and White Chop House. Order a good dinner for two and wait for me there.
MELCHIOR Dinner for two, wait for you there.
ZANGLER Tell them it’s a celebration—foaming tankards—cold meats—pickles—potato salad—plum dumplings …
MELCHIOR You’ll spoil me,
ZANGLER It’s not for you. I’m entertaining my fiancée to a birthday dinner.
MELCHIOR A previous engagement? My congratulations, Herr Zangler.
ZANGLER Thank you. She’s the Madame of Madame Knorr’s Fashion House. You may know it.
MELCHIOR No, but I think I know the piano player.
ZANGLER It’s a hat shop in Annagasse. Of course she’s a millineress in her own right.
MELCHIOR Enough said. And the shop on top.
ZANGLER No, she’s on top of the shop. What are you talking about?
MELCHIOR I don’t know.
ZANGLER I’m going to take her to dinner and name the day. You can expect me after the parade.
MELCHIOR Are we travelling together?
ZANGLER No, I can’t be in a hurry, I’m having trouble with my niece.
MELCHIOR It’s the uniform.
ZANGLER No, it’s the Casanova incarnate. Marie is very vulnerable. If she so much as sets foot outside the door she’s going to catch it from me.
MELCHIOR How long have you had it?
ZANGLER No. I mean the Don Juan.
MELCHIOR Has he had it?
ZANGLER I don’t think so. She’s in her room trying on her Scottish get-up.
MELCHIOR I’ll work it out later.
ZANGLER After all I am her uncle.
MELCHIOR I’ve worked it out.
ZANGLER I sent him packing with a flea in his ointment.
MELCHIOR I think I saw him leave.
ZANGLER Now here’s some money to catch the coach.
MELCHIOR Can’t I meet the rest of your staff?
ZANGLER There isn’t time. Do you understand my requirements?
MELCHIOR Perfectly.
ZANGLER Repeat them.
MELCHIOR Catch the coach—go straight to the Imperial Gardens Café—private dinner for two, champagne on ice …
ZANGLER No—no—no—the Black and White Chop House!
MELCHIOR Sir, I beg you to consider. Madame Knorr is a woman of the world, sophisticated, dressed to the nines with a hat to knock your eye out and an eye to knock your hat off. You want to wine her, dine her and name the day. Now does that suggest to you a foaming tankard and a plate of cold cuts in the old Black and White?
ZANGLER (slightly puzzled) Yes it does. What are you getting at?
MELCHIOR Madame Knorr is not just another hausfrau. Fashion is her middle name.
ZANGLER More or less. Knorr Fashion House. I think I see what you mean … The Imperial Gardens Café is a fashionable place, is it?
MELCHIOR It’s the only place for the quality at the moment.
ZANGLER The quality … Are you sure it is quite refined?
MELCHIOR Refined?! The ploughman’s lunch is six oysters and a créme de menthe frappé.
ZANGLER I see … well, perhaps just this once.
MELCHIOR Leave it to me, sir—champagne—lobster—roast fowl—birthday cake—
ZANGLER Pickles—dumplings—
MELCHIOR And to finish off, to get her in the mood—
ZANGLER Perhaps we should have—
MELCHIOR AND ZANGLER (together) A nice bottle of the hard stuff.
MELCHIOR (leaving) Schnapps!
Coach horn. Zangler now puts on the rest of his outfit, boots, hat, etc.
ZANGLER Well, that seems all right. Just the ticket. First class. Why do I have a sense of impending disaster? (He reflects.) Sonders is after my niece and has discovered the secret address where I am sending her to the safe keeping of my sister-in-law Miss Blumenblatt, who has never laid eyes on him, or, for that matter, on Marie either since she was a baby—while I have to leave my business in the charge of my assistant and an apprentice, and follow my new servant, whom I haven’t had time to introduce to anyone, to town to join the parade and take my fiancée to dinner in a fashionable restaurant in a uniform I can’t sit down in.
One false move and we could have a farce on our hands.
He exits.
Zangler’s shop.
The shop is closed for lunch. Weinberl occupies it like a gentleman of leisure. He is writing a letter at the counter. He has a cigar and a glass of wine. Christopher is at the door leading to the rest of the house. He is holding a broom, the Cinderella-type of broom, not a yard broom.
CHRISTOPHER He’s gone.
He joins Weinberl and is offered a glass. There is also a jar of rollmops to hand.
Ah, thank you, Mr Weinberl.
Weinberl continues to write. At Christopher’s position on the counter there is a stack of torn pages from newspapers used here for wrapping purposes. Christopher leans on the stack, reading the top page.
Aha, I thought so … cocoa is up six points.
WEINBERL (without looking up) When was that?
CHRISTOPHER (examining the top of the page) Week before last.
Weinberl signs his letter and blots it.
WEINBERL Does it ever occur to you, Christopher, that we’re the backbone of this country?
CHRISTOPHER You and me, Mr Weinberl?
WEINBERL The merchant class.
CHRISTOPHER Ah yes.
WEINBERL The backbone of the country. The very vertebrae of continental stability. From coccyx to clavicle—from the Carpathians to … where you will …
CHRISTOPHER The toe-nails …
WEINBERL … the Tyrol, from Austro to breakfast, and Hungaria to lights out, the merchant class is the backbone of the empire on which the sun shines out of our doings; do you ever say that to yourself?
CHRISTOPHER Not in so many words, Mr Weinberl.
WEINBERL (pulling Christopher’s forelock) Well you should. What is it after all that distinguishes man from beast?
CHRISTOPHER Not a lot, Mr Weinberl.
WEINBERL Trade.
CHRISTOPHER I was thinking that.
WEINBERL What would we be without trade?
CHRISTOPHER Closed, Mr Weinberl.
WEINBERL That’s it. The shutters would go up on civilization as we know it. It’s the merchant class that holds everything together. Uniting the deep-sea fisherman and the village maiden over a pickled herring on a mahogany counter …
CHRISTOPHER You’ve put me right off me rollmop. (He has been eating one.)
WEINBERL … uniting the hovels of Havana and the House of Hanover over a box of hand-rolled cigars, and the matchgirl and the church warden in the fall of a lucifer. The pearl fisher and the courtesan are joined at the neck by the merchant class. We are the brokers between invention and necessity, balancing supply and demand on the knife edge of profit and loss. I give you—the merchant class!
CHRISTOPHER The merchant class!
They toast.
WEINBERL We know good times and we know bad. Sometimes trade stumbles on its march. The great machine seems to hesitate, the whirling cogwheels and reciprocating pistons disengage, an unearthly silence descends upon the mercantile world … We sit here idly twisting paper into cones, flicking a duster over piles of preserved figs and pyramids of uncertain dates, swatting flies like wanton gods off the north face of the Emmental, and gazing into the street.
And then suddenly with a great roar the engine bursts into life, and the teeming world of commerce is upon us! Someone wants a pound of coffee, someone else an ounce of capers, he wants smoked eel, she wants lemons, a skivvy wants rosewater, a fat lady wants butter, but a skinny one wants whalebones, the curate comes for a candy stick, the bailiff roars for a bottle of brandy, and there’s a Gadarene rush on the pigs’ trotters. At such times the merchant class stands alone, ordering the tumult of desire into the ledgerly rhythm of exchange with a composure as implacable as a cottage loaf. Tongue.
During the speech Weinberl has folded his letter and put it in an envelope. Christopher sticks out his tongue and Weinberl dabs a postage stamp on the tongue and slaps it on the envelope. He seals the envelope with satisfaction.
CHRISTOPHER How is your romance, Herr Weinberl?
WEINBERL As well as can be expected of a relationship based on pseudonymous correspondence between two post office boxes. One has to proceed cautiously with lonely hearts advertisements. There is a great deal of self-delusion among these women—although I must admit I am becoming very taken with the one who signs herself Elegant And Under Forty. I am thinking of coming out from behind my own nom de plume of Scaramouche. The trouble is, I rather think I have given her the impression that I am more or less the owner of this place, not to mention others like it …
CHRISTOPHER At least you’re not a dogsbody like me.
WEINBERL Dogsbody? You’re an apprentice. You’ve had a valuable training during your five years under me.
CHRISTOPHER You see things differently from the dizzy heights of chief sales assistant.
WEINBERL Christopher, Christopher, have a pretzel … The dignity of labour embraces servant and master, for every master is a servant too, answerable to the voice of a higher authority.
ZANGLER (outside) Weinberl!
Without seeming to hurry Weinberl instantly puts things to order.
WEINBERL I thought you said he’d gone.
CHRISTOPHER He must have changed his mind.
Zangler enters from the house.
ZANGLER Ah, there you are. Is it time to open the shop?
WEINBERL Not quite, Chief. I was just getting everything straight.
ZANGLER What about this pretzel?
WEINBERL The pretzel defeated me completely. (to Christopher) Put it back. Are you going to the parade, Herr Zangler?
ZANGLER No, I’m going beagling. What do you think?
WEINBERL I think you’re making fun of me, Chief.
ZANGLER How does it look?
WEINBERL (tactfully) Snug.
ZANGLER Do you think it should be let out?
WEINBERL Not till after dark.
ZANGLER What?
WEINBERL No.
ZANGLER Are you sure?
WEINBERL I like it, Chief.
CHRISTOPHER I like it.
ZANGLER I can’t deny it’s smart. Did you notice the spurs?
The spurs announce themselves every time Zangler moves.
WEINBERL The spurs? Oh yes …
CHRISTOPHER I noticed them.
ZANGLER I’m rather pleased with the effect. I feel like the cake of the week.
WEINBERL That’s very well put, Chief.
ZANGLER I don’t mean the cake of the week—
WEINBERL Not the cake of the week—the Sheikh of Kuwait—
ZANGLER No—
CHRISTOPHER The clerk of the works—
ZANGLER No!
WEINBERL The cock of the walk?
ZANGLER That’s the boy. I feel like the cock of the walk.
WEINBERL You’ll be the pride of the Sporting and Benevolent Musical Fusiliers of the Grocers’ Company, and what wonderful work they do for the widows and orphans.
ZANGLER I was just setting off when I suddenly had doubts.
WEINBERL I assure you, without people like the grocers there’d be no widows and orphans at all.
ZANGLER No, I mean I had doubts about leaving.
WEINBERL I don’t understand you, Chief.
ZANGLER My niece and ward is preying on my mind. There’s something not quite right there.
CHRISTOPHER My niece and ward are preying on my mind—?
ZANGLER (ignoring him) Something not quite the ticket. Sonders is a dyed-in-the-wool Don Juan. He’s turned Marie’s head and for all I know she’s already lost it.
WEINBERL Well, she didn’t lose it in shop-hours.
ZANGLER I’m going to frustrate him.
WEINBERL Frustration is too good for him, Chief.
ZANGLER I’m sending Marie away for a few days. You’ll have to manage the while the till … No—
WEINBERL To while the time …
ZANGLER No!
WEINBERL The till the while?
ZANGLER That’s the boy. You’ll have to manage the till the while, and do the books at the close of business. I suppose you’re prepared to do that?
WEINBERL Very well prepared if I may say so, Herr Zangler.
ZANGLER There will be other changes. Prepare yourself for a surprise. I have always prided myself on being a good master who has made every reasonable provision for his staff.
WEINBERL You have, Chief.
ZANGLER Well, what would you say to having a mistress?
CHRISTOPHER One each or sharing?
WEINBERL Congratulations, Chief! We wish you and your bride every happiness.
ZANGLER Thank you, thank you.
WEINBERL May one ask who is the fortunate young lady?
ZANGLER Actually she’s a widow, in business like me. Well not actually like me, far from it, it’s a haute couture house catering exclusively to the beau monde with three girls working upstairs. What do you say to that?
WEINBERL Well, there’s not a lot you can say, Chief.
ZANGLER What the devil is the matter with everybody! That’s another thing that was worrying me—leaving the place in charge of you two. I need someone with a proper sense of responsibility, not a log-rolling counter-clerk and a cackhanded apprentice.
WEINBERL I’m mortified.
CHRISTOPHER I’m articled.
WEINBERL Who have you got in mind, Chief?
ZANGLER Well, you two of course!
WEINBERL I mean to put in charge with a sense of responsibility?
ZANGLER What would you do in my shoes?
WEINBERL Jingle.
ZANGLER What?
WEINBERL Jingle make any difference just for one afternoon, Chief?
ZANGLER It may be longer. The duration of my absence will depend on how things go at a certain engagement I have this evening. Meanwhile desperate situations call for desperate measures. Master Christopher! Approach!
CHRISTOPHER He called me Master. Is it the sack?
ZANGLER I’ve been paying for your clothes all these years, as you know.
CHRISTOPHER No, I thought you bought them outright when you took me on.
WEINBERL Shut up.
ZANGLER By rights you owe me another six months’ apprenticeship, but to celebrate my nuptials I have decided to forgo those months. I am appointing you chief sales assistant.
WEINBERL Such an honour is granted to such a few. Show your gratitude, then. He’s stunned, Chief.
CHRISTOPHER Chief sales assistant! Oh, Herr Zangler, your bountifulness!
ZANGLER You may call me Chief. Stop snivelling—where’s your—
CHRISTOPHER Thank you, Chief!
ZANGLER Thank-you-Chief—no—
WEINBERL (worried) Hang on, Chief—
ZANGLER Hang-on-Chief—no!—
CHRISTOPHER Will I have my ceremony, Chief? I’ve got to have my—
ZANGLER What?
CHRISTOPHER Initiation, Chief!
ZANGLER Bless you. And we must have the ceremony. Raise your right trouser and repeat after me … I swear.
CHRISTOPHER I swear …
ZANGLER Weinberl, do you remember how it goes?
WEINBERL To strive and to abide.
CHRISTOPHER To strive and to abide.
WEINBERL No—I swear by the sacred apron of the Grand Victualler—no—it’s been a long time …
CHRISTOPHER (rapidly) I swear by the sacred apron of the Imperial Grand Grocer and by the grocery chain of his office, to strive for his victualler in freehold, to abide by his argument which flows from his premises, to honour his custom, keep up his stock, give credit to few, be credit to all, and not be found wanting when weighed in the scales, so help me God!
ZANGLER You may jump the counter.
Christopher jumps.
That’s that. I will inform you of changes in your duties should any occur to me—except of course that you have to buy your own clothes.
CHRISTOPHER Thank you, Chief!
ZANGLER And remember, always give people their change between finger and thumb. Nothing lets down the tone of a place so much as change from the fist.
CHRISTOPHER Right, Chief.
WEINBERL Excuse me, Chief. Am I your chief sales assistant or am I not?
ZANGLER You are not. I have decided to make you my partner. To take effect from the day of my marriage.
WEINBERL (stunned) Me? Your partner?
ZANGLER Yes. As a married man who has come into possession of a couture establishment I will be spending more time away from here. It’s only right that you should have an interest in the prosperity of the business, and probably cheaper.
WEINBERL Partner …
ZANGLER Yes, yes, as soon as my bride has consummated my expansion into her turnover you will be my partner. If you strive and abide you may find yourself in my old uniform. Now—what shall I do? Shall I go or what?
WEINBERL What …?
ZANGLER No, I’ll go.
CHRISTOPHER Good luck, Chief!
ZANGLER I’m going to join the parade and call on my fiancée—It’s her birthday. I’m hoping to have a little sextet outside her hat shop before I take her to dinner.
CHRISTOPHER Outside? In the street?
ZANGLER Yes. I can’t help it. I’m a fool to myself when I’m in love. If I’m not back by morning you’ll know where I’ll be.
CHRISTOPHER In jail?
ZANGLER In the milliner’s arms.
CHRISTOPHER Have one for me, Chief!
ZANGLER What?—No. I will go and plait my truss—no—
CHRISTOPHER Plight your—
ZANGLER That’s the boy! (He goes.)
WEINBERL (in a daze) Partner … partner … I’m a partner. One moment a put-upon counter-clerk, the next a pillar of the continental trading community.
CHRISTOPHER Chief sales assistant … I’ve always been at the bottom of the ladder and now … (A thought strikes him.) Who’s going to be under me, then?
WEINBERL Book-keeper—that was the Himalaya of my aspirations, but from the vantage point of partnership I look tolerantly down upon the book-keeper’s place as if from a throne of clouds.
CHRISTOPHER He’s a partner and I’m the entire staff. I’ll have two masters instead of one, three counting the widow, and the weight of my authority will be felt by the housekeeper’s cat.
WEINBERL And yet—strangely enough—now, now of all times, when fortune has smiled upon me like a lunatic upon a worm in an apple, I feel a sense of … (Pause.) grief.
CHRISTOPHER That cat is going to wish it had never been born.
WEINBERL What is happening to me? I feel a loosening of obscure restraints … Desires stir in my breast like shifting crates on a badly loaded barrow.
CHRISTOPHER (breaks out) Oh, Mother, what is the wherefore of it all?!—Whither the striving and how the abiding for a poor boy in the grocery trade? I’m glad she’s dead and doesn’t see me chained to this counter like a dog to a kennel, knowing nothing of the world except what happens to get wrapped around the next pound of groceries. Seeing the sunrise only from an attic window, and the sunset reflected in a row of spice jars, agog at travellers’ tales of paved streets! Oh, Mr Weinberl, I have come into my kingdom and I see that it is the locked room from which you celebrate your escape! And if I have to wait until I am as old as you, that’s longer than I’ve been alive!
WEINBERL (soberly) Beyond the door is another room. The servant is the slave of his master and the master is the slave of his business.
CHRISTOPHER (regarding Zangler’s old uniform left in the room) Try it on.
WEINBERL What?
CHRISTOPHER Try it on.
WEINBERL No—
CHRISTOPHER Go on!
WEINBERL Gertrud might come in—I mustn’t!
CHRISTOPHER All right.
WEINBERL I daren’t!
CHRISTOPHER All right.
WEINBERL Dare I? (He starts to don the uniform.) If only I could look back on a day when I was fancy free, a real razzle of a day packed with adventure and high jinks, a day to remember when I am a grand-grocer jingling through Vienna in my boots and spurs and the livery of the Grocers’ Company or passing the grog and spinning the yarn with the merchant princes of the retail trade, when I could say, ‘Oh, I was a gay dog in my day, a real rapscallion—why, I remember once …’ but I have nothing to remember. (desperately) I’ve got to acquire a past before it’s too late!
CHRISTOPHER Can I come with you, Mr Weinberl?
WEINBERL Come with me where?
CHRISTOPHER I want it now!
WEINBERL Now?
CHRISTOPHER This very minute!
WEINBERL (appalled) What? Lock up the shop?
CHRISTOPHER It’s already locked.
WEINBERL While he’s at the parade …?
CHRISTOPHER And dinner in town. It’s only us two. Marie is confined to quarters. He’ll never know.
WEINBERL Wait … (He paces about feverishly and then embraces Christopher.) What about the books?
CHRISTOPHER We’ll cook the books!
WEINBERL Yes!—what about the cook?
CHRISTOPHER We’ll fix the cook. We’ll tell her he told us to tell her he told us he doesn’t want to open the shop.
WEINBERL What happens when she tells him we told her he told us to tell her he told us—
CHRISTOPHER The cook …
GERTRUD (offstage) Isn’t it time you opened the shop—it’s gone two o’clock.
WEINBERL She’ll do for us … Get me out of this!
Christopher pulls the uniform tunic over Weinberl’s head. Gertrud appears.
GERTRUD So you’re still in two minds, Herr Zangler?
CHRISTOPHER He is, and he’s half out of both of them. (to Weinberl loudly) It’s Gertrud, Herr Zangler … Get it?
All Weinberl’s lines are muffied and unintelligible and furious. Weinberl speaks.
WEINBERL Got it!
GERTRUD Twenty-three Carlstrasse, Miss Blumenblatt’s.
This is the wrong answer and Weinberl speaks even more furiously.
CHRISTOPHER Master says find Mr Weinberl and tell him not to open the shop this afternoon.
GERTRUD Don’t open the shop. Tell Mr Weinberl.
Weinberl again.
CHRISTOPHER Strict orders, he says, and now he would be obliged if you would be so kind as to leave him.
GERTRUD That doesn’t sound like him.
Weinberl dances about and roars. Christopher goes as though to help him into the tunic. Gertrud speaks as she leaves.
That does.
CHRISTOPHER (pulling the tunic over Weinberl’s head) She’s gone.
WEINBERL And now, best foot forward.
CHRISTOPHER I’ll get my worsted stocking.
WEINBERL Is that necessary?
CHRISTOPHER It’s got my savings in it.
WEINBERL I’ll get mine and we’ll be off.
Door slam and jingle of spurs.
ZANGLER (offstage) Gertrud!
WEINBERL God in heaven he’s back again!
Christopher picks up Weinberl’s discarded clothes and runs off towards the shop. Spurs however still approach.
I can’t let him see me like this!
Before Weinberl can follow Christopher, Gertrud enters from the kitchen and Weinberl dives behind the furniture. Zangler enters at the same time.
ZANGLER (shouts) Marie! Damn and blast it, that swinehound Sonders is nowhere to be seen in the village, and he didn’t leave on the coach and Marie’s window is open! God in Himalayas!—If I keep having to come back I’ll miss the parade. I told you not to let Marie out of your sight.
GERTRUD You told me to find Weinberl and tell him—
ZANGLER Don’t tell me what I told you—search her room. If she’s got out of her Scottish get-up, ten to one he’s up there trying it on. I’ll keep watch in the garden if I can find a place to hide.
GERTRUD Stand in the herbaceous border.
They leave in different directions. Weinberl comes out from behind the furniture and runs into the shop, looking for his clothes.
Zangler’s shop.
Weinberl enters, calling for Christopher. But he has only just entered when the trap door in the floor starts coming up and he dives into a cupboard, or perhaps under the counter. Sonders and Marie, dressed in a voluminous, tartan, hooded cape, emerge from the cellar.
SONDERS It’s all right—it’s deserted—courage mon amour—
MARIE Oh, August—we mustn’t—it’s not proper.
SONDERS Now’s our chance—we can escape by the shop door while they’re searching round the back.
MARIE Oh, but it’s not proper.
SONDERS Don’t you love me?
MARIE You know I love you but I don’t want to run away—
SONDERS Elopement isn’t running away, it’s running towards.
MARIE It’s not proper.
SONDERS Is it proper for your guardian to behave as if he owns you?
MARIE Yes. That’s why they call it property. I think. Oh, August, you’re a terrible man, kiss me again. You made me feel all funny down there.
He embraces her, more inside her cape than out.
SONDERS Oh, Marie!
MARIE I mean in the cellar—Oh, somebody’s coming!
SONDERS Hide in here!
MARIE No, it isn’t prop—!
He dives into Weinberl’s cupboard, pulling her after him. Christopher enters from a second door with Weinberl’s clothes, calling for him and running out of the shop. The cupboard door bursts open. Marie comes out, Sonders comes out and Weinberl’s legs come out. Weinberl is lying on his front.
SONDERS Someone has been eavesdropping on us—
MARIE I thought it was a squash in there.
Sonders drags Weinberl out by his heels, or spurs. He and Marie are aghast to find that Zangler seems to be lying on the floor with his face still in the cupboard.
Sonders and Marie kneel down and bow their heads as Weinberl gets unsteadily to his feet. Weinberl gazes down on to the crowns of their heads.
MARIE Oh, my uncle!
SONDERS Oh, my God—Herr Zangler!
MARIE Don’t be angry, dear Uncle, I meant no harm.
SONDERS She’s blameless, sir, intact I swear, I mean in fact I swear she did it against her will.
MARIE I didn’t do it!
SONDERS No she didn’t—I haven’t—Oh, sir, it was love that drove us to deceive you!
They are kissing Weinberl’s hands.
MARIE Won’t you speak to me, Uncle? Your harshest words are easier to bear than the silence of your anger.
Weinberl, deeply embarrassed, disengages his hands and pats the two heads.
SONDERS What do you …?
MARIE Do you mean …?
They try to raise their heads but Weinberl firmly keeps their heads down and presses them together.
SONDERS He’s blessing our union.
Weinberl guides their faces into a lingering kiss during which he is able to retire, silently, from the room.
SONDERS Marie!
MARIE Oh, August! Oh, Uncle, you’ve made me so … Where has he gone?
SONDERS What a surprising man he is! Beneath his rough manners he is the very soul of tact.
MARIE (getting up) I always knew he was shy underneath.
SONDERS Let me kiss you again.
MARIE You can kiss me properly now!
They go into another lingering kiss, during which Zangler enters. He has a silent apoplexy. At length Sonders notices him.
SONDERS (suavely) Ah, there you are, my dear sir, we were wondering where you’d got to.
ZANGLER (strangled) Sonders! (A couple of buttons fly off his uniform.)
MARIE Oh, you must call him August now—you’re going to be such friends—isn’t he handsome?
ZANGLER I’ll kill him.
MARIE Uncle, but you just—
ZANGLER Slut!
SONDERS My dear sir, what can have happened?
ZANGLER You blackguard! You barefaced dastardly—
SONDERS He’s mad.
Gertrud enters.
GERTRUD (placidly) Oh, you’ve found them.
MARIE Oh, Uncle, you’re not yourself …
ZANGLER I’ll make you eat your words, you ungrateful little Messalina!
GERTRUD Make you eat your semolina you ungrateful little—
ZANGLER (screams) Shut up!
MARIE Oh … (She runs weeping from the room.)
SONDERS Marie!
GERTRUD She’s upset, I can tell.
Gertrud exits, following Marie.
SONDERS This is absurd—I’ll come back when you’re feeling calmer.
Zangler chases Sonders out.
ZANGLER You dare to show your nose in here again and I’ll cut off your coquette to spite your face! And furthermore I’ll disinherit her!
This takes Zangler out of the room. Weinberl, in his own clothes, and Christopher reappear. They are gleeful.
WEINBERL Christopher … Did you hear that?
CHRISTOPHER (looking down the street) He’s still running. I don’t think he’ll ever come back.
WEINBERL Oh my! I feel like a real rapscallion. We’re on the razzle at last!
They embrace.
Enter Weinberl riding horse, Christopher leading them.
WEINBERL We’ve done it! We’re on the razzle! We’re going to get a past at last!
CHRISTOPHER (disappointed) Is this what a razzle is like, Mr Weinberl?
WEINBERL No—not yet—wait till we really get into our stride. (to horse) Come on Lightning …
CHRISTOPHER How far is Vienna, Mr Weinberl?
WEINBERL It’s a long way, Christopher.
CHRISTOPHER How large is Vienna, Mr Weinberl?
WEINBERL It is very large, Christopher … Whoa, Lightning …
Weinberl gets off, and Christopher gets on the horse.
Giddy up, Lightning.
CHRISTOPHER Will there be women, Mr Weinberl?
WEINBERL Beautiful women, Christopher.
CHRISTOPHER How old are the women in Vienna, Mr Weinberl?
WEINBERL Twenty-two, Christopher.
CHRISTOPHER How does one meet them, Mr Weinberl?
WEINBERL They promenade in packs, with parasols, and gloves up to here. They consort with cosmopolitan men-of-the-world in the fashionable cafés.
CHRISTOPHER I have read that they are often kept, Mr Weinberl.
WEINBERL Kept for what, Christopher?
CHRISTOPHER That’s what always puzzled me.
WEINBERL Whoa, Lightning. Vienna, Christopher, is the place to find out … Look!
They are looking out over Vienna.
CHRISTOPHER (impressed) It’s just like you said …
WEINBERL (enchanted) It is, isn’t it?
Arriving in Vienna … gaiety and music … Christopher takes it all in wide-eyed. The dialogue is part of the set change.
CHRISTOPHER Is the city always like this, Mr Weinberl? All this gay panoply …
WEINBERL (slightly puzzled) Well … more or less …
CHRISTOPHER (enthusiastically) Bands playing—streets full of colourful costumes—it’s like a great parade …
WEINBERL (thoughtfully) Yes …
CHRISTOPHER What would old Zangler think if he saw us now?
WEINBERL Oh yes … (The penny drops.) Parade?!
CHRISTOPHER Parade!
The parade is going right by them.
WEINBERL My God, suppose Zangler happens to—There he is!—get down …
Weinberl and Christopher obviously see Zangler approaching. The parade music suddenly incorporates the massed spurs of the Grocers’ Company. Christopher dismounts and he and Weinberl exit under cover of Lightning.
Annagasse exterior—Madame Knorr’s Fashion House.
Distant parade. Christopher and Weinberl enter running. They come to a breathless halt outside the windows which flank the entrance door of the fashion house. Windows above.
CHRISTOPHER Well, we nearly had an adventure.
WEINBERL Yes that would have been our final fling if Zangler had caught sight of us.
CHRISTOPHER On the other hand we don’t want to end up flingless …
WEINBERL Dishonoured and unflung …
CHRISTOPHER You’re not downhearted, are you?
WEINBERL I don’t know. I’ve been getting a sharp stabbing pain just here.
CHRISTOPHER You’ve got the stitch.
WEINBERL I don’t think so. It only happens when I see an open grocer’s shop. It’ll be just my luck if I’ve got Weinberl’s Disease.
CHRISTOPHER It would certainly be a coincidence. Still, it sounds like the sort of thing people come to Vienna for from all over the world, so to get it while you’re here on a rare visit smacks of outrageous good fortune. I’m trying to make you look on the bright side.
WEINBERL Christopher.
CHRISTOPHER Yes, Mr Weinberl?
WEINBERL Embrace me. What happened to Lightning?
CHRISTOPHER She always turns up.
WEINBERL What will we do if she’s gone?
CHRISTOPHER We’ll bolt the stable door.
WEINBERL And keep mum.
CHRISTOPHER If only she could see me now … Well, where’s the razzle?
WEINBERL There’s plenty of time. There’s probably an adventure laying in wait for us at this very spot.
PHILIPPINE seen moving about inside, putting the lights on. The light illuminates, for the first time, the words ‘Knorr’s Fashion House.’
WEINBERL For all we know we have made an appointment with destiny.
CHRISTOPHER Nothing is going to happen to us in a pokey little cul-de-sac like this.
WEINBERL The parade must be over. Let’s go.
CHRISTOPHER We might run into the boss.
WEINBERL No, no—he’s got the whole of Vienna to choose from, there’s absolutely no reason why …
Distant footfalls and jingle of spurs approach. The little street echoes with the sound.
WEINBERL It’s Nemesis!
CHRISTOPHER Well, he’s got Zangler with him!
They run in opposite directions, then change their minds, then rush through the doorway into the shop. Their faces appear in the windows, one in each, watching the street cautiously as Zangler comes into view. (In the original production Zangler was accompanied by the ‘little sextet’ which serenaded the windows until summarily dismissed by Zangler after Melchior’s arrival.) To their consternation Zangler walks straight to the shop. The faces disappear. As Zangler turns the door handle, two voluminously swathed tartan mannequins leap into the windows, one in each. At the same moment Melchior runs in from the side while Zangler is in the doorway.
MELCHIOR Sir!—Oh what luck! The Classinova person—the whosit incarnate—the Don Juan is at the Imperial Gardens Café with a nice young lady like a ladylike young niece!
ZANGLER (emerging confused) Eh, what? What? Who’s this?
MELCHIOR Herr Zangler!
ZANGLER Your servant, sir—no, by God it’s mine. What are you doing here?
MELCHIOR I came to find you, your eminence.
ZANGLER I told you to go straight to the restaurant.
MELCHIOR I did but the Cassata incarnate has arrived and the tart!
ZANGLER But that’s just desserts. What about my dinner?
MELCHIOR The dinner is all arranged, but I’m on the trail of the Casserola and you must come immediately before it gets cold.
ZANGLER Tell them to put it in the oven. You seem to lack a sense of proportion. I am about to present myself to my fiancée in no uncertain terms, and I’m damned if I’m going to be harried and put off my stroke by the ridiculous self-importance of a jumped-up pastry-cook. Honestly, these fashionable eating houses, they think they’re doing you a favour by taking your money. I told you to wait for me.
MELCHIOR I was waiting for you, sir, and who should arrive by horsecab but the very same seducer I saw leave your home.
ZANGLER There you are, you see!—I should have remained true to the Black and White Chop House.
MELCHIOR He had a young woman with him.
ZANGLER Of course he did—it must be three or four hours since he found himself with a vacancy.
MELCHIOR She was in a Scottish get-up.
ZANGLER Vienna has been overrun with Scottish get-ups, kilts, tam-o’-shanters, Royal Stuart pencil cases and highland flingery of every stripe since the town lost its head over the Verdi Macbeth. In my opinion it’s a disgrace. Even the chocolate cake … Sachertartan! No, no, a Scottish get-up means nothing—there’s even two in the window here …
Weinberl and Christopher hastily resume rigidity. They mustn’t have a proper view of Melchior, by the way.
Damn it, are you deliberately trying to prick my bubble while I stand knocking at my fiancée’s main entrance?
MELCHIOR He called her Marie.
ZANGLER A very common name. I told Gertrud to put Marie into a locked cab and give the coachman an extra fiver if he delivered her personally into the hands of my sister-in-law, Miss Blumenblatt. What could be surer than that?
MELCHIOR A fiver? Yes, I would say that we must be talking of two different Maries.
ZANGLER Exactly. And what yours does is no concern of mine.
MELCHIOR I don’t think she’ll do much. I had a listen and all she said was ‘It’s not proper.’
ZANGLER It’s them!
MELCHIOR No, no, a tart and ward of an entirely different clan.
ZANGLER It’s them!! Quick, fetch me a half-witted cab you hansom fool!
MELCHIOR We’re off!
ZANGLER (leaving) What a situation!
MELCHIOR (following him) Classic!
Madame Knorr’s Fashion House.
Weinberl and Christopher come out of the windows into the shop. Christopher disrobes. Weinberl is late and Philippine enters. Weinberl starts sashaying round the shop in his tartan cloak, for Christopher’s benefit.
WEINBERL What do you think?
CHRISTOPHER It has a certain Scottish audacity.
WEINBERL Ah, there you are at last. Am I addressing the arbiter of this fashion house?
PHILIPPINE I’m sure I don’t know, sir. I will fetch Madame at once. But excuse me, sir, that is a lady’s cape.
WEINBERL I know. I was trying it on for a lady of my size and acquaintance.
PHILIPPINE That cape is reserved. It has a ticket on it.
WEINBERL Yes. I know. (Reads the ticket.) Frau Fischer. I have come to collect it and pay for it.
CHRISTOPHER Not exactly to pay for it.
WEINBERL No, not exactly to pay for it, but to confirm payment.
Christopher has been looking out cautiously through the windows.
CHRISTOPHER I think it is all clear now, Herr Fischer.
WEINBERL Is that clear?
PHILIPPINE I’m not sure. I’d better go and fetch Madame.
WEINBERL Excellent idea.
CHRISTOPHER Meanwhile we’ll be off.
WEINBERL -ally grateful if you would take care of this. (He hands her the cape grandly.)
PHILIPPINE Yes, sir. Did you say Herr Fischer?
WEINBERL Certainly. Would I pay—
CHRISTOPHER Confirm payment.
WEINBERL Confirm payment for somebody else’s wife? (to Christopher) Why don’t you see if our friend is anywhere in sight?
CHRISTOPHER Good idea. I’ll be back in a moment.
WEINBERL Is anything the matter?
PHILIPPINE Frau Fischer has been a widow for three years.
WEINBERL She thinks she has, yes.
PHILIPPINE She thinks she has? What about the funeral?
WEINBERL It was the funeral that put the idea into her head. That she’d always be a widow. However, three days ago she did me the honour of becoming my wife. (to Christopher who has paused in admiration on his way out) You will come back, won’t you?
Christopher goes.
PHILIPPINE I’ll fetch Madame immediately. She’s upstairs in the workroom.
WEINBERL Tell her there’s no hurry—she’s probably busy hemming and hawing.
Philippine goes but instantly returns.
PHILIPPINE But, Herr Fischer, why didn’t Frau Fischer change her name to yours instead of you changing your name to hers?
WEINBERL She did. I didn’t. My name, as it happens, is also Fischer. That’s how we met. We were placed in alphabetical order in a fire drill at the riding academy.
PHILIPPINE Oh, I see.
Philippine goes. Weinberl looks cautiously into the street. While he is so engaged, MRS FISCHER enters the shop. Weinberl bows to her and continues to look out of the window for Christopher’s return. After a few moments MADAME KNORR enters, gushing.
MME KNORR There they are!—They’re both here! And what a couple of naughty children you are!—Oh, my dear friend, why didn’t you tell me?
MRS FISCHER Are you feeling all right, my dear?
MME KNORR No, I am not feeling all right. I am feeling distinctly put out. Fancy being married for three whole days without saying a word to your oldest friend and leaving your husband to break the news.
Mrs Fischer follows Madame Knorr’s gaze towards Weinberl.
However, I forgive you …
She walks round Weinberl.
And now that I see your husband I can quite understand why you kept him hidden away.
MRS FISCHER My husband?
She examines Weinberl with interest.
And he announced our marriage himself did he?
Weinberl flinches from her gaze, particularly when she gets out her lorgnettes to scrutinize him all the better. Madame Knorr keeps gushing.
MME KNORR And none too soon. It is such an honour to meet you. I think it is so romantic—you must have swept her off her feet. Tell me, how long have you known each other?
MRS FISCHER Not long at all.
WEINBERL No, not long.
MME KNORR You must have been married with your head in a whirl!
MRS FISCHER You couldn’t say I went into it with my eyes open.
MME KNORR Of course you did, and I am sure you have not been disappointed.
MRS FISCHER Surprised more than disappointed. My husband has a very individual way of dealing with the banalities of ordinary time—I expect we’ll be engaged next week and exchange cards the week after.
MME KNORR Isn’t she priceless?
WEINBERL I expect you think I’m rather presumptuous.
MRS FISCHER No, I wouldn’t say you were presumptuous. Presumption one has encountered before.
WEINBERL Well, a little forward.
MRS FISCHER A little forward? You will meet yourself coming back.
MME KNORR But why so sudden and secret?
MRS FISCHER There was a reason. My dear husband will tell you.
MME KNORR Oh do tell.
WEINBERL My dear wife can tell you just as well as I.
MRS FISCHER But I would like you to tell her.
WEINBERL And I would like you to tell her—after all she’s your friend.
MME KNORR Oh dear, not quarrelling already!
MRS FISCHER It was a whim of my dear husband’s.
WEINBERL And at the same time a whim of my dear wife’s.
MME KNORR But it is extraordinary.
WEINBERL There is nothing extraorinary about it. When two attractive people …
MME KNORR A marriage of true minds.
MRS FISCHER Entirely.
WEINBERL Yes, indeed. Well, I must be going.
MRS FISCHER Going? What do you mean?
WEINBERL I have some business to attend to.
MRS FISCHER Aren’t you going to see me try on my new Scottish cape? After all it wouldn’t be fair if you didn’t like it.
WEINBERL Why?
MRS FISCHER (to Madame Knorr, joshingly) Why?!—isn’t he the soul of generosity? If I like something, that’s enough for him.
WEINBERL Actually, I think this tartan fad has had its fling, you know.
MRS FISCHER Had its fling!—such a sense of humour. We’ll take it.
MME KNORR (to Weinberl) Will it be cash or account?
WEINBERL Account, I think. Well, if that’s all you wanted … Delighted to have met you at last—my wife has told me so much about you.
MRS FISCHER Don’t be so impatient, my dear—I’ve had such a wonderful idea.
WEINBERL One needs a lot of patience in a marriage, I find.
MRS FISCHER I hope I’ve never given you cause for complaint.
WEINBERL Oh no.
MRS FISCHER Have I ever contradicted you on matters large or small?
WEINBERL No never—much appreciated.
MRS FISCHER Don’t I do my best to enter into your ideas against all reason?
WEINBERL You do, you do. And since you make a point of doing so I am sure you won’t mind if I now leave you with your friend and your Scottish cape and go about my business.
MRS FISCHER I would mind very much. Out of courtesy to Madame Knorr I cannot let you forget that your only business today is to take us out to a celebration supper.
MME KNORR A celebration supper! Isn’t fate extraordinary! I was hoping my fiancée would pin me down at the Black and White Chop House tonight, but, not for the first time, he preferred to stand me up.
WEINBERL Did he?
MME KNORR He did.
The next seven speeches apply only if Zangler’s sextet has put in its appearance in the street scene.
I thought I would be getting a little gold band.
WEINBERL And you didn’t?
MME KNORR I did not. It turned out to be a little brass band.
WEINBERL Did it?
MME KNORR It did.
WEINBERL Did your finger turn green?
MME KNORR I turned green. But now the evening promises to turn out just as memorable.
MRS FISCHER So you will oblige us, won’t you?
WEINBERL I would adore to but alas—
MRS FISCHER Very well!—Eugenia, my dear, I’m afraid I have to tell you—that this man—
WEINBERL Why don’t we all walk around to the Black and White Chop House and raise a foaming tankard to our happiness. And after that I really must dash.
MRS FISCHER The Black and White Chop House? I’m sure it will cause no surprise to anyone here that you would prefer to treat us to somewhere a little better than that. I can change into my new Scottish ensemble. We’ll need a cab.
MME KNORR That’s a wonderful idea! I do think your wife deserves a kiss for that.
WEINBERL Do you think so?
MME KNORR Oh, I do!
WEINBERL Well, I’m not going to deny anyone their due. Permit me.
Weinberl kisses Mrs Fischer, to her embarrassment.
MME KNORR Do you call that a kiss? You don’t have to stand on ceremony in front of me.
WEINBERL Oh very well. (He gives her a lingering kiss on the mouth.) And in case my bride has any more good ideas I’ll give her one on account.
He kisses her again. Christopher enters the shop.
CHRISTOPHER All clear.
WEINBERL Ah, there you are. I don’t think you’ve met my wife. This is my cousin from the country. I’m the kissing cousin, he’s the country cousin. My wife—my wife’s friend, Madame Knorr—my cousin—the four of us are going to have supper together at … (He looks enquiringly at Mrs Fischer.)
MRS FISCHER The Imperial Gardens Café.
WEINBERL The Imperial Gardens Café. Where else? Go and fetch a cab … (He ushers Christopher out.) He’ll be back in a few moments.
MRS FISCHER We’ll keep the cab and go on somewhere else.
WEINBERL Another good idea!
He takes her into a passionate embrace. Christopher comes out of his daze. He gives a cry of delight, throws his hat in the air and runs off down the street.
