Carl Djerassi & Dav

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

sweetheart, Catherine Bakon. Although you once said that my eyes
reminded you of hers, when she was my age.
NEWTON: (Laughing to cover his embarrassment) Of course, of
course, you re my niece, Catherine& Barton. Twilight has been playing
tricks with my eyes again, and I am... infinitely tired. You have no idea
how tired. Why are you here?
CATHERINE: I had strange misgivings so I followed you. Where is
Mr Hooke?
NEWTON: In the deepest of sleeps.
CATHERINE: Come home with me, Uncle. I ve made you some
mutton broth that will restore colour to your cheeks.
NEWTON: (In his own world) If only there were an end to thinking!
Never to be at rest. Never, ever.
CATHERINE: Let s go, Uncle, before we wake Mr Hooke.
NEWTON: There s little fear of that.
(CATHERINE takes his hand.)
CATHERINE: Your hand is very cold.
NEWTON: I have ice upon my heart, niece, that I fear will not melt in
my lifetime. Yet that is nothing to the polar night that now embraces
Robert Hooke. But in that night God willing there is a peace that
passes all understanding. Though, in truth, Robert found a kind of peace
here in that he saw& sees each and every person as an individual,
and as a light in themselves. Whereas, tragically, I see more humanity in
the mountains of the Moon than in mankind.
CATHERINE: That is a terrifying concept, Uncle, if you truly believe
it.
Newton s Hooke: Act 2, Scene 4 105
NEWTON: I do Heaven help me. But Physics should always beware
Metaphysics.
CATHERINE: Why do you talk so distractedly?
NEWTON: Forgive me. I m not myself tonight. And may never be
again.
CATHERINE: Uncle, let me take you home. I have a great fore-
boding&
NEWTON: Until just now I truly thought I had discovered a great deal.
CATHERINE: You have! Sir Christopher Wren said that your rigorous
principles of investigation have formed the foundation on which Science
can flourish in the centuries to come. So how can you sit there in your
dumps?
NEWTON: Because there is far, far more that I have not resolved.
CATHERINE: But you have determined the motions of the Sun, the
Earth, the Moon, and planets, so there is nothing you have not
discovered.
NEWTON: Yes, but that is very little when I have failed so miserably
to understand my fellow men. And all because I have been blinded by
the searing crucible of Science. But even there, although I have set out
the motions of all the celestial bodies, I have far from determined the
remaining structure of the Universe! The attraction of every Atom to
every other Atom is merely the beginning. But the structure of the Atom
- about which, as yet, we know nothing that may be the answer to
God s Cryptogram. When the Atom s structure is known, it could well
blind us with truth like& the radiance of a thousand suns. (Now standing
by the window) Look, moonrise over London.
CATHERINE: (Tugging at his hand) Uncle, for pity s sake.
NEWTON: Why is it that Nature does nothing in vain? Whence arises
all this order and beauty that we see in the Universe?
CATHERINE: God s Riches are wondrous, but we must go.
106 Newton s Darkness: Two Dramatic Views
NEWTON: In the light of the Almighty s Creation what ever I may
appear to the world to myself I seem to have been only like a boy
playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a
smoother pebble, or a prettier shell& whilst the great ocean of Truth lies
undiscovered& all before me&
(NEWTON gazes at the moon, then at the bed, and finally at his empty
hands. Then he goes out into the night. CATHERINE stares after his
hunched, retreating shadow, then she follows him out.
(The moon fills the cyclorama. Then it explodes like a thousand suns and
we are left with the polar darkness.)
THE END
S
Calculus ( Newton s Whores )
by Carl Djerassi
(Time: 1712 1731. London,
mostly in a salon and/or sitting room)
CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Colley Cibber (1671 1757), playwright, actor, theatre manager,
eventually poet laureate (1730). Literary friend of Vanbrugh, literary
enemy of Alexander Pope and John Arbuthnot. Author of Love s Last
Shift (1696) and other plays. Completed Vanbrugh s The Provok d
Husband in 1728. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Linki