The Collected Shorter Plays by Samuel Beckett

them!
[
Pause
.]
    B Looks to me we have him.
    A [
impatiently
] Come on, we’re getting nowhere, get on with it.
[
B rummages in his papers, finds the sheet
.]
    B [
reading at top speed
] “. . . morbidly sensitive to the opinion of others at the time . . .” —drivel drivel drivel— “. . . I was unfortunately incapable of retaining it for more than ten or fifteen minutes at the most, that is to say the time required to take it in. From then on it might as well never have been uttered.” [
Pause
.] Tsstss!
    A [
with satisfaction
] You see. [
Pause
.] Where does that come in?
    B In a letter presumably never posted to an anonymous admiratrix.
    A An admiratrix? He had admiratrixes?
    B It begins: “Dear friend and admiratrix . . .” That’s all we know.
    A Come, Morvan, calm yourself, letters to admiratrixes, we all know what they’re worth. No need to take everything literally.
    B [
violently, slapping down his hand on the pile of papers
] There’s the record, closed and final. That’s what we’re going on. Too late now to start saying that [
slapping to his left
] is right and that [
slapping to his right
] wrong. You’re a pain in the arse.
[
Pause
.]
    A Good. Let us sum up.
    B We do nothing else.
    A A black future, an unpardonable past—so far as he can remember, inducements to linger on all equally preposterous and the best advice dead letter. Agreed?
    B An heirless aunt preposterous?
    A [
warmly
] He’s not the interested type. [
Sternly
.] One has to consider the client’s temperament. To accumulate documents is not enough.
    B [
vexed, slapping on his papers
] Here, as far as I’m concerned the client is here and nowhere else.
    A All right. Is there a single reference there to personal gain? That old aunt, was he ever as much as commonly civil to her? And that dairy-woman, come to that, in all the years he’s been going to her for his bit of cheddar, was he ever once wanting in respect? [
Pause
.] No, Morvan, look you—
[
Feeble miaow. Pause. Second miaow, louder
.]
    B That must be the cat.
    A Sounds like it. [
Long pause
.] So, agreed? Black future, unpardonable—
    B As you wish. [
He starts to tidy back the papers in the brief case. Wearily
.] Let him jump.
    A No further exhibit?
    B Let him jump, let him jump. [
He finishes tidying, gets up with the briefcase in his hand
.] Let’s go.
[
A consults his watch
.]
    A It is now . . . ten . . . twenty-five. We have no train before eleven twenty.
Let us kill the time here, talking of this and that.
    B What do you mean, eleven twenty? Ten fifty.
[
A takes a time-table from his pocket, opens it at relevant page and hands it to B
.]
    A Where it’s marked with a cross. [
B consults the time-table, hands it back to A and sits down again. Long pause. A clears his throat. Pause. Impassionately
.] How many unfortunates would be so still today if they had known in time to what extent they were so? [
Pause
.] Remember Smith?
    B Smith? [
Pause
.] Never knew anyone of that name.
    A Yes you did! A big fat redhair. Always to be seen hanging round World’s End. Hadn’t done a hand’s turn for years. Reputed to have lost his genitals in a shooting accident. His own double-barrel that went off between his legs in a moment of abstraction, just as he was getting set to let fly at a quail.
    B Stranger to me.
    A Well to make a long story short he had his head in the oven when they came to tell him his wife had gone under an ambulance. Hell, says he, I can’t miss that, and now he has a steady job in Marks and Spencer’s. [
Pause
.] How is Mildred?
    B [
disgustedly
] Oh you know— [
Brief burst of birdsong. Pause
.] Good God!
    A Philomel!
    B Oh that put the heart across me!
    A Hsst! [
Low
.] Hark hark! [
Pause. Second brief burst, louder. Pause
.] It’s in the room! [
He gets up, moves away on tip toe
.] Come on, let’s have a look.
    B I’m scared!
[
He gets up none the less and follows cautiously in the wake of A
.
A advances on tiptoe upstage right, B tiptoes