The Doctor and the Devils

Libretto taken from the screenplay by Dylan Thomas
(Read a synopsis of the story here.)

ACT ONE

SCENE 1: A room in Rock’s House
It is an intimate, comfortable room.
A fire is blazing in the deep fire-place.
There is a table with sewing upon it.
And another small table with books.
Rock stands at the long window of the room, looking out.
Coming closer to him, we see, through the window, the roofs of the City.
It is dusk in autumn.
A woman comes in. She is young, small, fair, with a candid, tranquil face.
She is carrying a tray with biscuits and a glass of milk on it.
She stands for a moment, looking at Rock.
Then he turns.
Elizabeth puts the tray down on a table.

Rock [Gently.] Shall I tell you my news now? Or shall I kiss you first…

Elizabeth smiles calmly up at him.

Elizabeth Yes.

He kisses her.

Rock …what have you been doing all day…

Elizabeth Oh, the ordinary things.

Rock …and how is our little boy…

Elizabeth He’s asleep now. He said his prayers, and then he said there was a tiger in his bed. [She smiles.] Tell me your news now.

Rock Do you remember Doctor Manson? Stern as a judge and solid as a mountain. When I was a student, he had the bearing and the voice of a god surrounded by the angels of logic.
Now he’s old, and ill. He knows death. He can hear it growling and scratching around him now, like a dog after a bone.
He wants me to take his place. Do you know what that means? A whole School of Anatomy outside any influence but Manson’s and my own. All the work I have ever wanted to do, I can do there. Can you see me as another St. Hilaire, my dear, another Cuvier? … Another old stick-in-the-mud, maybe, with bees in his bald head… [The room is growing slowly darker.]
I said ‘Yes’ to Manson. Are you glad? [Elizabeth nods.]
[He looks out of the window, over the roofs in the gathering darkness, Elizabeth near him. He speaks almost as though to himself alone.]
What can spoil or hurt us now? Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing out there… [He makes a gesture towards the dusky City.]
My future’s here. [He raises his hands, palms upwards, then draws them back towards him, inviting Elizabeth. She moves to him, and he takes her hands.]
And some of it is in your hands. Oh, I am happy to-day, Elizabeth, happy and tired. I am tired of the dead! … [He puts his arm around her, draws her close. Together they stand at the window. His hand moves along her bare arm.]

LECTURE ONE

Rock is on the platform, lecturing.
Another younger man sits at a small table on the other side of the platform.
The amphitheater is crowded with students.
Rock, as a lecturer, shows a rare felicity of movement, now reminding us of the slow and graceful minuet, then the quiet pose or soldierly attention; and these again are succeeded by the rapid gesture. After each diversion of his subject he readjusts his spectacles, draws up his gay waist-band and then, presenting a steady front to his class, resumes his prelection.

Rock I stand before you, gentlemen, as a lecturer in Anatomy, a scientist, a specialist, a material man to whom the heart, for instance, is an elaborate physical organ and not the ‘seat of love,’ a man to whom the ‘soul,’ because it has no shape, does not exist.
But paradox is inherent in all dogma, and so I stand before you also as a man of sentiment, of spiritual aspirations, intellectually creative impulses, social convictions, moral passions. And it is in my dual capacity of scientist and sociologist, materialist and moralist, anatomist and artist, that I shall attempt to conduct my lectures, to expound, inform, illustrate, entertain, and edify.
Our aim for ever must be the pursuit of the knowledge of Man in his entirety. To study the flesh, the skin, the bones, the organs, the nerves of Man, is to equip our minds with a knowledge that will enable us to search beyond the body. This noble profession is not an end in itself. The science of Anatomy contributes to the great sum of all Knowledge, which is the whole Truth of the Life of Man. Observe precisely. Record exactly. Neglect nothing. Fear no foe. Never swerve from your purpose. Pay no heed to Safety.
For I believe that all men can be happy and that the good life can be led upon this earth.
I believe that all men must work towards that end.
And I believe that that end justifies any means…
Let no scruples stand in the way of the progress of the medical science!

Rock bows: a curt, but studied bow.
The students rise.
And Rock walks off the platform.
The other man on the platform makes a gesture of dismissal to the students, then follows Rock.
And all the students suddenly begin talking as they move down the Lecture Hall.

SCENE 2: Classroom

It is a bare, dark room. A few pegs on the wall¬–Rock’s cloak and top-hat hang from one–and a table with a water jug and a basin on it.
Rock rolls up his sleeves, very circumspectly, as his companion pours water into the basin.

Murray They’re here, Doctor Rock.

Rock Indeed, Mr. Murray? Who or what are ‘they,’ and where is ‘here?’

Murray The specimens for the Anatomical Museum, sir, are in the Museum.

Rock How fortunate they are not in the gentlemen’s cloak-room. I should hate skeletons in all my cupboards.

We hear, from outside, the noise of the students.

[With a nod towards the noise.] What do they talk about afterwards, I wonder? Do they repeat one’s words of golden guidance? Or make disparaging remarks about one’s waistcoat? I think when I was a student we used to tell stories: they were anatomical, too. [Murray helps Rock with his lab coat.] Ah, thank you Murray…

[Rock begins to wash his hands in the basin. Murray takes off his coat.]

Murray You agree with all you said?

Rock But naturally.

Murray ‘The end justifies any means’? That is—to say the least of it—unscrupulous.

Rock Then do not say ‘the least of it.’ Say ‘the most’: that it is honest.

[And Murray begins to wash his hands.]

You’re coming to my dinner, of course? I can guarantee the cooking. Only the conversation will be half-baked and only the politeness overdone.

Murray [Smiling.] Of course…

Rock …Do not trust an elder sister to choose one’s company. Annabella will never believe I am properly grown up and so sits me next to a deaf historian so far advanced into the next world that he can only dribble and splutter in this.

Murray [With a kind of tolerant affection.] Dinner will be a monologue, as usual, Thomas. I can’t think how you ever manage to eat or drink anything on those occasions…

Rock [Now he has finished washing. He adjusts his coat-sleeves. And Murray helps him on with his cloak.] I loathe all Dinners with a capital ‘D,’ Why can’t I have a quiet meal with a small ‘m’ and a large port?

Murray Oh, but Thomas! A Dinner to Celebrate the Opening of Doctor Rock’s Academy!

Rock I wish it were still Rock’s and Manson’s Academy… [He puts on his top-hat. Murray passes him his stick.]
[Suddenly in a different mood.] If Annabella hasn’t invited at least one Duke I shall be so surprised that I shall have to ask one myself. And throw in a drunk baronet for bad measure.
Good night, Murray. [He walks to the door of the small, dark room.]

Murray Good night. Sleep well.

Rock Don’t be a dam’ fool…

Murray smiles after him as Rock goes out.

SCENE 3: In the Tavern

Two men, a tall, thin, always half-dancing one, and a squat one, are standing.
They look round the room.
They see Alice and Jennie, and make their way across the crowded, swirling bar towards them.
The tall one crackles his way through the crowd, jumping and finger-snapping, a long damp leer stuck on the side of his face.
The squat one elbow his way through, now sullenly truculent, now oily and almost bowing.
They stand over their women.
And the squat man speaks, ingratiatingly and yet with an under-menace.

Fallon Can you buy a drink for us, Alice darling? We’re thirsty, love.

[And the thin one says, in his high, mad voice:]

Broom Buy a drink for Fallon and Broom, Fallon and Broom… [He makes grotesque movements of drinking, still finger-snapping, one shoulder higher than the other.]

Alice There’s money for two more and that’s all. [She tosses Fallon a coin. And as he catches the coin and shoulders the few steps to the bar, Broom reaches for Alice's drink. Alice makes as if to snatch the tankard back, but Broom suddenly shows his teeth and pretends to snap at her.]

Jennie Ach, leave him be. Broom’s got the devil in him to-night. He’d bite your hand through. [By this time Fallon has returned with two drinks, and hands one to Broom, who attacks it hungrily again. Fallon, from under his heavy, hanging eyebrows, stares around the bar. Suddenly he sees some Resurrectionists.]

Fallon [To the women.] There’s the three… [His voice lowers.]… body snatchers we seen in the ‘Old Bull.’ They’re swillin’ the drink again. Must’ve digged up another to-night. [He turns to Broom, who is staring at the three Resurrectionists with glinting, unseeing eyes.]
Fourteen pounds for a corpse they get when it’s digged up new…Fourteen pounds! …

Broom [In his high, loud voice.] Fourteen pounds for gin and pies…

Jennie Hush! you mad dog…

Alice There’s no more left. [She gets up and goes towards the door. Fallon follows her, Broom and Jennie behind him. As they move through the bar to the door, we hear Fallon whine.]

Broom Come on, Jennie darlin’, scrape up a penny or two for a drop for us…There’s plenty of ways, lovey…

Fallon Fourteen pounds for a corpse! …

Alice [In a harsh grumble.] Why don’t you dig one up yourself? You’re frightened of the dark.

Broom They’re dead in there…Dig ‘em up, Fallon.

[Enter Murray]
[Murray and Jennie Bailey are sitting close together.]

Murray Why can’t we meet in another place, sometimes, Jennie? Anywhere else…

Jennie Where else could you take me, sweetheart, except for a walk in the fields—and in winter too! Kissing in a hedge in the snow like two robins.

Murray We could find somewhere to be together.

Jennie Loving in the lanes, with all the trees dripping down your back. Or sitting holding hands in your lodgings all the evening, and your brother studying books in the corner! [Softly.] You know you could come home with me.

Murray And you know that I won’t. I can’t! Don’t you understand? I don’t want to think of you in that house, ever. I don’t want to think of the others, and your smiling at them and letting them…

Jennie Oh, the ‘others’ don’t mean a thing in the wide world. They’re different. I’m for you. Come back; now.

Murray No. No, Jennie. Please. You’re beautiful. Come away. Come away from everything here. Are you never going to say ‘Yes’ to me, even if I ask you a thousand times! I’m asking you again, Jennie…

Jennie [Gaily.] Oh, a fine young doctor’s wife I’d make. Wouldn’t the ladies love me? ‘And from what part do you come, Mrs. Murray?’ ‘Number 23 Pigs’ Yard. Your husband used to call on Wednesdays.’…
It’s good night at the door again. Parting like strangers…

Murray You’re close to me for a moment…

Jennie Is a moment enough for you, then, my dear? And all the long night to go…You’re a sad, strange boy, saying you love me and leaving me all alone…

Murray It’s I’ll be all alone…

Jennie Draw a pretty picture of me, then, to carry about with you so that you’ll never be alone.

Murray I couldn’t draw your picture, Jennie. You’re never the same for a single minute. But you’re always beautiful. I know you now; but sometime I don’t know you at all—when you’re gay and hard and drinking and dancing…And not caring…It’s the others that know you then…

Jennie Oh, my sweet, you and your silly—others…Come inside with me now…

Murray No. No, Jennie. Good night. [And he kisses her, and turns quickly away quickly. And she steps into the passage-way, and closes the door.]

SCENE 4: Dining-room of the Rock residence
On the large, shining table of the large and handsome room the candles are lit in their heavy silver candlesticks.
The curtains are drawn.
The furniture of the room is good and solid. There is little ornamentation.
At the table sits a woman, writing. There are coffee things near her.
We track towards her, from the door.
And, close, we see that she is a woman of about forty, with black hair combed sternly back, strong features, straight unrelenting mouth: a woman of determination, who knows her own mind and, though she may not like it, will always speak it.
She is writing, with severe, upright pen strokes, on large white cards.
There is a sound of a door opening.
She looks up from her writing.

Annabella Oh, Thomas. Can you spare me a moment? [And now, from a little way behind her, we look at Rock standing in the doorway, hesitant, top-hat in hand.]

Rock A hundred, my dear Annabella. All my time is at your disposal, except when I am working or eating or drinking or sleeping.

Annabella Then come in and close the door.

Rock I was going upstairs to work. [Reluctantly Rock comes in and closes the door behind him. He approaches the table.]

Annabella I want you to look at the invitations, that is all. I may have forgotten someone.

Rock Oh, fortunate someone! [Annabella hands the little pile of cards to Rock. He looks through them, idly.]

Annabella There is no need to be contemptuous of a celebration in your own honour. It may well be the last if you continue to go around the City capriciously insulting every one, and writing absurd letters to the papers and preaching perverted nonsense and calling it the new philosophy.

Rock I smell vinegar in the air to-night. [But now he is looking through the cards again, and this time not idly. He speaks in a changed voice.]
Why are not Doctor and Mrs. Gregory invited?

Annabella Mrs. Gregory will not sit at table with her. [She makes a little gesture of her head towards the door. Rock gives no sign of having heard or understood.]

Rock And the Nicolsons?

Annabella No self-respecting body would sit down at dinner in the presence of…

Rock [Interrupting, quickly, but in an expressionless voice.] …my wife.

Annabella You can’t think that you can outrage every convention and not suffer for it. You married her for better or for worse; and it’s worse. I have never understood why you didn’t keep the girl as your mistress.
But no, you have to bring your shabby amours back into the house and legalize them.
People have long memories. They don’t forget that you disgraced your name, and mine, and defied every social decency when you married…

Rock …When I married Elizabeth. When I said, cool as ice, one morning—cool as fire!—‘Elizabeth and I are married.’ Oh, the shame and horror on the faces of all the puritanical hyenas, prudery ready to pounce and bite, snobbery braying in all the drawing-rooms and breeding-boxes, false pride and prejudice coming out of their holes, hissing and spitting because a man married for love and not for property or position or for any of the dirty devices of the world…

[Enter Elizabeth as Annabella exits.]

Elizabeth Thomas. You have been losing your temper again.

Rock [He crosses to her and looks down at her.] Not this time. No, my dear, society has been losing its temper with me.

Elizabeth Society. That’s a lot of people.

Rock Oh, Annabella is the priestess of the whole genteel rabble. She speaks for all the slanderers and backbiters from here to hell.

Elizabeth [Gentle, as throughout.] Was it you and me again?

Rock Again.

Elizabeth It makes people so angry, still. They think that if they don’t show they’re angry all the doctors and lawyers will be marrying market girls and housemaids…

Rock It would do them good. I wish all the mummified lawyers would marry women of the streets and breed howling families of thieves and vagabonds. I wish the professors would marry their cooks and breed proper children, not more little scholars in diapers.

Elizabeth Oh no, that wouldn’t work at all. People want to look up to you. They can’t do that if you insult them by marrying below you.

Rock Below me! Love is not below me!

Elizabeth Which of your friends have been refusing to meet me now? I’ve only met a few of them. I thought they were very nice.

Rock I do not need any friends. I prefer enemies. They are better company and their feelings towards you are always genuine. I shall cancel the dinner.

Elizabeth You’ll do nothing of the sort, Thomas.

Rock Then I shall write to tell them that their inability to accept our invitation is obviously due to the fact that they suffer from swine-fever, and that I appreciate their delicacy in not wishing to spread it.

Elizabeth You’ll do nothing of the sort.

SCENE 5: In the tavern
Fallon is nailing a coffin lid which lies at the foot of a bed. The straw of the bed lies scattered round it.

Broom Hammer him in, hammer him in. Four pounds rent all dead in a box.

Fallon Now who would’ve thought old Daniel could be so mean. Dying without a word, and owing us four pounds. He didn’t even have a penny piece hidden under the straw…

Broom If only he was alive again so that I could kill him with my hands…

Fallon And all he left was a bit of a broken pipe…And livin’ here all these months on the fat of the land…Many’s the night I’ve beaten the rats off him myself… [Fallon is slouched against the doorway in a kind of self-pitying gloom, but Broom is half dancing with rage…]

Broom Four pounds gone! Whisky and gin gone! No more for Broom! Hammer him in—hammer him in!

Fallon [Without looking up.] And what do you think I’m doing? Pullin’ him out! [The beating of the hammer on the nails of the coffin. And slowly Broom’s dancing fury dies; he swivels his eyes towards Fallon. Fallon looks back at him, and slowly through his mulish blood-shot stupidity he seems to understand.]

Broom [In a heavy whisper.] Hammer him in, hammer him in… [Softly] …and what do you think I’m doing… [More loudly]…pullin’ him out?
[Broom runs swiftly to the far door, looks out, turns back, slams the door, bolts it, runs back…]
Four pounds he owes us and ten pounds they’ll give us for him…

Fallon [With a kind of sodden horror.] Body-snatchers!

Broom Here, take one end. Take his head.

[Fallon and Broom carrying the body]

Rock’s Academy

Rock …It was Herophilus who first traced the arachnoid membrane into the ventricles of the brain and…
Come in.

Murray There’s a couple of new hands downstairs, sir, they’ve brought…

Rock Excuse me, gentlemen, you and Herophilus must wait a few moments.

Rock Give them seven pounds ten.
What are their names?

Murray Fallon and Broom, sir.

Rock Tell them if they have any more, let us have them.

[Back to the tavern]
Closely we see, at a table, the faces of Fallon, Broom, Alice, and Jennie.
Coming closer, at the level of the table, we move past mugs and bottle to a pile of coins and Fallon’s hands around them. The hands move, pushing some of the coins across the table.

Fallon For you, Jennie love. All for yourself. For you, Alice.
Broom and I share the rest.
[And Fallon divides, in one movement of his broad fingers like big toes, the remaining coins. Broom snatches his coins up.]

Broom A bottle, a bottle, another bottle!
[And he darts away from the table and brings a bottle back and pours whisky into each mug.]

Jennie [Softly, in a kind of drunken, lumpish amazement.] Seven pounds ten for an old man…
[And they all drink.]

Fallon Oh, the shame that he wasn’t a young man…
[And with their own kinds of laughter, they drink again.]
[Broom walks about the room, caged, his eyes darting sharply at every squalor.]
And what d’you think you’ll find? Prowling like a cat. D’you think there’s money in the old straw?
[Broom has stopped at the cobwebbed window and is looking out.]

Broom There’s fat pigs in the yard outside.

Fallon [Not listening.] Drain the dry bottles, lick the floor, scrabble in the muck for a farthing. There’s nothing, nothing.

Broom [Still at the window.] Fat, juicy porkers waiting for the knife to cut them ear to ear. Squeeeel!

Fallon Shut your squeal. Ach, if old Daniel was here, dying again!

Broom [In a quiet voice, still looking out of the window.] Geordie’s dying.
[Without turning from the window, Broom nods back at the door between the small room and the large room.]
Geordie coughs all night. Krawf! Krawf!
[Softly, but clearly.] It’s awful tedious waiting for Geordie to die…
[Jennie busies herself with cleaning tables as Alice looks on aghast.]

SCENE 6: In the Rock residence
Under the light of the high, many-branched candlesticks sit Rock, Murray, Annabella, and Elizabeth.
They are drinking coffee, but there is a decanter at Rock’s elbow.
Annabella is frigidly angry.

Annabella …And that is what I believe, and that is what is right…

Rock [Pointedly to Murray] Have some brandy…

Annabella There can be, and always has been, only one path of virtue.

Rock Surprisingly I agree with you, Annabella.

Annabella Then it is only for the second time in your life.

Rock I can’t remember the first. But I agree with what you say, not with what you mean. I believe in the virtue of following no path but your own, wherever it leads…

Annabella And that is precisely the sort of statement that antagonizes you to the whole of the profession…Do you not know how many people would be delighted to see you ruined…

Elizabeth [To Murray] Do you like this City, Mr. Murray, after the Continent? I think you were very fortunate to have travelled …

Murray I like France, ma’am, very much indeed. Of course, I like this City, too…

Annabella Mr. Murray, do you, as a student, find that my brother’s language and attitude are congenial to the other students?

Rock How d’you find the brandy, Murray? Not mellow enough for you?

Murray No, sir…it’s…excellent. Yes, Miss Rock, we all find Doctor Rock’s language and…er…attitude…most…congenial and, and…and stimulating.

Annabella Like brandy on persons of weak health, physical or mental.

Elizabeth I should very much like to see Paris, Mr. Murray…

Annabella My dear Elizabeth, is this a geographical conversazione? I merely wanted to know…

Rock [To Murray] Without embarrassing you further, and allowing you no opportunity of savouring, let alone swallowing, the brandy you were kind enough to call excellent, may I explain to you that what my sister really wishes to know is whether you agree with her that the medical profession consider me a seducer of youth and an atheist? [In another tone.] You have no need to answer, or course… [Gently.] Has he, Elizabeth, my dear? I would far prefer to talk about Paris…

Murray [In an agony of embarrassment, but still determined to defend his master.] I can’t pretend to know what the medical profession thinks of Doctor Rock, Miss Rock, but we all think that most of the other doctors and professors are enormously jealous of him. [To Elizabeth] Jealous because he’s a great anatomist, ma’am, and a great— [He breaks off.]

Rock H’m! I know Paris well, especially the cafés.

SCENE 7: In the tavern
Jennie, at the fire, is stirring a wooden spoon in a black pot, and something is being fried. We hear the sizzling.
Alice, with an almost bristleless broom, is brushing the broken glass into a corner.
A broken table has been laid: there are four pewter mugs on it.
Suddenly there is a noise of singing and stamping from outside.
The door is crashed open and Broom dances in, a bottle under each arm.
He winks and leers at the women, nods and jerks his fingers at the open door.
And in through the door Fallon staggers, singing with a little old woman hanging, half falling, on his arm. She too is trying to sing.

Fallon Guess what I’ve brought home, my doves. A pretty old woman with nowhere to sleep… Nowhere to sleep but with us. Shall we give her a bed?

Alice Where d’you find her?

[Broom is opening a bottle and pouring whisky into the mugs. He gives the Old Woman one.]

Fallon She was lying in the gutter. Her poor grey hairs dragging in the mud. And who should pick her up but kind Bob?

[Fallon lifts the Old Woman up and placer her on the bed.]

Jennie What you’re going to do?

Broom Do? Drink!

Fallon Do? Drink with Granny. All night long.
[The Old Woman titters and drinks. She nearly falls off the bed, but Fallon catchers her and lays her down gently. Broom skips over and takes the Old Woman’s mug from her hand and pours whisky down her throat. She coughs and gasps.]
[In a different voice, to the women.]
You two be running off on an errand.
[Broom points at the Old Woman who is now almost unconscious, spread on her back, her black mouth open.]

Broom You needn’t be long.

Fallon [Slowly.] Go now.
Give me the bottle.

[Fallon and Broom exit.]

Jennie I been to see the play in the theatre, Alice.

Alice You didn’t see no play, dear. You been up High Street.

Jennie I did. From the outside. I saw my Doctor.

Alice John Murray? Why d’you treat the poor creature so badly, Jennie?

Jennie Oh, but Alice darling, I’m so very fond of him. I like him better than any man in the whole world…

Alice Then why d’you carry on in front of his eyes and…

Jennie Oh, but I don’t, I don’t…

Alice …and teasing him that he’s a parson’s son, and letting him see you walk out with any Tom, Dick, and Harry…

Jennie …I don’t know any Harry…

Alice …No one could know you loved him, you’re so brazen, dear…

Jennie Oh, I want some fun before I die…You’re a parson’s daughter yourself…He must love me for what I am, that’s all there is…
he’s got a sweet face…I do like students and doctors and…

Alice …butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers…

[Fallon and Broom enter]

Fallon And there’s my darling Jennie…

Broom And mine, and mine!

[And Fallon and Broom stagger to a table. Fallon pulls a bottle out of his pocket.]

Fallon Who’s going to share a bottle with two county gentlemen?

[Fallon and Broom sit themselves next to Alice and Jennie, Fallon next to Jennie, Broom next to Alice. Fallon pulls two mugs across the table, and fills them.]

Jennie I never drink with strangers except on Mondays…

Fallon And it’s Monday to-night.
O the stars are shining, the bells are chiming, we’ll drink to Monday and Tuesday and…
[Fallon pours out another drink.]

Jennie And I never drink twice with strangers before twelve o’clock…

Fallon And Lord, it’s after twelve. We’ll drink to twelve o’clock…and one o’clock…and two o’clock…
[Fallon and Jennie are now very tipsy. Broom is smiling, leering, giggling, and clowning to Jennie. Alice still remains completely sober, and still sulky.]
[Wheedling.] I got two more bottles in my little room, Miss Pretty Bailey. Two great bottles of dancin’ dew that’ll make you think the sun’s shining in the middle of the night…And…

Alice We’re not going.

Jennie Will you give me a diamond ring and a golden bracelet and…

Fallon I’ll give you a bucketful of pearls. We’ll sing and dance. We’ll be merry as crickets in Rag-and-Bone Alley…

Jennie [Half laughing, half singing.] We’ll be merry as crickets in Rag-and-Bone Alley…

Alice [In an angry whisper to Jennie.] You’re not going with these two creatures…You must wait for John Murray…Don’t drink any more with that Bob Fallon…

Broom And I’ll cook you liver and lights…

Jennie Will you cook a partridge for me? ...

Fallon And I’ll put a peacock’s feather in your hair…

Jennie Oh, listen to them both…You’d think they were great rich men with crowns and palaces, not a couple of naughty tinkers…

Alice We’re not going…

Fallon You first, my Jennie, my merry, my cricket…

[Jennie drinks. Alice looks round the room with fear and revulsion.]

Alice [Urgently.] Let’s go, Jennie Bailey, let’s go!

Fallon My Jennie’s not going, any one else in the wide world can go, not Jennie.

Alice Come on, Jennie, come on.

[But Jennie is sitting, swinging her legs, on the table, and is trying to open another bottle.]

Fallon If you don’t like it here, go to your own pigsty.

[Exit Fallon, Broom, and Jennie.]
[Interlude, after which Fallon re-enters, sits at a table and drinks.]

Alice Where’s Jennie?

Fallon [In a dulled voice.] Jennie? She went a long time ago.

Alice Where did she go?

Fallon She went out.

ACT TWO

SCENE 1: In the classroom
We see Murray stride into the classroom.
Rock is standing at a bookshelf at the far end of the room, his back to us and to Murray.
He turns round as Murray comes in.

Rock You knock at the door very softly, Mr. Murray.

[Murray closes the door, and stands with his back to it. Rock stands with his back to the bookcase. Murray speaks slowly, deliberately, like a man with a passionate temper who is afraid to lose control of it.]

Murray They’ve got Jennie Bailey downstairs.

Rock Indeed? Jennie Bailey? Oh yes. I think I remember the name. A beautiful slut with a bold eye and a tongue like a drunken horse-thief’s.
And what might she be doing downstairs? I am sure, Mr. Murray, that she is an expert in Anatomy, but her knowledge would be too specialized…Or has she come merely to entertain?

Murray She has come, sir, to be dissected.

Rock How very generous of her. I did not think that science was so near her heart. Does she wish to be dissected alive?

Murray She is dead.

Rock That is carrying scientific generosity to its furthest limit.

Murray She was murdered.

Rock [Sharply.] Who says so?

Murray She was murdered.

Rock Are there signs of violence upon the body?

Murray She was murdered by two paid thugs of yours: Fallon and Broom. I saw her last night after the theatre. She was well. There are no signs of violence upon her body.

Rock Thugs of mine, Mr. Murray? Do you remember that you yourself paid them for the last three subjects?

Murray She was murdered. I saw her. [Slowly, rememberingly.] She had a red shawl on.

Rock Indisputable evidence that she was murdered. And what if she was murdered, Mr. Murray? We are anatomists, not policemen; we are scientists, not moralists. Do I, I, care if every lewd and sottish woman of the streets has her throat slit from ear to ear? She served no purpose in life save the cheapening of physical passion and the petty traffics of lust. Let her serve her purpose in death.

Murray You hired Fallon and Broom to murder her as you hired them to murder the others.

Rock I need bodies. They brought me bodies. I pay for what I need. I do not hire murderers…
[Murray stands at the door.]
Oh, Mr. Murray. I think that before the body is put into the brine bath, a drawing should be made of it. Shall we not allow posterity to share our exhilaration at the sight of such perfect physical beauty?
I should be much obliged if you yourself would perpetuate on paper the loveliness of this poor clay, Mr. Murray. We know your skill with the pencil. God should have made you an artist. He did the next best thing: he gave you a very vivid imagination.
[And Rock walks out of the Class room. Murray does not move.]

SCENE 2: In the Rock’s residence
Day.
Elizabeth, in dust-cap and apron, is cleaning the silver.
Suddenly there is the long pealing ring of a door bell. And Elizabeth puts down her cleaning cloth, hurriedly takes off her cap and apron, and goes out of the room, leaving the door open.
We hear the opening of the street door, then Murray follows Elizabeth into the room.

Murray I hope I am not disturbing you, Mrs. Rock.

Elizabeth Come in, please, Mr. Murray. Do you want to see Thomas? He’s lecturing. Oh, you’d know that, of course.

Murray I want to see you, if I may.

Elizabeth You shall see me cleaning the silver then…

[She puts on her cap and apron again, and begins to polish the candlesticks on the table.]

Murray I’m afraid that after what I tell you, you will never want to see me again…

Elizabeth [Smiling.] Oh no, no, nothing could be as bad as that… What has Thomas been doing now? Writing terrible letters to the papers, or telling all the young men to put gunpowder under the City Hall?

Murray No, ma’am.

Elizabeth I don’t mind, you know…It’s only—some other people mind. Thomas can write or say anything he likes. What have you got to tell me?

Murray [Slowly, deliberately.] I believe that Thomas has instructed two men called Fallon and Broom to commit murder and to sell him the bodies.

[There is a silence. Elizabeth stands still, half turned away from Murray.]

Elizabeth That is a—horrible lie. If Thomas hears it…

Murray He has heard it.
[Elizabeth begins again to polish the candlesticks. She still does not look at Murray.]
Yesterday the body of a young woman called Jennie Bailey was delivered to the Academy by Fallon and Broom. Less than twelve hours before, I had seen her outside the theatre, alive and well. It is not possible that she could have died a natural death.

Elizabeth Can’t people die a ‘natural death’ in twelve hours?

[And under Elizabeth’s calm voice there is a new hardness. There is a tenseness in all her smallest movements as she cleans and polishes, not turning round. She is, quite suddenly, not a sweet and mild young woman but a protectress and an enemy.]

Murray She did not die a natural death.

Elizabeth Was this ‘young woman’ strangled, or stabbed, or shot, or poisoned, or beaten to death?

Murray [In a slow, low voice, as though he had said the words over and over to himself.] There were no marks of violence upon the body…

[We see Elizabeth’s relief expressed in the relaxing of the tenseness of the muscles of her shoulders. And now she turns round to face Murray.]

Elizabeth And so you have no proof at all…

Murray I believe that she was smothered to death in such a way as to leave no signs…I came to you first, because I want you to tell Thomas that he must go away. At once. Out of the country. I owe him a great deal. I would not care to see him hanged.

Elizabeth You are very kind… Have you thought about yourself? Run out now and shout your lies in the streets, and they will lock you up because you are a madman. Or run to all the lawyers and justices, and they’ll ask you for proof and you won’t have any: and they’ll lock you up because you bear false witness against your neighbour. Or go around in the dark, whispering all the foul things in your own mind to everybody that will listen, and you’ll make such a panic and scare that Thomas’s school will have to close and all the people who had anything to do with it will be stoned and spat upon and driven out. And you’ll never, never, never again be allowed to work in any hospital or any school or anywhere. And nobody will ever speak to you, or touch you, or be seen anywhere in the world with you…

Murray I have thought of that. I have thought of everything.

Elizabeth And if you call Thomas a murderer, everybody will call you a murderer, too. They will call you murderer and butcher…

Murray All I know is that if Thomas did not tell these men to murder, he bought the bodies knowing that they were murdered.

Elizabeth I thought Thomas told me that it was one of your duties to buy the bodies. Will that help you very much when you accuse him? It will be quite easy for you to wreck your life, and his, and mine!

Murray What shall I do?

Elizabeth Keep quiet. You knew the girl—Jennie Bailey?

Murray Yes.

Elizabeth What was she?

Murray She was a girl from the market…

Elizabeth Was she pretty?
[Murray nods, slowly.]
I think I remember her. She was—beautiful. You liked her very much?

Murray Yes.

Elizabeth I think you liked her so much that when she died you—lost your head. You didn’t know what you were doing or saying. Do you understand? You imagined things. Do you understand?

[Annabella comes in.]

Annabella Good afternoon, Mr. Murray. I didn’t know any one had called. I see my sister-in-law is entertaining you…

Elizabeth Mr. Murray called to see if Thomas was here. He had something to discuss with him. But now he says it doesn’t matter… Does it, Mr. Murray?

[And Murray looks, without speaking, at the faces of the two women.]

LECTURE TWO
The always shadowy hall in Rock’s Academy, with its white secret witnesses staring from the glass cases.

Rock Gentlemen, let us to-day dissect the human conscience. Lay it on the slab. Open it up.
You see? The liver of the conscience is knobbled by emotional excesses.
The veins of the conscience are full of bad blood.
The heart of the conscience palpitates like a snared rabbit’s…
In short, gentlemen, the conscience is a very unhealthy subject…
There is right and wrong, gentlemen, just as there is right and left. Mine is the right direction. The fact that the majority would consider it the wrong direction, only substantiates my opinion that I am right…

SCENE 3: In the tavern
Fallon is sitting at a table, a mug before him.
His face is covered with sweat.
And terror looks out of his eyes.
He raises his hands before him, palms upward. They are trembling.
His lips are moving, but no words come.
Alice sits down next to him.

Alice Broom says you’re to come.
[Fallon stares in front of him.]
He says there’s…work.

Fallon [Without turning to her.] My hands have worked enough. There’s devils in my hands.

Alice It’s…somebody we know Broom’s got there…

Fallon I’ve known them all, all of them. They were my brothers…and my sisters…and my mother… [In a horrified whisper.] … All dead…dead…

Alice Hurry up with you…Broom’s waiting…
[Fallon does not move.]
You’ve drunk yourself daft again…like when you went on your knees in the street, praying and shouting…

Fallon I wish I was workin’ again, on the roads, on the canals, anywhere…

Alice D’you want us all to starve while you blather and weep your eyes out…

Fallon Starving’s better than these…
[And he raises his hands again…and suddenly tautens them. And Alice pulls roughly, violently, at his sleeve, and drags hum up, and pushes him to the door.]
There’s devils in my hands. Let me go, my hands!
Don’t be frightened… There’s nothing to lose…
It’s all lost…
[Fallon sits at the table and drinks from the mug.]
And where d’you get all the money so quick? You’re rich, you’re rich, you’re…
Ach, I done a little smuggling, a little bit o’ drink on the sly…
Where’s Jennie? Jennie Bailey
Gone, gone…

[In another room.]
Broom Drink with Broom… Drink…

[Then Fallon rises from the table and crosses to the window.]

Fallon The snow won’t ever stop. It’s like the last day.
The snow’s falling heavier. The world’s cold.
[He shivers, pulls his coat closer about him.]
It’s cold in hell to-day. The fires are out.
[Alice looks at him in uncomprehending silence.]
Nothing can burn me any more. I’m a cold man, Alice. I’m numb all over. No more dancing. Nor more drinking and singing.
[He shivers again, standing against the window and the snow.]
I got work to do.
[And he goes out, followed by the strangely silent Alice. The door closes.]

LECTURE THREE
Evening.
Rock is on the platform.
The candles are lit on the platform table.
Rock stands rigid.
He pales with temper, glaring.
In its intensity, his dignity is malevolent.

Rock Gentlemen!
I have attempted to teach you the dignity of man; I have succeeded in producing the degradation of a mob.
Take your seats. Pay no attention to the mob. Because the verminous gutter-snipes of the City snarl and gibber in the street, must you conduct yourselves, in return, as though you were born in a quagmires and nurtured on hog-wash?
Take your seats. Pay no attention to the mob. The mob can never win. Remember that the louder a man shouts, the emptier is his argument.
Remember that you are here to study osteology, syndesmology, myology: not bar-room pugilism or the morals of the crapulous bog-trotter and the tosspot.
[In his usual lecturing voice.]
The heart, gentlemen, is a four-chambered muscular bag which lies in the cavity of the thorax…

SCENE 4: In the classroom
Rock, a sheet of paper in his hand, is walking up and down, in a characteristic lecture manner, behind his desk. There is a knock at the door.

Rock Stay out.

[Murray comes in.]

Rock I see, sir, that to keep you out I should have said ‘Come in.’

Murray Fallon and Broom, sir.

Rock Indeed? Must I laugh, weep, tear my hair, or swoon for ecstasy!

Murray They’ve brought a body, sir.

Rock I did not expect that they would bring a soul.

Murray [Suggestively.] They bring so many subjects, sir…sixteen or more up till to-day…and always fresh…

Rock They are corpse-diviners. Or, as some have green fingers for gardening, so they have black fingers for death. Do you expect the dead to walk here, Mr. Murray? They need assistance. Fallon and Broom provide that assistance. Mr. Murray, pay them.

Murray Yes sir.

Rock [Gesturing with the paper in his hand.] If this does not upset some apple-carts, I shall believe that the apples have been glued on; if this does not help to change the idiotic laws that apply to our profession, I shall run amok and have my seat reserved in hell.

Murray I tell you, this isn’t the time to attack.

Rock The national anthem of the rabbit world.

Murray If you publish that letter now, attacking the system by which the medical schools get their bodies, you’ll be raising a question you might have some difficulty in answering yourself.

Rock Am I still a Doctor Bluebeard to you, then? Do I spend my nights a-murdering?

Murray I do not know, sir, what you do with your nights. I do not imagine that you can sleep. But I do know that Fallon and Broom are murderers. It is only my respect for you, and my cowardice, that have stopped me from running out of this murder school and telling the whole city what I know and what I guess…Even so, there are rumours. I have not spread them. But Jennie’s death, and the others, has not passed quite unnoticed. Rumours are contagious.

Rock So are scabies. To destroy them you do not wear the armour of defence, you wield the weapon of sulphur ointment. And, by God, there’s sulphur in this letter…

Murray The police have been here.
They came about the new subject brought by Fallon and Broom.

Rock Am I never to hear the end of those men’s names?

Murray [Softly.] Never, perhaps…
And they’re taking the subject away…

Rock Why didn’t you call the police? …

Murray [More bewildered.] Sir, I…

Rock Go away and lock up the silver. If there isn’t any silver, lock up Mr. Mattheson: he has a gold tooth.

Murray Must you antagonize every one?

Rock Yes.

Murray You heard? The police.

Rock Outside the gates of hell are not the words ‘Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here,’ but ‘I Told You So.’

Murray And if the police ask me questions, as they are bound to do, what shall I say?

Rock Say nothing. Squeak. They will recognize the voice of a rat.

SCENE 5: In the Rock residence
Rock, hatless, but still in his cloak, enters.
Elizabeth, by the fire, is sewing.
Elizabeth looks up as he comes in, and puts her sewing down.
He crosses to her; kisses her; stands still then, looking down at her.

Rock Oh, there’s peace in here.

[He takes off his cloak and flings it over a chair.]

Elizabeth Why do you have to go out alone at night, now? Why do you always have to be alone?

Rock If the crowd wants me, it can have me. I am not going to hide.

Elizabeth [Softly.] Couldn’t we go away? Everyone is against us here, now.
The women in the street didn’t nod to me this morning. Not because I’m your wife—that’s why they used to have nothing to do with me—but because you’re my husband.

Rock We won’t go away.

Elizabeth [Gently, as throughout.] I know why. You want to show them that they can’t hurt you by calling you names. You want to show them that you don’t mind when they say that you told those men to murder people. But they do hurt you.

Rock Time’s a wilderness. [Then, in a changed voice.] Do you remember walking in the park? Oh, not so long ago. I remember thinking: ‘Here’s my life going true and even, and my children growing, and Elizabeth with me for ever, and books to write, and work to do… Lord, but it’s a happy time…even in the unhappy times.

Elizabeth I’m with you for ever, that’s true.

Rock [Suddenly, in another mood.] I was successful, I was established, I was standing in the light…Then out of the mud of the darkness come two ignorant animals, and slowly, quite unknown to themselves, they set about the task of bringing my life and my work down, down, into the slime that bred them…Perhaps from the very moment of their monstrous births, it was decreed that they should befoul and ruin a fellow creature they had never heard of: a garrulous, over-credulous, conceited little anatomist…

Elizabeth Let us go away.

Rock No, we must stay for ever.

Elizabeth I have never asked you before, Thomas, because I love you. Did you know that the bodies that those men brought you had been murdered?

[Annabella comes in accompanied by Murray. She is palely, composedly angry.]

Murray They’ve arrested Fallon and Broom. Murder.
Broom has turned king’s evidence.

Rock [Without looking up.] This king will be pleased…

Annabella Do you know what those hooligans are doing, Thomas?

[She crosses to the window.]

Rock I gather that they are not subscribing to a testimonial to me…

Annabella Look! Look!

[She points accusingly out of the window. And Rock and Elizabeth, he with his arm around her shoulder, cross to Annabella’s side and look, through the window, down on to the street.]

Murray What’s the light over there?

Annabella They’re burning an auld scarecrow of the Doctor in the streets.

Murray Can that children’s magic bring back the dead?
[Murray draws a little way apart, then asks abruptly:]
What’s the time?

Annabella One after midnight.

Murray It took a few short minutes to stop her breath…

Rock I have no need for your sympathy, When I see a tear, I smell a crocodile.

Murray [Turning round.] Thomas, can you do nothing but–stand still and gibe?

Rock Would you have me death-dance and moan, like a Gaelic dipsomaniac at a distillery fire? Must tragedy go immediately to the feet and the tongue? Because I can observe my history calmly as it burns and topples around me, you emotional gluttons think yourselves cheated. ‘Oh, he can’t feel anything,’ you say. ‘When we told him his life was over, he did not tear the relics of his hair or address the traveling moon in blank verse. He blew his nose and called for Burgundy.’

Murray [Deliberately.] Fallon will hang.

Rock A quick end. If they wished his death to be longer and infinitely more painful, they should marry him to Doctor Hocking’s daughter.

Murray Fallon will hang. Broom ‘not guilty’! Broom free to murder again! And you?

Rock I shall stay here.
I shall listen to the voices of the crowd outside my window, inside my head; it will not be long before they forget me; I shall never forget them.
I shall stay here. The whispers of the slanderer and the backbiter will always be with me.
I shall stay here. I shall count my friends on the fingers of one hand, then on one finger, then on none.
My lectures will be very well attended, at the beginning. I shall possess a sinister attraction to the young: dangerous and exciting, like dining with a vampire. But the attendance will diminish.
I shall stay here to see in the eyes of the passing stranger in the street cruelty and contempt; in the eyes of the poor the terrible accusation: ‘You killed the lost, the weak, the homeless, the hopeless, the helpless. Murderer of the poor!’
God help me, life will go on…

LECTURE FOUR

Rock is on the platform.

Rock To think, then, is to enter into a perilous country, colder than the polar wastes, darker than a Scottish Sunday, where the hand of the unthinker is always raised against you, where the wild animals, who go by such names as Envy, Hypocrisy, and Tradition, are notoriously carnivorous, and where the parasites rule.
To think is dangerous. The majority of men have found it easier to write their way into the parasitical bureaucracy, or to droop into the slack ranks of the ruled. I beg you all to devote your lives to danger; I pledge you to adventure. I command you to experiment. [Slowly.] Remember that the practice of Anatomy is absolutely vital to the progress of medicine. Remember that the progress of medicine is vital to the progress of mankind. And mankind is worth fighting for: killing and lying and dying for. Forget what you like. Forget all I have ever told you. But remember this: the end justifies any means. Let no scruples stand in the way of progress!

SCENE 6: Variously, in the tavern, the Rock’s residence, and the classroom

Alice and Murray at a table in the tavern.

Alice Fallon’s dead—why isn’t the Doctor dead? Nobody remembers Jennie now.

Murray Oh, there’s lots of ways of dying. I remember.

Annabella and Elizabeth in the Rock residence; behind them the window looking out on the wintry trees in the garden.

Annabella Do you know what it is to be lonely? I’ve always been lonely. I wanted to be mistress of my brother’s house. I wanted to give dinner parties and dances and be charming and admired. I wanted to marry. But people wouldn’t visit us because you married him. It doesn’t matter now. Now nobody’ll come…

Elizabeth I married him because I loved him. But we’re only a very little part of his life, Bella. I’ve been lonely too.

In the classroom

Rock The child in the cold runs away from my name…
My name is a ghost to frighten children…
Will my children cry ‘Murder’ and ‘Blood’ when I touch them…as if my hands were Fallon’s hands? …
‘Be good, be good, or the terrible Doctor will come with his knife.’
Poor Jennie! I came to you with my knife.
Did I know, did I know from the very beginning?
Never answer, never answer, even to yourself alone in the night…
All’s over now…
Oh, Elizabeth, hold my hand…
‘Oh, it isn’t a hand, it’s a pair of scissors! …’
Did I set myself up as a little god over death?
Over death…
All over…over…over…
Did I set myself above pity? …
Oh, my God, I knew what I was doing!

FIN