morning? THOMASINA No. Tell me more about sexual congress. SEPTIMUS There is nothing more to be said about sexual congress. THOMASINA IS it the same as love? SEPTIMUS Oh no, it is much nicer than that.
[One of the side doors leads to the music room. It is the other side door which now opens to admit JELLABY, the butler.]
I am teaching, Jellaby. JELLABY Beg your pardon, Mr Hodge, Mr Chater said it was urgent you receive his letter. SEPTIMUS Oh, very well, [SEPTIMUS takes the letter.] Thank you. [And to dis
miss JELLABY.] Thank you. JELLABY [Holding his ground. ] Mr Chater asked me to bring him your answer. SEPTIMUS My answer?
[He opens the letter. There is no envelope as such, but there is a 'cover' which, folded and sealed, does the same service. SEPTIMUS tosses the cover negligently aside and reads.]
Well, my answer is that as is my custom and my duty to his lordship I am engaged until a quarter to twelve in the education of his daughter. When I am done, and if Mr Chater is still there, I will be happy to wait upon him in? [He checks the letter.]?in the gunroom.
JELLABY I will tell him so, thank you, sir.
[SEPTIMUS/OWS the letter and places it between the pages of'The Couch
of Eros'.] THOMASINA What is for dinner, Jellaby? JELLABY Boiled ham and cabbages, my lady, and a rice pudding. THOMASINA Oh, goody.
[JELLABY leaves.]
SEPTIMUS Well, so much for Mr Noakes. He puts himself forward as a gentleman, a philosopher of the picturesque,3 a visionary who can move mountains and cause lakes, but in the scheme of the garden he is as the serpent.4
THOMASINA When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backward, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before. Do you think this is odd?
SEPTIMUS No .
THOMASINA Well, I do. You cannot stir things apart.
SEPTIMUS No more you can, time must needs run backward, and since it will not, we must stir our way onward mixing as we go, disorder out of disorder into disorder until pink is complete, unchanging and unchangeable, and we are done with it for ever.5 This is known as free will or self-determination.
3. ltalianate landscape associated with the writers of Eden poisoned the bliss of Adam and Eve (Genand landscape gardeners of the early-nineteenth-esis 3). century Romantic movement. 5. Evidence offered, with no awareness of its sig4. Noakes spies on and spoils the happiness of the nificance, of the then-undiscovered second law of lovers in the gazebo, as the serpent in the Garden thermodynamics.
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ARCADIA 1.1 / 2757
[He picks up the tortoise and moves it a few inches as though it had strayed, on top of some loose papers, and admonishes it.]
Sit! THOMASINA Septimus, do you think God is a Newtonian?6 SEPTIMUS An Etonian?7 Almost certainly, I'm afraid. We must ask your
brother to make it his first enquiry. THOMASINA No, Septimus, a Newtonian. Septimus! Am I the first person to have thought of this?
SEPTIMUS No . THOMASINA I have not said yet. SEPTIMUS 'If everything from the furthest planet to the smallest atom of our
brain acts according to Newton's law of motion, what becomes of free will?'
THOMASINA No . SEPTIMUS God's will. THOMASINA NO. SEPTIMUS Sin. THOMASINA [Derisively.] No! SEPTIMUS Very well. THOMASINA If you could stop every atom in its position and direction, and if
your mind could comprehend all the actions thus suspended, then if you were really, really good at algebra you could write the formula for all the future; and although nobody can be so clever to do it, the formula must exist just as if one could.
SEPTIMUS [Pause.] Yes. [Pause.] Yes, as far as I know, you are the first person to have thought of this. [Pause. With an effort.] In the margin of his copy of Arithmetica, Fermat wrote that he had discovered a wonderful proof of his theorem but, the margin being too narrow for his purpose, did not have room to write it down. The note was found after his death, and from that day to this?
THOMASINA Oh! I see now! The answer is perfectly obvious. SEPTIMUS This time you may have overreached yourself.
[The door is opened, somewhat violently, CHATER enters.] Mr Chater! Perhaps my message miscarried. I will be at liberty at a quarter to twelve, if that is convenient.
CHATER It is not convenient, sir. My business will not wait. SEPTIMUS Then I suppose you have Lord Croom's opinion that your business
is more important than his daughter's lesson. CHATER I do not, but, if you like, I will ask his lordship to settle the point. SEPTIMUS [Pause.] My lady, take Fermat into the music room. There will be
an extra spoonful of jam if you find his proof. THOMASINA There is no proof, Septimus. The thing that is perfectly obvious is that the note in the margin was a joke to make you all mad.
[THOMASINA leaves.]
SEPTIMUS Now, sir, what is this business that cannot wait? CHATER I think you know it, sir. You have insulted my wife. SEPTIMUS Insulted her? That would deny my nature, my conduct, and the
