BERNARD After which, any comments are to be couched in terms of accepted
academic? HANNAH Dignity?you're right, Bernard. BERNARD ?respect. HANNAH Respect. Absolutely. The language of scholars. Count on it.
[Having made a great show of putting his pages away, BERNARD reassembles them and finds his place, glancing suspiciously at the other three for signs of levity. ]
BERNARD Last paragraph. 'Without question, Ezra Chater issued a challenge to somebody. If a duel was fought in the dawn mist of Sidley Park in April 1809, his opponent, on the evidence, was a critic with a gift for ridicule and a taste for seduction. Do we need to look far? Without question, Mrs Chater was a widow by 1810. If we seek the occasion of Ezra Chater's early and unrecorded death, do we need to look far? Without question, Lord Byron, in the very season of his emergence as a literary figure, quit the country in a cloud of panic and mystery, and stayed abroad for two years at a time when Continental travel was unusual and dangerous. If we seek his reason?do we need to look far?'
[No mean performer, he is pleased with the effect of his peroration. There is a significant silence.]
HANNAH Bollocks.9 CHLOE Well, I think it's true. HANNAH You've left out everything which doesn't fit. Byron had been banging
on' for months about leaving England?there's a letter in February? BERNARD But he didn't go, did he? HANNAH And then he didn't sail until the beginning of July! BERNARD Everything moved more slowly then. Time was different. He was
two weeks in Falmouth waiting for wind or something?
HANNAH Bernard, I don't know why I'm bothering?you're arrogant, greedy and reckless. You've gone from a glint in your eye to a sure thing in a hop, skip and a jump. You deserve what you get and I think you're mad. But I can't help myself, you're like some exasperating child pedalling its tricycle towards the edge of a cliff, and I have to do something. So listen to me. If Byron killed Chater in a duel I'm Marie of Romania.2 You'll end up with so much fame you won't leave the house without a paper bag over your head.
VALENTINE Actually, Rernard, as a scientist, your theory is incomplete. BERNARD But I'm not a scientist. VALENTINE [Patiently.] No, as a scientist? BERNARD [Beginning to shout.] I have yet to hear a proper argument. HANNAH Nobody would kill a man and then pan his book. I mean, not in that
order. So he must have borrowed the book, written the review, posted it, seduced Mrs Chater, fought a duel and departed, all in the space of two or three days. Who would do that?
BERNARD Byron. HANNAH It's hopeless. BERNARD You've never understood him, as you've shown in your novelette.3 HANNAH In my what?
9. Nonsense (slang). 3?4: 'And love is a thing that can never go wrong; 1. Talking (slang). / And I am Marie of Roumania.' 2. Cf. Dorothy Parker's poem 'Comment,' lines 3. Sentimental short novel.
.
2794 / TOM STOPPARD
BERNARD Oh, sorry?did you think it was a work of historical revisionism?
Byron the spoilt child promoted beyond his gifts by the spirit of the age!
And Caroline the closet intellectual shafted by a male society! VALENTINE I read that somewhere? HANNAH It's his review. BERNARD And bloody well said, too!
[Things are turning a little ugly and BERNARD seems in a mood to push them that way.]
You got them backwards, darling. Caroline was Romantic waffle on wheels
with no talent, and Byron was an eighteenth-century Rationalist4 touched
by genius. And he killed Chater. HANNAH [Pause.] If it's not too late to change my mind, I'd like you to go ahead. BERNARD I intend to. Look to the mote in your own eye!5?you even had the
wrong bloke on the dust-jacket! HANNAH Dust-jacket? VALENTINE What about my computer model? Aren't you going to mention it? BERNARD It's inconclusive. VALENTINE [TO HANNAH.] The Piccadilly reviews aren't a very good fit with
Byron's other reviews, you see. HANNAH [To BERNARD.] What do you mean, the wrong bloke? BERNARD [Ignoring her.] The other reviews aren't a very good fit for each
other, are they? VALENTINE No, but differently. The parameters?6 BERNARD [Jeering.] Parameters! You can't stick Byron's head in your laptop!
Genius isn't like your average grouse. VALENTINE [Casually.] Well, it's all trivial anyway. BERNARD What is? VALENTINE Who wrote what when . . . BERNARD Trivial? VALENTINE Personalities. BERNARD I'm sorry?did you say trivial? VALENTINE It's a technical term.7 BERNARD Not where I come from, it isn't. VALENTINE The questions you're asking don't matter, you see. It's like arguing
who got there first with the calculus. The English say Newton, the Germans
say Leibnitz.8 But it doesn't matter. Personalities. What matters is the cal
culus. Scientific progress. Knowledge.
BERNARD Really? Why? VALENTINE Why what? BERNARD Why does scientific progress matter more than personalities? VALENTINE IS he serious? HANNAH No, he's trivial. Bernard? VALENTINE [Interrupting, to BERNARD. ] D O yourself a favour, you're on a loser. BERNARD Oh, you're going to zap me with penicillin and pesticides. Spare
me that and I'll spare you the bomb and aerosols. But don't confuse progress
with perfectibility. A great poet is always timely. A great philosopher is an
4. Person whose opinions are based on pure rea-7. From mathematics. soning. 'Waffle': gossip. 8. Gottfried Wilhelm, Baron von Leibnitz (16465. Cf. Matthew 7.3. 1716), German philosopher and mathematician. 6.
