VALENTINE and CHLOE are at the table, GUS is in the room. CHLOE is reading from two Saturday newspapers. She is wearing workaday period clothes, a Regency dress,3 no hat. VALENTINE is pecking at a portable computer. He is wearing unkempt Regency clothes, too.
The clothes have evidently come from a large wicker laundry hamper, from which GUS is producing more clothes to try on himself. He finds a Regency coat and starts putting it on.
The objects on the table now include two geometrical solids, pyramid and cone, about twenty inches high, of the type used in a drawing lesson; and a pot of dwarf dahlias (which do not look like modern dahlias).
CHLOE 'Even in Arcadia?Sex, Literature and Death at Sidley Park'. Picture of Byron.
3. Fashionable in the 'Regency' period, 1811?20, when George, Prince of Wales, was regent, ruling England after his father, George III, had been judged insane.
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ARCADIA II.5 / 2803
VALENTINE Not of Bernard? CHLOE 'Byron Fought Fatal Duel, Says Don' . . . Valentine, do you think I'm the first person to think of this?
VALENTINE NO.
CHLOE I haven't said yet. The future is all programmed like a computer?
that's a proper theory, isn't it? VALENTINE The deterministic4 universe, yes. CHLOE Right. Because everything including us is just a lot of atoms bouncing
off each other like billiard balls.
VALENTINE Yes. There was someone, forget his name, 1820s, who pointed out that from Newton's laws you could predict everything to come?I mean, you'd need a computer as big as the universe but the formula would exist.
CHLOE But it doesn't work, does it? VALENTINE NO. It turns out the maths is different. CHLOE No, it's all because of sex. VALENTINE Really? CHLOE That's what I think. The universe is deterministic all right, just like
Newton said, I mean it's trying to be, but the only thing going wrong is people fancying people who aren't supposed to be in that part of the plan.
VALENTINE Ah. The attraction that Newton left out. All the way back to the apple in the garden.5 Yes. [Pause.] Yes, I think you're the first person to think of this.
[HANNAH enters, carrying a tabloid pa-per, and a mug of tea.] HANNAH Have you seen this? 'Bonking6 Byron Shot Poet'. CHLOE [Pleased.] Let's see.
[HANNAH gives her the paper, smiles at GUS.] VALENTINE He's done awfully well, hasn't he? How did they all know? HANNAH Don't be ridiculous. [To CHLOE] Your father wants it back. CHLOE All right. HANNAH What a fool. CHLOE Jealous. I think it's brilliant. [She gets up to go. To GUS.] Yes, that's
perfect, but not with trainers. Come on, I'll lend you a pair of flatties,7 they'll look period on you? HANNAH Hello, Gus. You all look so romantic. [GUS following CHLOE out, hesitates, smiles at her.]
CHLOE [Pointedly. ] Are you coming? [She holds the door for GUS and follows him out, leaving a sense of her disapproval behind her.]
HANNAH The important thing is not to give two monkeys for what young people think about you.
[She goes to look at the other newspapers.] VALENTINE [Anxiously.] You don't think she's getting a thing about8 Bernard, do you? HANNAH I wouldn't worry about Chloe, she's old enough to vote on her back.
'Byron Fought Fatal Duel, Says Don'. Or rather?[Sceptically.] 'Says Don!' VALENTINE It may all prove to be true. HANNAH It can't prove to be true, it can only not prove to be false yet.
4. Predetermined (see Valentine and Chloe's dis- of gravity, cussion below). 6. Fucking (slang). 5. Of Eden; cf. Genesis 3. Also the apple whose 7. Flat-soled shoes. 'Trainers': sneakers, fall from the tree alerted Isaac Newton to the law 8. A crush on.
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2804 / TOM STOPPARD
VALENTINE [Pleased.] Just like science. HANNAH If Bernard can stay ahead of getting the rug pulled till he's dead,
he'll be a success. VALENTINE Just like science . . . The ultimate fear is of posterity . . . HANNAH Personally I don't think it'll take that long. VALENTINE . . . and then there's the afterlife. An afterlife would be a mixed
blessing. 'Ah?Bernard Nightingale, I don't believe you know Lord Byron.'
It must be heaven up there. HANNAH You can't believe in an afterlife, Valentine. VALENTINE Oh, you're going to disappoint me at last. HANNAH Am I? Why? VALENTINE Science and religion. HANNAH No, no, been there, done that, boring. VALENTINE Oh, Hannah. Fiancee. Have pity. Can't we have a trial marriage
and I'll call it off in the morning? HANNAH [Amused.] I don't know when I've received a more unusual proposal. VALENTINE [Interested.] Have you had many? HANNAH That would be telling. VALENTINE Well, why not? Your classical reserve is only a mannerism; and
neurotic. HANNAH Do you want the room? VALENTINE You get nothing if you give nothing. HANNAH I ask nothing. VALENTINE No, stay.
[VALENTINE resumes work at his computer, HANNAH establishes herself among her references at 'her' end of the table. She has a stack of pocket- sized volumes, Lady Croom's 'garden books'.]
HANNAH What are you doing? Valentine? VALENTINE The set of points on a complex plane9 made by? HANNAH Is it the grouse? VALENTINE Oh, the grouse. The damned grouse. HANNAH You mustn't give up. VALENTINE Why? Didn't you agree with Bernard? HANNAH Oh, that. It's all trivial?your grouse, my hermit, Bernard's Byron.
