Magic

Patricia. What does it all mean?

Conjurer. It only means that I have done what many men have done; but few, I think, have thriven by. [He sits down and talks thoughtfully.] I told you I had mixed with many queer sets of people. Among others, I mixed with those who pretend, truly and falsely, to do our tricks by the aid of spirits. I dabbled a little in table-rapping and table-turning. But I soon had reason to give it up.

Patricia. Why did you give it up?

Conjurer. It began by giving me headaches. And I found that every morning after a Spiritualist séance I had a queer feeling of lowness and degradation, of having been soiled; much like the feeling, I suppose, that people have the morning after they have been drunk. But I happen to have what people call a strong head; and I have never been really drunk.

Patricia. I am glad of that.

Conjurer. It hasn't been for want of trying. But it wasn't long before the spirits with whom I had been playing at table-turning, did what I think they generally do at the end of all such table-turning.

Patricia. What did they do?

Conjurer. They turned the tables. They turned the tables upon me. I don't wonder at your believing in fairies. As long as these things were my servants they seemed to me like fairies. When they tried to be my masters… I found they were not fairies. I found the spirits with whom I at least had come in contact were evil … awfully, unnaturally evil.

Patricia. Did they say so?

Conjurer. Don't talk of what they said. I was a loose fellow, but I had not fallen so low as such things. I resisted them; and after a pretty bad time, psychologically speaking, I cut the connexion. But they were always tempting me to use the supernatural power I had got from them. It was not very great, but it was enough to move things about, to alter lights, and so on. I don't know whether you realize that it's rather a strain on a man to drink bad coffee at a coffee-stall when he knows he has just enough magic in him to make a bottle of champagne walk out of an empty shop.

Patricia. I think you behaved very well.

Conjurer. [Bitterly.] And when I fell at last it was for nothing half so clean and Christian as champagne. In black blind pride and anger and all kinds of heathenry, because of the impudence of a schoolboy, I called on the fiends and they obeyed.

Patricia. [Touches his arm.] Poor fellow!

Conjurer. Your goodness is the only goodness that never goes wrong.

Patricia. And what are we to do with Morris? I – I believe you now, my dear. But he – he will never believe.

Conjurer. There is no bigot like the atheist. I must think.

[Walks towards the garden windows. The other men reappear to arrest his movement.

Doctor. Where are you going?

Conjurer. I am going to ask the God whose enemies I have served if I am still worthy to save a child.

[Exit into garden. He paces up and down exactly as Morris has done. As he does so, Patricia slowly goes out; and a long silence follows, during which the remaining men stir and stamp very restlessly. The darkness increases. It is long before anyone speaks.

Doctor. [Abruptly.] Remarkable man that Conjurer. Clever man. Curious man. Very curious man. A kind of man, you know… Lord bless us! What's that?

Duke. What's what, eh? What's what?

Doctor. I swear I heard a footstep.

Enter Hastings with papers

Duke. Why, Hastings – Hastings – we thought you were a ghost. You must be – er – looking white or something.

Hastings. I have brought back the answer of the Anti-Vegetarians … I mean the Vegetarians.

[Drops one or two papers.

Duke. Why, Hastings, you are looking white.

Hastings. I ask your Grace's pardon. I had a slight shock on entering the room.

Doctor. A shock? What shock?

Hastings. It is the first time, I think, that your Grace's work has been disturbed by any private feelings of mine. I shall not trouble your Grace with them. It will not occur again.

[Exit Hastings.

Duke. What an extraordinary fellow. I wonder if…

[Suddenly stops speaking.

Doctor. [After a long silence, in a low voice to Smith.] How do you feel?

Smith. I feel I must have a window shut or I must have it open, and I don't know which it is.

[Another long silence.

Smith. [Crying out suddenly in the dark.] In God's name, go!

Doctor. [Jumping up rather in a tremble.] Really, sir, I am not used to being spoken to…

Smith. It was not you whom I told to go.

Doctor. No. [Pause.] But I think I will go. This room is simply horrible.

[He marches towards the door.

Duke. [Jumping up and bustling about, altering cards, papers, etc., on tables.] Room horrible? Room horrible? No, no, no. [Begins to run quicker round the room, flapping his hands like fins.] Only a little crowded. A little crowded. And I don't seem to know all the people. We can't like everybody. These large at-homes…

[Tumbles on to a chair.

Conjurer. [Reappearing at the garden doors.] Go back to hell from which I called you. It is the last order I shall give.

Doctor. [Rising rather shakily.] And what are you going to do?

Conjurer. I am going to tell that poor little lad a lie. I have found in the garden what he did not find in the garden. I have managed to think of a natural explanation of that trick.

Doctor. [Warmly moved.] I think you are something like a great man. Can I take your explanation to him now?

Conjurer. [Grimly.] No thank you. I will take it myself.

[Exit into the other room.

Duke. [Uneasily.] We all felt devilish queer just now. Wonderful things there are in the world. [After a pause.] I suppose it's all electricity.

[Silence as usual.

Smith. I think there has been more than electricity in all this.

Enter Patricia, still pale, but radiant

Patricia. Oh, Morris is ever so much better! The Conjurer has told him such a good story of how the trick was done.

Enter Conjurer

Duke. Professor, we owe you a thousand thanks!

Doctor. Really, you have doubled your claim to originality!

Smith. It is much more marvellous to explain a miracle than to work a miracle. What was your explanation, by the way?

Conjurer. I shall not tell you.

Smith. [Starting.] Indeed? Why not?

Conjurer. Because God and the demons and that Immortal Mystery that you deny has been in this room to-night. Because you know it has been here. Because you have felt it here. Because you know the spirits as well as I do and fear them as much as I do.

Smith. Well?

Conjurer. Because all this would not avail. If I told you the lie I told Morris Carleon about how I did that trick…

Smith. Well?

Conjurer. You would believe it as he believed it. You cannot think [pointing to the lamp] how that trick could be done naturally. I alone found out how it could be done – after I had done it by magic. But if I tell you a natural way of doing it…

Smith. Well?..

Conjurer. Half an hour after I have left this house you will be all saying how it was done.

[Conjurer buttons up his cloak and advances to Patricia.

Conjurer. Good-bye.

Patricia. I shall not say good-bye.

Conjurer. You are great as well as good. But a saint can be a temptress as well as a sinner. I put my honour in your hands … oh, yes, I have a little left. We began with a fairy tale. Have I any right to take advantage of that fairy tale? Has not that fairy tale really and truly come to an end?

Patricia. Yes. That fairy tale has really and truly come to an end. [Looks at him a little in the old mystical manner.] It is very hard for a fairy tale to come to an end. If you leave it alone it lingers everlastingly. Our fairy tale has come to an end in the only way a fairy tale can come to an end. The only way a fairy tale can leave off being a fairy tale.

Conjurer. I don't understand you.

Patricia. It has come true.

CURTAIN