Playing With Fire: part 2a
Justina falls for the Devil's business plan
JUSTINA
No. Why should it be? Who wants bread, when every crumb is stolen from someone who's starving. When every loaf is tainted with blood and with tears so it turns to ashes in the mouth. But then he's right. It's commonplace. Common as cruelty.
So what do I do? Pick myself up. Pick up the pieces. Begin again. Pick up a broom. Look for a broom. Fail to find a broom.
Oh I don't care. I've had enough. I'm too tired. And it's so cold.
JUSTINA GOES ACROSS AND OPENS THE LOWER PART OF THE STOVE.
JUSTINA
The fire's dying down. I'd give anything to have that stone.
THE DEVIL REVEALS HIMSELF IN THE UPPER PART OF THE STOVE. JUSTINA IS FRIGHTENED. THE DEVIL POKES HIS FINGERS THROUGH THE GRILLE.
DEVIL
Something wrong? Did I startle you? Obviously. I'm sorry. But don't be startled. Please.
JUSTINA
Who are you
DEVIL
An old friend.
JUSTINA
I don't know you.
DEVIL
We've not been introduced. But we have met. Many times. And I know you. Know you very well.
JUSTINA
What are you doing in the stove?
DEVIL
Oh. That. Forgive me. I was trying to get warm.
JUSTINA
Why?
DEVIL
I'm cold. Always so very cold.
PAUSE.
DEVIL
You don't happen to have any coal?
JUSTINA
Sorry?
DEVIL
Coal. A kind of stone. A black stone.
You put it on fires. To make them burn.
JUSTINA
Stones don't burn.
DEVIL
So you haven't heard of it?
JUSTINA
No.
DEVIL
Pity. This is very unpleasant you know. Like being in the bath when the water's getting cold. You can't stay in, but you don't want to get out.
JUSTINA
Am I dreaming?
DEVIL
You don't know about baths either?
JUSTINA
I must be.
DEVIL
No coal. No baths. What a primitive age.
JUSTINA
Then why don't you go away?
DEVIL
I can't.
JUSTINA
Why not?
DEVIL
I'm stuck in your stove. There's a bolt I can't reach. Would you open it?
JUSTINA
I can't.
DEVIL
Do you really want to?
JUSTINA
Yes.
DEVIL
You don't know your own strength. Try again.
SHE OPENS THE STOVE DOOR.
JUSTINA
How strange.
DEVIL
Very strange.
JUSTINA
It must have been catching.
DEVIL
Perhaps...But you've let me loose. Thank you.
JUSTINA
Now will you go away?
DEVIL
Nasty place you've got here.
JUSTINA
No-one asked you to stay.
DEVIL
But you did. I heard you distinctly. I'll give anything, you said. Anything to have the stone.
JUSTINA
And you have it I suppose.
DEVIL
Of course.
JUSTINA
How could you have the Philosopher's Stone?
DEVIL
Very easily.
JUSTINA
But wise men have given their lives to find it.
DEVIL
They didn't know where to look.
JUSTINA
And you do?
DEVIL
Of course.
JUSTINA
And you can give it to me?
DEVIL
I can give you anything you wish.
JUSTINA
I don't believe you.
DEVIL
Try me.
JUSTINA
Alright I want a broom. A new broom to sweep the room clean.
DEVIL
Easy.
JUSTINA
With the head not too big, not too small. The bristles not too hard, not too soft.
DEVIL
Over there. Look.
HE POINTS TO A CORNER. JUSTINA GOES OVER AND FINDS A BROOM THERE. SHE PICKS IT UP, MARVELLING.
JUSTINA
How did you do that?
DEVIL
You wanted it. I just showed you where to look.
JUSTINA
It's just what I wanted. Thank you. Now I can start.
JUSTINA STARTS TO SWEEP. THE DEVIL WATCHES.
DEVIL
You disappoint me.
JUSTINA
Do I?
DEVIL
Is that really all?
JUSTINA
What else could there be?
DEVIL
What else do you want?
JUSTINA
Can I ask?
DEVIL
Of course.
JUSTINA
And you'll give it?
DEVIL
Naturally.
JUSTINA
Who are you ?
DEVIL
I told you. I am a friend.
JUSTINA
So you say.
DEVIL
It's true.
JUSTINA
You don't feel like a friend. I'm not sure I should listen to you.
DEVIL
Should. Shouldn't. Everyone is ruled by should. Should go to work. Should go to fight. Should go to church. Should love each other.
Doesn't stop them being perfectly vile. Doesn't stop them hating each other. Doesn't stop them being thoroughly miserable. Doesn't make the world one ounce better. And why are they so unhappy? Because they think they should be.
Don't listen to 'should'. Listen to 'want'. And who wants to suffer? Do you?
Of course not. You want the stone. Of course you shouldn't want it. You should want a husband or a lover or a child. Or silk on your skin. Gold on your arms. A new house, perhaps, or an expensive grave. But you reject all that. Very wise. And why? Because you want the stone. You want it more than any husband or lover. More than any miserable child. And why? Because you want to change the world. Of course. What could be more natural?
JUSTINA
Are you laughing at me?
DEVIL
Of course not.
JUSTINA
People do. In the street, children throw dirt at me.
DEVIL
Forget them. Dirt cannot touch you. And what people say is their affair. You want the stone. Want it, you shall have it.
JUSTINA
And you?
DEVIL
Me?
JUSTINA
What do you want?
DEVIL
Nothing. Nothing at all.
JUSTINA
You want nothing in exchange?
DEVIL
Do you take me for some merchant, that buys and sells? Do you think yourself a mere commodity?
JUSTINA
It is the way of the world. People give, and people take.
DEVIL
I do not belong to this world. I am an exile. And I am too old to want. I need.
JUSTINA
What do you need?
DEVIL
Your soul. Just a little thing. Of no consequence. You'll never know it's gone.
JUSTINA
My soul?
DEVIL
And what's a soul? A bag of air. A little wind. Sign here.
JUSTINA
Now I know who you are.
DEVIL
Very astute.
JUSTINA
I should have nothing to do with you.
DEVIL
There we go again. Should. What an ugly word.
JUSTINA
You are evil.
DEVIL
Me? Evil? What do you know about evil?
JUSTINA
Enough.
DEVIL
You know nothing. You and your petty little crimes.
Shall I tell you what I know of evil? Shall I show you its true face?
That makes you feel afraid. As if it came from me.
People give me many names. Prince of Evil. Lord of Darkness. Its origin and source. They know nothing.
If it were true this earth would be my home. I'd be a citizen of the world. Close kin to you. I'd be the marrow of your bones. A citizen of France. With all you other citizens. Living in this grubby little city. This scabby dunghill. Huddled on the banks of a muddy little river, filthy and polluted with your dirt, on the far northern fringes of the civilised world.
You clutch your pitiful rags to cover your nakedness and build your wretched little hovels of stone. Your god is an instrument of torture that night and day you meditate upon to devise new means of tormenting each other. Your people are starving. In every alley, every street, every square and every hedgerow you can hear the cries of your hungry children. And they could be fed. They could be. But you choose otherwise.
Life lies all around you, Nature would welcome you with open arms, if you would but let her.
But you choose death. And you honour most of all those butchers most adept at lies, those whose only art is to perfect the instruments of war.
And your king sits in his tower and he sees it all. But thinks instead of the cut of his robe. And your constable looks nowhere but over her shoulder at the rivals she fears will attack her. She fortifies her castle. She sharpens her sword. And you call me the Prince of Darkness. What gall. What pitiful presumption. Where is the darkness? Not in me.
It is in yourselves.
JUSTINA
So you, too, hate the world.
DEVIL
I loathe and I detest it with every fibre of my self.
JUSTINA
Then you are my brother.
DEVIL
Perhaps
JUSTINA
And you have the stone?
DEVIL
In my pocket.
JUSTINA
Then give it me.
DEVIL
Sign.
JUSTINA
I have no pen.
THE DEVIL PRODUCES A PEN
JUSTINA
Nor ink.
DEVIL
Blood will do.
THE DEVIL HANDS HER A KNIFE.
JUSTINA
Do you think me afraid?
DEVIL
What have you to fear?
JUSTINA CUTS HER ARM. SHE DRAWS BLOOD.
JUSTINA
There.
JUSTINA WRITES.
DEVIL
And did your blood freeze up? Did choirs of angels implore you to desist? These days all the angels hide themselves. I am the only one to walk the earth.
There. It's done. Farewell.
JUSTINA
But the stone!
DEVIL
Oh the stone. I was almost forgetting. Here.
THE DEVIL GIVES JUSTINA A VERY ORDINARY LOOKING STONE.
JUSTINA
What do I do with it?
DEVIL
Throw it into the fire and see.
JUSTINA TOSSES THE STONE INTO THE BOTTOM OF THE STOVE.
EXIT DEVIL, UNSEEN BY HER. JUSTINA STARES INTO THE FIRE