Five European Plays. Tom Stoppard

Herr Sonders? Ich haben ein document.

      ZANGLER He’s a creditor!

      FOREIGNER Herr Sonders!

      ZANGLER No debts, eh?

      FOREIGNER Ja—dett!—

      SONDERS Nein, nein—I’m busy. Comen backen in the morgen.

       Sonders ushers the foreigner out of the shop. The foreigner is in fact a legal messenger who has come from Belgium to announce the death of Sonders’s rich aunt. He succeeds in this endeavour at the end of the play.

      ZANGLER I thought you said you had no debts!

      SONDERS No outstanding debts—run-of-the-mill debts I may have. I probably overlooked my hatter, who is a bit short. But as for my expectations, Herr Zangler, I have the honour to inform you that I have a rich aunt in Brussels.

      ZANGLER A rich aunt in Brussels! I reel, I totter, I am routed from the field! A rich aunt in Brussels—I’m standing here with my buttons undone and he has a rich aunt in Brussels.

      SONDERS She’s going to leave me all her money.

      ZANGLER When is that?

      SONDERS When she’s dead, of course.

      ZANGLER Listen, I know Brussels. Your auntie will be sitting up in bed in a lace cap when Belgium produces a composer.

      SONDERS I hope so because while she lives I know she’ll make me a liberal allowance.

      ZANGLER A liberal allowance!? How much is that in Brussels? I’m afraid I never do business on the basis of grandiloquent coinage, and in the lexicon of the false prospectus ‘a liberal allowance’ is the alpha and oh my God, how many times do I have to tell you?—I will not allow my ward to go off and marry abroad.

      SONDERS Then I’ll stay here and marry her, if that’s your wont.

      ZANGLER And meanwhile in Brussels your inheritance will be eaten to the bone by codicils letting my wont wait upon her will like the poor cat with the haddock.

      SONDERS The what?

      ZANGLER Look to the aunt! Don’t waste your time mooning and skulking around my emporium—I’m sending Marie away to a secret address where you will never find her, search how you will. (to Gertrud who has entered with Zangler’s old uniform) What is it?!

      GERTRUD Twenty-three Carlstrasse, Miss Blumenblatt’s.

      SONDERS Twenty-three Carlstrasse …! Miss Blumenblatt’s!

      ZANGLER (spluttering) You old—you stupid—

      GERTRUD Should I let Marie have the new travelling case?

      ZANGLER —old baggage!

      GERTRUD Not the new travelling case …

      SONDERS (leaving) My humble respects …

      GERTRUD Here is your old uniform. And the new servant has arrived.

      SONDERS Your servant, ma’am!

      GERTRUD His.

       Sonders goes.

      ZANGLER You prattling old fool, who asked you to open your big mouth?

      GERTRUD You’re upset. I can tell.

      ZANGLER Where is Marie?

      GERTRUD She’s upstairs trying on her Scottish travelling outfit you got her cheap from your fancy.

      ZANGLER My fancy? My fiancée! A respectable widow and the Madame of ‘Madame Knorr’s Fashion House.’

      GERTRUD I thought as much—so it’s a betrothal.

      ZANGLER No it isn’t, damn your nerve, it’s a hat and coat shop! Now get out and send in the new servant. And don’t let Marie out of your sight. If she and Sonders exchange so much as a glance while I’m gone I’ll put you on cabbage-water till you can pass it back into the souppot without knowing the difference.

       Exit Gertrud.

      This place is beginning to lose its chic for me. I bestride the mercantile trade of this parish like a colossus, and run a bachelor establishment second to none as far as the eye can see, and I’m surrounded by village idiots and nincompetent poops of every stripe. It’s an uphill struggle trying to instil a little tone into this place.

       There is a knock on the door.

      Entrez!

       There is a knock on the door.

      (Furiously) Come in!

      Enter MELCHIOR.

      MELCHIOR Excuse me, are you the shopkeeper, my lord?

      ZANGLER You do me too much honour and not enough. I am Herr Zangler, purveyor of high-class provisions.

      MELCHIOR I understand you are in desperate need of a servant.

      ZANGLER You understand wrong. There’s no shortage of rogues like you, only of masters like me to give them gainful employment.

      MELCHIOR That’s classic. And very true. A good servant will keep for years, while masters like you are being ruined every day. How’s business by the way?—highly provisional, I trust?

      ZANGLER You strike me as rather impertinent.

      MELCHIOR I was just talking shop. Please disregard it as the inexperience of blushful youth, as the poet said.

      ZANGLER Do you have a reference?

      MELCHIOR No, I just read it somewhere.

      ZANGLER Have you got a testimonial?

      MELCHIOR (producing a tattered paper) I have, sir. And it’s a classic, if I say so myself.

      ZANGLER Do you have any experience in the field of mixed merchandise?

      MELCHIOR Definitely, I’m always mixing it.

      ZANGLER Well, I must say, I have never seen a testimonial like it.

      MELCHIOR It’s just a bit creased, that’s all.

      ZANGLER ‘Honest, industrious, enterprising, intelligent, responsible, cheerful, imaginative, witty, well-spoken, modest, in a word classic …’

      MELCHIOR When do you want me to start?

      ZANGLER Just a moment, aren’t you forgetting the interview?

      MELCHIOR So I am—how much are you paying?

      ZANGLER Six guilders a week, including laundry.

      MELCHIOR I don’t do laundry.

      ZANGLER I mean the housekeeper will wash your shirts.

      MELCHIOR That’s classic. I like to be clean.

      ZANGLER And board, of course.

      MELCHIOR Clean and bored.

      ZANGLER And lodging.

      MELCHIOR