Jumpers by Tom Stoppard
The irrational, the emotional, the whimsical… these are the stamp of humanity which makes reason a civilizing force. In a wholy rational society the moralist will be a variety of crank, haranguing the bus queue with the demented certitude of one blessed with privileged information—‘Good and evil are metaphysical absolutes!’ What did I come in for? (Looking round.)
DOTTY: All this talk about beans reminds me… I left something for Mrs. Doings to put in the oven—Could you——?
GEORGE: No, I couldn’t. You know where the kitchen is——
DOTTY: Where?
GEORGE: —and your aristocratic pretence that you know nothing of such things is all very amusing when I’m less busy, but—where’s Mrs Thingummy?
DOTTY: It’s a national holiday. I expect she’s down there somewhere, waving a little yellow flag.
GEORGE: Oh yes—she would be in on it. In fact I can’t think of anyone more susceptible to the Rad-Lib philosophy: ‘No problem is insoluble given a big enough plastic bag.’ (He’s leaving.)
DOTTY: You don’t happen to have a large plastic bag, do you?
GEORGE: Can you remember what I came in for?
DOTTY: Please don’t leave me! I don’t want to be left, to cope…
GEORGE: Dotty, I’m sorry, I must…. I’m sorry if it’s one of your bad days, but things will get better.
DOTTY: There’s no question of things getting better.
Things are one way or they are another way; ‘better’ is how we see them, Archie says, and I don’t personally, very much; though sometimes he makes them seem not so bad after all—no, that’s wrong, too: he knows not ‘seems’. Things do not seem, on the one hand, they are; and on the other hand, bad is not what they can be. They can be green, or square, or Japanese, loud, fatal, waterproof or vanilla-flavoured; and the same for actions, which can be disapproved of, or comical, unexpected, saddening or good television, variously, depending on who frowns, laughs, jumps, weeps or wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Things and actions, you understand, can have any number of real and verifiable properties. But good and bad, better and worse, these are not real properties of things, they are just expressions of our feelings about them.
GEORGE: Archie says.
DOTTY (pause): Unfortunately, I don’t feel so good today. If you like, I won’t see him. It’ll be just you and me under that old-fashioned, silvery harvest moon, occasionally blue, jumped over by cows and coupleted by Junes, invariably shining on the one I love; well-known in Carolina, much loved in Allegheny, familiar in Vermont; (the screw turning in her) Keats’s bloody moon!—for what has made the sage or poet write but the fair paradise of nature’s light—And Milton’s bloody moon! rising in clouded majesty, at length apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light and o’er the dark her silver mantle threw—And Shelley’s sodding maiden, with white fire laden, whom mortals call the——(weeping) Oh yes, things were in place then!
(She weeps on GEORGE’s uncomprehending heart. He strokes her hair. She speaks into his chest.)
Oh, Georgie….
(He strokes her hair. He doesn’t really know what to do. So he plays with her hair for what seems a long time, lifting up her hair, running it through his fingers, looking at it, separating strands of hair. His mind grapples with hair, and then drifts, and stops.)
GEORGE: Have you seen Thumper?
(He is immediately ashamed of himself. But he has killed it. They separate, DOTTY straightens up. GEORGE walks to the door, taking his tortoise.)
Did Bertrand Russell ever… mention me, after that?
DOTTY (pause): Yes, he did, as a matter of fact. He asked whether you hunted.
(There is nothing to do but go, so he goes. Into the Study. He has closed the BEDROOM door. The JUMPER hangs on the door.
DOTTY regards the corpse without expression.
During the next scene in the Study, the light remains in the Bedroom, DOTTY, during the scene, lifts the corpse off its hook
and sits it in an upstage chair.
GEORGE enters the Study. His face is still foamed. The SECRETARY has been typing out his dictation.
She hands him the sheets.
The merest trace of interest in the fact that he has shaving foam on his face.
GEORGE: I take it then that we are all agreed that God exists, cried of, ‘Oh!’, I mean a First Cause, cries of, ‘Oh, Oh!’, you have not been giving me your proper attention, I will attempt a resume, uproar, cries of ‘Resign’—Firstly, is God? Secondly that every series has a first term is a condition that makes God a logical necessity. Thirdly, every series does, the notion of infinity without beginning being rejected a priori, thank you. (Snatches page off desk.) Fifthly, mathematics is not simply the technique of counting—(Breaks off. Takes new sheet of paper.)
To which end I have brought with me a specially trained tortoise——
(Breaks off again.) Pat!?
(He heads back towards the Bedroom where DOTTY has just dumped the JUMPER into the chair. The chair is upstage facing
the audience. DOTTY is standing up against the chair with her back to the audience. The tortoise has been left downstage right, so GEORGE is going to cross the Bedroom behind DOTTY’s back.
The JUMPER’s yellow trousers are ill concealed by DOTTY’s body. GEORGE enters.
GEORGE enters.
As GEORGE opens the door, DOTTY calmly lets her robe slip
down her back until it hangs like a drape below her buttocks, her arms, still in the sleeves, held out to the sides; thus concealing the JUMPER from view. Thus, she is naked from the
thighs up, back view. GEORGE glances casually at her as he crosses the room.)
GEORGE: Bottom?
(DOTTY lifts the robe to cover her bottom.)
Back…. Somebody’s back…?
(He picks up the tortoise, DOTTY turns to look at him
coquettishly over her shoulder. He is recrossing the room to wards the door.)
Lulu’s back!—in town——Very good! (He leaves, closing the door, and re-enters the Study. DOTTY pulls her robe on again.
The Bedroom fades out.
In the Study, he picks up the bow and an arrow.)
GEORGE (to himself): The Vice-Chancellor? (The doorbell rings. He hesitates.)
He’s early. (Looks at his watch.) Good God, it’s unprofessional conduct. He’s only just left.
(He marches to the door, brandishing his bow and arrow, and, putting his mouth to the tortoise’s ear, or thereabouts, confides in it.)
Now might I do it, Pat. (He opens the Front Door.
It is INSPECTOR BONES. He carries a bunch of flowers.
The door is opened to him by a man holding a bow-and-arrow in one hand and a tortoise in the other, his face covered in shaving foam, BONES recoils from the spectacle, and GEORGE
is somewhat taken aback too. A rapid exchange follows….) Yes?
BONES: Ah!——Bones!
GEORGE: What?
BONES: As in rags-and.
GEORGE: Rags and bones???
BONES: Yes—no. Bones’ the name, as in dem bones, dem bones…. (Pause.)… dem dry bones. That’s a tortoise is it?
GEORGE: I’m sorry, I was expecting a psychiatrist.
BONES: No really?
(BONES is himself again, master of any situation. He advances past GEORGE on the last line.)
GEORGE: I’m really rather busy.
(BONES is now past him. BONES looks at GEORGE with
unconcealed interest.)
BONES: What is it that you do?
GEORGE: I’m a professor of moral philosophy.
BONES (wagging a finger): I’m very glad you said that, son.
(BONES continues his inspection of the hall.)
GEORGE: Perhaps I can help you.
BONES: In my inquiries, you mean, or just generally? Think carefully before you answer—if it gets about that you’re helping me in my inquiries, bang goes your credit at the off-licence for a start. Inspector Bones, C.I.D.—tell Miss Moore
GEORGE (rather coldly): It’s Mrs. Moore, actually.
BONES: Moore is her married name?
GEORGE: Yes, Moore is my name.
BONES (shrewdly): You are the husband.
GEORGE: Yes.
BONES: Professor… Moore.
GEORGE: Yes…. (Lightening.) Yes, I’m something of a logician myself.
BONES: Really? Sawing ladies in half, that sort of thing?
GEORGE: Logician.
(BONES is casing the Hall expertly, just with his eyes.) Would you like me to take your flowers, Inspector?
BONES: I was hoping to see Miss Moore personally.
GEORGE: Well, it’s awfully nice of you to come round….
BONES: Not at all. If I’m going to arrest her, I can hardly do it by Interflora.
GEORGE: Arrest her?
BONES: Do not be misled by appearances, Charlie. Miss Moore is a great favourite in the Force and I have knocked down many a man who has defaced her photograph in the station canteen—but, the law in implacable, it makes no distinction between rich and poor, famous and anonymous, innocent and——I mean, Jack, if the telephone call which set in motion this inquiry was the whim of a lunatic, as I myself suspect, then I will simply take the opportunity of presenting this token tribute to a fine actress, a great singer and a true lady—after which, I will take my leave, perhaps with her autograph on the cover of this much played much loved gramophone record—(from a capacious inside-pocket of his raincoat)—and, who knows? the lingering touch of a kiss brushed against an admirer’s cheek… (Reverie….)
BUT!—if it so happens that there is any truth in the allegations concerning events in this luxury penthouse yesterday night, then there are going to be some bruised petals underfoot as the full majesty of the law comes down on her like a ton of bricks, you take my meaning, Ferdinand? (Entering the Study.) Is this the scene of your morals? (The SECRETARY stares at him.)
(Unnecessarily.) Don’t move.
(BONES acts as if he owns the place, picking things up and putting them down; glancing over the typewritten sheets on GEORGE’s desk.)
GEORGE: This is my secretary—she and I were just——
(He catches sight of himself on the fourth-wall mirror (the effect is of a double-take at the audience). He puts down the tortoise and the archery kit, and wipes his face hastily.)
Oh—I should explain——
BONES: I prefer to use my imagination. When will your wife be back?
GEORGE: She’s in bed—indisposed—waiting for the doctor.
BONES: Lockjaw?
GEORGE: No.
BONES: Then we can have a chat. Is God what?
(He is reading the first page of the typescript.)
GEORGE: What?——Oh—it’s a paper I am presenting to the symposium tonight at the university. I am one of two main speakers on the subject, ‘Man—good, bad or indifferent?’ The subject is in fact the same every year but there is enough disagreement about its meaning to ensure a regular change of topic. It is the first time I have been asked to speak, you know… I had hoped to set British moral philosophy back forty years, which is roughly when it went off the rails, but unfortunately, though my convictions are intact and my ideas coherent, I can’t seem to find the words….
BONES: Well, ‘Are God?’ is wrong for a start.
GEORGE: Or rather, the words betray the thoughts they are supposed to express. Even the most generalized truth begins to look like special pleading as soon as you trap it in language. It would be a great opportunity if only I could seize it…
I mean, it’s really the event of the year. (Pause.) In the world of moral philosophy, that is.
BONES (putting down the script): It’s not a world I move in very much.
GEORGE: No.
BONES: Show business is my main interest, closely followed by crime detection. If this is the largest room in the flat I don’t think I’ll be troubling you long.
GEORGE: Oh. Well… the Bedroom is about the same size, but of course there’s the main living room….
BONES: Living room? Big room?
GEORGE: It is big, yes, it was the ballroom before the place was converted into flats.
BONES: High ceiling?
GEORGE: Yes.
BONES: Ah. Take a troupe of acrobats, would it?
GEORGE (pause): Yes. I’m afraid so.
BONES: Getting my drift, Sidney? Let’s have a look.
(BONES walks out of the Study. After a moment of nonplussed hesitance, GEORGE follows quickly, catching up outside the
Study door, which he closes behind him.)
GEORGE: Inspector!—I think I can help you in your inquiries.
I’m your man. I am the mystery telephone caller.
BONES (pause): You laid information against your wife, sir?
GEORGE: Yes. Well, it was really against myself more than my wife.
BONES: Anonymously. Against yourself?
GEORGE: Yes.
BONES: You have a funny way of going about things. Are you trying to prepare the ground for a plea of insanity?
GEORGE: I don’t understand you. I didn’t give my name because
I could hardly register a complaint about the noise issuing from my own flat. So I pretended to be a neighbour who couldn’t sleep.
BONES: Your phone call was about the noise?
GEORGE: Yes.
BONES: You didn’t mention—an acrobat?
GEORGE: Did I?
BONES: Or a naked woman swinging from the chandeliers?
GEORGE: Oh yes! I’m ashamed to say I did. I said I saw her from the window opposite. I thought a suggestion of immorality might get the police round more quickly than mere exuberance. Not a word of truth in it, of course. I mean about me being at a window opposite. And I withdraw the complaint anyway; the young woman is of excellent character and notably self-composed as a rule. It was a side of her I’d never seen before. High spirits, no doubt. Incidentally, I don’t know who answers the phone at your place but he told me to draw my curtains and remember that I was young once; not what one expects.
BONES (he produces a notebook): Who was at this party…?
GEORGE: Oh… academics, writers, doctors, philosophers, actors, musicians, party-workers, acrobats; and of course the Vice-Chancellor who is a bit of everything.
BONES: A mixed bunch.
GEORGE: Not really. I mean, they’re all local Rad-Lib celebrities.
It was a victory party.
BONES: You were not celebrating it yourself?
GEORGE: No, I’m not interested in politics. I was trying to write my paper. Apart from bunking down on the couch for a couple of hours at dawn, I’ve been hard at it. Oh, I popped in once or twice, mainly to tell them to keep the music down. My paper was not coming well and I anticipated a strongly argued riposte from Professor McFee, who obviously thought he had the matter well in hand since he was one of the people actually making all the noise.
BONES: Professor McFee?
GEORGE: Professor of Logic, and my chief adversary at the symposium. A very good man in his way, though perhaps I should describe him as generally approved of—he doesn’t, of course, believe in good and bad as such.
BONES: Really? How do you mean?
GEORGE: He thinks good and bad aren’t actually good and bad in any absolute or metaphysical sense, he believes them to be categories of our own making, social and psychological conventions which we have evolved in order to make living in groups a practical possibility, in much the same way as we have evolved the rules of tennis without which Wimbledon Fortnight would be a complete shambles, do you see? For example, McFee would hold that when we speak of, say, telling the truth as being ‘good’, and, er, casual murder as being ‘bad’, you don’t really want to go into all this, do you?
BONES (his pencil poised, his eyes wide): I am enthralled.
GEORGE: Oh. Well, in simple terms he believes that on the whole people should tell the truth all right, an
BONES: And murder?
GEORGE: And murder, too, yes.
BONES: He thinks there’s nothing wrong with killing people?
GEORGE: Well, put like that, of course…. But philosophically, he doesn’t think it’s actually, inherently wrong in itself, no.
BONES (amazed): What sort of philosophy is that?
GEORGE: Mainstream, I’d call it. Orthodox mainstream.
(BONES scratches his head, GEORGE gazes at him innocently.)
BONES: How would you describe him—this McFee?
GEORGE: Duncan? Well, he’s completely mad, of course. They all are…. Well, Inspector, I’m sorry to have wasted your time, but I don’t think there’s any need to trouble you further. An Englishman’s home is his castle, eh?
(He opens the Front Door, BONES ignores it.)
BONES (with irony): In these cases, we do like to have a look at the scene of the crime——
GEORGE: Oh, really? What for?
BONES: It’s traditional…. Where can I find a vase?
GEORGE: A vase? In the kitchen.
BONES: About mad McFee—has he got a gun?
GEORGE: I don’t know. I believe he has a fishing-rod——Oh no, you don’t understand. He wouldn’t kill anyone. He’s against it. He thinks it shouldn’t be allowed. He would prefer it to be kept to a minimum. Otherwise—shambles. He’s no more capable of killing someone than the Archbishop of Canterbury. (Small pause.) Not as capable.
BONES: Well, if that’s the case, I don’t see any difference whether he thinks he’s obeying the Ten Commandments or the rules of tennis.
GEORGE: The difference is, the rules of tennis can be changed.