Bertrand (from above). S’st, Macaire!
Macaire. Is it done, dear boy? Come down. (Bertrand descends.) Sit down beside this light: this is your ring of safety, budge not beyond—the night is crowded with hobgoblins. See ghosts and tremble like a jelly if you must; but remember men are my concern; and at the creak of a man’s foot, hist! (Sharpening his knife upon his sleeve.) What is a knife? A plain man’s sword.
Bertrand. Not the knife, Macaire; O, not the knife!
Macaire. My name is Self-Defence. (He goes upstairs and enters Number Thirteen.)
Bertrand. He’s in. I hear a board creak. What a night, what a night! Will he hear him? O Lord, my poor Macaire! I hear nothing, nothing. The night’s as empty as a dream: he must hear him; he cannot help but hear him; and then—O Macaire, Macaire, come back to me. It’s death, and it’s death, and it’s death. Red, red: a corpse. Macaire to kill, Macaire to die? I’d rather starve, I’d rather perish, than either: I’m not fit, I’m not fit, for either! Why, how’s this? I want to cry. (A stroke, and groan from above.) God Almighty, one of them’s gone! (He falls with his head on table, R. Macaire appears at the top of the stairs, descends, comes airily forward and touches him on the shoulder. Bertrand, with a cry, turns and falls upon his neck.) O, O, and I thought I had lost him. (Day breaking.)
Macaire. The contrary, dear boy. (He produces notes.)
Bertrand. What was it like?
Macaire. Like? Nothing. A little blood, a dead man.
Bertrand. Blood! . . . Dead! He falls at table sobbing. Macaire divides the notes into two parts; on the smaller he wipes the bloody knife, and folding the stains inward, thrusts the notes into Bertrand’s face.)
Macaire. What is life without the pleasures of the table!