Johnson of London 7 The Dictionary Hangover

THE DICTIONARY HANGOVER

JOHNSON (He is sitting in his chair, next to his table, and looks tired. He touches the table.) Tetty never liked this table.  She said it was inelegant.  She had finer furniture.  Ah well.

So, the Dictionary is done!  Finished!  Over!  What is strange is that all the time I was working on it, I was longing for the end, for the last of the Zs.  Now that it’s done, I miss it.  I miss climbing the stairs to the dictionary room, I miss the men who wrote it out and I miss the printer getting angry because I was late in sending him something to print! I miss being part of the life of London! I was doing something then. I was relevant.  Now I have nothing to get up for.  There is nothing waiting for me.

What next?  A holiday?  A holiday!  What with?  The money I earned for the dictionary?  Ha!  I spent that long ago.

(There is a knocking at the door.  Johnson gets up and opens it.  Enter Sir Joshua Reynolds, finely dressed and very deaf.)

Why Reynolds, come in!  Come in!  It’s rare to see you east of Charing Cross, let alone in Gough Square. You have left your painting for five minutes to come and see me?  I am surprised you know your way down to the business end of London. 

REYNOLDS        I have bought the Dictionary, Sam!  Both volumes!  And I have been reading it!

JOHSON    Reading a dictionary?

REYNOLDS        Couldn’t put it down!  It’s a fine piece of work!

JOHNSON Yes, it’s fine.  It’s certainly a lot of bulk.  You need a barrow to wheel it home! And now it is done. Do you know what the printer said when I sent the boy over with the last sheet, the last page of Zs?

REYNOLDS        (He hasn’t heard.)  What was that?

JOHNSON (Shouting)  What the printer said at the end!

REYNOLDS        What did the printer say at the end?

JOHNSON (Repeats impatiently)  ‘What did the printer say at the end?’ This is getting like a bad joke! (To Reynolds) He said, “Thank God I have done with him!”  I sent the boy back to tell the printer to say that I was glad he thanked God for anything!

REYNOLDS        And so now what?

JOHNSON I have suddenly become an old man, Reynolds!  The moment I finished the last page of the dictionary, I became an old man.  That’s what happens with old age. If you keep going, you are all right, but the moment you stop, the moment you look at yourself in the mirror or the moment look at your old school friends, which is worse than looking in a mirror, you have a shock.  You see you are old!  It happens to us all sometime sooner or later, Reynolds. It happens to us all.

REYNOLDS You were a long time at the dictionary.

JOHNSON It wasn’t so long a time, Reynolds.  Nine years.  When I began the dictionary, I had Tetty.  A death changes you, Reynolds.  It changes you.  She is not here to share anything anymore.  She only saw my worst years.  We have to make the most of things while we have them, Reynolds.  There is no point in waiting for things to get better.  ‘I’ll do it when I have this, when I have that!’ No, we have to do it now, Reynolds, with whatever poor tools we have to hand. Tetty knew I was worth something.  But she has gone.  The dictionary has gone.

REYNOLDS        But now you have success. 

JOHNSON Success!  Success! Can you hold success? Can you hug success? Success is nothing! The struggle is what matters.  The applause at the end is immaterial!

REYNOLDS        Come on, Sam!  You have years of writing ahead of you.  Make a start!

JOHNSON I feel there’s more behind than in front, Reynolds, and that’s depressing.

REYNOLDS        None of us can go backwards!

JOHNSON (Smiling)  Thank goodness!  No, we must go on!  We must go on!

(There is a loud knocking at the door.  Reynolds walks over and opens in and in comes Robert Levet, drunk, with a full bottle of gin in one hand.  He is dressed untidily and has a broad Yorkshire accent.)

LEVET       Evening all!  Evening, Mr Johnson. (He turns to Reynolds)  I don’t think I have had the pleasure.

JOHNSON (Introducing them.) 

This is Sir Joshua Reynolds, portrait painter to the aristocracy and others.

And this is Robert Levet, medical attendant, counsellor and friend to the lower classes, and no others!

LEVET       (To Reynolds)  And, along with Miss Williams, who you will no doubt have the pleasure of meeting later, I am resident in this house, courtesy of Mr Johnson here.

REYNOLDS        A what of this house, Sir?

LEVET       (Shouting)  A resident!  A resident of this house, by courtesy of Mr Johnson!

JOHNSON Yes, we make an odd family.  (To Levet)  Will you sit down, Sir.  You are inebriated!

LEVET       I deny it.  I am not (stuttering over the word) inebriated.  I am drunk!  (To Reynolds) Have you noticed, Sir, that after a drink or two a gentleman is “inebriated” and after a drink or two a lady is “tired”.  But a normal man is drunk, and that’s all there is to it.  I am common or garden drunk. The Palmers down Longbottom Alley had a bill of two months to settle.  They had no money so they paid me in gin!  It would have been wrong to refuse.  Could I refuse, Sir Joshua?

REYNOLDS        No Sir.  It would have been very ungentlemanly to refuse.

JOHNSON (He gets up and finds three glasses in the cupboard.)  That bottle you’ve managed to get home without breaking.  We’ll join you in that.

LEVET       This bottle is one of a pair.  The other I finished between Longbottom Alley and here.  I had delivered twins to Mrs Palmer, and so they gave me a bottle for each child.  (He looks at the bottle) This is for the little lady, Jane Mary Palmer, as bonny a baby you could wish for, even in Knightsbridge. A bonny baby indeed!  It would have been wrong to refuse.

(Johnson fills the three glasses, and they raise them in a toast.)

JOHNSON To Jane Mary Palmer! A happy life!  (They drink.) Now any news from your end of London, Reynolds?  How is the portrait painting business?

REYNOLDS        Fine, fine.  I have a long list of lords and their ladies and their little ones all waiting!  But nothing much happens.  They sit.  I paint.  They pay me, and so we go on.  (He turns to Levet)  But a doctor’s life, Mr Levet, is never dull!

LEVET       (He gets up from his chair, stands on it and recites very seriously.)

Doctor Fell fell down the well,

And broke his collar bone.

Doctors should attend the sick

And leave the well alone!

(Johnson and Reynolds exchange glances and Johnson shrugs his shoulders.)   

(Levet gets off the chair and turns to Johnson.)  That is poetry, Sir.

JOHNSON Well, yes, I suppose it is.  Of a sort.  Now listen to some of mine.

LEVET       Oh lord!

REYNOLDS        What’s that?

LEVET       (Louder, to Reynolds) We’re going to have some of his poetry.  Get ready!

JOHNSON (He starts to get up on the chair as Levet had done, but he thinks better of it and stays where he is.  He then starts declaiming solemnly)

Hermit hoar, in solemn cell,

Wearing out life’s evening grey,

Strike they bosom, sage, and tell

What is bliss and which the way.

Thus I spoke, and speaking sighed,

Scarce repressed the starting tear,

When the hoary sage replied,

(He changes to a completely natural voice.)

“Come my lad, and drink some beer!”

(Reynolds and Levet applaud.)

Now you, Reynolds, it’s your turn!

REYNOLDS        Well, since we are all being poets, I’ll have a go as well.

(He starts seriously.)

Mary had a little bear

To whom she was so kind.

(Miss Williams enters quietly, unseen by the others.  She looks highly displeased with the proceedings.)

And everywhere that Mary went

(Johnson and Levet join in, raising their glasses.)

You saw her bear behind.

REYNOLDS

Bare behind!  Yes, yes!

MISS WILLIAMS          Tea gentlemen?  Sometimes a cup of tea can do people in a certain condition a lot of good!

LEVET       When Miss Williams comes through the door, cheerfulness flies out of the window.

REYNOLDS        Miss Williams.  It is a great pleasure.  (He bows and kisses her hand.) But duty calls, I’m afraid.  You are very kind but I must leave the honour of tea for another occasion.

LEVET       And I’m away to my bed.  Good night!

(Reynolds and Levet leave by separate doors.)

MISS WILLIAMS          (To Johnson) I do have the knack of breaking up a party! Well, well, well. I just give them one of my looks and off they go! (She pours some gin into another glass and raises it.) Your health, Sir.

JOHNSON And here’s to yours, Miss Williams.  Here’s to yours! (They clink their glasses and drink.)

MISS WILLIAMS          Mr Levet is a course man.

JOHNSON Yes, Levet is course, but he is kind, and he’ll get into heaven before a lot of very refined people that I know. Anyway, your health, Miss Williams.  Sit down a moment.

(They both sit at the table.)

Now, tell me.  What has been happening here at home today?  How is my cat?  How is Hodge?

(The light fades.)