William Shakespeare — Chapter 1: A clockwork mechanism ticking backwards in the archive — Novella Movement 2

A Chamber within the Archive of Suits. Shelves crowded with scrolls; at the chamber's heart, a brass mechanism of wheels and hands, ticking with a sound like a slow and reluctant heart. Enter DORANTO, a scholar, gazing upward at the machine; FILCHER follows, hat in hand, all courtesy.

FILCHER: Good sir, I did but lose my way among these shelves, and find instead a gentleman worth the finding. What engine's this, that clicks so strange a music?

DORANTO: 'Tis called the Engine of Suits, good sir — a wheel
That reads the heart as merchants read their books,
And ranks a face, a fortune, and a wit
As one might rank the weight of silver coin.
Yet mark you this: it does not tick as clocks
Are wont to tick, from now toward some far hour —
It ticks backward, unwinding what is spent,
Unmatching what the world had thought well-matched,
As though repentance were a mechanism,
And time itself might be constrained to blush.

FILCHER: [Aside.] Backward, quotha? Why, there's a trade in that. A man might sell his old sweethearts twice, and buy them back at a discount. [To Doranto.] And what profit, sir, in a wheel that unmakes what it hath made?

DORANTO: Come nearer, and I'll show thee. Here's a scroll —
The catalogue of one Lucetta's wants:
Her stature noted, and her purse's weight,
Her taste in verse, her tolerance of jest,
Her hair's own hue set down as merchants set
The grain and gloss of silks upon a list.
And here, the Engine's hand, that once did point
Toward one Bassanio, a suitor ranked
Above all others by her numbered wish —
Now ticks him backward, backward, off the scroll,
As though her wanting were a thing unwanted,
And love a sum some auditor distrusts.

FILCHER: Marry, sir, 'tis no more strange than my own trade. I have sold a widow's grief for a groat, and bought it back for two, and called the difference honest profit. What matters it whether the wheel go forward or back, so long as some hand may turn it for a fee?

DORANTO: [alone, FILCHER withdrawing to the shadow of the shelves]
What is this Engine but myself made brass?
For I too keep a ledger of desires,
Ranking the friend I love above the friend
I merely like, as though the heart were sums
And love a column to be neatly cast.
Is not my study but a wheel that ticks
Backward through pages, seeking what is lost —
Now praising what I once thought paltry stuff,
Now doubting what I once held past all doubt?
O clockwork heart, that mocks the clock of heaven!
Doth true affection tick but one way — on? —
Or is all love a suit writ and unwritten,
Numbered, then struck, then numbered once again?
I know not whether I do read this scroll
Or whether this same scroll doth fashion me.

FILCHER: [returning, all smiles] Good sir, you look most learnedly perplexed. I have known scholars ere now who thought so hard upon a wheel, they forgot which way the world itself did turn — and in that forgetting, lost their purses. [Aside.] And I shall lose him his, an it please the wheel to tick a little longer.

DORANTO: Thou speak'st in riddles dressed as courtesy.

FILCHER: I speak but plain, sir, as plain men must.

DORANTO: Plain men do seldom bow so low as thou.

FILCHER: The low must bow, sir, lest they fail to rise.

DORANTO: And what wouldst thou, that thou dost linger here?

FILCHER: Only to learn the Engine's trick, dear sir.

DORANTO: The trick is this: it profits none but Time.

FILCHER: Then Time and I shall be good partners, sir.

DORANTO: Take heed — the wheel that ticks against the hour
May tick thy name from out some other's book,
Ere thou hast learned whose favor thou dost keep.

FILCHER: [smiling, backing toward the door, yet stayed by some unseen hand] Why, then I'll learn the keeping ere the loss, and count the Engine's backward hours my friend, that gives a rogue the chance to mend his end.

For all his backing, none crosses the threshold, and none is needed — only the ticking, and the two men left within its sound. FILCHER lays his hand, light as a purse-cutter's, upon the brazen rim.

FILCHER: A pretty engine, sir. I wonder what it weighs — in gold, I mean, not learning.

DORANTO: Touch it not. It answers but to those
Whose names are written in the scroll of suits,
And punishes all strangers with a jar
That cracks the wheel and stops the beating brass.

FILCHER: [withdrawing his hand, smiling still] Then I am no stranger, sir, but kin to every wheel that turns for profit. [Aside.] Yet I'll not crack it till I've counted first what coin doth turn within.

DORANTO: [taking up the scroll again, his voice failing into wonder]
Soft — here's a hand I had not marked before —
Mine own name, writ beneath Lucetta's want,
Once ranked the first, the fairest, and the fit,
Now ticking backward, backward, off her list,
As though I were a debt she paid too dear
And now recalled, and now would have refunded.
Was I not chosen once? Did she not set
My name above a hundred suitors' names,
As merchants set the purest ounce of gold
Above the dross that glitters but deceives?
And is it thus undone, unwound, unmade,
By brass, by wheel, by some unfeeling spring,
That knows not love from lees, nor faith from fraud?

FILCHER: Why, sir, 'tis no more marvel than a maid that changes her mind with the wind, and blames the weathercock. I have known women choose a man for his doublet and unchoose him for the fraying of the same, and call it Fate that did the fraying.

DORANTO: Then thinkest thou Fate a tailor, and no more?

FILCHER: I think Fate keeps a shop, sir, and sells cheap.

DORANTO: And I, that thought myself love's chiefest suit,
Am but a garment folded and put by,
Ticked backward into some forgotten chest,
While newer stuffs are cut to fill my place.

FILCHER: [edging toward the scroll, fingers curling] A sorry case, sir — and yet, perchance, reparable. For look you, if the wheel can tick a man backward off a list, why, cannot cunning hands tick him forward on't again? For a fee, I mean. A small fee. A scholar's fee.

DORANTO: Thou wouldst sell me back mine own belovèd's want?

FILCHER: I would sell any man his own heart's want, sir, an he had the coin to buy it — for that is all the trade of go-betweens, since Adam paid the serpent for an apple he already owned.

DORANTO: Get hence, thou huckster of the soul's own coin!

FILCHER: I go, sir — but the wheel stays, and the want stays, and someone shall turn the one to feed the other.

DORANTO: Then let it turn for honesty, not thee.

FILCHER: Honesty pays no toll, sir, and the wheel is greedy.

DORANTO: Then let it starve, and rust, and cease to tick,
Ere it be fed on any coin of thine!

FILCHER: [backing to the door, hat already half upon his head] Starve it, then, good scholar, and much good may the silence do you — though I think you'll find a wheel once fed on wanting does not easily forget the taste. [Aside.] I'll wait without. A man that talks to engines talks himself poor soon enough, and poverty's a door I've never yet found locked.

Exit FILCHER.

DORANTO: [alone, the ticking slowing, faltering, as though the brass itself grew short of breath]
So — he is gone, and I am left to reckon
With mine own name struck backward off her want,
As though desire were a debt recalled,
And I the debtor time no longer trusts.
What engine this, that ranks the heart in rows,
And calls that love which is but listed longing?
I came to study suits, and find myself
A suit unstudied, canceled, and undone.
Yet mark: the wheel ticks backward, not to nothing,
But to some hour ere the choosing was —
As if it offered this: begin again,
Be chosen fresh, or choose thyself anew.
O clockwork heart, that neither loves nor grieves,
Yet holds my grief as surely as my name!
I'll not attend to learn if it forgive me —
Some doubts were made to walk beside a man,
Not to be solved, but suffered, like the ticking
That marks not time alone, but time's misgiving.

The brass falls still. A long silence, as of breath withheld too long.

DORANTO: The wheel hath stopped — whether for lack of feeding,
Or grief at what it wrought, I cannot say.
But this I know: no engine, tick it how it will,
Can rank a heart that will not sit for ranking —
And I'll go seek Lucetta, not the scroll,
And ask what want the brass could never hold.