Huenemanniac

(from a conversation with Rick)

ACT THREE

Next Day. Same Time. Same Place.

VLADIMIR sits on the ground, staring at nothing. ESTRAGON surveys the landscape expectantly, is about to speak, looks at VLADIMIR, loses heart, and then speaks anyway.

ESTRAGON: A fine day! (No response from VLADIMIR.) Yes, a fine day! The sort of day one, well, finds to be, well, rather fine! (Still no response.) You know, whether or not what’s his name … what’s his name?

VLADIMIR: Godot.

ESTRAGON: Yes, whether Godot comes today or not, that will not stop this from being a … fine … day!

VLADIMIR: He won’t come.

ESTRAGON: What? He won’t?

VLADIMIR: No, not Godot. Not today.

ESTRAGON: Not today? I see. Pity. Such a fine day, too.

VLADIMIR. But Ludwig will come.

ESTRAGON: Who?

VLADIMIR: Ludwig.

ESTRAGON: And not … the other one?

As Estragon thinks this through, VLADIMIR stands up and clumsily begins to stretch.

VLADIMIR: Yes, who needs Godot anyway? What can he bring us? Salvation? Bah! We need someone who can bring us something different, a change, a way forward, a way to think productively, and speak. When Ludwig comes, we will be able to speak!

ESTRAGON: And we are not speaking now?

VLADIMIR: No.

ESTRAGON: Ground, boots, tree, speaking, ground, boots, tree. How about now?

VLADIMIR: No, you fool! Speaking is not just reciting words. 

ESTRAGON: It isn’t?

VLADIMIR: No! There must be sense in them! To speak is to put meaning in words. Ludwig will show us how to speak with sense. Finally!

ESTRAGON: Well, that will be a change, I must say. I will be paying very close attention to what he has to say about that! (Sits down, begins taking off his boots, checking them, and putting them on again.)

(LUDWIG enters from the left, talking to himself.)

LUDWIG: But still, I must only infer what really follows! Is this supposed to mean: only what follows, going by the rules of inference; or is it supposed to mean: only what follows going by such rules of inference as somehow agree with some (sort of) reality? Here what is before our minds in a vague way is that this reality is something very abstract, very general, and very rigid.

VLADIMIR: You have come!

LUDWIG: Does a child know that an affirmative follows from a double negative? — And how does one shew him that it does? Presumably by shewing him a process, a double inversion, two turns through 180 degrees, and similar things, which he then takes as a picture of negation.

VLADIMIR: Yes, that is how it is done! Double inversion, that’s the ticket!

LUDWIG: And how does it come out that the proof compels me? Well, in the fact that once I have got it I go ahead in such-and-such a way, and refuse any other path.

VLADIMIR: Yes! No other path!

LUDWIG: All I should further say as a final argument against someone who did not want to go that way, would be: why, don’t you see …! —and that is no argument.

VLADIMIR: Oh, yes! Or, rather, no. No. No argument! Yes.

LUDWIG: That a proposition Q follows from a proposition “if P then Q, and P”, is here a fundamental law of logic, that from if P then Q and P it follows that Q. And this, one says, justifies us in inferring Q from if P then Q. And P. (LUDWIG exits to the left.)

VLADIMIR: Yes, P … and Q, of course, as well as… (watches LUDWIG exit, sees ESTRAGON continuing with his boots, hits him on the shoulder) Do you see what I mean? This is what makes sense!

ESTRAGON: What? Did I miss him already?

VLADIMIR: Yes, you fool! You missed everything!

ESTRAGON: Oh, no! Please, Didi, please tell me what I missed!

VLADIMIR (sits down next to ESTRAGON): Now pay attention. Suppose it is true that if P then Q.

ESTRAGON: What is that supposed to mean?

VLADIMIR: Shh, don’t interrupt. Pay attention. Suppose there is a P, and there is a Q, and if there is a P, there must be a Q.

ESTRAGON: Why?

VLADIMIR: Well, that’s the question! Why must there be a Q? Does it have to do with P? Does it follow from the nature of P? Is it due to the nature of P-ness?

ESTRAGON: Penis?

VLADIMIR: No! Be serious now! Think of, I don’t know, A and B. And now suppose B follows from A. Why must this be so? What is it about A?

ESTRAGON: A-ness?

VLADIMIR: This is hopeless! Look, suppose you are teaching a child that a double negative is something affirmative?

ESTRAGON: Do you mean like losing a shoe, and then losing another?

VLADIMIR: No, no, look. Suppose you lose a shoe. And then you lose, not the other shoe, but you lose the losing of the first shoe. You have it back then, right?

ESTRAGON: You mean I find it again?

VLADIMIR: No, no, no! Well, maybe. If you find it, then your losing it is lost, I suppose?

ESTRAGON: I’m sorry, Didi, I’m not following this very well.

VLADIMIR: It made sense there when he said it, for a bit it made sense.

ESTRAGON: Will he come back?

VLADIMIR: I don’t know. Maybe tomorrow.

ESTRAGON: I hope so. We will wait for him, won’t we?

VLADIMIR: I suppose we will. We will stay.

(They leave.)