A Lodging For The Night
by Robert Louis StevensonGenre: Drama
Setting:
Format of Original Source: Short Story
Recommended Adaptation Length: 15 Minutes
Candidate for Adaptation? Not Likely
EXCERPT:
I’m a thief–make the most of that–but I’m not a devil from hell, God strike me dead. I would have you to know I’ve an honor of my own, as good as yours, though I don’t prate about it all day long, as if it were a God’s miracle to have any. It seems quite natural to me; I keep it in its box till it’s wanted. Why now, look you here, how long have I been in this room with you? Did you not tell me you were alone in the house? Look at your gold plate! You’re strong, if you like, but you’re old and unarmed, and I have my knife. What did I want but a jerk of the elbow, and here would have been you with the cold steel in your bowels, and there would have been me, linking in the streets, with an armful of gold cups!
COMMENTS:
A thief, confronted by a moralistic and judgmental priest, justifies his life.
Not much PLOT here (the thief steals some coins from a dead woman and has some conscience about it), and therefore a musicalization of only the material included in the short story would need to be a fairly short one. An interesting conflict between the men, but one without much at stake; at heart, this story is a polemic.
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